Scream of Eagles (14 page)

—Last words of George Washington
December 14, 1799

The whole town had pitched in, and Jamie's cabin, on a ridge overlooking Kate's grave, and the grave of Jamie's grandfather, was up in no time and waiting for Jamie's return. The cabin was a snug one, with large rooms and oversized doors so Jamie would not bump his head entering or leaving. And the cabin had been completely furnished and stocked with food for him.

Andrew and Rosanna had left the past month, for an extended tour of Europe. Their children, now all grown, were either married and living away or still in college, both in America and Europe.

For the first afternoon and night back, Jamie's kith and kin left him alone, to relax and to visit Kate's grave. Before visiting the grave site, Jamie bathed and shaved and dressed in clean clothing. Then he went down to sit by Kate's grave and talk to her.

He talked for more than an hour, telling her all the places he'd been since her death. When he was done talking, Jamie went to his cabin and fixed his supper, then sat in a rocking chair on the front porch and drank coffee and smoked his pipe.

As the shadows lengthened, Jamie began to chuckle as he rocked. He'd stick around for a time, maybe a few weeks, just to get reacquainted with his grandkids and great-grandkids, but damned if he was going to wile away his years sitting and rocking and just let the world go by. No ... no, he was still too young for anything like that. He still had some good years left in him, and by damn, he wasn't going to waste them.

His mind made up, Jamie knocked out his pipe, finished his coffee, and then went into the cabin and turned up the twin lamps by his chair. He found his reading glasses and read the last ten weeks of the Valley newspaper (somebody had left them by the chair) before his eyelids started getting heavy. He blew out the lamps and went to bed. He didn't bother locking the doors. Nobody in Valley locked doors. The last time anybody entered a home uninvited in the middle of the night, with devilment on his mind, he got blown all over the living room. Jamie had heard tell that some folks in the cities were putting bars over their windows to keep intruders out.

When Jamie had heard that, he asked, “Why don't the homeowners just shoot the bastards and have done with it?”

“Can't do that back east, Mac. Criminals have rights back there.”

“Sorry damn state of affairs, you ask me. Decent people have to live like they're in jail. That'll by God never happen here.”

“Don't bet on it, Mac.”

Jamie slept long and well and lingered under the comforter for a time, but before dawn, he was up and had coffee ready, biscuits in the oven, oatmeal in the pot, bacon sliced to fry, and eggs ready to bust and cook.

His belly full, Jamie took his cup of coffee and sat for a time in the coolness of early morning, watching the town below wake up.

When it was full light, Jamie stuck a .44 behind his belt and walked down to the town. The walk would help settle his meal, for as usual, whenever he cooked, he ate too much. Kate had always watched that closely, preparing an ample amount for the both of them, and no more.

“If I'm not careful,” Jamie muttered as he walked, “I'll end up with my belly hanging over my belt.”

My, but the town has grown, Jamie observed, stepping onto the main street and looking up and down. Then, briefly, waves of sadness washed over him as he thought back to how it had been when those first few wagons had rolled onto the valley floor. Swede and Hannah, Moses and Liza, Sam and Sarah, Juan and Maria and all the children. Now all the adults who had come west with him were dead. Jamie was the last one.

Jamie smelled fresh coffee and looked around him. Damned if there wasn't a new cafe in town. He followed the smell of coffee brewing and biscuits cooking and pushed open the door, standing by the counter until the cook looked up and saw him.

“Just sit down anywhere,” the cook called. “I'll be with you in a . . .” Then it dawned on him who the big man was. He'd seen dozens of pictures of Jamie. His mouth dropped open, and he almost hurt himself getting out of the kitchen and into the dining area. “Mr. MacCallister!” he blurted. “I'm sorry I didn't recognize you right off. Please, have a seat, sir.”

“Relax,” Jamie said with a smile. He stuck out his hand, and the cook took it.

“Tom Donovan, sir. I am proud to shake your hand.”

Over coffee, the two men sat and chatted for a time, Tom bringing Jamie up on all the news and events that had taken place while he'd been gone. Tom Donovan had arrived in Valley just a few weeks after Jamie had pulled out on his manhunt, and opened the cafe. His wife was one of the teachers at the new school.

“New school?”Jamie questioned.

“Down on the other end of town. It's a fine one, too. Got six rooms.”

“Six rooms? What for?”

“Separate the grades. My wife says students learn better when they're with kids their own age.”
¹³

“Time is sure moving too fast for me,” Jamie said. “Passing me by.”

Jamie took his mug of coffee outside and sat on a bench, watching the town come alive for another day. Jamie's oldest, Jamie Ian the Second, walked up and sat down beside his father. He studied his pa's face for a moment.

“You're not going to stay for long, are you, Pa?” he finally asked.

Jamie shook his head. “I'll stick around for a few weeks; then I think I'll ramble.”

“The girls will be disappointed.”

“They'll get over it.” Jamie sighed. “There is nothing here for me, boy.”

“Your family is here, Pa!”

Jamie looked at his firstborn. Hard to believe the boy was almost forty-five years old and a grandfather several times over. Jamie never could remember whether Jamie Ian or Ellen Kathleen was born first that day back in the Big Thicket country of East Texas. He'd always relied on Kate for birth dates and such.

“I guess I might as well be the one to tell you the news, Pa. Ben F. Washington bought the
Valley Dispatch.
Do you know who he is?”

“I know all about him, son. How is he doing?”

“Just fine. He's a likeable fellow and damn good writer. He wants to do a book about you and Ma.”

“It would be real nice if some writer would get the facts straight,” Jamie said drily. “That would be a nice change.”

“He wants permission to look over Ma's notes and letters and diary and such.”

“Let him look at them. It's all right with me. But I don't want the book published until after my death. I want that understood up front.”

“Ben said you would probably say that. He's agreeable to it.”

“Then tell him if he wants to talk to me, he'd better get cracking. I aim to pull out before the snow flies.”

“Falcon's got a surprise for you, Pa.”

“Is Marie pregnant again?”

Jamie Ian laughed. “No. That'll probably happen next year. She says she wants ten children.”

“Good God!”

“And so does Mary Marie O'Donnell MacCallister.”

“That's a mouthful, boy. I bet you can't say that fast three times in a row. What's Falcon's surprise?”

“He found a horse for you. Said he knew it was for you the minute he saw it. Damn thing was so mean its owner was going to kill it 'til Falcon offered to take it off his hands.” He stood up. “Come on. Let's hitch up the buggy and take a ride out to Falcon's ranch.”

“Buggy? You goin' soft on me, boy?”

“It's easier on the butt, Pa.”

“You are gettin' kinda ample back there, boy. Easy livin', I reckon.”

* * *

The stallion was the biggest horse Jamie had ever seen. It was the color of dark sand and had yellow killer eyes. Jamie Ian went on into the house, leaving his father leaning against the corral rails.

“Love at first sight,” Falcon said, looking at his father through the kitchen window.

“You name him yet?” his brother asked, pouring a cup of coffee and snagging a hot biscuit from the platter. The house was noisy and full of kids.

Before it was all over and done with, the nine living children of Jamie and Kate MacCallister would have conceived fifty-two children. Those fifty-two would produce three hundred and twelve offspring. Many would be a mixture of Chinese, French/Indian, Irish, German, English, Swedish, and Spanish . . . among other nationalities.

“Sundown,” Falcon replied. “But he won't answer to me. However, I'll bet you a hundred dollars within a week Pa will have him gentled down. For his touch only.”

“No bet. Hell, brother! Look. Pa's done got him eatin' slices of apple out of his hand.”

“That big bastard took a finger clean off of the man I got him from.”

Marie popped Falcon on the butt with the end of a towel. “Watch your language around the children.”

One of the most dangerous gunfighters in the West smiled and said, “Yes, ma'am!” Then he picked up the baby and went outside to jaw awhile with his dad.

* * *

Jamie went into town every day for coffee and conversation. The rest of the time he worked with Sundown. Within a week, the monster horse was following him around like a puppy, nuzzling him and begging for a slice of apple or a bit of sugar.

Jamie put Buck out to stud; the horse had earned a long rest in the pasture, pleasuring the mares at Falcon's horse ranch.

Jamie got reacquainted with all his kin and very quietly met with attorneys and went over land deeds and other certificates of holding, making certain every
i
was dotted and every
t
was crossed. He had been advised by his private detectives that powerful forces were working to lay claim to much of what he owned.

“If they get to crowdin' me too much, I'll put a stop to it with guns,” he warned his lawyers.

Which made the lawyers very nervous, for they knew that Jamie did not make idle threats, and would do exactly what he said he would do. And written law be damned.

“I have no patience with schemers and connives, ”Jamie warned them. “I'll put a bullet between their eyes faster than they can blink.”

“We're certain that all this can be handled without violence, Mr. MacCallister,” one of the attorneys was quick to say.

“It damn well better be,” Jamie replied.

Jamie gave the cabin that he and Kate had called home for so many years to the Valley Historical Society. The head of that group, Joleen MacCallister MacKensie, immediately set about making the place a museum . . . which amused Jamie.
¹⁴

Jamie said his goodbyes and packed up and pulled out in the fall of '72. He headed east. He wanted to see the Big Thicket country one more time, and to visit the grave of Baby Karen, who was killed at five months of age in '29, during an outlaw raid.

Jamie rode Sundown, and he had to admit that out of all the horses he'd ever had, the dark sand-colored animal was the finest horse he had ever ridden, standing several hands taller than any other horse Jamie had ever seen.

But Jamie was the only one who could touch the animal. Anyone else who attempted it would either get bitten or kicked or both.

Jamie stopped in Pueblo City for a night. The town on the Arkansas had started out as a trading post, then as a Mormon settlement for a couple of years back in the mid-forties. The town itself was laid out in 1860.

Jamie ate early in a nearly deserted cafe and then retired to the loft in the livery. He certainly wasn't hunting trouble, and didn't want trouble to find him.

Several hours before dawn, he put the darkness of the town behind him.

Days later, he had crossed the Huerfano, Apishapa, Purgatoire, and the Two Butte rivers before riding onto the grasslands of southeastern Colorado. Then he crossed the Cimarron and rode into the panhandle of Oklahoma Territory.

He was completely out of supplies when he reached a tiny settlement in the northern part of the Texas Panhandle. There was no hotel, but there was a combination dentist/barbershop/undertaker's place with a roughly boarded area to bathe out back.

After his bath, he had his hair cut, a shave and went to eat in the cafe, which was a part of the general store. He had beef and beans (which was pretty much standard fare those days). But the bread was fresh baked and good, and the dried-apple pie was delicious.

Standing outside, under the front awning, Jamie wondered if this town would last much longer. (It wouldn't. Within ten years the tiny settlement would be just another ghost town. Ten more years, and not a trace of it would be left.)

Jamie rode out before dawn, heading south and slightly east. Sundown ate up the miles effortlessly, and the packhorse Falcon had chosen kept up without strain.

Jamie avoided towns whenever possible, often making his own trails. But the farther east he went, the more difficult that became, for the area was filling up—at least the way he saw it—with farms and ranches and little settlements. He stayed west of Dallas/Fort Worth, and after stopping overnight and resupplying at Hillsboro, Jamie rode straight east.

After he crossed the Trinity, Jamie began seeing familiar landmarks, and the memories flooded back . . . both the good and the bad; but mostly the recalling was filled with pleasure.

Jamie spent a night in Palestine, and overnighted again in Nacogdoches. My, but the town had grown since Jamie had last seen it, with fine homes and schools and a university. Jamie recalled that Texas' first newspaper was published here: the
Gaceta de Tejas.
And Jamie learned that the first oil well ever drilled in Texas was drilled just a few miles outside of town by a Mr. L. T. Barret.