Pride of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Eddie nodded, though he was still fighting the giggles.

  “Well, I’m glad you are finding it so damn funny,” Gabe said.

  “I’m sorry,” Eddie said. “I know it ain’t funny to you. I mean you take just as big a chance robbing a bank for sixty-five dollars as you do for ten thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe said. He sighed. “But what’s done is done. And we still need money.”

  “Look, I know I owe you twenty dollars,” Eddie said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar gold piece. “And I would’a give it to you a long time ago, but I kind’a lost track of where you was.”

  “I didn’t come here to collect the twenty dollars,” Gabe said, though even as he denied it, he was pocketing the coin. “What I come here for was to see if you had any ideas.”

  “Ideas about what?” Eddie said.

  Gabe shook his head. “Come on, Eddie, don’t make me spell it out for you. Because if I do spell it out, someone might hear it. Someone that we don’t want to hear what we are talkin’ about.”

  “What are we talkin’ about?” Eddie asked.

  Gabe sighed. “Don’t play games with me, Eddie. I know that you always know what’s goin’ on. And whatever it is, I want in on it.”

  Eddie drummed his fingers on the table for a moment; then he nodded.

  “All right, I do know about something that’s going on. And from what I hear, it’s going to be a lot of money.”

  “Who? When? Where?”

  Eddie shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t tell you anything yet. Not until I find out if it’s all right to bring you two in.”

  “What do you mean, find out as if it’s all right? You know us. Can’t you tell whoever it is about us?”

  “Stay here for a few days,” Eddie said.

  “For how long?”

  “Until I find out if it’s all right.”

  “But how long will that be?”

  Eddie chuckled. “Hell, Gabe, you got food, liquor, and whores. What else do you need?” he asked.

  “You say it’s a lot of money?” Gabe asked.

  Eddie nodded. “A lot of money,” he said.

  Gabe looked across the table at Pete, who had not stopped eating from the moment they sat down to breakfast.

  “What do you think, Pete? Shall we wait?”

  Pete nodded, but did not verbalize his response.

  “All right,” Gabe said. “We’ll wait.”

  “You won’t be sorry,” Eddie said as he left.

  Seven

  Established by a group of gold prospectors on November 22, 1858, and named after James Denver, the governor of Kansas Territory at the time, Denver had grown in just one generation to be the second-largest city in the West. The city of Denver had more people than the territories of the Dakotas, Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico combined.

  Gilly Cardis had never been in a city so large. His first sight was of the railroad depot itself. He stepped down, not onto a wooden platform from a single train stopped next to a small depot as he was used to, but onto a cement walk that separated the train he was on from another train next to it.

  “Make way, make way!” someone shouted, and Cardis had to step aside quickly to avoid being run down by someone pushing a baggage cart.

  Cardis happened to glance up then and saw that, though he was off the train, he wasn’t outside. Instead, he was under a high overhead roof, made of corrugated tin and supported by a network of pillars and cables. He saw also that there were actually several trains under this roof. One train was leaving, while another train was backing into the station. And his train and the next train over were but two of several trains that were in the station.

  He could hear trains backing in and pulling out, the sound of puffing steam engines echoing back from the overhead roof. Following the crowd of people who left the train, Cardis walked into the depot itself. The building was huge, bigger than any building Cardis had ever seen in his life. The floor was of marble, and stretched over the top of the depot was a large dome, which acted as an amplifier for the hundreds of conversations that echoed back. He could also hear, and feel, the rumbling movement of the heavy trains as they rolled in and out of the rail yard.

  Looking back toward the door through which he had just passed, he saw a sign that read:

  TO TRAINS

  On the opposite wall, all the way across the floor, beyond the scores of long wooden benches upon which passengers were sitting as they awaited the departure of their trains, was another sign. This one read:

  TO STREET

  On one wall was a huge clock, flanked on either side by gigantic blackboards upon which updated information was imparted to the passengers. One of the blackboards listed destinations, track numbers, and times of departure. The other blackboard listed points of origin, track numbers, and times of arrival.

  Cardis saw cities listed that he had never visited, but only heard about: San Francisco, St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia.

  The depot was filled with people, and everyone seemed to be in a hurry. He tried to stop a couple of people to ask them a question, but they moved on without responding. Then he saw two men who didn’t seem to be in as big a hurry as everyone else, but were standing in the middle of the floor talking to each other. He walked up to them.

  “Can you tell me whereat I can find me a man who calls hisself MacCallister? Falcon MacCallister?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” one of the men answered.

  “How come you don’t know? I’m told he lives near Denver.”

  One of the men laughed. “Mister, one hundred thousand people live in Denver. Do you expect us to know every one?”

  “One hundred thousand?” Cardis replied, shocked by the number.

  “It may be larger,” the other man suggested.

  Shaking his head, Cardis walked away from the two. That was when he noticed the long counter, topped by a frosted-glass wall. The glass wall was interrupted every few feet by windows, and behind each window was a ticket agent. He walked up to one of the windows.

  “Yes, sir,” the ticket agent greeted. “Where would you like to go?”

  “I ain’t a’goin’ nowhere, I just got here,” Cardis said. “I was just a’wonderin’ if you could tell me whereat a fella by the name of Falcon MacCallister might live.”

  The ticket agent shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I can help you.” Looking over Cardis’s shoulder, the ticket agent called out to a woman who was standing behind him. “Next.”

  “Well, have you got ’ny idea—” Cardis started, but the ticket agent interrupted him.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I do have a customer and as there are train schedules to keep, I can’t keep her waiting.”

  Cardis walked away, then headed for the door under the sign that said TO STREET.

  The street in front of the depot was so filled with hacks, carriages, buggies, buckboards, and freight wagons that it was difficult for Cardis to get to the other side.

  Cardis wandered around the city for the rest of the day, marveling at the crowds of people and size of all the buildings. When it grew dark, he realized that he was hungry, so he walked around until he found a restaurant. A waiter escorted him to an empty table, then gave him a menu.

  “I’ll give you a moment to make up your mind,” he said.

  Cardis opened the menu, then gasped in surprise at the cost of everything. He had thought that he would have enough money to spend a few days in Denver, at least until he found MacCallister. But if the cost of meals in this restaurant was any indication, he was going to have to make up his mind whether he wanted to eat or sleep warm.

  For now, he decided that he would eat. But since most of the thirty-one dollars he had stolen was gone, he was going to have to make some kind of arrangements. Normally, he wouldn’t even think twice about staying in a hotel. But now he would find a livery somewhere. Most of the time he could sleep in the w
arm straw in a livery stable for free. Sometimes it would cost him a nickel or maybe even a dime, but never more than that.

  Cardis ordered fried chicken and ate heartily, breaking the bones and sucking out the marrow. Then he used a piece of bread to sop up everything from the plate. When he was finished, he stepped outside. It was dark and foggy and Cardis, who wasn’t wearing a coat, was surprised by how cold it was. Three days ago he had been fighting the desert heat. Now he was so cold that he couldn’t stop shivering, and he stuck his hands down in his pockets as he walked off into the night.

  A hansom cab rolled by, the horses’ hooves clattering loudly on the cobblestone street. The cab was dark brown with yellow trim and yellow wheels. The seats were cushioned leather, and the passenger sitting in the back was wearing a suit, overcoat, and top hat. He had the arrogant look of someone who was not only used to such luxury, but accepted it as his due.

  “Stop here, Clarence,” the man called, and the cab stopped about half a block in front of Cardis. Cardis stepped back into the shadows.

  “You sure you want to stop here, Mr. Brooks?” the driver, Clarence, said. “I can take you right to your house with no problem.”

  “No, you’d have to go all the way down to the bottom of the hill, around the block, then back up again,” Brooks said. “I can just cut through the alley.”

  “Yes, sir, if you say so.”

  Brooks got out and stepped up to the front of the cab, then paid the driver.

  “Your team was stepping out quite lively tonight, Clarence. I enjoyed the ride.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Clarence replied. Clarence clucked at his team, then snapped the reins. They started up again, and the cab disappeared quickly into the fog bank.

  Although Cardis could no longer see the cab, he could hear it as it continued down the street. He could also see the golden bubbles of light that marked each corner of the avenue. These were the streetlamps, gleaming yellow, though with a light so diffused by the mist that they provided little in the way of illumination.

  Staying well back, Cardis followed Brooks for about half a block until he turned up an alley that had no lights at all. Within a moment, Brooks was swallowed up in the night and the fog.

  Cardis darted up a side street that ran parallel with the alley, then he came to a cross-alley. He ran down the cross-alley, then leaned against the cold, damp, brick wall, breathing hard as he waited for Brooks to arrive. The fog was so thick that he couldn’t see ten feet in front of him. But he could hear Brooks’s footsteps echoing hollowly in the darkness.

  The footsteps came closer and closer until Brooks passed to within the little ten-foot bubble of visibility. Cardis waited for just a second, then, with his pistol drawn, he suddenly jumped out in front of him.

  “No!” Brooks gasped, seeing the gun in Cardis’s hand. “No!”

  Cardis pulled the trigger. The gunshot sounded exceptionally loud to him, echoing back and forth from the walls of the buildings that flanked the alley. Even before the last echo died, several dogs within the neighborhood began barking.

  “What was that?” a frightened voice called from somewhere in the darkness.

  “A shot! I heard a shot!” another answered.

  From somewhere far off, Cardis could hear the two-tone bleat of a policeman’s whistle, but because he felt shielded by the night and the fog, he was able to reach leisurely into Brooks’s pocket and take out his billfold. Opening the billfold, he smiled broadly when he saw that it was fat with banknotes. He took the money, then dropped the billfold onto Brooks’s body.

  By now he could hear footsteps running up the street, and a second police whistle joined the first. But the footsteps were still on the street, not in the alley, so Cardis was undisturbed by all the commotion that was going on around him.

  Moving quickly back up the cross-alley, Cardis came back out onto the street. Then, ahead, he saw a marquee out over the sidewalk. The sign on the marquee read: ALPINE HOTEL.

  Cardis went inside. It had been a long time since he’d actually stayed in a hotel. But he had enough money now to do so, so he stepped up to the desk. There was no one there, so he waited.

  A man came into the hotel lobby, wearing a domed hat and a long blue coat with a double row of brass buttons. Cardis had never seen a uniformed policeman before, and for a moment he was startled, because the uniform reminded him a lot of the uniforms the guards wore back in the Yuma prison. Seeing Cardis standing calmly by the desk, the policeman spoke to him.

  “I’m Officer Williams. Has anyone come running in here in the last few minutes?”

  Cardis shook his head. “No, I ain’t seen no one. Why? What happened?”

  “There was a murder very close to here,” the policeman said.

  “Did the murderer get away?” Cardis asked.

  “Let’s just say that we haven’t found him yet,” the policeman said. “But we will. In the meantime, as dark and foggy as it is outside, and with a murderer on the loose, I’d suggest that you stay inside for the night.”

  “Yeah, I will,” Cardis said.

  Shortly after the policeman left, the desk clerk appeared.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I was, uh, temporarily detained,” the desk clerk said. “Have you been here long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you ring the bell?”

  “What bell? I don’t see no bell.”

  The clerk pointed to a small half-round object on the desk, from which a button protruded. He slapped the button with the palm of his hand, and the bell rang.

  “I’ll be damn,” Cardis said, examining the little bell. “I sure ain’t never seen nothin’ like that.”

  “Would you like a room?”

  “Yeah.”

  The clerk turned the registration book around for Cardis to fill out.

  “Am I right? Was a policeman just in here?” the clerk asked.

  “Yeah. He just left.”

  “What did he want?”

  “There was a murder near here,” Cardis said as he finished filling out the book. “He said we should stay inside.”

  “He needn’t worry. I intend to do just that.” The clerk took a key from a board and handed it to Cardis. “You are in room twenty-four, second floor, all the way to the back,” the clerk said.

  * * *

  Cardis paid no attention to the dozen or so roaches that started running across the floor when he lit the lantern. It also didn’t bother him that the linen on the iron-stead bed was dirty, and had probably not been changed for several weeks. A fading brown chest of drawers was set against a wall from which hung strips of loose wallpaper. A porcelain basin and a pitcher of water was on the chest of drawers, alongside a chamber pot that reeked of urine. The window shade was badly torn, and the windowpane was cracked.

  Cardis took the chamber pot down and used it, then he opened the window and poured the urine out. He stood at the window for a moment, but because of the fog and darkness, couldn’t see anything.

  Then, turning away from the window, he sat on the bed and began counting the money he had taken from Brooks. The total came to fifty-six dollars. That should keep him in town long enough to find MacCallister.

  Eight

  Jamie’s Ridge, named after Falcon’s father, Jamie Ian MacCallister, sat at the north end of MacCallister Valley. Stretching across the valley, it stood like a closed door against the cold winds of winter. It didn’t keep out all the cold, of course, but its effect was noticeable. Often, while neighboring counties would get two or three feet of snow, the snow falling in MacCallister Valley would be calculated in inches. And during the great “Winter Freeze Out” of a few years ago, when hundreds of thousands of head of cattle died all over the West, the cattle in MacCallister Valley fared surprisingly well.

  Falcon rode up to the crest of Jamie’s Ridge, then dismounted and, as Diablo cropped grass, Falcon sat on a large, flat rock and looked out over the valley. The setting sun caught the stream that ran through the middle of the v
alley, turning it molten gold. And indeed, the stream was gold as far as the valley was concerned because its inexhaustible supply of water was fully as valuable to the business of raising cattle as were the gently rolling grasslands.

  Anytime Falcon was home, particularly if he wanted to think about something, he would come here. In fact, he could almost believe that the rock he was sitting on was flat because had so often sat on it. Right now, he wanted to think about what he and Kohrs had discussed. Did he really want to replace his longhorns with Herefords?

  It wasn’t entirely a business decision that caused him to pause and think. He knew that Kohrs was right about the value of Herefords, and the role they would play in the future of the cattle industry. Herefords would make more money.

  But money was not a problem with Falcon. He had mineral rights to gold and silver mines; in fact, the Arizona silver mine that he had recently bought from Doc Holliday was already paying off handsomely.

  But he liked the longhorns. He admired their tenacity and their ability to find something to eat when the deer and the antelope could not. That was good for someone like him. He wasn’t exactly a “stay at home” rancher. Ever since his father and wife had been killed by renegade Indians, Falcon MacCallister had been a man on the move. He did not see that changing anytime soon.

  He also liked the continuity of the longhorns. These had been the cattle of his father, and by looking at them, he could almost project himself back to a happier time, when his father and his wife were both alive, and he was a serious rancher.

  On the other hand, he felt that he owed an obligation to the valley that his father had been so instrumental in settling and building. And if his obligation was to introduce a breed of cattle that would take them into the future, then he should do so. The days of the longhorn were numbered, and anyone who did not make the transition into the new breed would be left behind.

  Falcon reached down and pulled up a stem of grass, then put the sweet root into his mouth and sucked on it.