“Shorty! Clyde!” he called, but neither man answered.
There was another volley; this time the bullets whistled through the window, slammed into the walls, and careened off the cold stove. Les scooted as far up under his bunk as he could get and lay there with his arms over his head until, finally, the shooting stopped.
“Les!” Clyde called. “Les, I’m real bad shot.”
Les crawled across the floor, littered now with shattered glass from the shot-out window. When he reached Clyde, he saw blood on the injured man’s chest. The wound was sucking air, and Les looked away, knowing it would soon be over for his friend.
“What about Shorty?” Clyde asked. “How bad is he hit?”
Les looked over at Shorty and saw him lying very still. His eyes were open, but there was blood and brain matter lying on the floor by the bullet wound in his head.
“He’s dead, pardner,” Les said.
Les got no reply from Clyde, and when he looked back at him, he saw that Clyde was dead as well.
He heard the sound of galloping horses then, and quickly he darted out the back door and ran through the dark into a small thicket of trees just behind the barn. There were four men, and he watched as, methodically, they began setting fire to the house, barn, cookshack, and smokehouse. They spared the bunkhouse.
Falcon was at least two miles away when he heard the shooting. Because of the echoes, it took him a moment to determine the direction from which the shooting was coming. He rode to the top of a knoll while the firing was still going on to see if he could find out. Then, far to the west, he saw a series of winking lights and knew that they were muzzle flashes.
Back at the meeting at the Bowman Ranch, the ranchers and farmers, totally unaware of the attack on the Silver Spur, were still discussing the problem and trying to come up with some solution.
“It’s time we did something about it,” Frakes said.
“We did do something about it. We hired Falcon MacCallister,” Bowman said. “Accordin’ to Mr. Denham, he is going to be the solution to all our problems. Ain’t that right, Harold?”
“That isn’t what I said,” Denham replied forcefully. “And we didn’t exactly hire him.”
“What’s that?” one of the other ranchers said. “What do you mean you didn’t hire him? Ain’t he done come here?”
“He came here, yes, but it was of his own accord,” Denham said.
“That’s not good,” Bowman said.
“Why not?”
“It’s always better when someone is working for you. That way you have some leverage over them, you can tell them what to do, and they don’t have any choice.”
Denham chuckled.
“What is it? What did I say funny?”
“When you said ‘tell them what to do.’ Believe me, nobody ever tells Falcon MacCallister what to do.”
“Then what you are saying is we can’t count on him to work for us?”
“It is more like he will be working for himself,” Denham said. “And his goals and ours will be parallel.”
“Well, Mr. Denham, you are the one who wanted to get this meeting together. So, what, exactly, do you have in mind?” one of the attendees asked.
“Gentlemen, what we need,” Denham began, “is to form some sort of a civic organization that can deal with this.”
“You mean like a vigilante committee?” a man named Parker asked.
“No. Well, yes, in essence we will be a vigilante committee, but we cannot and will not refer to ourselves that way.”
“What about the Scott County Fusiliers?” someone suggested.
“Fusiliers is too militaristic. We need a more benign-sounding name.”
“I’ve got a suggestion,” Bowman said. “Suppose we call ourselves the Scott County Betterment Association.”
“Good suggestion,” Denham said. “I’ll draw us up a charter and do a story about it in the newspaper.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Bowman?” someone said, stepping in through the door at that moment. It was one of Bowman’s hands.
“Yes, Ben, what is it?” Bowman answered.
“Maybe you folks better come outside here an’ look at this,” Ben suggested.
The expression in the cowboy’s voice caught the attention of the ranchers, and they stopped what they were doing to step out onto Bowman’s front porch. Ben pointed toward the distant horizon, but he didn’t have to. Everyone’s attention had already been arrested by the orange glow of what had to be a large fire.
“That . . . that’s your place, ain’t it, Al?” someone asked.
“Yes,” Al answered in a tight voice.
“Quick!” one of the other ranchers said. “If we get over there in time, we might be able to save some of it!”
“I’ve got extra buckets in the barn!” Bowman shouted. “Get ’em in the wagons men, an’ let’s go!”
Falcon stared toward the ranch, now burning, and saw, silhouetted against the flames, four riders. Once he determined which way they were going, he rode quickly to be able to cut them off. Finding a trail through some rocks, he dismounted, ground-tethered Lightning out of sight, then waited for them.
Close in he could hear crickets and frogs. A little farther out an owl hooted, and out on the prairie a coyote howled. But so far he had not heard what he wanted to hear, the drum of horses’ hooves, the rattle of the saddle and tack. He was beginning to wonder if he had mistaken their course, when, once more, he got a glimpse them.
He pulled his pistol and checked his load, then waited. When they were close enough, he called out to them.
“That’s far enough! You men stop right there!” he called.
“What the hell?” one of the men shouted. “Who is it?”
“What the hell does it matter who it is? Shoot the son of a bitch down!” another called.
The riders pulled their pistols then and opened fire. Falcon returned fire, his first shot knocking one of the men from his saddle onto the rocky ground. All hell broke loose then as the pistols roared and muzzle flashes lit up the night like bolts of lightning.
Even though outnumbered, Falcon had the advantage. He was well positioned on the ground, while the outlaws were astride horses that were rearing and twisting about nervously as flying lead whistled through the air and whined off stone. It was almost impossible for them to get off a shot, even if they had a clear view of their target.
Falcon took down a second rider.
“Where the hell is he?” one of the outlaws shouted in panic.
“Shoot ’im, shoot ’im!” the other yelled.
It only took two more shots, and then it was quiet, with the final round of shooting but faint echoes bounding off distant hills. A little cloud of acrid-bitter gunsmoke drifted up over the deadly battlefield, and Falcon walked out among the fallen outlaws, moving cautiously, his pistol at the ready.
It wasn’t necessary. All four men were dead, and the entire battle had taken less than a minute.
In the east the sun had risen full disc. A dozen wagons were parked in the soft morning light, and in the wagons, nestled among quilts and blankets, slept the children of the families who had come to help fight the fire. The light of day now disclosed the damage the fire had done. The house had been completely destroyed, but it could have been worse. The smokehouse, cookshack, bunkhouse, and barn had not been as thoroughly involved in flames, and they were saved, first by Les’s efforts and then by the united effort of all who had come to help.
Martha Frakes stood in her husband’s arms, weeping softly. Harold Denham stood nearby, looking at the destruction with eyes that were wide and sad. The Frakes, like everyone else out here, were covered with soot and ash from the blackened ruins of their home. On the ground under a tree sat a pitiful pile of what few belongings they had managed to pull from the ashes. Most of their belongings were burned and twisted beyond recognition, but here and there a few things had survived the flames, and their bright, undamaged colors shined incongruously from the pile of
smoking, blackened rubble. The cast-iron cook stove stood undamaged, almost defiantly, in the midst of what had been the kitchen.
Everyone was tired and covered with a great sadness for the two young cowboys who had been killed. In addition to their deaths, the death of a home was also particularly hard, because this was an area where homes and people were few and far between.
“How many were there?” one of the ranchers asked Les. It was the first chance there was for interrogation because the entire night had been passed in the unsuccessful attempt to fight the fire.
“There was four of ’em,” Les answered.
“Did you recognize any of them?”
Les, who had helped fight the fire, was, like the others, covered in soot and ash. He walked over to the well and brought up a bucket of water, then took a long drink from the dipper, not yet having answered Falcon’s question. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, leaving a clean swipe through the soot.
“I’m not real sure,” Les finally said. “I was hiding under my bed in the bunkhouse, remember? And besides that, it was dark. But, when they set fire to the main house, it lit up the yard some, and that’s when I got a pretty good look at one of them. I wouldn’t swear to it, you understand, but I’m pretty sure I saw who it was.”
“Who was it?” Denham asked.
“I believe it was Pogue Allison.”
“Pogue Allison? Are you sure?” Denham asked, his face plainly showing his intense interest.
“Well, like I said, I don’t know if I could swear to it,” Denham hedged. “But it sure looked like him.”
“Who is Pogue Allison?” one of the other ranchers asked.
“Pogue Allison is one of Poindexter’s deputies,” Denham said.
“He was a deputy,” Bowman said. “But seems to me like he got fired last month. It had somethin’ to do with the whores, I believe.”
“Yes, in addition to the scam the sheriff and the judge are running on the whores, Pogue Allison had his own game going,” Denham said. “But he was a deputy.”
“That doesn’t mean the sheriff was behind this,” another rancher pointed out.
“Maybe not. But it sure doesn’t mean he is innocent of this, either,” Bowman insisted.
“There’s someone comin’ in!” someone called, and the men who had fought the fire all night long now stirred themselves to meet the rider.
“Maybe it’s the arsonists come back!” another shouted.
“No, wait, he’s leadin’ a string of horses. Ain’t no arsonist goin’ to come back to where he started a fire leadin’ horses. What is it, a pack train?”
“It’s Falcon MacCallister,” Denham called. “Don’t anyone get excited.”
“Look what’s on the horses. It’s bodies.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Falcon rode into the front yard of the burned-out house, he saw the men gathering together to meet him. He stopped near one of the wagons, then climbed down from his horse and, taking his canteen from the pommel, walked over to the well to fill it. All eyes were on him, not only the men, but the women and children as well. The men crowded down close, the women hung back, and the children were back farther, in some cases hiding behind their mothers’ skirts, peering out around them with wide, curious, and in some cases, frightened, eyes.
“Mr. MacCallister, you want to tell us what all this is about?” Bowman asked.
Falcon filled his canteen, then took a long Adam’s apple–bobbing drink. He lowered the canteen and looked toward the burned-out house, then nodded back toward the four horses.
“They are the ones who did this,” he said.
“How do you know they did it?” Bowman asked.
Falcon put the top on his canteen and hooked it over the pommel.
“I saw them coming away from the fire.”
“If you saw them, why didn’t you stop them?” another asked.
“By the time I saw them, it was too late. They had already set the fire. Whose house is this?”
“It was my house,” Leon Frakes said.
“I’m sorry about your house. Sorry I didn’t see them in time to stop them.”
Bowman walked over to the four horses and was checking each of the men by grabbing a handful of hair and lifting the head.
“This one is Pogue Allison,” he said. “You were right, Les.”
“I thought it was him I seen,” Les said. He looked over at Falcon. “I’m glad these sons of bitches are dead. I just wish it had been me instead of you that shot him. They killed Clyde and Shorty.”
“What are we going to do with the bodies?” Bowman asked.
“We’ll take them into town,” Denham suggested.
“If we do that, the sheriff might try and charge Mr. MacCallister with murder,” Bowman said.
“No, he won’t,” Frakes said. “Not if he thinks Les and I killed them while they were attacking us, killing Clyde and Shorty, and burning down my house.”
When Falcon and the others returned to town, they brought the bodies of the four arsonists and the two cowboys who were killed with them. The two cowboys were brought in in the back of a wagon. The wagon stopped at Nunnelee’s Funeral parlor. The bodies of the four arsonists, which were thrown over the backs of their horses, continued on. This macabre procession got everyone’s attention, so that by the time they reached the sheriff’s office, there were at least one hundred people gathered around to see what this was all about.
“Look there. That’s Ron Mace.”
“And that’s Jack Andrews.”
Sheriff Poindexter and Deputy Sharp came out of the office then, and they stepped down off the boardwalk to examine the bodies.
“Pogue Wilson, Ron Mace, Jack Andrews, and Frank Little,” Poindexter said as he examined each one of them. He looked up at Falcon.
“You know all these men, do you, Sheriff?” Falcon asked.
“Indeed I do. People seem to have a habit of dying around you, don’t they, MacCallister?”
“He didn’t have nothin’ to do with this, Sheriff,” Les said. “These sons of bitches kilt Clyde and Shorty.”
“And then they set fire to my house and barn,” Leon Frakes added.
“So we kilt ’em,” Les said.
“Who killed them?”
“We all did,” Bowman said.
“All of you?”
“Yes, all of us. We were having a meeting at Leon Frakes’s house when they attacked. They were killed, fair and square.”
Poindexter’s one-lidded eye squinted. “What do you mean you were having a meeting at Frakes’s house? I thought the meeting was at your house.”
“What give you that idea?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just heard it somewhere.”
“I guess you did.”
“All right, I’ve seen ’em. Take ’em down to Nunnelee’s place.”
Frakes nodded, and the four riders who were leading the horses over which a body was draped started back down the street toward the funeral home.
“MacCallister,” Poindexter said.
Falcon looked at him, but said nothing.
“How much longer are you going to stay around town?”
“As long as it takes,” Falcon answered.
“As long as what takes?”
“As long as it takes to finish my business.”
“Yeah, well, don’t make that be too long. I’m beginning to find you”—he paused for a moment as he looked for the word—“tiresome.”
“I’m sorry you don’t seem to be enjoying my company that much.”
As the crowd around the sheriff’s office began to break up, Falcon and Denham rode back down to the newspaper office, dismounted, and went inside.
“Sheriff Poindexter was behind that fire, just as sure as a gun is iron,” Denham said. “I’d like to take a club and just bash that son of a bitch right in the head.”
Falcon chuckled. “And here I thought you were a peaceful newspaperman.”
“I’m
peaceful until I get riled. Then I’m not all that peaceful anymore.”
“So I see.”
“Well, I’d better get to work,” Denham said. “I’ve got a newspaper to get out.”
“And I think I’ll get on back to the boardinghouse. Mrs. Allen told me we’re having chicken and dumplings for supper, and I don’t want to miss that.”
Denham laughed. “You better watch that old lady, Falcon. Chicken and dumplings? She’s setting her cap for you.”
There were four other guests staying with Mrs. Allen. Three women and one man. Two of the women, Mrs. Ring and Mrs. Sherman, were, like Mrs. Allen, widows. And like Mrs. Allen, they were in their mid-sixties. The youngest of the three was unmarried and had never been married. This was Barbara Clinton, and she was an attractive woman in her mid-forties.
The man’s name was Captain Jerry Aufdenberg. Aufdenberg had commanded a Confederate Raider during the war, sometimes sailing with Admiral Rafael Semmes. Aufdenberg was in his early sixties, and it was obvious that there was some sort of relationship going on between Captain Aufdenberg and Barbara Clinton.
“Miss Clinton was in the theater in New York for a while,” Mrs. Allen said after she had introduced all of them.
“Interesting,” Falcon said. “You may know my brother and sister . . . ,”
“Andrew and Roseanne MacCallister!” Barbara said, interrupting Falcon in mid-sentence. “Yes, indeed, I do know them! I have appeared on stage with them. Oh, what wonderful performers they are! And, what wonderful people! In fact, I do believe I have heard them speak of you.”
“I hope you didn’t believe anything they said. I’m not nearly as bad as all that.”
“Ha! You should hear them speak of you. According to both of them, you hung the moon.”
“Well now, aren’t we fortunate to have him among us,” Captain Aufdenberg said.
“Don’t be jealous, now, Captain,” Mrs. Ring said. “I’m sure that Mr. MacCallister will be here but a short time only. And when he leaves, you will still be here, and still be the lord of this castle.”
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