Talons of Eagles (26 page)

“Tell me now, Kate.”

She sighed and said, “It's nothing your gold can buy, Jamie. The Swede is down in bed. Doctor Tom says there is nothing he can do. It was a stroke, Doctor Tom says.”

Jamie looked down at his desert plate and pushed it away from him. “I knew Swede was ailing some when I left, but... I was only gone ten days, Kate.”

She wiped suddenly moist eyes. “He went down very fast, Jamie.”

“I'll go see him.”

“He won't know you. He doesn't know anybody. Not even Hannah. Jamie, Hannah is ten or twelve years older than us, and Swede is five or six years older than Hannah. That makes him near eighty or better. He's had a good long life. He just . . . ran out of time, honey.”

“I've thought about . . . well, what lies beyond this life, from time to time. More so now that I've got more years behind me than what is ahead of me. And, to be honest, the Swede talked to me about . . . when his day came. The Shawnees—indeed most Indians—accept death as a part of life. They don't fear it like the white man. You leave this life, you begin another one. Well, I best go over and talk to Reverend—”

Jamie caught himself and grimaced. Reverend Haywood had passed on three years back. Lydia Haywood had followed him a year later. The new minister, Charles Powell, was a nice enough fellow, but one that Jamie just could not warm to. Many of Jamie's thoughts about the afterlife collided head-on with the new minister's beliefs, for Jamie thought much like an Indian concerning the Great Beyond.

Kate touched her husband's hand. “Hannah and I will see to matters, Jamie. It's late. You get some rest.”

Jamie shook his head. “I want to go sit with Swede for a time. I'll be back early, Kate. I . . .”

He paused as the door was pushed open. Jamie Ian stood there, his hat in his hands. “Pa, Mother. The Swede just died.”

* * *

Reverend Powell did not understand why Jamie did not attend the funeral of one of his best friends. But he and a few others were the only ones who did not understand why Jamie chose to sit his horse on a ridge high above the valley and look down during the ceremony. Reverend Powell also disapproved when Jamie insisted that some of Swede's tools be buried with him.

“It'll help him get by in the new life,” Jamie told the stern young man who always dressed in a black suit and never seemed to smile.

“God will provide all things, Mister MacCallister,” the young minister said.

“Even God might need a little help every now and then,” Jamie replied. “Besides, Hannah agrees with me, so no more needs to be said about it.”

“The man is simply impossible,” Charles Powell told his wife, Claudia, after the services. “I do not understand him . . . at all! Sometimes he behaves like a . . . well, like a
heathen! ”

The wife patted her husband's hand. “I know, dear.”

“I'll convert Jamie Ian MacCallister someday,” Reverend Powell said. “Someday I shall see him Washed in the Blood of Christ. Someday I shall hear him forever renounce the heathen ways of the Indians.”

Claudia Powell ducked her head to hide her smile. When hell freezes over, she thought. Then stifled a giggle at her blasphemy.

Ben Franklin Washington awakened to a terrible throbbing pain in his head. He lay still for a moment, trying to get his bearings. It didn't take him long to realize that he was in a ditch, or a pond, or lake . . . for he was lying in several inches of water. Slowly, slowly, he raised his head and looked around him. There was not a lamplight in sight. He lay in total darkness. He put out one hand and felt a rise in the earth. He pulled himself toward that rise until he was out of the water. The exertion caused him to lose consciousness for a time. When he came around, the eastern sky was turning pink.

Then panic struck him hard, for his mind seemed a total blank. He did not know his name, did not know where he was, could not recall what had happened to him . . . nothing.

“Calm down,” Ben said aloud. “Just calm down and relax. You've suffered some sort of accident, that's all. Your memory will return.”

He slept for a time, until the warmth of the sun awakened him. With full consciousness, bits and pieces began returning to him.

“I am a writer, a reporter,” he said aloud. “My name is Ben Franklin Washington. I am in Virginia. And somebody tried to kill me.”

Then it all came flooding back. His search. The detective. The detective's warning. The detective's death.

Ben pulled himself to a sitting position, only then aware of a pain in his left arm and chest. He looked down. A bullet hole penetrated his coat and shirt, the bullet having nicked the fleshy part of his inner arm and gouged a thin line in the side of his upper chest.

“After I was struck,” he said aloud, “they brought me out here and shot me, and left me for dead. That has to be it.” He smiled ruefully. Just another dead nigger found alongside the road. Not much would be done about that. But who would do such a vile and evil thing? His mother, Anne LeBeau Woodville, and his uncle, Ross LeBeau, of course.

He patted his pockets. His wallet was gone, of course, and all the change and keys. But Ben was no fool. He looked around him before removing his shoes. He had several hundred dollars in paper money hidden under the inner lining of his shoes. He smoothed that out and then, using a thin rock, pried off one heel and removed several gold coins from the hollowed-out leather. He hammered the heel back on and then did something with his wet and muddy clothing, washing and drying each article carefully. Then he brushed each garment as best he could, bathed his face and hands in the creek water, and dressed.

His head hurt something awful, and he gingerly probed the back of his head. There was a knot about the size of a goose egg there, but he could detect nothing broken. Thank God I have a hard head, he reflected. Then he sat for a time, his thoughts busy.

“Yes. All right. Let them think me dead,” he finally said aloud. “I have funds to return to Boston on the train.” Providing I can find a train, he thought with a bit of humor. “I'll confer with my editor, and then we'll see about upsetting some apple carts.”

Ben rose to his squishy shoes. “I wanted to cause you no trouble, Mother. I just wanted to find out where I really came from. Perhaps see you, tell you I hold no rancor toward you; tell you I understand why you sought to pass for white. And then I would quietly return to Boston and let sleeping dogs lie. You will regret this, Mother. I promise you that.”

Ben Franklin Washington started slowly walking down the road. He could see chimney smoke in the distance. He had a terrible headache. He wondered how much it had cost his mother and uncle to have this done.

Two hundred and fifty Yankee dollars.

* * *

Lew made it to Goldtown. He said nothing about his dead partners back on the trail. He had rifled their pockets, taken all their money, found the pistol Jamie had tossed into the brush, and fashioned himself a crutch of sorts, then hobbled on, after shoving his dead partners over the side of the ridge. Varmints would soon erase all traces of them. Along the way, Lew treated his badly bitten arm with poultices and said nothing about it when he reached the settlement. As for his broken foot, he told the story that his horse bolted, spooked by a puma, and stepped on his foot. His horse had run off in a panic, and he could not find it. It was a good enough story—it had certainly happened to others—and no one questioned it.

By the time he reached Goldtown, the bones in his foot were beginning to heal, badly, and there was nothing that could be done for it, for there was no doctor in the boom town. Lew would always have a limp, and for the time left him on this earth, when it rained, his foot would ache something fierce.

Lew bought a horse and supplies, and then struck out to find his kin. He had a real score to settle with that damned Jamie Ian MacCallister.

* * *

There were still a few Indians left around MacCallister's Valley, and they were all friends with Jamie. They were his eyes and ears, and they did not let him down.

“White men come,” the old Ute called Three Horses told Jamie. He pointed toward the east and said, “Four days away.”

“How many?” Jamie asked.

Three Horses held up both hands, fingers open. He opened and closed them five times, then shook his head and repeated the same thing twice more.

“A hundred and fifty men,” Jamie muttered, although he knew that was only an approximation on the part of Three Horses. It might mean a hundred men, or it might be three hundred men.

Jamie pulled at his shirt and gestured to the east.

Three Horses shook his head. “All same. Blue. But not soldiers like we know. Hat different. Not yellow legs. Red leg.”

“Layfield's bunch,” Jamie said.

“That first group,” Three Horses said. “Second group smaller. Dress all different. Two days behind red legs. I go.” He turned his horse's head and rode off.

Jamie stood and watched him leave. Two groups of men, both of them coming after him. Layfield and Ellis' kin, he felt certain. He could not let them strike the town. Too many innocent people would be killed. There were too many kids living here.

With his return from Goldtown, Preacher and Smoke had pulled out. But even had they stayed, the odds would have been too great.

Jamie squatted down and thought the situation over. Falcon and Marie were planning their wedding. Jamie wouldn't want to leave Marie a widow before the couple even got hitched.

Jamie mounted up and rode back down to the village—no, he corrected himself. It was no longer a village: it was a town, with stores and a doctor and a church and everything else that made a community. It had to be preserved, and preserved intact.

This was his fight.

Kate knew from the look on his face when he rode up that something was dreadfully wrong. She sent one of Morgan's children out the back door on the run to fetch his pa.

“What is it, Jamie?” she questioned.

“Pack me a bait of grub, Kate,” Jamie told her.

“The men after you . . . they're coming, aren't they, Jamie?”

“Four or five days out. There are too many of them, Kate. Far too many for us to handle here. I've got to slow them down. I've got to thin them out.”

“Jamie . . .”

“Listen to me, Kate. If they hit this town full strength none of you will stand a chance. Layfield is a madman. He's insane with hate. He and his men will kill everything in sight. They'll kill children and women alike—they'll spare no one. This is my fight.” He put both hands on her slender shoulders. “Honey, there is no law near enough or strong enough to do us any good. The nearest army post is a hundred and fifty miles away. And this is a civilian matter . . . I'm not certain they would get involved. Kate, I'm not asking you to sing my death song. I don't intend to ride off and get killed. I'll be back. But I've got to cut the numbers down. While I'm doing that, this town can get ready to deal with the rest of them. I can't stop them all. But I can damn sure hurt them some. Now go fix my food.” Jamie followed Kate's eyes and turned.

Jamie Ian stood in the open doorway, big and solid. Morgan and Falcon and Matthew stood on the porch. “Don't talk nonsense, Pa,” Jamie's oldest son said. “You can't face this bunch alone. Me and the boys will get our gear together.”

“Stand still, boy!” Jamie's voice was sharp and commanding. “What you'll do is what I tell you to do. This town has got to be preserved. But more important than the town are the people who make it so. The kids, the women, the elderly who can't fight. I can buy you time to prepare for a fight. And I can cut down the odds considerably. Now start layin' in food and ammunition and water. Fill the barrels, for there certainly will be fires to put out. Start fortifyin' the homes and businesses and lay out defensive positions for the men. And don't argue with me about this. I won't stand still for it. Falcon, you go put the pack frame on Luke. He's tough as a mountain goat and doesn't spook. Your ma is goin' to fix me some food. Now don't stand there with your faces hangin' out—move!”

The boys moved. They didn't like it, but they did as their father ordered. Jamie dressed in old and worn but comfortable buckskins. He carefully cleaned and oiled his pistols. Two Colts around his waist, two on the saddle, left and right of the horn, and two more in his saddlebags. A dozen filled cylinders for the Colts. He loaded up two Henry rifles, one on the packhorse, one in his saddle boot.

“You old goat!” Hannah spoke from the barn door. “What you're doing is foolish. You're sixty years old, Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

“You don't have to remind me of that, Quiet Woman,” Jamie said, using the name the Shawnee had called her. “I feel it on cold and rainy mornings. But when the sun shines, the age disappears like snow in the spring.” They both had unknowingly slipped back into the Shawnee tongue.

“I have put together my things. I will ride with you.”

“Now it is you who is foolish. You're an old woman. Go home and let your children and grandchildren care for you in your last years.”

“Haw! How much you think you know and how little you really know, Man Who Is Not Afraid.” She thumped her chest. “I am just as much Shawnee as you. I can still ride and I can still shoot. You cannot stop me. I am nothing without Swede. Nothing. I am like an empty bowl. I will be behind you. I have spoken and that is that.” She stepped out of the barn and returned to her own home.

“Perhaps it is the best way,” Jamie muttered in Shawnee.

“What did you say, Pa?” Ellen Kathleen asked, stepping into the barn.

Before he could reply, Hannah's singing came to them, a strange and sad chant.

“What is she singing, Pa? I never heard anything like that in my life.”

“Her death song, girl.”

“Her
death
song? Hannah is in good health. Doctor Tom says she is. What are you talkin' about, Pa?”

“Things of which you do not and would not understand, girl. Go to the house and get my hat. I'll pick it up there.”

“Your colonel's hat, Pa?”

“No. The old brown one with the upturned brim.”

“The one with the feather in it, Pa?”

“You know which one I'm talkin' about, girl. Now do it.”

Jamie fiddled around in the barn, stalling for time. His sons sat on the front porch of the big house with their mother. They listened to Hannah's strange chanting and were all startled when she stepped out into the street wearing an old beaded buckskin dress and carrying a rifle.

“Ma!” Falcon hollered. “You got to see this. Something mighty queer is goin' on.”

But Ellen Kathleen had entered the house through the back door and told her mother what Jamie had said. It did not come as any surprise to Kate.

“Leave her be, boys,” Kate called from the house. “She's doing what she wants to do and feels she has to do.”

“Well, what the hell is she doin'?” Matthew asked in a low tone. “That song she's chantin' is givin' me the boogers.”

“That's her death song,” Ellen said, stepping out onto the porch, holding her pa's old brown hat.

The townspeople had gathered on both ends of the street, staring at Hannah, listening to the strange chanting.

“What is that heathen sound?” Reverend Powell asked one of Abe Goldman's sons. The merchant had died while Jamie was off in the war.

“I don't know, sir. I never heard nothing like it.”

“Where'd she get that dress?” Rachel MacCallister asked. Rachel, one of Goldman's granddaughters, and named after her mother, had married one of Jamie's grandsons. “That's an Indian dress.”

Virtually everyone in the valley was related, either by blood or marriage. A genealogist would be reduced to tears long before he figured out who was related to whom and how.

“That is her death song,” Tomas Nunez said. “She is riding with Señor MacCallister to meet the enemy.”

“But she's an old woman!” Reverend Powell protested. “Besides, what she is doing is unChristian!”

“Charles,” his wife said.

“Yes, Claudia?”

“Shut up!”

Charles' mouth clamped closed.

Kate stepped off the porch and went to Hannah. The two women embraced, and Kate returned to stand in front of her house. Hannah's kids and grandkids stood silently on the porch of their mother's house.

When Jamie came out of the barn, riding Lightning and leading the packhorse, Hannah lifted her rifle into the air and chanted, “lyiyiyiyiyi!”

Jamie spoke to her in Shawnee, and she swung into the saddle with a grace that belied her age. There was a strange smile on the woman's face as she looked toward the graveyard where Swede was resting.