Scream of Eagles (16 page)

Several half-drunk cowboys from local ranches came into the cafe, took one look at the four “well-seasoned” men sitting with the much younger rider, and wisely decided to leave them alone. The four older men had the look of Curly Wolf written all over them. The cowboys—all western born—had learned at an early age that older men could and would kill you quicker than you could blink. And there was something about that big, solid-looking man with the pale eyes and the huge hands that spelled trouble . . . to those with enough sense to read it.

The cowboys ordered their supper and kept any sarcastic remarks they might have had to themselves.

Not so one young man who strolled in just as the cowboys were being served their meal. He took one look at Jamie and his group and said, “What is this? A old-folks' convention?”

The cowboys exchanged glances and began eating their supper. They wanted to be through before the fireworks started. And they were, to a man, certain there would be trouble if the loudmouth didn't wise up ... and do so quickly.

Jamie, Red, Logan, and Canby all chose to ignore the young trouble hunter.

Rick started to rise from his chair, but Jamie's hand stopped him. “Forget it. He isn't worth the effort to swat him,” Jamie said in low tones.

“Did you say something about me, old-timer?” the young punk pushed.

Jamie expelled breath in a sigh.

“Don't push them men, Larado,” the counterman warned the young man. “Leave it alone.”

The young man who called himself Larado looked at the cafe owner. “Shut up, Charlie. Mind your own business.”

“Suit yourself, Larado. It's your funeral.”

“You think!” he sneered.

Jamie sipped his freshly filled cup of coffee, then added more sugar to it. When he could get real sugar, he liked his coffee hot and black and sweet. He smiled, remembering what his old and dear friend Moses Washington had once told him about some of his antics before he married Liza. He said he liked his women the same way.

“What the hell are you smilin' about?” Larado shouted, startling Jamie for a moment.

One thing Jamie had learned about himself as he grew older was that he was less and less inclined to take a bunch of crap from a certain type of the younger generation. He turned in his chair. “Shut up, boy!”

Then he turned around, picked up his fork, and began eating his piece of pie. Good pie.

Larado was stunned into silence for a moment. Then he started laughing. “Charlie! Did you hear what this old buzzard bait just said to me?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “And was I you, I'd heed that advice. I just now figured out who that man is. That's Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

“Oh, Lord!” one of the cowboys whispered.

“MacCallister!” Larado roared. “Why, hell. He must be near'bouts a hundred years old.” He carelessly slapped both his tied down holsters, a move that in some parts could get him instantly dead, and then looked all around the cafe. “Where'd you park your cane and your crutch, old man?”

Jamie almost told the mouthy young man that if he had a cane and a crutch, he knew where he'd like to park them. But he kept his peace and ate his pie.

“Larado,” a nicely dressed middle-aged man, sitting with two other men, spoke up. “MacCallister just got off of a two-year manhunt. He killed some fifty-odd men during that time. Doesn't that tell you anything?”

“I don't believe none of that,” the young punk said. “I don't believe half of what-all's said about MacCallister.” He moved closer to the table and leaned down, bent over at the waist. When his mouth was about a foot from Jamie's ear, he said, “Did you hear me, old man. I said I don't believe none of them things that's said 'bout you. I don't believe you fought at the Alamo. I don't believe you're no fast gun. But I do believe you're a big bag of wind. I think you made up all them things yourself. I think you're a liar. I think—”

Jamie brought his right elbow up and around—fast and hard. The elbow caught the punk flush on the mouth, the impact producing a sound like someone's boot slowly stepping on a very large roach. Two teeth popped out and bounced on the floor as the blood sprayed, and Larado's hands flew to his ruined mouth. Jamie stood up and snatched both of Larado's guns from their holsters, tossing them on the table.

Then he proceeded to beat the shit out of the big mouth.

Jamie hit him with short, chopping punches, lefts and rights to the face. Larado's nose was flattened against his face. Both eyes were soon closing. One ear was dangling by a thin strip of flesh. Then Jamie started working on Larado's belly and ribs. The scene was ugly, and the sounds of the blows landing were sickening.

It was all over in less than two minutes. Larado lay on the cafe floor, unconscious. Jamie reached down and stripped the gun belt from the man, tossing it on the table. Then he picked up Larado and threw him out the door. The punk rolled butt over elbows off the boardwalk to land in the dusty street.

Jamie returned to the table, sat down, picked up his fork, and began eating the remainder of his pie.

“Jesus Christ!” one of the cowboys muttered.

A man wearing a badge ran up to the unconscious Larado and knelt down. One of the businessmen rose from his table and walked outside, speaking briefly to the deputy. The deputy nodded his head, then motioned to several men lounging nearby, and they picked up Larado and toted him away.

The businessman returned to his table, and the deputy walked away.

Jamie pointed a fork at the twin guns on the table. “Rick, that pistol of yours is so old I wouldn't want to be around when you fired it. Take those guns. Larado won't be needing them.”

The pistols were brand spanking new Colts, army model, caliber .45.

“If you're going to ride with us, you need to be well armed,” Jamie added.

The cowboys finished their meal and very quietly left the cafe. To a man, they were hard ol' boys, accustomed to doing brutal work from sunup to sundown, and there wasn't much they hadn't seen and damn little they would back up from. But they had never seen such an emotionless and ruthless beating administered in such a short time.

The fight in the cafe in Socorro would be talked about for years to come.

But not as much as the gunfight that was only days away from erupting in the streets of Albuquerque.

“You get enough to eat?” Jamie asked the youngest and newest member of the group.

“Oh, yes, sir,” Rick said. “My belly's about to pop. I thank you for it.”

“Stop calling me sir. My name is Jamie.” He smiled at the young man. “Let's find us a place to sleep. We'll pull out early in the morning.”

* * *

Several months after the birth of their child, William and Page Haywood left Denver and moved to Valley, where William hung out his shingle and started his practice of law. The baby was dark-haired, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, much to the relief of all concerned.

Russell Clay was more than delighted to see the young couple leave Denver; now he could get on with the rest of his life without fear of bumping into his niece every time he stepped out of the house. But there was still the matter of his sister to be resolved. Russell knew that she had hired detectives to find him, just as she knew that he had hired detectives to find her. A showdown between brother and sister was inevitable. It was just a matter of time.

Both Russell Clay and Andrea Petri had hired detectives to travel to Valley, to find out what her son and his nephew, Ben, was up to. Both were horrified to learn that he going ahead with his plans to write a book about the MacCallister family and everyone connected with them over the past fifty years.

Each of them, without the other knowing it, started making plans to rid themselves, once and for all, of Ben F. Washington. And each other, if the opportunity should present itself.

* * *

Jamie and his little group pulled out of Socorro at about the same time Asa Pike and his bunch left Las Vegas and Falcon rode out of Santa Fe.

Asa could have saved several days riding time by cutting across country, but that would have been a dangerous route due to the Indians. Instead, they followed the stage route, a winding, curving road that went first to Santa Fe before cutting south. That move put Falcon well ahead of them. He arrived in Albuquerque one day before his father.

Falcon could get along in Spanish—just like his pa—so he gravitated to Old Town and got himself a room above a cantina. The plaza in Old Town would remain the center of the town until the railroad arrived, in 1880. After that, the center of the growing community would evolve around the railroad.

Falcon told the owner of the hotel to reserve a block of rooms; he had some friends coming in.

The younger MacCallister had no way of knowing which direction his pa would be coming from, but on a hunch, he rode out to the southern edge of town to a cantina. There, he bought a bottle of tequila and sat outside, under the awning. His hunch proved correct on the second day.

Falcon heard riders coming and looked up. He smiled. There was no mistaking that monster his pa rode. Falcon stood up and stepped out to the edge of the road. He didn't know any of the men with his pa, but with the exception of the young man, they were well-seasoned, looking like they wouldn't be afraid to tackle an angry grizzly.

When the dust had settled, Jamie looked down from the saddle and said, “Boy, what the hell are you doing down here?”

“You fellows light and sit,” Falcon told them. “There's big trouble just around the bend.”

“Do tell,” Jamie said, swinging down from the saddle.

“I don't have to ask who this is,” Red said, eyeballing Falcon. “Boy looks just like you, Mac.”

“For a fact, he do,” Logan said. “And 'pears to be right capable, too.”

“I bet you he's hell with the ladies,” Canby remarked.

“Not no more, he isn't,” Jamie said. “Marie would cut his dingus off if she found out about any dallying on his part.”

Falcon stood with a smile on his lips, letting the older men rib him a bit.

“I'm Rick,” the young rider said, holding out a hand.

Falcon took the hand. “Where in the hell did you meet up with this disreputable bunch of old codgers.”

The others hooted and cawed at that while Falcon's eyes sized up the three older men with his pa. They fairly bristled with guns and knives, and Falcon sensed they all knew how to use them, and would. He guessed the older men to be in their sixties, at least. But there was a spring in their step that many men half their age did not have.

Seated at a table inside the coolness of the cantina, Falcon handed his pa the telegram he'd received. Jamie held the paper out at arm's length but still couldn't make out the damn words until he put on his reading glasses.

“At least you can read words,” Logan said. “I never larned how myself.”

“How long have you been out here, Mr. Logan?” Rick asked respectfully.

“Not
Mister
, just Logan,” the old mountain man corrected with a smile. “I was twenty year old when I crossed the Mississippi in . . . oh, let me see . . . it were 1829, I think.”

“Asa Pike,” Jamie said, taking off his reading glasses and putting them in a hard case. “I remember him. I put lead in him up in ... oh, up in the Medicine Bows. Little no-name mining town that was nearly deserted. That was oh, two years ago.” He looked at the four men with him. “This isn't your fight, boys.”

“Hell it ain't,” Red contradicted quickly.

“Yeah,” Logan jumped in. “You think you're gonna have all the fun, Mac, you got another think comin'.”

“We're pards, ain't we?” Canby asked.

“You done me a good turn,” Rick said. “I'm stayin'.”

“Six-to-one odds, at least, boys,” Jamie reminded them.

“Makes it all that more interestin',” Logan said, downing his tequila and grimacing. “I never
did
like this stuff! Give me plain ol' American whiskey any day.”

* * *

Falcon led the group into Old Town and to the hotel. The men cleaned up and put on their best, be it buckskin or broadcloth, and went into the cafe for supper. They had just ordered when two men wearing badges approached the table.

“You boys just passin' through?” one of the lawmen asked.

“Just passin' through,” Jamie said, filling and rolling up a warm tortilla. He took a bite and smiled up at the deputy.” Something on your mind?”

“Avoiding trouble.”

“I've always found that to be a good practice,” Jamie said agreeably. “Personally, I'm a peace-loving man.”

“Mr. MacCallister,” the other deputy said. “We don't want trouble here in Albuquerque. And for the last two and a half years, everywhere you've been there was trouble. Who are you hunting here?”

“No one,” Jamie said. “Now someone may be hunting me. But I'm not looking for anyone. Me and the boys here are just seeing some country and trying to keep our hair in the process.”

The deputies laughed. “We do know what you mean about that. Gonna be in town long?” one asked innocently.

“Couple of days to rest the horses and resupply, and then we're gone.”

They both exchanged glances; then the older of the two said, “See you around.”

“You bet.” Jamie waited until the men had left the cafe, then said, “They know something's up. The law must be in touch with each other.”

“They got them talkin' wires all over the damned place ifn the Injuns ain't cut them,” Logan pointed out. “Which they do regular. But I don't know ifn they got 'em here, or not.”