Eyes of Eagles (17 page)

Jamie was working alone in the fields about a mile from their cabin, breaking new ground that he and Wells and Moses had spent all winter clearing of timber. Moses was several miles away, as was Wells, each working on their own land.

Jamie was a grown man, and he had matured into the height and heft to match his adulthood. He stood well over six feet and his arms and shoulders were packed with muscle. His hands were huge and his wrists thick. Moses had opined to his son-in-law that Jamie was a man he would not like to see angered. Truthfully, Jamie did not know his own strength, but like so many big, powerful men, he was surprisingly gentle.

Jamie had heard from the Indians that white slave hunters were working up north, and that some escaped slaves and families had been recaptured and sent back across the Sabine River to go on the auction block. But there had been no reports of any slavers working in this area.

Jamie had just righted the plow and picked up the reins when he heard the shot coming from the direction of his cabin. No one in their right mind was far from pistol and rifle in East Texas during the settlement period just a few years prior to Texas officially declaring their independence and formally breaking away from Mexican rule. Jamie jerked the carbine from the boot on the plow — he carried pistol, powder horn, and shot pouch on him — and went racing on foot toward the cabin.

At the cabin, Kate had downed one slaver with her rifle and was desperately fighting with another as other men were ransacking the cabin and others were attempting to free the horses from the corral in back of the cabin. The burly man Kate was struggling with ripped her dress from throat to waist and stood for a moment, licking his lips at the sight of her full, bared breasts. He reached out with a dirty hand to caress her breasts and Kate gave him a knee in the groin and the man went down, howling in pain. Kate kicked him in the face and grabbed up a pistol just as another slaver leaped into the open doorway. Kate shot him in the chest, the heavy ball knocking the man outside, where he died amid the flowers Kate had just replanted from swamp to home.

One of the slavers in the home grabbed up Baby Karen from the cradle and grinned at Kate. “Shuck outta that there dress,” he told her. “Or the baby gits its brains bashed out.”

Another man grabbed her from behind and pulled up her dress, shoving his hand between her legs and fondling her. Kate screamed in rage just as Jamie dropped to one knee and leveled his rifle, knocking a man off a horse.

“Kill that kid and take the bitch with us,” a bearded man said, coming out of the bedroom where he'd been unsuccessful in his attempts to find jewelry or gold.

The man holding Karen threw the child on the floor and stomped on her head. Kate became hysterical and broke free, whirling around and dragging her fingernails across the eyes and down the face of the man who had fondled her privates. He shrieked in pain and threw both hands to his suddenly bloody face.

Moses and Wells had galloped to within rifle range and two more of the bounty hunting slavers were down in the dirt, both of them belly-shot.

The leader of the band, the man who had ordered the death of Karen became frightened and bolted out the door, leaving the momentarily blinded slaver standing in the cabin, unable to see. Jamie and Moses fired as one, the heavy caliber balls striking the man in belly and chest. He fell backward, his boots on the ground and his upper body inside the cabin.

The others panicked and took off at full gallop. Jamie made no effort at immediate pursuit. He jumped into the cabin, over the body of the dead slaver, and stood in numb shock for a moment. Kate was on her knees, weeping hysterically over the still body of Baby Karen, blood and brains under the child's head.

“That bitch tried to blind me!” the slaver hollered.

Jamie drove the butt of his rifle into the man's belly, knocking him gagging and puking to the floor. Moses and Wells dragged him out and hog-tied him.

“Don't kill him,” Jamie said, his word cold as ice. “I'll need to talk to him. Wells, ride for Liza and Sally.” Jamie knew there was nothing he could do for Baby Karen. He quickly checked on the other children and found them safe. He had to fight Kate away from the dead baby. She hammered at him with her fists and screamed in wild rage. He finally had to pin her to the floor and hold her until Liza and Sally arrived, just moments after the raid.

Jamie wrapped up the baby in a blanket and laid her on a floor pallet. Kate had fainted.

Moses turned to Jed. “Fetch a shovel, boy, and go to the cemetery and start diggin'.”

“How many got away?” Jamie asked, his voice a choked sob.

“ 'Bout ten or so, I reckon,” Wells said.

Jamie looked in on Kate. She was unconscious on the bed, Liza and Sally placing cool, damp cloths on her face. Jamie went outside to the hog-tied man and stood for a moment, looking down at him.

“I ain't tellin' you nothin',
bastard!
” The man spat the words at him.

“Oh, you'll tell me everything I want to know,” Jamie replied. He reached down and grabbed the man's shirt front and dragged him bodily to the barn. He closed and barred the door behind him. Jamie slowly turned, pulling his skinning knife from leather and walking toward the man.

“Say, now,” the man said, shrinking from the sight. “I'm a white man. You cain't do this to me.”

A moment and an unanswered question later, the man began howling in pain. The painful shrieking did not last long.

Jamie dragged the bloody body into the swamps and threw the carcass into the black water. The 'gators would find the body and stuff it up under cypress roots, to ripen before they feasted.

From a canoe, two Indians watched the tall and muscular young man walk back toward his cabin. The Indians swiftly and silently paddled away. Man Who Is Not Afraid had a terrible expression on his face.

Jamie cleaned the gore off of him and walked into the cabin. Kate was awake and sitting in a chair, looking at the blanket-wrapped body of Karen. She had lost the wild look from her eyes. She looked up at Jamie.

“Who were they?” she asked.

“Part of the Newby Brothers' gang. Waymore is leading this bunch, but he wasn't along. They're camped just north of Nacogdoches.”

“You'll be going after them?”

“Just as soon as we bury Baby Karen.”

Kate put her hands to her face for a moment. Then she lowered her hands and nodded her head and rose from the chair. “Let me get the Bible.”

And another soul was committed tearfully to the ground in the small cemetery.

An hour later, as the noonday sun beat down upon them, Jamie kissed Kate and held her for a moment. Just before he rode off to further the legend of Jamie Ian MacCallister, Jamie said, “They have to know that they cannot be allowed free license to torment us. They must learn that for every raid against us, I'll kill ten or more of them. Do you understand why I have to go, Kate?”

“I understand.”

“I shall return, Kate. When, is something I cannot tell you. I'll be back when you see me ride up to the cabin.”

“I put your supper in the saddlebags,” she said, touching his face with gentle fingers. “And I put your coat behind the saddle. The nights are still cool. I love you, Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

“I love you, Kate.” He kissed her again, then stepped away and into the saddle.

“It's going to be a bloody time,” Moses muttered. “Bloody, bloody days of retribution.”

Kate turned and stared at the cemetery for a moment, just visible from the cabin. Then she looked at Moses, her eyes flashing blue fire. “I hope so, Moses.”

* * *

Jamie rode for the settlement of Nacogdoches, which at this time boasted about eight hundred residents. Throughout the territory, there were some sixteen thousand Americans living, nearly four times that of the Mexican population. And that was making the president of Mexico very nervous.

Nacogdoches was where the Fredonia Rebellion had staggered into life back in December of '27, dreamed up by a cocky and crooked land dealer named Haden Edwards and his equally shady and hotheaded brother, Benjamin. The Rebellion pitted the older settlers against the fifty or so families that Edwards had sold land to, land he took from the older settlers under the claim that Edwards had the authorization to do so from the president of Mexico. What he had was the authorization to sell land the Mexican government had given him through a grant. The only problem was the land had already been settled on by Mexicans and Americans, most of whom had clear title to the land, given to them by Spanish grants, which the Mexican government honored. For a few weeks, the area around Nacogdoches had Americans fighting Americans, and Mexicans fighting Mexicans. Finally they all turned on Haden Edwards and his brother Ben, who with a few colonists with more guts than sense, on December 30, 1826, seized an old Spanish fort and loudly proclaimed the settlement and the land around it the New Republic of Fredonia.

What Haden and Ben did not realize was that their deal with the Cherokee Indians, which they thought was their ace up the sleeve, had been thrown out by the tribal council. That harebrained scheme had been to sign a treaty with a few Cherokees dividing up Texas among all members of the tribe... because Mexico would not grant or even sell the Cherokees any land.

The New Republic of Fredonia lasted six weeks. When the Edwards brothers learned that the Mexican army along with several hundred of Austin's men were advancing on the old fort, they fled back to the safety of the States.

Jamie rode into the settlement and left his horse at a livery, walking toward the general store which was owned by a German emigrant named Adolphus Sterne, who would be elected mayor of Nacogdoches in 1833. He carried his short-barreled carbine and two pistols stuck behind his wide belt. He was dressed in buckskins. With his long flowing yellow hair, his tall stature, and his magnificent build, Jamie caused many a female heart to flutter that day. The man that Jamie had “convinced” to tell him all he knew back at his farm had told him all the names of those in the gang. They were as firmly in place in his mind as if they had been carved in stone.

Sterne himself was behind the counter, and he looked up instantly as Jamie walked in the open door. Every customer in the huge store paused to stare at the tall and striking-looking young man.

“You have an undertaker and a preacher in this town?” Jamie asked Sterne.

“Why, ah, yes, we do. Would you like me to direct you to them?”

“No,” Jamie's words were as cold as his pale eyes. “But if you've law in this settlement, warn them to stay out of my affairs. You've got ten men camped just outside of town. They were part of the gang who attacked my farm over east of here, tried to rape my wife, and they killed my five-month-old baby daughter. I intend to kill them all. And I intend to start with that man right over there!”

The man had been inching toward the door as soon as Jamie had walked in. But Jamie had recognized him. The man grabbed for a pistol but the hammer got all hung up in his shirt. Jamie was on him faster than a weasel could attack a chicken in a henhouse. The man cleared his pistol just as Jamie reached him. Jamie broke the man's arm at the elbow as easily as snapping a dry twig, and the brigand fainted from the pain.

Jamie slapped him awake. No one in the store had moved to aid the man, all believing the young man's story and all had commented on the gang of ruffians camped outside the town. They stood rooted, eyes on the deadly scene being played out before them.

Jamie drew a pistol and cocked it, placing the muzzle against the man's forehead. He screamed in fear and soiled himself, the stench strong in the general store. “I didn't touch your wife and I wasn't in the cabin when the baby was kilt, mister,” he squalled, sweat running down his face and slobber leaking from his mouth.

“But you were there,” Jamie said.

“Yes, yes! I was. We was lookin' for runaway slaves.”

Jamie's eyes touched a Cherokee standing impassively between a cracker barrel and a pickle barrel. “You know Egg?”

The Cherokee nodded his head.

“Will you take this man to him for punishment?”

“I will take.”

Jamie tossed him the slaver's pistol and let the man fall to the floor; he let him deliberately land on his shattered arm and the man howled in pain. The Cherokee smiled.

“I was raised by Indians,” Jamie said to the tall Cherokee. “I do not think this man will die well.”

“Nor do I,” the Cherokee said. “If you wish to wait, I will tell our men to assist you in this venture.”

“I don't need nor want help.”

“I do understand,” the Indian said. “A warrior must do what a warrior must do. May your medicine be strong, Man Who Is Not Afraid.”

Jamie nodded his head and walked out of the store.

“You know that man, Paul?” Sterne asked the Cherokee, finally finding his heavily accented voice.

“All Indians know of him. Man Who Is Not Afraid. Man Who Plays with Panthers and Wolves. Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

“Oh, my God! The highwayman and murderer?” a woman screeched, horrified.

“He is neither of those,” the Cherokee policeman said calmly. “He is a good decent man who wishes only to farm the land, raise his family, and be left alone. Chief Diwali received a full report on Jamie years ago. But he is a good man to leave alone,” the Cherokee added most dryly.

So that's the man Smith and Fontaine wrote me about, Sterne thought. I can see now why they were so impressed by him. I must make his acquaintance and convince him to join in our battle for independence. When the time comes.