Scream of Eagles (18 page)

Having become irritated at the Jones brothers' inability to carry out even the simplest of assignments (the brothers were not exceptionally swift in the brain department), Russell Clay had told them to hit the road months back. After committing a series of petty crimes (and two badly bungled and unsuccessful holdups), the brothers arrived in Albuquerque on the afternoon of the aborted shoot-out. After hearing all the talk about the blood feud, the brothers decided to pitch their lot with Asa Pike and his kin.

“Why?” Asa sourly asked the pair.

“I owe Jamie MacCallister,” Bob said. “And me and my brother here aim to put lead in him.”

“Then you're welcome to join us,” Abraham said.

Lloyd looked at the bandage on the man's head. “What happened to you?”

“I would rather not discuss it,” Abraham said. Abraham was very touchy on that point, ever since he'd been told he was conked on the noggin by a rock thrown by a ten-year-old.

“When do we take them?” Bob asked.

“Dawn, tomorrow,” Asa said. “I've sent them word.”

“Why don't we just go on down there now and shoot them?” Lloyd asked.

“It's a matter of honor,” Asa told him.

“Oh.”

* * *

“Man shore loves the crack of dawn,” Logan said, after receiving the word.

“I've got to say that these ain't the smartest ol' boys I've ever run up on,” Red added. “Ever' one of them 'pears to be 'bout two eggs short of a dozen.”

“But they've got guns and know how to use them,” Rick said.

“That do make up for being a tad stumpy in the brain department, don't it?” Canby agreed.

“It'll be no fun and games come the dawning,” Jamie said. “They'll be moving in for the kill. The whole thing is stupid and pointless, but none of us can allow that to override hard facts. It's kill or be killed. I wish they'd just ride on and leave us alone. But they're not going to do that, so how many options does that leave us?”

Dusk was settling over the land. Somewhere close a man was playing a guitar and singing a love song in Spanish. The air was filled with soft music and the good smells of supper cooking. It was hard to bring into the picture that in a few hours, the air would be filled with gunsmoke and the thick odor of blood.

“We haven't had much of a chance to talk, son,” Jamie said to Falcon. “What's been happening back home?”

“It's been quiet, Pa. Babies being born. The town's got two new businesses. Valley is now officially the county seat of government . . . course we all knew it would be. Big brother Jamie is gettin' fat in the butt from all that easy livin'. It's awful hard for me to believe that he's pushin' fifty. Don't seem possible.”

Jamie smiled. It didn't seem possible to him, either. “Jamie Ian is ... forty-six, I believe. I never was much good at dates; I always left that up to your ma. Lord, where have the years gone? I'm an old man, son. A old man.”

“You ain't neither, Pa. You're stronger than most men and can ride as good as ever. You might have some years on you, but you're a long ways from being an old man. 'Sides, I've seen the way women look at you.”

Jamie shook his head. “Never be another woman in my life, son. The only woman I ever loved was your ma. She's a constant with me.” Jamie took out his watch and opened the lid, gazing for a moment not at the ever-moving hands of time, but at the tiny picture of Kate. “I can't tell you how much I miss her.”

Jamie stood up and stretched. “We'd all best get something to eat and turn in early. Come the dawning, we're all gonna be right busy.”

* * *

Old Town was buttoned up tight.

The occasional chicken or dog or cat wandered the streets; but no horses were visible, and no citizen left his home. There was no wind, but the day was cool.

Jamie stood under an awning and finished his after-breakfast coffee. He set the empty cup down on a bench and picked up his sawed-off shotgun, loading both barrels.

Falcon was across the street, his tailored suit coat swept back to reveal his twin pearl-handled pistols. Another pistol was shoved behind his belt, and he carried a .32 caliber short-barreled pistol in a shoulder holster rig.

The old mountain man, Logan, was about fifty yards away, lounging in front of a closed general mercantile store. He picked up his rifle and waited.

Canby stood to Jamie's right, in the mouth of an alley.

Rick was leaning up against a hitch rail.

Red was waiting on the stoop of a saddle and gun shop. The shop would not open for business until the shooting was over.

“They come, señor!” one of the boys hired by Jamie called, pointing.

“Fine,” Jamie told him. “Now you and your friend go home and stay there.”

“Si, señor!” The boys took off at a run.

“This time I don't wait for them to come to me,” Jamie muttered. He stepped out into the street and started walking toward the edge of Old Town. Falcon walked over and fell in step with his father.

Logan and Canby stepped out and followed, one on each side of him in the street, just slightly to Jamie's rear. Rick and Red stayed close to the storefronts.

A bearded man stepped out of an alley. “You dishonored our family name, MacCallister!” he shouted.

“You're an idiot!” Jamie told him, and never stopped walking.

“Now you die!”

“Not this day,” Jamie said. He lifted the Greener and gave the man one barrel from about thirty feet. The heavy charge caught the man in the chest and lifted him off his boots, flinging him backward. He landed in the street in a puff of dust.

Jamie kept on walking while he pulled out the empty and shoved in a fresh round.

Suddenly the street was filled with men, all of whom held pistols at the ready.

“separate!” Jamie yelled, as he began running for cover.

Falcon dropped behind a watering trough and let both his guns start to bang. Four Pikes went down in the first few seconds.

Rick, standing in a doorway, lifted his .45 and drilled a man in the chest. Canby lined up a man in his rifle sights and dropped him in an alleyway. Logan brought one down, then shifted positions and drilled another one. Red, a pistol in each hand, stood in front of a closed dress shop and brought down two more.

Just as Asa yelled, “Retreat, boys, retreat!” Jamie fired both barrels of the Greener at two men who had just stepped into the daylight and were lining up Falcon in their sights. The twin barrels roared smoke and rusty nails and screws and buckshot, leaving a big mess on the side of the building the men were hurled against.

As the gunsmoke began drifting away, thirteen men lay sprawled in the street, dead, dying, or badly hurt. The gunfight had taken about two minutes, from beginning to end.

Jamie walked over to a dying man and looked down. “Did I ever do a hurt to you?”

“Can't say as you have,” the man gasped, his eyes bright with pain. “Not 'til this day anyways.”

“Then what is the point of all this death and suffering?”

“Kin. You understand that.”

“I don't understand it when Asa was clearly in the wrong by attacking me a couple of years back.”

“He's still kin. And blood is thicker than water.”

“Well, that makes you a fool,” Jamie told him.

“And a dead one at that,” Logan said, looking down as the man closed his eyes and slipped behind the veil.

“This one over here's gonna make it, I think,” Red called, squatting down beside a fallen man.

Jamie walked over.

“You'll have to kill us all,” the man whispered. “And the mountains back to home is filled with Pikes and kin.”

Jamie said nothing. Canby called, “Got another one over here that might make it.”

Jamie walked over and looked down. The young man was about Rick's age.

“This one ain't hurt bad,” Falcon called to his pa. “But he sure is cussin' you for all it's worth.”

Jamie stepped over a couple of dead men and looked down. “I hate you damn MacCallisters,” the wounded man said. His voice was strong.

“Why?” Jamie questioned. “I never saw you before today.”

“Ever'thin' comes to y'all easy.”

“What the hell's he talkin' about, Pa?” Falcon asked.

“I don't know.”

“Rest of us have to hardscrabble for anythin' we have,” the wounded man said.

“I think he must be delicious,” Logan said.

“Delirious,” Red corrected. “There ain't nothing delicious about this bastard.”

“Whatever,” the mountain man said.

“Folks like you ought to share with folks like us,” the Pike kin continued.

“He's babbling,” Jamie said, turning away from the man. “You boys collect all their guns; then we'll see about getting the wounded to doctors.”

“Why?” Logan questioned. “They got themselves shot; they can see to ease their own sufferin'.”

Jamie smiled. The breed of men called mountain men were the toughest, hardest, and most pragmatic group to ever wander the West.

Just as the guns were being collected and put in cloth sacks, a doctor and several citizens showed up and took over the care and transporting of the wounded.

“Way I got it figured, Pa”—Falcon came to Jamie's side—“we still got about nineteen or twenty to deal with. And I don't figure they'll be inclined to give it up and go on back home.”

“No, we haven't seen the last of it. Unfortunately.”

“What do you want done with these guns?” Rick called from across the plaza.

“We'll give them to the law. They can do whatever they want with them.”

“Ain't no law here now,” a citizen said. “They're all out after Injuns.”

“They's Fatso Burke,” another local said. “He's a constable. Not much of one, but he totes a badge and looks after the jail.”

“Go get him,” Jamie requested.

“Are you kiddin'? He ain't about to get in between this mess. You boys is on your own 'til the regular law gets back.”

“Good,” Logan said. “Then we'll handle it our own selves.”

The undertaker rattled up in his black hearse and solemnly looked around at all the bodies. He turned to his assistant. “Go back and get another wagon. And tell Abel to start knocking together some boxes. Make them long boxes; these are tall men. Go on now, step lively.”

Jamie and his group backed off and stayed clear . . . but at the ready in case Asa wanted to continue the fight this day. Within minutes, a man stepped into the plaza, unarmed and holding a stick with a white handkerchief tied to it. “I'm not armed,” he called. “But I'm kin of these men. I've come to see to their proper burial.”

“I hope you've got some money,” the undertaker said. “This is going to get expensive.”

“We have money. We want a nice service with mourners and wailers and a drum and horn.”

“What the hell are they gonna do?” Logan questioned. “Have a dance or a buryin'?”

“Will you please show some respect for the dead,” the doctor said sharply.

“Why?” Logan asked. “They damn shore didn't show no respect for us!”

“Let's get out here,” Jamie suggested.

* * *

The funerals started about mid-afternoon that day. Even from where Jamie and his bunch were seated, in front of the hotel, the sounds could be heard. There were mourners and wailers lifting their voices to the heavens, and a big drum and someone tooting on a trumpet.

Logan walked out onto the side of the street and tried to get a dance step going. The old mountain man was uncommonly spry for his age. “I wish they'd pick up the beat some,” he complained. “I can't get no rhythm goin' with that. Least the Injuns got some pep to their drummin'.”

“Pa,” Falcon said, ducking his head to hide a grin at the buckskin-clad Logan's antics, “I got to say that when you pick men to ride with, you can come up with some characters.”

“You'd be hard-pressed to find better men to ride with, though.”

“I won't argue that.” They sat for a time, watching Logan do some dance steps in time with the wailing and moaning and carrying on. “Pa?”

“Uummm?”

“What are you gonna do with the rest of your life?”

“Providing we can get out of here alive, I'm gonna see some country boy.”

“Just wander, Pa?”

“That's about it. Hell, boy, I got more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. I sure don't need to look for a job. I'm not gonna hang around Valley doin' nothing.”

“I think I got it now,” Logan said, doing a slow pirouette to the drum and trumpet.

“Well, keep it to yourself,” Red told him. “It might be catchin'.”

“Mac?” Canby asked.

“Uummm?”

“When we get this here little mess took care of, what say you we head over into Arizona Territory?”

“Sounds good to me. You know anybody over there?”

“Nary a soul. But I always wanted to see the Muggyown.”
¹⁹

“Why not?” Jamie replied, then cut his eyes to Falcon. “And no, you can't come along. You've got a family to look after. ”

“Never entered my mind,” Falcon said with a smile.

“You lie, too.”

Rick walked up, looked at Logan for a moment, then shook his head in disbelief and handed Jamie a note. “Little boy just give this to me.”