The triplets, Matthew, Megan, and Morgan, now sixteen, were all sparking the children of other settlers, and Megan had already announced that she would be getting married that summer. Her beau, a gangling seventeen-year-old named Jim, was hard at work, in his spare time, building their cabin. So far he had managed to fall off the scaffolding once and flatten two fingertips with a hammer. Jim was just a bit nervous about the wedding.
“Good thing he landed on his head,” Jamie remarked, after Jim’s fall. “Otherwise he might have been hurt.”
That got him a very dirty look from Megan.
Joleen, almost fourteen, had announced that she was going to start seeing a boy named Angus. That lasted until Kate took her out into the barn and with the help of a belt convinced the girl that her attempts at sparking could wait at least another year.
Angus started walking past the cabin so often he was wearing a new path. Jamie finally wearied of the love-struck lad and told him that he could sit with the family during Sunday worship services, have supper at the MacCallister cabin every other Saturday night, and sit with Joleen out on the front porch for a time and hold hands, adding, “And boy, that by God, better be all you grab hold of.”
Falcon, now nine, was already playing gun man. Jamie had fashioned his two pistols and holsters, and the boy was stalking everything and everybody he encountered. He was uncommonly quick in getting those toy pistols out of leather.
The settlement now boasted three stores and a combination barbershop/doctor’s office/tavern; it was a strange combination but it worked for them. The “tavern” was actually no more than a half dozen tables and chairs and was more a place for the men to get away after a hard day’s work and talk. The settlement had a regular school and a separate church building and a community hall. There was a road of sorts leading out of the valley and over to Bent’s Fort. However, Goldman and the other two merchants still had to wagon travel to the fort to pick up ordered supplies.
About the same time that Andrew and Rosanna and their families were landing in St. Louis and making plans to travel to the wilderness, Rolly Hammond and his army of mercenaries were riding into the area in twos and threes. They would not gather until the afternoon before the raid.
Most of the able-bodied Indian men in the region were gone on the spring hunt, so the mercenaries could slip in undetected and quietly gather hours before they were to do their dark deed.
On a bright, warm Sunday morning, the men and women of the settlement were dressing in their best to attend Sunday services. Kate had noticed that Jamie was unusually quiet and seemed to be tense. He had not dressed for church.
“You’re not going to church?” Kate asked Jamie.
He shook his head. “Something’s come up. You go on. Take Joleen and Falcon. I’m going to need the other kids with me.” He cut his eyes to her. “Go on, Kate.”
As was Kate’s way, she did not question him . . . that usually came later and was sometimes heated. There would be no “later” on this day. She took the kids and went off to church.
Jamie pulled Ian to one side and spoke briefly to him. The son nodded and left the porch. Jamie put Matthew in the barn, armed with several rifles and pistols. He put Megan in the shed, with rifle and pistols. Morgan stayed in the house, in a back bedroom.
Jamie’s senses were working overtime. He had gone hunting the day before, planning to stay out for several days. But the game was elusive and the timber silent. He did not know what was wrong, only that something was not right. He had ridden back into the valley late on a Saturday night and surprised Kate with his arrival. He had nothing to say, but she knew something was very wrong.
Jamie talked briefly with the men of the settlement. Swede elected to man a post between two stores. Sam went to the loft of his barn. Juan chose a place by the livery. Wells and Moses and Robert and Titus positioned themselves between cabins. Eb and Daniel and a few other men took up well concealed positions throughout the settlement.
Finally, Jamie walked to the church and broke into a song service. “There might be trouble coming our way. It just may be my imagination, but I don’t think so. You all know we have long planned for attack.” He stomped the floor with a boot. “There are guns and water and food and blankets stored under here. Get to them and make them ready. Some of you continue singing. Sarah, play the piano—”
“Pa!” Ian shouted. “Riders gathering to the east. A whole damn army, it looks like. You were right.”
Jamie reached down and jerked open the trap door leading to the concealed basement of the church. “Get all the younger kids down here. Move quickly, kids. Joleen, Ellen Kathleen, look after them.”
Jamie walked to a window that could be easily shuttered, with gun slits in the heavy shutters, and called, “Ian! What are they doing?”
“I can’t tell, Pa,” the young man called. “They’ve moved into the timber and appear to be circlin’. My guess is they’ll come in from the south.”
“Goddamn dirty bastards!” Jamie cussed.
Reverend Haywood did not admonish him for his language in the house of God. The reverend agreed with him and silently added a few unChristian-like phrases of his own as he worked loading up rifles and pistols.
Kate had taken a carbine and several pistols from the cache of weapons under the floor and moved to a window. She was quietly and quickly loading up all the weapons. This was nothing new to Kate or to many of the other women who were busy loading weapons.
“We’ll shutter the windows when they start their charge,” Jamie told the men and women in the church. “Hold our fire until they’re in the village. Let them think they have the element of surprise on their side.”
Ian was looking through a spyglass from his position in a nearby barn loft. “They’re all white men, Pa,” he called. “All of them ridin’ fine stock. And all of them heavily armed. They got pistols hangin’ all over them and two rifles in saddle boots.”
“You’re dead, Mr. Maurice Evans,” Jamie muttered. “You are a walking around dead man.”
Jamie was standing close to Kate and she heard him. “Make sure this time,” she murmured low.
“I will,” Jamie said. “Play that piano loud, Sarah,” he called. “Really bang it out. Sing, people. Sing!”
The men and women lifted their voices in Christian song and tightened their grip on rifles. The singing reached Rolly and his mercenaries.
“Sing, you sinners!” Rolly said with an evil smirk. “In ten minutes, you’ll all be in Heaven.”
“Or gettin’ fucked,” one of his men said.
“That’s even better,” another man-hunter said. “I like ’em young. Like to hear ’em holler when I give it to ’em.”
“Plenty of time for that,” Rolly said.
“I like boys,” a thick-lipped man said. “Young and tender.”
Several others moved away from the man called Fritz.
“Ain’t that singin’ purty?” another man said sarcastically. “Them fillies down yonder gonna be beggin’ and prayin’ right shortly.”
“I can’t hardly wait to lift them petticoats,” a man called Macklin said.
“Ain’t another livin’ soul within a hundred miles,” a man called Calvert said. “This here party can last until we wear them gals plumb out.”
“Did you see all them young gals?” Bob Dalhart said. “I’m a gittin’ me a boner just thinkin’ ’bout it.”
“Let’s do it,” Rolly said. “Move out, men. We hit the village from all sides.”
Ian had propped his rifle up against the wall. He was slowly sharpening his scalping knife.
“Jamie,” Kate whispered.
“Yes, love.”
“Kill that damn lawyer in St. Louis, too.”
“I’ll get him on the way to New York City,” Jamie assured her and cocked his rifle.
Twelve
The first ten men to ride into the settlement were blown out of their saddles by the surprise gunfire that came from all around them. Several
of the men had their boots caught in the stirrups and were dragged beyond recognition before the galloping and gunfire-spooked animals finally slowed and stopped from exhaustion. A half dozen more charged the church and were cut down by the withering hail of lead coming from the men and women inside.
With more than a third of his force and the element of surprise gone (something that Rolly only thought he had) he signaled his men to retreat.
But the settlement also suffered losses. Two of the men were dead and one woman was badly wounded. The mercenaries had managed to set some buildings on fire, and the settlers forgot about pursuit and concentrated on saving their homes and barns.
Jamie jerked one slightly wounded man to his boots and shoved him toward a barn. “I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’, MacCallister!” the man shouted defiantly.
Jamie smiled the same sort of smile a rattlesnake does before it strikes.
He came out of the barn about fifteen minutes later. “The man’s alive,” he said to Kate. “I just roughed him up a bit.” He looked around him. The fires were all out and had done little real damage. Ian had saddled Thunder and Kate had fixed him a nice bait of food, tucked in the saddlebags. Jamie’s bedroll was tied behind the saddle.
“Melinda is missing!” a mother wailed. “My girl’s been taken.” Her husband grabbed her as she fainted and looked around helplessly.
The man Jamie had roughed up to get information about the gang laughed from the barn. “You’ll not see that squatter’s bitch no more!” he shouted. “By now Bob Dalhart’s done spread them legs and had his way.”
Reverend William Haywood gave Jamie a bleak look, got a rope from a porch, and started fashioning a noose. “I’m a God-fearing man,” he said, “but trash is trash.”
“I agree,” Swede said. “Toss the rope over that tree limb yonder.” He pointed. “I’ll go fetch that brigand.” He looked at Jamie. “You have objections?”
“Not at all. We might as well send a strong signal to any who might think of doing the same thing.” He touched Ian on the arm. “Go saddle your horse. You’ll bring back the girl’s body for proper burial.”
“Yes, Pa.”
Jamie put his arms around Kate and held her close for a moment. “I’ll be back when you see me, love.”
“I know you will. Take care.”
Jamie was in the saddle and riding. Ian could catch up.
Swede picked the mercenary up and threw him into a saddle, then fixed the rope around the man’s neck.
“You have anything you would like to say before you meet your Maker?” Reverend Haywood asked.
The man spat at the minister. “Go to hell, you son of a bitch!”
Haywood slapped the horse on the rump and the man swung. He kicked a few times and was dead.
“William,” Haywood’s wife said. “We forgot to ask his name.”
“I personally don’t give a damn what it was,” the reverend replied.
Jamie found the body of Melinda about five miles from the settlement. The girl had been raped repeatedly and then her neck had been broken.
“That outlaw said the man’s name was Bob Dalhart,” Ian said, after getting a blanket from his horse.
“I won’t forget.”
Ian handed him the lead rope to a pack horse “You’ll be needin’ these supplies. I ’spect you’ll be gone for some time.”
“I ’spect. Look after things, son.”
“I will, Pa.”
Jamie swung into the saddle and rode west after the gang. Ian picked up the blanket-covered body of the girl and got into the saddle. He remembered that the girl was ten years old. She’d had a birthday party just a few days back.
* * *
Rolly and thirty-three of his men had escaped the killing gunfire in the settlement. To a man, they knew they were in trouble. Men killing men was nothing new. But to attack a peaceful settlement on a Sunday morning and attempt to kill women and kids, plus the taking and raping and murdering of a young girl, that would never be forgiven, not even in the west. Now, to make matters worse, they had Jamie MacCallister on them like a leech. He had already killed nine, all of them either from ambush or after slipping silently into their camp at night. And Jamie had spread the word about the men. No one would lift a finger to help them . . . yet. They were welcome at no trading post. Worse yet, although Rolly and his men did not know it, the residents of New York City were going to be outraged when the news of the attack on the settlement in MacCallister’s Valley reached them, and Mr. Maurice Evans was going to be finished in that city. He would be forced to get out and make his headquarters first in St. Louis and then finally in San Francisco.
* * *
Some twenty-odd very tired and very frightened men sat their exhausted horses and looked at Rolly Hammond for leadership.
“Split up,” Rolly said. “Small groups. It’s the only way.”
“I ain’t believin’ this, Rolly,” a man called Ned griped. “They’s twenty-five of us and we’re turnin’ tail and runnin’ from one man.”
Sonny Andrews looked at the man and reminded him, “There was fifty of us when we started.”
“I’m done runnin’,” Ned stated. “I make my stand right here.”
“I’m with you,” Lenny said.
“Me, too,” a hulking lout called Claude stated. “I ain’t runnin’ no more.”
“Count me in,” Peter Hart said.
“I think you’re all crazy,” an outlaw called Red said wearily. “But I’m damn tarred of runnin’.”
“Good luck,” Rolly said and lifted the reins, urging his tired horse on. “Let’s go.”
Four men rode out with Rolly.
“Good luck, boys,” Vic Johnson said and rode away, taking four men with him.
“I hope you kill the bastard,” Witt Chambers said. “Good luck.” Four men left with him.
Soon the men were all alone . . . or so they thought. Had they looked up they would have seen Jamie squatting about a hundred yards away on the side of a rocky timberless ridge. He was using the oldest Indian trick in the world: simply remaining still where there was no cover.
Jamie waited until the men were busy gathering wood for a fire and moving logs and rocks into a crude fort, then he vanished from the ridge, moving behind the men and settling down in a good concealed position about seventy-five yards to the rear of the barricade. He listened to the men talk, and their talk was filled with what might have been back at the settlement if the attack had been successful. It was disgusting and sickening, evil in its perversion. They talked and laughed and made crude jokes about someone named Fritz using young boys in terrible ways, about Bob Dalhart and the young girls he had raped and abused and killed. And they talked about their own past, dark and twisted and filled with debauchery. They spoke highly and with much admiration of a man called Witt Chambers, whose vile acts made their own evil pale in comparison; of Vic Johnson, who had killed his own mother and father and had then raped and murdered his sister back in South Carolina; of a man called George who enjoyed torture. Jamie could finally stand no more. He lifted his rifle and shot Peter Hart through the head.
The man pitched forward and landed against the man called Red, splattering him with gore. Red screamed and tried to push the body away. His hesitation was just enough for Jamie to pull his second rifle to his shoulder and plug Red in the center of the chest.
Jamie quickly changed locations and reloaded. He waited amid rocks and brush.
“MacCallister!” Lenny shouted. “Damn it, MacCallister. Listen to me. It was a job of work, that’s all. Just like cleanin’ out a nest of red niggers. It’s over. We ain’t got no hard feelin’s agin you. Let’s call it even. Let us be and we won’t be back.”
You damn sure won’t, Jamie thought. He shook his head. A job of work. Jamie began slowly working his way above the men, trapped in the crude log and stone fort just off the Indian trail. Then he noticed a small band of war-painted Sioux on the other side of the ridge. A warrior made the sign f
or Jamie to go. Jamie raised his hand and vanished back into the timber, heading for his horses. He had a good hunch that those remaining mercenaries would not die quickly . . . or well.
* * *
Jamie knew Rolly’s sign well, having been on it for days, and that was the trail he followed, for he had heard the men back at the makeshift fort say that those with Rolly included Fritz, Calvert, Macklin, Bob Dalhart, and probably a man called Sonny.
These were the worst of the worst including the head of this particular snake pit. The real snake pit lay far to the east: a rich man named Maurice Evans and a lawyer called Laurin. He would get to them. All in good time.
Now that the raiders had broken up into small groups, and since there was no real description of any of them, chances were good that any trading post the small groups stopped in would have no reason to deny them food or supplies. The word was out on a large group of men, not four or five men riding together.
And Jamie knew of a trading post not a day’s ride from where he was. He followed a slow, winding creek south. Rolly and those with him had tried to hide their trail by riding in the creek, but that wouldn’t work with an experienced tracker. Jamie could easily see the hoof prints in the bottom of the shallow creek, could see where the men rode out of the water and went back in.
He knew exactly where Rolly was heading, for Goose Creek ran right past a trading post and then petered out just a few miles later.
Jamie stopped long enough to bathe and shave and fix something to eat. He was running out of supplies and planned to resupply at the Goose Creek post . . . after he dealt Rolly and the others their last hands in this game. Would he then go after the others? Jamie doubted it. He knew he probably should, for men like those who had attacked the settlement were the type who harbored long smoldering grudges, and they might well return at some later date.
But his original anger and outrage had tempered somewhat. Jamie had learned over the long and brutal years that men of the type who attacked the settlement usually came to no good end.
But what bothered Jamie was how much damage and destruction and misery to other people they would cause before the end came to them.
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