Talons of Eagles (25 page)

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!”

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-appearing 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.

“Drop your gun belt where you stand, Decker,” Jamie told him.

The gun belt quickly hit the ground.

“Now take Lew's gun out with your left hand, thumb and forefinger only, and toss it to one side. And when that is done, drag him over there.” Jamie pointed with the muzzle of the Henry.

Lew screamed in pain as Decker dragged him off to one side.

“Now drag Cal over there beside him,” Jamie said, after relieving the unconscious man of his pistol.

That done, Jamie pointed the rifle at Decker. “You can heat up some water now, and see to their wounds. But don't get any cute ideas. I'll gut-shoot you and leave you all for the bears and the pumas.”

“Whatever you say, mister,” Decker said. “We just wanted some coffee and food.”

“You're a liar. You were going to kill me, steal my horses and rape any women you found in camp. I heard you talking.”

Jamie poured himself a cup of coffee and backed away from the outlaws. He petted Lightning and calmed him down, then moved to the packhorse and calmed him. Then he sat down on a log and watched Decker work on the wounded men.

“They both need doctors,” Decker finally said. “I think Cal's skull is cracked, and Lew is chewed up and stomped on something fierce.”

“Goldtown is that way,” Jamie said, jerking a thumb.

“Do you mean for us to
walk?
” Decker asked.

“Unless you can fly.”

Cal moaned and sat up, rubbing his aching noggin. He blinked a couple of times and stared at Jamie, sitting on the log, a cup of coffee in one hand, the Henry rifle in the other big paw. Jamie held it like it weighed no more than a feather.

“How many of me do you see, Cal?” Jamie asked.

“One,” the man said, a surly edge to the words. “And that's one too many.”

“He's just got a bump on the head,” Jamie said. “Between the two of you, you can manage to get your friend to Goldtown. Take you about two days. Providing you don't run into Indians.”

“What about our guns?” Lew gasped the question through his pain.

“They stay with me.”

“You're a black-hearted devil, mister,” Lew said. “You ain't got no call to treat us like this. We's human beings, not niggers nor Injuns.”

Jamie chose not to reply to that. He sat on the log and stared at the men.

“Will you give us some food?” Decker asked.

“I'll give you some jerky and a canteen of water. What happened to your horses and supplies?”

“Stole by Injuns, I reckon.”

“Where are you from?”

“West Virginee. We was supposed to hook up with kin of ourn, but we got lost, I reckon. These damn mountains got us all turned around. They some bigger than the ones back to home.”

“You should have stayed to home,” Jamie told him.

“Cain't do that,” Cal spoke. “We swore to avenge our kin. The family honor is at stake.”

“So you're manhunters, right?”

“Kin is kin, mister,” Lew said. “When a man does a hurt to one Ellis, he hurts us all.”

Jamie had noticed that Decker was slowly moving his hand toward his right boot top. Hide-out gun, he thought. “Ellis, hey? I've heard that name. There was a no-count piece of white trash got all up in my face some months ago, demanding this and that and threatening me. I ran him off. His name was Grover Ellis. That your kin?”

“Who you be, mister?” Decker said, his face flushed and his eyes mean with hate.

“Jamie MacCallister.” Jamie set his cup of coffee down on the log.

Decker let out a vile oath and grabbed for his boot. Jamie let him get the pistol clear, and then he shot him, the .44 slug taking the man in the center of his chest. Decker stretched out on the ground, dead.

“If you feel lucky, go for the pistol,” Jamie told the pair, dropping one hand to his side. “I haven't levered in a fresh round. You might make it.”

Cal grabbed for the pistol, and Jamie drew his right-hand Colt and let it bang. Cal was sprawled out on the ground, belly down, one hand reaching for the pistol when Jamie fired. The slug entered the top of his head and exited down near the base of his spine.

“That leaves you,” Jamie told Lew.

“You're a cold-hearted, black-souled bastard, Jamie MacCallister,” the last man said. “But I'll not play no fool's game. You let that damn horse of yourn make a cripple out of me. And you done it deliberate, 'cause you knew what he was gonna do. That makes you snake-shit low. But I'll live. Somehow I'll make it to Goldtown and recover. Then I'll find my kin and we'll come after you, Jamie MacCallister. And if we don't find you, Colonel Layfield and his Revengers will.”

Jamie kept his face bland at that. So Aaron Layfield was really coming after him. The man certainly held a grudge for a long time.

“Your funeral,” Jamie told him. “Now belly down on the ground, Lew.” Jamie walked over to the man and threw the pistol into the timber. “If you raise your head up, I'll kill you.”

Jamie quickly packed up and saddled up. He left a canteen of water and some jerky on the ground. In the saddle, he looked down at Lew, who had turned over at Jamie's command and was staring up at him, his face shiny from pain-sweat and his eyes flashing with dark hate. “If you have any sense at all, Lew, you'll give up this hunt.”

“I'll see you in hell, MacCallister!”

“Whatever,” Jamie said, and rode off.

* * *

Jamie paused at the cemetery at the edge of the still-growing town of MacCallister. He sat his saddle for a moment, looking at the headstones, his mind filled with memories. The early settlers were going, faster now as the years piled up behind them. Sam and Sarah Montgomery now lay side by side in the cemetery. Both had lived into their eighties and had died within weeks of each other. But they had left behind them kids and grandkids to proudly carry on their name.

Falcon had seen his father ride up and rode out to meet him. “Any trouble, Pa?”

“None to speak of. How's your ma?”

“Fine. Misses you.”

“Any trouble?”

“Not the first sign of it.”

“It's coming. And it'll be coming in large groups when it does. Let's go home, boy.”

After a long hot bath and a shave, Jamie sat down to eat with Kate.

“Is this Cord the girl's father, Jamie?”

“Yes. And we both agreed there was nothing we could do, or should do, about the marriage—which has probably already taken place. Did you tell Ellen Kathleen about, ah, the, ah ... well, you know?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Why should we worry her? But on the other hand, if something were to happen, like, ah, with babies . . . oh, hell, Kate, you know what I mean.”

“I'm going to have to give that some thought, Jamie. Did you have any trouble on the trail?”

As was his custom, Jamie leveled with her, leaving nothing out.

“Will these men be coming here?”

“I'm certain of it.”

She poured them both coffee and put out a fresh-baked berry pie. She cut a small slice for herself and half the pie for Jamie. Age had not diminished his appetite one whit.

“That young Smoke Jensen is a polite young man, but he has the coldest eyes I believe I have ever seen. Falcon says he's the fastest with a pistol and the deadest shot alive, and coming from Falcon, that is a compliment.”

“I'd say so. He's a quiet young man, but I'd not want him doggin' my back trail.”

Kate looked at her husband to see if he was serious. He was. For Jamie, called Man Who Is Not Afraid, Man Who Plays With Wolves, and Bear Killer . . . for him to say such a thing was practically unheard of.

Kate studied her husband's face. This Smoke Jensen must have really impressed him.

“One thing about being married to you, Jamie Ian MacCallister,” Kate said. “I have never lacked for excitement in my life.”

Jamie looked at her and chuckled. “But it has been a good life, has it not, love?”

“I wouldn't trade it for anything, Jamie. Nothing in this world.” She sighed. “I just wish . . .” She fell silent.

“What, Kate. What is it you wish for?”

She shook her head. “Finish your pie, honey. Then we'll talk.”