McAllister Rides (6 page)

He groaned.

There could be little doubt who they were. The only armed men who would venture into this kind of Indian country in any force were either buffalo-hunters or Texas Rangers. There weren't any wagons present, so that meant they were Rangers. And they would be hunting Indians or had been hunting Indians. Either way, Iron Hand wouldn't be in the mood for negotiating the release of a white captive. Anyroad, if Iron Hand was attacked either the captives would be spirited away or they'd be killed. If ever McAllister had hated the Rangers, it was then.

Another sound, in the opposite direction, brought his head around. Two riders were walking their horses toward him from the north. He started to duck for cover, but it was plain they had seen him.

He walked out to meet them.

One was a whiteman and the other was an Indian. A Delaware at a guess. They looked like they had been in the saddle a long time and had come a long way. Their horses were ganted down as they were. They halted and lifted their hands in greeting. McAllister knew they were scouts for the other party.

“Howdy,” the white man said. The Indian eyed McAllister steadily, his face impassive. He was a handsome man of middle years, dressed in white man's garb and with a good repeating rifle across the saddlebow.

“Howdy,” McAllister returned. “I didn't look for so much company way out here.”

“Likewise,” said the man. “Who're you an' what're you doin' here?”

The question was blunt and McAllister didn't know that he liked it.

“Remington McAllister,” he said. “I'm out here for my health.”

The man smiled.

“Tell that to the captain,” he said. “He'll laugh like hell. He likes a good laugh does the captain.”

“Who is he?”

“Newby.”

McAllister nodded. He knew Newby who had known McAllister's father. He was an old hand and tough. He hated Indians and it was his pleasure to hunt them. The only good Indian was a dead one. Newby had seen too many frontier raids to think any different. They were vermin to be exterminated. Ten years on and off he had been leading raids against them. Men said it was his ambition to kill Iron Hand personally.

“Ketch up your animals,” the ranger said. “We'll go see the captain.”

McAllister knew that he was virtually a prisoner. There was no bucking these two. He went and packed his gear and loaded the mule. When he led the animals out into the open the two men eyed his pack with interest. He mounted and they rode toward the body of horsemen.

The main body of rangers halted. McAllister rode up to them and dismounted. Newby stepped down and walked toward him. He was much as McAllister remembered him although they hadn't seen each other in several years. Newby was still tall and gaunt with watchful blue eyes, faded from the sun and deep in his head. His tawny beard was now heavily flecked with gray. He wore a hogleg that looked a yard long at his right hip and carried a light repeating carbine in his hand. His faded gray shirt was black with sweat and his gun-barrel chaps over serge pants were scarred and torn. He looked tired, but McAllister knew this was misleading, he always looked tired.

“Hello, Rem,” he said. “Long time no see.”

“Howdy, captain.”

“Seems like I allus has McAllisters in my hair. If'n it ain't
the old dog-wolf it's the pup.” Newby scratched his bearded chin.

McAllister said: “I ain't in your hair, captain. I'm just riding, minding my own business.

The other men watched, showing no interest, some jaws moving on chews. McAllister ran his eyes over them and reckoned he had never seen a tougher crew. He didn't doubt that any Indian they spotted would be shot on sight.

“Do tell,” Newby said. “A McAllister that minds his own business. That's something new.”

He moved his chew-plug to the other cheek and spat.

“What do you want to know?”

Newby cocked his head and squinted one eye.

“Go ahead, son,” he said, “tell the old man what you're doin'here an' no foolin'.”

Men started to dismount and stretch their legs. They could see their commander was in no hurry.

“I'm locating a captive.”

“On your lonesome?”

“Yep.”

“You're as crazy as your old man.”

“Ain't I?”

“Who's the captive?”

“Mrs. Bourn.”

“I heard about her. One reason why we're here. That an' the kid 'at got hisself killed.” The captain thought a little. “You don't stand a snowball's chance in hell. You know that?”

“Reckon.”

“Tell you what, son. You camp with us tonight. We'll talk a mite.”

The captain turned to his horse, stepped into his saddle and said to the white man who had brought McAllister in: “You find a campsite, Tom?”

“Up ahead a mile.”

McAllister mounted and they went forward at a walk. He looked at the horses around him and saw that they were all bone tired. The rangers were going to have their work cut out if they ran into trouble with their animals in that state. But that wouldn't stop Newby. Nothing would stop him once he was started.

They went a mile along the rim of the canyon. McAllister
didn't see any scouts but he knew the captain well enough to know they were there.

They camped dry that night. Newby was a brave man, but he didn't take chances that were unnecessary according to his own lights. The rangers went about their camp chores without any orders being given. Every man knew his job. Within a short time every man but the guards were in their blankets and asleep. Except for the captain and McAllister. They had their talk.

“We're goin' to hit the big canyon, son,” Newby said as an opener.

Astonishment showed in McAllister's voice. He knew Newby took risks, but to go into the canyon with no more than a dozen men when there might be several hundred Indians sounded like suicide. “You ain't that crazy, captain.”

“It can be done.”

The ranger captain sounded confident. That could only mean that he had other men deployed through the country. Maybe he had another company moving in on the canyon from the west. That would make sense.

“It's no skin off your nose,” McAllister said, “if I drift down there and find out what I can.”

“You could put the Indians on their guard.”

“When ain't Iron Hand on his guard?”

“They could catch you and make you talk. You could tell 'em which way we'd come, which way we was headed.”

That made sense to McAllister. The Comanches had ways of making the most reticent man talk.

“And,” Newby went on, “where's the sense in you tryin' to get Mrs. Bourn away from them with us around? If we hit 'em before you get to 'em, they're goin' to kill you on sight. One whiteman's much the same as any other to a red-stick. If you get to 'em before us, you're liable to find yourself in the middle of our attack. No, son, best thing you can do is stick with us. I can do with all the men I can get an' if you fight anythin' like your old man, why you'll suit my book.”

McAllister said: “See here, captain, just think. There's a white woman down there and I can get her away. You go in there and you're signing her death sentence.”

“You put it real dramatic, boy,” Newby said, “an' you're sure touchin' my heart. But, hell, I can't afford the luxury of such feelin's. Sure, Mrs. Bourn an' maybe some more captives is goin' to get killed. It happens all the time when we go against the Indians. You know that. That's the debit side of the sheet. But we also kill a lot of Indians an' the less Indians there are, the less settlers they kill. I ain't forgot that boy even if you have.”

“Give me a few days. Let me go down there and talk with Iron Hand.”

“One day would be too much. Any time now the Comanche're goin' to know we're around. Maybe they know even now. We have to get in there quick or I have twelve dead men on my hands.”

“Gawdamighty,” McAllister said, “ain't there nothing I can say to make you change your mind?”

“Sleep on it, son,” the older man said, “an' you'll see it my way. You don't stand no chance on your lonesome gettin' Mrs. Bourn out of there anyroad.”

McAllister gave a snort of disgust, turned over and tried to get to sleep.

A boot in the ribs woke him.

It was still dark. He sat up and saw the uncertain shapes of men on the move around him. The rangers were standing to ready for dawn. By the time the first light had fingered the sky, the horses were saddled and they had their guns in their hands. He could see from their faces that they were tense and expectant of trouble. They joked quietly among themselves and made a crack or two at him, but he could see from their eyes that their nerves were taut.

Captain Newby sought him out as he stood ready with the
canelo
and the mule. The captain was smiling and that should have been a warning to McAllister.

“I changed my mind, Rem son,” he said. His tone was kindly.

“Changed your mind?”

“Yep. I'm goin' to let you go down there and have your talk with Iron Hand.”

“What made you change your mind like that?”

Newby looked really paternal. He put a hand on McAllister's shoulder. His men looked on with graven faces.

“Rem,” he said, “I know what this means to you. I was young once myself. This is your chance and you deserve it. Only thing is, when you're talkin' to the chief, you best be good and ready to break timber out of there when we come abustin' in.”

McAllister thought:
I'm being suckered. All right, if the old goat wants it this way – he can have it.

“That's real nice of you, captain,” he said, smiling.

“Don't mention it, son. Watch out for yourself now.”

“Sure.”

McAllister looked around him with a heavy heart, knowing that for some reason best known to Newby his goose was being cooked well and brown, and trying to look as if he'd been given his favorite present. He shook hands with the captain, said his farewell to the watching rangers, stepped into the saddle and rode off with the mule following behind. When he was out of earshot, one ranger turned to another and said: “That Newby sure is a mean old bastard.”

McAllister was quickly out of sight of the rangers, heading along the edge of the canyon, but keeping well back from the rimrock so that he would not be sighted from below. As he rode, his mind worked overtime. Before he had gone a mile it clicked in his mind that he could be a part of Newby's strategy. If McAllister were in Iron Hand's camp dickering for the release of a prisoner, the old chief might be more likely to be caught off his guard. If McAllister were sighted going through Comancheria, attention could be attracted away from the approaching Texans. There might also be something of which McAllister couldn't think, but could be a typically devious product of the captain's crooked mind.

So what must McAllister do?

He meant to get Mrs. Bourn away from the Comanches. He also meant to do his best to keep alive and keep out of the
way of the rangers' raid. Which meant that he didn't go direct to Iron Hand.

So that meant Walt Islop. If he could get Islop to co-operate, he would do the whole deal through him. If the old man had an Indian wife, she could be the messenger between Islop and Iron Hand. McAllister need hardly come into it. He had to find something that would induce Islop to play. Either the old man would do it from the softness of his heart or he had to be tempted through the possibility of gain. But would an old man who had just about gone Indian be interested in gain? McAllister would have to wait and see. It was a case of first catch your Islop. He could be in any one of five or six canyons. McAllister had never needed a run of luck more.

An hour after dawn, he saw smoke in the canyon below him. He put the glasses on it, but he couldn't find its source. It could come from a camp fire or from a chimney. There was little of it, because the fire was among trees and the foliage was dispersing the smoke. He found cover for the animals, tied them and went down on foot, rifle in hand. It was a hard climb down and he started to worry, for time was ticking away and time was something he didn't have. He picked his way through the tumble of rocks and brush that covered the floor of the canyon only to discover that the smoke belonged to a small party of Indians that looked like an old man, an old woman and some children. There was one battered teepee pitched among the trees.

He went back the way he had come, doubling his caution. There had been old folk and kids back there and there must be some young bucks around somewhere. Luckily he found them before they found him, two young Indians, one of them carrying an antelope over his shoulder. McAllister went into cover fast, stayed there until they had gone out of sight and went on his way. It was not comfortable, climbing the wall of the canyon knowing that he might be in sight of anybody below, but he made it safely and got back to his animals.

He headed west, got into some rough country and soon after noon found himself above the second canyon. He was now some ten to twelve miles from the great canyon and working around the canyons as if they were spokes of a wheel. He bet himself that he would find Islop in the last. His uneasiness
grew as he rode. Being continually skylined above the rim of the canyons was telling on the nerves, but there was no other way of carrying out his task. He was looking for smoke firstly, but if the old man didn't have a cook-fire going he wanted to be able to pick out a house. He found neither during the rest of that day. Once more he made a dry camp, but with the horse and mule on fair grass. He slept lightly, alert at the slightest sound.

Again, he woke before dawn, had eaten and was saddling his mounts by the time light had come. He waited for full light to spread dramatically over the vast country before him before he moved on just in case he had been spotted by Indians who may have lain quiet ready for a dawn attack. But as the sun swung into the azure sky without incident, he mounted and got on his way. The wind from the north had now settled to a gentle breeze. This however was not cooling and soon his shirt was soaked through with sweat. Today, he knew that he must find water. The animals had drunk nothing this morning and he himself had had no more than a mouthful.