The residents of Old Town knew all about Jamie Ian MacCallister. Knew he treated every person the same, regardless of color. Knew some of his grandkids had married into Mexican families. Since they had arrived in Old Town, Jamie and the men with him had been respectful and polite to the Mexican community.
The residents of Old Town began doing some planning on their own.
Asa Pike and his men cleaned up and got something to eat; then they returned to their hotel rooms and slept the remainder of the night. Just as dawn was cracking open the cover of dark, and the residents of Albuquerque were beginning to stir, Asa and his men left the hotel and began their walk to Old Town. They each carried at least two pistols—some had spare pistols tucked behind their belts—and all carried rifles.
“Thirty-two of them, counting Asa,” Falcon told his pa.
“They must really be a-feared of us,” Logan said, draining his cup of coffee and standing up to stretch his muscles and pop his joints. “I’ve fought off more Injuns than that by my lonesome a time or twice.”
The men checked their pistols, and each shoved two spares behind his belt. Jamie loaded up his sawed-off while the others checked rifles; all made certain the loops in their ammo belts were full and they had plenty of cartridges in their pockets.
Jamie looked at the two bright-eyed boys he’d hired. “Pass the word, boys. Everybody inside and keep their heads down.”
“Si, senor!” they said, and were gone.
What Jamie and his compadres did not know was that at that moment, the men of Old Town were sharpening knives and machetes, the women were boiling pots of water to throw on the intruders, and young boys had gathered lots of nice-sized rocks to throw.
Jamie rose from the bench. “You boys ready to crank up the band?”
“I been ready,” Canby said.
“Let’s get this over with so’s we can eat,” Logan told him. “I’ve done developed a likin’ for this Mexican food.”
“What you’ve developed a likin’ for is that fat cook Isabella at the cafe,” Red said with a grin.
“I does like ’em ample,” the old mountain man admitted. “More to love, and they’s warm on a cold night.”
“So’s a bear,” Canby said. “But I don’t want to snuggle up to one.”
Falcon grinned at Rick Hanes. “You all right?”
“I been down this road before,” the young man said easily. “I ain’t no cherry when it comes to gunhawkin’.”
Falcon slowly nodded his head. “I got you pegged now. Took me a time, but I knew it would come to me. You faced four men in that saloon over in El Paso a couple of years back.”
“They got lead in me,” Rick replied.
“But you killed all four of them.”
“For a fact,” the young man said.
Jamie looked at the pair. “And before that, a bully braced you in Fort Worth and you dropped him. Yeah. I know who you are now. How come you were so down on your luck when we connected?”
“I got all those damn Kermit brothers and all their kin and such out of Arkansas after me,” Rick said. “I can’t hold a job long enough to get ahead none. I get a job, they show up. And they’s about a hundred of them.”
“What’d you do to them?” Logan asked.
“Well,” Rick said, wiping a speck of dust from the action of his right-hand .45, “I was hangin’ around Little Rock a while back when this pretty little golden-haired lady started battin’ her eyes and swishin’ her bustle at me. We ended up on a blanket down by a crick under a tree. Hell, I didn’t know she was married. And I shore didn’t know she was married to Herman Kermit. He called me out later on that night.” Rick shrugged his shoulders. “He missed and I didn’t. I been dodgin’ all them damn Kermits ever since.”
Jamie and the others laughed at the hangdog expression on the young man’s face. Jamie said, “That sounds like something Falcon used to do.”
“Aw, Pa!” Falcon protested, his face red.
“Don’t ‘aw, Pa’ me. I recollect that time you was all snuggled up to that Sadie Lovington woman, and her husband caught you both bare-assed in the barn.”
“I kept tellin’ you and Ma, I didn’t know she was married!”
“I thought I was gonna have to shoot Clyde Lovington,” Jamie said, chuckling. “That was one of the funniest sights I ever saw. You as naked as the day you were born and your Ma two steps behind, swingin’ that quirt. She’d connect on your bare ass, and you’d jump about three feet in the air and squall like a puma.”
“You sure have a good memory,” Falcon mumbled, as laughter rang out all around him.
“How old were you?” Rick asked, wiping his eyes.
Falcon mumbled under his breath.
“You were not,” his pa corrected. “You were fifteen, and Sadie would never see thirty again. That woman sure liked to spread her charms around. Course, I will have to say that when you were fifteen, you looked twenty-one.”
“Thank you for that,” Falcon said.
“But sometimes acted like you were ten,” his pa added.
“Shit!” Falcon muttered. “Can we drop the subject?”
“Jamie Ian MacCallister!” The shout echoed around the buildings of Old Town. “I be Abraham Pike and I’m here to avenge my kin. Step out here and face me.”
“Well, here we go,” Jamie said. He cocked both hammers to the Greener and stepped around the corner of the building. He walked toward the man, standing tall and straight in the center of the block. “Your brother tried to kill me, Pike. Tried to bushwhack me.”
“You’re a damn liar, MacCallister. My brother weren’t no back shooter.”
Jamie was closing the distance fast. His eyes had already picked out the spot where he was going to jump after he fired the Greener.
“Draw, damn you!” Abraham yelled.
Just then a rock came flying out from an alley and struck Abraham on the back of the head, just under his hat brim. The man dropped like a brick, his guns still in leather.
“What? ...” Jamie muttered. Then he realized what a vulnerable position he was in and quickly moved to one side, pressing up against a building. Abraham Pike had not moved. He was out cold. Jamie slipped into the alley. He did not see two small boys run out of a nearby building. One pulled Abraham’s pistols from their holsters, and the other grabbed up his rifle, leaving the man defenseless. Then they both jerked off Abraham’s boots, leaving him barefoot in the street. The boots were tossed into a watering trough, and the boys vanished.
Jamie heard a hideous scream from somewhere in the maze of buildings that made up Old Town. Someone had tossed a pot of hot water on one of Asa’s men.
Falcon peeked around the corner of a building in time to see a woman lean out of a window and smash a club down on a man’s head. The man dropped to the street, unconscious. Two boys raced out and grabbed his weapons and boots.
“What the hell? ...” Falcon muttered with a grin.
Logan slipped down an alley and ducked into a recessed doorway when he heard the scrape of a boot on bricks. Then he heard a thud, a moan, and the sound of a man hitting the alley floor. He peeked out and grinned at the sight: two boys were removing the man’s guns, boots, and trousers, leaving him bare-butt naked from the waist down.
“Now that’s about the ugliest sight I ever did see,” the old mountain man said under his breath.
Rick froze still as a wild scream cut the early morning air. Then he heard the pounding of boots and a lot of painful cussing. He watched a man come staggering out into the street, both hands holding his bleeding buttocks. Someone had slashed the man deeply with a machete across both cheeks. The man limped painfully up the street, hollering for someone to help him.
Canby heard an ugly snap, followed by a scream of pain. “Oh, God, my ankle’s broke! ” The sound wound around the twisting streets. “I done stepped in a bar trap. Help me!” Then the man fell silent as he drifted into unconsciousness.
So far, not a shot had been fired.
“What are you doin’, MacCallister?” a man yelled. “Why don’t you stand and fight, you yeller-bellied bastard! ”
“ ’Cause I can’t find anybody to fight, you idiot,” Jamie muttered.
“Yowweee!” one of Asa’s men squalled, as hot water was dumped on his head from a woman on a balcony. His hat saved his face from being badly burned, but his shoulders and arms were scalded.
Red watched a man stumble up the street, both hands to his bleeding face. A heavy rock had smashed his cheek, knocking out several teeth and putting a large gash in his face. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” Red muttered.
“Where’s my goddamn pants?” The shout drifted around the street. “Somebody stole my pants!”
Logan had to stick a fist into his mouth to suppress his giggling as the pantless man used his hat to cover his privates. Then couldn’t resist calling, “But your ugly ass is hangin’ out in the breeze!”
The bare-butted man whirled around and around, trying to locate the source of the taunt. “Ifn I had a gun I’d kill you!” he shouted to the seemingly empty alley.
“Ooowww!”amanyelled, as a small boy put an arrow into one cheek of his ass, the point embedding deeply. “MacCallister’s got Injuns workin’ for him!” he hollered. “Oh ... my ass is on fire, I tell you. I can’t reach the arrey to pull it out.” He limped away, groaning with each step.
“Fall back, fall back!” Asa yelled, the shout repeated several times. “They’s too much trickery here. Back to the hotel.”
The unconscious men were located and dragged off. The jaws of the bear trap were sprung, freeing the trapped man. Someone found a serape and handed it to the half-naked man.
“You cowardly bastards will pay for this!” one of Asa’s men yelled in retreat. “You ain’t seen the last of us. And that, by God, is a promise.” An arrow came whizzing out of nowhere and embedded itself in the man’s leg. The wounded leg buckled under him, and he went down, falling on his face in the street.
Jamie and his group had not fired a shot.
The next dawn would bring that bloody day.
* * *
One by one the men began gathering in Valley, Colorado. Two groups of five each. One group had been hired by Andrea Petri, the second group by Russell Clay. To each other, hard cases are as easy to identify as skunks, and within hours, the men were gathering and talking.
“Them folks that hired us is quality,” one said. “So how come they’re so interested in one nigger?”
“Sure more here than meets the eye,” another reflected. “We talk about this long enough, might figure out a way to make us some money.”
“Might,” the others agreed, one saying, “If we can figure out what the hell’s goin’ on.”
“Them folks that hired us, they want the paper burned down and the man’s house burned. Why? I went over the back issues. There ain’t nothin’ in there about nobody in San Francisco. You went over the same papers, Jeff; you didn’t find out nothin’ bad writ about anybody in Denver. So what’s goin’ on? I think it’s something else. I think this editor has something the folks want destroyed.”
“What could it be?”
The thug shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. But I betcha I’m gonna find out.”
* * *
“Damnedst gunfight I ever been in,” Red said, after draining his glass of beer.
“These folks here in this part of town is nice folks,” Logan said. “But they played a dangerous game. These kids could have been hurt real bad.”
“I’ve passed the word for the people to stay out of it from now on,” Jamie said. “They’ve agreed to do so unless Asa and his people bother them.” Jamie smiled. “But it was funny. ”
“I make it seven hurt to one degree or the other,” Falcon said. “Three of them with knots on their heads.”
Logan shook his head. “I dislike fightin’ a person I can’t put a name to. Not countin’ Injuns, o’ course.”18
“Names or no names,” Canby said, “they’ll be back, we can bet on that. And this time, they’ll be comin’ in loaded for bear.”
“Well, I can’t get no readier,” Logan said. “But what I can do is amble over to the cafe and get me somethin’ to eat.”
“You mean,” Rick said with a smile, “you’re going over to see Isabella.”
The old mountain man grinned. “That, too, boy.”
24
Having become irritated at the Jones brothers’ inability to carry out even the simplest of assignments (the brothers were not exceptionally swift in the brain department), Russell Clay had told them to hit the road months back. After committing a series of petty crimes (and two badly bungled and unsuccessful holdups), the brothers arrived in Albuquerque on the afternoon of the aborted shoot-out. After hearing all the talk about the blood feud, the brothers decided to pitch their lot with Asa Pike and his kin.
“Why?” Asa sourly asked the pair.
“I owe Jamie MacCallister,” Bob said. “And me and my brother here aim to put lead in him.”
“Then you’re welcome to join us,” Abraham said.
Lloyd looked at the bandage on the man’s head. “What happened to you?”
“I would rather not discuss it,” Abraham said. Abraham was very touchy on that point, ever since he’d been told he was conked on the noggin by a rock thrown by a ten-year-old.
“When do we take them?” Bob asked.
“Dawn, tomorrow,” Asa said. “I’ve sent them word.”
“Why don’t we just go on down there now and shoot them?” Lloyd asked.
“It’s a matter of honor,” Asa told him.
“Oh.”
* * *
“Man shore loves the crack of dawn,” Logan said, after receiving the word.
“I’ve got to say that these ain’t the smartest ol’ boys I’ve ever run up on,” Red added. “Ever’ one of them ’pears to be ’bout two eggs short of a dozen.”
“But they’ve got guns and know how to use them,” Rick said.
“That do make up for being a tad stumpy in the brain department, don’t it?” Canby agreed.
“It’ll be no fun and games come the dawning,” Jamie said. “They’ll be moving in for the kill. The whole thing is stupid and pointless, but none of us can allow that to override hard facts. It’s kill or be killed. I wish they’d just ride on and leave us alone. But they’re not going to do that, so how many options does that leave us?”
Dusk was settling over the land. Somewhere close a man was playing a guitar and singing a love song in Spanish. The air was filled with soft music and the good smells of supper cooking. It was hard to bring into the picture that in a few hours, the air would be filled with gunsmoke and the thick odor of blood.
“We haven’t had much of a chance to talk, son,” Jamie said to Falcon. “What’s been happening back home?”
“It’s been quiet, Pa. Babies being born. The town’s got two new businesses. Valley is now officially the county seat of government . . . course we all knew it would be. Big brother Jamie is gettin’ fat in the butt from all that easy livin’. It’s awful hard for me to believe that he’s pushin’ fifty. Don’t seem possible.”
Jamie smiled. It didn’t seem possible to him, either. “Jamie Ian is ... forty-six, I believe. I never was much good at dates; I always left that up to your ma. Lord, where have the years gone? I’m an old man, son. A old man.”
“You ain’t neither, Pa. You’re stronger than most men and can ride as good as ever. You might have some years on you, but you’re a long ways from being an old man. ’Sides, I’ve seen the way women look at you.”
Jamie shook his head. “Never be another woman in my life, son. The only woman I ever loved was your ma. She’s a constant with me.” Jamie took out his watch and opened the lid, gazing for a moment not at the ever-moving hands of time, but at the tiny picture of Kate. “I can’t tell you how much I miss her.”
Jamie stood up and stretched. “We’d all best get somethin
g to eat and turn in early. Come the dawning, we’re all gonna be right busy.”
* * *
Old Town was buttoned up tight.
The occasional chicken or dog or cat wandered the streets; but no horses were visible, and no citizen left his home. There was no wind, but the day was cool.
Jamie stood under an awning and finished his after-breakfast coffee. He set the empty cup down on a bench and picked up his sawed-off shotgun, loading both barrels.
Falcon was across the street, his tailored suit coat swept back to reveal his twin pearl-handled pistols. Another pistol was shoved behind his belt, and he carried a .32 caliber short-barreled pistol in a shoulder holster rig.
The old mountain man, Logan, was about fifty yards away, lounging in front of a closed general mercantile store. He picked up his rifle and waited.
Canby stood to Jamie’s right, in the mouth of an alley.
Rick was leaning up against a hitch rail.
Red was waiting on the stoop of a saddle and gun shop. The shop would not open for business until the shooting was over.
“They come, señor!” one of the boys hired by Jamie called, pointing.
“Fine,” Jamie told him. “Now you and your friend go home and stay there.”
“Si, señor!” The boys took off at a run.
“This time I don’t wait for them to come to me,” Jamie muttered. He stepped out into the street and started walking toward the edge of Old Town. Falcon walked over and fell in step with his father.
Logan and Canby stepped out and followed, one on each side of him in the street, just slightly to Jamie’s rear. Rick and Red stayed close to the storefronts.
A bearded man stepped out of an alley. “You dishonored our family name, MacCallister!” he shouted.
“You’re an idiot!” Jamie told him, and never stopped walking.
“Now you die!”
“Not this day,” Jamie said. He lifted the Greener and gave the man one barrel from about thirty feet. The heavy charge caught the man in the chest and lifted him off his boots, flinging him backward. He landed in the street in a puff of dust.
Scream of Eagles Page 18
