Song of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  He rode down one man who was running as fast as he could toward a distant grove of trees, trampling him under his horse’s hooves, then shot another in the chest as he was putting a rifle to his shoulder to shoot at Falcon in the distance.

  Falcon, his carbine empty, booted it and filled both hands with iron, firing with both as Diablo raced in circles around the camp.

  Falcon blew three more men to hell, taking a bullet in his calf. Ne slowed Diablo long enough to wrap a bandanna around his leg to stop the bleeding, then continued his killing rampage.

  Brown cracked open his Greener and was reloading when a black man rode right at him, firing a pistol over his mount’s head. Brown looked up, staring death in the face, until the man was blown out of his saddle by Middleton, who grinned as he rode by.

  Finally, it was quiet, except for the moaning and crying and shouting for help from the wounded.

  Falcon, Middleton, Brown, and Scurlock gathered together at the edge of camp in the increasing darkness.

  Falcon’s nose wrinkled at the acrid stench of cordite and gunpowder, and the smell of blood and death was everywhere.

  “You men had enough for now?” he asked.

  Scurlock wheeled his horse around and surveyed the scene. There were at least fifteen dead, and four or five severely wounded. A couple of men had managed to make it to their horses and had escaped, riding leaned over their mounts as fast as they could.

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “I’ve got no stomach for shootin’ wounded men.”

  Brown nodded. “Let ’em live or die on their own. I ain’t plannin’ on puttin’ ’em out of their misery.”

  “Let’s vamoose,” Middleton said, his right hand over the hole in his left shoulder. “Our work here is done.”

  Forty-one

  Falcon and the Regulators spent the next day resting and recovering from their wounds. Falcon had dressed Middleton’s left shoulder wound—using a hot iron to cauterize the hole, then packing the wound with a poultice made of boiled herbs he had learned about from an old Indian medicine man.

  His own leg wound was more a laceration than a through-and-through injury, so it merely required meticulous cleaning and application of the same poultice used on Middleton.

  Scurlock’s bullet wound was a small, shallow hole punched through the skin and fat of his right flank. He waved Falcon off, saying he was too mean to get an infection and would take his chances and let nature take its course. He did, however, consent to Falcon’s washing the wound and putting a clean cloth on it as a dressing.

  As they sat around, eating enchiladas, beans, and tortillas prepared by the Mexican cook Falcon had hired, they discussed their various options.

  “Far as I can tell from what I’ve heard, John Kinney and the Doña Aña bunch hangs out most nights at the Palace Saloon in Lincoln.”

  He shook his head, “It’ll be pretty dangerous to brace them there, ’cause Dolan’s got the town sewed up tight.”

  “What about Sheriff Garrett?” Scurlock asked. “I’d love to put a window in his skull for what he did to the Kid.”

  Falcon thought a moment before replying. He had to be careful not to let on that the Kid was still alive because of Garrett’s friendship.

  “Men, you’re gonna have to trust me on this, but Garrett’s on our side.”

  He held up his hand as they started to protest. “Just believe me, Pat Garrett is not to be molested. I know for a fact the Kid would want it this way.”

  Scurlock pursed his lips. “You’re askin’ a lot, for us to take your word on this, Falcon.”

  “How about if I prove to you that Garrett is a friend? I’ll go to him and make sure when we’re ready to take out the Kinney gang, he’ll be out of town with his deputies.”

  “You think he’d do that for us?” Brown asked, a skeptical look on his face.

  Falcon nodded. “I can almost guarantee it.”

  “All right,” Scurlock said. “If Garrett and his men are gone when we ride into town, I’ll take that as a sign he’s a friend of the Regulators and I’ll pass the word that he’s not to be bothered by any friends of the Kid.”

  “Good,” Falcon said, leaning forward, “now here’s what we’ll do. We’ll wait until after midnight, when the boys’ll be liquored up as much as possible, and then we’ll enter the saloon, front and back at the same time . . .”

  * * *

  It was close to midnight when the four men rode into Lincoln. Garrett had been contacted, and had taken his two deputies with him to go to the site of the Mesilla massacre of the Seven Rivers gang, to “investigate” the killings.

  Falcon and the Regulators hitched their horses in the alley behind the Palace Saloon, ready for a quick getaway should the need arise.

  Brown and Middleton stationed themselves next to the back door and would await Falcon’s signal to enter.

  Falcon and Scurlock went through the batwings, their pistols loaded up six and six and loose in their holsters.

  They stopped just inside the door and surveyed the situation. John Kinney was standing at the bar, his back to the door, his arm around a saloon girl, a half-full bottle of whiskey on the counter in front of him.

  Andrew Boyle and Joey Nash were in a poker game off to the right side of the room, while John Jones and James, his younger brother, were entertaining two women at the left side of the room.

  There were three or four other men in the hall that Falcon didn’t recognize, and he didn’t know if they were members of the gang or not. He supposed he would find out soon enough.

  He noticed that the bartender had a double-barreled shotgun on a rack behind the bar, and nudged Scurlock to show him its location.

  Gradually, the room became quiet as the patrons noticed the two gunmen standing in the doorway, staring at Kinney’s back.

  He glanced up, catching sight of Falcon and Scurlock in the mirror over the bar. He took his arm from around the girl, motioned with his head for her to leave, and slowly turned around, leaning back against the bar on his elbows.

  “Well,” he called out in a loud voice, slightly slurring his words, indicating he had more than enough whiskey in him, “if it isn’t Doc Scurlock, and the tall gambler from Colorado.”

  He grinned and took another drink of bourbon from his glass. “You boys here to get drunk and cry about your baby-faced friend that Garrett killed?”

  Falcon and Scurlock didn’t answer, but stood there, hands hanging at their sides, waiting.

  “I want to tell you boys something,” Kinney continued. “I went out to boot hill today and pissed on Bonney’s grave. What do you think about that?”

  “I’m glad,” Falcon said, his voice low and hard. “A man shouldn’t have to die with a full bladder. It makes such a mess when he wets his pants.”

  Kinney frowned, his eyes narrow. “You think you’re man enough to take me, MacCallister?”

  “It don’t take much of a man to kill a back-shooting coward, Kinney, which is what I hear you are. It also ain’t much of a man who’ll desecrate a man’s grave but didn’t have the cojones to stand up to him when he was alive.”

  Kinney stabbed his thumb in his chest. “I weren’t afraid of nobody, least of all the Kid.”

  Falcon grinned insolently. “That’s not what the Kid told me. He said when you were guarding him on his way to jail in Lincoln, he called you out and you turned white as a sheet and almost started crying. He said if he hadn’t been shackled hand and foot, you would have turned tail and run away.”

  “That’s a goddamn lie!” Kinney shouted.

  “Well, coward, I’m not shackled, and my back’s not turned. Show me what you’re made of, if you’ve got the sand.”

  Kinney sleeved his mouth with the back of his arm, his eyes shifting to his men on either side of Scurlock and Falcon. Then he grinned.

  “Oh, and your hired guns are welcome to join the dance,” Falcon said, “long as they remember somebody’s got to pay the band.”

  Kinney stepped away fr
om the bar, his right hand over the butt of his gun. Suddenly, he grabbed iron.

  Falcon’s hand moved so fast it was almost a blur. His Colt was leveled, cocked, and fired before Kinney cleared leather. His slug took the gunny in the stomach, doubling him over and driving him to his knees.

  The barman reached for his shotgun and Falcon shot him through the hand, changing the bartender’s mind about entering the fracas.

  John and Jim Jones jumped to their feet, slinging the girls away from them as they clawed for their pistols.

  Scurlock whirled, drew, and fanned the hammer of his Colt Army .44. The big gun kicked and exploded, sending flame and smoke belching from the barrel. His first slug took John in the neck, punching through and blowing out the man’s spine, dropping him like a rag doll to the floor.

  His second bullet hit Jim Jones in the right shoulder, spinning him around to where Scurlock’s third bullet entered between his shoulder blades, throwing him facefirst onto the table, spreadeagled and dead.

  Andrew Boyle and Joey Nash and the other three men at their table on Falcon’s left all jumped up, drawing their pistols.

  Middleton and Brown stepped though the back door and opened fire.

  Brown had his Greener ten gauge leveled at his hip, and let go with both barrels. Andy Boyle was hit at the waist and cut almost in half, his guts and blood spraying out to cover the men next to him.

  Middleton had pistols in both hands and was thumbing back the hammers and firing without aiming. Two of his bullets hit Joey Nash at the same time, lifting him off his feet to fly backward through the plate glass window in the front of the saloon, dead before he hit the ground.

  Falcon killed two of the other men at Boyle’s table, but held his fire when the third man held up his hands, shouting, “I quit! I’m not part of this—don’t kill me!”

  Falcon walked through the smoke and cordite of the room to stand before the frightened man.

  “When Sheriff Garrett gets here, you be sure to tell him Kinney drew first, and the others joined in. You hear?”

  “Yes sir, I sure will,” he said.

  Falcon stuck a finger in the man’s chest. “You be sure to tell it right. Otherwise my friends and I will have to pay you a visit. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I promise, I’ll tell it just like it happened.”

  Scurlock glanced at the bartender. “Tell Dolan the Regulators business in Lincoln is finished, unless he wants to try killing another innocent man.”

  Brown pointed the shotgun at the bartender. “And if he sends anyone after us, then we’ll be back to have a talk with him, comprende?”

  The bartender nodded quickly. “I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

  * * *

  Minutes later, the sweating bartender stood in front of Jimmy Dolan in the parlor of his house. Dolan was wearing a nightshirt and was rubbing sleepy eyes.

  “Falcon MacCallister and them three Regulators just plumb blowed Kinney and his men to pieces, Mr. Dolan. Kinney didn’t even clear leather ’fore MacCallister gutshot him and folded him up. He’s still alive on the floor of the saloon, and he’s sufferin’ something awful.”

  Dolan poured himself a glass of whiskey and drank it down in one convulsive swallow.

  “He’s gonna die a hard death, Mr. Dolan.”

  “And you say they told you to give me a message?”

  The man nodded. “They said if you didn’t let the whole matter drop, or if you sent anybody after ’em, they’d be back to have a talk with you.”

  Dolan thought a moment, then poured himself another drink, sweat forming on his forehead.

  “What’re you gonna do, Mr. Dolan?”

  Dolan shrugged, downed his drink, and said, “Why, I’m gonna take their advice. There’s been enough killing in Lincoln for a while.”

  * * *

  At the outskirts of Lincoln Falcon shook hands with the three Regulators.

  “What are you boys going to do now?” he asked.

  Doc Scurlock shrugged. “I’m headin’ back to Kansas, probably to Abilene.”

  John Middleton removed his hat and sleeved sweat off his forehead. “Henry and me’s gonna head on down to Texas. I hear there’s plenty of work for a man who knows how to use a gun down around Fort Worth.”

  Henry Brown asked, “What about you, Falcon? What’re your plans now?”

  Falcon looked toward the north. “I’m going to take a trip up to Santa Fe, and have a word with Thomas B. Catron. It’s time we put an end to the Lincoln County War.”

  Forty-two

  Falcon had his mind made up. Before he left the New Mexico Territory to return home he meant to deliver a message to the political power behind one side of the range war, the powers who had opposed his friend, John Chisum. He was sick and tired of seeing Chisum and other honest ranchers in Lincoln County losing cows to rustlers and outlaws. It was time to issue a warning to men in high government circles, the so-called Santa Fe Ring.

  It was to deliver this warning to greedy men, powerful men behind the scenes that he came to Santa Fe. He was directed to the office of Thomas B. Catron, United States District Attorney for the New Mexico Territory. Considered by many to be the most influential man in New Mexico, he was also making a huge profit with his contracts to provide beef to the army posts there, and to the Indian reservations.

  This was a mission that would not likely require the use of a gun, as it had when Deke Slaton and Roy Cobb and their Mescalero Apache renegades struck the herd in Chisum’s northern grazing country a few days earlier, or as it had when he took out the Seven Rivers gang and the Doña Aña bunch of John Kinney.

  The job at hand was more the delivery of a promise of what would happen to Catron and his allies if anything else happened to John Chisum and his cattle ranching enterprise or the good people of Lincoln County.

  He rode past the expansive governor’s palace on the town square to the adobe brick building where a small sign indicated that the U.S. District Attorney had his office. A plaza at the center of Santa Fe was crowded with shoppers and travelers.

  Falcon swung down and tied off Diablo at an iron ring affixed to a hitching post in front of the office building where Thomas Catron and other territorial officials kept their offices.

  Santa Fe was busy this time of year, its streets filled with wagons laden with trade goods and families headed farther west to claim homesteads. A few Navajo tribesmen sold their hand-made silver and turquoise jewelry around the town square. The city appeared peaceful, as if its citizens were unaware of the bloody war going on in the southern section of the Territory in Lincoln County that had claimed so many lives, including the lives of innocent ranchers.

  He walked into the district attorney’s office wearing his pistols, poorly concealed by the tails of his tailored suit coat. He carried a pair of gunbelts over his left forearm, heavy with the two Colts stuck in their holsters.

  A man in shirtsleeves looked up from a ledger as Falcon entered the front office. He gave Falcon a look of irritation over the intrusion.

  “What may I do for you, sir?” the balding man asked in a rather impatient tone. He seemed annoyed by MacCallister’s presence, although his gaze did stray to the six-guns Falcon carried and his eyes rounded a bit when he saw them hanging in an unusual spot, from Falcon’s arm.

  “I need to see Thomas Catron.” Falcon said it in a voice leaving no doubt about his resolve.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Don’t figure I need one, mister. You tell him Falcon MacCallister is here, and I’ve got a couple of deathbed messages for him from two men who worked for him . . . Deke Slaton and Roy Cobb.”

  The man scowled. “I’ve never heard of either one of them. However, it would make no difference. Mr. Catron is busy at the moment. He does not see anyone without an appointment, no matter what it is about.”

  Falcon leaned over the desk, staring the clerk in the eye as he said, “Tell him, anyway. And tell him if he refuses to see me now,
I’ll go to all the way to Washington, to the Department of Justice, with these special messages. I’m sure your boss doesn’t want me to do that. It has to do with these guns and holsters I’m carrying. Them, and the men who wore them, were hired by Mr. Catron, and he’ll want to know the outcome of his little business venture down in Lincoln County. You might mention the South Spring Ranch of John Chisum to him, just in case he needs to refresh his memory.”

  “Mr. Catron cannot be disturbed right now.”

  Falcon swept his coattail away from the pistol he wore on his right hip. “Tell him. When he hears the reason I want to talk to him, he won’t be nearly so busy that he can’t spend a few minutes talking to me. Whatever he’s doing, he’ll stop long enough to hear what I have to say, before I send that wire to his bosses in Washington.”

  “Are you threatening me in the office of the United States District Attorney?”

  “I’m just giving you the facts. You tell Catron what I said, and I assure you he’ll end whatever business he’s attending to in order to hear me out.”

  The clerk glanced at Falcon’s gun again. “I’ll tell him, Mr. MacCallister, but he’s very busy at the moment. You’ll have to come back when he can grant you an appointment. The United States Attorney can’t simply cancel what he’s doing to talk to some stranger about things he knows nothing about. He’s a very busy man.”

  “I doubt it’ll take that long,” Falcon said. “If I was a gambling man I’d bet big money he’ll see me right away. Be real sure you remember those two names I gave you . . . Deke Slaton and Roy Cobb.”

  “Slaton and Cobb,” the man muttered, climbing out of his chair with a deeper scowl on his face. “I may be forced to send for the city marshal if Mr. Catron refuses to see you immediately. I can have you thrown out of here, or arrested. You can’t simply barge in here like this, demanding an appointment with Mr. Catron while he’s conducting government business.”

  “Go ahead and send for the marshal now,” Falcon snapped, his patience growing short. “I imagine the law would like to hear why I’m here to talk to Catron about his two hired gunmen, and the gang of renegade Apaches he sent down to John Chisum’s South Springs Ranch to rustle his cowherds.”