Tough to Kill (2 page)

“Get off my back,” he growled. “I ride with you, I bunk with you, I damn well eat with you. What I do with the rest of my time is my affair.”

McAllister pulled a chair forward and, filling his pipe, solemnly surveyed the battered man. When he had lit his pipe and was puffing serenely, he smirked and said smugly: “Come daylight – daylight mark you - I'm a-ridin' up to the Markham place an' I'm courtin'.”

McShannon glared at him.

“You stay away from my girl,” he said thickly. “Every time I find me a high-steppin' filly, you wait till I'm outa the way an' you step in with your fancy words.”

McAllister said: “If you mean Alvina, don't you fret none. I leave the little girls to the boys. I have a hankerin' after the lord of the manor's sister - Carlotta.”

McShannon's eyes bugged.

“Miss Charlie!” he exclaimed. “Why, she's an old woman.”

“I'll have you know, child,” McAllister said hotly, “that Carlotta is a fine upstandin' woman of no more'n a year or two past thirty.”

Scandalised, Sarie said: “People over thirty don't court. It ain't decent.”

“Listen, baby,” McAllister said, no less hotly than before, “Miss Charlie is a women enterin' on her best and mature years. No skinny child like Alvina can hold a candle to a
woman with face an' figure like that. She's all a man could desire.”

“Not this man,” McShannon said.

“This is where,” McAllister declared, “the men get sorted out from the boys. Dawn, tomorrow, we ride an' you'll see how courtin' is done in the grand old style.”

“We?” Jack Owen asked with a quaver.

“Meanin' the three of us. You don't think I'd ride into that hornets' nest on my lonesome, do you?”

They ate breakfast before light, Sarie grumbling that she had to get up so early to feed them. Jack and McShannon were surly, McShannon particularly, because he felt like hell. Every bone in his body felt as if it had been misplaced and his muscles were pure agony where they had stiffened in the night. He looked like something a coyote had rejected as unfit for consumption.

McAllister appeared quite light-hearted and his companions silently cursed his smiling face. McAllister and Jack caught up the horses and Jack offered to saddle McShannon's bay for him, but the red-haired boy refused. So they had to wait while he fumbled around trying to get his cinches tightened with hands that had been trodden on by high-heeled cowmen's boots. If McAllister had any sympathy for him, he didn't show it. Jack Owen, being a soft-hearted man showed it and McShannon resented the fact.

Finally, they were mounted and rode out with Sarie waving to them from the stoop. They crossed the creek at the ford with the water coming up to their stirrup-irons and rose dripping water on the other side. McAllister led the way east at a steady trot that was Indian torture to McShannon. He clenched his teeth and didn't utter the groans that wanted to come out They rode for maybe two hours and then they
knew that they were on land claimed by Markham when they started to see cows bearing his Box M brand. They were good stock crossed between longhorns and shorthorns. They were wild and pretty fast, but they carried a good ration of beef. McAllister turned frequently in the saddle to admire them. He didn't give any sign that he knew what he was riding into. But both the other men were aware that he knew right enough. McAllister never did anything without his eyes open and with guile or calculated bluff.

McShannon was plain miserable. Besides being in pain, he did not look forward to what was coming. Jack Owen was plain scared. He knew what was coming right enough and he feared it. The only thing he didn't fear in this world was wild horses. Guns were things that he hated. And, to his mind, where there were men like Markham, there were guns. Markham was a big man, bigger than the law, men said. They also said that he had something like two hundred men working for him in his three outfits. He wasn't a king, he was an emperor. He had most of the creek sides dotted with land claims made by his men in this neck of the woods and that gave him control of the hinderland of grass, for grass was of no use to cattlemen without water. He owned similar claims in Montana and Colorado and his cows were reckoned at something like sixty thousand. Some said more. Not for him the formation of cattle companies on foreign capital. He owned his range, lock stock and barrel. Sure, he actually owned no more than the small claims along the creeks, but the rest he held by strength. And he looked as if he would go on holding it.

Jack compared what he and his partners owned with that of the emperor and it was less than nothing. Three claims along the creek side, five hundred head of cattle and maybe a hundred horses. And what were three men against an army? He cursed McShannon to himself. He, Jack Owen, was going on this crazy ride just because the fool had decided he wanted to spark a rich man's daughter. And because McShannon had been beaten and humiliated, McAllister had to act as if it had happened to him. Jack had felt safe since he had teamed up with McAllister and McShannon, there were two guns, ready and willing, standing between him and the rest of this wild western world, but now this. He felt as if he were riding to his own funeral.

McAllister jerked back over his shoulder: “We got company.”

Jack lifted his eyes.

Three riders dotted the next ridge. Fear fluttered through the little rider. He urged his red gelding up alongside the big man.

“What do we do?” he demanded. “You know Markham don't allow no outsiders on his range.”

“Leave this to me,” McAllister said. “Just sit tight and keep your mouth shut.”

Jack fell back to the rear, watching the three riders ahead loping their horses toward them. McAllister halted and the other two followed suit, Jack sitting tense in the saddle and McShannon drooping there. The three Box M men came up in style, brought their ponies to a running halt and showered tufts of grass and dirt everywhere. McAllister knew one of them slightly and had taken a drink with him once at a saloon in town. His name was Foley. He was a tough, bean-string of a man, pale-eyed and quiet. McAllister had gathered that he worked for Markham as one of his several straw-bosses.

He eyed McAllister and his two companions for a moment in silence, before he said: “McAllister,” in laconic greeting.

“Foley,” McAllister returned.

The thin rider put his eyes on McShannon who glared back belligerently.

“Didn't you have enough last night, boy?” Foley asked.

“Why you —” McShannon started to say.

McAllister cut in with: “I'm headin' for the house, Foley.”

Foley said: “No, you ain't, McAllister.”

“Who says not?”

“Mr. Markham. He says too there ain't to be no strangers on this range.”

McAllister said: “We're ridin' public domain an' we aim to stay on it. Step aside, Foley.”

One of the men with Foley said: “Don't start something you can't finish, McAllister. Back up. Turn around an' ride out.”

McAllister looked at the young boy who spoke.

“Sonny,” he said, “I never started anything I couldn't finish in my life. Step aside or get yourself blown outa the saddle.”

Foley blinked, not thinking that it would come to a naked
threat as quick as this. McAllister could see him weighing his chances. He knew McAllister's reputation and knew that there would be at least one maimed or dead man there inside a few short seconds if he didn't make the right move. Foley was tough right enough. A dozen trail drives from the Nueces in Texas to the Kansas stock yards, a score of brutal fights with boot, spur, gun and knife had proven that. He was a man whom life had taught to have confidence in himself. He rode tall in the saddle and looked trouble straight in the eye. He also knew when he was outclassed. It wasn't so much that this man McAllister was faster or more accurate with a gun than he was. It was something else. McAllister had a reputation. He never backed down and always came out on top. Foley had the feeling that if he pulled his gun now, he might clear leather first and get off the first shot, but just the same, he would end up dead and McAllister would end up riding on his way to headquarters.

Either way, Foley lost out. He was either out of a job or he was out of this world. He didn't like the idea of either. The idea of backing down to another man choked him.

“McAllister,” he said, letting none of his doubts show in his tone, but keeping it steady and thrusting, “you're liable to pile up a heap of grief for yourself and these young fellers along with you, if'n you head on east. Mr. Markham ain't feelin' so friendly after what happened last night. He don't never feel
too
friendly. Save trouble for us'ns an' yourself and turn around. I'm askin' you nice.”

“I appreciate that, Foley,” McAllister told him. “You've said your piece. Now step aside.”

In sad tones, Foley said: “You know I can't do that, McAllister.”

“We'll see about that,” McShannon said and with one battered hand made the one move that Foley didn't expect. He had been waiting for the same move from McAllister. McShannon drew his gun. He did it smoothly and with considerable speed. The three Box M men stared at him as if he had committed a breach of etiquette. McShannon cocked the weapon and went on: “I've had my bellyful of you old-timers chewin' the fat. Let's get on for Gawd's sake. Turn them crowbait's around after you've shucked them irons an' let's move.”

The three men moved their hands cautiously to their gun-
butts and with bitter eyes lifted the weapons from leather, dropping them on the ground.

“Jack,” McShannon said, “pick 'em up.”

Jack Owen moved fast to obey him, strung them on a peggin string and slung them from his saddlehorn.

McAllister said: “That was the wrong move, son.”

“Don't call me son,” McShannon snarled. “An' it was the move you'd of gotten around to in a coupla hours or so.”

“What's done's done. Let's ride. Move along, Box M.”

The three riders looked their defeat and hatred and turned their horses. They lifted them to a trot and the three friends followed them.

McAllister said without bitterness, but as if he was stating a plain fact: “You made damn sure we ride into real trouble, didn't you, boy.”

“We're headed for trouble, any road,” the boy snapped back. “When it comes to Injuns like Markham, there ain't big an' little trouble, there's just trouble. I'm keeping my gun out when I ride in.”

“You ain't ridin' in,” McAllister said.

“Who says I ain't.”

“I do.”

“You can't stop me.”

“I can an' I will.”

“How?”

“I'm bigger, stronger, faster, older and smarter. You go in there before I'm ready an' I'll beat the hide off'n you an' nail it to the barn door.”

“You tried it once.”

“An' besides - this is my courtin'. You had your chance last night.”

McShannon sneered, but he kept silent. Jack looked worriedly from one to the other as he did always when they quarreled this way.

They came in sight of the Box M headquarters. None of them had ever seen it before and they were impressed. They couldn't help it. Money had gone into the building of this place. It's corrals were all neat and in good repair and they looked as extensive as their own range. They could see a large rambling house of some charm and solid building. Shady stoops and galleries seemed to run clear around the place.
Scattered everywhere there seemed to be tight barns and bunkhouses for the men. This was the headquarters of an empire all right.

To reach the yard, they had to cross a bridge over the wide creek. The hoofs of six horses made thunder on the timber.

McAllister said to Jack Owen: “Jack, this side is clear of men. Get up in that barn yonder and cover the yard. Put your rifle on Markham and keep it there. He makes a move against me, drop him.”

Jack gave him a scared look, but he obeyed, swinging his horse away from the others in a wild dash for the barn in question.

“Kiowa,” McAllister said to McShannon, “take your bruises over to the corner of that corral there and do likewise. Also cover my back.” McShannon looked as if he would protest but McAllister gritted at him: :“Get do it, Goddam you.”

McShannon swung his horse to the left, swung down at the corner of the corral and ripped his Henry repeater from the saddleboot on the horse. McAllister continued on his way to the house.

In the yard, McAllister called for the men in front of him to halt.

“I reckon you'd best get back to work, fellers,” he told them. “We'll leave your guns where we took 'em. Move now.”

Foley rode his horse alongside McAllister's.

“You'll never live to leave 'em there,” he said.

McAllister smiled.

“Buy you a drink in town some time,” he said. “No hard feelin's.”

McAllister ran his eyes over the place. This was a working day and there weren't many men around. He didn't expect there would be. The blacksmith came out of his shop and stared at him, hammer in hand. A man limped to the door of the bunkhouse and stared in the same way. He looked like a rider who had injured himself. A curtain fluttered at an open window and McAllister knew that he was being observed by a woman.

A man walked out onto the stoop.

McAllister had seen him before in town, but did not know until now that this was Markham. And even now, it was only the air of the man that told him.

A brutal bull-frog of a man dressed like a thirty and found
range-hand. His small, pale, red-rimmed eyes fixed themselves on McAllister. He was a man who dominated his world, who demanded and had his demands satisfied at the snap of his fingers,

McAllister swung down from the saddle,

“Markham?”