Gunsmoke for McAllister (4 page)

Getting the horse on the move, he trotted the animal over to the left of the cabin on the blind side, turned it and stopped. He put the Henry away, drew the Remington and plied the horse with spurs. The canelo jumped forward, hit a hard run and he swerved it around to the front of the house, throwing his right leg over the cantle. As he came opposite the door, he dropped to the ground, hit running and went across the stoop like a bullet out of a gun, through the doorway into the house, eyes turning this way and that, nerves taut for danger.

Nothing.

The place was empty. They had been there; he could smell Indian on the close air. The place had been searched – flour was strewn over the floor, drawers in the bureau were open, pots from the shelves lay around, but he did not think that there had been a fight here. Where then was Sam? Had he gone with them? As a prisoner?

He went to the door and looked out on the beautiful clearing, thinking.

Walking to the horse that had wandered back to the house, he pulled the Henry from leather and slowly started to circle the cabin, reading all he could from the sign he found there, seeing where the Indians had circled the building on their horses, seeing where they rushed in, picturing the scene to himself. Circling wider, he found where the Indians had ridden away, going almost in single file, heading into the north. He continued to walk around the cabin, widening the circle still more till he stopped and looked at the ground with some wonder.

A shod horse had been ridden away, going north-west. The droppings he found were a week or more old. He could not tell for certain. The rider had taken a pack horse with him. Had that been Sam going on a fairly long journey, expecting to be away from home for some time? Maybe the tracks had been made much earlier. He searched further, looking for sign returning to the cabin, but he found none. He searched the Indian sign with enormous care, knowing that it might have obliterated Sam's returning sign. But he found nothing, but some much older tracks. At a wild guess Sam had spent several days at the cabin, not moving away from it and then, about a week back, had ridden off and had not returned. The Apache had raided an empty house. He couldn't tell for sure.

He mounted the canelo and headed north-west following Sam's sign. He wondered when a man had been in a worse predicament – if that damned sheriff and his posse didn't get him, the Indians would. Just the same, he had to find Sam. He followed the sign all day, reading what he could from the sign. One thing he was pretty certain of was that Sam had a fairly good idea where he was headed and he was keeping to the high country for fear of Indians. He wished Sam had waited for him. Whatever the man was up against, two would have been better than one. Then he got the cold feeling that Sam was dead. He didn't care for that much and tried to get his mind off the idea, but found he couldn't. He started to wonder what he would find at the end of the trail.

He found where Sam had stopped and waited for a good while. A little later, he found out why. Down in the valley below there was Indian sign. Sam had let a party of some ten Indians go past him. He could see Sam, his nerves taut, holding his horses' muzzles to stop them giving his presence away, then going cautiously on. Something mighty powerful must have propelled Sam to make him head through this country. Something powerful must have compelled him to stay around here at all. Gold or silver seemed the answer to that question.

McAllister skirted the valley as Sam had done before night overtook him. He found water, he and the horse drank and then he moved a quarter mile from the sound of water and camped dry, the canelo saddled ready for a quickmove, his rifle in his hands. Dawn found him in the saddle and on his way again, as cautious as ever, eyes searching the country under the brim of his hat, watching his back-trail, never stopping his vigilance.

Around noon, his blood went cold.

There was Indian sign right there in front of him, the same age as Sam's sign. He knew then that Sam had been spotted and followed. He dismounted and took a close look, reckoning there must have been about five of them, all on unshod ponies. He found a tatter of red rag hanging from some brush where they had passed.

He went on, looking for white bones, looking for what was left of Sam.

The canelo slid down a slope of loose shale, came down into a wide canyon that split the hills asunder, a dead dried-out place; boulders, rocks and dry-brush were strewn untidily. An awesome landscape that one would expect to find on the face of a long dead planet.

The Indian sign stopped. The warriors had halted here, bunching their horses, holding them still. Sam's sign went on. Suddenly, McAllister's hope rose a little. He walked the canelo along the tracks of Sam's two horses, switching his gaze from the sign to the rocks and heights above and around him; he followed them a mile down the canyon, reading the sign easily in the dust.

Then it stopped. Dead.

McAllister halted and gazed at it unbelievingly for a moment. He dismounted and sniffed around like a searching hound, but found nothing. He examined the nearest wall of the canyon and found nothing. Puzzled, he went back to the horse and mounted, rode on north and suddenly there in front of him was the twohorse sign again. Why the hell, he asked himself, should somebody want to wipe out tracks only partially? He examined the tracks more closely and read something of an explanation.

Sam's saddle-horse was now riderless.

Several possibilities entered McAllister's head. Sam could have been killed back there and his animals could have run on leaving him there. The sign up to the obliterated point showed that Sam had been walking the horses. Here they had been running. That made some sense.

McAllister lifted the canelo to a trot. The tracks led him through a jumble of rocks, out of the canyon and up a rising trail. He reckoned even a frightened horse would not have run much further and sure enough when he came to some sparse grass he saw where the animals had stopped to graze. After that the sign led him to water higher up the mountainside. The animals had drunk and then drifted slowly on deeper into the hills. Nobody had followed them. A little later, he found the remains of the pack.
It looked to him as if it had come loose on the pack-animal's back and then the animal had rolled to free himself of it. McAllister was not sorry to find the supplies or what was left of them. There was a sack of flour miraculously untouched, some cans and the remains of some bacon that had been gnawed by some animal. Gratefully, he collected the cans and stuffed them into his saddle-pockets. Maybe they would keep him going for a few days if necessary. Late in the afternoon, he came on the two horses: a bay and a gray. The saddle was still on the bay. They looked startled at the sight of him and tried to run, but their lines dragged and hampered them and he had little trouble in roping them. When he had them both tied, he stepped down and examined them closely. Along the rump of the gray he found the crease mark of a bullet.

So Sam had been attacked most likely. But by whom? Had it been the Indians?

He found water for the horses and grass, then he found as safe a spot as he could and camped dry and cold. He picketed the horses on grass and slept with one eye open. The following dawn, he headed back to the spot where Sam's tracks disappeared.

It was then he ran into trouble.

They came out of the sun, down the slope and yelling with excitement.

McAllister didn't need any second bidding. He hit the canelo with quirt and spur and got out of there fast. When he glanced back, he saw that there were four of them and, though they seemed to be mounted on pretty poor-looking animals, they were getting speed out of them as only an Apache knew how. They came down that slope like bats out of hell, their colored rags fluttering, hitting a pace that seemed utterly reckless on ground like that. But McAllister was forced to match them and more. He knew that with the California horse under him he had the best of chances
of keeping ahead of them. All he had to do was pray the horse wouldn't put his foot in a hole and go down. If that happened, it was all up with McAllister.

He ran a half-mile, knowing that he was slowly increasing the distance between himself and his pursuers. He began to pass the mouth of the canyon where he had lost Sam Spur's sign. He was tempted to turn down it, knowing that he would get a safe fast run there, but decided against it, because if there were any more Indians in there, he could find himself in a trap. But just as he decided this, a shot fired ahead showed him that he was running into three mounted men who had appeared from nowhere. Trust an Apache to appear out of the ground.

So there was no alternative. He swung the canelo left and thundered toward the mouth of the canyon, hoping against hope that the place was empty of Indians. The Indians behind him at once changed course and, cutting off a corner, came alarmingly close. As he clattered into the canyon, he heard the rattle of their rifle-fire behind him. To shoot a moving target from the back of a fast-running horse wasn't easy and he reckoned he was safe from gunshots for the moment. As he went into the canyon, the two small parties of Indians joined loosely together and came yelling after him, beating their horses to the utmost of their speed.

Once on the floor of the canyon, the canelo began to show its paces. It hit a stride that increased McAllister's respect for it, reaching out over the hard ground, head extended, nostrils wide. McAllister looked back and saw that he was gaining on the riders behind. He started to feel a little hopeful.

In the next moment, however, his hopes were extinguished. Faintly, far off above the sound of the canelo's pounding hoofs, he heard the sound of a shot. It seemed in the same instant that he heard the whistle of the bullet. He saw patches of color among the rocks, the glitter of metal in the sun. The worst that could happen had happened. There were Indians afoot off to his right front. Some of them he could see were vaulting onto their ponies; others were standing and firing at him.

He swerved left, angling across the floor of the canyon. The two following horses, which, being unladen, had kept up well, came around well enough. The yelling Indians behind changed course. He dropped the lead lines and let the two animals behind go free and, as he raced toward the cover of the rocks on the other side of the canyon, he saw that he had succeeded in delaying the men directly behind him for a moment as they pulled up to catch
the bay and the gray. He hoped that there would be disagreement over the ownership of the animals to delay the Indians for a while.

Within a matter of moments, the canelo was clattering among the giant boulders and McAllister was swinging down from the saddle. He led the animal deep into the rocks and hitched the line to a rock. He then opened a saddle-pouch and filled his pockets with rounds for the Henry which he heaved from the boot. That done, he climbed a high boulder and gained a vantage point of the canyon.

He had a good view and saw at once what the Apaches were up to. Riding across the open space, they were heading for the rocks that surrounded him. He knew that as soon as they were among them, they would dismount and hunt him on foot. And nobody was faster in the world on foot than an Apache. He didn't like the look of things at all. He flung himself down and lined up on the nearest rider. He reckoned they thought they were out of rifle range, but he aimed to give them a surprise. This nearest man had a red rag around his head like a sweat-band; his shirt was of blue marked with polka dots; seatless army pants were tucked into knee-high Apache moccasins. He was riding a chunky little dun horse and was preparing to dismount.

McAllister fired, missed the man and brought the pony down. Even as horse and man pitched to the ground, the big man levered a fresh round into the breech and made good his mistake. As the warrior leapt to his feet, as astonished no doubt as he was shaken, McAllister hit him in the leg and put him down again. He could see from the attitudes of the rest of them that he had made his impression. They knew now they weren't jumping a pilgrim. He didn't waste any time, but levered again and lined up with a man who was riding his bay pony clean into the rocks off to his right. This time, he hit the man, knocking him clean out of his crude saddle. This time, they all learned their lesson and disappeared from view. And McAllister thought it time he changed his position.

He slid down the boulder, ran back through the rocks until he was almost to the canyon wall. On the way, he took the canteen from his saddle and slung it from a shoulder. He didn't know how long he was going to be forted up there and he didn't want to die of thirst. He now searched for a spot from which he could cover his horse, for he had no intention of being left afoot if he could help it.

Climbing a little to gain some advantage, he found what looked
like a shallow cave above a rock-strewn ledge. This gave him a good view and would protect him from above and two sides. It seemed as ideal as anything could be in these circumstances.

They left him alone for about thirty minutes, no doubt while they talked over the situation.

McAllister lay wondering why they were so intent upon attacking him. Ordinarily, they would have made a try for his horses and he would have refrained from hitting them with his rifle. But they had shown they were interested in more than his horses. They wanted
him
and for that reason he had brought the two warriors down. If they were playing for keeps, he had to, show them it wouldn't pay. But why did they want it that way? He wasn't satisfied with the answer that they were just blood-thirsty savages who wanted the blood of any white man they came on. Having two men hit hadn't stopped them. They were still out there and they were going to attack him. In this kind of country, he was going to have his work cut out to stop them. At a moment like this he could have done with Sam Spur at his side. Sam had had the same thought no doubt and that was the reason why he had asked McAllister to come.

Suddenly, there was an Indian in sight, running forward. He snapped off a shot at the scarlet head-rag, but the man was gone from sight as soon as he squeezed the trigger. To the left, another flitted momentarily, running in closer and again his shot was too late. McAllister cursed softly to himself. Those were two he could see. How many were working their way toward him that he could not see?