McAllister Makes War (2 page)

“Who is this man?” piped the mayor.

“Name's Remington McAllister,” McAllister told him.

“Any relation to Chad McAllister?”

“He was my daddy.”

“By God, if you're anything like your old man, you'll do.”

After that, they went their various ways; Pat back to the saloon because he reckoned the killing had upset his stomach something terrible; the mayor dashed off to consult the town council; the doctor went back to the game of cards he had left. McAllister and the deputy were left with the corpse.

McAllister said: “You got a drink around here?”

“Sure.”

The deputy found a bottle in a desk drawer and poured for the two of them. They drank.

“The name's Jim Carson,” said the deputy.

“Glad to know you,” McAllister said and they shook.

“How come you volunteered for the job of deputy?”

“Malloy was a friend of mine from way back.”

“And he arrested you.”

“He'd of jailed his own mother.”

McAllister looked at the deputy for the first time. He was several years older than McAllister, fair haired and bearded. He looked like a man who could handle himself, but he didn't look much like a leader.

“What's the pay here?” McAllister demanded.

“You'll get sixty a month.”

“It'll keep the wolf from the door.”

They had another drink and then Carson said: “Hold the fort, I'll go get the undertaker to take care of Malloy.” He went out. McAllister went into the cell and picked up Malloy's gunbelt and gun from the floor.

“I'll kill the son of a bitch that did this with this gun,” he said aloud. It wasn't the right attitude for a lawman to take, but he took it just the same.

The next morning when Carson was on his way to his bed and McAllister was ready for the quiet morning stint, McAllister over a cup of coffee in the office asked: “Jim, you have any ideas on who could have killed Malloy?”

“Too many candidates,” Carson said.

“Name me some.”

“Some were personal, some were official as you might say,” was the reply. “There was Fred Darcy he had a run in with only last week.” McAllister knew Darcy, a wild Texan, one of two brothers who ran the Golden Fleece on Garrett Street. He would have hated Malloy just because the marshal was a northerner. Darcy was a drink-crazy homocidal maniac with at least six dead men to his credit. “Then there was Fritz Commer of the Longhorns, he tried to buy Malloy off over some petty offense or other and Malloy took him in front of the judge. You know how Malloy was about his personal honesty. Then there was Will Drummond who owns a good deal of this town. But that was personal. There was a lady involved, but I know it nearly came to guns one time. There was all the small fry from down the trail who took a drink too many and threatened to kill Malloy when he took their guns away. Any one of them might have done it. They really hated him. You'll know he fought for the north during the war. They didn't forget that.”

“Did he ever kill anybody in town?”

“Just one.”

“When was this?”

“First day he put the badge on. We expected trouble from the drovers when he clamped down on the no-gun ordinance straight off. The cowboys all swore they'd get him, but it was mostly hot air. It was funny, really the real threat came from a Yankee - Wild Jack Little.”

McAllister sat up.

“Judas Priest,” he exclaimed, “Art didn't brace Little, did he?”

“The other way around. It was a matter of pride with Wild Jack, I reckon. It was his pleasure, treeing marshals. He bit off more'n he could chew with Art. He braced him right out there on Main in front of the whole town with his horse standing by so he could make a run for it after he had killed the marshal. He
got off three shots to Malloy's one, but it was Jack who was dead when the smoke blew away. That put Art right out on top. Nobody was ready to buck the man who had killed Wild Jack Little.”

“We have a whole lot of men to look at.”

“You said it.”

“Jack Little had two brothers. All three were pretty close.”

After a little more talk, Carson went off to his bed. McAllister sat thinking. He had seen the Little brothers one time down in Fort Worth. A tough mean trio if ever he had seen one. He wondered if either Marve or Frank Little were in town. He hoped they weren't. He didn't fancy facing those two hombres. They were gun artists of the top rank.

He finished his coffee and went for a look at the town.

He didn't think much of it, though it was growing and showed all the signs of being big some day. Right now most of the town was made of green lumber that was already warping, but there was still some adobe and even soddy about. Here and there some enterprising soul had introduced brick. The banker was one of these. The bank stood at an angle of forty-five degrees from the marshal office, away to the left. It looked stark and bare against the shabby spread of the rest of the town. The banker was opening his door even as McAllister stepped onto what was the beginning of a sidewalk in town.

He strolled along Lincoln and found the place stirring. An ox wagon lumbered down the center of the street, the slow animals walking behind their teamster, a bearded giant of a man with his long whip on his shoulder. A horse-drawn wagon with a team of four rattled by, swaying on the rutted street. A horse-backer or two went by, cantering; a buggy rattled past him. The Longhorns was open, for it never closed. The swamper was at work with mop and broom, working his way around the early drinkers or those who had not stopped drinking since the night before.

McAllister turned into Garrett and had a look at the Golden Fleece owned by the Darcy Brothers who had had a run-in with Art Malloy. Already the paint was flaking off the painting of the golden fleece that decorated its false-front. A drooping man stood outside on the sidewalk surveying the morning. He was flashily dressed in clawhammer coat and silk vest, but he looked as though he had slept in his clothes. His fine gray pants were tucked into polished knee-high boots. This McAllister knew was Fred Darcy. Known throughout Texas and the west.

A hasty passionate man whose appearance belied his character. To look at he could be a Methodist preacher with a sad face. But he was a heller. Somewhere in Texas he had a wife and three children. In Combville he kept a mistress, drank and ate hearty and made money. He always made money. And lost it. Men said he would gamble on where a fly would fall and they were probably right. He had served as a sergeant in the Texas cavalry during the war, had killed a fellow sergeant and somehow got away with it and had deserted before the end of the war. A good many sheriffs wanted him in his native State and several outside it, but he managed to stay a free man in Kansas. His saloon was accepted as the meeting place of Texas men coming up the trail with cattle. He had won the saloon in a game of poker. His brother Johnny was a weaker and, if possible, wilder version of himself. Fred was continually getting his younger brother out of scrapes.

Darcy now called to McAllister: “Mornin', friend.”

McAllister crossed to him. As he drew close, Darcy's eyes opened wide in recognition.

“Wa-al, if'n it ain't Rem McAllister.” They shook. “How've you been, boy?”

They chatted of this and that, Darcy telling proudly of how well he was doing in this benighted northern town and what a pleasure it was to be making his pile from the hated Yankees. Which wasn't what McAllister had heard. It seemed that Darcy made most of his money from the cattlemen of Texas. Finally, Darcy said: “I heard Malloy was killed.”

McAllister told him: “Two men walked into his office and cut down on him with a greener.”

Darcy tapped McAllister's badge with a forefinger.

“That gives you a personal interest, I reckon.”

“Sure does.”

They were very casual about it, but tension came between the two of them. Darcy had treed more town marshals in his time than any other man alive.

“Ain't many Texas men town marshals, Rem. Not in Kansas.”

“Ain't many Texas men had a friend shot down in front of their eyes, Fred.”

They eyed each other like wary dogs.

“You get a good look at the men who did it?”

“I'd know ‘em if they grew beards, I'd know them twenty years from now. And I'm goin' to find ‘em.”

Darcy laughed.

“You don't thinly them fellers stayed around here after doin' that. Hell, they'd be crazy.”

“Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, but I'll find ‘em.”

There was a short silence and Remington added: “You know who did it, Fred?”

“No,” Darcy said, “I don't have no idea.”

McAllister knew he did. He started to go on, nodding his farewell.

“Come around and have a drink with me,” Darcy invited.

“I'll take you up on that.”

He walked the town, visited the stock-pens and the railroad spurs, walked through the smell of cattle, the dust and the bawling. A crowd of punchers with their long staffs with the pricker at the end were mouching near the line, men were driving cows aboard the train. McAllister turned away – this part of the cattle trade always sickened him a little. He didn't like to see the wild creatures who had run free on the prairies and in the brush being packed into wagons. He looked out over the prairie to the holding grounds and saw the thousands of cattle grazing and wondered when the northward flow of the newfound wealth of Texas would stop. Then he turned back toward the office, found a small café and went in for breakfast. He had just enough for ham, eggs, fried potatoes and coffee. He would have to ask Carson for some money or he'd starve.

He returned to the office and spent the day dozing at his desk. He wasn't a man who believed in action when it wasn't necessary and he hadn't made up his mind what he was going to do or even what he could do about Art Malloy. What he wanted to know was: had the men who had killed him come of their own accord or had they been sent? If they had been sent, any one of a half-dozen men could have sent them.

He had his eyes closed and his hat over them, chair tilted back and feet on desk when he heard the door to the street open softly. Before he could move he heard a female gasp of horror. He pushed his hat back, opened his eyes, let all four legs of the chair fall flat and took his feet from the desk.

In the center of the office stood a vision. Golden hair and blue eyes that were now wide with indignation, dress of green silk, bonnet bright with flowers. Her figure was superlative, slim waist and full breasts. She was maybe a couple of years older than he was.

“How can you sit there?” she demanded.

McAllister rose to his feet.

“Wa-al, ma'am, I bend my legs an' I -”

“And now you can joke.”

“Ma'am?”

“Art Malloy has not been dead more than a few hours-”

“May I ask you name, ma'am?”

She drew herself up,

“I'm Miss Emily Penshurst.”

“Any relation to the banker?”

“I'm his daughter.”

“An' you were a friend of Art's?”

She sobered a little, but the indignation still showed in her fine eyes.

“I was a friend of his. Both my father and I were.”

“Were you an' Art engaged to be married?”

She hesitated and McAllister interpreted that as meaning that though they had not been engaged there had been some sort of an understanding between them. He wondered if this was the lady Carson had mentioned.

“Do you know a man called Will Drummond?”

“Why, yes I do. Though what that has to do with I don't know what your name is, sir, but I did not come here to answer questions, but to ask them.” Her eyes flashed. McAllister reckoned Art must have had his hands full with this one. On second thoughts, he reckoned he wouldn't mind at all having his hands full of her.

“Ask 'em,” he said.

“What do you intend to do about the killing of Art Malloy?”

“That's a fair question.”

“Perhaps you'd be good enough to answer it.”

“Sure. I intend to catch the men who did it and if I don't shoot them dead, I reckon they'll hang.”

“That won't happen with you sitting here.”

“It'll happen when I get around.”

“Then I suggest you start.”

“An' I suggest, ma'am, that you go about your business and quit teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs.”

She started back at his rudeness.

“There's no call for you to be insulting. Mr. Malloy was a good friend of ours and -”

“It might interest you to know, ma'am, that Art was a good friend of mine, too. Never fear, Miss Penshurst, you'll get your murderers ... on a plate.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Now perhaps you could tell me some more about Mr. Drummond.”

“What has he to do with this?”

“That's what I'm tryin' to find out.”

“I fail to see any connection.”

“I didn't say there was one,' McAllister told her. “I'm tryin' to find out if there was.”

“I assure you that Will Drummond had nothing to do with Art Malloy's death.”

“Maybe he didn't,” McAllister said, “but I want to know all about everybody in this town that hated Art and there's a good few of them.”

“What makes you think Mr. Drummond hated Art?” She looked a little frightened now, though the indignation was still there.

“Because Art was in love with you and you're very beautiful.”

She flushed red and lowered her eyes.

“What makes you think Art was in love with me?”

“One look at you is enough to convince me.”

She turned half away from him.

“I don't think I care for this conversation.”

“Don't like it much myself. Now Drummond – did he ever show hate for Art?”