Whenever possible, George would ride with Jamie, and was always after him to relate stories about the fight at the Alamo, his life with the Shawnee, and of the many adventures in Jamie’s long years on the frontier. Consequently, Jamie tried to stay miles ahead of the column and away from Custer. Jamie did not have a very high opinion of the man.
The weeks wore on and the days became a blur. Not a single Indian was spotted. Finally Jamie told Custer that the Indians were gone up into Montana for the summer.
“Drat!” said Custer.
The column pushed on.
Custer didn’t find his Indians, but he did find that the area offered the white man timber, game, and thousands of acres of grazing land. And the prospectors riding with Custer found gold.
That find was to be the beginning of the end for both the Indians and for Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, commanding officer of the 7th Cavalry.
* * *
In late fall of 1874, Jamie, with permission, left the column and headed south. His work was finished . . . or so he thought. He had no way of knowing that he would ride one more time with Custer.
“There’s a man to ride the rivers and the wild and lonely lands with, gentlemen,” Custer told his officers as Jamie rode away. “I assure you, I will personally see to it that one day he will ride with the 7th into glorious victory against the hostiles.”
Part of that statement would certainly come to be. But not the whole.
More than gold was found in the Black Hills. Silver, beryl, feldspar, and mica were also discovered. The Black Hills was soon called the richest place on earth. When the column finally returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln in late 1874, and the reporters could get their stories out and back to the eastern newspapers, the stampede west began, and the Indians had no choice but to fight. This land had been given to them, promised in writing to be theirs forever and ever. But once again, the white man had broken his word.
Jamie had angled some west, and rode down through southeastern Wyoming. At a trading post near Fort D. A. Russell, Jamie heard a familiar voice and turned to see Red, Logan, Canby, and Rick, sitting at a table in the far corner.
Amid whoops and hollers, the men immediately started making plans to get into some mischief.
“I heard you was scoutin’ for the army,” Canby said.
“I was. One time only. With Custer,” he added, smiling at the sudden grimace on Canby’s face. “What are you boys up to?”
“Prowlin’ around,” Logan said. “We got out of the Muggyowns in the nick of time, with about a hundred screamin’ savages right behind us. Damned unfriendly bunch of heathens. Way they was actin’ you’d a thought we goosed the chief or humped his wife or somethin’ equally awful.”
“We heard you caught up with them ol’ boys that done them turrible things to your kin,” Red said.
“That I did,” Jamie confirmed.
“You still got people after your hide, Mr. Mac,” Rick said. “That crazy damned Asa Pike and them Jones boys is still prowlin’ around makin’ threats.”
Jamie shook his head. “I can’t be worried about that pack of nitwits. But I can guarantee you boys one thing: if they ever show up in Valley, they’ll be dead within the hour. My son Falcon doesn’t make idle threats.”
“Yeah, we sorta got that impression,” Red said with a smile.
“Where are you boys wintering?” Jamie asked.
The four men exchanged quick glances. “We thought we’d head down to Texas, maybe,” Canby said. He smiled. “Jamie, you ’member Rick here tellin’ us ’bout all them Kermit brothers bein’ after him?”
“I do.”
“Whole pack and passel of ’em is down Texas way. They bought ’em some sort of ranch down yonder. They’re a crazy bunch; heavy into thievin’ and rustlin’. But they pass themselves off as lovers of the Lord. We thought we’d amble down there and get them off the boy’s back and do the sheriff a favor whilst we was at it.”
Jamie nodded his gray head. “Sounds good to me. Where in Texas?”
“Some little two by twice town just north of the border. Called Eagle Pass,” Logan said.
“Well, hell,” Jamie said. “I’ve never been there.”
“Wanna go?” Red asked, a hopeful note behind his words.
“Sure. Why not? Let’s provision up and put some miles behind us. That’s a far piece from here.”
“We got us some gold, Mr. Mac,” Rick said softly, his eyes twinkling.
“Hit you a strike down in the Muggyowns, did you?” Jamie asked with a smile.
“Not no mother lode,” Logan whispered. “But enough to carry us for a time without worryin’ where our next meal was comin’ from.”
“That’s always a good feeling. You boys ready to go?”
“There ain’t no moss growin’ on my feet,” Canby said.
Jamie tossed some coins on the table, and the five men rose from their chairs and hit the air.
“What a crew,” a man muttered when the five were safely out of earshot.
“What do you mean?” his riding partner asked.
“Hell, man. You can practically smell the gunsmoke hangin’ all around them ol’ boys. That big, mean-lookin’ one is Jamie Ian MacCallister ...”
“Really?”
“You bet your boots it is. The young one is Rick Hanes. A first-class pistolero. The old scruffy one is Logan, the mountain man. And Red Green is no one to fool around with. Canby was in the army for about thirty years and is still as tough as they come. You can bet that them ol’ boys is out to stir the mischief pot some.”
“Wanna tag along?”
“Not me. I ain’t got no death wish. Way I hear tell, them ol’ boys got a habit of goin’ where angels won’t even go. Them’s the ones that shot up New Mexico a while back.”
“You don’t say!”
“I do say.”
“I ’member hearin’ somethin’ about that. Killed a whole bunch of folks down there.”
“Yeah. And from the looks of things, they’s gonna be some more get dirt shoveled in their faces.” He smiled. “I sure hope I’m in that good a shape when I get their age.”
Jamie looked over at Logan, noticing a slight limp as the man walked along. “What’s the matter with you, Logan?”
“I got a damn rock in my boot!”
“Well, why don’t you shake it out?” Rick asked.
“I’s thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ me a crutch instead,” the old mountain man said with a straight face.
Red whipped off his hat, dragged it through a watering trough, then dumped the contents over Logan’s head.
Laughing, the men walked on, to fill yet another page of western history.
30
The men provisioned up and headed south and slightly west, happy to be together again. As they rode, the older men looked through wise eyes at the progress that was steadily pushing westward in the form of pioneers.
“Damn haybinders.” Logan cussed the homesteaders that seemed to be springing up all over the place.
“Wait until that new barbed wire gets out here,” Jamie told the group as they were settling into camp for the evening. “Then you’ll really see progress at its worst.”
“What kind of wire?” Canby asked.
“Man back in Illinois, I think it is, has invented a new kind of wire. It has little bitty sharp spikes on it that’ll cut you if you touch it. Calls it barbed wire. It’s for keeping cattle in the fields.”
“What happens if a human bein’ rubs up agin it?” Logan asked.
“Same thing. You get cut.”
“That’s nasty,” Red remarked. “They ought not to allow stuff like that to be sold.”
“You can bet the damn haybinders will be stringin’ it all over the place,” Logan said. “Course, in a way you can’t blame ’em. They’re tryin’ to get by just like the cattlemen.”
They pushed on, riding by the ruins of Bent’s Fort in southeastern Colorado.
“It was some place in i
ts day,” Logan said wistfully.
“That it was,” Jamie agreed.
The fort was built in 1833 by the Bent brothers, Charles and William, and it was a magnificent structure. The walls were fourteen feet high and three feet thick. Inside, there was lodging for up to two hundred men at a time. Bent’s Fort was an oasis of civilization in the midst of the wilderness, where Indian and white could mingle without trouble. The fort had an icehouse, storerooms, a huge dining hall, a carpenter’s shop, a tailor shop, and a blacksmith’s shop. The fort’s cook, Charlotte Green, was a lady of color, and she laid out a table of food that was unsurpassed anywhere between St. Louis and California. Charlotte used to say that she was “the only lady in the whole damn Injun country.”
In late 1849, his brother Charles dead, William Bent, irritated at the government’s refusal to give him a fair price for the fort, blew it up.
Jamie and the others rode on, crossing into Oklahoma Territory and then into Texas. They camped at the ruins of Adobe Walls, where, some months back, twenty-nine buffalo hunters and one woman held off nearly eight hundred Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors under the command of Quanah Parker and Lone Wolf. It was at Adobe Walls that Billy Dixon made his famous shot with a Sharps .50 caliber rifle, shooting an Indian off his horse at a range of almost one mile. The Indians were so shocked at the accuracy of the rapid-fire Sharps rifles, they finally withdrew. Among the defenders at the Walls was Bat Masterson. 24
Shortly after the siege at Adobe Walls, the Red River Indian wars came to a close, as hundreds of Kiowa and Comanche warriors surrendered to the army. Over seventy warrior chiefs were placed in irons and transported to a military prison in Florida. The Indian wars on the North Texas plains were just about over.
Now the riders headed straight south, through the bitter cold and blowing snow of the North Texas winter, a blue norther that came howling down from Canada, gathering strength as it slammed over the great plains. They were running out of supplies and half-frozen when they spotted the outline of a trading post, seemingly sitting smack in the middle of nowhere.
“Is that for real or is this hell?” Red asked.
“Hell’s hot,” Canby corrected.
“I’d settle in for about twenty minutes of it,” Logan said.
The men stabled their horses out of the wind and saw to the animals’ comfort and then walked into the long, low building.
“Come a fur piece, did you?” the man behind the counter asked.
“What happened to summer?” Rick asked.
The counterman laughed. “When it gets here, you’ll be wishin’ it was winter agin. Trouble with this country is there ain’t no middle ground. It’s either hot or cold. I got coffee and beef and beans, boys.”
“Pour it in and dish it up,” Jamie told him.
“Whiskey furst,” Logan said. “My innards is froze solid.”
The chill slowly leaving their bodies, the men sat down at a table to eat and drink.
“Where you boys headin’?”
“Eagle Pass,” Canby told him.
The man shook his head. “Maverick County. That’s bad country, boys. Even this fur north of there I can tell you that’s King Fisher’s country.”
“Who the hell is King Fisher?” Logan asked around a mouthful of food.
“Started out as a gunslick and a rustler. Now he calls hisself a rancher. He’s a bad one. The King runs that county. Now I hear he’s thrown in with some bad ol’ boys name of Kermit.”
“Is that a fact?” Rick said.
“Shore is. Was I you boys, I’d fight shy of that area.”
“One thing about it,” Canby said, “it’ll be a damn sight warmer down there than it is here.”
“You do have a point, but fired lead’s hotter than ice, too.”
* * *
Since his initial run-in with the Kermit brothers and kin, some time back, Rick had grown a handlebar mustache and had fleshed out some due to eating regular.
“They might not recognize me right off,” he told his compadres when they finally reached the outskirts of Eagle Pass. “But it’ll come to them sooner or later.”
“Damn shore warmer down here than up north,” Logan said. “My bones is finally thawin’ out. I might just decide to live out the rest of my days down here.”
“We might not none of us have no choice in the matter,” Red said with a grin. “We might all get planted down here.”
“You are such a joy to have along,” Canby said. “Just full of good cheer and such.”
“I just wonder if this King Fisher character is goin’ to pitch in with the Kermit boys,” Red mused aloud.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Jamie said, pointing to a road sign that read EAGLE PASS TEN MILES.
“I hope they got a good cafe in town,” Logan said. “I’m right hongry.”
The others laughed, Jamie saying, “Logan, I’ve never known you when you weren’t hungry!”
In the small border town, the men stabled their horses and then found rooms. After cleaning up, they went looking for a cafe and had an early supper. After eating, they sat on benches in front of the general store and smoked and eyeballed the few riders that came in.
If there was any local lawman, he was either home for the evening or gone out of town, for no badge toter came near them.
“I think I’ll amble over to that whiskey shop acrost the street,” Logan said, standing up. “Keep my ears open and see what I can pick up. I’ll be back.”
Jamie opened his watch and checked the time. It was a few minutes before five o’clock on this late winter’s day and the light was fast fading. Logan returned after a short time and took a seat.
“This King Fisher person is out of the country, I believe. But the Kermit brothers come into town most evenin’s to have supper. They’re usually at the saloon over yonder by five-thirty, and they’ll drink for about an hour and then eat. They have thrown in with Fisher, and from what I could overhear, Fisher has this town buffaloed. Not just the town, but the whole damn county and a lot of the surroundin’ area. What law there is around here is in Fisher’s pocket.”
“How many Kermits are there?” Red asked.
“Eight brothers and a whole bunch of cousins and nephews and what have you,” Rick answered. “And they’re all big and mean and good with a gun.”
“Sounds to me like these Kermits plan on hornin’ in on Fisher’s play,” Canby said.
Jamie nodded his head in the gathering darkness. “Shapes up that way, doesn’t it?”25
“Too bad we can’t just wait around for them to kill off each other,” Red opined.
“No time left to worry about that,” Jamie said, cutting his eyes to the far end of the street. “I believe those are the Kermit brothers and kin riding in now.”
“Jesus me!” Canby said in mock horror. “Looks like about two dozen of them.”
“Plenty to go around, for shore,” Logan replied, after spitting a brown stream of tobacco juice into the street.
“I believe I’m gonna see the elephant this night,” Red Green suddenly announced.
The others looked at him.
“But I couldn’t check out with no better friends around me,” Red added.
“What brought all that on?” Canby asked.
“Just a feelin’, that’s all. But a damn strong one.”
“Probably indigestion,” Logan told him. “You ate about ten pounds of beef.”
But Red shook his head. “Nope. Tonight’s the end for me.” He looked at Rick. “My gold’s yours, boy. Take it and buy yourself a spread somewhere. Make somethin’ out of yourself. You’re young; you got plenty of time to do that.”
“I wish you’d quit talkin’ like that,” Rick told the older man. “We got plenty of trails to ride yet.”
Red stared at the thirty or so riders as they rode up and swung down from their saddles. “This is track’s end for me. You know what I’m talkin’ about, don’t you, Jamie?”
Jamie
nodded his head in the darkness. “I know,” he spoke softly, just as the owner of the store came out and lit the twin lamps out front.
“I could have done without that,” Jamie whispered, as the lamplight outlined them clearly on the benches.
“You really believe you’re gonna cash in your chips tonight, Red?” Canby asked.
“Yes. And I ain’t a-feared of it. All I want is a nice box and a headstone. I’m trustin’ you boys to do me right.”
“You know we will,” Logan said.
“And you can dance all around my grave,” Red said with a smile. “But not on it.” Red lifted his eyes to the crowd across the street. “They sure are givin’ us the once-over, ain’t they?”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “I think they recognize me. The one standing and starin’ right at us is Percy Kermit. He’s the oldest of the clan. Surroundin’ him is his brothers, Claude, Zeb, Zeke, Samuel, Calhoun, Temple, and Isham.”
“You know any of the others?” Logan asked.
“A few of their names. The fat one is called Fat Phil. The twins on the right is Dunk and Dink. Next to them is Abijah and Skinny.”
The mob of Kermits and kin suddenly turned and went into the saloon.
“We better go fetch our spare pistols,” Red said, standing up. “This here shoot-out is gonna be a dandy one.”
The men walked back to the small hotel, opened their bedrolls and saddlebags and dug through their possibles, laying aside their spare pistols. They carefully cleaned the guns and loaded them up full, stuffing their pockets with spare cartridges.
“Don’t make my tombstone nothin’ fancy now, you hear?” Red said, as the men walked out of the hotel.
“I swear to God I’m gonna hit you on the head and tie you to a hitch rail if you don’t hush that kind of talk,” Canby told him.
Scream of Eagles Page 23
