Gunsmoke for McAllister (21 page)

His heart jumped and he at once made an effort to get out of there, turning the canelo with great difficulty in the narrow space and raking home the spurs.

The man fired.

He fired several times and McAllister had reason to thank the darkness of the night, for, though one or two shots came mighty close, none of them hit him and he clattered away through the
rocks knowing that he had stumbled on the camp and that every man in it was awake and ready and waiting for him. He rode until he thought he was good and safe, found a good spot in the rocks and dismounted.

He reasoned that Rawley and his men would spend the night on the alert. They would certainly not come out into the night to search for him. Well, he thought, let them have a sleepless night. He would take a nap for a couple of hours. And this he did with the canelo tied to his left wrist. Nature's alarm clock in his head woke him after a couple of hours and, greatly refreshed, he tightened cinches, mounted and circled into the east. He had the correct location of the camp now printed indelibly on his mind. He reckoned he wouldn't get caught again.

When he thought he had advanced close enough to the camp, he tied the canelo and went forward on foot. This was the kind of work he understood. He would put everything the Cheyenne had taught him in his boyhood to good use.

He didn't have any trouble finding the camp this time. He was led to it by the singing of a mule. He didn't know what had caught the animal's attention but he knew it wasn't him. He thought it might be an Indian, so he lay low for an hour, not wanting to run into an Apache buck while he was looking around the camp. The mule would have alerted the guards and they'd be on their toes. So he let an hour go by and he reckoned that gave them time to settle down again. Certainly the mule didn't give voice again and the whole world was quiet except for a lobo serenading the night about a mile or two off. As he lay among the rocks and brush above the camp, some small night animal came on whispering feet to within a foot of him, located him and scuttled away into the night.

He worked his way around the camp and came on it from the west, up-wind of the stock. He didn't make a sound. There was nothing but starlight to see by and it took him some time to find the guard. The man was sitting on a pack, a poncho around his shoulders and his back to a rock. It wasn't going to be easy to approach him. McAllister considered the situation for a while, silently climbed the rock, waited a moment because the man stirred, then bounced the brass-bound butt of his rifle on the man's head. The fellow gave a low cry and pitched forward. He made more noise than McAllister cared for.

McAllister knew at once that there was another guard he hadn't seen, which proved that you couldn't be too careful. A fellow came
charging down the draw in which the camp was pitched. There was panic in his voice, the panic of a man who saw Indians in every shadow. He spotted the prostrate guard and stopped. His yell roused the camp. Men came piling from their blankets. McAllister thought this was as good a time as any to do some damage, though it might have been wiser to have just backed out of there and keep on going. But he had forgotten the cold beer in El Paso and the fact that he wanted out. He was close to Rawley and his hate again. He remembered Rawley hitting him, he remembered the dead men in the mine. The men were bunched nicely and he couldn't miss even in that light. He jacked a round into the breech and let off a shot. Immediately he heard a man go down with a scream of fright and pain, he warmed to the task and fired again and again.

They could have killed him there and then, of course. If they had turned their guns on him as one man they would have shot him to ribbons, but the rifle shooting at them out of the night was too much for them and they fled. McAllister did the same. A man could push his luck too far. He high-tailed out of there as fast as he could travel, got back to the canelo breathless and got into the saddle. He put some distance between himself and the camp and took a breather. He hoped that his crazy action may have put the finishing touches to Rawley's fears. Maybe it would help to bring this damned business to an end quickly.

He hung around till dawn, longing for a smoke, his belly demanding breakfast. Then he scouted the camp on foot. The sight that met his eyes proved that he had tipped the balance.

Rawley had had enough.

His nerves were ripped to shreds, as battered and torn as his little army. He saw the chance of his getting his gold into New Mexico growing less and less. He looked for a way out and he thought he found it. The answer to his question was obvious. He
was being slowed by the men on foot. So he made his decision.

He sought out Rich. In spite of the hardships he had undergone, the gunman was looking pretty fit. His wound was healing nicely, the result of a tough animal body.

‘Rich,' he said, ‘this ain't gettin' us nowhere.'

Rich didn't have to be told what was in his mind, because his own worked in the same way. He had been nurtured on treachery.

‘So we light out,' he said.

Rawley nodded.

‘You'n'me an' a couple of the others. We take horses and the bulk of the gold. We'll leave a couple of pack-animals and some gold with the others. We want a light train an' speed.'

‘Do we need the others?' Rich said. Greed had always been Rich's trouble.

‘Sure we need 'em,' Rawley told him. ‘For a while. When we're over into New Mexico, maybe we won't need 'em so much. But that comes later. Meanwhile, we have to get outta these hills.'

‘Take Carlos,' Rich suggested.

‘And Rico.'

‘He's hurt.'

‘But he's good. Just havin' him with us'll make the rest back down.'

‘You could be right.'

Rawley started organizing. He found Carlos and Rico and told them to take up their positions with Rich. Then he started bawling to the men to get the pack-animals loaded. They did as they were bidden, but their minds weren't on the job. Most of their attention was on the country around them; they expected men to be cut down again. In the night a man had died and two more had been injured. They were scared and it showed. But they finally got the packs on the mules and horses. They were puzzled and suspicious when they were ordered to saddle four horses. One of them came to Rawley and demanded to know the reason. Rawley explained that they had more wounded now. Some of the gold would have to be left so that the wounded could ride. That seemed to satisfy them. They saddled the horses and got the train lined out for moving.

Rawley got himself up on a high rock from which he could see everybody and then he told them.

‘There's four rifles lookin' at you, boys. Anybody doesn't throw down his guns right now gets his head blown off.'

They looked at him in a dazed kind of a way as if this was the
last straw. They had taken all they could handle and this finished them. Nobody showed any sign of resistance. They dropped their weapons and Carlos collected them, piling them in the rocks. Rawley gave the order for two of the pack-horses loaded with gold to be cut out from the rest.

‘That's your share of the gold, boys,' he told them.

They didn't say anything. They watched him from dead eyes and the wounded looked as if they had come to the end of the trail. They would never get out of this now. As soon as Rawley had gone from sight, their comrades would desert them with the gold. They were as good as dead men. But they didn't speak. They knew that it would be a waste of words with a man like Rawley. He was harder than all the hard cases there.

The four men, Rawley, Carlos, Rich and Rico mounted. Rawley took the head of the train and led the way out. Carlos and Rico stayed behind to make sure that none of those left dove for their weapons and took their revenge. They stayed till the sound of the train, which was going away at a great rate, died. They then whirled their horses and rode after it.

When they were gone from sight the men stayed still for a moment, stunned by this terrible turn of fate.

‘What the hell do we do now?' one asked hopelessly.

Another said: ‘We got two packs of gold and our feet. Let's get goin'.'

They headed for the rocks where their rifles were piled. They moved like men in a trance.

They never reached their rifles.

As they went into the rocks, the first man stopped, his eyes wide with terror. Between him and the weapons stood an Indian. In his hands was a repeating rifle. They all stopped and nobody said anything. There wasn't anything to say. There came the sound of a gun cocking to their right and they turned their heads. Three Indians stood there and they also held repeating rifles.

Rawley's men knew that they were as good as dead and they were right.

The lone Indian, holding his rifle hip high fired once and hit the first man in the chest. He was blasted back into his comrades arms. One of them, going berserk, drew his knife and charged the Indian, screaming. The Indian brought the butt of the rifle up sharply and caught him under the chin with the butt. He somersaulted backwards with his jaw broken. No sooner had he hit the ground than a bullet ploughed into him. The other Indians
started shooting now with a cool deliberation that made it look like a terrible game. The wounded men who were back with the animals tried to crawl away into the rocks, but the Indians, laughing now, followed them, putting their rifle muzzles to their heads and pulling the trigger. Within a matter of minutes, it was all over.

Gato looked around at the carnage and said: ‘Good.'

From high on the hillside, McAllister watched the scene. He saw the Indians going among the dead and stripping them. Now, he thought, Gato would go after Rawley and finish him. McAllister could then ride back to Sam and the others and could tell them that it was all over. He waited to make sure.

He could hear the shouts of the Indians faintly now. They were triumphant that they had got their hands on such a quantity of good guns without loss to themselves. Gato would now have the means of killing Rawley and the men he had with him. But before very long McAllister found that he was mistaken. One or two Indians came with the horses and the others started to pile into their saddles. A few of them rode up and down excitedly and slowly they rode south out of the draw and turned west, going in the opposite direction from Rawley. McAllister swore long and bitterly, knowing that there was another dangerous chore in front of him. If he wanted to go back with the news that Rawley was finished, then he would have to do it himself. Slowly, he walked back to the canelo and mounted.

He rode north-east, keeping to the high country, wary still, not only because of the possible danger from Rawley, but because, on thinking the matter over, he was not fully convinced that the Apaches had continued on west. It would have been typically Apache to have been aware of his watching them from above and then moving west simply to fool him. But he came within sight of the train, going fast into the east, without catching sight of an
Indian.

He followed the train for several miles, keeping out of sight and relying on the noise of the train itself to drown the noise of his own travel. Now he was looking for a suitable place to cut down on Rawley and his men again. He would finish it himself and Sam could ride off with his Carlita into the sunset and live happily ever after. The thought pleased him and he felt pretty virtuous. He also felt damned hungry and he knew that if his horse didn't have bait soon it would be useless to him.

Suddenly, the peaks fell away and the train came to a wide expanse of malpais and McAllister was forced to detour south. The ride took him out of sight of the train and brought him once more into country that was a jumble of brush, scattered boulders and trees. Here there was cover and here he lurked until once more the train came in sight. Rawley was in the lead and hurrying the animals along, keeping them at a pace which McAllister thought unwise. None of the animals would last long moving that way. But plainly Rawley was desperate to put as much distance between the Indians and himself as he could. He must have heard the shooting when the Apache killed the men he had deserted and he and his three desperadoes must have had some real fear in them. That suited McAllister fine.

He let the train pass, then backtracked a little, went directly due west and came on the saddle which the Mexican had told him about. He went around the saddle and inspected the country on the other side. It was like looking into a different country. Here, suddenly, it looked green, green all the way. He took the canelo back aways and tied it. He loaded his rifle and decided this was his last fight this trip. When he was through here he was clean out of ammunition. The thought was not a comforting one.

He worked his way above the saddle on foot and took up a position among the rocks.

He heard a faint, shrill and distant whistle.

Startled, he looked up.

On the other side of the saddle he saw a man and the man was waving. That was Sam.

Well, I'll be damned,
McAllister thought. So the old horse was in on the last gamble after all. He wondered if Diaz and Carlita were there too. He hoped so, for every rifle was going to be useful. He felt a little relief that he would not have to handle this on his own. Rawley and his men were tough cookies and they knew how to handle guns. So he lay and waited, pining for a smoke and
wanting something to put into his belly. Maybe if they finished Rawley there'd be some food to eat. He fervently hoped so. The thought of good crisp bacon and hot coffee was agonizing.

A horse trumpeted to the west and by squinting he could make out a faint sign of movement in that direction.

Ten minutes later, he could make out the leading rider. Five minutes after that, he was certain that it was Rawley on his fine sorrel.

Come on, little man,
McAllister thought,
come right into my sights and I'll kill you, you bastard.