Scream of Eagles (21 page)

Jamie wrote a letter to his family back in Valley, explaining where he was and that he had received their letter about Joleen and Cathy Lou MacKensie. The stage finally made it through the day that Canby, Red, Logan, and Rick pulled out, and Jamie gave the letter to the driver, explaining what had happened and asking if he would pass it along.

“I'll do better than that, Mr. MacCallister,” the driver said. “I'll have a telegram sent when I get back to New Mexico, telling them you're okay and a letter will follow.”

“I'd appreciate it.”

“Consider it done. And if you need some help dealing with those bastards, you just holler. They'll be men a-plenty come runnin'.”

Jamie smiled his thanks, and the stage thundered out, heading back east.

Jamie waited in the little cowtown.

Back in Valley, Matthew had spread the word to all lawmen west of Valley, and hundreds of dodgers had gone out to marshals and sheriffs. They started appearing tacked onto trees and telegraph poles, and when the rapists and kidnappers came out of hiding and started to move, they began seeing the wanted posters everywhere.

“We got to head south,” Stone said.

“There ain't nothin' south 'ceptin' Apaches!” Jack Wallace protested.

“But north, west, and east there ain't nothin' but a hangman's rope for us,” Stone replied. “We'll head for Mexico and wait it out.”

“We're damn near out of everything,” Billy Carnes pointed out.

“They's a little cowtown 'bout two days' ride from here,” Sterling Drake said. “I think it's called Holbrook.”

“We'll head for there,” Stone said. “Let's ride. I can smell freedom, boys. We're almost clear. I can smell it!”

His nose should have sniffed out another odor.

Gunsmoke.

* * *

Jamie sat on the bench in front of a dry goods store and watched the lone rider come into town and tie up in front of the saloon. The traveler's clothing was mud-splattered, and his horse was weary. The rider wore two guns tied down low, which meant absolutely nothing, for a lot of men wore two guns, including Jamie.

But there was something about the man....

Jamie rose from the bench and walked across the street, glancing at the brand on the horse. He did not recognize it. Deciding at the last second not to enter the saloon, Jamie took a seat in a chair in front of an apothecary shop and waited. The rider came out of the saloon after only a few minutes and took a gunnysack from behind his saddle, then walked over to the general store. He left there with the sack bulging with only enough supplies to last one man about a week. Jamie relaxed. Unless the men had split up, and he didn't think that likely, this was just a drifting rider. He watched the man ride out of town.

About an hour later, another lone rider came into town. Just as the first rider, his clothing was dirty and mud-splattered and his horse weary. Jamie perked up.

The man did exactly what the first rider had done: saloon first, then to the general store, and left with about the same amount of supplies in a sack.

“If one more rides in,” Jamie muttered, “it's the bunch on the run from Valley.”

About an hour later, another rider came drifting in, from the same direction as the other two. Mud-splattered clothing, weary horse. He went first to the saloon, then over to the general store and bought the same amount of supplies.

As he was riding out, heading in the same direction the other two had taken, Jamie was saddling Sundown. He waited for a few minutes, then swung in behind the man, staying well back.

Jamie trailed him for several miles, then stopped and picketed Sundown near a wash that still held a trickle of water. He took a drink from his canteen and settled down amid a jumble of rocks—after checking carefully for sleeping rattlesnakes—near the trail and waited.

Jamie had no physical descriptions of the men who had attacked his daughter and granddaughter, only their names. He had to be sure before he confronted the men, and he hadn't worked out in his mind how he was going to do that.

Right now, he would wait.

* * *

Russell Clay almost had a heart attack when he finally learned what had taken place in Valley. For several minutes, he actually thought he was going to die. He had to sit down and take several deep breaths and will his heart to stop its wild racing.

He dismissed his trusted manservant and sat for a time in near shock. “Fools,” he finally muttered. “Ignorant, redneck fools.”

He poured a brandy and drank it down. “Assaulting and raping Jamie's daughter and granddaughter,” he whispered. “If he has to, the man will spend the rest of his life tracking you down.”

He poured another brandy and looked out the window of his luxurious home in Denver. “I didn't mean for this to happen. As God is my witness, I didn't. I was only trying to protect myself.”

Then the man who was born Roscoe Jefferson, son of runaway slaves, who became an actor under the name of Ross LeBeau, and now went under the name of Russell Clay, laughed bitterly. “God?” he whispered. “Don't bring God into this, you fool. Not after all that you've done.”

Then he thought of his sister. He had not seen her in years, but he knew she was living in San Francisco under the name of Andrea Petri. He wondered what her reaction would be when she learned of the debacle in Valley.

* * *

“Rape!” Andrea shrieked at the shyster lawyer who brought her the news. “Dear God in Heaven! Did those fools go crazy?”

The attorney said nothing. He knew only too well how volatile the woman's temper was, and if the truth be known, she frightened him. He had never before known such a ruthless person.

“Jamie Ian MacCallister will track them to the end of the earth if he has to,” Andrea said, lowering her voice. She faced the lawyer. “And if one of them talks . . .” Her cold eyes bored into the soul of the man.

“The authorities will trace it back to me,” the attorney whispered.

And you'll blab, Andrea thought. She turned to a table and carefully chose a bottle, pouring the man a drink. Smiling, she held out the glass. “Drink this and calm down,” she said. “And then you must leave.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. We must have no further contact for a time.” The lawyer gulped down the brandy, and she showed him to the door.

“Have a nice day,” Andrea said with a smile.

The lawyer nodded his head and hurriedly walked away. Four blocks later, he dropped stone dead to the street.

“Such a pity,” Andrea said, carefully tucking that bottle away. “He was such a useful man, too.”

* * *

Jamie seemed to rise out of the earth like some demon out of the pits of hell. The horse reared up in fright, and Pete Drew felt himself jerked from the saddle and slammed to the ground. The air whooshed out of him, and his eyes could not focus. When he could focus, he was looking into the cold eyes of a big man with gray hair. Then he saw the muzzle of a pistol and heard the hammer being eared back.

“Name,” Jamie said. “And you better get it right the first time.”

“Pete Drew!” the outlaw said. “Lord God, mister. I ain't done nothin' to you.”

“You raped my daughter and granddaughter and tried to kill Ben F. Washington.”

“It was a mistake!” Pete screamed. “We didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry it happened. It was . . . it was . . . just . . . one of them things that happened.”

“You son of a bitch!”

Pete was blubbering, snot running out of his nose. He soiled himself, and the stench was awful. “It wasn't my idee! ” he squalled. “It was . . . it was Stone's idee. I had to go along with it. If I hadn't a-humped them women, the rest would have laughed at me.”

Jamie cussed the man for a moment. “You know what you're going to do next?” Jamie asked, his voice low and cold.

Pete shook his head.

“Kiss the devil's hot butt!”

“No!” Pete screamed.

The last thing Pete Drew saw on the living side of the veil was the flame that erupted from the muzzle of Jamie's pistol. His final scream echoed over the land.

* * *

Jack Wallace felt the hammer blow in his chest that knocked him sprawling. He looked down at his bloodstained shirtfront and wondered, briefly, what the hell had happened. Then he lowered his head to the ground and died.

Billy Carnes jumped to his feet and grabbed for his guns. Jamie's rifle barked again, and Billy's head snapped back, a black hole in the center of his forehead.

Marcus Hinton looked wildly all around him, certain they were under attack from the Apaches. He began firing his pistols in all directions, hitting nothing but late afternoon air. Jamie's rifle boomed, and Marcus was knocked off his boots, hitting the rocky ground hard. He looked stupidly down at the spreading stain on his shirt.

“Well, I'll be damned!” was the last thing the outlaw said before he toppled over and died. He couldn't have uttered a more apt truism.

Sterling Drake spun around and around like a child's top, firing his pistols until Jamie's bullet cut him down, the bullet entering one side and blowing out the other side. Sterling was still trying to cock and fire his empty pistols when death spread its dark cloak over him.

Stone Gibson, Nate Clapton, Jeff Hooks, and Carter Young made it to their horses and galloped off, toward the north. Eric Armer stood in the midst of the carnage, screaming and cussing his unknown and as yet unseen enemy.

“Come out and fight me like a man!” he shouted to the big empty all around him.

“Over here,” Jamie called.

Eric spun around and fired. But there was no one to be seen.

“How about over here, punk!” Jamie called.

Eric whirled around just in time to catch a bullet in his chest. He stumbled backward, lost his footing, and sat down on his butt, hollering as the pain reached him.

Jamie appeared at the edge of the camp.

“Damn you!” Eric cussed. He tried to lift his pistols but found he did not have the strength.

“Who hired you to attack Ben Washington?” Jamie asked.

“Go to hell!” Eric gasped.

“What were you looking for?”

Blood began leaking out of Eric's mouth, a pink froth that told Jamie the man had been lung shot.

“You don't have long,” he told Eric. “Why not tell the truth for once in your life?”

“I got a right to know who killed me.”

“Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

“Them women up north? . . .”

“My daughter and granddaughter.”

“Bad mistake, wasn't it?”

“You're dying because of it.” Jamie walked closer, giving each man a glance to make sure they were out of action.

“You gonna bury me proper?”

“I doubt it.”

“That ain't decent!”

“Neither are you.” Jamie squatted down beside the dying man.

“Promise you'll bury me so's the varmints can't get at me and I'll tell you what I know.”

“You better make it fast.”

“A woman in San Francisco hired me and the four I rode with. Man in Denver hired the others.”

“They have names?”

“No,” Eric said, then fell over on the sand and did not move.

“You dead?” Jamie asked.

“You cold-hearted bastard!” Eric blurted weakly. “You're a devil.”

“You got a shovel around here?”

“I ain't never seen no one as hard as you,” the outlaw gasped out the words.

“I've heard that before,” Jamie said, looking around for something to dig with. No sign of a shovel. “I'll pile rocks on you.”

“Thanks.”

“The ones who got away?”

Eric gasped out the names. He was just about at the end of his string.

“MacCallister?”

“What?”

“You read some words over me?”

“I'll say something. You have folks that might give a damn about you?”

“No. Pa threw me out of the house years ago.”

“Why?”

“I tried to rape my sister.”

Jamie shook his head in disgust just as Eric rattled his last breath, stiffened, and then was still.

Jamie dragged the bodies to a wash and collapsed one side of the wash over them, then stacked rocks over that. He climbed back out of the makeshift grave and stood for a time. He tried to think of something to say over the bodies, but could not come up with anything.

Finally, mounted on Sundown, he looked toward the cave-over and said, “You boys must have done something worthwhile when you were alive. I'm sure that will be taken into account. But it wouldn't if I had anything to say about it.”

He plopped his hat back on his head and rode off.

Jamie rode out the next morning and picked up the trail of those who had escaped his attack. They were heading north and slightly east and making no attempt to hide their tracks.

Days later, they crossed over into Colorado and were forced to stop at a trading post on the Animas River. Their horses were just about done in.
²³

Jamie was two hours behind them and coming on strong.

The ragged and worn-down outlaws staggered into the trading post and up to the bar. “Whiskey,” Stone ordered, his voice hoarse.

“You boys got law trouble?” the bartender asked.

“If we do, it ain't none of your concern,” Stone told him bluntly.

“Don't sass me, sonny-boy,” the older man said. “It's my business if you bring trouble in here.” He peered closely at the four men, then cut his eyes to the wanted poster tacked up behind the bar.

The man was reaching for a gun under the counter when Stone smashed his pistol down on the man's head, and Jeff dragged him off and tied him up in a storeroom. “We ain't seen no sign of that bastard trailin' us in days,” Stone said. “I don't figure we lost that law-dog, but we got a good two days on him, way I figure. Time enough for us to swap horses and stock up on food and such. Let's get some grub goin'. I'm half-starved.”

Nate stoked up the fire in the stove and began slicing bacon while Carter was rummaging through the stacks of men's britches and shirts to replace their own stinking and filthy clothing. None of the four outlaws even thought about taking a bath.

Their bellies full of hot food, wearing clean clothing, the men relaxed at one of the rough tables in the bar of the trading post, drinking whiskey.

“What happens if someone comes in here lookin' to buy something?” Nate asked.

“Hell, we sell it to them,” Stone replied. “Then we shoot 'em!”

The four men thought that to be hysterically funny and roared with laughter. They opened another bottle of whiskey and gave no thought to the “law-dog” who'd been trailing them for days.

The man they assumed to be a lawman had picketed his horses about a half mile from the lonely trading post and was now slipping silently toward the building, coming up on a windowless blind side. Jamie had left his rifle in the boot and was carrying his sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

The owner of the trading post had regained consciousness. After testing the ropes that bound him and finding them well-tied, he lay still and made no noise. He had lived in the West for more than thirty years, and knew these renegades would not hesitate to kill him if he started kicking up a fuss. He looked up as the back door to the storage room began slowly opening and one of the biggest and meanest-looking men he'd ever seen stepped inside. He recognized Jamie instantly, for the man was a Colorado legend.

Jamie swiftly cut the ropes that held the man and then put a finger to his lips. The man nodded in understanding and held up four fingers, cutting his eyes to the main part of the long and low building.

Jamie nodded and moved toward the curtained archway, earing back the hammers on the Greener as he walked. The post owner lay on the floor and smiled through his headache.

Jamie slipped through the curtains and stood for a moment, looking at the four men who were lounging at the table cussing and laughing and drinking whiskey.

Carter Young was the first to spot the big man standing in the shadows of the room, the Greener in his hands. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.

“Ah . . . Stone.” He finally found his voice.

“What? Man, you look like you just seen a ghost.”

“I wish I had.”

Nate cut his eyes and said, “Oh, shit!”

“I can take you back to Valley for a trial and a hanging,” Jamie said. “Or we can end it here. Whichever way you boys want it is fine with me.”

As if one mind controlled them all, the four men threw themselves away from the table. Jamie's shotgun roared the instant he saw the men tense. Manhunting was something that Jamie was an expert at; he'd been doing it successfully for almost fifty years. Carter caught the full load from one barrel, and Jeff took the second one.

Jamie dropped the Greener and hauled iron just as Nate was filling his own hands and cocking the hammers. Jamie shot him twice, then fell into a crouch and disappeared behind the bar just as Stone's pistols began to bark and snarl. Jamie popped out at the other end of the bar and dusted Stone twice, the slugs turning the man around and dropping him to his knees. Stone snapped off a shot that nicked Jamie's left shoulder, burning and bringing blood. Jamie leveled his right-hand pistol and drilled Stone in the center of his forehead. Stone stretched out on the floor and did not move.

It was over.

“Hot damn!” the trading post owner yelled from the archway. “I've seen some sights in my time, but this one wins the prize. That was some mighty fine shootin', MacCallister.”

“You can have their personal belongings and their horses and saddles,” Jamie told him. “That'll help ease that lump on the back of your head some.”

“Damn shore will. Lemme tend to your shoulder furst. Then I'll drag this trash outta here and drop 'em in a hole. I buried a horse the other day and haven't had the time to shovel in much dirt. I'll dump 'em at the south end; that's where the horse's ass is.” He gathered up bandages and a basin of hot water from the pot on the stove.

“That one there,” he said, pointing to Stone as he dipped a clean cloth into the hot water, “is the ringleader of this pack of piss-ants. I heard him talkin' 'bout them women they raped. It was disgustin'.”

Jamie pulled his scalping knife from its sheath and knelt down beside Stone Gibson. The trading post owner watched unemotionally.

Two weeks later, the residents of Valley silently lined the streets and watched as Jamie rode down the main street. They all saw the scalp tied to Sundown's mane. A young federal marshal stood with Matthew in front of the sheriff's office. He was relatively new to the West and was still appalled by what he considered to be highly barbaric behavior by some westerners.

He grimaced at the sight of the human hair hanging from the mane of the big horse. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It is,” Matthew told him.

“Who is that rough-looking old man?”

Matthew smiled. “My pa,” he told the young federal marshal. “That, sir, is Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

The federal marshal gulped. “And that, ah, scalp, means he got one of the men who attacked your sister and niece?”

“No, sir,” Falcon said, walking up. “That means he got them all.”

“But acting without authority and certainly without due process,” the federal marshal said.

Falcon laughed at the young man. “Hey, Pa!” he called. “Joleen opened her eyes about two weeks ago. She's up and doin' fine.”

Jamie reined up and swung down. He stepped up onto the boardwalk and shook hands with his sons, ignoring the young man with the badge pinned to his suit coat. “Cathy Lou?” he asked.

“She'll be all right, Pa,” Matthew said. “She just needs a lot of love and care.”

“Those criminals you pursued were wanted by the government for mail robbery and assault on a federal officer, MacCallister,” the young marshal said. “I'll need a full report from you and I expect it promptly. I also—”

“Shut up,” Jamie told him.

The marshal's mouth dropped open. “I . . . ah, I beg your pardon?”

“I said shut up. I was speaking to my sons. Not to you. When I'm finished speaking with my family, which is going to take the rest of the day and a good part of the evening, then I'll get around to you. Meanwhile, just stand aside and be quiet.”

The lawman looked down at the badge pinned to his coat. The badge always seemed to impress most folks east of the Mississippi River. But out here in the West, he'd been told on more than one occasion where to take his badge and stick it. Which would have made walking, sitting, standing, or riding very uncomfortable.

These westerners certainly were an independent lot. And uncommonly blunt, too.

* * *

Jamie was content to stay close to home after his return, at least for a while. He thought occasionally of Logan, Red, Canby, and Rick, and wondered if they'd made it into and out of the Muggyowns with their hair.

In late 1873, Jamie received a message from the war department in Washington, D.C. An expedition into the Black Hills of Dakota was being planned and would Jamie like to be one of the scouts?

Jamie wired back, asking who would lead the expedition.

Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

At first Jamie refused, for he knew Custer from the War Between the States, and did not like the man. Indeed, Jamie considered Custer to be nothing more than a flamboyant fool (an opinion that was shared by many career army men).

Custer had been a general at war's end, but was then reduced to the rank of captain. That didn't last long. In less than a year, he had been leap-frogged over more qualified men and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 7th Cavalry, which was being formed up at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Since he had arrived in the West, just after the War Between the States, Custer had been involved in many skirmishes with the Indians . . . not always coming out victorious. And to those who studied such things, and Jamie did, whenever he could get his hands on the manuals, it proved that Custer was a man who possessed a fatal weakness in the area of tactics. And Jamie knew, from long years of experience, that when dealing with Indians, perhaps the greatest guerilla fighters that ever lived, one had damn well better understand tactics.

And Jamie understood that while no one could call Custer a coward, Custer was not always faithful to his men. At the battle of Washita River, it was rumored that Custer left Major Elliot and nineteen of his men to die. While that accusation was never really confirmed, from that day forward, in 1868, Custer never again regained the full loyalty of his officers in the 7th Cavalry.

“Oh, why the hell not go?” Jamie muttered. “I have nothing to hold me here.”

Truth was, he was getting bored.

Jamie saddled up and rode down to the telegraph office and wired the war department he would agree to scout for the Black Hills expedition.

Much to Jamie's surprise, Lt. Colonel Custer wired him as soon as he heard the news and expressed great delight that the famous commanding officer and guerrilla fighter in the recent unpleasantness was going to join his command.

“What's this all about, Pa?” Megan asked, during a visit to her father's cabin on the ridge.

“Gold, honey. That's the bottom line. The army says it's going to look for a northern railroad route through Dakota and Montana—and I'm sure they are—but the bottom line is gold.”

“But Falcon says part of that area is sacred to the Indians.”

“He's right. Especially the Sioux. And when gold is confirmed in the Black Hills, the miners will come swarming like ants to honey.”

“And? ...”

“There'll be trouble. I suspect another reason for this expedition is to locate a good spot to build a fort.”

“But don't we have treaties with the Indians about the Black Hills?” Joleen asked.

Joleen had recovered from her experience and was coping. But not so with her daughter, Cathy Lou. Physically, Cathy was fine, but now she seldom smiled and had become withdrawn, rarely leaving the house without company.

“Sure we have treaties,” Jamie answered. “But progress is not going to be stopped dead in its tracks by a piece of paper. And the Indians have done their share of breaking treaties, too,” he added. He looked at Joleen. “Why didn't Cathy come up here with you, girl?”

“She's not feeling well, Pa. Pa?”

“Ummm?”

“We're thinking of sending her back east. To finish her education at a private girls' school.”

“And what does she think about that?”

Joleen sighed. “She really wants to go. She says she hates the West.”

Jamie knew all about that, for Cathy had talked to her grandpa at length. “Then send her. Finances are no problem. The family has money a-plenty.”

“That's not it, Pa. You know as well as us that if we do that, she might never come back.”

Megan brought the coffeepot from the kitchen, and Jamie held out his cup for her to refill it with hot coffee. When Jamie was home, his family doted on him—male and female alike.

“Or she might realize that what happened to her could just as easily happen back east. It's her life, girl. She's reached the age where we can't live it for her.”

Joleen nodded her head. “When do you leave, Pa?”

“In the spring.”

“Then we have plenty of time. We'll talk more about it 'fore you go.”

Megan had hung out Jamie's good black suit to air and was now heating the irons to press it. There were some big doings tomorrow: Ben F. Washington and Lola were to be married.

Jamie's birthday had passed; he was either sixty-three or sixty-four years old. He thought he'd been born in 1810, but he just wasn't certain about the date.

But he knew he'd lived a good long time. And he also knew that his age was quickly catching up with him. The past winter had been especially hard on him, his joints occasionally aching something fierce on bitterly cold mornings.

But he could still ride with the best of them and was still uncommonly strong. He had trouble reading anything up close without his glasses, but at a distance, his eyes were as good as any man's. Jamie figured he had two or three good years left in him before he'd have to really put on the brakes and think about staying close to the hearth.