Cry of Eagles (5 page)

On the trail up into the mountains, Falcon tried to calm himself down. He knew he was traveling into dangerous territory, and he needed a clear head. It was a strange fact, but true, that the surest way to get killed in battle was to be angry. The mind had to be calm and settled, or the body would die.

He took a deep breath of the cool, crisp autumn air, glancing around at the mountain forest he was heading into. The pinyon trees were a deep emerald green, while some other trees Falcon didn't recognize had already started to change their leaves into brilliant patterns of gold and scarlet. It was the best time of year in some of the prettiest country God ever made.

He let Diablo find his own pace up the mountain, while he sat back against the cantle and lighted a cigar, letting his mind roam back to happier times.

After a while, he felt better. His heart had slowed to its normal beat, and his mind was focused. As he neared the spot where the cabin was supposed to be located, he began to search the trail and surrounding brush for Indian sign.

Finally, he came to a small clearing in the trees off to the side of the trail. He could see a wooden cabin about fifty yards into the forest, with a cleared area around it containing a couple of corrals and outbuildings.

He eased out of the saddle and pulled his Colt, holding it ready at his side. There was a chance the Indians might have come back for something they missed, and the smell of blood could have drawn wolves or a bear to the spot. In any case, it was wise to be prepared for anything.

In front of the cabin door he found where two or three people had died. Their blood had soaked into the already reddish-brown dirt, making it a deep crimson, almost black, color. From the way the ground was torn up, he could see they hadn't died easy.

Earing back the hammer on his pistol, he slipped in the door of the cabin, standing with his back against the wall until his vision adjusted to the gloomy interior.

His nostrils dilated, and his stomach churned at the smell of dried blood, excrement, and seared flesh that still hung on the air like a malevolent fog. Blood and body fluid stains were splattered on walls and floors and wooden furniture all about the cabin. The place had the appearance and odor of a slaughterhouse.

As he walked through the tiny room he found two dresses, one adult and one child size. They had been torn off the females of the family. In the corner against a far wall was a reddish clump of meat. Falcon squatted before it and poked it with his Arkansas Toothpick, a knife with a long, stiletto-type blade ten inches long and razor-sharp. He almost lost his breakfast when he realized it was a human liver.

He whirled away from the grizzly find and searched the rest of the cabin, finding nothing of interest except that all of the cabinets were emptied of foodstuffs and supplies and a crude gun rack nailed to the wall was bare, with two empty crushed boxes of .44 cartridges on the floor nearby.

As he stood there, hands on hips, looking at the empty cupboard, the door behind him gave a tiny creak. He whirled, bringing his pistol up.

“Hold on there, Sonny Jim,” said a man standing in the doorway. He was dressed in buckskins, with knee-high leather moccasins on his feet, a bushy beard on his face, and he held what looked like a Sharps .50 caliber rifle cradled in his hands pointing at Falcon.

“Just what're you doin' in this here cabin?” he asked.

“I'm looking around,” Falcon answered, his pistol still pointed at the man's gut.

The figure leaned to the side and spit a wad of tobacco out of his mouth onto the floor. “What say we both put these guns up and palaver fer a spell?”

Falcon holstered his Colt. “All right, but outside if you don't mind. I need some fresh air.”

“It is a bit ripe in here, ain't it?” the man said as he backed out the door of the cabin.

Outside, Falcon took a deep breath, trying to clear the stink of death from his lungs.

The man in buckskin walked to a fallen tree on the edge of the forest and sat, resting his Sharps on his lap. Falcon sat next to him and stared at the cabin, trying not to think of the unendurable agony the settlers must have gone through a few nights ago.

“My name's John Henry Hawkins, but most just calls me Hawk,” the man said, also staring at the cabin.

“I'm Falcon MacCallister.”

Hawk glanced at Falcon, his eyes narrowed. “What's yore interest in this cabin, Falcon?”

Falcon's eyes clouded, his mind returning to the story his father, Jamie Ian MacCallister, told him about the death of his wife. Marie Gentle Breeze, as she was called, was captured by a band of Indians who tried to take her north with them as a slave. She fought them all the way, until they killed her. They crushed her head with a war axe, raped her many times, and threw her body in the Colored River. Jamie MacCallister rode and walked for miles on either side of the river, searching for Marie. He finally found her body wedged between a large rock and a tree, a few feet away from the west bank of the river.

Jamie gathered what was left of Marie's body and buried it nearby, piling a mound of rocks over the grave and marking it carefully. He rode over to the mining town of Georgetown and got himself a room at Louis Dupuy's fancy Hotel De Paris and sent word to Falcon. (Scream of Eagles)

For all intents and purposes, Falcon's world had ended that day. His gentle Marie, the love of his life and mother of his children, was gone forever. She had been taken from him the same way these poor folks had been taken, violently and horribly, suffering as no one should ever be made to suffer.

Falcon looked at Hawk and said simply, “My wife was killed by renegades a while back. I don't intend to let this massacre go unanswered.”

Hawk nodded. He pulled out a twist of tobacco from his shirt pocket and cut a piece off with a large Bowie knife from a scabbard on his belt. As he chewed the tobacco, he watched the cabin.

“One of the men killed here was my baby brother. I sent word to him a few months back an' tole him how much silver was to be had out here in the Dragoons.”

Hawk's head dropped and he stared at the ground between his feet. “Damn fool brought his wife an' daughter an' two other pilgrims with him from back east.”

He looked up at Falcon with red-rimmed eyes. “I tried to tell ‘im to leave the womenfolk in town an' let me teach ‘em somthin' ‘bout livin' out here in the wilderness 'fore they tried to settle in, but they wouldn't listen.”

Hawk waved his hand in a circle, “This is mighty purty land, but it's wild, like the beasts that live here. Ain't no place for pilgrims an' women.” He shook his head, “I shore wish they'd listened to me.”

Falcon studied Hawk as he talked. The man didn't look like a typical miner. “How long have you been mining out here, Hawk?”

Hawk spat, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fer ‘bout a year, more or less. I scouted fer the army for a spell, then tried my hand at huntin' buffalo.” He looked at Falcon. “When the buffalo got scarce, I heared ‘bout the silver strike near Tombstone and just kind'a drifted this way.”

He glanced at the cabin. “God knows I wished I'd never have come here.”

“What are your plans now?” Falcon asked.

Hawk turned eyes full of hate on Falcon. “I plan to hunt down the murderin' bastards that did this an' do to them what they did to my kin. I ain't gonna rest ‘til my hoss is carryin' they scalps.”

Falcon glanced at the cabin and the dark stains in front of it. He got up and walked to the place where the dirt was soggy with blood. Squatting, he dipped his finger in the soil and rubbed a horizontal crimson streak across each of his cheeks, like warpaint.

“You want some company?” he asked.

Hawk pulled out his knife and stuck the point into his thumb. When blood welled up, he wiped his thumb across his cheeks as Falcon had, then stuck out his hand. “To the death.”

“To the death,” Falcon repeated, taking his hand.

“Then let's git movin', partner. We're burnin' daylight, an' I got me some Injuns to kill.”

Hawk's words and the hate in them gave Falcon a chill. He wanted to go after the men that did this, but he knew they had to have clear heads. He wondered if Hawk's anger was going to get them both killed.

After sealing their agreement to ride together after the Indians that had killed the settlers, Falcon took a weathered set of buckskins of his own out of his saddlebags and changed into them. When Hawk gave him a questioning look, Falcon explained, “These are my going to war clothes.”

Along with buckskin trousers and shirt and Apache-style moccasins that rose to his knees, Falcon added a brace of Colt .44 caliber pistols and his Arkansas Toothpick to his belt. He loosened his Winchester .44/.40 carbine in a rifle boot on the right side of his saddle and tied a Standard ten gauge sawed-off double-barrel shotgun to the pommel with a braided rawhide strap, where it would be within easy reach should they be attacked without warning.

Hawk stepped up to his horse, a buckskin, tan with black mane and tail. He took from his saddlebags a belt and single holster holding an old Colt Army .44 and strapped it on, then stuck an extra pistol in the left side of his belt, butt first for a cross-hand draw. He pulled a small canvas bag full of shells for his Sharps and attached it to his belt next to the scabbard for his Bowie knife.

While he swung into the saddle, Falcon walked over to the corral and bent close to the ground, studying the tracks that led away from the cabin and into the woods.

“I make it about ten or eleven Indians, leading another five or six horses and mules, which are riderless. The Indians are all riding horses with shoes on, so they must be stolen from either the army or others they've killed,” Falcon said.

Hawk cut another piece of tobacco from the twist in his shirt. He stuck it in his mouth and chewed for a moment before shifting the cud to his left cheek. “That figures. The Injuns never did figure out how to remove horseshoes from their mounts. One thing, though, it'll shore make it easier to track ‘em crost the mountains. Those shoes'll leave marks on hard-packed ground an' rock, whereas Injun ponies wouldn't.”

Falcon swung into into the saddle and reined Diablo's head around until he was heading in the same direction as the Indian band.

“Since you used to be a scout for the army, you want to lead the way?” Falcon asked.

Hawk spat, hitting a scurrying ground squirrel dead center. “Don't mind if'n I do. Might be a mite rusty, though. Hadn't done this for a lotta years, partner.”

Letting his horse walk at an easy pace, leaning his head to the side to watch the tracks, Hawk led the way into the forest. The Indians had not taken the trail, but ridden straight up the side of the mountain through scattered cacti and creosote bushes and small stands of pinyon trees, as if trying to hide their trail.

After they had traveled about a hundred and fifty yards into the thick overgrowth, Hawk's horse suddenly whinnied in a harsh squeal and reared up on his hind legs, almost throwing Hawk to the ground.

“What the—” Hawk exclaimed, fighting the reins.

Falcon filled his fist with iron and rode up beside the man, fearing an attack.

He slowly holstered his gun and blinked startled eyes at what he saw facing them.

One of the settler's heads was impaled on a spear, stuck into the ground, facing the Indians' back trail with a leering stare, blood trailing down the spear. The eyes were black with flies and a trail of red ants were making their way up the wood from the ground.

“Damn,” Hawk said in a husky voice. “I ain't never seen nothin' like that.”

“I haven't, either,” Falcon said. “But I heard that the soldiers over at Fort Grant, the prison fort for Apaches and other lawbreakers in Arizona Territory, once did that to an Indian as an example for the others not to try to escape. His name was Delshey, and it was said that his grinning, fleshless skull stood in the entrance to the fort for months, greeting all who entered.”

“You think maybe the ones done this is from Fort Grant?”

“Could be, or it just might be their way of warning anyone who tries to trail them what is waiting for them up ahead.”

Falcon and Hawk took the head and buried it in the soft sandy loam of the mountainside. As they walked back to their horses, Falcon picked up the spear and wiped the blood and insects off, sticking it under his saddleskirts alongside Diablo's flank.

“What you want with that old spear?” Hawk asked.

“The same thing the Indians used it for.”

“I don't get ya.”

“We're going up against at least ten Indians, who've already proven they're vicious killers. I've heard there's another fifteen or twenty headed this way who may join up with the ones we're after. The only chance the two of us have to come out of this with our hair is to spread a little fear into the men we're hunting, perhaps make them careless.”

“Go on.”

“That means we've got to be every bit as ruthless as they are, and this spear is going to let them know that we're on their trail and we mean to give them no quarter.”

Falcon stepped into the stirrups and swung into line behind Hawk as he followed the Indians' trail. As the old scout rode along, Falcon could hear him talking to himself in a constant monotone. He guessed his many years of being alone had affected him in some way.
I just hope he's good with that Sharps
, Falcon thought, his eyes searching the forest on either side of them for ambushers as they rode.

When dusk began to fall, they made a cold camp, unable to build a fire that would give their position away. Falcon took out some biscuits and roast meat he'd bought at Campbell and Hatch's before leaving Tombstone. He gave a couple to Hawk, and they sat on their saddles under a pinyon tree and had supper.

After he took a deep swig from his canteen, Falcon glanced at Hawk. “One of our problems is going to be water. From what I hear, the Dragoon Mountains are damn near as dry as the desert.”

Hawk chuckled. “You're shore right there, Falcon. That's one of the things that keeps the army from bein' able to track the Injuns. Most of the blue-bellies are too dumb to find water to conform out here. They ain't taken the time to learn how to find the hidden springs, or to mark on their maps where the few streams are located.”

“You figure you can do that?”

Hawk shrugged. “Been doin' it for years. They's certain signs you look for, and you can dig down a foot or two and find water ever time. It ain't tasty, but it's wet, an' it'll keep you alive.”

“Good,” Falcon said. “That's one less thing we have to worry about.”

“How do you think we ought to handle it when we find the Injuns?” Hawk asked around a mouthful of meat and bread.

“If we knew they had only single-shot rifles or bows and arrows and if we caught them by surprise we could probably take on ten at one time.”

“What makes you think otherwise?”

“I can't see four men and their womenfolk trying to settle out here without weapons. I didn't find any at the cabin, so the Indians have whatever the settlers had, plus whatever they got from the men whose horses they stole.” He shook his head. “I think we've got to assume they have repeating rifles and act accordingly.”

“That means followin' 'em to their camp an' then pickin' 'em off by ones and twos,” Hawk said.

“Uh huh.”

“You think we're good enough to do that and stay hidden where the rest of the band cain't find us?”

Falcon leaned back against his saddle and pulled his hat low over his eyes. “I guess we'll soon find out.”

Hawk looked around at the darkness surrounding them and grunted. “I was afraid you was gonna say that.”

From underneath his hat brim, Falcon answered. “Of course, if the leader of this band is Naiche, his name's going to be a powerful draw to the other young bucks in the territory. I figure word will have gotten out by now that he's on the warpath, and others will be straggling in to join him in twos and threes from just about every direction. One thing's certain, we're going to have plenty of targets long before we catch up with the main band.”

Hawk drew his pistol and laid it on his chest as he lay back to sleep. “You're just full of good news, Falcon.” He pulled his hat down low, murmuring, “An' I thought it was gonna be easy.”