McAllister suddenly didn’t like it. Not one part of it.
Maybe it was because of the weariness that had soaked through into his very bones, but the machinery of his body was not working properly. He knew that his reactions were slow. As they rode in single file along the narrow trail, he looked back at Spur. Sam looked cheerful enough. As usual, he was calm. Behind him rode the girl. The honey color of her skin was being burned to a rich brown by the strong sun. She was, McAllister thought, a woman in a million and, when they were out of this, she would make Sam a good wife. The two Mexicans brought up the rear and their excitement showed in the dark glitter of their eyes.
Why go on? McAllister thought.
What was the point? They were alive and they might not be if they went ahead with this craziness. It wasn’t too late to pull out. All they were enjoying now was revenge and that was a commodity that usually ended up as a nasty taste in the mouth. He thought about Rawley and the kind of man he was and he reckoned he didn’t like what his mind revealed to him. The fellow was an inhuman monster and the world would be a better place without him. But did that mean that none other than Remington McAllister must rid the world of him? Hell, he was always getting himself onto crusades like this. Why couldn’t he find himself a quiet job of a dollar-a-day cowhand where the most that could happen was that he could get himself killed by an angry steer or kicked by an irate mustang?
But he was in this now. His friends were in it and maybe he owed it to the men who had died back there at the mine. In the West, every man was his own policeman and justice had to be done.
But he wasn’t convinced. He’d still rather be in El Paso with a drink in his hand and a pretty girl by his side.
There was the ridge, reared up in front of them.
He halted and stepped down from the saddle. Leather creaked as the others followed suit.
He said to Carlita: ‘You stay with the horses, girl.’
In Spanish she said: ‘There is no need for anybody to stay with the horses and I can shoot as well as a man.’
‘For Crissake,’ he said. ‘We could want them horses on the run. You hold ’em and you bring ’em to us if we break down timber outa there.’
Sam said shortly: ‘Do like he says, honey.’
McAllister looked at his friend, sensing tenseness in his voice.
The men handed their lines to the girl. She touched Sam on the arm and smiled up at him and McAllister envied him. He reckoned he’d have to get around to finding a girl like Carlita for himself. There were worse fates a man could suffer.
They pulled their rifles out and looked at each other, then McAllister led the way up the steep slope. It wasn’t easy climbing with a rifle in your hand, for the way was almost perpendicular and there were jagged rocks all the way. They were all winded when they reached the top and they lay on the ground below the ridge-top and waited for their wind to return. McAllister peeked over at the camp below.
It looked much the same as when he had looked at it previously. The sleeping figures were still in their blankets. The cook was busy at his fire. A man sat with his back to the stored packs, smoking. He felt that something was wrong, but he couldn’t say what. Surely, if this was a trap, those men would not expose themselves down there.
Sam joined him.
‘Looks all right,’ Sam said after a while.
McAllister said: ‘I don’t like it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. Just somethin’ I feel in my water.’
Sam looked at him. He knew McAllister’s hunches and respected them.
He said: ‘All right. Let’s shoot hell out of’em and make tracks.’
The sun hit metal about thirty feet above the camp. There were some men in the rocks there. McAllister touched Sam’s arm and pointed. Sam nodded.
‘There’s somebody there all right,’ he said. ‘You take them. Me and the boys’ll shoot up the camp.’
McAllister ranged his eyes around, but could find nothing. Maybe he was wrong after all. He levered a round into the breech of the rifle. It wasn’t going to be easy shooting downhill. He wished he had his old Henry.
Sam said: ‘Open the ball.’
McAllister laid his eyes on the rocks immediately above the camp, found the glitter of metal and aimed just above and behind it. He squeezed the trigger. The glitter of metal disappeared. Sam and the two Mexicans started firing.
The cook dove for cover. The man sitting on the packs, rolled over and dropped down behind them. The sleeping men didn’t move.
Sam yelled: ‘You were right.’
Then all hell broke loose.
The peak above the camp erupted with fire. Lead whined through the air and slugs ploughed into the ridgetop, hit rock and whined away to the heavens, blasted dust into the faces of the attackers. Porfirio gave a low cry, jerked violently to his feet, seemed to step into space and rolled head over heels down the face of the ridge. Bullets slapped into him as he fell and he was shot ragged by the time his body lay still, caught in some brush.
McAllister backed up into better cover and raised his rifle to cover the peak. But there was little he could see to shoot at and he knew that the men up there could still see him plainly.
Sam yelled: ‘Run,’ and rolled back down the ridgeside. For a moment, McAllister thought that he was hit, but, as he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Sam was on his feet climbing down as fast as he could go. Diaz was on his feet too, leaping down the steep slope, agile as a goat.
McAllister got to his knees and heard the horses.
He turned his head and saw the riders coming from the south on the run.
Something like panic hit him then and he moved. Bullets were still raining around him. He started down the slope. Even as he climbed down, his mind was measuring distances. The horsemen were coming as fast as they could over the difficult ground, yelling and firing their guns. The girl was running forward with the horses. Sam stopped and fired at the riders. That didn’t stop them. They swept on. The girl was screaming to him. He ran on. Diaz reached the bottom first, tore his line from the girl’s hand and vaulted into the saddle. McAllister yelled to the girl to get going, but her whole mind was on Sam and his escape.
Sam reached the bottom, shouted something to the girl and vaulted into the saddle. He stopped to give the girl a hand up. The canelo, panicked suddenly, swung away to one side and the girl lost him. Sam struck the girl’s horse on the rump with his rifle butt and it jumped forward into a run. Sam turned in the saddle and started firing at the riders.
McAllister reached the canelo and the animal jumped away from him. He swore violently, cheeked it and got into the saddle. Sam whirled his own mount and rammed home the spurs. McAllister yelled to his horse, spurred and followed.
At once disaster struck.
As the horse turned and jumped forward, something struck McAllister at chest height and tore him from the saddle. He bounced on his horse’s rump and then hit the ground. The canelo barged against the tree that had unhorsed McAllister and scampered off. McAllister floundered for a moment like a landed fish, shocked and winded. He knew that he had lost his rifle.
The thunder and clatter of hoofs filled his ears.
He got to one knee and his right hand automatically went down to the butt of the Remington. But before he could clear it from leather a horse’s breath was on his face and the shoulder of the animal caught him and flung him to one side. A yell reached him. He struck the ground hard on one shoulder and a voice in his head screamed at him to keep moving. He staggered to his feet, his hand searching for a gun that wasn’t there. There seemed to be horses and men all around him.
A man laughed. His voice was high-pitched with excitement.
McAllister blundered blindly into a horse and his hands grasped at a man’s leg. Something struck him in the face, but he didn’t go down. At all costs, he mustn’t go down. He must keep fighting. He had a hold of a rider, tearing him ferociously from the saddle and dumping him on the ground. He heard the man yell out and drove his foot at his blurred form. Hoofs pounded and a horse barged into him, sending him to his hands and knees. Something struck him hard in the kidneys and he arched his back with agony. A sharp heel crashed into his ribs. He clutched unseeing at a foot and reared like a leviathan to his feet. A hard object smashed into his head from behind and he toppled forward like a great tree.