Scream of Eagles (3 page)

“To the best of my knowledge, sir, I have never harmed an innocent person in my life.”

“Good luck to you.” The farmer lifted the reins, clucked to his horses, and rattled on up the road.

Jamie turned Buck's head and rode north. He had no wish to see a bunch of reporters.

But Jamie was news, and reporters could smell out news like a bloodhound on a scent. And a little money spread out here and there to locals never hurt.

When Jamie stepped Buck out on the road that led to the trading post, the reporters, the adventurers, the photographers, the painters, and the hangers-on were waiting for him.

Only a few of the reporters were sympathetic toward Jamie's manhunt. Even in the 1870s, there were reporters calling for some sort of pistol control.

When Jamie saw the saddle horses and buggies, he muttered, “Howin the hell? . . .” Then he saw Jones, staring hate at him. Jones must have ridden two or three horses into the ground to get ahead of Jamie. However he did it, it was done.

But how did he know where Jamie was going?

Then it came to him: Jones's kid brother must be with the gang members here in Utah, or with the bunch up in Southern Idaho. That's the only thing that made any sense.

“Taking the law into your own hands again, Mr. MacCallister?” a reporter yelled.

“Hell with you,” Jamie muttered, then wheeled his horse and headed back into the timber.

A few on horseback might try to follow, but even that was doubtful; for these were city folks, and without their guides, they'd be lost as a child in ten minutes.

Jamie rode straight east at a trot, weaving in and out of the timber, letting Buck pick his own way, the packhorse following. After a couple of miles, Jamie stopped and allowed his horses to blow, then headed north with a smile on his lips.

* * *

“Where'd he go?” Marshall Henry Ludlow demanded, twisting in the saddle.

“Don't ask me where
he
went,” Fifi said, sitting her sidesaddle. “I don't even know where
I
am.”

“He's pullin' something,” Newby, the reporter's guide, whispered to Hank. “MacCallister's got more twists and turns than a snake.”

“Let's head for the trading post,” a reporter suggested, trying to ease his saddle-sore butt. “We'll wait him out. He has to show up sooner or later.”

Later. Much later.

* * *

Huddled around a fire, those members of the Nelson gang who were hiding out in Southern Idaho were growing restless and surly. It galled them to the bone to be hiding from one man.
One man!

“Who the hell does this Jamie MacCallister think he is, anyways?” Rudy Hewitt demanded, throwing a couple of sticks on the fire. “Hell, he's an old man! He's got to be in his late fifties. I could take him with one hand tied behind my back.”

Rudy was in his early thirties. He wasn't going to get much older.

“This guy fought in the Alamo,” Ollie Brennan said. “Christ, I wasn't even
born
when that happened.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd Jones said. “There can't be much to him. He's just an old man who thinks he's still tough. Hell, my brother's probably done put lead in him.”

Russell Stokes walked back from the spring with a pot of fresh water. He put the pot on to boil. “We're 'bout out of coffee. I ain't gonna stand for bein' out of coffee. I'm tarred of waitin' 'round here, hidin' out like cowards. Goddammit, I ain't no coward.”

Cliff Baylock nodded his head in agreement. He rubbed his crotch. “I got to have me a woman. Let's mosey on down toward Utah and find us a farm woman. We'll take turns with her.”

“Her husband might have something to say about that,” Rudy said.

“Hell, we'll just kill him right off. We might get lucky and find us a farm woman with some daughters. I like ‘em young and tender. I 'specially like it when they fight and beg. Makes it better.”

Lloyd grinned and pulled at his crotch. “Damn, but you're gettin' me all worked up, Cliff.”

“I think you got a real good idea, Cliff,” Russell said.

“I'm for it,” Ollie agreed.

“Me, too,” Rudy added.

“Bad idea.” The whisper came out of the brush.

“Who said that?” Lloyd demanded, getting to his feet and looking all around him.

“I didn't hear nothin',” Cliff said.

“I didn't neither,” Ollie echoed.

“I could have swore I heard someone whisper from over yonder,” Lloyd said, pointing toward the brush.

Russell laughed at the younger man. “You just started thinkin' 'bout women and that caused a roarin' in your head, boy. Settle down and let's plan this here thing out.”

Lloyd looked all around him, then shrugged and returned to his spot by the fire. “I been out here in the lonesome so long I'm losin' my mind,” he muttered.

Jamie couldn't believe the men had dismissed his whisper as imagination. He stood in the brush and timber and listened to the men plan their evil perversions until he could take no more of it.

“It's still a bad idea.” Jamie spoke the words loud and clear as he stepped out of the brush, both his hands holding Colts, hammers back.

Ollie was the first to react. “MacCallister!” he yelled. He grabbed for his pistol, whirled around, and Jamie shot him. Ollie screamed and fell backward, landing in the fire. His clothing ignited, and soon he was blazing.

As Cliff Baylock levered a round into his Winchester, Jamie shot him twice in the chest just as Rudy came up with twin Stars, converted to take cartridges. Jamie ended his outlaw days and sent him to the grave with a bullet in his brain.

Cursing like a wild man, Russell faced Jamie and managed to fire once, the slug knocking bark off a tree. Jamie shot him twice while a badly frightened Lloyd made it to his horse and went galloping away, toward the south.

Jamie let him go. There was always another day.

Jamie took the money belts from the men, with the exception of Ollie. There wasn't much left of him. Then he took what ammunition he could use and stretched the men out in a row. He stripped the saddles from their mounts and turned the horses loose.

Getting water from the spring, Jamie doused the fire, and the smoldering remains of Ollie, and then dug a common grave under a huge old tree. Into the tree, Jamie carved the words HERE LIES FOUR KILLERS.

Then he mounted up and rode away. He did not look back.

* * *

Four days after the shooting in Southern Idaho, a wild-eyed Lloyd, who was heading south, met the gang of adventurers and reporters and what-have-you on the trail as they traveled north.

“It was awful!” he blurted out his tale of woe. “Me and my pards was just sittin' around the fire, drinkin' coffee and jawin' when MacCallister just stepped out of the brush and started shootin'.”

“What's your name?” asked a man who had joined the group along the way.

“Lloyd Jones.”

The man spurred his horse close and held up a badge. “I'm Pat Riordan. Federal marshal. You're under arrest for murder, rape, bank robbery, mail robbery, and anything else I might be able to dig up on you.”

“What?”
Lloyd screamed.

“I'll be damned if that's so!” Bob Jones, Lloyd's older brother, yelled, startling everybody. He jerked a hogleg from under his coat and blew the marshal out of the saddle. “Ride, brother, ride!” he shouted.

The two of them left in a cloud of dust.

“My word!” Fifi said, fanning herself with her hat.

A couple of reporters jumped down to aid the marshal, who had been shot in the side. “I can ride,” the marshal said grimly, getting to his feet. “Now maybe you goddamn reporters will understand why marshals and sheriffs out here ain't interfering with Jamie's hunt. Them he's huntin' ain't worth the gunpowder it would take to blow their brains out. Far as I'm concerned, MacCallister is doing the country a favor. Personal, I hope he kills ever' damn one of them. Now get out of my way. I got to ride back to town and find a doctor.”

The stunned group watched him ride back south.

“This just might turn out to be a much more interesting trip than we originally thought,” a reporter said.

I certainly hope so, Ben Franklin Washington silently wished.

* * *

Jamie had vanished.

Not one sighting of him was reported the rest of the summer. After he had buried the four killers, Jamie headed north, riding across the Snake River Plain and into the Sawtooth Range of Idaho. There, he holed up for two months, hunting and fishing and staying low.

As autumn began painting the landscape with multicolored hues, many of the reporters returned to their home cities. There was just nothing to report about Jamie Ian MacCallister. But two of the reporters, those who had taken the time to research the background of Jamie, knew what Jamie was doing: playing the waiting game. Lawrence Douglas and Thomas Connor stayed.

Ben Franklin Washington also stayed. Ludlow, Farnsworth, and Bennett had to stay, too, for their fathers had told them they had, by God, better bring back comprehensive reports on the feasibility of buying property, mining interests, and so forth. Their lady friends remained with them. The photographer, Pendroy, stayed, as did the artist, Bob Mark, and the writer, John A. Bellingham. The valets, cooks, and gofers were dismissed, as were the bodyguards.

The so-called “guides,” Hank and Newby, pulled out one morning and were not seen again.

On a quiet Saturday afternoon, September, 1870, Jamie rode into a small settlement in Southwestern Montana. The town consisted of a general store, a saloon, a crude livery, and a combination barbershop, bathhouse, boardinghouse, and cafe. The closest law was nearly a hundred miles away.

Jamie was looking to resupply, enjoy a hot bath and a shave (his beard was really beginning to itch), and have a meal prepared by someone else. He had no way of knowing that some of the Miles Nelson gang had the same thought.

He gave no name as he rented a room at the boardinghouse, and was asked for none. He was told by the woman who rented the rooms that supper would be ready at five-thirty and served no later than six-thirty.

Lounging in a huge tub of hot soapy water, Jamie passed the time reading newspapers that were anywhere from three weeks to three months old. But it was still news to him. Since he had left his valley, Wyoming had given the vote and the right to hold office to women. Two months later, Utah Territory did the same. Five years after the Civil War, Texas was readmitted to the Union. He was about to close up the newspaper when he noticed a small article in the back section of the Boston paper. The reporter's name was what caught his attention: Ben Franklin Washington.

He carefully read the article.

It was about Jamie's manhunt, and the dateline was three weeks back in Salt Lake City.

“Paper got here quick,” Jamie muttered, as he stepped out of the tub and began drying off.

While he bathed and had a shave and a haircut and a beard trim, he had a woman from the boardinghouse brush off and air out and then iron his spare set of go-to-town clothes. They were hanging just outside the bathhouse. Jamie dressed and walked over to the saloon for a drink and to listen to some talk from the locals.

There were a dozen men in the saloon, most of them ranch hands by their look, and a couple of tired-looking Soiled Doves. All heads turned as Jamie walked to the bar, for he was a stranger in town and got a good once-over from the locals.

“I'll just be damned!” one older cowboy muttered, quickly dropping his gaze.

“You know that man?” his partner asked.

“Yeah. I shore do. That's Jamie MacCallister. I rode through his valley some twenty years ago, whilst I was scoutin' for the army. He treated us right nice. Him and his pretty wife. Hell, the whole valley of folks was friendly and nice.”

“Then it was his wife the Miles Nelson gang? . . .” The cowboy trailed that off.

“Yeah. And that ol' war hoss over there is on the prod for them. I hear tell he's already killed eight or ten of 'em. I wouldn't want that man on my trail.”

“Did he really fight at the Alamo?”

“He damn shore did.”
⁴

“And when he was just a tadpole, he was kidnapped and raised by Injuns?”

“Yep. Shawnees. They named him Man Who Is Not Afraid.”

“Hell, Davy. That man's a
legend!”

“Shore is.”

Jamie sipped his whiskey. It was the first drink he'd had in a couple of months, and he enjoyed the warmth of it.

The barkeep walked back to where Jamie stood and faced him, the bar between them. “Say, I know you. You're Jamie Ian MacCallister!”

“That's right.”

“Well, Bless Pat! It's a pleasure to serve you, Mr. MacCallister.” He pushed the coin Jamie had laid on the bar back toward him. “No charge, sir. That one's on the house.”

Jamie smiled and thanked him. One by one, the men in the saloon rose to walk over to the bar to shake Jamie's hand and have a moment of conversation with him. This would be something they could brag about the rest of their lives.

All but one.

The grim-faced and unshaven man sat alone at his table and glared open and undisguised hate at Jamie. Some years back, one of MacCallister's boys, Matthew was his name, he thought, or it might have been Falcon, killed his brother over a dispute involving cards during a game of draw poker.

Now would be a real good time to settle that score. He reckoned one MacCallister was as good as the next one. The man poured another drink of courage and swallowed it down, then pushed back his chair and swept back his coat, clearing the butt of his gun.

“No trouble in here, Finlay!” the barkeep said sharply.

“You go right straight to hell,” Finlay said. “I got me a score to settle with that man yonder. Turn and face me, MacCallister.”

Finlay? Jamie thought. The name meant nothing to him.

“I said turn around and face me, MacCallister!”

Five men had just ridden into the tiny town and reined up at the crude livery.