Vengeance of McAllister (A Rem McAllister Western) by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm [Chisholm, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

WHEN THEY CAME out of the office with the threats and pleadings of the sheriff and the doctor going with them, they found the street empty except for a handful of folks whose curiosity held them rooted there. The rest, including the armed and mounted men were gone. Neither McAllister nor Avard spoke, both were tense and occupied with what they were doing and what they would be called upon to do in the hours ahead. If there were any hours ahead.

As he heaved a wounded man into the saddle and lashed his feet beneath the belly of the horse, McAllister thought: This goddamed sheriff knows we’re headed for San Antone. Why the hell do I open my big mouth?

He looked at Ransome Keys Avard and found the man as calm and unperturbed as when he had braced the crowd. He asked himself why a saddle bum headed in the opposite direction a good many hundred miles away should end up right here when he was most needed. That bore studying.

Avard mounted and looked at him.

The sheriff, anguish on his face, his reputation in the country maybe ruined beyond repair, said weakly: ‘You’re going to regret this.’

‘If it’s any comfort to you,’ McAllister said, ‘I’m regretting it already. I should of killed these two sonsabitches back at Rockwell’s place. I should have let Jen lie.’

The doctor said: ‘You won’t get a mile. I’ll wager on it.’

They walked the horses down the street, slowly, letting their eyes take everything in, their rifles held ready. But nothing happened. The heat pressed down on them, the brown dust rose from under their horses’ hoofs and the flies buzzed. They reached the bridge over the creek and hoof-beats sounded hollow on the thick planks. The mesquite grew thick along the edge of the water and it could be hiding hidden guns. McAllister looked at Avard. The saddle bum was still calm. He was smiling faintly. Why should a man gently reared be a drifting vagrant? Why should a man who was riding the grub line own a horse that many a man would covet?

They started up the trail from the bridge, slowly climbing the bald hill over which the trail made its way. Once at the top they would be outlined clearly as targets for any guns below or beyond them in the brush. McAllister sought back in his memory.

Almost to the top of the steep slope, he turned his horse left and to Avard who brought up the rear it seemed that the man disappeared into a solid wall of a thicket. The wounded men slowly followed and as Avard went after them he saw that there was a trail here so narrow that man and horse could scarcely enter. After they had gone forward for some fifty paces, however, the trail opened out and they were riding along the edge of a glade above the bank of the creek.

McAllister rode back to Avard and said: ‘They’ll make their first try on the main trail.

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