Blood of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Falcon was past the big wagon when some impulse made him turn and duck. A bullet sang past his ear.

  There in the street, rising out of the settling dust, was a man as big as Falcon himself—a man with a spitting gun in his hand.

  Falcon dodged, tumbled and rolled, and the pain in his middle was a living thing. But there was no give there, no feeling of things tearing loose. It was only pain. Two more bullets kicked up dirt beside him as he rolled again, coming up on his elbows to return fire.

  The specter in the dust dodged wildly, and ran. In an instant he was out of sight beyond the wagon.

  Falcon came to his feet, advancing. A broken-downtrough hid the underside of the wagon, and he started around it, then doubled back and went the other way.

  Asa Parker was waiting for him, crouched in shadowsbehind a tall wheel. He held a ready .45 and leaned outward, ready to shoot the instant Falcon cleared the water trough.

  Falcon circled around the lashed-up tongue and stepped past the iron tire of the off fore wheel.

  “Time’s up, Parker,” he said levelly. “Colorado, or die?”

  If he expected Asa Parker to react suddenly, he was disappointed. The big outlaw didn’t even move for a moment. Then he raised himself slowly. His hands went up, and his .45 dropped to the ground.

  He turned slowly. “I guess you got me, MacCallister,”he said. “I’ll come along peaceably.”

  And pigs can fly, Falcon thought. He stared at the outlaw for a moment, then lowered his gun as though accepting his surrender.

  Parker’s eyes glittered in the gloom. Slowly he loweredhis hands, and extended his right hand as though to shake it. The flicker of motion at his sleeve was almost undetectable.

  Falcon’s .45 roared once, then again. Both shots took Asa Parker front and center, forming two dark little holes that could have hidden behind a playing card.

  The outlaw stood for a second, weaving on braced feet, then fell facedown in the dust. In his outflung right hand was a nasty looking little .44 derringer, exposed as his dead fingers uncurled from it.

  The man some considered the fastest draw of all died like that on a No Man’s Land street, without demonstrating his fast draw. Asa Parker, who went by many names, had decided to rely on deception one more time.

  It was one time too many.

  Sighing and aching from old wounds, Falcon MacCallisterstepped out from behind the big wagon. Joshua’s fires were blazing brightly now, lighting up the whole stinking town as building after building smoldered, flared, and went up in flame.

  The hotel still stood, and Jubal was there, herding people out into the street, peering at them one by one as they lined up staring into the muzzle of Jude’s rifle.

  In the crowd a man fussed and hollered. “I want to know what this is all about!” he demanded. “See here, you can’t treat us this way! I’m Wigginton, of the firm of—”

  “Shut up, Mr. Wigginton,” Jubal Mason told him. “I’m lookin’ for somebody, and any of you that isn’t him is free to leave.”

  “Leave?” the man blustered. “See here!”

  “Yes, sir. You can leave. Matter of fact, I’d recommendit. Your coaches are over there in the south pasture, and all the draft stock’s around here someplace.You all just light yourselves some torches and you can—”

  From somewhere, Wiley the railroad man appearedbeside him. “Not him,” he said, pointing at a small gray-looking man hanging back in the crowd. “That’s Sypher. There’ll be charges against him.” He turned, looking along the line. “And him, too!” He pointed again. “Hello, O’Brien, you swindler.” He smiled. “Looks as if the land shark business has finally turned to bite you.”

  Jubal ignored them. “He’s not here,” he muttered.He glanced around at Falcon, tears of anger on his cheeks. “Damn it, Billy Challis isn’t here!”

  At that instant, a wild-haired figure appeared at the far corner of the hotel building. Billy Challis had just arrived from the hogpens. He was behind Jubal and out of the line of sight of Jude. Only Falconsaw him.

  Quick as a snake, Billy’s hand darted to his gun and the gun that seemed to simply appear in Falcon’t hand thundered.

  He had almost no target. His shot whipped past Jubal close enough to burn his sleeve, and seared across the flesh of Billy’s right shoulder. The outlaw didn’t complete his draw. Instead he turned, dived, and disappeared into darkness.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It was a day of arrivals and departures, and a day of change.

  Morning sun fell on the smoking embers and scorched remains of what had seemed, just yesterday,the town of golden opportunity. Paradise wasn’t a town any more. It wasn’t much of anything, just smoldering ruins with a big prairie schooner standingat one end and some elegant coaches loading passengers at the other.

  The vigilantes were gone, as were the men who had hired them. Here and there, one-time residents of the town stood around in little clusters, wonderingwhat to do now.

  Joshua and Jude helped the easterners hitch up their teams, then curtly ordered them aboard their coaches and watched them leave—eastward, toward Wichita.

  The land shark and the pirate, O’Brien and Sypher, were chained to a stump to keep them out of trouble, and Wiley stood guard over them while Falcon MacCallister and various Barlows did an inventoryof the town.

  They found a few things of value, including enough evidence to convict both Sypher and Wiley three times over once they were returned to the realms of law and courts.

  But there was no sign of the money stolen from the Kansas Pacific Railway. Obviously, some of it had been spent. The rest was just gone.

  Soon after sunup a man named Cass Jolly came in from the hogpens with two locals carrying Brett Archer on a makeshift stretcher. Archer’s wound was bad, and would cost him his right arm, but he was still alive. They put him into the bed of the prairie schooner, and Jude Mason went to round up the big wagon’s draft horses.

  “We’re taking back Tom Blanchard’s wagon,” he told MacCallister. “Joshua wants to take Brett up to see that doctor that fixed you. I expect Brett’ll want to head out for Colorado when he’s able.”

  Some of the Barlow riders helped them hitch up the team, and they rolled out, with Cass Jolly driving and Joshua riding along. Past the chalk bluff, they turned the big rig north.

  Joshua’s brothers watched them go, and Falcon approached them. “What about you two?” he asked Jude.

  “We aim to stick around for a while,” Jude said. He wasn’t grinning now, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. “Jubal, he’s gonna stay on with Becky’s kin for a time, while them and me get all these loose horses moved up to Haymeadows. We decided they’re ours, since they don’t rightly belong to anybodyelse. Mighty good horse country around Haymeadows.”

  It was high noon when a squad of the Kansas-State Militia rode in from the north, led by Lieutenant Colgrave.

  “Chasing some rustlers,” the lieutenant told Falcon.“We were in hot pursuit, but we only got four of them. Passed a big covered wagon up the way, though. They told us what happened down here. Anything we can do to help?”

  “Not that I know of—” Falcon began.

  “Yes, there is,” Wiley interrupted. “I have two prisoners here, and I need an escort to Kansas. Those men over there.” He pointed at Sypher and O’Brien, chained to their stump. “They are charged with various state and federal crimes ranging from murder and robbery to falsifying government documents.”

  With plenty of men to help him, Jubal Mason led a search of the town and surrounding areas, looking for any sign of Billy Challis. They found no trace of the gunman, but they did find something else.

  “This one’s name was Wilkerson,” Jubal explainedwhen a drenched and bloating corpse was laid out on a plank in front of what remained of the land office. “Casper Wilkerson. He was one of them ... one of the six who killed the Blanchards and stole the railroad money. With him dead, that’s five out of the six.”

  Men gathered around t
o look at the dead outlaw, amazed and baffled. “What happened to him?” someone asked. “Where did you find him?”

  “We found him in Wolf Creek, a mile or so upstream,”Jubal said. “Looks like maybe he fell off his horse and drowned.”

  “How can any man drown in Wolf Creek?” a settlerdemanded. “Water ain’t hardly more’n three, four, feet deep, anywhere.”

  “I guess you could if you were strapped into an iron keg.” Jubal shrugged. He pulled back the dead outlaw’s coat. Beneath it was a curved surface of heavy iron, tied on with leather straps. From the dents in it, it might have been worn as body armor.

  Falcon MacCallister avoided the trails as he headed northwest, preferring the clean landscape of the grassy high plains around him.

  His mind spoke in the silence of the winds: I’ve done all I can do here, Marie. It doesn’t bring you back. Doc Linsecum was right about that. No amount of retributioncan bring you back to me. But it seems right, anyway.Right or wrong, though, I had to do what I could.

  Do what you can, the winds seemed to echo. Did what you could.

  With the place that had been Paradise behind him, Falcon did not look back. There was nothing there to see.

  The work that Joshua Mason had begun—burning all the buildings—the Rabbit Creek settlers had completed.When they were through, not a structure remainedstanding.

  Then they came with their picks and their plows, their spades and shovels and rakes, and leveled the ashes. When that was done they put plows to it and turned it under. Nothing remained on the bank of Wolf Creek now, but a quarter section of dark tilled earth that—given a season’s sun and rain—would go back to the grass it had been.

  There was nothing to look back on, so Falcon kept his eyes ahead. The wide lands rose ahead of him, hypnotic in their vastness, and beyond would be the mountains and the trail home. It was time to go back, at least to look in for a time. And it would be all right. Marie’s memory was not out there in those mountains. Her memory lived inside him, and it would go where he went.

  Diablo set a long pace, and Falcon gazed out across the rising distances ahead. Twenty miles could seem but one out there, and the trick was that it didn’t make any difference. Yonder was still yonder, no matter how far.

  Ahead ... ahead was something rising above the endless prairies. Buzzards were circling in the high sky, and not far from their circle was a tendril of smoke that was whisked away almost before it was glimpsed. It was almost straight ahead.

  In an hour he could see where it came from, and an hour after that he found the source.

  “Get down, yoneg,” the boy invited as Falcon rode into his camp. “Got good beef here. Texas trail brand on its hide, but nobody around to claim it. Get down an’ come in.”

  “I waited for you,” Utsonati explained, serving up hot beef from a willow-pole stove. “Knew you’d come this way. Been watchin’ you since sunup, too. Got somethin’ to show you, but eat first.” The Cherokee boy waved a casual hand toward where the buzzards were circling above a gully. “Kinda stinks over there today,” he added.

  The corpse had begun to bloat and ripen, but it was still recognizable. It was the same man who had put a bullet through Falcon’s chest, back in the cold of spring.

  “Same man, sure,” Utsonati said, as though readinghis mind. “Same man as did a lot of bad things. Won’t do that anymore. Name he had was Billy Challis.He isn’t anybody now.”

  “How’d you find him out here?” Falcon asked.

  “Didn’t find him, Towo’di. I put him here. Followedhim all the way from that town you burned. Finally caught him here.”

  Falcon nodded. That part was obvious—just as obvious as what had killed Billy Challis. His body was riddled with bullet holes—one in each knee, one in each arm, one through the neck and one through the belly.

  They were small holes, about the size of the bulletsin the Cherokee boy’s .32-20 rifle.

  “Utsonati killed him,” the boy said matter-of factly. “Took half a mile and half a day to get it done. Bullets through his arms so he couldn’t shoot, through his knees so he couldn’t run, in the throat so he couldn’t holler. Crazy an’da’tsi just kept on tryin’ to get away.”

  “To get away from you?” Falcon asked.

  “Prob’ly from the wolf,” the boy said. He paused and pointed. On a rise a hundred yards away, somethingsat watching them—inquisitive wolf ears atop a feral head silhouetted against the sky.

  “Not really a wolf at all,” the boy said. “Big dog some yoneg tried to hang. I call him Wa-hya’. He likes me all right, but don’ like yonegs.”

  Falcon smiled faintly. “You’re going to be somethingwhen you grow up, Utsonati,” he allowed.

  “Not Utsonati any more, yoneg. ”For the first time since they had met, Falcon saw a real grin on the young Indian’s face. It made him look even younger than his twelve years. “Utsonati was a war name. I’m just Woha‘li now. Utsonati ... uh, rattlesnake ... he bites, but don’t fly. Eagle is better. Remember, ’bout eagle and falcon? Woha‘li flies higher than Towo’di.”

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

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  Copyright © 2000 William W Johnstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN: 978-0-7860-3192-4

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-2841-6

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