Defiance of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

“Then it don’t really matter how much the coach is carryin’, does it? Whatever it is will be more than we have.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Wait a minute,” Fong said. “I just seen it around the bend down there. It’s got to climb up the hill, but it won’t be much longer.”

  By now they could hear the sounds of the driver urging the team up the grade.

  “Heah! Get on up there now!” the driver shouted.

  “Get ready,” Fong said.

  Hood and Fong pulled their masks down over their faces and waited. Then, just as the coach reached them, Fong stepped out in the road and fired his pistol. The guard dropped his shotgun and grabbed his shoulder. Hood pointed his pistol toward the driver, and the driver pulled back on the reins, bringing the team to a halt.

  Inside the coach, the passengers heard the sound of gunfire outside and felt the coach rumble to an unscheduled halt.

  “What is it?” the sweating fat man asked in fear. “What’s going on?”

  The sweating man looked back toward the seat that had been occupied by Falcon; it was empty, and the door was open.

  “Where did he go?”

  “He jumped out when he heard the shot,” the salesman said.

  “You mean the great MacCallister has left us to our own devices?”

  They heard loud angry voices outside, but at first they couldn’t understand what was being said. Then someone appeared just outside the stage. He was wearing a wearing a hood over his face, and he was holding a pistol in his hand.

  “You folks in the coach,” he shouted in a loud, gruff voice. “Climb on out of there!”

  “Look here! I paid for my passage in this coach and I will not be ordered out by some road agent,” the sweating man said.

  “Mister, you’ll either climb down on your own, or I’ll shoot you and drag your fat ass out by your heels.”

  The man got out, followed by Mrs. Bobe and her son, Sterling. The salesman was the last passenger to exit.

  In addition to the masked man who was rousting the passengers, they could see that a second masked man was holding his gun on the driver. The shotgun guard was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder.

  “Driver, throw down the mail pouch,” the dismounted highwayman said.

  “I’ll throw you down the mail pouch,” the driver said. “But I’m tellin’ you now, there ain’t no money in it. There ain’t nothin’ but letters. I know, ’cause I loaded it myself.”

  “All right, we’ll just have to take what we can from your passengers. What about you, lady? How much money do you have?”

  “Twelve dollars,” Mrs. Bobe said.

  “All right, I’ll take that money. And that broach you’re wearin’. We ought to be able to get somethin’ for it.”

  “You can have the twelve dollars, but you’re not getting the broach. This was my mother’s broach.”

  “Yeah? Well, ain’t that sweet. It might have been your mama’s broach, but it’s mine now.”

  “Leave the lady alone,” the salesman said. “How much is that broach going to be worth anyway? It obviously has more sentimental value than actual value.”

  “Who asked you to butt in?”

  At that very moment, Falcon was clinging to the boot of the coach. He hadn’t jumped down when he heard the shot, he had merely climbed out the side of the coach, opposite from the road agents. Now slowly, and quietly, he eased himself up onto the top of the coach, keeping behind the luggage and cargo that was there. Then, when he was in position, and with his pistol in hand, he raised up just high enough to see over the top of the luggage. He could see both agents, one still mounted and holding his gun on the driver and wounded shotgun guard, the other on the ground with the passengers he had just forced out of the coach.

  “I said give me that broach!” the man on the ground said. “Keep ’em covered for a moment,” he said to his partner, and he put his own pistol back in the holster.

  That was all the opening Falcon needed. He stood up with his gun pointed toward the man on the horse.

  “Drop your gun, mister!” he said.

  “What? Where the hell did you come from?”

  “I’m not going to ask you again,” Falcon said, cocking his pistol and extending his arm toward the mounted road agent. The road agent dropped his pistol and Falcon turned quickly toward the one on the ground who, abandoning his quest for the broach, had started for his own pistol.

  “That would be a very bad mistake,” Falcon said.

  The road agent stopped.

  “You,” Falcon said to the fat, sweating man. “Take his pistol from his holster.”

  “I would have to get close to him to take his gun. No, sir, not me. I’m not risking my life,” the sweating man said.

  Karen Bobe reached for the gun. “I’ll get it,” she said resolutely.

  “Good for you,” Falcon said.

  “Darrell, how are you getting along?” Falcon asked the wounded shotgun guard.”

  “It ain’t that bad,” Darrell replied.

  “You,” Falcon said to the salesman. “Do you think you could tie their horses on to the back of the coach?”

  “Yes, sir,” the salesman answered.

  “Good man.”

  “Wait a minute here!” the fat man said. “Surely you don’t intend for these two outlaws to ride the rest of the way into town with us? In the stagecoach? No, sir, I will not have it!”

  “You can wait here alongside the road until the next coach comes along,” Falcon suggested. “Of course, there might be someone in that coach who would object to picking you up. They might think you were a . . . what is it you called me?”

  “I believe he called you a saddle bum,” Karen Bobe said.

  Falcon chuckled. “Yes, I believe he did. You two men, climb up here on top of the coach. We’ll ride the rest of the way into town up here.”

  “Oh. Well if they are going to be up there . . . ,” the fat man started, but the salesman interrupted him.

  “Why don’t you just shut up for a while? You have been boorish from the moment you got on this stage,” the salesman said.

  “Boorish?”

  “I think that’s the word,” the salesman said.

  “Yes, that is absolutely the word,” Karen Bobe said.

  “Well, I never . . .” the fat man blustered.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” the driver said. “And if you don’t shut up now, I’ll have you ridin’ up here with the outlaws.”

  When the coach rolled down Kate Street in MacCallister an hour later, the would-be road agents were sitting on top with Falcon, who had both under guard. Their horses were tied on to the back, alongside Lightning, and the unusual entry of the coach, with Falcon, who they all recognized, riding on top of the coach, holding his pistol on two men, was most curious. A crowd began to gather and they hurried alongside the coach, following it down the street. The coach stopped in front of the statue of the town’s namesake, James Ian MacCallister, Falcon’s father. By now the crowd had grown to a substantial number.

  Like all the other residents of MacCallister, Sheriff Bill Ferrell had seen the rather unusual arrival of the stagecoach.

  “Kelly,” he said to his deputy. “Come with me; it looks like Falcon has got us a couple of prisoners.”

  Kelly took his hat from a hook, then joined the sheriff for the stroll down to the stage depot.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” Falcon called down from the top of the coach. “I brought you some company.”

  “I see you did. What happened?”

  “They shot Darrell and tried to hold up the coach.”

  “Ha, and just their bad luck you happened along while it was goin’ on.”

  “I didn’t happen along, I was in the coach,” Falcon said as he jumped down. “I haven’t gotten a name for either one of them.”

  “That’s all right, I know them,” Sheriff Ferrell said.

  “That one is Mo Fong, that one is Harvey Hood.” He pointed to each man in k
ind. “Kelly, climb up there and cuff them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kelly said.

  “You know there’s a reward for these two galoots, don’t you? A hundred dollars apiece,” Sheriff Ferrell said.

  “Is that a fact? I tell you what, Mrs. Bobe disarmed this one, so give her the reward for him. And since Darrell got shot, you can give him the reward for the other one.”

  “Mr. MacCallister, you don’t have to do that!” Karen Bobe said, but the broad smile on her face displayed her pleasure over his act.

  “Well now, thank you, Falcon,” Darrell said. “A hunnert dollars damn near makes it worth gettin’ shot in the shoulder.”

  From the MacCallister Eagle:

  ROAD AGENTS THWARTED

  Harvey Hood and Mo Fong will terrorize stagecoach passengers no more. On the 14th instant, the above mentioned brigands lay in wait for the Dixon to MacCallister stagecoach. As the coach approached they shot, from ambuscade, Darrell Bartmess, the shotgun guard. Green Orr, the coach driver, was forced to halt the team as the two outlaws, wearing masks, called upon the coach and its passengers to give up any money in their possession.

  The outlaws did not count upon the presence of Falcon MacCallister who not only owns the stagecoach line, but had only a moment earlier, come aboard the coach as a passenger. MacCallister, upon perceiving that an attempted robbery was in place, secreted himself until the opportunity was presented for him to intervene. MacCallister, with the assistance of a brave lady passenger, Mrs. Karen Bobe, disarmed the would-be robbers.

  There was a two-hundred-dollar reward being offered for the capture of Hood and Fong. At MacCallister’s insistence, one hundred dollars went to Mrs. Bobe, and the other one hundred dollars to Darrell Bartmess, who is currently recovering from his gunshot wound in the shoulder.

  Hood and Fong have both been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to twenty years in prison, each.

  CHAPTER THREE

  From the Butte Daily Miner, June 17, 1879:

  ARMY OF DESPERADOES TERRORIZING MONTANA

  Boyd Ackerman, Disgraced Major, In Command

  Boyd Ackerman, late a major in the United States Army, has been riding roughshod throughout the entire territory of Montana. Ackerman was cashiered from the army for cowardice when he refused to come to the relief of the gallant Colonel Cahill and his brave soldiers. Ackerman’s cowardice is all the more despicable when it is realized that he is a graduate of West Point, a school that hitherto could pride itself on the honor of its graduates.

  Ackerman has assembled a large band of brigands thought to be former soldiers who, trained in military skills and tactics, have become a formidable gang of outlaws. Their action has been likened to the nefarious activities of the famous Rebel guerilla of the recent war, William Quantrill. Unlike Quantrill, though, Ackerman and his minions make no pretense to serve a cause other than their own.

  Law officials have, so far, been rendered impotent in any attempt to deal with Ackerman because his army, which has earned the sobriquet Ackerman’s Raiders, is much too large to be dealt with by any wearer of a lawman’s badge.

  Diamond City, Montana Territory—1880

  The town was located alongside the Big Belt Mountain Range. It was built along Confederate Gulch Road running east and west, with four short, intersecting east and west streets.

  Despite the size of the town, it had a bank, which flourished because of the success of a nearby placer mine. As a rule, they moved the money out as quickly as it came in because the town was too small for a city marshal, and with just over one thousand in the entire county, the sheriff’s office consisted of one sheriff and one deputy to cover three thousand square miles.

  On this sunny afternoon in early September, a formation of men riding in a column of twos was about a mile out of town when its leader, a tall, slender man with a Vandyke beard, held up his hand to call a halt.

  “Corporal Jones, post,” he called.

  One of the riders pulled out of the formation, then rode up alongside.

  “Yes, sir, Major Ackerman,” Corporal Jones said.

  “Reconnoiter the town, Corporal, then come back and tell me what you see.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sergeant Casey, dismiss the men. Have them prepare a good meal. I don’t know when we will be able to eat again.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Casey said. Then, turning in his saddle, he gave the order.

  “Look after your horses, and prepare your meal. Company, dismissed,” Casey called.

  “Hey, Waters,” one of the men called. “You got ’ny that deer meat left?”

  “You got ’ny taters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we can do somethin’ then.”

  Ackerman had held back a couple of biscuits and bacon from this morning’s breakfast, and he went over to sit down under a tree and eat them as his men built a cooking fire.

  As Jones rode into town on Confederate Gulch Road, several people glanced at him, perhaps noting that he was a stranger, but paying no further attention to him. Jones rode from one end of the little town to the other. Some children were out on the playground of the school. Two women were standing together, talking, in front of the mercantile store. There was a wagon up on a jack-stand with one wheel removed, and somebody was replacing the iron band on the wheel. Two old men were sitting in front of the hardware store playing checkers.

  Jones passed the saloon and got a whiff of the smell of beer. He almost went in to buy one, but he knew Major Ackerman wouldn’t approve, and he didn’t want to do anything to piss the major off. He learned a long time ago that it wasn’t a good idea to get the major angry.

  Reaching the far end, Jones turned around and rode back through the town. Not until he was out of town did he urge his horse into a gallop. He was met by the advanced picket when he returned to where the company had made its temporary bivouac.

  “The major says to give him a report as soon as you get back,” the picket said. “And Sergeant Casey, he fried you up a piece of ham.”

  Jones nodded, then reported to the major.

  “How many armed men did you see?” Major Ackerman asked.

  “Ten or fifteen.”

  “When I send you on a scouting mission, I want a precise answer. Ten or fifteen isn’t good enough. Was it ten? Or was it fifteen?” Ackerman asked.

  “I only counted ten, but they was the ones out on the street. I heard some sounds comin’ from the saloon, I figure there’s got to be one or two in there that’s packin’. And in the stores and such, maybe two or three more. So I was saying fifteen, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Did you check the roofs of the buildings?”

  “Yes, sir, I looked up at ’em, but I didn’t see nothin’ up there.”

  “All right, get the piece of ham Sergeant Casey cooked for you, and eat it quickly. I want to hit the town at exactly two o’clock.”

  It wasn’t a casual decision to hit the town at two o’clock. Ackerman knew from observation that two o’clock was the hour that people seemed the most sleepy, and least alert.

  In the Diamond City Bank, Joel Randall had just finished packaging the gold. By assay and weight, he had just over two hundred troy ounces of gold, processed from the nearby placer mines.

  “How much is that worth, Mr. Randall?” someone asked.

  “As of this morning gold was nineteen ninety-eight per ounce. That makes this shipment just under four thousand dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yes, it is. I’ll be glad when it’s taken out of here. How many guards do we have, Mr. Sharp?”

  “Well, for now, there’s just me. But there’ll be at least two guards once it gets on board the stage.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t care about it, once it leaves here. It’s while it’s here that I’m worried about.”

  “All right, men,” Ackerman said, giving his command their last-minute instructions. “We’ll ride into town quietly. But once we hit the bank,
we’ll make as much racket as we can while riding out. We’ll ride out shooting up the town. I don’t want to see any citizen on the street. I want windows shot out, I want roofs cleared. Any questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Ackerman timed their ride into town so that at exactly two o’clock they arrived at the west end of town on Confederate Gulch Road. The fact that there were nine of them, one rider out front and the other eight riding in a precise military formation behind their leader, got everyone’s attention. It also seemed rather odd that, though the group was acting as if they were military, they were not wearing army uniforms. Not one person who saw them arrive connected this group of riders with Ackerman’s Raiders.

  “Road guards deploy!” Ackerman shouted as they came close to the bank.

  Baker and Jerrod, the two men in the second rank, left the formation. Baker rode ahead while Jerrod took up a position behind the formation.

  When they reached the bank there were only seven remaining of the original group.

  “Corporal Jones, you, Smith, Powell, and Boyle will remain out here. Sergeant Casey, you and Waters, with me.”

  Not one man bothered to mask themselves. Ackerman knew that because of their modus operandi, everyone would soon figure out who did it.

  With weapons drawn, Ackerman, Casey, and Waters burst into the bank. The bank guard went for his pistol, but he was shot down before he could even get his gun drawn.

  There were three customers in the bank, two men and a woman. All three put their hands up in fear.

  “Mr. Randall,” Ackerman said. “I believe you have a gold shipment ready to go.”

  “What makes you think that?” Randall replied.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, sir,” Ackerman said. “I know you have a gold shipment all packed, and waiting for the stagecoach. I’ll take it off your hands, now.”

  “You’re Ackerman, aren’t you?” Randall asked. “You’re the one they call Major Ackerman.”