Blood on Mcallister (10 page)

She got the message, but she looked annoyed. Gage looked from one to the other in puzzlement.

‘What's wrong?' he asked.

‘Nothin',' McAllister said. ‘Everythin's fine. I'm going to beat the pants off'n you tomorrow and I'm goin' to make more money than I ever did before in all my life.'

Rosa said: ‘I don't like it, Rem.'

McAllister said curtly: ‘I like it fine. Take it easy, Rosa.'

‘Take it easy, he says,' she snorted and flounced to the other side of the room. Gage looked put out. He suspected that he had been the cause of the tiff between the two of them.

‘Well,' he said, ‘I—er—I'd best get going. Thanks for the coffee, Miss Rosa.' She turned and gave the poor fellow a cold stare. ‘See you later, Rem.'

He left, flushed red with embarrassment.

McAllister said: ‘I had to stop you tellin' him I was hurt, Rosa. I don't know how good a man he is. Somethin' happened … when I got this knife cut. Maybe he was in on it and maybe he wasn't. But if he knows I'm hurt, he could work on it in the fight.'

She came to him and put her arms around him.

‘I don't want you to fight at all,' she said. ‘It's crazy with you hurt the way you are.'

‘I beat him in Abbotsville and I out-ran him yesterday. I feel fine, honey.'

‘But… oh, what's the use. You've made up your mind and you're like a mule.' She tightened a grip on him. ‘My big mule.'

‘A mule!' he exclaimed. ‘I like that. Say, was I like a mule last night?'

She smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

‘Not at all like a mule,' she said softly. ‘Now go away, I have work to do.'

She pushed him out and still smiling foolishly, he went to look at the town.

Men knew him now. He was their champion and a lot of them had their money on him. They greeted him very differently from last night. He walked to the barber's shop and had a shave. Feeling refreshed, he went to check on the canelo which Mart had thoughtfully taken to the livery. He found the California horse full of corn and wanting a run. Then he mooched around town, saw Billy Gage start out on
his day's run with an admiring crowd watching him set off. He glimpsed Harry Shultz bossing the exercise. If Billy Gage had not been present the night Shultz had made his attack in the hotel, who had the second man been? If it had not been Billy Gage, then there must be a third man around here. If so, who was he? He didn't doubt that there would be some nobbling done before the contest was finished.

He drifted down to the sheriff's office and found Mart over his paperwork. He looked up and said: ‘I had a reply from my friend in New York. Quick. Says he can't identify anybody by the name of Harry Shultz to fit our man, but it could be Harman Schroeder who has been playing dirty in the fight game for some years. Left New York hurriedly ten months back. Could be he's your man, Rem?'

‘Anything firm against him?'

‘A suspected knifing or two.'

‘Could be him, couldn't it?'

‘Could be. Strange how a man will change his name, but not his initials.'

‘There's going to be some nobbling done, Mart.'

‘There's only one way to combat a thing like that and that is keep your eyes open. Never be alone if you can help it.'

‘There's only one thing worries me about this?'

‘What's that?'

‘Who's he goin' to nobble?'

Mart raised his eyebrows—'Stands to reason…' Then he stopped and thought what McAllister was thinking, remembering the same facts: McAllister had whipped Billy Gage in Abbotsville; he had out-run him in practice. Shultz would go where the profit lay. He wouldn't show any loyalty to his own man. Mart stood up. ‘I reckon somebody has to break this possibility to Gage. How the hell do we make an honest man like Gage believe his manager's crooked?'

‘We don't know anything for certain yet. But I'll try and talk to Gage. Trouble is, I ain't too sure Gage ain't in on it. Somebody hit me on the back of the head in the hotel room that night and it wasn't Shultz. He was right in front of me with the knife.'

‘Maybe if you talked with Gage you could find something out. On the face of it, he's quite a transparent feller.'

‘Either that or he's as smart as all get out.'

McAllister walked back to the saloon and found Rosa at her book. He sat around watching her, feeling pretty good, but with Billy Gage on his mind. Trouble was, he liked the man. He didn't mind fighting him in the contest, but he didn't like the idea of it being for real. Life, he decided, could be a bastard sometimes.

He had his mid-day meal with Rosa in a dining room off her bedroom. They had a pleasant hour together, talking, forgetting the outside world for a short time. When they were through, he rose and said: ‘I have to go see a man, honey.'

She kissed him and said: ‘This has been a good time, Rem.'

He said: ‘Can you bear me for a few more days, girl?'

‘I'm beginning to think I could bear you for a lot longer than that.'

‘Mustn't be greedy.'

He walked out onto the street and met Jim Rigby. He didn't know what to say to his old friend and started a mumbled apology for not coming back to sleep, but Rigby merely laughed and said he'd heard McAllister had stayed with Rosa and if he'd been in his boots wild horses wouldn't have dragged him away. McAllister was relieved.

He asked Rigby: ‘What do you think of this man Shultz, Jim?'

‘Well,' Rigby said, ‘nobody could like him, could they? He ain't exactly a takeable-to feller. Pat can't stand the sight of him.'

‘Has anybody been to visit with him?'

‘Not a soul.'

‘Thanks, Jim.'

‘You goin' to win the contest, Rem?'

‘Goin' to do my best.'

They parted and McAllister hung around town till somebody told him that Gage and Shultz had gone back to the ranch. At once, McAllister went to the livery, saddled the canelo and rode out to Rigby's. On arrival, the first person he saw in the yard was Pat, but she refused to talk to him and went into the house. That didn't trouble him too much. She'd get over it. But neither Shultz nor Gage was there. The rig stood by the barn. He thought it might be a good idea to find Gage way out on the prairie and talk with him.
If Shultz was there with him, then McAllister could bring the whole business out into the open. There was a certain physical risk in it, but he would have to be prepared for that.

He circled the house till he picked up fresh sign and knew that Gage had gone running and that Shultz had accompanied him on horseback. They had gone off in a northerly direction. He set off along the tracks and before long sighted them returning to the house. As he rode toward them, they stopped and talked, McAllister thought, excitedly. He rode up and swung down from the saddle. Shultz followed his example and walked toward McAllister on stiff legs.

He came straight to the point.

‘What the hell's the idea, McAllister? We're training.'

McAllister said: ‘This is more important than training.' Billy Gage stood there looking worried.

‘Is there something wrong?' he asked.

‘Sure, there's somethin' wrong,' McAllister told him. ‘There's somethin' mighty wrong and I aim to settle it right here an' now. Shultz, take your hand outa your coat and keep it in plain view or I'll take that little popgun and shove it down your throat.'

Gage looked outraged.

‘What the hell is this, McAllister?' he cried. ‘Harry doesn't carry a gun.'

McAllister's reply was to take a quick step forward, catch hold of Shultz by his coat before he could step back and to pull a small pocket Colt from the waist-band of his pants. He said: ‘I'll keep that.'

‘Why, Harry,' Gage said, ‘I didn't know you had a gun.'

Shultz said: ‘It's dangerous out here, what with Indians and everything. You don't have any right to take the weapon from me, McAllister.'

‘You shouldn't of put your hand on it.'

Gage said: ‘You thought Harry was going to shoot you? Why, that's ridiculous. Why should he want to do that?'

McAllister told him: ‘I'll tell you, Billy. After I beat you in the wrestlin' in Abbotsville somebody attacked me in the hotel and stuck me with a knife. That somebody was Shultz here.'

Gage looked in horror and amazement at his manager and
then with total disbelief at McAllister.

‘It isn't possible,' he said.

‘It's a damned lie,' Shultz exclaimed.

‘But that ain't all,' McAllister went on. ‘After I'd been knifed somebody with Shultz hit me on the back of the head and put me out.'

There was a long silence, during which Shultz watched McAllister like a cornered wolverine. Slowly the meaning of McAllister's accusation came home to Gage.

‘My God,' he said softly, ‘you think that man was me.'

‘Who else could it be?'

‘Don't listen to him, Billy,' Shultz said. ‘Can't you see what he's trying to do? He's trying to split us up.'

‘I'm doin' more'n that,' McAllister persisted. ‘I'm warnin' you, Billy. Can't you see what this means? I beat you at Abbotsville. I beat you yesterday when we ran together. Shultz has to put his money on me and somehow he has to stop you winnin'. He's goin' to nobble you, Billy.'

‘My God, you don't know what you're saying, McAllister,' Gage cried. ‘You must be out of your mind.' He looked at his manager. ‘Harry, say something. This is all lies, isn't it? You wouldn't put your money on McAllister, would you? You know I can win. You have confidence in me, don't you?'

Shultz said: ‘I don't have to say nothing to wild statements like this. McAllister can't prove a thing. You get outa here, McAllister, and leave Billy and me to get on with our training. We're going to beat you tomorrow and my money's going to be on Billy here.'

McAllister turned and mounted the canelo. He tossed the pocket Colt to the ground.

‘I needn't have taken that gun from you, Harry,' he said. ‘You wouldn't have shot your investment, would you?' To Gage he added: ‘Watch out for yourself, Billy. He'll stop you if he can. If he doesn't, it'll be the man who hit me in the hotel. If that man wasn't you.'

He left them then, Shultz furious, Gage bewildered and puzzled. He rode straight back to town, found Rosa busy in the saloon and went up to her room. For a while he stood at the window and watched the people on the street. The town was getting crowded already in anticipation of tomorrow's contest. Wagons and rigs had come in from all around,
bringing ranch folk and settlers, people had come from other towns along the railroad. It was going to be a bigger thing than McAllister had thought. A fact that increased the danger, either to himself or to Billy Gage. He wished to heaven he could be sure of Billy one way or the other. He liked the man, but some doubt was still in his mind, though he had to admit, that the man's bewilderment out on the prairie there had been genuine. He hoped so. But if Gage was innocent, what could he do to protect him? Worried, he watched the people below him, hoping vainly that he would see a face below which he could identify with one he had seen in Abbotsville. He thought he saw several, but he couldn't be sure.

He turned from the window, pulled off his boots and lay down on Rosa's heavenly bed. In seconds he was sound asleep.

He awoke easily to find the room full of soft warm light and there was Rosa standing smiling down at him. For the first time he wondered to himself why he didn't give up his fiddlefootedness and settle down with her. She was a woman in a million.

‘All through?' he asked.

‘Nothing the boys can't handle,' she told him. ‘Get your clothes off and get into bed like a civilised man.'

‘That's somethin' I'm not,' he laughed.

‘Just as well,' she said, ‘or I wouldn't have noticed you. We're both savages.' She unfastened her dress and peeled it off. In a few seconds she stood naked before him.

Seriously, he told her: ‘You're just about perfect, sweetheart.' She pulled a face at him and climbed into bed. He got off the bed and hurried then, taking off his clothes and jumping into bed beside her.

Her voice full of laughter, she told him: ‘You should think of tomorrow and sleep on the couch.'

‘Just what a man needs in training,' he told her solemnly and she came into his arms.

It was dawn when he awoke from habit and Rosa slept soundly beside him. She looked like an innocent child, her hair curled softly about her face and he knew a moment of deep tenderness for her. When he threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, she did not stir. He saw himself reflected for a moment in her long mirror and knew that she had been right—he was indeed a savage: the face was that of an Indian. Maybe his father had spoken the truth and his mother had been a Cheyenne. Certainly the eyes were all Indian, black like obsidian. The hard dark body, lean with slender muscles of pure stamina, could have been that of a young Cheyenne brave. The hands and feet were those of a whiteman, the hands large and powerful, gnarled by the use of a rope.

He inspected the knife wound that ran angrily down the side of his rib-cage and he had to admit that it didn't look so good. The center of the long slash was badly contused and where the doctor had resewn it looked horrible. He knew that it could easily go bad on him. But he must get through today somehow. He only hoped that Billy Gage didn't know of the wound so that he could work on it during the fist fight. He took a look at the burn and the knife wound on his breastbone, gathered while he was a captive of the Cheyenne and decided they were doing well. The knife cut might disappear in time, but the burn would mark him till the end of his days.

He dressed slowly and silently so as not to wake the girl, pulled on his Cheyenne moccasins and tiptoed from the room. Down in the saloon, there was only one man on duty now, leaning sleepily on the bar-top listening to the monotonous ramblings of a drunk. Another man lay asleep across a table, a third lay stretched out on the floor. He went out of the saloon, turned down an alleyway and walked out through a vacant lot onto the prairie beyond. He walked down to the creek past the stock pens and the railroad tracks and came into complete silence. Here was absolute peace and he sat there watching the softly flowing water, knowing that he
wasn't made for towns. He must get back into the solitude again. He thought of Rosa with some regret. If only …