Tough to Kill (9 page)

He landed so hard that he thought that he must have at least broken an ankle. He rolled and came up on his feet and found to his astonishment that he was still whole. At once he set off running, glancing back to see the dim bulk of Markham on the gallery. Even as he looked he heard the second report and saw the muzzleflash of the gun. This time the bullet went a foot wide, but that wasn't far enough for McShannon's comfort. He was tempted to stop and snap off a shot at the old fool, but he knew that might endanger Alvina. So he just kept on going.

Markham was bawling for his men to turn out and hunt down the intruder. Behind that sound, McShannon could hear Alvina screaming. He would have thought that the sweet
and gentle girl would have had such a strident sound stored up in her.

He ran on.

A man shouted in the front yard.

McShannon blessed the fact that he wasn't wearing boots. Like this he could outrun an Indian. He stretched his stride to a long untiring pace and prayed that the men left at the ranch were still horseless. He quickly left the house behind him and within a short while reached his horse. He paused for a moment to regain his breath, tightened the girth and stepped into the saddle. Turning the horse, he set off south. He laughed as he went. He could have wished that Markham could have waited five minutes longer before suspecting that there was a man in his daughter's room, so that true manhood could have been proven, but he didn't really have any grumbles. He knew now that Alvina looked on him kindly and that he only had to find the ways and means and she was his. He'd made a damn fool out of Markham, any road. He looked forward to the meeting at Indian Rock.

He took a devious trail back into the hills in case any of Markham's riders had been sent to follow him, watched his back-trail as carefully as he could, and reached camp the following morning about two hours after dawn. Jack Owen and Sarie were working horses and hardly seemed to have time to spare him a word. He ate some stew that he found on the pot by the fire, rolled up in his blankets and fell into a deep sleep during which he dreamed of the fair Alvina.

When he woke an hour after noon, he found himself alone in camp with Sarie.

“Where's Jack?” he asked, sitting up in his blankets.

Sarie pulled a face.

“He said McAllister went a-courtin', you been a-courtin
⁹
, now it's time he done some. I don't know what's gotten into you men.”

“Jack gone courtin'?” he said, amazed. That could only mean the meakest and mildest of the three partners had gone into the hornets' nest to find Lucy. He'd be lucky if he didn't get himself killed. He washed his face in the creek, wondering what he ought to do. There was Sarie and the horses here and Jack Owen somewhere down there on the plain making a fool of himself and McShannon didn't know which he ought to be with. Then ‘to hell with Owen', he thought. If he couldn't
look after himself he shouldn't go courting a Markham. Somebody had to stay with Sarie and the horses and that meant him.

When he went back to the fire, Sarie had a cup of coffee ready for him. He squatted on his heels and drank the scalding bitter liquid.

“You ridin' in the race?” Sarie asked.

He'd clean forgotten about the race.

“Sure,” he said carelessly. Where there was a race, McShannon would ride in it as a matter of course.

“Which horse're you ridin'?”

“My sorrel, of course. We don't have anything to match my black.”

Sarie snorted. She rode every horse she could get her leg over and she had firm opinions on the merits of the animals. McShannon gave her a look.

“You think we got something better'n the sorrel?”

“I don't know we got any thin' better than the sorrel. Not just like that.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“We got a horse that could beat the sorrel with me up.”

“You? You ain't ridin' in no race.”

“I am so.”

“I ain't allowin' it.”

“You can go chase yourself. Jack says I can ride the red stallion.”

“He'd kill you.”

“I ride him every day. He's real gentle. Ill win the race on him.”

“What in hell does Jack think he's doin' lettin' you ride a horse like that in the race?”

“I'm light. The red can win with me on him.”

When McShannon had finished the coffee he and the girl went to look at the horses. The sorrel was in fine fettle. McShannon threw a hull on him and stepped astride. He watched Sarie put a kind of a surcingle on a lively bay and get lightly aboard. He saw that she had been right and the usually fiery animal was gentle with her. It obeyed the child with no more than the surcingle and a hackamore on. They rode down a nearby valley together and they let the horses go. The sorrel at once forced the pace as by habit, but the bay with its light
load up, slowly overtook it. They ran a mile together and then pulled the horses in.

Grudgingly, McShannon said: “Kid, you can sure make that horse step it out”

She grinned at him maddeningly and said: “We're goin' to win that race. Nobody'll catch me on the stallion.”

He had to laugh.

“That would sure make Markham mad - being beaten by a kid. I'd like to see that.”

They turned their animals and trotted back to camp.

McAllister was nervous on three counts. He was nervous the woman would come and he wouldn't know what to say to her. He was nervous she might not want to or be able to come. And he was nervous that she might lead some of Markham's riders to him. Many who knew him thought him to be a wildly reckless man, but there was a strong streak of caution in him. That was how he had managed to survive on a dangerous frontier.

He squatted above the canyon, smoking his pipe. His horse was tied below him and toward the mouth of the canyon. The dun was more than half mustang and was the best watchdog a man could have. If there were strangers around, the horse would let him know.

The morning was ticking away, the sun had climbed high in the sky and the heat was increasing. Still Carlotta did not come. From where he was he could see far out into the main valley, the way surely she must come.

It was noon and he was starting to feel the pangs of hunger when he heard a faint sound behind him. He looked down at the dun, but the animal had not heard in the depth of the canyon. He turned and listened.

The chink of a steel-shod shoe on stone reached him and he knew that a ridden horse was approaching him from the
high country. Whoever came could not see him because he was screened by a wild tumble of rocks. Rising to his feet, he went forward bent double and peered through the rocks. At first he could see nothing, but after a minute or two, a rider came in sight. It was Carlotta. Against a background of barren stone and rearing mesaland, she came trotting toward him. He lifted an arm in salute and she returned it.

She was mounted on a small roan mare that picked its way daintily over the stone-littered ground. Carlotta was dressed in a divided skirt, a man's shirt and a man's hat, yet in McAllister's eyes never could a woman have looked more feminine. She brought the roan to a halt and, after hesitating for a moment, McAllister went forward to lift her down. To his pleasure, she put out her hands to him with a warm smile and, when he lifted her effortlessly out of the saddle, she came into his arms with a naturalness that filled him with a sudden excitement. He kissed her and she responded. They looked at each other and laughed with delight.

“You didn't come the way I expected,” he told her. “I reckoned on you comin' up the valley and into the canyon that way.”

“I thought maybe I would be followed,” she told him.

“And were you?”

“I don't think so. I watched my back trail carefully.”

A vague worry touched McAllister. Markham could have had her watched, knowing that she might lead him to McAllister. It was possible and his instincts were working overtime.

With one arm around Carlotta, he ran his eyes over the terrain. They fell on the sweep of grassed and timbered land that ran halfway up the west face of the mesa. From there he would have good sight of the northern plain. No riders could approach without him seeing them. He thought of the dun in the canyon below. He had watered the animal shortly before and it was in shade. It would do well enough down there. He was tempted to climb down and fetch it, but he knew that his time with Carlotta would be short, so he decided to leave the horse where it was. With his arm around Carlotta and leading the mare, he walked toward the timbered slope. They were soon in the shade of the trees and Carlotta was taking several small parcels from her saddlebags.

Over her shoulder, she said: “I brought some food. I thought you might be hungry.”

“Wonderful woman,” he told her. “I knew you'd appeal to my stomach as well as my heart.”

They picnicked in the cool, drinking cold coffee from a bottle, not talking much, just content to be in each other's company. When they had done eating, they lay on the grass under the tree and made love,

*

McAllister woke.

He didn't know what had awoken him. He raised himself on an elbow and looked down at the woman beside him. She opened her eyes and straightway smiled at him. He leaned down and kissed her.

The roan whickered.

He knew then that that had been the sound that had woken him. With his right hand, he reached out for his gunbelt and holster, slinging them around his waist and tightening the buckle.

“Honey,” he said softly, “I reckon we have company.”

She looked a little startled and sat up. When she glanced in the direction he was looking she saw that the mare was looking north with her ears forward.

McAllister moved away cautiously through the trees. Womanlike, she tidied her hair and put her hat on. She was still conscious only of McAllister and what had happened between them. She had given herself to a man freely and with delight in a way that she had never thought possible to her. He had brought to her a sense of peace and happiness that she had thought beyond her reach. She knew there might be danger near, but she couldn't fully accept it. It was as though she were still living in a dream.

McAllister came back through the trees and went down on one knee beside her.

“Carlotta,” he said, “there's two men below us and one of ‘em's workin' his way around to the south.”

She was worried then and looked it.

“Is one of them Foley?” she asked.

He nodded.

“One looks like him. Now, listen. They're on foot and they know we're up here. They mean to creep up on two sides.
What you have to do is get on the mare and ride around the east side of the mesa and get around to the north an' go on home.”

“But what about you?”

“You're not to start till you hear me fire a shot. You hear that shot, you get aboard the mare an' don't you stop for anything.”

She put a hand gently on his shoulder.

“I'm not going to leave you to face trouble.”

“The only way we can get out of this is for me to lead these men away from you.”

“I won't-”

“There's somethin' you'll have to learn about me, honey. I'm selfish and ornery. I just have to have my own way. You're to do as you're told.”

He said it gently and he smiled when he said it, but she fired up a little at his words. She wasn't used to taking orders from any other man but her brother.

“I don't like taking orders,” she said.

“I don't like gettin' caught in the company of beautiful women,” he told her. “It kind of upsets my aim.” He kissed her and she laughed. “Get ready now, we don't have too much time.”

“When will I see you again?”

“At the race.”

“You're not-?”

“Sure I am. All three of us are.

He stood up and smiled down at her. “Be good now and don't look at any other men.”

She looked him full in the eyes and returned his smile.

“Be careful, Rem,” she said.

“First time you ever called me by my name,” he said, lifted his hand and walked off through the trees.

When he got to the edge of the trees, he tried to catch sight of the man nearest to him, but could not. He knew that he was in for a tough time in the next thirty minutes or so. The two men down below him both had rifles and he had nothing but his belt-gun. And, if he was going to successfully lead them away from Carlotta, they would have to see him. If they could see him, they could shoot him. And he had the feeling that this time the play would be really serious and rough. The
time for fists and feet was over. If it was Foley down there, it would be lead that settled this.

He took a deep breath, a good swallow and walked out of the trees. In front of him, the sloping shelf of grassland ran for about fifty paces and then dropped away to the level land that ran for a quarter of a mile open and almost bare of cover to the lip of the canyon. He would have to cross that to reach his horse.

He took a dozen paces, his nerves tense, waiting for the shot that was bound to come.

It came.

The bullet sang past him at a distance of no more than a yard. He dropped into the grass on the instant and lay flat.

What smart thing do I do now to save the situation?
he asked himself. And he didn't find any answer. All he knew was that there was a man below the lip of the shelf in pretty nearly perfect cover and beyond the range of his Remington pistol. He hoped that the rifle-shot would bring the man working his way around the east on the run. That would leave the way clear for Carlotta to escape.

He pulled the Remington from leather, checked the loads and waited.

The rifle sounded again and his hat was whisked from his head. It travelled a few yards and he hugged the ground close when he went to retrieve it. He didn't put it on again. He spotted the whisp of smoke from the rifle and knew that the marksman had changed his position. He had the feeling that he was up against Foley.