Blood on Mcallister by Matt Chisholm Page B

settlers, people had come from other towns along the railroad. It was going to be a bigger thing than McAllister had thought. A fact that increased the danger, either to himself or to Billy Gage. He wished to heaven he could be sure of Billy one way or the other. He liked the man, but some doubt was still in his mind, though he had to admit, that the man’s bewilderment out on the prairie there had been genuine. He hoped so. But if Gage was innocent, what could he do to protect him? Worried, he watched the people below him, hoping vainly that he would see a face below which he could identify with one he had seen in Abbotsville. He thought he saw several, but he couldn’t be sure.
    He turned from the window, pulled off his boots and lay down on Rosa’s heavenly bed. In seconds he was sound asleep.
    He awoke easily to find the room full of soft warm light and there was Rosa standing smiling down at him. For the first time he wondered to himself why he didn’t give up his fiddlefootedness and settle down with her. She was a woman in a million.
    â€˜All through?’ he asked.
    â€˜Nothing the boys can’t handle,’ she told him. ‘Get your clothes off and get into bed like a civilised man.’
    â€˜That’s somethin’ I’m not,’ he laughed.
    â€˜Just as well,’ she said, ‘or I wouldn’t have noticed you. We’re both savages.’ She unfastened her dress and peeled it off. In a few seconds she stood naked before him.
    Seriously, he told her: ‘You’re just about perfect, sweetheart.’ She pulled a face at him and climbed into bed. He got off the bed and hurried then, taking off his clothes and jumping into bed beside her.
    Her voice full of laughter, she told him: ‘You should think of tomorrow and sleep on the couch.’
    â€˜Just what a man needs in training,’ he told her solemnly and she came into his arms.

Eight
    It was dawn when he awoke from habit and Rosa slept soundly beside him. She looked like an innocent child, her hair curled softly about her face and he knew a moment of deep tenderness for her. When he threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, she did not stir. He saw himself reflected for a moment in her long mirror and knew that she had been right—he was indeed a savage: the face was that of an Indian. Maybe his father had spoken the truth and his mother had been a Cheyenne. Certainly the eyes were all Indian, black like obsidian. The hard dark body, lean with slender muscles of pure stamina, could have been that of a young Cheyenne brave. The hands and feet were those of a whiteman, the hands large and powerful, gnarled by the use of a rope.
    He inspected the knife wound that ran angrily down the side of his rib-cage and he had to admit that it didn’t look so good. The center of the long slash was badly contused and where the doctor had resewn it looked horrible. He knew that it could easily go bad on him. But he must get through today somehow. He only hoped that Billy Gage didn’t know of the wound so that he could work on it during the fist fight. He took a look at the burn and the knife wound on his breastbone, gathered while he was a captive of the Cheyenne and decided they were doing well. The knife cut might disappear in time, but the burn would mark him till the end of his days.
    He dressed slowly and silently so as not to wake the girl, pulled on his Cheyenne moccasins and tiptoed from the room. Down in the saloon, there was only one man on duty now, leaning sleepily on the bar-top listening to the monotonous ramblings of a drunk. Another man lay asleep across a table, a third lay stretched out on the floor. He went out of the saloon, turned down an alleyway and walked out through a vacant lot onto the prairie beyond. He walked down to the creek past the stock pens and the railroad tracks and came into complete silence. Here was absolute peace and he sat there watching the softly