McAllister Rides (15 page)

McAllister walked over to Newby and took a look at him. His eyes were open.

“What's happening, boy?” he asked.

“Indians.”

“How many?”

“Enough.”

“Give me my gun.”

McAllister found his gun, saw that it was loaded and gave it to the wounded man. Newby laid it on his chest, his hand on the butt.

“You should of gone on, son, like I said.”

“Sure,” said McAllister and went back to watching the Indians.

There was sudden movement

A single Indian was riding forward from the host. He was a thickset man on a bony paint-pony. It could be Eagle Man. As he got closer, McAllister was sure it was. When he was just within rifle range, he halted and started to make wide signs with his arms.

Philo said: “I reckon he wants to talk.”

“Reckon I can hit him from here?” Grant wanted to know.

“I'll go talk with him,” McAllister said.

“Your privilege,” Philo said. “I'd druther hold a pow-wow with a snake.”

McAllister climbed out of the wallow.

Grant said: “Stay off to one side of him so we can cut him down if he gets sassy.”

McAllister started the long walk. He told himself that he should have ridden out on the
canelo.
That way he would have had the means of getting back fast if he met trouble. He knew why he didn't take the horse. If anything happened to him, the others would need the animal.

Eagle Man stayed still, watching McAllister come toward him. The line of Indians stayed a good gun shot off. The sight of them was appalling. There must, McAllister reckoned, have been a couple of hundred of them. There wasn't a chance of fighting a bunch that size to a standstill.
There wasn't the ammunition for one thing.

At last he stood facing Eagle Man.

The Indian started to talk with his hands.

The woman, he told McAllister, she must be handed over now. Iron Hand did not want any harm to come to her.

What of the whitemen, McAllister asked, if the woman was handed over, did the white men go unharmed?

Eagle Man sneered. His hands worked. The whitemen would die. They had killed many Indians and they must die. That was right and proper. Whether they handed over the woman or not they would die, so they might as well hand her over now before the fighting started.

McAllister sneered.

The Comanches, he said, were a pack of bow-legged, fat-bellied women fit only for stealing helpless women and children. The men in the buffalo-wallow were a very different proposition. Maybe they would all die, but the fight wasn't over yet and many Indians would die. The whitemen had repeating rifles. A dozen Indians would fall in the first charge. Another dozen would die in the second. How many men was Iron Hand prepared to lose for the sake of a woman and his foolish and selfish pride?

Eagle Man forgot his hands for a moment and gobbled angrily in Comanche. He whirled his pony and brandished his short spear above his head.

McAllister made an obscene sign with his hand. The Comanche's control snapped. He jumped the paint straight at McAllister and thrust forward with the short spear. McAllister had reckoned on that One moment he was standing passively, the next he exploded into action. He sidestepped the paint and grasped the animal's single line with his left hand so that it turned sharply toward him. With his right hand, he batted the spear aside. He grasped the Indian's clothing and jerked him violently from the saddle.

Eagle Man hit hard and made a sharp yelping sound. He might have had a heavy punch, but he started to his feet with the agility of a boy. McAllister kicked him in the face and put him down again.

He didn't look up, but he heard the line of warriors get on the move. He didn't have too much time.

Eagle Man had dropped his spear. He floundered after it
as fast as he could move. McAllister slapped his right hand down on the cedar-wood butt of the Remington, tore it from leather, cocked and fired. The ball took Eagle Man in the head and knocked him to the ground kicking. The paint-pony was going crazy, pitching and backing away from McAllister.

The Indians were yelling now, urging their ponies forward; the roll of their hoofs was like distant thunder.

McAllister jumped for the paint, it shied and skittered away. He started sweating.

A warrior fired a shot and the bullet sang through the air past McAllister. The paint tried to tear its head free. McAllister swore. He shoved the Remington away and made another try for the pony. It reared and nearly took him off his feet. No time for niceties – McAllister balled his fist and hit the paint between the eyes. It staggered. McAllister vaulted onto its back and clasped his legs around its barrel. It whirled, got its rear legs bunched under it and started running in the direction of the approaching Indians. McAllister wrenched its head around, it fought, but reckoned McAllister was master and turned. From the now ragged line of racing Indians several guns banged. Lead hummed around McAllister. He yelled to the pony and kicked it in the belly. It took off like a bird, scared of everything, his whiteman's smell, the noise. McAllister could see the heads of Philo and Grant over the rim of the wallow. Rifle barrels showed. They were shooting. He aimed the paint between them, jumped it into the wallow and slipped from the saddle. Hastily, he tied it to the mule, turned, ran for the lip of the wallow, scooped up the Henry and flung himself down.

Even as he did so, the charge petered out; swooping horsemen swerved to right and left curving away from the wallow, feathers fluttering. The earth shook beneath the pounding of the ponies' hoofs. McAllister never fired a shot.

He looked at Mrs. Bourn; she stared at the retreating savages with a set white face. She was scared, but he knew she wouldn't break. Old man Bourn had gotten himself one hell of a woman.

Philo bit at a piece of twist and started chewing.

“The ball's opened, gents,” he remarked laconically.

They looked at the Indians. The two parties ran across
the undulating plain, met and halted. It was only then that McAllister saw a warrior lift his hand above his head and saw that it glittered in the sunlight. Then he knew that Iron Hand himself was there.

He thought:
If I can cut the old bastard down, this could be finished.
But he knew the Iron Hand reputation. It didn't mean much to a whiteman, but it meant a whole lot to the Indians. While he wore that old mail gauntlet, so the story went, he could come to no harm from bullet or arrow. And certainly the veteran warrior had never received a scratch in battle. He had counted coup innumerable times, lifted scalps, butchered the enemy and never seen the color of his own blood. McAllister would have to see about that.

A greenhorn might think that the guts had run out of the Indians, but McAllister and the two rangers knew different. Indians fought that way; they liked to get into close-quarters when the time was right. There were maybe some men out there dedicated to getting hand-to-hand with the whitemen in the wallow and they could now be waiting till the spirit was right. When it was, they would jump their ponies into the wallow not caring whether they were going to their deaths or not. Their names would be glorious from then on. McAllister had not seen too clearly but he thought there were Cheyenne out there. The chances were that there were some suicide boys among them.

The sun was growing hot now. The sweat trickled down McAllister's face and body and he began to wish that he hadn't thrown away his hat

The Indians were singing. It sounded as though some were calling stridently like birds, while others sang deep from their chests. Ponies fidgeted this way and that, now and then a young warrior would break ranks and return reluctantly when ordered. There was no lack of courage or will to fight among them, but the leaders knew what damage could be done by the rifles of the white men. Iron Hand would not wish to gain the reputation of leading too many men to their deaths. A chief could lose followers that way.

A man on a warbonnet led out from the massed warriors, trotting his horse just out of rifle shot along to the north of the wallow. Slowly, others followed him.

Grant said: “They're goin' to circle, boys.”

“Man to hit old Iron Hand wins the biscuit,” McAllister said.

“Can't be done,” Philo said. “I shot him point-blank a couple of years back and he just laughed at me.”

Grant stood up and walked to the other side of the wallow. Philo shifted over to the left. They were going to have their work cut out defending the large area. Every man was thinking the same thing – how to stop a charge without using too much ammunition. How long could it last? they asked themselves.

The Indians were stringing out, nose to tail, keeping their horses at a trot still, riding superbly to a man. McAllister couldn't help admiring them. He'd be damned if he'd ride around in the open with three rifles looking at him belligerently. He saw that a small knot of Indians had taken up a position on a knoll just within rifle range. He wasn't sure, but he thought he could make out Iron Hand among them.

The Indians were circling now, all looking in toward the wallow, taking it easy, waiting for the shots to come from the wallow and wondering what their own reactions to them would be. The three whitemen raised their rifles and suddenly there wasn't an Indian in sight, except for an arm here and there and a heel maybe, as each warrior dropped to the further side of his pony. The pace stepped up a mite and the ponies touched a steady lope. Slowly, slowly, the circle began to tighten. McAllister knew that it could be fatal to hold your fire under these circumstances. You could do that for too long and find yourself throttled to death by the closing circle.

He picked a chunky dun pony, drove a shot through its head and prepared to snipe the rider as he hit dirt, but it was not to be. He sighted the dismounted man when he was almost lost among the riders and could not get a clear target. He swore with some control, allowing for Mrs. Bourn's presence.

Philo fired.

Grant fired twice and gave a Rebel yell of triumph. He shouted something to the others but he did not make himself heard above the roll of hoofs.

McAllister brought down another pony, levered fast and
managed to knock over the rider as he tried to run clear of the mounted men.

After that the Indians started coming in close and shooting under their ponies' necks so that a rain of shot and arrows seemed to come down on the wallow. McAllister was pretty well occupied at the time, but so far as he could see nobody was hit. There was no time now to see if he had hit or not when he fired, he levered and triggered till the rifle was empty, then rammed another loading tube home.

Then, suddenly, the circle of riders was there no more. The tight party of Indians was a loose scattering of warriors scurrying away across the plain, taking their wounded with them. When a man was hit, he would lie flat with his arms up waiting to be picked up. Two comrades would come, one on either side of him, seize him by the arms and carry him out of the fight. Several Indians lost their lives thus rescuing their fellows. Every Indian out there was fair game to the three beleaguered whitemen. Every Indian killed was one less to get into the wallow and use club, lance or hatchet later.

They returned to the knoll and gathered around it where Old Iron Hand seemed to be making them a speech.

Philo laughed and called across to McAllister: “There's your chance, McAllister. See if you can hit the old man.”

“You think I can't do it?”

“I'm bettin' you can't.”

McAllister pursed his lips, settled himself comfortably and rested his elbows on the rim of the wallow. It was a long shot, but with some luck he reckoned it could be done.

He could see Iron Hand clearly above the horsemen, iron hand glittering in the sun. He aimed carefully, drew a gentle breath and squeezed the trigger.

Behind Iron Hand was a mounted warrior on a paint pony. As the shot sounded, this man threw up his arms and fell over the further side of his horse.

Philo laughed.

The Indians stirred in consternation, thinking they were safe at that distance. Horsemen rode this way and that. Then Iron Hand was no longer at the summit of the small hill and all of them had moved further off.

“I'll get the old buzzard yet,” McAllister said.

Grant said: “Buy you a new hat if'n you do.”

“I'll keep you to that.”

The Indians were bunched again, further off this time and it looked like Iron Hand was riding up and down in front of them haranguing them. They raised a shout and then all went quiet. The three men in the wallow knew that something was about to happen. They watched calmly.

“They'll circle again,” Grant offered.

“No,” McAllister told him, “they'll make a direct charge. Iron Hand lost enough men in the circle. He'll pick a few young men with spunk and who want some glory. They'll come straight at us.”

“Never seen 'em do that,” Philo remarked.

“I seen the Cheyenne do it,” McAllister said, “and there's some out there now.”

“They don't stand a chance,” Grant said.

“They reckon we'll lose our nerve when they come straight. Most men do when they're charged straight at. One or two of the Indians'll get through and then it'll be hatchets.”

“You live an' learn,” Grant said easily. “Never put much stock in Indians myself.”

They waited.

Mrs. Bourn knelt beside McAllister, the pistol held in both her hands as if the weight was too much for her. Her eyes went from one man to the other and then to the distant Indians. McAllister reckoned this kind of thing was hard on a woman.

Slowly, the Indians fanned out and sat their ponies watching the white people in the wallow. They were singing again now and there was a light drum beating. Suddenly from the bright scattered figures, there burst a tight bunch of riders, their nimble ponies going at a flat run. It was as if McAllister had read the Indians' minds. They seemed to all aim for him, coming for him straight as a die. They rode beautifully and without effort; the ponies raced, eyes wild, manes and tails flowing in the wind of their own making, feathers fluttering; the riders clung to their backs, easily as though they were running a friendly race.