Talons of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “It took me aback some, I will have to admit. I did some acting of my own.”

  “Ross told me some of it, but now you have filled in the gaps.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be. I’m happier now than I have ever been. I have found my place in the scheme of things. But this marriage. Oh, Lord, those two kids.”

  “That’s all I’m thinking of, Cort. Not that Page is a quarter-breed. I don’t give a damn about that. MacCallisters have married Mexicans and Indians. My youngest boy, Falcon, is about to marry a Cheyenne princess.”

  “You are far more broad-minded than I was, Colonel. And I stress was. ”

  “The war matured a lot of men, Cord.”

  Cort nodded his head and then lapsed into a long silence. The men in the saloon left them alone, moving tables and chairs far away, and even their talk had ceased its boisterousness. “No,” Cort finally spoke. “The marriage cannot be allowed, Colonel. Not unless both of them know the truth, and so far as I know, Page does not know.”

  “My wife, Kate, put it this way: Do we have the right to stand between them and happiness?”

  Again, Cort was silent for a time. “No. No, of course not. It is not my intention to do that.” Cort lifted his eyes to meet Jamie’s, a smile on his lips. “What are we both saying? These kids are a thousand miles away. It probably took a month and a half for the letter to reach you. They might well be married by now.”

  “Yes. And if that is the case, what do we do, if anything?”

  “Ah, Lord, I don’t know.”

  “Page’s brother?”

  “You do know it all, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I lost track of him just before the war. Then, after I, ah, died, so to speak, I put the Pinkertons on the case and found him. He’s a college graduate and working on a newspaper in Boston. I heard he was getting curious about his parents and starting to make inquiries.”

  “That could bring Anne’s world crumbling down around her.”

  “Yes. Very quickly.”

  “We need to get the kids out here before that happens, if it happens.”

  “Your grandson was studying . . . what?”

  “He was going to read the law and then settle around Denver. It’s a growing town.”

  “So is MacCallister’s Valley,” Cort pointed out.

  “I thought of that, as well. Will you ever return to Virginia, Cord?”

  The man shook his head. “No. I have liquidated all my holdings and severed all ties. There is nothing left for me there.” He smiled. “And before you make the offer, no, I will not settle in your valley, Colonel. After you leave this dismal hole in the road called a town, you will probably never see me again. For I intend to fall off the face of the earth and never appear again.”

  “That’s sort of drastic, isn’t it?”

  “It sounds much more ominous than it really is, Colonel. I have more than ample funds to live out my life quite comfortably. I have this little spot all picked out. Where, is my secret. I left Page quite the wealthy young woman, so she is well taken care of. I left Ben Franklin Washington money. So I think my obligations to my children have been fulfilled.”

  “It would seem so.”

  Cort picked up the deck of cards and began shuffling them. “I understand you have a gang of hoodlums pursuing you.”

  “So I hear.”

  He dealt hands and was deft at it. Very deft. “You don’t appear to be overly worried about it.”

  “Men have been trying to kill me for over fifty years, Cord. I’m still around.”

  “Yes, well . . . I assume, then, that we are going to allow our children, my child, your grandchild, to forge their own destinies without parental interference?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Thank you for the long ride to inform me of the events, Colonel. I guess all we can do is wish them well and hope for the best.”

  “That’s about it.” Jamie held out his hand and Cort shook it. “Good luck to you, Cord.”

  “The best of all things to you, Colonel.”

  Jamie pushed back his chair and walked out of the saloon. The body of the loudmouth had been dragged off the boardwalk and the blood mopped up. Jamie wasn’t sure exactly what this long ride had accomplished, but he felt it was something he had to do. He’d provision up come the morning and then ride south and some east. With any kind of luck at all, he’d intercept Grover Ellis’ kin and bring another boil to a head. But he’d be doing the squeezing.

  * * *

  The wedding was held on the last Sunday in May at Ravenswood. Ross was in attendance with his two children—naturally, it would not seem right for him to be left out, so Chastity was a flower girl. The couple was going to honeymoon abroad and then settle out west. Anne was deliberately vague about just where that might be. She just wanted the damn wedding over with and the kids gone. The detective agency she used had told her that another detective had been prowling around, asking a lot of questions about Anne and Ravenswood. The detective was home-based in Boston. Anne didn’t need a college professor to tell her what that meant. Ben Franklin Washington was on the hunt—and closing fast.

  After the party was over, the kids gone and the guests departed, Anne sat with Ross on the porch, in the dark, and told him what she had learned. For once, they both were civil with each other.

  “Goddamnit, Ross,” she finally let her anger loose. “I’ve provided for the boy and so has his father. He’s wealthy in his own right. Why in the hell can’t he just leave well enough alone?”

  “Why, darlin’,” Ross mush-mouthed. “I ’spect the boy wants to see his mammy.”

  Anne sighed at her brother’s dark humor but did not lose her temper—with him. Her anger was directed at her child, a son she had not laid eyes on in more than two decades.

  “There is a way,” Ross said, all sarcasm gone from his voice.

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “Kill the detective and the boy.”

  She cut her dark eyes to her brother. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  “It can be easily arranged.”

  “You’re talking about my son!”

  “I’m talking about our future and the future of your daughter. If your son is allowed to blow the lid off of our little charade, it’s over for the both of us. Oh, we’ll still have money. But no position. No standing in the community. We’ll be half-breeds and treated as such. You think about that, Anne.”

  “You know that Cort is still alive. He will know.”

  “Cort, who goes by the name of Cord Woodson, is a gambler and gunfighter out in the Wild West. He is also an alcoholic who is drinking himself to death. He will eventually die from the bottle or the bullet. But we can take care of him as well. And then no one will know.”

  Anne got up to pace the porch of the mansion. She whirled to face her brother. “I have never done anything like—”

  “Oh, shut up!” Ross flared at her. “Back during our touring days, you poisoned at least three men that I know of for what was in their purse. You stabbed another man to death backstage in St. Louis. Are you forgetting that I helped drag the body out and dump it in the Mississippi River? Don’t go all moral and righteous on me now, sister dear. You really don’t play the part well at all.”

  Anne walked to the far side of the porch to stand staring out at the darkness. “I really don’t know the boy,” she finally said.

  “That’s my sister of old,” Ross said. “Now you’re back in character.”

  “I haven’t said yes, yet, Ross.”

  “But you will. There is no other way. Well, we could have him knocked on the head and shanghaied on board ship down on the coast, but that would only delay the inevitable.”

  From the darkness she said, “You really are rotten to the core, aren’t you, Ross.”

  He sat quietly for a moment. She could hear his breathing. “You believe in heaven and hell, sister?” he finally spoke.

&nb
sp; “No.” Her reply was cold. “I think living is hell.”

  “So if there is no punishment after life, what difference does it make how we conduct ourselves while on this earth?”

  Anne came to sit by her brother’s side. “Maybe we could talk to Benjamin?”

  “Don’t be a fool, sister. You think he would take one look at what we have and not want a part of it? My God, Anne! We both fought, scratched, lied, cheated, stole, and murdered to get where we are. I’d kill ten people, fifty people, a hundred people to keep it.”

  “What changed you so, Ross? You didn’t used to feel this way.”

  “The good life. How many more years do we have, Anne. Ten? Fifteen at the most. I intend to live out my time left in the lap of luxury. And nobody is going to stand in my way. Nobody, Anne. Nobody.” There was cold menace in his voice.

  “I don’t want to know about it when . . . well, it happens.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Will he be hurt?”

  “No. It will be as quick and as painless as possible. I promise you that.”

  Anne stood up and walked to the door. She opened it and paused there for a moment. “Just do it, Ross. Do it.”

  “Consider it done, sister.”

  She walked into the dark mansion and closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  Jamie lingered long in his blankets. When he did decide to get up, he experienced a twinge of pain in his left shoulder. Doctor Prentiss had told him he had a slight case of rheumatism and there was nothing he could do for it.

  “Damn!” Jamie said, sitting up and rubbing his shoulder. He did not relish the prospect of growing old. But when the sun came up and warmed his shoulder, the pain was gone, and Jamie did not feel his age. He ate his pan bread and bacon and drank his coffee, enjoying the chatter of squirrels and the singing of birds. This was the year he and Kate would both turn sixty. Jamie just could not believe it. Where had the time gone?

  “Sixty years old,” he said aloud, pouring another cup of coffee. “Sixty!”

  Then he smiled as he thought of Kate. She sure didn’t look sixty, although there was a lot of gray among the gold now, and she was troubled with pain in her joints on cold mornings. But her figure was still good enough to put many a younger woman to shame, and the both of them still enjoyed a lively romp in bed.

  He laughed aloud at that.

  Jamie instinctively looked around him without really being conscious of doing it, checking his surroundings. The horses were grazing and the birds were singing and the squirrels were playing. No danger abounded close by.

  Jamie leaned back against his saddle and thought about Cort. The man had changed dramatically. There was a killer coldness about him now. War softened some men, scarcely changed others, and turned a few into hard men. Cort fell among the latter. Jamie felt sorry for the man.

  Jamie saw Lightning’s head come up, ears pricked, eyes alert. He quickly put out his fire and took up his rifle, moving into cover. From there, Jamie scanned the direction his horse was still intently studying. He could not see or hear anything out of the ordinary, but knew from long years of walking the thin line of danger that something was out there, and Lightning had picked it up.

  Then he heard the faint sound of voices. “I tell you I smelt coffee, Cal. I did!”

  “Well, I didn’t, and my blower’s just as good as yourn. What you smelt was your stinkin’ feet.”

  Jamie eased the hammer back on his rifle. The squirrels had ceased their scampering about and chattering; the birds were silent.

  “Look yonder, Cal! That’s fresh horse shit. Ain’t more’un twelve hours old. Someone’s clost.”

  “Be quiet. We got to have some horses. I’m tarred of walking. My feet is killin’ me.”

  Had their horses stolen in the high country, Jamie thought. Probably taken by Indians who could have just as easily killed them.

  Then Jamie tensed as a third voice was added. “Cal, Decker?”

  “Right here, Lew.”

  “Someone was just fryin’ bacon. I smelt it. Made my mouth start salavatin’. But the smell was faint. They’s a camp ’bout a half mile from us, I figure.”

  Jamie was about seventy-five feet away. Lightning was as still as a rock, his mean eyes turned wild with rage. The monster horse had picked up the sense of danger from its master, and was ready for a fight.

  “Cal, you circle around to the left. Decker, you go to the right. I’m going straight in. Quiet now. Try to shoot them through the head. We don’t want bullet holes and a bunch of blood on their clothes. We got to have their clothes.”

  “Maybe they’s some women in the camp,” the man called Lew said. “If so, don’t shoot them ’til I git a chance to dip my wick.”

  Nice folks, Jamie thought. Just the kind we need to populate the West. “Come on, boys,” he murmured softly. “It’s a good day to die!”

  33

  Fifteen hundred miles away, another scene was being played out, this one just as dangerous and just as life-threatening as the one rapidly approaching a bloody conclusion in the Rockies.

  “You were given to a couple down in the slave quarters one night during a violent storm, Mister Washington,” the detective told Ben. “The slave woman had just lost a baby a few days before. That woman is now dead. Her name was Georgia Washington. You were given to her by Anne Woodville’s personal maid, Selma. Your father, Cort Woodville, is thought to have been killed during the war. But he is alive and living in the West, going by the name of Cord Woodson. He is a gambler, gunfighter, and near-alcoholic. It is my opinion, Mister Washington, that you are in very grave danger.”

  Ben was clearly startled. “But why? I don’t want anything from my mother. I have money of my own. This Cord Woodson saw to that. I’m sure it was he. I don’t plan to upset any apple carts.”

  “I don’t believe you will ever convince your birth mother and her brother of that. I’m through, Mister Washington. I don’t want anything further to do with this case. Frankly, I’m scared.”

  “I’ll double your fee. I—”

  “No. I want out of this. Mister Washington, you are dealing with very dangerous people here. Ruthless. I backtracked this Anne LeBeau. She is suspected of killing several men years ago. But nothing could be proved. Your uncle, Ross, is just as dangerous; perhaps even more so. I fear for your life should you pursue this. Quit it, now.”

  Ben paid the man off, and the detective walked out of the hotel room and disappeared. Two blocks away he was run down by a frightened and out of control team of horses. The Boston detective’s skull was badly crushed, and he died there in the dirty street, lying in a pool of his own blood.

  Ben had watched it all from his hotel room, and it scared him. He didn’t believe for a second it was an accident. But what to do? He didn’t know. Would his mother really try to kill him? Yes, he now believed she would.

  Ben was thinking fast, convinced now that his life was in real peril. If he could make it to the railroad station, he could get clear. And that was all he wanted to do. Just get clear and get back to Boston.

  He packed swiftly and paid his bill, leaving by the back door. He stepped out into the alley and turned toward the street. Something crashed into the back of his head, and Ben Franklin Washington dropped into a pain-filled darkness.

  * * *

  Jamie waited with the patience of a natural-born hunter. He had played out this game many, many times. For over fifty years, he reminded himself. The only thing about him that moved were his eyes.

  Jamie caught movement to his right, then to his left. Cal and Decker were beginning their circle, and they were pretty good in the woods. But with Jamie, pretty good wouldn’t cut it.

  He knew that by now they had spotted his horses. Jamie allowed himself a small smile. He would just stay quiet and let them enter his camp. It would be amusing to see what happened when one tried to touch Lightning. He waited.

  One by one the three men slowly entered the deserted-appearin
g camp. They stood for a few seconds, puzzled expressions on their faces.

  “He’s gone huntin’,” Lew finally said. He knelt down and shook the coffeepot. Jamie had just made a second pot, so the pot was full. “We’ll keep a sharp eye out and have us some coffee while waitin’ for him to come back. Cal, you go over yonder and throw a saddle on that horse. Decker, you rummage through them supplies and find that slab of bacon. I know he’s got some; I smelt it.”

  Cal did not notice when Lightning laid his ears back and walled his cold eyes. The animal stood perfectly still as the saddle blanket was laid on his back and smoothed out. Then Cal walked around the horse to fetch the saddle, and that’s when Lightning kicked the snot out of him. Jamie winced as Lightning’s rear hooves caught the man on the arm and hip and knocked him a good twenty feet. Jamie heard the bones break as the steel-shod hooves impacted. Cal’s head banged on a rock and he was out.

  “Jesus!” Decker said, running over to him. “Lew! His arm’s all busted and looks like his hip may be busted, too. He’s in bad shape.”

  “That’s a killer horse,” Lew said. “But I’ll ride him. I’ll beat his head in with a rifle butt and larn him who’s boss.”

  Walk on over there and try to do that, Lew, Jamie thought. This I have to see.

  Lew picked up a club from the ground and walked over to Lightning and drew back as if to hit him. Lightning’s jaws clamped down on Lew’s arm and locked. Lew began screaming as Lightning tried to chew the man’s arm off.

  “Oh, God, Decker!” Lew screamed. “Get me a-loose from this bastard. He’s tearin’ my arm up something fierce.”

  Lightning chose that time to start rearing and kicking with his front feet. Again Jamie winced as the steel-shod hooves came down on Lew’s booted feet. Lew was screaming in pain when Lightning finally turned loose of the now bloody and torn arm. Lew fell back onto the ground, one shin badly torn and bleeding and one foot broken.

  Jamie rose from the ground, his rifle leveled at Decker. “Just freeze solid, Decker, and I might let you live.”

  Decker cut his eyes to Jamie and froze to the ground. Lew was moaning around on the ground, bleeding at arm and leg, one foot smashed nearly flat.