Revenge of Eagles

by Johnstone, William W.

“Yes. He comes to us. I say, we will not wait for him to come to us. From now on we will go to him. We will find where he sleeps, and we will find where he eats, and we will kill him.”

  “Yes, we will kill him,” Tarq agreed.

  Like all Apache, Chetopa, Tarq, and Mensa were skilled trackers and ferocious warriors. But like many, they were used to white men who were badly deficient in those skills, so they had underestimated Falcon.

  That underestimation had proven fatal. But Chetopa did not intend to underestimate Falcon again. He knew that Falcon was nearby, and might even now be watching them. So, working from that premise, he decided to turn back upon their own trail. If they did that, he would either have to retreat from them, or leave the trail and make a new one.

  After backtracking for several hours, Chetopa saw a fresh horse dropping on the trail and, leaping down from his horse, he examined it. It was soft and odorous.

  “Yes,” he said to the others. “We have found him.” Then, in English, he shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Dlo Binanta! Dlo Binanta, do you hear me? We have found you! We have found you and we will kill you! And after you are dead, I will cut your heart out and feed it to the dogs in our village!”

  “Ayieee!” the Indians yelled, holding their rifles over their heads.

  “Dlo Binanta, do you hear me?” Chetopa yelled.

  “Hear me ... hear me ... hear me?” the words echoed back.

  “I hear you, Chetopa,” Falcon said. Although he spoke quietly, Chetopa, Mensa, and Tarq heard him quite clearly, because he was standing less than ten yards behind them.

  Chetopa and the others whirled toward the sound of the voice and, doing so, saw Falcon standing there, challenging them. Amazingly, his guns were in his holsters. Seeing this, Chetopa smiled.

  “You dare to face us without your weapons?”

  “I have my weapons,” Falcon said easily.

  “But they are not in your hands,” Chetopa said. His smile grew broader as he brought his rifle around to bear.

  Faster than Chetopa could blink, or even contemplate the action, the pistols were in Falcon’s hands. He fired three times, killing all three Indians before even one of them could get off a shot.

  He stood there for a moment after, smoke curling up from the barrel, even as the sound of the three shots echoed and reechoed back from the mesa walls.

  Falcon went about his gruesome task. He scalped Chetopa, Mensa, and Tarq. Then, he put each of the Indians belly-down on their ponies, tied their hands to their feet with strips of rawhide, and using their own knives, pinned their scalps to their bodies. That done, he slapped the ponies on the rear and threw up his hat to start them. They galloped away.

  Fourteen-year-old Kinte was tending the herd of ponies as they grazed just outside the village. He was proud to be given such a responsibility, for this was part of his training in becoming a warrior.

  Of course, being a warrior was not like it once was. Kinte had heard stories of bravery and wars well fought. He knew of great leaders and warriors such as Cochise, Victorio, Geronimo, Juh, Nana, Naiche, Chalipun, and Eskiminzin. Perhaps, one day, the name Kinte would join that list of brave Apache.

  Kinte thought about Chetopa. He should have gone with Chetopa. Of course, because he was so young, Chetopa would not have let him go, at least not at first. But if he had followed Chetopa, then joined him later, Chetopa would have let him stay.

  Kinte admired Chetopa. Keytano was their chief, and Kinte knew that all the people respected Keytano, but he thought Keytano was an old man and should not be their leader now. Their leader should be Chetopa.

  Perhaps, when Chetopa returned with the scalp of Dlo Binanta, the others in the village would make him chief. And with a brave and ferocious leader like Chetopa, the Apache would no longer be farmers and old women. They would be warriors again, and Kinte would be there with them.

  Kinte saw three ponies galloping toward him. At first he thought they were riderless; then he saw that each of the three was carrying a burden of some sort. As the ponies came closer, he ran toward them, holding up his arms to stop them.

  The ponies, tired from their long run, and glad to be back to familiar territory, stopped their running and began peacefully grazing. They made no effort to move away as Kinte came closer to see what they were carrying.

  “Ayieee!” he shouted in horror and grief as he saw the scalped body of his hero, Chetopa.

  “We must go to war to avenge this!” Caiche, one of the warriors of the village, shouted in anger. Caiche, as well as every other man, woman, and child of the village, had come to the center circle to look down upon the bodies of Chetopa, Mensa, and Tarq.

  “No!” Keytano said.

  “But the whites have done this thing! Can we let this go unavenged?” Caiche asked.

  “Do you see the scalps?” Keytano asked, pointing to the bodies. “This was not done by the whites. It was done by one white man.”

  “One white man? Five warriors were with Chetopa. And you say that one white man did this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What one white man could best Chetopa and five warriors?”

  “Falcon MacCallister,” Keytano said. “The one we call Dlo Binanta.”

  “How do you know it was Dlo Binanta?” Caiche asked.

  Keytano pulled the knife from Chetopa’s body, then held out the scalp.

  “Dlo Binanta has sent us a message,” Keytano said. “He has told us that, as he promised, he will take the scalps of his enemy.”

  “We should go after him,” Caiche said. “Then, after we kill him, we will make war with the whites for what they have done.”

  “No,” Keytano said sharply. “If more of our young men go after him, more of our young men will die. Falcon MacCallister has said that he will kill and scalp the evil ones who killed my daughter. I say we will let him do as he promised he would do.”

  “And I say we should go after him and kill him,” Caiche insisted. He turned to face the others. “I will lead you! Who among you is not afraid to die? Who among you will ride with me to find and kill Dlo Binanta? Come with me, all who are brave of heart!”

  Caiche stepped to one side in an invitation to the warriors of the village.

  “Come with me if you would avenge the death of our brothers!” Caiche shouted.

  He waited.

  Kinte started toward him, but he was grabbed by his father and pulled back. Another, even younger boy started toward Caiche, and the Indians, seeing that only young boys were joining him, laughed.

  Caiche glared at them for a long moment, then, in humiliation, stormed out of the circle.

  “Go back to your wickiups,” Keytano said to the others when he saw that the immediate crisis was over. “Go back to your wickiups and prepare for the burial of these brave but foolish men.”

  The sun was a red orb just above the eastern horizon when Fargo and the others arrived in Mesquite. Although the sun was producing light, its orange disk was not yet too bright to look at.

  Although the smell of frying bacon and coffee indicated that a few people were awake and preparing breakfast, the streets were empty, except for an old red dog that was sleeping on the front porch of one of the buildings.

  Seeing the riders come into town, the dog got up and ambled across the street in front of them, then took a position under another porch. Since the saloon was not open at this early hour, there was no question about anything getting in the way of the task at hand. The riders went directly to the house of Fargo’s sister.

  This time, Fargo checked the lean-to behind Suzie’s house. There, tied to a hitching bar and nibbling contentedly on some hay, was a familiar horse.

  Fargo got down from his own horse and patted the animal a few times.

  “He’s here!” Fargo said quietly to the others. “This here is his horse. The son of a bitch put one over on us!”

  “You think he’s in the house?” Casey asked.

  “No, I think he’s somewhere doin�
� the fandango dance on one leg,” Fargo replied.

  “I was just askin’.”

  “Hell, yes, the son of a bitch is in the house,” Fargo said. “Where else would he be?”

  Fargo went around to the front of the little house and felt for the key.

  The key wasn’t there.

  “Damn!” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “The bitch has moved the key.”

  Stepping back, Fargo raised his leg, then kicked hard. The door popped open and Fargo, Dagen, Monroe, and Casey dashed in.

  Two figures sat up in the bed, surprised by the sudden entry. This time there was no mistake. The man in bed with Suzie was Ponci.

  “Fargo!” Ponci shouted in alarm.

  “Give us our money, Ponci,” Fargo said.

  “It ain’t here.”

  Fargo pulled the trigger, and a bullet slammed into the bedstead just beside Ponci’s head.

  “I said give us our money!”

  “Damn it, stop that! I told you, it ain’t here!”

  “You, Dagen, jerk the cover offen their bed. I want to have a look.”

  “I’m naked, Fargo,” Suzie said. “Are you going to let all these men see your own sister naked?”

  “Hell, it ain’t like you ain’t never been seen naked before,” Fargo responded with a sneer. “Back when you first started whorin’, I used to charge my friends a nickel to see you getting your legs spread.”

  “You are a crazy bastard,” Suzie said.

  “Dagen, jerk the cover offen that bed like I told you to!”

  “Sure enough, Fargo,” Dagen said as he reached down to grab the top of the blanket. He smiled at Suzie. “Fact is, I’m goin’ to enjoy this,” he said.

  Dagen jerked the cover off and as Suzie said, she was naked. Dagen and the others stared at her as she tried, without success, to cover her breasts with one arm, and the little dark spade of pubic hair with her other.

  “Sum’ bitch,” Dagen said. “She wasn’t tellin’ no lie. She was naked, all right.”

  Ponci was naked as well.

  “Holy shit,” Fargo said as he looked at the discolored stump of Ponci’s mangled leg. “You really did cut off your own leg, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  The money wasn’t under the bedcovers.

  “Where’s the money?”

  “I hid it,” Ponci said.

  “You hid it? Under the bed?” Fargo walked over to Suzie’s side of the bed, then leaned down to look underneath.

  That was when Suzie made her move. “Fargo! You son of a bitch!” she shouted as she made a grab for Fargo’s gun. “Get the hell out of here!”

  Fargo jerked back from her, and as he did, he automatically pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Suzie in the face, just under her left eye, and she fell back on the bed dead.

  The muzzle flash lit up the little room, and the gun blast was so loud that it left everyone’s ears ringing.

  “Suzie!” Ponci shouted. “Suzie!”

  He examined her, but by the way her head was thrown back and her eyes were open but sightless, he knew she was dead.

  “Son of a bitch! You just killed your own sister,” Ponci said, shocked by what he had just seen.

  “Yeah, well, the bitch had no business going for my gun,” he said. “Now I’m going to ask you just one more time. Where at is the money?”

  “I hid it,” Ponci said.

  “Where did you hide it?”

  “If I tell you that, you won’t have any reason to keep me alive.”

  “I don’t have any reason to keep you alive anyway,” Fargo said. He cocked his pistol. “Now, you got until I count to three to tell me where you hid that money, or I’ll kill you dead right here and we’ll just go steal some more money somewhere else.”

  Ponci glared at him.

  “One,” Fargo started.

  “I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”

  “Two.”

  Fargo cocked the pistol and aimed it directly at Ponci’s head. Ponci started quivering.

  “All right, all right, I’ll tell you,” Ponci said. “I buried it in a cave back between here and—”

  That was as far as Ponci got before Fargo shot him. The bullet crashed into Ponci’s chest, and the black hole that appeared just over his heart started pumping blood. Because he was naked, his wound was clearly visible, and Ponci reached down to try and staunch the flow of blood. Bright crimson spilled through his fingers, and he looked up in surprise.

  “You said if I told you, you wouldn’t shoot,” Ponci muttered, his words strained.

  “I also said I would count to three,” Fargo told him. “I lied both times.”

  With Chetopa and his band of followers taken care of, Falcon was now able to turn his attention to Fargo Ford. He had learned from Sheriff Ferrell that at least two of the men in the gang, Fargo Ford and Ponci Elliot, were from Mesquite, so that seemed to be the logical place for him to start.

  It was mid-morning when Falcon rode into Mesquite, and as he came into town, he saw a crowd of people gathered around the front of the hardware store. Dismounting at the saloon, Falcon tied off his horse and started into the saloon. Then he heard something from the crowd that got his attention.

  “This here was Fargo Ford’s sister. I wouldn’t want to be the person that done this when he finds out about it.”

  Falcon turned away from the saloon then, and walked across the street to see what everyone was looking at. That was when he saw the two coffins that were propped up just behind the front window of the hardware store.

  That was when he saw too that the hardware store was also an undertaker’s parlor.

  The body in one of the coffins was a woman. Her blond hair was neatly combed, and she was wearing a lavender dress. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and she was holding an artificial rose. There was a bullet hole under her left eye.

  The other body was wearing a pair of overalls, with the bottom of one leg tied in a knot, showing that one leg was missing. He too had his arms folded across his chest and he was clutching a Colt pistol in one of his hands. Although the undertaker had done what he could to clean the wound, it was easy to see how he died, because there was a purple hole in his chest.

  Neatly lettered signs identified each of the bodies. Under the woman’s body the sign said SUZIE FORD. Under the man’s body the sign said PONCI ELLIOT.

  Ponci Elliot was one of the men Falcon was looking for. “Where is the sheriff’s office?” Falcon asked a man standing next to him.

  “It’s right down there across from the bank,” the man answered. “You need to see the sheriff ?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, his name is Meeker. Sheriff Meeker, and if you go on down there, why, like as not you’ll find him sittin’ in his office reading dime novels.”

  “Thanks,” Falcon said.

  Falcon stayed on this same side of the street until he reached the bank, then crossed over to the sheriff’s office. When he pushed the door open, the room was filled with the aromatic smoke of the sheriff’s pipe tobacco. The sheriff, a middle-aged, overweight man, was sitting at his desk puffing on a pipe, and reading a dime novel.

  “Sheriff Meeker?” Falcon said as he stepped inside.

  The sheriff looked up. “That’s me,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope you can. What can you tell me about the two bodies that are on display down at the hardware store?”

  The sheriff put the book facedown on his desk, then stared at Falcon with eyes that showed some curiosity as to why Falcon might be interested. He put that curiosity into words.

  “Why do you want to know about them?” he asked.

  “Because the man, Ponci Elliot, was riding with Fargo Ford, and I’ve been after him. Well, I’ve been after all of them actually. Fargo Ford, Ethan Monroe, Casey Jackson, and Dagen Mendoza.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve been after them?”

  “They robbed a money shipment back in Ca
labasas, killing the express agent. The sheriff caught them and put them in jail, but they broke out, killing four men as they did so. Later, they took a young Indian girl off a stagecoach and killed her.”

  Sheriff Meeker shook his head slowly and let out a low whistle.

  “They’ve been busy, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, they have. But I intend to put them out of business.”

  “You intend to put them out of business? All by yourself, are you?” Sheriff Meeker said with a chuckle. “And just who might I be talking to? Wyatt Earp? Wild Bill Hickock? Doc Holliday? Or is it Falcon MacCallister perhaps?”

  “Yes,” Falcon answered.

  “Yes, what?” Sheriff Meeker asked, not quite understanding Falcon’s response.

  “Yes, I’m Falcon MacCallister.”

  “What?”

  “You just rattled off a bunch of names, asking if any of them fit me. As it turns out, one of them does. I’m Falcon MacCallister.”

  “The hell you say!” Sheriff Meeker said, standing very quickly. “Mister, you aren’t just fooling with me, are you?” he asked. “You really are Falcon MacCallister?

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” the sheriff said. Moving around the desk quickly and displaying a big smile, Sheriff Meeker reached out to grab Falcon’s hand, then began pumping it fiercely. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Imagine me meeting Falcon MacCallister. Why, I’m reading about you right now, in fact.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yes, it’s all about how you, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid robbed a train back in Missouri. What was it you would always say when you was facin’ down someone with a gun?” the sheriff asked, a puzzled expression on his face. “Oh, yes, I remember now. You would say, ‘Get ready to eat supper in hell.’”

  “Yes, something like that,” Falcon replied. He had never used that line in his life, but Sheriff Meeker wasn’t the first person to point out to him that the dime novels reported that he always said that just before shooting someone.

  Falcon had long since stopped refuting it, nor did he point out now how unlikely it was for him, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James all to be participating in the same holdup.