Song of Eagles (7 page)

In Lincoln, a late night meeting was being held in a back room of La Placita, J.J. Dolan's general store. Dolan had asked Lawrence Murphey, called the Major, John Riley, Jack B. “Billy” Matthews, Jesse Evans, and Sheriff William Brady to meet together to discuss their strategy in dealing with Chisum and Tunstall.

Dolan, holding a glass of Irish whiskey in his hand, paced the room as he talked to the others, who were seated around a large potbellied stove to ward off the autumn chill.

“Sheriff, you've got to crack down on Chisum and Tunstall more. Since they've opened their damned store and bank, they've started to get some support from the smaller ranchers in the area, and I even hear from our friends in Santa Fe that the army is considering giving Chisum some of our contracts to supply beef to the Mescaleros.”

“Hell, J.J., I don't know what else I can do. Every time I see any of their men in town I brace 'em. I've thrown half of them in jail for drunk and disorderly, but Tunstall just bails 'em out and gets 'em back to work.”

Murphey, who was well into his third drink, slurred drunkenly from the corner, “it was different when I ran things 'round here.”

He waved his glass as he spoke, sloshing whiskey on his arm, “We didn't put up with no interference in our plans. Those that didn't go along didn't get credit at the store. That kept those lily-livered ranchers in line, I can tell you.”

Dolan frowned. “Things are different now, Major. La Placita is losing more business every day to that damned Tunstall store, and to make matters worse Tunstall has been writing letters to the army complaining about the quality of meat and flour we've been selling to the Mescaleros.”

Brady nodded. “Yeah, and the bastard's even wrote the U.S. Attorney in Santa Fe tellin' 'em I haven't been sending in the tax money I've been collectin' here in Lincoln County. He's damn sure gettin' too big for his britches, all right.”

“What about that new hand he's hired, calls himself the Kid?”

Brady shrugged. “I couldn't find no papers on him, or his friend MacCallister.”

Leaning back in his chair with his boots on the table, Jesse Evans said, “I rode with him for a while, played some cards with him over at Fort Stanton 'fore he came to work for Tunstall. He talked like he had a past, some trouble back in Arizona, I believe.”

“Arizona, huh?” Brady asked. “I'll wire the sheriff over there and see if he knows anything. Might be a way to get back at Tunstall, get rid of some of those gunnies he's been hiring.”

“You do that, William,” Dolan said, “first thing in the morning. Now, why don't you leave us to talk some business you're better off not knowing?”

Brady climbed to his feet and nodded. “I'll do what I can, J.J..”

“You'd better, or that percentage you own in the store and bank here that I gave you won't be worth a damn to you,” Dolan said.

After the sheriff left, Dolan turned to Riley. “You said anything to Jesse yet?”

“No.”

Dolan turned to refill his glass. “Then tell him what we want.”

Riley leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “It's getting too expensive to buy our meat from the ranchers. Profits are down. We want you and your gang to start raiding Chisum's herd for cattle. We'll buy all you can steal, at good prices, and we'll make sure Sheriff Brady doesn't connect you to the rustling.”

Evans pulled a toothpick from between his lips, made a cigarette, and struck a lucifer on his pant leg. After he lighted the cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling, he looked over at Riley.

“John, I take it you wouldn't be too disappointed if some of Chisum's men were to get . . . slightly hurt during our raids on his cattle.”

Riley's lips curled up in a sneer. “We'd be most appreciative for any assistance you could give us in lowering the number of gunhands Chisum has available.”

Dolan turned from refilling his drink. “It wouldn't be amiss if you got some of the cattle from Tunstall's spread, too, Jesse.”

Evans shook his head. “That would be a mite more difficult. His Rio Feliz ranch is down on the Pecos River, and it'd be mighty tough to drive stolen beeves across it in the darkness. Plus, it ain't near as big and spread out as Chisum's range is. His men would most likely catch us in the act, and I don't suppose you want a full scale war, do you?”

Dolan pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not just yet, Jesse, but soon . . . soon.”

Evans smiled, hands resting on the twin Colts he wore on each hip. “Then, since I'm going to be in the cattle business, I guess I'd better get to work.”

Murphey staggered to his feet and poured himself another drink of whiskey, spilling more than he got in his glass.

“Damn, Jimmy, things have been going to hell since I sold out to you. Just haven't been the same since the colonel died.”

Dolan frowned at Murphey. “Major, when Colonel Fritz hired me, you and he were barely making a profit off your meat contracts. If you'll try to remember, it was me who got the ranchers to take less for their beef or have their credit cut off at the store, and it was my idea to have the Evans gang steal cattle from Chisum so we could get it at an even lower price.”

Dolan took a deep swallow of his whiskey. “So don't whine to me about the good old days. You're making more money now than you ever did before you sold out to me.”

Murphey nodded. “I know, Jimmy. I just miss Fritz, an' wish the consumption hadn't eaten him up so fast.”

“Be glad it did,” Riley said, putting a cigar in his mouth and lighting it. “If it hadn't, you would never have sold out to Jimmy, and we'd all have to be working for a living.”

He turned to Dolan. “Jimmy, you need to get in touch with Judge Bristol and William Rynerson, the District Attorney of Lincoln County, and tell them to squash these complaints Tunstall's been making. Let 'em know their share of our contract profits will end if the army starts listening to what he's saying.”

“I'm already on it, Johnny. Our friends in the Santa Fe Ring are taking steps to make sure no one listens to anything Mr. Tunstall has to say. Tom Catron, District Attorney in Santa Fe, will make sure the contracts keep coming our way.”

“What about McSween? He's been making some noises about a lawsuit over at the courthouse.”

“You leave Mr. McSween to me. I've got plans for him that will get him out of our hair, too.”

He looked over at Jesse Evans. “Jesse, you can take what I'm paying you to rustle those cattle for us, and I'll double it if you can help me get rid of McSween.”

Evans smirked. “You want him shot in the back, or the front?”

“Neither. I want you to get with Brady and find some . . . ah, legal way to do it.”

“You want it legal?”

Dolan nodded. “At least, I want it to look that way if anybody asks.”

Falcon peered over the top of the cards he held in his hand at a grinning Billy Bonney.

“Come on, Falcon. It's a simple decision. Call the bet or fold,” the Kid said.

The other four men at the table had folded when the Kid raised Falcon's twenty dollar bet by fifty dollars. Falcon held a pair of jacks. Kid had drawn two cards in the five card stud game, indicating he might have three of a kind.

As Falcon thought, the Kid chewed for a second on his bottom lip, then resumed his ever present grinning.

“I'll call the bet, Kid. I have a pair of Dukes, and I think you have a busted flush.”

Kid shook his head and nonchalantly flipped his cards into the middle of the table.

“Take the pot, Falcon. You called it right.”

“Thanks, Kid. I was getting a mite short over here for a while. Maybe this hand changed my luck,” Falcon said as he raked in the pile of money.

“How'd you know what I had?” the Kid asked, his face serious, no grin on it now.

Falcon pursed his lips, thinking on it for a moment.

“If I tell you how, it will ruin the magic of it,” Falcon answered.

Roy Young, a local puncher who was sitting in the game next to Kid, spoke up. “I'd kind'a like to know, too, Mr. MacCallister. Otherwise, people might get suspicious you got these here cards marked.”

Falcon sighed. He knew he shouldn't have said it the moment he'd told the Kid what he had.
That's what I get for showing off,
he thought.

“It's really very simple. The Kid did something that he always does when he bluffs. If he was bluffing, then he didn't have three of a kind, so the only reason to draw two cards instead of three or four, is to try and make a flush.”

“What was the Kid doin' that told you he was bluffin'?” Roy asked.

“That I don't tell you. If you studied the game as I do, instead of trusting to blind luck, you'd know already. Now, are we going to play cards or chat all night?”

“Deal 'em,” the Kid said, “I still got thirty dollars that I need to make into fifty to get me some new boots and chaps.”

As Falcon started to shuffle the cards, Roy, who had been drinking enough whiskey to feel brave, stood up suddenly, a belligerent expression on his face.

“That's not good enough for me! I think you're a cheat, MacCallister, an' I want my money back.”

Falcon stopped shuffling and sat very still. It was a common hazard of his profession to be called a cheater. Most men who played poker didn't study their opponents as he did, and resented the fact that he consistently won when they were losing. He didn't take offense at the suggestion, as most men would, since he knew it was testimony to his prowess at the game, and he could usually talk his way out of the situations without resorting to gunplay.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at Roy.

“I explained to you how I won the hand, Roy. Now, either ante up or get out of the game. Don't let that whiskey you've been guzzling all night do your talking for you.”

Walter Gibbons, a saddlemate of Roy's from the spread they both worked on, also stood up. “I'm with Roy, MacCallister. You been winning all night, an' nobody's that lucky. ”

“Luck has nothing to do with winning at poker, Walter. It is a matter of skill.”

Roy's face got beet-red and he slapped at the pistol on his belt. A split second later, so did Walter.

Falcon threw himself backward out of his chair, hit the floor and rolled to his knees, hands filled with iron.

His Colt Peacemakers exploded, kicking back into his palms, shooting flame and smoke from the barrels.

His left hand gun sent molten lead into Roy's face, punching a hole in his forehead and blowing brains and blood out the back of his head, dropping him like a stone.

His right-hand gun spit a .45 caliber slug into Walter's chest, shattering his breastbone and imbedding itself in his heart, spinning him around to sprawl facedown in the sawdust on the floor, dead before he hit the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye, Falcon saw the Kid whip out his pistol and aim it in his direction. The Kid's draw was so fast that he fired before Falcon could swing his pistols around toward him.

The Kid's bullet passed over Falcon's head, striking another man in the upper shoulder and dropping him to the floor, where he lay moaning and crying in pain.

Falcon glanced over his shoulder and saw the man had a pistol in his hand. He was a friend of Roy's, and had been about to shoot Falcon in the back.

Falcon got slowly to his feet, his nostrils wrinkling at the acrid smell of gunsmoke and cordite which filled the room with a gray haze.

He nodded at the Kid.

“Thanks, Kid. I owe you one for that.”

“Naw, it weren't nothin'. I can't abide a backshooter. Man wants to join a fracas, that's all right with me, but he ought to have the
cojones
to do it face-to-face, not from behind like some bushwhacker.”

“Nevertheless, I'm in your debt.”

As Falcon and the Kid stood talking, another rider from Roy and Walter's ranch stepped through the batwings and leveled a rifle at the pair.

A tall man with a handlebar moustache standing at the bar drew in a flash and backhanded the puncher in the face with his pistol, knocking his head back and sending teeth and blood flying into the air.

The cowboy staggered, shook his ruined face once, then fell backward over a chair, out cold.

Falcon and the Kid whirled, hands full of iron, crouching to face this new threat.

The tall man held his hands up, a half-smile on his face.

“Hold on there, gents. I'm not involved in this. I just don't like backshooters any more than the Kid does.”

The Kid squinted, then grinned and holstered his pistol.

“He's all right, Falcon. That there is Pat Garrett, an old acquaintance of mine.”

Falcon walked over to the bar and held out his hand.

“I'm mighty obliged to you, Mr. Garrett.”

Garrett took Falcon's hand.

“Let me buy you a drink,” Falcon said.

“Don't mind if I do.”

“How're you doin', Pat?” the Kid asked.

“Long time no see, Kid.”

As they bellied to the bar, Falcon got a bottle of his best whiskey and poured himself and Garrett a drink. “I guess you don't want any of this, huh, Kid?”

The Kid shook his head. “Nope, but I'll take a glass of that there sarsaparilla, if you're offerin'.”

Falcon complied, then turned to Garrett. “Where do you two know each other from?”

Garrett smiled. “I met the Kid when I first came out here. I was trying my hand at buffalo hunting, and me and my partner had a little trouble, so we ... split up. The Kid and me were both scrounging around, looking for just about any work we could find.”

The Kid broke in. “Yeah, and me and Pat played a few hands of poker together. He's hell on the faro table, I'll tell you that.”

Garrett, who was at least six-foot four inches tall, laughed. “They used to call us Big Casino and Little Casino around the gambling halls, cause we were such a sight standing at the tables next to each other.”

“What are you up to now, Pat?” Falcon asked.

Garrett shrugged. “Not much. I just got into town tonight, and I haven't gotten a job yet.”

Falcon nodded. “You ever do any bartending?”

“I've leaned against my share, but always on this side. Why?”

Falcon inclined his head. “Roy here, my regular man, has been wanting some time off to go back east and visit some kinfolk. How about you take his job until he gets back? That way, when things are slow, you might even be able to pick up a little money playing poker.”

“Take the job, Pat,” the Kid said. “I need for you to earn some money so I can take it away from you at the tables.”

Garrett shook his head. “That'll be the day, Kid. All right, Mr. MacCallister, I'll do it. When do you want me to start?”

“Tomorrow's soon enough.”

Garrett stroked his moustache. “It looks like your game is a couple of men short. If I could get a small advance, I'd be willing to teach the Kid some lessons about poker.”

“That won't be a problem,” Falcon said.

“Then get somebody to drag these men outta here so we can get back to playin',” the Kid said, putting his arm around Garrett's shoulders and leading him toward the table. “I still need to win that boots and chaps money.”

Falcon glanced at the bartender. “Call the sheriff and take that one over to doc's place,” he said, indicating the wounded man.

“This round's on the house,” he called, “and we have one more empty seat in the game if anyone's interested.”

* * *

Two hours later, shortly after midnight, he walked with Billy out to his horse.

“I was serious in there, Kid. I never forget a debt. If you ever need me, I'll be there with you.”

The Kid waved a handful of dollars. “Hell, Falcon. I got me enough for my boots, so I'm satisfied.”

Falcon noticed the Kid was climbing up on a different horse than the one he'd been riding when he met him the other day.

“That's a fine looking sorrel, Kid. New bronc?”

The Kid turned to Falcon, his eyes excited. “Yeah. When Mr. Tunstall hired me, he saw I was down on my luck, so he made me a present of this here horse, a new saddle, and a new gun.”

He pulled out a nickel-plated Colt Peacemaker with ivory handles. Looking into Falcon's eyes, he said, “It's the first time in my life anybody's given me anything. I'll tell you, Falcon, Mr. Tunstall's the best man I ever knowed.”

Falcon nodded. “Yes, everyone I've talked to has said the same thing, that he's a right smart gentleman.”

“He's every bit of that,” the Kid said as he swung up into the saddle. “I'm privileged to be working for the man and ridin' for his brand.”

“You take care now, Kid. Watch your back. I've heard there's real bad blood between Tunstall and Dolan and his men.”

“Don't you worry none 'bout me, Falcon. I'll take care to see that nothing happens to Mr. Tunstall.”

He pulled his horse around and walked it down the street in the direction of Tunstall's Rio Feliz ranch.

“You won't be sorry you hired Pat Garrett,” he called back over his shoulder. “He's a real fine fellow.”

Falcon smiled to himself as he walked back into The Drinking Hole. He was glad the Kid seemed to have found a good place to work, for a man that would treat him right and appreciate him. Maybe that would keep him from getting into more trouble.