Talons of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “That’s it,” Jamie said.

  “Very, very good, Colonel. I’m impressed.”

  “I’ll go with them, too, Jamie,” Hannah said. “They’ll be expecting to hear a woman screaming.”

  “That’s right. Good.”

  “Let’s get to it,” Sparks said. “I’ll start making some bombs out of what powder we have left. I’ll make them small enough so we can toss them.”

  “Now it gets interestin’,” Preacher said with a smile.

  38

  Each defender was armed with two Henry rifles and anywhere from two to six pistols. Sparks had rummaged around and found cans and bottles and had constructed a dozen or so grenades, filling the homemade bombs with rusty nails and small jagged rocks; the flying shrapnel would produce hideous wounds.

  During the night Smoke had carefully inched forward to the blocked pass and planted three heavy charges of explosives, and that exhausted all the powder the men had brought with them. Smoke then laid out fuses and backed up to one of the buildings at the edge of the pass. There, he waited with a box of matches for the attack to begin.

  Audie was on the roof of a building on one side of the street, Preacher on the roof on the other side. Jamie, Cord, Sparks, and Smoke were on ground level, waiting.

  When Night Stalker, Dark Hand, Hannah, and Lobo had finished with the men who had climbed down to attack from the west side of the pass, they were to join the others.

  Now all the defenders could do was wait.

  * * *

  In England, Jamie’s kids and the honeymooners were boarding ship for the return to America.

  Ben Franklin Washington, along with two attorneys, several reporter friends, and a group of detectives who would act as bodyguards were leaving Boston on the train for Richmond.

  At Ravenswood, Anne was packed and ready to go. A trusted driver was waiting by the carriage in back of the mansion. Anne’s personal servant was thrilled—her mistress was actually taking her to New York City. She had been astonished when Anne had given her several of her own beautiful rings to wear on her fingers . . . just a loan, mind you. She was wearing them now at Anne’s insistence.

  Everything was ready, with just one small hitch: Ross had disappeared without a trace. Anne allowed herself a small smile when her hired thugs reported that to her. So her darling brother had smelled a rat. Well, she might have guessed he would. Ross was anything but stupid.

  She watched as the hooligans drank their tea and quietly sank into unconsciousness; death would soon overtake them. Her personal servant was already dead in the kitchen from the poisonous brew.

  Anne dragged the body of Thelma to the large living room and carefully placed it across the room from the two soon to be dead men, now sprawled on the floor. She put a small pistol next to the maid’s hand; two cylinders had been fired the day before. Pistols were placed close to the men’s bodies. Then Anne closed up the house and lit the long, slow-burning fuses that would ignite the flammable materials left by the painters. She carefully locked the back door and got into the carriage.

  “We’ll stop along the way and have us a picnic lunch,” she told the driver. “I just made some perfectly delicious tea for us to drink.”

  “Sounds good, ma’am.” He clucked to the team of horses. Anne did not look back.

  * * *

  Ellis had sent a few more men scaling the cliffs than Jamie had anticipated, but in the end it made no difference. The four defenders at the west end of town were ready for them. Night Stalker, Dark Hand, and Lobo started yelling and Hannah started screaming, and Layfield sent his troops scrambling over the rocks at the east end . . . straight to their deaths.

  Smoke lit the fuses then backed off to join Jamie.

  The bombs at the edge of the rock slide exploded and sent pieces of men flying in all directions. Sparks started hurling his homemade grenades, and the rusty nails and bits of glass and rock tore into flesh and dropped men dead or horribly wounded.

  When the defenders started firing, it was almost at point-blank range. They didn’t have to bother to take aim, for the street was a narrow one and the attackers were running shoulder to shoulder.

  It was a very brief fight, lasting only three or four minutes at the most; but it was carnage at both ends of the street for Layfield’s and Ellis’ men. When the gunsmoke and black powder smoke from the bombs and grenades, and the dust from the explosions finally settled, both ends of the short street were littered with dead and dying.

  “Layfield!” Jamie shouted. “Can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, MacCallister. You treacherous, traitorous bastard! What do you want?”

  “You can send over a small group to collect your wounded, here on the east side. We’ll patch up those left alive on the other end of the street.”

  “Why should I believe the likes of you, MacCallister?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Layfield. Your wounded are suffering while you’re standing over there debating. Come get them. We won’t fire on you.”

  “Your kind heart is going to get you killed one of these days,” Smoke said softly. “Especially when dealing with the likes of men like Layfield.”

  Jamie looked at the young man with the old eyes; eyes that were cold and hard. “You may be right.”

  Two teams of men, unarmed, came gingerly and cautiously over the mound of rocks in the pass. They stopped just before they reached street level.

  “Come on across,” Jamie called. “We’re not going to fire on you.”

  Layfield’s men gathered up the wounded and left without saying a word of thanks.

  “Nice people,” Audie remarked. “We should have shot every one of the damned miserable wretches.”

  “Let’s eat!” Preacher called from the rooftop. “All this excitement done made me hongry!”

  * * *

  Layfield was getting desperate while his men were losing the will to fight. They had seen a full third of their comrades slaughtered, and as far as they knew they had not inflicted a single wound on any of the defenders of the town. Layfield had promised them a quick victory and glory. He had promised them wealth and women when they took the town of MacCallister. They had seen none of that which had been promised them.

  The spectators that lined the ridges were certainly not helping morale. They hooted and yelled and cussed and cast aspersions upon Layfield’s army, calling them all sorts of vile names. And the miners were also giving aid to the enemy, lowering food down to them by ropes.

  Clearly, waging the battle against Jamie MacCallister here had been a mistake. Layfield now realized that. But to pull back? That was unthinkable.

  Or was it? Perhaps not, he thought, sitting in his tent. No, perhaps that was the way. Not really pulling back, but letting MacCallister think he was retreating. Yes. It might work. He had been studying maps of the area and knew the twin valleys that MacCallister claimed were really not that far away. He could leave a small force behind....

  “No,” he muttered. That wouldn’t work. The damned miners and their filthy whores would tip MacCallister off the instant he started pulling men back.

  Layfield got down on his knees and began fervently praying for heavenly guidance. He prayed for God to give him a sign. “Give me a sign, Lord!” Layfield implored the Almighty. “Show me the way!”

  What he got was rain. Cold, miserable rain. It started while Layfield was asking God for help in his fight to destroy Jamie MacCallister and continued on through the night. It was still pouring when Layfield awakened the next morning, coming down in cold, gray sheets.

  “Shit!” Layfield said, closing his Bible.

  Ellis and his men were faring even worse than Layfield. Ellis had lost half his men trying to assault the town from the west side. They had not come prepared for the changeable weather in the Rockies, and they were cold, wet, and miserable.

  Lew Ellis’ foot was aching something awful. He sat huddled under a tarp and cussed Jamie MacCallister and that damn killer horse that had mangled
him. He didn’t think he would ever be warm again. These mountains were different from the mountains back home. Lew hated these mountains. They were . . . well, unfriendly, was the best he could come up with. But his hatred for Jamie Ian MacCallister was even stronger. Just thinking about killing that big bastard warmed him somewhat. But he was still cold.

  * * *

  “I didn’t think we could pull this off,” Sparks said, sitting warm and dry with a cup of coffee in his hand. “But damned if I don’t believe we done it.”

  “The miners say that some of Layfield’s men have left him,” Smoke added. “But he still has a sizeable force with him.”

  Night Stalker entered the building through the back door and stood for a moment, warming himself by the fire. “Men will come,” he finally said. “Not on horseback, but walking. They have found an old trail through the mountains. They will be here in the morning.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Preacher asked.

  “Am sure.”

  “They used the rain for cover,” Lobo said. “It’s misty and foggy out there. That’s why the miners didn’t warn us.”

  “You can bet they left people behind,” Hannah said. “Moving around and tending fires and the like.” She started humming. Night Stalker and Dark Hand looked at her but said nothing. They knew what she was humming.

  “You get out of here, Smoke,” Preacher told his young friend. “You get gone.”

  “I’ll stay,” the young gunfighter said.

  “He’s right, boy,” Lobo told him. “You got a whole life ahead of you. Hell, we’re old. Clear on out.”

  “Forget it,” Smoke said.

  “Your courage and loyalty to a friend is most admirable,” Audie said. “But those attributes can sometimes be misplaced. Preacher is right. You should leave. No one will think the less of you for it.”

  Smoke stood up. “I’ll relieve Cord and stand watch while he gets some coffee and warmth. I’m staying.” He picked up his rifle and left the room.

  “The boy is as hard-headed as you are, Preacher,” Jamie said with a smile.

  “We ain’t lost this fight yet,” Preacher replied. “Ain’t none of you ever seen that boy up close and in a fight. He’s a devil. There ain’t a nerve in him.”

  “He does appear to be right handy with them guns of hisn,” Lobo remarked.

  “Rattlesnake fast,” Preacher said. Then he smiled. “Larned everything he knows from me, of course.”

  Preacher exited the room swiftly as people began throwing sticks and cups and boots at him.

  39

  One miner who witnessed the fight later called it one hell of a battle, and the old ghost town of Bell City would forever after be known as Hell City.

  The rain stopped during the night and the sky became star-filled. By dawn, Layfield’s men were in place, and there was nothing for the defenders of Hell City to do but stand and fight; for Layfield’s men now were located at each end of the ghost town, and escape for the defenders was impossible.

  “This reminds me of the time I was surrounded by about five hundred Kiowa,” Preacher said. “That was back in the late ’40’s, I reckon it was.”

  Audie rolled his eyes, knowing Preacher was about to launch into another of his tall tales. Lobo began pulling up clumps of grass and sticking them in his ears while Jamie laughed at the antics of the men.

  “They’d ambushed an army supply train, but didn’t know there was about a thousand or so rifles scattered out among the wagons and cases and barrels of shot and powder. I couldn’t run nowheres, my good hoss had pulled up lame, so I started loadin’ up them rifles just as fast as I could. I must have loaded up near ’bouts two/three hundred of them rifles ’fore them painted-up Injuns realized I was there. They’d been busy torturin’ them what was left alive. When they seen me, here they come, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-shriekin’ like devils. I commenced to firin’ just as fast as I could pick up one rifle and let ’er bang and lay it down and pick up another one. Them Kiowa never seen nothin’ like that. They’d charge and I’d bang. I was firin’ them rifles like pistols, one in each hand. The smoke was so thick you couldn’t see. They was dead Kiowa a-layin’ all over the place. It was a sight, let me tell you. We fought near ’bouts all morning’ ’fore them Injuns finally give it up and went ridin’ off, carryin’ their dead. That was a hell of a fight, let me tell you that, boys—and you, too, Miss Hannah.”

  Audie stared at him for a moment. “Why, you misbegotten old reprobate, what has that to do with our present situation?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know,” Preacher replied. “It just reminded me of it, that’s all.” He walked off to take up his assigned position.

  “There was about a hundred of them Kiowa,” Sparks said.

  “You mean the story is true? ” Cord asked.

  “Yep. Most of it. Preacher must have kilt or wounded forty or fifty Kiowa ’fore they give it up and rode off.”

  “ ’Course it’s true,” Preacher said, pausing in the street to point toward the rear of the building. Then he walked off.

  Audie thought about the stacks and stacks of rifles and belts of ammunition that had been retrieved from the dead and wounded of Layfield’s and Ellis’ men after their abortive charges. “There was a moral to the story after all,” he muttered. “But getting it out of that old buzzard is sometimes as difficult as shaking hands with a grizzly.”

  The defenders began loading up Henry rifles and Colt pistols and passing them around. “This will give us a little better chance,” Cord said, just as he left the room with an armload of rifles and pistols.

  “For a fact, we ain’t got much of a chance,” Sparks said, heading out the door and to his position near the east end of the town.

  They looked up as Smoke’s pistols barked twice down at the west end of the street.

  “The first ones who reached us did not make it very far,” Night Stalker called from across the street.

  “It’s been nice knowin’ you folks,” Lobo said. “I reckon our string’s done run out. But I aim to take a bunch of them bastards with me.”

  He was carrying a load of weapons that would have staggered a big mule.

  “Here they come!” Preacher hollered. “And we didn’t kill near ’bouts as many as we first thought neither! They’s swarmin’ like bees.”

  Jamie stepped out onto the warped boardwalk, his hands filled with Colts. He emptied the pistols into knots of men rushing into the streets from all sides and watched them fall. He holstered the empties and filled his hands with Colts pulled from behind his belt. The morning was bright, sunny, and rapidly turning bloody in the Colorado Rockies.

  Hannah shouted out in Shawnee and used her now-empty rifle as a club, smashing heads until she went down under a mob of blue-shirted men. Jamie did not see his old friend fall, but when her shouting ceased, he knew she was gone. It filled him with a rage he had not experienced in years. He turned toward where he had last heard her shout and emptied Colts that filled his fists into the mob of men. Then he picked up two Henry rifles and began firing them, twirling the rifles like batons to work the levers. A bullet nicked one arm, another bullet slammed into a post and sent slivers of wood into his face, and yet another round burned his right leg. Jamie stood like a rock, loaded rifles leaning against the store front, within arm’s reach. He would empty two and grab up two more. The street became thick with gunsmoke and ringing with the pitiful cries of those wounded.

  “A thousand dollars for the head of Jamie MacCallister!”

  Jamie grabbed up two fully charged pistols and two rifles and ducked back inside the building, running the length of it and exiting out the back door. He turned and came face-to-face with a handful of blue-shirted Revengers. It was too close for rifle work, so he started swinging one rifle like a club. He heard skullbones pop and jaws break under the impact. Dropping the now stock-broken rifle, he grabbed up a Henry from one of the downed men and ran up the alleyway just in time to stand, watching through h
orror-filled eyes, as Cord stepped out into the street, both hands filled with pistols. Cord had changed clothes. He was now wearing his old Confederate uniform, from his cavalryman’s boots to his gray, gold-braided hat.

  “Come on, you Yankee bastards!” the former plantation owner shouted. “Meet the gray one more time.”

  Cord began firing as fast as he could cock and fire. Jamie watched his body soak up lead, but the man stayed on his boots, exacting a fearful toll from the blue-shirted men only a few dozen yards away. He emptied his pistols and sank to his knees in the muddy street, the front of his gray coat soaked with blood. Dropping the empties, Cord pulled out two more pistols from his sash and kept on firing. Cord Woodson died on his knees in the street. But he would not fall over; he remained on his knees, facing the enemy. One more insult to the blue-shirts.

  Jamie stepped out of the alleyway and gave the remainder of the men who had killed Cord their final insult: he filled them with lead and watched them fall. Jamie dropped those empty pistols and the empty Henry and jerked out his last two Colts.

  Night Stalker screamed out insults from a rooftop and leaped down into a knot of now badly disoriented and frightened men, a knife in one hand and a tomahawk in the other. He began cutting flesh and splitting heads. His body jerked time after time as bullets tore into him, but the Nez Perce warrior would not go down that easily. When he finally fell, he was surrounded by a sea of blue, dead and dying.

  Dark Hand, one leg broken by a bullet, and blood streaming down his face from another wound, painfully hauled himself to an upright position, tied himself to a hitchrail, and began screaming insults in Cheyenne. The surviving defenders of the battle of Hell City found him there after the fight; the Cheyenne warrior had suffered over a dozen gunshot wounds before dying. A pile of blue-shirted bodies lay in a semicircle all around him.