Blood of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “You went right in?” Buck Tyber pressed. “Right in close?”

  “I moseyed all over the place,” Brett said. “They probably took me for a homesteader or a buyer. You’re right, the murderers are there. I’m sure DeWitt’s one of them, and Obermire and Folly Downs and Clarence. With the two I didn’t see—they call them Billy and Tuck—that makes six.”

  “Land sharks,” Falcon muttered thoughtfully. “Speculators turned pirates. DeWitt ... that could be Asa Parker. That ties in with O’Brien and the patent deeds he peddles. No Man’s Land ... no legal ownership of anything, so who’s to say who can sell what, as long as the seller has possession.”

  “Yeah,” Brett said. “They don’t have to buy land to sell, they just take it. But it’s more than just a land swindle. Judging by the money DeWitt’s laying out for guns, I’d say it’s a high stakes game.”

  “This place ...” Falcon indicated the abandoned stead they occupied. “Did you see any neighbors around here anywhere?”

  “Nobody close.” Archer shook his head. “Down along the creeks there are squatters, some of them pretty well dug in. But not up here. Mostly just places like this. Abandoned cabins, a lot of them empty. Some of them burned out. Some places that might make good farms, but the squatters who started them are gone. Nobody around.”

  “Vigilantes,” Falcon said. “Hired thugs and assassins.They scout the territory and clean out occupantsso the land shark will have farms to sell. It only works if the shark has a good base of operations and plenty of bullies on payroll.”

  “And good bait to bring in customers,” Brett added. “DeWitt’s selling town lots and quarter-sectionplots, but the railroad is what brings them.”

  “No better bait than that,” Jubal noted. “You own property where a railroad goes, you’re a rich man.”

  Jude frowned at his twin. “You see anybody rich in Dodge City?”

  “No, nor any original owners, either, I bet. They took their profits and headed for better places.”

  “Wolf Creek sounds like a big operation,” Falcon said. “He’d have to have somebody inside the railroadsto back it up. And plenty of capital. Did the Blanchards have money with them?”

  “Not much, I guess.” Jude shrugged. “Owen sank everything he had into that prairie schooner and his draft team and supplies.”

  “Well, there’s money at Wolf Creek,” Brett said. “I saw more cash money floating around there than I’ve ever seen outside a bank.”

  “Railroad money,” Falcon muttered, thinking about the telegraph message that had been waiting for him at Dodge. “Stolen money, from the Kansas Pacific. It’s their investment capital.”

  “And Owen Blanchard’s family just happened to get in the way.” Brett nodded.

  “So what are we going to do about it?” Jubal and Jude demanded in unison.

  “We go to Wolf Creek,” Brett said. “We leave now, so the snow will cover our tracks.”

  “Yeah, and get yourselves killed.” Falcon grunted. “You said yourself there are guns all over the place. And only four of the six are there.”

  “We can get them!” Brett Archer protested. Then he frowned. “You’re right, though. There are guns all over the place, most of them working for DeWitt.”

  “Find the rest,” Falcon nodded. “You only saw four of the bunch. Four’s not enough. Let’s put them all down. We’ll look around some more.”

  “You aren’t up to it, Mr. MacCallister,” Jude said. “We’ve seen how you are. Something’s busted inside you, and it hasn’t healed yet. Besides, some of those hooraws will know you on sight. You can’t just blend in down there. You’d stand out like a sore thumb.”

  “You boys won’t,” Falcon said. “You go in. I’ll be around. I want to see those claimed places down on the creeks, maybe get to know some of the neighbors.”

  FOURTEEN

  Where God puts water and the means to subsist—no matter how meager—no act of congress will keep people away.

  The Neutral Strip between Kansas and Texas—that long rectangle of land that would someday be known as the Oklahoma Panhandle—was created by oversight. Some said it was to pacify the Indians forced into the Territories to the east. Some said it was intended as a buffer between Texas and Kansas following the War of Northern Aggression.

  And there were some who held that in the blood frenzy of postwar federal politics, the U.S. Departmentof the Interior simply overlooked it when the plainslands were designated for settlement.

  Whatever its origin, the Neutral Strip was a rectangularvoid in the spreading cloth of United States dominion. A hard day’s ride across from north to south, closer to a week from east to west, it straddled the central plains from the Indian Territories to the breaks of the Purgatoire, and was entirely devoid of any semblance of law.

  For some, it was a land of opportunity. Where there is no law, a man can take what he wants, sell what he can deliver, and hold what he can defend. South of western Kansas was such a place.

  They called it No Man’s Land.

  Fresh and wet, melting snow lay a foot deep along Wolf Creek when Colonel Amos DeWitt—the man once known as Asa Parker—opened the hind flap at the tail of the prairie schooner and looked across at a freshly whitewashed building. Even with its paint, it was little more than a converted barn with a high loft, but it and the new hotel just down the way were still the most impressive structures in the squalid little town sprawling around him.

  Quick-eyed men with yellow scarves on their shoulders and shotguns across their arms—men whose appearance would have marked them as trouble in any civilized place—glanced toward him as he buttoned up his coat and snugged his hat tighter around his head. Near the off rear wheel, where stretched canvas made a roof over some benches and a chimneyless potbellied stove, Folly Downs glanced up from his whetstone. DeWitt wrinkledhis nose in disgust.

  Folly had never been much to look at, but he was hideous now. The scabs had peeled away from his ruined cheek and ear, but that was no improvement. The bullet scar across his cheek gaped like a second mouth, off to the left of his nose, and Clarence’s needlework only emphasized it.

  Folly had a hand-sized piece of rough hairless hide laid out on a bench, and was slicing it to make a hatband. He called it “squawhide.” He wouldn’t be the first to decorate himself with pieces of dead Indians, but a hatband cut from a squaw’s breast was unusual. At DeWitt’s frown, Folly nodded, sneered, and went back to sharpening his knife.

  DeWitt disappeared inside the wagon for a moment,and the sound of a bolted-down strongbox being closed and locked echoed from there. Then he reappeared, righted the wagon’s gate ladder, and descended to the ground. Guards in yellow scarves around the wagon cradled their guns and nodded, and the two nearest the tailgate moved aside for him as he stepped down. “Afternoon, colonel,” one greeted him. “Looks like the snow’s stopped.”

  Here and there other heavily armed citizens touched their hats, raised their hands, or otherwise saluted the big man in the fine coat. Most of them also wore the yellow cloth of the Vigilance Committee.In only a few weeks since his arrival, Colonel Amos DeWitt—Asa Parker—had staked his claim on everything within thirty miles of this place, and made it stick.

  It wasn’t just the fact that DeWitt owned everythingaround there by right of force—or that he paid most of them good wages to protect his interests—thatearned him this show of respect. As much as anything, it was fear.

  The former Asa Parker was a big man, more than six feet tall and as broad and solid as a woods boar. Despite his natty attire, he had made it well-known around there that he brooked no insolence. Among men who understood violence, he had made a point to establish himself by doing his own chores when it came to punishment.

  A smashing fist was something these men understood.A six-gun was something they understood even better. Colonel Amos DeWitt had demonstratedboth in lining up his organization at Wolf Creek.

  DeWitt paid well for the services he bought, and he paid in c
ash. But over by the bluff, just across the creek, were mounds of freshly turned soil testifyingthat Colonel DeWitt was a man who accepted no excuses, tolerated no interference, and didn’t hesitate to maim or kill.

  Still, dressed in the finest broadcloth suit, starched linens, and spotless outerwear, he was a match for any banker or politician in finery.

  With a brief nod, DeWitt acknowledged them all and squinted in the bright gray light of day. Across the rutted street men on ladders were hoisting a big canvas pennant into place on the front of the pole barn, and Dewitt studied it critically. Its bright paint was a nice theatrical touch for the drab building and the motley snow-covered piles of salvage that surroundedit—stacks of lumber, piles of battered furniture,mounds of rusty hardware and stained tools, limestone blocks, and a huge stack of cut cedar posts with a sign on it: Fence posts 5 cents ea.

  On the building front, workmen hammered nails into the canvas banner, stretching it taut as they went. The sign read:

  PARADISE LAND COMPANY—TOWN LOTS—BUILDING SITES—COMMERSHAL INVESTMENTS—COL. AMOS DEWITT PROP.

  DeWitt studied it carefully as they began nailing it up. “Is that how you spell commercial?” he asked the nearest gunman. “It doesn’t look right.”

  “I guess so, colonel.” The man shrugged. “I’m no hand at spellin’.”

  “And what’s this ‘Paradise’ business? I thought we were callin’ this place Prosperity.”

  “O’Brien changed it,” the thug said. “I don’t know why.”

  DeWitt scowled at the sign once more, then turned as Kurt Obermire and Casper Wilkerson walked toward him. Obermire was as big as the colonel but of a far rougher cut, and even the paid constablesand Vigilance Committee members who did DeWitt’s bidding tended to stay shy of him and his ever present sawed-off shotgun. Obermire was, plain and simple, one big mean son of a bitch, and he looked it.

  Wilkerson, by contrast, was a hawk-nosed beanpoleof a man, more draped than covered by the long coat he always wore—a coat that concealed considerable armament.

  “Riders comm’ in,” Wilkerson said as they approached.“Maybe some more boys from over in Kansas.”

  DeWitt shaded his eyes. Riders were just pulling into the far end of the settlement—three young men on tired horses. With the distance, and the collars and mufflers they wore against the cold, he could see no faces. They seemed like ordinary drifters, young bucks on the run or on the prowl, and not particularly noticeable.

  “They’re nobody,” he decided. “If they’re lookin’ for work, they’ll find Kurt.” He glanced at Obermire.“What about the bunch Billy and Tuck brought in? Can we use them?”

  “They’ll do for gang work,” Obermire said. “Most of them can use a gun. I’ve got Calumet drillin’ ’em. I’ll try some of them out tonight.”

  “All right. They’re up to you. Anybody else new today?”

  “The usual,” Casper said. “Couple of immigrants with O‘Brien’s deed plasters. A few drifters, sight-seein’.Only one looks like he might have money. Young fellow named Archer. He was around here a day or so ago, and now he’s back. He’s over at the post, last I saw.”

  “Archer,” DeWitt noted. “Well, see if you can herd him toward the land office. Maybe O’Brien can sell him something.” He turned slowly, full circle, surveying his domain. “What was that ruckus I heard awhile ago?”

  Casper sneered. “Oh, that squatter Coleman, that had the cedar camp out on north rim. He thinks he’s a hard man or somethin’, raisin’ hell about the boys runnin’ him off that land last week. Shoulda shot him out there, ’stead of just runnin’ him off.”

  “Damn squatter should have just moved on,” DeWitt rumbled. “What did we get from his place?”

  “Mostly those cedar posts yonder,” Casper pointed. “O‘Brien had ’em hauled in. Thinks he can sell ’em.” He grinned—a grotesque expression on his bony face. “I bet it took that squatter a year to cut that many posts.”

  “We got us some planed lumber, too,” Kurt added. “Maybe a wagon load. An’ some wolf hides. There was a pair of mules out there, but they weren’t worth chasin’ so the boys shot ’em.”

  “And the squatter’s still around?” DeWitt sneered. “Some folks just don’t get the message, I guess. Stupid.Where is he now?”

  “He was out here hollerin’ about bein’ robbed,” Casper said. “Don’t know where he is now. Maybe down in the cribs, or holed up in one of those soddies.He’s still around somewhere, I guess. Want somebody to go find him?”

  “I don’t want him shootin’ off his mouth when there’s customers in town,” DeWitt snapped. “Just tell the boys to keep their eyes peeled. And speakin’ of customers, I don’t want Billy on the street for a while. The way he’s been carryin’ on since he killed that gunfighter ... what was his name? The legend? Oh, yeah. MacCallister. Tell Tuck to keep that rooster under wraps for a while. He’s bad for business.”

  “Billy’s out at the spring place, sleepin’ it off. He’s got a bullet burn that’ll keep him tame for a day or two. Tuck’s watchin’ him.”

  Turning his back on them, DeWitt walked across the slushy street to the land office. Inside, Clarence O’Brien was tacking up a big hand-drawn map. It was a gaudy thing, full of official-looking lines and notations, covering an area of perhaps nine hundredsquare miles, with a painted star in the center. Beside the star, in detailed calligraphy, was the word PARADISE. Angling down toward it from the northeastwas a wide red line with the caption: ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC CENTRAL RAILWAY

  A separate map, on another rough wall, was an elaborate detailed drawing of a sizeable city, lined with streets and alleys—none of which existed outsidethe minds of the speculators—and all blocked out in rectangular segments representing town lots. Its label read PARADISE.

  O’Brien was a slick-looking, nattily dressed jaybird with a huge waxed mustache and an air of courteous authority. He could, they said, sell anything to anybodyand make them truly believe—for long enough to part with their cash—that they had made a good deal.

  “Impressive as hell,” DeWitt admitted, looking at the new map. “Why PARADISE?”

  O’Brien explained, “I had to call it something. All the town deeds have that name, and the country tracts are Paradise Valley.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of official-looking document forms, and displayed them. “I picked these up at Newton. Printer there does nice work.”

  “Whatever it takes.” DeWitt shrugged. “Let’s just get the damned acreage sold. Sypher needs documentedlandowners to swing the railroad this way.”

  “No problem.” O’Brien grinned. “There’s a sucker born every minute. Soon as the roads thaw there’ll be customers showing up. I’ve got a cash buyer coming from Winfield, interested in that bottomlandsection south of here. Hackberry Meadows. I hope it’s ... ah ... unoccupied when my buyer gets here.”

  “It will be,” DeWitt growled. “Obermire’s going out there tonight. We’re through tryin’ to reason with the Barlows.”

  “Good. I’ll mark it clear. And you might tell those hoodlums of yours ... sorry, those Vigilance Committeegentlemen ... to keep it quiet around here, colonel. Cash buyers don’t like to hear people holler about being robbed. Makes ’em nervous.”

  DeWitt was inspecting the maps when a ruckus erupted outside. Men were shouting and running. Followed by O‘Brien, he stepped out onto the narrowplank walk. “What’s goin’ on?” he shouted.

  Across the street, his guards had pulled in around the wagon as men ran past them, heading west. Beyondthe crowd, Folly Downs waved at him and shouted, “Fire, colonel! The hay barn’s burnin’!”

  “Well, go put it out!” DeWitt roared. “I’ll keep watch here!”

  The fire was clearly visible—a writhing column of smoke two hundred yards to the west. Within momentsthe street in front of the land office was practicallydeserted as crowds gathered around the blazing sheds.

  DeWitt stepped down from the walk, shooed O’Brien back inside the land office
, and glanced around. He was almost alone in this section of street now.

  Almost, but not quite.

  A ragged figure had appeared beside the cedar stack and stepped toward him. “DeWitt!” the man rasped. “You owe me ... you owe me for my land, my cabin, my mules, my cart, and for these cedar posts! You’re a thief and a robber, DeWitt. You and your men, you’re nothin’ but night riders! You owe me, and I expect to be paid!”

  DeWitt glared at the man. “You must be Coleman,”he said.

  Coleman’s fingers twitched above the butt of the big gun at his belt. “I want to be paid!” he snarled. “You ... you damned sharks have ruined me! Now you owe me!”

  “I don’t carry cash around with me,” DeWitt said quietly. “The money’s all locked away. Maybe we could discuss this later—”

  “Pay up now, or by God I’ll kill you!” Coleman snapped. “Even that’s better than you deserve!”

  DeWitt stared at him. “I don’t owe you anythin’, squatter. You squatted on land that wasn’t yours, cut posts that didn’t belong to you—”

  “Well, none of it belongs to you, either!” The fingersclawed nervously, closing around the gun butt. “Now pay up! I won’t say it again!”

  “I guess not.” DeWitt shrugged. Carefully, his arms spread wide, away from the .45 at his belt. It was a gesture of surrender, and Coleman responded. His hand dropped away from his own gun.

  Then, with a movement too quick to follow, DeWitt’s right arm swung forward. His hidden derringerslid from his sleeve into his hand, and he pointed and fired—two shots.

  Coleman staggered and gaped as a heavy slug tore through his chest. He tried to pull his gun, but failed. The second shot took him through the wishbone.The man was dead before he fell.

  At the sound of shots, faces turned in the crowd two hundred yards away, and yellow scarves flashed as several of Obermire’s Vigilance Committee regulatorscame running. They all had their guns out, and two or three fired excited shots into the air. Echoes rebounded from the bluff across the creek, seeming to multiply as they sounded. In the noise and confusion, it seemed that the echoes of gunfire went on and on.