Song of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Dolan’s hand began to quiver, then shake. He slowly let the hammer down on his Smith and Wesson and held it out for Falcon to take.

  “All right, here’s my gun. Now lower yours, and we can call it even,” Dolan said, sweat pouring off his face to run down his cheeks and drip onto his silk shirt.

  As Falcon took his pistol, Roy grabbed the shotgun and aimed it over the bar, cocking both barrels with a loud metallic click.

  “All right, gents,” he called, “everybody settle down. Its Falcon’s play now.”

  Falcon threw Dolan’s pistol over in a far corner and put his derringer back behind his belt buckle.

  “Since you don’t like being called names, why don’t you do something about it, low life?”

  Dolan looked around at the men at his table. “Don’t just stand there, do something!” he yelled.

  Chisum shook his head, a slight smile curling the corners of his lips. “You called the play, Jimmy. We’re out of it.”

  “Are you going to fight like a man, or are you scared now that you don’t have a gun in your hand?” Falcon asked.

  “I’m . . . I’m not one for fisticuffs,” Dolan stammered.

  Falcon reached out and slapped Dolan’s face with his open palm. “Come on, Dolan. I’m calling you out. Fists, knives, guns, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s your choice.”

  “I apologize for pulling a gun on you, MacCallister. Now, is that enough?”

  Falcon slapped him again, snapping his head around and turning the side of his face a bright red.

  “Come on, coward. You’re awfully brave when you’ve got snakes like Jesse Evans to do your fighting for you. What are you going to do now that Evans is dead and buried?”

  Dolan’s eyes narrowed. “It was you that killed Jesse and his men, wasn’t it?”

  Falcon grinned. “It’s said in the west, a man’s got to saddle his own horse and kill his own snakes.” He shrugged. “I just follow the rules.”

  He slapped Dolan again, making Chisum and the others wince at the humiliation he was inflicting on the businessman.

  Finally, Dolan had enough. He screamed, “You bastard!” and swung his fist at Falcon’s head.

  Falcon leaned to the side, letting the punch slip harmlessly by, and buried his right hand up to the wrist in Dolan’s stomach.

  Dolan doubled over, both hands on his gut, and Falcon planted his feet and swung with all his might in a roundhouse uppercut.

  His knuckles caught Dolan on the bridge of his nose, flattening it and splattering blood and mucous all over his face as the blow straightened him up and threw him backward to land spread-eagled, unconscious, on his back on a table.

  Falcon walked over and wiped blood and tissue off his hand onto Dolan’s expensive silk shirt.

  He turned to the men at Dolan’s table. “Get this garbage out of here, and when he wakes up tell him if he ever sets foot through those batwings again, I’ll kill him on the spot.”

  He looked over at Roy, who still held the express gun in his hands, sweat pouring off his face.

  “Take it easy with that shotgun, Roy. The excitement’s over for the night.”

  Roy turned to put the gun away, muttering, “I hope so. My heart can’t take much more of this.”

  Twenty-seven

  Tom Pickett had come to Fort Sumner with Dick Bowdre. The Kid had argued there would be strength in numbers, and the more men the Regulators could get to ride with them, the safer they would be. O’Folliard and Bowdre, two of the original Regulators, the Kid, Tom Pickett, Dave Rudabaugh, and Billie Wilson congregated under the Kid’s leadership and rode twelve miles out of town, to hole up at the Wilcox ranch.

  Pat Garrett, trying to earn the reward the governor had put on the Kid’s head, heard a man named Frank Stewart was up from Texas, leading a posse looking for stolen cattle.

  Stewart had with him Lon Chambers, Lee Hall, James East, Tom Emory, Luis Bozeman, Bob Williams, Charles Siringo, and “Big Foot” Wallace.

  Garrett convinced Stewart to quit searching for rustled cattle and to help him track down the Kid. Garrett explained to Stewart’s men they would be pursuing the Kid because he had in his possession a stolen herd of panhandle cattle.

  “How can that be?” one of the Texans asked. “I heard ’bout the shootin’ over at Greathouse’s tradin’ post, and that the Kid had been left afoot.”

  “Don’t know,” Stewart replied, “but if you doubt my word about it, just ask Mr. Garrett there.”

  The Texans did doubt his word, and were well aware it was a put up job, to gain the reward.

  Garrett led the men toward Puerto de Luna, a hundred miles northeast, riding single file through bitter cold. By a little past midnight on December eighteenth, Garrett and his posse were on the outskirts of Fort Sumner.

  “You men stay here, and keep a sharp look out,” Garrett said to the posse. “I’ll take Barney Mason with me and go look for somebody that may be able to help us find the Kid and the other Regulators.”

  Garrett and Mason entered the town, and soon found Juan Gallegos, a Mexican-American who was known to be friendly with the Kid.

  In the cantina where Gallegos was drinking with friends, Garrett put a pistol in his back and said, “Come on, Juan, you’re under arrest.”

  The startled man turned, hands in the air. “What for?”

  “The crime of knowin’ Billy the Kid,” Mason snarled. “Now get your butt on that horse outside and let’s go.”

  When they rode up to the rest of the posse, Gallegos, reined in his horse, suddenly fearful.

  “What is this?” he asked. “I thought I was going to jail.”

  As the posse gathered around him, Garrett said, “We want to have a little talk with you first, Juan. Then there may not be any need in your going to jail.”

  After being worked over with pistols and fists for over an hour, the bloodied man finally held up his hands. “All right . . . all right. I had enough. I tell you where the Kid is.”

  Garrett wiped blood and mucous off his leather gloves on Gallegos’s shirt. “Where is he, Juan? And you’d better tell the truth, or I’ll hunt you and your family down and make you sorry you lied.”

  Juan paused to lean to the side and spit a broken tooth onto the dirt. “The Kid and some Regulators they are out at the Wilcox ranch, but he will come into town for supplies soon, and to see Charlie Bowdre’s wife. She’s sick.”

  Garrett took the posse into town and took over the hospital where Bowdre’s wife was staying. He stationed men at all the windows, and two men with long rifles up on the roof. He was going to ambush the Kid and any friends with him when he rode into town.

  “Don’t give ’em no warning,” he said to the men, “just open fire and blow ’em outta their saddles when they get in range.”

  While Garrett was getting his posse set up in the hospital, Juan Gallegos, hunched over his saddle holding his aching stomach, rode a back way into Fort Sumner and made his way to The Drinking Hole.

  He stumbled through the batwings, causing all the people inside to stop talking and stare at the Mexican standing in the door, his face and nose swollen and bleeding, his clothes covered with blood and vomit.

  “I need to speak with Señor MacCallister,” Juan said, unable to see clearly through eyes swollen almost shut.

  The bartender, Roy, worried that the man meant trouble, put his hand on the shotgun under the bar, until Falcon signaled him it was all right.

  Falcon got up and went to Juan, putting his hand around his shoulders. He knew the man was a friend of the Kid’s.

  “Roy, get Juan here a drink and I’ll take him to my office for a chat.”

  In the office, Juan took a deep swig of the whiskey, wincing when it burned his open cuts in his mouth.

  “Señor MacCallister, Sheriff Garrett from Lincoln is in town. He has with him many mens, and they are planning to shoot the Kid.”

  Falcon questioned Juan closely, learning the posse was set up at the hospital. He tried to
give Juan a double eagle gold piece for his trouble, but he declined.

  “The Kid is good friend to many mens. He helped Juan’s family once, and I no forget. It is my pleasure to help.”

  He hung his head. “Please tell el Chivato Juan try not to tell them anything.”

  “Don’t worry, Juan. The Kid will understand.”

  Falcon went to the gun cabinet on a far wall and got out his Winchester .4440 and a box of ammunition. Then he slipped out a back door and headed for the hotel.

  As he made his way through dark streets, leaden clouds overhead let go, and it began to snow heavily.

  Falcon went into the hotel, ignored the snoring desk clerk, and took a key to a room on the top floor.

  In the room, he pulled a chair over to the window, lighted a stogie, and sat back to wait. He had a clear view of the hotel and the street leading up to it from his position. He had promised the Kid he would take a hand if he got the chance and even up the odds a bit, and he intended to do just that.

  Around eight o’clock in the morning, with snow still falling in thick white clouds, the Kid and the five men with him returned to Fort Sumner.

  They rode up the street, hunched over against the cold, strung out in single file.

  Garrett poked his rifle through a window and opened fire, shooting Tom O’Folliard through the chest, knocking him almost out of his saddle. The horse, startled by the gunfire, reared and ran straight toward the ambushers, who then began to shoot at the dark figures in the street.

  O’Folliard, clutching his chest, cried out, “Don’t shoot any more, I’m dyin’!”

  Garrett’s next shot hit the Kid’s horse in its right shoulder, throwing the Kid to the ground.

  Garrett took careful aim, the bead on his rifle barrel centered on the Kid’s forehead.

  Suddenly, the stucco next to Garrett’s head exploded, sending fragments into his eyes and face. His shot went wild as he ducked back from the window.

  Rapid fire from a building across the street began to pepper the hospital, and one of the men on the roof was hit and fell screaming to the ground.

  The Kid, seeing his chance, vaulted up on the back of Billie Wilson’s horse, and they hightailed it out of town, with Pickett and Bowdre close behind.

  As they passed the hotel, the Kid looked up and saw a white face at the window. Though he couldn’t make out any features, he thought he knew who had saved his life, and he waved his hat at the man as they rode past.

  Twenty-eight

  It was a bitterly cold December night as the Kid, riding behind Billie Wilson, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett, and Charley Bowdre made their way through spits of wind-driven snow to the Wilcox Ranch house near Fort Sumner to escape the storm.

  They built a fire in the old fireplace, tied their horses behind the house, and got set to wait out the snow. The house had been abandoned for years, and the Kid felt safe there. He didn’t think the ambushers would be able to find them in this weather. They should be safe to hole up there for a day or two, or until the weather broke.

  Two days later, when the snowfall had slowed to mere sprinkles, the Kid and his men left the Wilcox house and rode all day until they came to an abandoned rock house at Stinking Springs.

  Cold and hungry, the men stopped to fix some hot food and let the horses rest overnight.

  When Bowdre went out at first light to feed the horses, he was met by a fusillade of bullets fired by Pat Garrett and a posse of more than a dozen men who had been tipped off by an informer who hoped to earn part of the reward.

  The Kid and everyone else scrambled from their bedrolls to fetch rifles.

  Bowdre, mortally wounded, staggered back through the snow toward the house, leaving a trail of blood.

  “They’ve murdered you, Charley!” the Kid shouted when Bowdre was closer to the house. “But we’ll get revenge. Turn around and start shooting. Kill some of the sons of bitches before you die.”

  Bowdre turned around, confused, dazed by pain and blood loss, holding his hands in the air as though in surrender. “I’m dying!” he cried, stumbling toward Garrett’s hiding place before he fell face-down in the snow near Garrett’s feet.

  The Kid signaled his men to lead their horses into the house by the back door. He had run outside to untie his bay mare when Pat Garrett fired directly into the horse’s chest, felling it so it blocked the entrance.

  Two more horses had their ropes cut in two by bullets and took off before the Kid’s men could reach them, dragging loose rope behind them.

  Rifle fire began between both factions, a constant drone of blasting guns. Gunfire came from the rear of the house and from all sides, too many guns for four men without horses to make good their escape.

  “They’ve got us cornered,” he told Rudabaugh.

  Rudabaugh cupped his hands around his mouth. “We want to surrender!” he cried.

  “You go out first,” the Kid snapped, “since givin’ up was your idea.”

  Without hesitation Rudabaugh tossed out his gun, raised his hands in the air, and walked out into the snow. He came up to Garrett and lowered his head.

  “We’ve got you, Dave,” Garrett said.

  “I know. The others will give themselves up if you promise to take us to Santa Fe to stand trial. We won’t none of us have a chance if you haul us to Las Vegas.”

  “You aren’t exactly in a position to make deals.”

  “Would you rather fight a while longer an’ maybe lose a few good men on your side?”

  Garrett appeared to consider it.

  The Kid, listening from a window, spoke to Wilson. “Dave ain’t got as much nerve as I figured. He’s tryin’ to make us a deal to go to jail in Santa Fe, like he’s scared of them folks up in Las Vegas.”

  “One thing’s for sure, Kid,” Wilson said. “This time we ain’t gonna be so lucky. There ain’t no way to escape from this place.”

  The Kid knew Wilson was right. “Then I reckon we give up an’ hope for a fair trial.”

  “Won’t be no such thing, an’ you know it.”

  “It’s come down to choices. We shoot it out with Garrett until our guns run empty or until his boys kill us off one at a time, or we make the best deal we can.”

  “Then we’re finished,” Wilson said, sighing, resting his rifle against a wall. “They’ll hang every damn one of us. We’re as good as dead.”

  “Maybe not. Governor Wallace said we’d get a good lawyer to defend us.”

  “I don’t believe a damn word Lew Wallace says. If you ask me, he’s plumb crazy . . . writing books all the time. Hell, he’s hardly ever in his office, so I hear.”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “Nope,” Wilson said after a moment’s thought. “I guess we toss out our guns an’ march out there with Rudabaugh. Damn, but it sure sticks in my craw.”

  One by one the three remaining Regulators walked slowly out of the rock house to join Dave Rudabaugh.

  Garrett looked the Kid in the eye. “You made the right choice. We’ll take you over to Miz Wilcox and get her to feed you something.”

  * * *

  Having chained them hand and foot to the floor of a covered wagon to preclude any possibility of escape, Sheriff Garrett escorted the Kid, Dave Rudabaugh, Tom Pickett, and Billy Wilson off to Fort Sumner. At the time, the Kid had no way of knowing the promise made to Rudabaugh would be betrayed ... they would be taken to Las Vegas to stand trial, and the lawyer Governor Wallace promised to have defend them would not arrive.

  * * *

  At Fort Sumner the Kid asked if he could say good-bye to a girlfriend, the daughter of the Navajo woman who had worked for McSween.

  Deputy Jim East didn’t like the idea. “He might figure a way to escape, Sheriff.”

  But Garrett relented. “Leave ’em both chained together so they can’t run off.”

  East pointed the Kid and Rudabaugh into the shack where the Navajo girl lived. The Kid smiled when he saw her and hobbled over to give her a kiss.
/>   “They will hang you, Billy,” she whispered.

  “They ain’t got me hung yet.”

  “But this time, maybe so you won’t be so lucky as before, I think.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s freezin’ cold in that wagon. Give me your shawl. I’ll give you this tintype they made of me, so you’ll have somethin’ to remember me by until I’m free again.”

  “I am afraid you won’t ever be free, Billito. ”

  He continued to chuckle. “I’ve got a few cards up my sleeve I haven’t played yet.”

  “But all the others, the ones who would help you, are dead or in prison.”

  “Who says I need any help?”

  “You are never serious, Billito.”

  “Time to go,” Jim East said from the doorway. “Get back in that wagon so I can chain you two to the floor.”

  Billy took the shawl the girl gave him and wrapped himself against the cold.

  They were marched outside at gunpoint, then herded into the wagon as heavier snow began to fall.

  But just as the driver was about to climb up in the wagon seat, a lone rider appeared through the swirling snow. The Kid watched him approach.

  “I know that man,” said the Kid a moment later. “That’s Falcon MacCallister. He may have changed his mind and decided to help us.”

  But MacCallister rode over to Sheriff Garrett and stopped his horse, blocking the path of the wagon.

  “I just heard you captured Billy the Kid,” he said.

  “Him and three more. This means the Lincoln County War is officially over,” Garrett said. “I’m taking them up to Las Vegas to stand trial before Judge Fountain.”

  “That double-crossin’ son of a bitch,” Rudabaugh growled when he heard about the broken promise. “If I could get my hands on a gun, I’d kill him.”

  “This ain’t the time or the place,” the Kid said, watching MacCallister closely to see if he might come to their aid.

  “I don’t think the Kid shot Sheriff Brady,” Falcon told Pat Garrett. “He told me his side of the story.”

  “That’s up to a jury,” Garrett replied.