Scream of Eagles (29 page)

Lonesome Charley Reynolds, a brave man to the end, had his horse shot out from under him as he was fighting a rearguard action, trying to protect the retreating soldiers.

“Damn!” Jamie muttered, seeing Charley fall.

But Charley didn't die easily or quickly. From the number of shell casings later found where he'd fought behind his dead horse, Charley had taken a number of Indians with him.

Reno had lost more than a third of his men, but he had reached the bluffs and now dug in. Except for a few well-hidden snipers, the Indians were gone, galloping away, whooping and hollering.

The war chief Gall had heard the shooting downriver and had led his warriors there.

The soldiers on the bluffs heard the shooting and thought that surely Custer was really dishing out the punishment to the Indians.

Benteen, after riding around for an hour and seeing no hostiles, decided to hell with orders and headed back to the Little Big Horn. He was shocked when Reno (he had lost his hat on the other side of the river, and his uniform was torn and bloody from assisting others) ran out of cover and shouted, “For God's sake, Captain. I've lost almost half my men. Help us.”

The two men talked for a few minutes, neither of them really knowing what to do. Finally, Reno said he wasn't moving until the pack trains caught up and his men were provisioned with ample ammunition.

Provisions finally arrived, and Reno and Benteen moved out, after sharply rebuking a young junior officer, Captain Tom Weir. Weir had ignored the reprimand and ridden off with his company, in search of Custer. Weir was a great admirer of Custer, Benteen couldn't stand the man, and Reno wasn't too thrilled with him either.

Benteen and Reno reached a high point and could see nothing of Custer.

It was Jamie who pointed out the lodges below them.

“My God!” Benteen breathed, at that moment realizing, finally, what they were up against.

The men were gazing at over two thousand Indian lodges.

“Here they come!” Jamie said, lifting his rifle and dusting one of the several hundred charging Indians, knocking the warrior off his horse.

After a brief fight, Reno ordered all the men back to the bluffs, and there they dug in and got ready for a battle. They fought the Indians for over three hours—three hours of very heavy fighting. Then, as dusk began to fall, the fighting ceased as the Indians pulled back.

Neither Benteen nor Reno had any idea what had happened to Lt. Colonel Custer.

Custer had crossed Medicine Tail Coulee and then Deep Coulee; then the Indians struck, Crazy Horse attacking from the right flank and Gall attacking on the left. Custer and his men were forced to retreat, finally making their last fight on Last Stand Hill.

A group of Indians led by White Shield was attacking Company C, which was commanded by Tom Custer, brother of George. White Shield thought Tom was George and pressed the attack until all the soldiers were dead. Tom's body was then so badly mutilated that he could later be identified only by his initials tattooed on his arm.

Boston Custer, a civilian scout, was killed only a few hundred yards from his brother, Tom. Their nephew, eighteen-year-old Harry Reed, who had come along for the adventure of it all, died a few feet from Boston.

From Ash Creek to Calhoun Hill, dead soldiers were being stripped of their clothing and then mutilated so their spirits would not be able to enjoy a final resting place, but would instead be forced to wander forever.

Many Indians put on the uniforms of the dead soldiers and were then killed by other Indians who mistook them for white soldiers.

Custer and his men had now reached what would be called Last Stand Hill, the warriors of Crazy Horse and Gall all around them.

Benteen and Reno remained pinned down by sniper fire, unable to move.

Mitch Bouyer was shot dead.

The last person to see Custer alive was trumpeter Giovanni Martini. By the time he found Benteen and handed him the hastily sprawled message from Custer, the fight on Last Stand Hill had been long over. The message read: BENTEEN. COME ON. BIG VILLAGE. BE QUICK. BRING PACS.

Pacs meant the packs containing ammunition.

Stragglers were now staggering into the area controlled, more or less, by Reno and Benteen. Some of them were weaponless, some of them wounded; all of them were frightened nearly out of their minds. They told horror stories of scalping and mutilation of the dead.

“Dig in,” Reno ordered the men.

“With what?” a private asked, then added, “sir.”

“With anything you have, son,” Reno told him. “Just do it.”

As darkness began spreading a shroud over the land, the men on the bluffs could see huge fires, the flames leaping high into the still-smoky and dusty air. In the flame light, the soldiers could see figures dancing about, jumping and hollering.

“Victory dance,” Jamie told the gathering of officers and men. “We're all that's left, I reckon. Everyone else is dead.”

“My God, you don't mean that!” Captain Weir blurted.

“ 'Fraid I do, boy,” Jamie said.

“You can't be certain of that,” the young captain argued.

Jamie pointed to the fires and the wildly and joyous dancing of the Indians. “They damn sure seem to be.”

“Then . . . we're next.” Benteen spoke the words softly in the summer air.

“They'll throw everything they've got at us tomorrow,” Jamie said. “But I've been in worse spots.”

“Where, for God's sake?” Reno demanded.

“The Alamo,” Jamie replied.

Nobody had a thing to add to that.

* * *

Earlier that day, just as Rosanna and Andrew were about to board ship, Rosanna experienced a panic attack, unlike anything she had ever known before. She refused to board the ship.

“But the tour,” their business manager and agent said.

“To hell with the tour,” Andrew said, after speaking in private with his sister. “We'll postpone it for a time.”

“Get us tickets on the morning train,” Rosanna said. “All the way through. We're going home.”

* * *

Falcon sat by a hat-sized fire, frying his bacon, the coffee already made and the pot set off to one side on the circle of rocks. He knew he was in serious trouble, for even though the two brothers he'd killed back down the trail a-ways had been no more than worthless bullies, they were still star packers. And one of them a federal lawman.

He'd have to stay on the run until this thing got straightened out; already he missed his kids something fierce.

He'd have to get word to his brothers in Valley, and they'd hire detectives to come in and ferret out the straight story of what had happened. Until then? ...

Falcon's laugh was void of humor. “I'm an outlaw on the run,” he said. “Probably the richest outlaw in history, but on the run nevertheless.”

“Crap!” Falcon summed up his mood.

* * *

The children of Jamie and Kate gathered at the home of Jamie Ian the Second. They all had experienced a terrible feeling that day. And that mood was only deepened when Matthew held up a piece of paper.

“I got this wire this afternoon. Falcon's killed two men over in Utah Territory. A county sheriff and a federal marshal. He's on the run.”

Matthew stood silent for a moment, letting the sudden babble of voices die down. “I don't have the particulars yet, but you can all bet that those lawmen pushed Falcon over the line. And Falcon is not a man you can push. You all know how Pa made us set things up. Falcon's got money a-plenty under a different name in a bank in San Francisco, a bank in Denver, a bank in Dallas, and several other places.” He smiled. “We all do. Pa never trusted in organized law and order out of a book. He said common sense was the only good law; and the folks that don't use good common sense will end up with a bullet in them, and society will be better off for it. I ain't sayin' I agree total with Pa, but damned if I can disagree much with that view.”

The brothers and sisters exchanged glances. Joleen finally said, “Have you received any codes from Falcon?”

Years back, Jamie had made his kids work out and memorize a code that only they would know. To anyone else it would be gibberish.

“Not yet, but he'll get word to us by and by.”

“Is there any word about Custer?” Ellen Kathleen asked.

“Nothing. And there probably won't be for weeks. The nearest telegraph wire is a couple of hundred miles from where Pa was scoutin'. I know we all got a terrible feelin' this day. But don't none of us know just what it means. We're just goin' to have to wait.”

* * *

The Indians attacked just after dawn, several thousand strong. But with plenty of ammunition, the defenders along the bluffs threw back attack after attack in fierce fighting.

At about one o'clock in the afternoon, the Indians, for reasons that are still not quite clear, suddenly quit the fight and began taking down their lodges and packing up. By mid-afternoon, they were moving south en mass.

The battle of the Little Big Horn was over.

Jamie slipped away and threw a saddle on Sundown and began his search for Custer. As usual, the Indians had carried away their dead. Just as the dust of General Terry's command was filling the sky, Jamie rode up to Last Stand Hill. He knew what he would find, and it did not surprise him: Scalped and mutilated bodies of men and dead horses lay under the sun. The men were all naked and had been horribly slashed with knives. Privates cut off, eyes gouged out, hands cut off. Custer had been stripped naked, but had not been mutilated in anyway. Kneeling beside the body, Jamie discovered two wounds, one in the chest, one in the head. Either one could have killed the man.

Jamie mounted up and rode to meet General Terry. The general visibly paled at Jamie's words.

“George?” he questioned, his voice shaky.

“Dead with his men.” Jamie pointed. “Yonder they lie. Benteen and Reno are over there, on the bluff. We held out, but suffered a lot of dead and wounded.”

General Terry sighed heavily and took off his hat to mop his sweaty face and forehead. “What in God's name happened here?”

“I reckon no one will ever really know the answer to that, General.”

And to this day, no one really does.

* * *

General Terry ordered the burying of the fallen men of the 7th Cavalry to begin the next day, June 28, 1876. And it was not a pleasant task, for the sun had already begun its work and the bodies were beginning to bloat and rot and stink. The dead were buried where they fell. Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer was later given a hero's burial at West Point.

The only survivor of what has become known as Custer's Last Stand was Captain Myles Keogh's horse, Comanche. Comanche had been badly wounded in the fight, but was nursed back to health. For years, Comanche was featured in 7th Cavalry parades, saddled, but riderless. Comanche was twenty-eight years old when he died in 1891.

A year after the battle, Sitting Bull said, “These men who fought with Long Hair were as good men as ever fought.”

During the next year, 1877, General Crook would take to the field and push his troops as hard as any troops were ever pushed. They showed no mercy to the Indians, killing them where they found them. They destroyed villages, burned food supplies, and left men, women, and children to die in the cold and snow. Retribution for Custer's Last Stand was harsh.

Major Marcus Reno was accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy. Angered, Reno demanded a court of inquiry. That was convened in 1879. Reno was cleared, for no one could swear that he had seen any cowardice displayed by Reno. Major Marcus Reno died in 1889.

Jamie rode out of the valley of the Little Big Horn on the 30th of June. His work was finished. He was going home.

For the last time.

Jamie was tired and depressed. A lot of good men had been lost back along the Little Big Horn . . . and that included people on both sides. Jamie knew in his heart that the slaughter of Custer would pull the country together against the Indians like nothing had ever done. The Indians were finished. Oh, there would be pitched battles for another ten or so years, but while the Little Big Horn had been a victory for the Indians, it had, in Jamie's mind, also signaled the end for them.

It was days later, at a trading post on the North Platte,
³³
when Jamie heard the news about Falcon. To the eyes and mind of the new post owner, Jamie was just another rugged-looking old relic of a mountain man, not worth a cup of spit for anything.

Jamie bought his supplies, then had a drink and listened to the men talk. Falcon had killed two lawmen over in Utah Territory, a county sheriff and a deputy federal marshal.

But why had he killed them?

The men at the bar didn't know that, only that he had. Falcon had left the little town riding a horse the color of dark sand—a big horse, for Falcon, like his father, was a big man. His packhorse was a gray.

Riding a horse the same color and approximately the same size as mine, and trailing a gray packhorse, just like mine, Jamie mused.

Jamie quietly left the trading post without notice and once more headed south. He stopped at Fort Fred Steele and told the commanding officer there what had really taken place at the Little Big Horn. The CO and his other officers listened intently as Jamie laid it all out, from beginning to end. They had learned about the slaughter, but knew few particulars.

It was there that Jamie arranged for a wire to be sent to his kids in Valley. He knew that by now they would be worried sick.

Jamie pushed on toward home. He crossed the Divide and felt pretty sure he was in Colorado (boundaries were still a bit illdefined), and felt better. He was not that far from home. Well, maybe a week's riding.

About a day out of Valley, Jamie was humming an old song that Kate used to sing when two hammer blows struck him in the back, almost knocking him out of the saddle. As he struggled to stay on the horse, he thought he heard a shout of triumph. Sundown took off like a bolt of lightning, the packhorse trailing.

When he got the big horse calmed down, Jamie managed to stuff handkerchiefs in the holes in his back. He knew he dared not leave the saddle; he'd never be able to get back on the deck if he did. Through waves of hot pain, he cut lengths of rope and tied himself in the saddle.

“All right, Sundown,” Jamie gasped. “You know the way home. Take me to Kate.”

* * *

Two of Jamie's great-grandsons spotted the slow-walking horse and the big man slumped unconscious in the saddle. They'd been heading down to the creek to fish. When they realized who it was, it scared the be-Jesus out of both of them. They took off for town, running as fast as they could. They ran right down the center of main street, yelling and hollering at the top of their lungs and pointing toward the north.

Matthew was the first to respond. He leaped onto his horse and headed toward the north road that led into town. Dr. Tom Prentiss was a minute behind him. As he rode, the doctor yelled, “Hitch up a wagon and follow me!”

As the two men cut the ropes that bound Jamie and as gently as possible eased him from the saddle, Doctor Tom took one look at the hideous wounds in Jamie's back, and for a second, his eyes touched those of Matthew. Tom shook his head.

“Oh, goddammit!” Matthew yelled. “No!”

The wagon rattled up, and the men placed Jamie in the bed after spreading several blankets. “Take him to the clinic,” Tom told the driver. He looked at Matthew. “Gather your kin, Matthew.”

* * *

Hours later, Tom Prentiss stepped out to meet the immediate family. Only Matthew was missing. He'd been told there was a wire waiting for him at the telegraph office. The street outside the clinic was filled with friends and relatives of Jamie.

“I've made him as comfortable as possible,” the doctor said. “He refused any offer of laudanum. I can't dig out the bullets. They're too deep and I don't know where they are. I don't see how he made it this far.”

“How long . . . before? ...” Joleen managed to get those words out before tears stopped her voice.

“Maybe an hour, maybe a day,” the doctor said. He looked at Jamie Ian the Second. “How old is your father, Ian?”

The eldest son cleared his throat. “Pa thought he was born in 1810, Tom. But he never was real sure of that. It may have been 1808 or 1809.”

The doctor nodded his head. “During a moment of consciousness, he asked that one of you kids lay out his good set of buckskins. For now, well, all of you can go in for a moment and see him. But he won't recognize you. He's drifting in and out. He's . . . ah, well, he's been talking to Kate.”

Matthew stepped into the doctor's outer office, a telegram in his hand. His brothers and sisters turned to him. Matthew's eyes were bright with anger. He held up the wire. “This is from a sheriff friend of mine over near the Utah line. Seems as though a posse of men from some ranch called the N/N, and headed by several newly appointed deputy federal marshals, think they got lead into Falcon. Happened yesterday or the day before some miles north of here. What they done was they mistook Pa for Falcon.”

Joleen said, “There'll be blood on the moon when Falcon hears of this.”

“For a fact,” Matthew said. “My friend is gonna send me more information as he gets it. How's Pa?”

“Dying,” Ian said, then put his big hands to his face and wept openly.

* * *

Jamie Ian MacCallister, the man called Bear Killer, Man Who Is Not Afraid, Man Who Plays With Wolves, died on August the first, 1876, at eight o'clock in the morning. He was buried that afternoon, beside his beloved Kate and his grandfather, on a ridge overlooking the town of Valley. Overhead, circling and soaring high above the ridge, several eagles screamed.

Jamie and Kate were together again, never to be separated.

* * *

The next day, James William Haywood, Jamie's grandson from Ellen Kathleen and William Haywood, opened Jamie's will in front of the family. He had read it the night before, and was shocked right down to his boots at the enormity of Jamie's wealth.

“Your father,” he told the gathering, “was more than likely the richest man in all of Colorado. He was worth millions of dollars. He drew up this map—” he held up a map carefully outlined on a large piece of deerskin—“about a year ago. It shows all the places where he cached bags and boxes of gold and silver. During the wanderings of your great-grandfather, the man called the Silver Wolf, who lies buried up on the ridge with Jamie and Kate, he discovered a cave of Spanish treasure. He gave that to Jamie, and now Jamie is giving it to all of you. The location is on the map. You children of Jamie and Kate MacCallister just might be the richest family in all of North America. Now, your father left some of his wealth to every member of the MacCallister family. Nieces, nephews, cousins . . . he left no one out. He left a sizeable sum of money to be used by the town of Valley. It is carefully invested and will bring in a nice return for decades to come.”

James William sighed and looked up from the pages-long will. “I never realized what a complex man Jamie Ian MacCallister was. Not until I opened and read this will. He was a self-educated man, and he did a good job of it.” He lifted the will for all to see. “We'll go over this document point by point later on, but for now, does anyone know where Falcon is?”

“No,” Matthew said. “I received a coded wire from him last night. I replied, in code, telling him of our father's death. The telegrapher tapped back that it had been received, but I have no way of knowing where Falcon was when he sent the wire. Hell, he might not have sent it. He might have had a friend do it.”

The young lawyer looked at Rosanna and Andrew. “And you two? ...”

“We've rescheduled our tour. It's what Ma and Pa would have wanted us to do,” Andrew said. “Pa used to say that life has to go on.”

James William nodded. “It's going to be ... strange around here without Grandpa Jamie. It's going to take some . . . getting used to.”

“It will never be the same.” Megan summed up the feelings of all the kids of Jamie and Kate MacCallister.

After the initial reading of the will, Jamie Ian met with Matthew in Falcon's Wild Rose Saloon and said, “Now, brother, you want to tell the truth about Falcon?”

“He's in Utah. He's going after Nance Noonan and those posse members. He's going to destroy the N/N and then burn down the town. Right down to the last brick and board.”

“There were federal marshals in that posse.”

“You think Falcon gives a damn about that?”

Jamie Ian sighed and shook his head. “I reckon not.”

“Joleen summed it up the other day. There's gonna be blood on the moon before this is over.”

The brothers walked out to stand on the boardwalk, looking up at the ridge where their mother and father and grandfather lay in peace.

“You think Pa would have done what Falcon is about to do?” Jamie Ian asked.

“It's
exactly
what Pa would have done.”