Blood on Mcallister (19 page)

‘I did it,' the man called back.

The voice was familiar to him, but he couldn't place it.

‘Throw down your gun,' Mart called. ‘Let me hear it fall.'

The man made a gesture and the sheriff heard something hit the ground.

‘Where's the other feller?' he demanded. ‘Dead I think,' the man answered.

Mart started down the narrow way, his eyes never leaving the man in front of him. His sense of danger was strong and he knew he should have paid heed to it. It was so strong that he came to an abrupt halt and called out: ‘Come toward me. Take it mighty easy. One wrong move an' I drop you.' He would hold the man against the light.

The man started to walk slowly toward him.

Something heavy smashed down on the sheriff's gun-wrist. He cried out with the shock and agony of the blow and knew that his wrist was broken. But even so he turned, ready to fight, toward a looming shadow to his right. Suddenly he was in the grip of a man so powerful that he felt as helpless as a babe. Fear struck him, then. He swung his left fist as his right hung powerless at his side.

Thumbs were at his throat; a knee thudded up into his groin. He tried to escape, but the grip was merciless. He was thrown as if he were as light as paper against the wall of the saloon and the breath was driven out of him. Something hard smashed down on his head and he sank to his knees. Again and again blows fell on him. His face hit the dirt and there was dust in his eyes and mouth.

He heard a man's voice: ‘Stop it. We don't want him dead.'

Then he didn't know any more.

McAllister heard the shots. He looked out of the window of the room and saw Mart lunge away from the sidewalk outside his office and start running. Men stood here and there on the street, watching him go. McAllister saw that he had a gun in his hand. The shots had come from alongside the saloon. That meant an alleyway. If Mart was going to bust in there, he wanted his head tested.

McAllister reached for the gun hanging at the head of the bed. He ripped it from leather and headed for the door. As he thundered down the stairs, he saw Rosa come out of her office.

‘What is it?' she asked.

He hit the hallway and turned to the side of the building.

‘There're fairies at the bottom of your alleyway,' he told her and reached the side door.

The shooting had stopped.

He opened the door a crack. He listened while Mart and a man not ten paces away from him, McAllister, exchanged words. Finally Mart said: ‘Come toward me. Take it mighty easy. One wrong move an' I drop you.'

The man near McAllister started walking. He passed McAllister and went on down the alley. Then there came the sound of a blow. A man cried out in intense pain. There came the sound of several more blows. McAllister lunged from the doorway, turned right and started running. He dared not shoot for fear of hitting Mart. Gun-flame stabbed the darkness in front of him, a bullet whistled past his ear. He collided with a man, his gun fell from his hand and he was hurled back against the wall. He hit ground and started desperately searching around for his gun, but he heard feet pounding away from him down the alleyway.

Somebody groaned from nearby.

Rosa's voice came: ‘Rem, are you all right?'

‘Bring a light,' he called.

He found his gun and a body almost in the same moment.

‘Mart,' he said. All he got in reply was another groan. He heard men venturing into the alleyway and he called out:
‘Stay back.' They halted. For all he knew the gunman was among them. Slipping his gun away, he bent and picked the sheriff up in his arms. Rosa appeared from the doorway with a light and he carried Mart inside.

When he had carried him into Rosa's office and laid him on the couch, he saw by the light of the lamp that the sheriff was horribly battered. His right wrist hung limply as if it were broken. His mouth and nose were bloody, the front of his shirt and vest was covered in blood. Rosa put the lamp down and said in quiet horror: ‘Who could have done this thing?'

McAllister said: ‘I don't know, but I'll find him.'

Even as he started stripping off Mart's bloody clothing, he started thinking, knowing that one good reason for putting Mart out of action was to make the way clear for… for what? For something that Brenell wanted to do. And Brenell only wanted to do one thing right now—get his hands on McAllister.

He said: ‘Get one of your boys to fetch the doctor, Rosa.'

The girl hurried out. McAllister got to work on Mart, stripping the clothes from him and trying to assess the full amount of the damage. The hard body looked as if it had been kicked repeatedly and the sight would have made a softer man want to retch. McAllister fetched water and started to bathe the wounds. Mart groaned and opened his eyes.

He groaned and tried to speak, but his jaw trembled only and no words came out.

McAllister said: ‘Take it easy, Mart. The doc's comin'.'

Finally Mart managed to get out: ‘Who did it?' He tried to move his right arm and the pain of the attempt brought another groan from his colorless lips.

McAllister said: ‘I don't know. But I'll find him.'

‘Two of them,' Mart whispered. ‘One big… big as a Goddam house …'

A little later, the doctor arrived. He had seen the results of a lot of fights in his time, but he had never seen a man damaged like this one. He stared down at the injured man in quiet horror for a moment.

‘Who could do a thing like this?' he echoed Rosa.

Nobody said anything. McAllister moved toward the door as the doctor started work on Mart. The girl followed him
and asked: ‘What are you going to do?'

‘Find the man who did that to Mart.'

‘Rem, there is Brenell to think of.'

‘I'm thinkin' of him.'

‘You don't think he did this?'

‘He has to be behind it.'

She laid a soft hand on his arm, came close.

‘Rem, give Clem back to him. Forget it. Enough men have been hurt. Let it end now.'

McAllister touched her face tenderly with his fingertips. ‘That's what Brenell would like me to do. No—Brenell's goin' to pay for everythin' he's done. For burning Jim out, for Mart. I'm goin' to run him outa the country.'

‘But he is a big man. He is powerful.'

‘Ain't he?' McAllister snarled and turned away, headed for the stairs and went down them. He walked into the saloon, ordered whiskey, downed it and went out onto the street. He knew that he wasn't thinking too clearly. The man who had beaten Mart could cut down on him. Maybe that was what he wanted. He wanted the man who had done it out in the open with a gun in his hand.

‘One big,' Mart had said. ‘Big as a Goddam house.'

Moose.

Harry Shultz was at the back of this. McAllister stopped in his tracks, thinking. Harry had said that he would kill Billy and McAllister. He had put Mart out of action. The field was now clear. He wouldn't care if Clem got hurt in the process. Therefore Clem was no longer a protection. McAllister's mind raced. He had to settle with Brenell. Make a deal. Get Brenell off their backs and go after Shultz and his man, Moose.

He walked back along Main. There were men gathered in little knots, talking. They recognised him in the lamplight and threw him questions—how was the sheriff? Was he going to live? Who had attacked him? He gave them short answers and hurried on. He walked a block and turned left, covered another block, checked that he was not being followed and dove down a dark alleyway. He walked to the other end of the narrow way, wary as a cat and walked out onto the back-lots. Walking through the trash that had been thrown there, he made his way to the rear of Rosa's place. Mounting the
loading platform, he tapped out a message on a window. The window opened.

‘Rem?'

‘Billy—somebody just beat Mart Krantz near to death.' Billy exclaimed with surprise and McAllister talked on, told about his ideas on the reasons for the sheriff being beaten, told Billy what he was planning to do.

Billy said: ‘You ain't thinking straight, Rem. Brenell will promise you anything to get his son back. But he ain't the kind of a man to stick to his word.'

‘What the hell else can we do?'

‘While we have Clem, we have a strong hand.'

‘That's right enough.'

‘We give Clem up, what have we?'

McAllister knew that Billy was right. He hadn't been thinking straight. Mart being beaten that way had knocked him off-balance. This wasn't Mart's fight. He started again. He talked, letting Billy hear him thinking aloud. What if he went to Brenell and made a deal now? While they still had Clem. But the result depended on whether Brenell was behind Shultz or not and McAllister had no proof that he was. Shultz had told them that he meant to kill them. He could be hiding in a shadow now waiting to shoot. Maybe he was a separate issue to Brenell. He found that he was sweating.

‘How's the prisoner?' he asked.

Billy said: ‘Keeps telling me what his old man's going to do to us.'

‘Let me in.'

Billy closed the window and a moment later the door alongside it opened and McAllister stepped into the darkness of the saloon's interior. He walked into the storeroom where they were keeping their prisoner. It was lit faintly by lamplight. Clem was on the floor, lying bound hand and foot with a gag in his mouth. McAllister noted this and asked: ‘Did he yell?'

Billy grinned.

‘No. I just got tired of him telling me what his old man was going to do.'

Clem fought his bonds at the sight of McAllister and his eyes showed his burning hatred.

‘It won't go on much longer,' McAllister said. ‘You stay
low, Billy. Shultz'll make his move pretty soon now Mart's out of the way.'

Billy said: ‘It ain't right for you to face Shultz alone.'

‘Somebody has to stay with Clem,' McAllister reminded him. ‘You've done your bit.' He walked out of the room, down the narrow corridor and mounted the stairs. When he walked into Rosa's room, all was quiet. By the light of the lamp on the bureau, McAllister saw Mart's still form on the bed. He went and looked down at his friend. The sheriff's eyes met his. The lips trembled in an attempt at speech. The man fought his inability to speak, the sweat standing out on his forehead, a single vein swelling.

‘Take it easy, Mart,' McAllister said. ‘You're goin' to be all right.'

The lips trembled on.

McAllister leaned lower. He heard a faint whisper.

‘Rosa…'

McAllister laid a hand on the man's shoulder, patting it.

‘Relax, Mart.'

The man's voice came stronger.

‘Rosa.'

There was deep anguish in it now. Sudden apprehension swooped on McAllister, it was like a cold hand on his spine. Something had happened to Rosa.

He heard the faint sound then and lifted his eyes. A door opened and a man walked into the room. This was a door through which McAllister had never been, leading to a room off the bedroom. The man was Harry Shultz. There was no gun in his hand and he looked completely as his ease. In fact, his coarse lips were pulled back in an easy smile.

McAllister's right hand dropped instinctively to the cedar wood butt of the Remington.

‘No call for that, McAllister,' Shultz said. ‘It won't help you any.'

McAllister didn't know what to say. He was in a situation, as he could see at once, in which words wouldn't help at all.

He straightened up.

‘Say your piece,' he said.

Shultz's smile continued.

‘I have the girl,' he said. ‘Or rather Moose has the girl in the next room. You're hamstrung, McAllister.'

McAllister swallowed hard. He didn't like this one little bit.

‘You could be lyin',' he said. But he knew the man was telling the truth.

‘Moose,' Shultz called over his shoulder, ‘let's hear the girl.'

There was a short pause, then he heard Rosa all right. She gave a short shrill scream that was cut off short. Instinctively, he started forward in hot rage. Shultz stopped him with a gesture of a hand.

‘Try anythin',' he said, ‘and the girl gets the knife. Moose is holding the point at her throat.'

McAllister got a grip on himself.

‘You want to do a deal?' he asked.

The smile broadened to a grin.

‘That's more like it,' Shultz said.

‘Talk.'

‘First,' Shultz said, ‘I want Clem Brenell.'

McAllister nodded.

‘What's second?' he demanded.

‘We'll talk about that when Clem is with his daddy and you have the girl.'

‘How do I know you'll let me have the girl?'

Shultz gave a short barking laugh.

‘You don't.'

McAllister gave him a long look, thinking. There was no way out. But he wanted time, time to think, time to set something up and he could gain a little time by fetching Clem. He felt suddenly helpless and hopeless. He'd been too damned smart and now his smartness had blown up in his face.

‘I'll get Clem,' he said.

Shultz said: ‘And Billy. I'll have Billy right here under my eye. That'll be real nice.'

‘Billy's out of town,' McAllister said.

Shultz cocked his head as though he were listening to some distant sound.

‘With Clem?'

‘No, not with Clem,' McAllister lied.

‘Where's Clem?'

‘That's not in the bargain,' McAllister told him. ‘It's enough for me to produce him.'

Shultz got suddenly mad.

‘Who says it's enough? Did I say that? It ain't enough. I want to know where he's at.' He crossed the room and, as he did so, a knife appeared in his hand. McAllister braced his muscles and almost jumped him as a reaction to the movement. Would Moose touch the girl if Shultz were in his power? Something like terror for the girl touched McAllister. He relaxed and watched the knife point touch his shirt. Shultz's left hand plucked the Remington from its sheath and tossed it onto the bed.