Massacre of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “I told you not to move,” Falcon said.

  “No! Wait!” Slayton shouted. He put both arms up. “Don’t shoot, Mister, don’t shoot!”

  For the moment the loudest sound to be heard was the steady tick-tock of the regulator clock which hung just above the fireplace mantle. The other customers in the saloon were viewing the unfolding scene as intently as anyone who had ever watched a Buffalo Bill Wild West Exhibition. And in a way, they were spectators of a show, but in this case the scene being played out before them was much more intense than anything Buffalo Bill had ever produced. This was a drama of life or death.

  Unable to control the sudden twitch that started in his left eye, Slayton looked around the saloon to see if he could count on anyone for help.

  “Are you people going to just let him get away with this?” Slayton called out. “He’s a stranger! I’m one of you!”

  “You ain’t never been one of us, Slayton,” a cowboy over at the bar said. The cowboy was standing with his back against the bar, leaning back with his elbows resting on the bar. “You ain’t done nothin’ but run roughshod over the rest of us ever since you got here. As far as I’m concerned, he can shoot you right now and I’d say good riddance.”

  Slayton looked back at Falcon, realizing now that not only was he on his own, but he had come up against someone who was far his superior.

  “Please, Mister,” Slayton said with a whimper. “What are you going to do?”

  “Yes, Falcon, what are you going to do?” Cody asked.

  “What do you think, Buffalo Bill? Do you think I should just shoot him and be done with it?” Falcon asked.

  “My God,” Slayton said, his bottom lip quivering now. “Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Ingraham said. “Falcon, suppose you put your pistol back in your holster. I’ll count to three, then both of you can draw. A duel to the death like that would make much better story than if I wrote that you merely shot him. You would like that better, wouldn’t you, Slayton? I mean if Falcon MacCallister put his gun away and actually gave you a chance to draw against him? It wouldn’t be much of a chance, I admit—but it would be a chance. Better than him just shooting you, here and now.”

  “Yes,” Slayton said.

  Falcon put his pistol back in his holster.

  “I mean no!” Slayton shouted, quickly, holding both his arms out in front of him, palms facing outward. “I mean no I don’t want to draw against you at all. I ain’t goin’ for my gun! Do you see? I ain’t goin’ for my gun!”

  The young woman was tending to her bleeding lip, and she looked up at Slayton. One of her eyes was black and nearly swollen shut. “If it was left up to me, I would tell you to shoot him,” she said.

  “No,” Slayton said. He began shaking uncontrollably, and he wet his pants. “Please, don’t kill me,” he begged. “I swear, I’ll never touch the girl again. Please, don’t kill me.”

  Lucy turned to the others in the saloon. “Did you all hear the promise Mr. Slayton just made?”

  “We heard it, Miss Lucy,” one of the other patrons asked.

  “Will you see to it that he keeps his promise?”

  “Oh, he’ll keep his promise, all right,” the cowboy who was leaning back against the bar said. “’Cause if he don’t keep it, me an’ some of the boys will find him, and we’ll string him up ourselves.”

  “Go home, Mr. Slayton,” Lucy finally said in a cold voice. “And don’t come back here until you know how to behave around a lady.”

  “Behave around a lady?” Slayton said in a contemptuous tone. “What do you mean around a lady?”

  The next sound was the deadly double-click of a pistol sear engaging the hammer and rotating a shell under the firing pin. Once again, Falcon was holding his pistol pointed at Slayton.

  “Are you going to try and say that you don’t see any ladies around here?” Falcon asked.

  “What? No, no, I see a lady,” Slayton stammered. He looked around at the other bar girls. “I see a lot of ladies around here!” Still holding his hands out in front of him, as if warding Falcon off, he turned to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” Falcon called.

  Slayton stopped.

  “Before you leave, shuck out of that gun belt. The pistol stays here,” Falcon said.

  “Who the hell says that it stays here?” Slayton asked, in one last attempt at bravado.

  “I say it,” Falcon replied as calmly as if he were giving the time.

  Slayton paused for a moment longer, then, with shaking hands, unbuckled his gun belt. He let it drop to the floor.

  “Now you can go,” Falcon said.

  “When do I get it back?” Slayton asked.

  “Whenever the lady says you can have it back,” Falcon said.

  “Are you crazy? I ain’t leavin’ my gun with no whore!”

  “I will give it back to you, Mr. Slayton, when you have learned to behave as a gentleman,” Lucy said.

  As soon as Slayton stepped outside, there was a collective sigh of relief, then everyone started talking at the same time.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it in my whole life.”

  “Never thought I would see anyone back down Ethan Slayton,” one of the patrons said.

  “Well, it wasn’t just anyone,” another said. “It was Falcon MacCallister.

  Falcon reached down to pick up the gun and belt that Slayton had shed. Carrying it over to the bar, he handed it to the bartender.

  “It might be a good idea to empty the bullets before you hand the pistol back to him,” Falcon suggested. “Someone with a temper like he has is liable to start shooting the moment he gets his hands back on it.”

  “Don’t you worry none about that, Mr. MacCallister,” the bartender said. “I’ll have this gun empty before you can say Jack Sprat.”

  “Johnny,” Lucy said.

  “Yes, Miss Lucy?”

  “Would you please pour these three gentleman a drink, on me?” she asked, referring to Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’d be glad to,” Johnny said, reaching for the house’s finest bourbon. “But you are only goin’ to pay for half of it. I’m payin’ the other half my ownself.”

  Preston Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:

  After assuring the gallant General Nelson Miles that he did not believe the great Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull, was behind or planning any nefarious activity, Buffalo Bill Cody, Falcon MacCallister, and your humble scribe left the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to continue their sojourn through the West, proceeding from the above location by way of train to Miles City. There, the two Western heroes were feted by the commandant of the nearby army post, Fort Keogh, named for the gallant officer who died with Custer. Colonel Whitehead, the fort’s commandant, allowed the ladies of the post to produce a military ball in their honor. Although the ball was held in the bare hall of a Suttler’s Store, the ladies of the fort succeeded with their clever and colorful decorations to convert the stark building into as inviting a ball room as in the finest Eastern salons. And, as I am travelling with Cody and MacCallister, I was also privileged to attend the ball, and enjoyed dancing with the lovely ladies of the post.

  Leaving Miles City, we traveled by riverboat on the Tongue River, with Sheridan as the destination.

  Shortly after arriving in Sheridan, a small town in Wyoming Territory, a brutish fellow imagined himself offended by a young woman of the bar, and he struck her several times. Falcon MacCallister, upon seeing the altercation, interceded.

  “Here, sir, do not strike that woman again.”

  His words rang with authority, and not one person in the room was there, who did not realize that a challenge was being issued.

  The brigand, a most disreputable fellow of the lowest type, was a known bully by the name of Ethan Slayton, a person whose disrepute was known by all.

  “Mister, what I do to this woman ain’t non
e of your business,” Slayton replied in a voice dripping with arrogance and venom.

  “You err, sir, for I have made it my business,” the valiant Falcon MacCallister said. “For one who attacks a defenseless woman, attacks all that is good and noble.”

  Pointing his finger at Falcon, Slayton issued a challenge that would have made the blood run cold in most men. “Mister, you have butted in where you have no business. My advice to you is to back away or be prepared to face the ire of Ethan Slayton.”

  It is to be supposed that brute was of the opinion that mere mention of the name Ethan Slayton would be sufficient to make most men withdraw meekly. But Mr. Slayton made a serious miscalculation, for Falcon MacCallister is not a man who is easily frightened. His reply, intoned in a voice that was dripping with danger, brought instant silence to all in the saloon.

  “Friend, if you so much as twitch, I will kill you,” Falcon MacCallister said, his words cold and piercing.

  “I will not be buffaloed, by you or any man,” Slayton said, and to prove his point, moved his hand in the direction of his pistol, but ere his hand reached his holster, a Colt .44, as if by magic, appeared in the hand of Falcon MacCallister. Slayton gasped in surprise and fear.

  “You should feel no shame sir, for having been bested by this man,” Buffalo Bill Cody said from aside. “For this is Falcon MacCallister, and his gunmanship is superior to all in the West. Were you to test him any further, he would have put a ball in your heart.”

  Realizing that he was beaten, the disagreeable Slayton made no further attempt to extract his weapon from his holster. Begging for his life, he was allowed to leave the saloon, but only after offering his apology to the young woman whom he had assaulted, and surrendering his pistol.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Fort Keogh

  For the most part there was harmony between the white troopers of the Sixth Cavalry and the black troopers of the Ninth Cavalry primarily because there was in effect a self-imposed segregation. The black troops stayed with their own, as did the white troops.

  There were some points of interaction though, and at one of these points, the post quartermaster, there was discord between Sergeant Major Moses Coletrain of the Ninth Cavalry and Sergeant Lucas Depro of the Sixth Cavalry. Both were supply sergeants for their respective units, and though their ranks were equal, Sergeant Depro assumed more power than he actually had, using as his authority the fact that he was white.

  The two men shared the same office in the supply room, each having a desk. Depro was already at his desk when Sergeant Major Coletrain came in.

  “My, you are here early today, Sergeant,” Coletrain said.

  Depro, who was making entries in a ledger, nodded. “I had some extra work to do, so I came in early. I know that isn’t anything you people would ever consider. From what I’ve observed, you people never do one thing beyond what is absolutely necessary. You are the worst soldiers I’ve ever seen.”

  Sergeant Major Coletrain did not respond to Depro’s baiting. He knew that, even though there were more black troopers in the fort than white, the white soldiers had ten times more delinquency reports, and twenty times more incidents of absent without leave and desertion.

  “I see they haven’t shipped in the blankets yet,” Coletrain said as he picked up a paper from his desk. “I hope they get them here before winter.”

  “They probably shipped them all to Arizona where they don’t need them,” Depro said.

  In this, at least, the two sergeants were united, for the blanket shipment would benefit every soldier on the entire post whether black or white. Coletrain chuckled at Depro’s comment as he walked back to the arms room.

  Depro looked up from his desk at Coletrain as he opened the arms room. Putting his pen down, he waited for the expected reaction.

  “Hey!” Coletrain said. “What happened?”

  “What happened to what?”

  “The weapons,” Depro said. “The carbines, rifles, and pistols we were shipping to Jefferson Barracks. I had them right here, all boxed up, ready to go.”

  “I took care of that for you,” Depro said.

  Coletrain came back from the arms room, and standing right across Depro’s desk, challenged him.

  “What do you mean you took care of it, Sergeant Depro? Those arms belonged to the Ninth Cavalry. I was in charge of shipping them back.”

  “They belong to the army, not to the Ninth Cavalry,” Depro said. “And we’re in the same army. At least, that’s what you’re always tellin’ me, ain’t it? That we belong to the same army?”

  “Yes, but that don’t give you the right to interfere with my work. Shipping those weapons out was my job. I’m responsible for them, now they’re gone, and I don’t have any documentation for them.”

  “Relax,” Depro said. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it, so I handled it for you. I had them sent by freight wagon to the railhead at Rawlins. I’ve got a hand receipt from the shipping officer of the wagon freight, and a Bill of Lading from Union Pacific that says they are on their way to Jefferson Barracks.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I told you, they are on their way to Jefferson Barracks.”

  “No, I mean where are the documents you were talking about, the hand receipt and the bill of lading? Where are they? If I’m responsible for the arms shipment, I need some proof that the job was done.”

  “Are you questioning me?” Depro said angrily.

  “Yes, I’m questioning you. I told you, I’m responsible for them. And I remain responsible for them, no matter who arranged to have them shipped. That’s why I want the hand receipt and the bill of lading.”

  “You might have been responsible for it, but I’m the one who done the actual shipping,” Depro said. “So if anything comes up, I’ll be the one in trouble, not you. That’s why I intend to keep the paperwork my ownself.”

  Coletrain stared at Depro for a moment longer. He knew that by rights he should have the paperwork, since the weapons had been on the property books of the Ninth Cavalry. But he knew, too, that if the question went to Major Benteen, Benteen, for all that he was commander of the Ninth, would back up the white NCO over Coletrain.

  “All right, Sergeant, as long as we have proof that the weapons were shipped, I guess it doesn’t really matter who has it.”

  At lunchtime Coletrain left the supply room and headed for the mess hall that served the Ninth. It was as big and as well kept as the white mess hall and the food, consisting mostly of salt beef or pork and vegetables raised by the soldiers, served along with coffee and cornbread, was about the same as the food served the white soldiers. The mess halls were across the quadrangle from each other, the sign on one reading: Colored, the sign on the other reading: White.

  He saw Major Benteen going into the officers’ mess. Many of the officers had their wives on post with them, but Benteen’s wife and son were back in St. Louis. Because he had been with Custer and the Seventh Cavalry in their ill-fated fight with the Sioux, Benteen had been somewhat of a celebrity when he first arrived. Coletrain started toward him.

  “Major Benteen?” he called.

  Benteen stopped and turned toward him, the expression on his face showing his displeasure at being addressed.

  “What is it, Coletrain? What do you want?” Benteen asked.

  “It’s about the weapons, Major. The ones we are supposed to be sending back to Jefferson Barracks?”

  “What about them?”

  “They are gone, sir. Sergeant Depro says that he sent them.”

  “Well, then, it isn’t your worry, is it?”

  “No, sir,” Coletrain said. “I suppose not, sir. I just thought I ought to tell you.”

  “You told me. Anything else?” Benteen asked.

  “No, sir, nothing else,” Coletrain said, snapping a sharp salute.

  Later that same day, Sergeant Lucas Depro stepped up to Captain Gilmore’s desk and saluted. “You wanted to see me, Cap’n?”

  �
��Yes, Sergeant. I’m told by Major Benteen that you took charge of an arms shipment that, by rights, was the responsibility of the Ninth Cavalry.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Cap’n, you know how them coloreds are. You can’t depend on ’em for nothin’. I figured I was doin’ the right thing by shippin’ ’em like I done.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Forty Winchesters, fifty-five Springfields and thirty-five Colt revolvers it was, all shipped back to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri.”

  Captain Gilmore whistled. “That’s a lot of weapons. Did they get away all right?”

  “Yes, sir, I got the bill of lading on file back in the arms room.”

  “I don’t know as I like you taking on that responsibility. You work for me, and, as Major Benteen pointed out, that now makes me liable for them in case something happens to them.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ goin’ to happen to ’em, Cap’n. Like as not, they are at Jefferson Barracks by now.”

  “Whatever you do, Sergeant Depro, you make certain that you keep up with that bill of lading. We certainly don’t want to wind up having to pay for it ourselves, do we, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir, we sure don’t. But don’t worry, Cap’n, I’ll keep up with the bill of lading,” Depro said.

  After leaving Captain Gilmore’s office, Sergeant Depro walked across the parade ground to an abandoned stable at the far end of the post property. The stable had been built ten years earlier as a place to hold captured Indian horses until they could be shipped off to factories in the East to be made into glue. That policy was dropped three years ago and the stable had been abandoned. Now, it was literally falling down.

  Nobody ever came around it any more, not only because it was so far away from the main area of the fort, but also because of the stench. Unlike the stables of cavalry horses, which were kept clean by constant mucking of the stalls, these stalls had never been mucked, even when the stable had been in use.