Kill McAllister (9 page)

“Bring the men up fast, Dice,” he said. “I'll stay here.”

Grotten turned his mount and raced back the way he had come. Some of Forster's excitement had touched him. He reached the men and urged them to a faster pace. They galloped up to Forster who at once began pointing to where he wanted the men to ride.
The cattlemen would be riding into a trap from which there would be no escape.

“And remember this, boys,” he said. “However well we do this, it won't amount to a thing if any of those men get out of this alive. I want them all dead.”

They nodded. This was something they understood. Tension touched them, the tension that comes to all men before violent action. It wasn't fear, for they knew they had little to fear from the men in the valley below. It was the knowledge that within a short space of time they would be executioners of their fellow men.

“All right, boys,” Forster told them. “Get into position. And be sure nobody down there spots you before we get set. I'll fire the first shot and I don't want a peep out of anybody before I do. Is that understood?”

That was understood. They turned their horses and rode away. Only Grotten stayed with his chief.

“Dice,” Forster said, “you get over to the west there and keep an eye on things. Don't forget. Not a man must get away alive or we're finished.”

Grotten lifted a hand and rode away. Forster turned and rode along the eastern rim of the valley out of sight of the men below. He found cover about halfway along the valley and dismounted to tie his horse. He found that his heart was racing with excitement and that his hands were wet with sweat. Taking his rifle from the saddleboot, he crawled into the brush and looked over the valley below. The herd was about half past him, a good rifle shot away. He counted the hands and saw there was no more than seven of them. He grinned. Some must have got killed in the stampede back there. The outfit was certainly desperately short on men. He looked for the man who might be bossing the outfit. Only one man rode off to one side and that, strangely enough, was a Negro, as far as he could see at this distance. Forster levered a round into the breech of his rifle and decided that he would kill this man first. He snugged the butt of the weapon into his shoulder and took careful aim.

McAllister reckoned that he was in the Indian Nations, but he couldn't be too sure. He wasn't making good time and he was worried. The picture of Sam and the boys being ambushed was clear in his mind and all the time he rode he could see them being cut down and the cows run off. Physically, he wasn't too good. Riding was hell and it didn't seem to get any better as he went on. Every now and then he was forced to stop and rest from utter weakness. He despised himself for his inability to hit a good pace on the canelo. Just because of him some good men might be meeting their ends.

It was afternoon when he came on the cabin. It was a simple log affair, erected in rough country, timber around and water near. There was a truck garden and a small pen with a couple of crowbait ponies in it. Several dirty and half-naked Indian children played around the door and a slatternly woman appeared when he rode up. She didn't speak English and she didn't seem to understand his sign language when he tried it on her. He would have ridden on, but a man appeared in ragged whiteman's garb. He carried a single-shot rifle in his hands and seemed fairly friendly. He was, he told McAllister, an Osage. He had scouted against the Cheyenne in earlier years and spoke a little of the language. His English being even worse than his Cheyenne, McAllister spoke to him in his halting Cheyenne.

Yes, the man told him, there had been cows this way of late. It seemed they had been moving west some four or five or maybe six days earlier. The man couldn't remember. But cows there had been. Yes, there had been a black man with them and he seemed to be the chief. A good man; he had given the Indian tobacco and food. McAllister thanked him, gave him a little tobacco and went on his way.

He went north looking for sign and sure enough within the hour he found what he was looking for. A vast herd of cows had passed that way and he didn't doubt that it was his own outfit. The discovery acted like a tonic for him. At once some of his
depression lifted and somehow he managed to stick the horse going at a faster pace. So Sam had headed west as he said he would and would at some time or other head north across the plains which he hoped would be free of Jayhawkers. McAllister was tempted to try and save time by turning north-west and cutting off a corner, but he decided that it was too risky. At least if he stuck to this sign he was sure that he would come up with the outfit soon or late. But, he asked himself, would it be too late? And if he did come up with them and found them in trouble would there be anything he could do to help them? All he could do right now was keep on going and make the best time possible.

He was, he thought, still in the Nations when he camped that night. He would have gone through the dark but he was afraid of losing the trail and he was exhausted. He camped on good water and gave the canelo the last of the corn he had with him. It would be grass from now on for the animal. He ate little himself, for he wanted to sleep more than anything. He woke after a few hours, found himself in clear moonlight and decided that he must go on. So he saddled and rode through the night.

By dawn, the trail of his outfit brought him to the bank of a creek which he thought to be the Medicine Lodge. Here Sam had watered the animals in relays. McAllister thought from the state of the droppings that they had passed three or four days ago, but he couldn't be sure. As they were traveling slowly, it gave him a chance of catching up. With luck, they might be no more than a day's ride ahead. He watered the canelo, crossed the now swollen creek and went on. He was starting to feel the pace badly now and wondered if he would be able to stay in the saddle much longer. He dozed a little in the saddle as he went and that revived him a little.

Later in the day, well after noon the sign swung north, showing that now Sam thought he was safe from the Jayhawkers. He was risking a return to Kansas. Normally this would have made him safe, for he was well west of the country worked over by the Kansas men. But in this case, McAllister thought of the worst. He rested for an hour and then pushed on at a harder pace. But night overtook him and he was forced to stop and rest up again. By moonlight, he went on again an hour or so later and by midnight he came to water again and guessed that he had once more hit Medicine Lodge Creek. He reckoned, too, that he was well into Kansas territory.

Dawn found him still in the saddle and riding down on a small
encampment of Indians who he found to be a mixed bunch of Cheyenne and Arapaho. They were feasting on cow-meat which they claimed had been given to them by some Texas men who had been driving a herd north. They described the outfit and now McAllister knew for sure that he was on the trail of his own outfit. The Indians were wary at first, but proved pretty friendly when they learned that he understood their tongue. He told them of how he had spent two winters in his boyhood in the camp of Many Horses and they shared their meat with him. He gave them tobacco of which they were greatly appreciative. When he rode on they gave him a merry send-off. It was a long time since he had seen Indians laugh and joke like human beings. Memories of his boyhood came back to him. He thought about his old man and wondered, not for the first time, if indeed his mother had been a Cheyenne woman of Many Horses' group.

The sky cleared a little as he rode and the sun warmed his back. He reckoned he was feeling better than he had done for several days; something like his old self. He cheered considerably for he could see from the droppings that he was now not far behind the herd.

Link Forster fired.

The man he aimed at seemed to jolt in the saddle, the animal jumped forward and the man fell with his arms around the horse's neck.

At once a burst of firing started along the edges of the shallow valley. Gunsmoke drifted, dust spurted, the point rider fell sideways from his horse as the herd started to move.

Off to Forster's right was the remuda. The remudero's back was to the man, but even so he could see that he was no more than a boy. He swung his rifle and without thought drove a shot into the back. He missed. The horses were on the move like the cattle now, racing north, the boy going with them. Forster fired and missed again, but one of the men above the valley chopped him from the saddle. The slight figure bounced once, lifted its head and then lay still.

Forster was on his feet, running for his horse, yelling orders. He saw men breaking from cover. As he reared into the saddle, he saw one of the cattlemen racing his horse across the valley toward the ambushers, firing as he came. Damned fool, he didn't stand a chance. Somebody cut him down in short time. Man and horse went down in a heap. The horse got to its feet and ran wildly, stirrup-irons flying, but the man lay still with a leg twisted awkwardly under him.

The cows were racing wildly north now, already almost out of the valley and onto the plain. The riders Forster had detailed went after them, their horses going at a flat run. The others rode down into the valley looking for survivors. A burst of firing came from the north end of the valley and Forster turned his horse toward the sound. He rode through the pall of dust raised by the herd and saw two of his men headed in the same direction. Almost at once Forster saw that there was a cattleman standing by his fallen horse, firing. Forster spurred down on him. Even as he charged on the man, the fellow fired and knocked a Kansas man from the saddle. Forster drove his horse straight down on the
man. The fellow raised his rifle again, fired and missed. In the next second, the racing horse hit him with a shoulder and knocked him flying. The man at once tried to get to his feet, but the other Kansas man likewise rode into him and put him down again. This time, he lost his rifle and was slow to rise. Forster turned and stopped his horse, raised his rifle and shot the man through the head. The Texan went down and stayed down.

Shots came from down valley. Forster and his men rode back that way. They found two Kansas men off their horses and hesitating. One of the drovers, they yelled, had holed up in the rocks yonder.

“For Crissake,” Forster shouted. “Get in there and get him out.”

The man snarled: “You do it.”

Without a word, Forster turned his horse toward the rocks and charged. A shot came. It winged through the sleeve of his coat. Forster saw that another rider was closing on the rocks from the east, firing as he rode. Before he could reach the rocks, a man stood up among them and pitched forward into his face.

Forster heaved his horse to a halt, piled from the saddle and strode up to the fallen figure. The terrified gaze of a mere boy met his. He lifted his rifle and fired. The face hit the dust.

Forster looked up and saw Grotten standing there, his face grim.

The other men rode up.

“All accounted for?” Forster asked.

“I reckon,” a man said.

“Ride around and make sure.”

They scattered, spreading out and riding slowly along the valley. Suddenly very tired, Forster walked to his horse and swung into the saddle. He felt drained of strength.

He sat there a moment, while Grotten caught up his own horse and mounted. A shot came from across the valley, showing that his men had found a Texan alive and settled him.

“We'll forget this when we see the color of gold,” Forster said, but there was the edge of doubt in his voice.

“Maybe,” Grotten said.

“Let's get after the cows,” Forster said and put spurs to his horse. Together they rode after the herd.

* * *

McAllister stopped.

Above the sound of the canelo's hoofs he thought he had heard firing. He listened and heard it again. The faint popping of distant firearms fire straight ahead.

He touched the canelo with iron and got moving.

Ahead of him was what seemed to be a break in the surface of the prairie. As he rode forward, he saw a line of brush and rocks; he turned left before he reached these, then swung ahead again. Now above the sound of his horse's hoofs, he could hear the faint hammer of gunfire and another ominous sound which he knew to be made by the hoofs of a large herd of cattle on a stampede. He knew also that they were going north and away from him.

The pace he was traveling at was the greatest he had hit since leaving Combville and he paid for it in physical pain; the sweat coursed down him and he gritted his teeth together in an effort to bear it. Yet he did not hold the canelo back. Nothing seemed as important as seeing what was going on ahead there.

He burst suddenly into the mouth of a shallow valley and saw before him the dust haze of the disappearing herd. A horse ran crazily across his path as he pulled the canelo back on its haunches. Several horses rode away from him. A man and horse lay still on the ground.

McAllister turned his horse and rode him up onto the side of the valley and getting among the rocks and brush on the rim. The firing was at the northern end of the valley now.

“Rem.”

He started in the saddle. He knew that voice. He swung down from the saddle and looked out over the valley. What he had thought to be a dead body was up on one elbow.

Sam.

“Stand, boy,” McAllister called back to his horse and started down the side of the valley. The rifle-fire continued to the north.

He could tell from Sam's face that he was badly hit.

“Thank God you come, man,” the Negro said. “They're killin' all of us'ns. Drag me up to the brush yonder. An'
hurry
.”

McAllister didn't need any second bidding. Normally, he would have lifted the foreman in his arms and carried him, but now he could do nothing but drag him and that brought the sweat afresh to his face. He made it to the brush, then went on one knee beside Sam and took a look at him. He was shot through the belly. He was deep in shock and his face was an ashen gray. He looked terrible and McAllister thought he couldn't last long. But that couldn't make any difference to his actions; he had to get Sam
out of there and fast.