“Preacher, you big bag of wind,” Duffy said. “I ain’t seen you in a while. I figured you’d tooken up farmin’ and gotten hitched by now.”
The two mountain men walked off, trading heated insults and huge lies.
Jamie walked off to find Kate.
“Kate, spread the word among the members that a large gang of outlaws is going to hit us somewhere ahead. Stay close to the wagons and keep your rifle loose in the boot.”
“Anybody I know?” Kate asked calmly.
“You heard me talk about Winslow, the leader of the gang who hit us years back?”
She nodded.
“That’s the one—Duffy just warned me.”
“I like that old man.”
“So did Grandpa.”
“That says a lot.”
“Tells me he’s a man with no back-up in him.”
After leaving Fort Hall, the wagons followed the Snake River until reaching the California Trail, then cut south and west. This was the route first blazed by the mountain man Joe Walker back in 1833. San Francisco then was called Yerba Buena. The California trail was in many ways just as arduous as the Oregon Trail, winding north of the Great Salt Lake and then along the brackish Humboldt River, across the alkali Nevada Desert, and then across the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“Winslow will hit us before we reach the wastes,” Preacher said to Jamie, riding up to the point.
“He’ll do it soon,” Jamie predicted. “And probably at night.”
“Good water and graze up ahead,” Preacher said. “You thinkin’ tonight might be the time?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll pass the word.”
Jamie put the wagons in a circle with the stock in the center that afternoon, halting the wagons several hours earlier than he usually did. He was not worried about Winslow firing at the wagons, for the outlaw wanted the wagons intact, for resale.
“He sells the women,” Duffy said. “Takes them to ’Frisco and sells them to ships’ captains for transport to some Godless country where they’re sold into slavery as whoors. If the men are good and strong, he sells them, too, into terrible cruel bondage before the mast.”
“I thought all that had stopped,” Jamie said.
“Put that out of your mind. It’s still goin’ on. And these fillies with us will bring a pretty penny, believe you me. And don’t think you’ll be safe when we get to ’Frisco, for you won’t. That town’s a dangerous wicked place.” He grinned. “Of course, I would know naught about the wicked part of it.”
Jamie laughed and began walking the circle of wagons. Alfred Wadsworth had loaded up a double-barreled goose gun with nails and shot and was now checking the loads in his pistols.
“We’ll be ready to fight,” he assured Jamie. “An actor and musician I may be, but it’s tradition in my family to do one’s time with the Lancers. The sounds of gunfire will not be new to me, Jamie MacCallister.”
Jamie smiled and walked on.
The other men in the troupe, while not experienced fighters, were familiar with weapons, most of them having grown up in small towns around the land. They sat eating their supper with their guns close to hand.
Everything was as ready as Jamie could make it. All they could do now was wait.
It wasn’t a long wait.
“They’re out there,” Sparks said to Jamie about an hour after full dark had laid night’s blanket over the land.
“I know. They’re good but not that good. I heard them slipping up about fifteen minutes ago. I told everyone to act like they’re going to bed, then quietly get into position. Nobody fires until my word.”
“Got you.”
Jamie moved around the circle, talking in low tones. He was letting the fires burn down to coals, and for half an hour he had forbid anyone to look into the dying flames. But outside the circled wagons, Winslow’s men were forced to look directly at the wagons and therefore into the flames of cookfires. Their night vision would be somewhat impaired.
The members of the wagon train had slipped under their wagons and were as still as the night, heavily loaded shotguns, rifles, and pistols at the ready. Winslow was going to be in for quite a surprise.
Jamie had listened carefully as the outlaws slipped up in the dark. He guessed their strength at probably thirty. But they would be a desperate thirty, cut-throats and brigands all—men whose limits of cruelty would know no boundaries, men who would do anything.
Jamie waited. Winslow was giving the men and women ample time to fall into a sound sleep. It’s easier to cut a sleeping person’s throat.
Far off in the distance, a coyote sang his lonely song. Song Dogs, the Indians called them. Then a moment later, another coyote joined in, then another, and the night was suddenly not so lonely or bleak.
Jamie’s eyes caught a very slight movement outside the circled wagons. He was instantly alert. He waited for another movement, but none came. Had he imagined it? He didn’t think so. He had survived too many attacks such as this one to be imagining things in the dark.
No, there it was again. The outlaws were creeping closer. They obviously had this down to a fine practiced art. Preacher had told him of finding several wagon trains that had been set upon by white brigands, and Jamie himself had personally witnessed one a few years back.
“Sorry bastards,” Jamie muttered under his breath.
The gang of cut-throats came in a rush out of the night, silent death and depravity running toward the wagons.
“Fire!” Jamie yelled, lifting his twin Walker Colts and letting them bang.
* * *
Several of the women had been holding torches, ready to light, and at the first shot, they lit the torches and flung them outside the circled wagons, catching the outlaws in the flickering flames.
The fire power from inside the wagons was devastating and at close range, killing and maiming those in the first wave. Double-barreled shotguns did the most damage, for at close range a heavily loaded shotgun can very nearly cut a man in two.
Winslow lost half his men within fifteen seconds. The wounded lay on the rocky ground, moaning and writhing in pain, calling out for help, for mercy, and, most disgusting to those in the circle, for God to help them.
“Can you believe it?” a dancer named Nancy said, breaking the awful silence after the deadly fusillade. “They want God to help them.”
“God damn them!” one of the hired drivers said. “I hope they all burn in the Hellfires.”
“I’ll be back, MacCallister,” a shout came out of the night. Jamie recognized Winslow. “You’ve not seen the last of me.”
Jamie did not reply. He had reloaded his pistols and now squatted by a wagon wheel in the darkness.
“It’s a long way yet to California,” Winslow offered up his final words.
Then the night grew silent after the faint sounds of hooves faded into the distance.
“What about the wounded?” Liza asked, appearing by Jamie’s side.
In the faint light from the stars, Liza read the silent answer in her father-in-law’s eyes and said no more about it. She turned and walked away.
So many pistol and rifle balls and heavy charges from shotguns had been pumped into the charging men, Jamie felt there was little use in seeing to the wounded. The cries of the hideously mangled men had already tapered off to a few low moans and whispered prayers. The wagons carried medical supplies, including laudanum, but Jamie had no intention of sharing their precious supplies with the crap and crud who rode with the likes of Stovepipe Winslow.
By ten o’clock that evening, the cries of the wounded had all faded.
“They’re either dead or unconscious,” Audie remarked.
“Good riddance,” Sparks said.
At first light, Jamie and MacDuff were prowling among the dead, gathering up weapons and balls and powder. They found several revolvers, but they were of the type that used a lever under the barrel to turn the cylinder; pull down the lever, the cylinder turned, clamp the level sn
ug against the bottom of the barrel, you were ready to fire . . . hopefully. Several had pepperboxes in their pockets; many men called them “suicide pistols” because they sometimes jammed up and blew your hand off or—several fingers, if you were lucky.
Jamie smashed the pepperboxes, rendering them useless, and then threw them away; he had no use for them but didn’t want any Indians to find them.
The dead men were dragged off and buried in a common grave, not out of choice but necessity, for none carried any type of identification. The outlaws had some money, and Jamie gave that to the drivers to divide among themselves. Some took the money, others refused it.
The wagons were moving west by mid-morning.
Jamie spoke briefly with Lobo and the big man nodded his head in agreement. A few minutes later, after whispering to Kate, Jamie rode off with Sparks, Preacher and a few days’ supplies, trailing Winslow’s outlaw pack.
The trail west was fraught with enough dangers; the three of them were going to remove one of the perils.
“When we come up on this pack of hydrophobee skunks,” Preacher said. “How do we play it?”
“We ride in and kill the bastards,” Sparks said.
“That sounds simple enough,” Preacher said with a smile. “Hell, there ain’t but about twenty of ’em.”
Two
It was Preacher who pointed out the circling carrion birds just ahead. “One more of them dead,” he opined.
Several of the birds had already settled around the dead man and were feeding, tearing at the dead flesh, pecking out his eyes, and going deep into the stomach, making it impossible for the men to see what had killed him. But all could make a pretty good guess.
Buzzards were landing in force now, and the men did not feel like taking the time to drive them away, even if they could—which sometimes proved impossible if the buzzards were hungry enough. They had nothing with which to dig a grave, so they left the outlaw where he lay.
“Even them ugly bastards got to eat,” Preacher summed it all up.
A mile further on, they found another man sitting alongside the trail, his back to a rock. He was alive but just barely. He had taken a load of buckshot from a shotgun right in the stomach. He looked up at the men, the hate in his eyes overriding the terrible pain.
“If I had the strength,” he gasped, “I’d take my gun and kill you all right now.”
“How does a fellow get to be so snake-poison full of hate?” Sparks asked the man.
The man opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes glazed over and his mouth filled with blood, dribbling down his chin. His head slumped to one side and he died along the trail. About a hundred yards away, the carrion birds waited with all the patience of a million years bred in them.
Jamie, Sparks, and Preacher rode on.
The carrion birds moved in to feast.
A few minutes later, they could smell the dust kicked up by Winslow’s gang.
“Won’t be long now,” Sparks said.
“Our horses are a lot fresher,” Jamie said. “Let’s get ahead of them.”
The men spurred their horses and began a short loop. They trotted their animals for a time, then walked for a time. An hour later, the Winslow gang was about two miles behind them and coming on at a slow but steady pace.
“Good place right up yonder,” Preacher said. “The horses can graze behind them rocks and we can get siteated amongst ’em.”
Jamie cut his eyes at Preacher and hid his smile. He knew that the mountain man was capable of speaking perfect English when he wanted to.
The men did not even consider that the hunt might go on past these upthrustings of rock in the earth. They knew it wouldn’t. It was going to end right here. They stripped saddles from the horses and let them roll but not drink; they were too hot for that. They put the picket pins down on about a quarter acre of grass and climbed into the rocks just as Winslow, with his stupid-looking tall stovepipe hat held on by a strap under his chin, came riding up.
The three men silently stood up in the rocks, their hands filled with Colt .44s and without a word just hauled the hammers back and let the lead fly.
Horses were rearing up and screaming in fright and men were cursing and shouting while their comrades were being knocked out of the saddle to fall onto the ground and be trampled under the hooves of their horses.
The attackers each carried four Colts, all of them loaded up full. When the hammers finally fell on the last loaded cylinder, the scene on the ground below the rocks was carnage.
“Didn’t kill nary horse,” Preacher said with some satisfaction, for like most good western men, he liked and respected horses.
The men loaded up full before venturing down out of the rocks. Winslow had taken two .44 slugs in the gut and had lost his pistols. He had managed to pull himself into the rocks and was sitting up when Jamie found him. He was still wearing his stovepipe hat.
“You should have gone on back east, Winslow,” Jamie told him. “You might have lived a little longer.”
Winslow cussed him until he was out of breath.
“Is that all you got to say?” Jamie asked the man just as Sparks and Preacher walked up.
“I reckon it is, Jamie,” Sparks said. “He’s dead.”
* * *
It was mid-morning of the next day before the men caught up with the wagons.
“Everything go all right, Pa?” Rosanna asked.
“It did for us,” Jamie replied.
His daughter had to ask no more questions. She knew they would never again be bothered by Winslow and his gang.
The wagon train now began the long dry pull to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Some wagon masters led their wagons on the Walker route, but Kit Carson had told Jamie of a better way, crossing near Lake Tahoe, and that was the way Jamie led this now-seasoned group of travelers.
Once they crossed the mountains, the way became infinitely easier and the mood of the travelers lighter. MacDuff rode on ahead to spread the word that entertainers were coming.
The entertainers weren’t the only ones coming to California. Thousands were on their way to seek their fortunes. In January of 1848, gold was accidentally discovered at Sutter’s Creek by James Marshall, a man who was building a mill for John Sutter. Ironically, although the gold was discovered on his land, John Sutter would see little of it. A few days after the gold was discovered, Mexico ceded California to the United States and Sutter’s title to the land was contested. He was unable, legally, to drive off the hundreds of prospectors who suddenly appeared on his land, digging and panning for the precious yellow metal. Within a few years he was bankrupt, and he went back east to petition the U.S. government for the rights to his land. He died broke in 1880.
Gold fever gripped the United States and thousands started on their way to California; many turned back, but many more continued on. One year after gold was discovered, more than one hundred thousand people had moved from the east into California, making it the fastest growing area in North America.
San Francisco became a boom town—It was often referred to as the “Boomtown on the Bay.” From mid-1848 until well into the 1850s, San Francisco grew faster than any other American city. Few accurate records were kept, but it was estimated that starting in mid-1848, thirty to forty new houses a day were built along the bay. By the time Jamie and Kate and the troupe arrived, there were more than five hundred bars and nearly twice that many gambling dens. Hotels were grand for the time and restaurants in the growing city featured more on the menu than the fancy eating places of New York City. There were also three to five murders a day and whores walked the streets all hours of the day and night. It was reported that one whore retired after only a year working the streets—she had made over seventy-five thousand dollars in one year from the gold-laden and sex-starved miners and sailors. Fresh eggs were selling for twelve dollars a dozen. Ships crowded the harbor and many a ship’s master quickly learned he could make more money by grounding his ship and leasing it out as a store or h
otel than he could by sailing the seas.
It was the wildest town in North America, where nearly anything went for anybody who had the stomach to do it, and practically everybody did.
MacDuff settled the problem of no available hotel rooms in the city by stating simply, “No rooms, no shows.”
The residents on one entire floor were kicked out, and the rooms were ready for Jamie, Kate and company when they arrived; placards were quickly printed up and a hall rented. In one day, every seat in the hall was sold out for one entire month. One performance a day Monday through Friday, two shows on Saturday.
* * *
The gold rush was not the only thing of importance that was taking place that year. The Mexican-American war ended and New Mexico, California, and the Rio Grande border of Texas became part of the United States. Wisconsin joined the Union. The territory of Oregon was formally organized. Zachary Taylor was elected president.
But gold was the dream that gripped the nation, instant wealth sometimes discovered and lost all in the same day.
* * *
Gold had no allure for Jamie, for he had already found and cached enough gold to keep his family comfortable for a hundred years. And while the city was filled with some of the roughest men to ever congregate in one spot, most gave Jamie Ian MacCallister a wide berth.
Jamie didn’t know that lawyer Laurin was in San Francisco, as was Maurice Evans, both of them there under assumed names, both having been run out of New York City and St. Louis.
“MacCallister,” Evans whispered, laying aside the newspaper as the old hate once more filled him. Thoughts of revenge rushed into his brain. “And many of his family.” Evans immediately summoned lawyer Laurin and showed him the newspaper.
“I know,” Laurin said, taking a seat. He held up a finger. “But a word of caution. We could probably get away with the death of Jamie MacCallister, but to do harm to some of the most popular entertainers in all of America would bring a very swift and thorough investigation. It isn’t worth it.”
“There must be a way,” Evans whispered. Every misfortune that had befallen him since the death of his beloved son, Blake—one of the most worthless bastards to ever walk the face of the earth—Maurice Evans blamed on Jamie MacCallister. He was consumed with hate.
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