Defiance of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “If you know that, you know that I do everything with military precision. And your hesitance over responding to my demand is putting this entire operation in jeopardy. I caution you now, sir, I will not let anything jeopardize my mission. You have to the count of three to turn over the gold, or I will shoot you.”

  “No! no!” Randall said. Picking up the packages from behind the teller’s cage, he slid them through the window. “Here they are!”

  “Thank you, you have been most cooperative,” Ackerman said. The gold was in six packages, and he handed two to Casey and two to Waters, taking the last two himself. Then the three men started backing out of the bank.

  It was at that precise moment that Randall brought a weapon up from its concealed position behind the counter. Ackerman shot him, then turned toward the three customers who had witnessed both shootings.

  “Lie on the floor, facedown,” he ordered.

  “Please, mister, you’re not goin’ to shoot us, are you?” one of the men asked.

  “You will address me as major,” Ackerman said. “Make no move and you won’t be shot.”

  Ackerman, Casey, and Waters backed out of the bank, then mounted the three horses that had been held for them by Jones, Smith, and Boyle.

  “Sergeant Casey, recall the road guards,” Ackerman ordered.

  “Road guards, recover!” Casey shouted, and the four men who had been deployed to each end of the road galloped back to join the formation.

  “Withdraw with fire!” Ackerman ordered. “Bugler, sound the ‘Charge’!”

  With Powell blowing “Charge” on the bugle, the mounted column galloped away, shooting as they departed. Three local citizens, with rifles, made the mistake of coming out into the street to challenge the bank robbers, but they were shot down. Ackerman and his men thundered out of town, leaving seven dead behind them. Two of the dead were a mother and her daughter, hit by stray bullets.

  Centerville, Montana Territory

  Just outside the town of Centerville, Ackerman paid off his men, then gave them “furlough” until he needed them again.

  “Don’t go into town in any group larger than three people,” Ackerman said. “Otherwise you might arouse suspicion.”

  Centerville was on the Northern Pacific Railroad, which made it one of the more bustling towns in Montana. Primarily a mining town, its population base was made up of Irish and Cornish, and though there were no fights between them, neither did they associate with each other.

  “What about findin’ us some women?” Waters suggested.

  “Women later, whiskey first,” Boyle said.

  “Where you reckon a saloon is?” Decker asked.

  “Hell, it ought not to be hard to find one. Just follow your nose,” Boyle replied.

  As Boyle had suggested, finding something to drink wasn’t all that difficult. Every other building, it seemed, was a saloon. With no predetermined purpose in mind other than to find drink, the three men headed toward one, identified by the sign out front as the HARD ROCK MINER.

  Although it was early afternoon, the saloon was crowded with noisy customers. At the back of the saloon a bald-headed piano player was pounding away on a scarred, and out-of-tune, instrument.

  “Bartender, bring us a bottle!” Waters said, shouting to be heard above the din. The bartender pulled a bottle from a shelf behind the bar, handed it to the customer, then accepted, as payment, a pinch of gold dust.

  “You boys must’ve have good diggin’s,” the bartender said.

  “Yeah, well, don’t expect us to tell you where it’s at,” Boyle said.

  The bartender chuckled. “Can’t say as I blame you.”

  Ackerman had taken a hotel room, and, after a bath and change of clothes was now occupying a table in the Grub Stake Saloon. He stood out from all the others in the saloon because he was dressed like a gentleman, complete with a jacket, vest, and cravat.

  “Oh, look at him,” Diana said. Diana was a prostitute who worked the saloon for business. She got a share of all the drinks she could convince a customer to buy her, and the saloon got a share of her fees when she took a customer upstairs. The other bar girls sometimes called her “Diana Duh,” because of her irritating habit of saying “duh” when she wished to make a point.

  “What about him?” Susana asked.

  “Well, duh! Can’t you see that he is dressed differently from everyone else in here? You know that someone like that has a lot of money. And he is probably a gentleman, too.”

  “He’s probably not interested in women, either,” Susana said. “At least, not our kind.”

  “He’s in here, isn’t he? He wouldn’t even be in here if he wasn’t interested in our kind of women. Duh.”

  Ackerman was disappointed with the amount of money they had gotten at Diamond City. He had thought it would be much more than it was, but even taking thirty percent, he had only made twelve hundred dollars. There had to be a bigger score somewhere.

  Ackerman had picked up a newspaper at the hotel desk, and as he sat at the table, he began to read.

  ACKERMAN’S RAIDERS STRIKE AGAIN

  The small town of Diamond City was terrorized Tuesday, when Boyd Ackerman and his group of former soldiers robbed the bank. They killed Joel Randall, the well-respected president of the bank, as well as Mitchell Sharp, the bank guard. Five more citizens fell before the bullets of this nefarious gang of outlaws, including Mrs. Coretta Cline and her four-year-old daughter, Amy.

  Ackerman’s Raiders are led by Major Boyd Ackerman, a disgraced army officer who has put to use, in the most nefarious way, his military training. He has been terrorizing Montana for the last four years with his brilliant military tactics and his skillful employment of well-disciplined military troops.

  Ackerman smiled at the mention of his “brilliant military tactics,” and his “skillful employment of well-disciplined” military troops.

  “I see you are smiling,” one of the girls of the saloon said, approaching him. “Is it because of me?”

  Ackerman folded the paper over and looked up at the woman who had approached him. Though the dissipation of her profession had taken its toll on her, she was skilled enough with the artistic application of makeup and the provocative way of wearing her clothes that she could still elicit enough interest to do a brisk business as a prostitute.

  “I might be,” Ackerman said, smiling at her. He stood up and pulled out a chair for her. “Won’t you join me for a drink?”

  “Oh, such a gentleman you are,” Diana said.

  When Ackerman got up from Diana’s bed half an hour later, her left eye was black and swollen nearly shut. Her lip was bleeding, both of her breasts were bruised, and she was crying.

  “I suppose you won’t be doing any more business tonight,” Ackerman said.

  “Please, mister, don’t hit me again. Please,” Diana said.

  “How much do you get for overnight?”

  “No, please, I . . .”

  “Don’t worry, I have no intention of spending the night with you. I just want to know how much you get for overnight?”

  “Five dollars,” she said.

  Ackerman took some money from his wallet. “Here is ten dollars,” he said. “Stay in your room for the rest of the night.”

  “Ten dollars? You’re giving me ten dollars?” Diana asked, her demeanor changing.

  “Yes, ten dollars. Unless you have a whore’s code of honor that says you won’t take the money unless you earn it.”

  “Well, duh, you beat me up. I’d say I earned it.” Ackerman dropped the money on the bed, then left her room. Diana grabbed the ten-dollar bill and held it tightly. She had never made this much at one time before.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Falcon was following the White River north, not sure where it would take him and not particularly caring. The river snaked out across the gently undulating sagebrush-covered prairie before him, shining gold in the setting sun, sometimes white where it broke over rocks, other times shimmering a
deep blue-green in the swirling eddies and trapped pools.

  The Danforth Hills to the north were purple and mysterious, but the Great Hogback, a range of wild and ragged mountains to the west of him, were dotted with aspen, pine, cottonwood, and willow. There were bare spots on the mountains in between the trees. These bare spots of rock and dirt were sometimes gray and sometimes red, but always distant and foreboding.

  Late in the afternoon Lightning scared up a rabbit, and it bounded down the trail ahead of him.

  “How about that, Lightning, you just found my supper for me.” He stopped, pulled his rifle from the saddle scabbard, looped his leg around the pommel, raised the rifle to his shoulder, rested his elbow on his knee, and squeezed the trigger. He saw a puff of fur and spray of blood fly up from the rabbit. The rabbit flopped over, then lay perfectly still.

  Falcon made camp under a stand of aspens, started a fire, skinned and cleaned the rabbit, then skewered it on a green willow branch and suspended it over the fire between two forked limbs.

  After his meal, Falcon lay down by the fire and watched while the red sparks rose on a heated column of air. There, the still-glowing red and orange sparks joined the blue and white stars that were scattered across the velvet black of the night sky.

  Falcon had no particular destination in mind, and had no specific reason for leaving the last town. Nor did he have any reason for traveling around as he did. He owned a ranch, but it was being efficiently run by his foreman and cowhands. He was part owner of the MacCallister Stagecoach Line, but it was also being run by a manager. He had a producing gold mine, again, being managed by trusted associates. He had enough money to spend the rest of his days in a big mansion, tended to hand and foot by house servants if he wanted to.

  But he didn’t want to. Perhaps if his wife and children were still alive, he could be content in such an environment. But they weren’t alive, and, as his brother Jamie Ian once pointed out, Falcon had an even worse case of wanderlust than had their father. He, too, had wandered around a great deal, but eventually he settled down.

  “Are you ever going to settle down, Falcon?” his sister, Kathleen, asked.

  “Probably not,” Falcon replied, and she didn’t question him. It was exactly the answer she expected to hear.

  The country was beautiful, with unbroken grassland leading to the valley of the Yellowstone River, the mountain ranges making up the Bitterroot to the left, the Big Belt just ahead, as Johnny McVey drove the herd of five thousand north. He had brought the herd all the way up from Texas, supervising a crew of thirty cowboys. They had crossed the Yellowstone and were now following the Gallatin up into Montana.

  Johnny had trained a guide bull, which he named Oscar. Oscar made the drive unbelievably easy. When cows strayed, his bawl and his bell brought them back. At night the cowboys muffled the bell and tethered the bull with the horses, feeding him corn from a skillet. The next morning, no matter what time they started, when the cows heard the bell they fell in behind their leader.

  On the ninety-third day of the drive the herd reached the Powder River Basin, and Johnny was struck by the majesty of what he saw, not only the mountains, but the limitless prairie. There was buffalo grass, bluestem, slough grass, bunchgrass—miles and miles of it—and in some places it was as high as his horse’s knees.

  About midmorning, Johnny looked up to see several riders riding hard toward him.

  “Hank,” he called to one of his trail hands, “I don’t know who these men are, but tell the boys to be ready for them.”

  “You think maybe they’re rustlers?” Will asked.

  Johnny pulled his pistol and checked the chambers to see that it was loaded.

  “I don’t know, but I’ve come this far, and I’m not taking any chances.”

  Because of the clear air, distances were foreshortened, and it was several minutes before the men were close enough to make them out individually. The man in the middle leading the others sat tall in his saddle. Johnny recognized him as Colonel Hamilton, but it was the rider next to him who caught his attention. At first he thought it was another cowboy. The rider was certainly dressed that way. But as they drew closer, Johnny saw that it was a young woman.

  “It’s all right, boys,” he called to the others. “That’s Colonel Hamilton.”

  Johnny urged his horse into a ground-eating lope, closing the distance between them. And Edward and Mary Kate, who was riding beside him, seeing Johnny coming toward them, galloped ahead of the others. They met in the middle.

  “You’re here! I didn’t expect you for another two weeks, but one of my men told me he saw a herd moving this way and I knew it had to be you,” Edward said, holding out his hand to clasp Johnny’s. “Welcome to Brimstone Ranch.”

  “It’s good to be here,” Johnny replied, though he had not taken his eyes off Mary Kate, nor had she taken her eyes off him.

  “Where are my manners?” Edward asked. “Mr. McVey, this is my daughter, Mary Kate.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Johnny said, tipping his hat.

  “And you,” Mary Kate replied with a broad smile.

  “Any trouble on the drive, Johnny?”

  “No. It’s been tiring for the men and the livestock, but we didn’t have any real trouble.”

  “I’m running twenty-five thousand head now,” Edward said. “But everyone I’ve talked to told me I needed to get some Texas beef up here to mix with my herd, so that’s what I did. And my men will help drive them the rest of the way.”

  “How much farther is it?”

  “You’re almost there. Only a few more miles.” Edward pointed to a hill just behind him. “Once you crest that rise, you’ll be able to see Denbigh Castle.”

  “Denbigh Castle?”

  Edward laughed. “Well, it isn’t really Denbigh Castle. Denbigh Castle is back in England. But I got the plans and gave them to my builders here, so it is close as you can get to Denbigh Castle without being the actual building.”

  A few minutes later, Johnny, Edward, and Mary Kate were at the crest of the hill, and some few miles in the distance, Johnny saw the house. He had never actually seen a castle before, but anytime he had ever imagined one, it looked just like this.

  Almost one thousand miles south of Denbigh Castle, Falcon MacCallister was just riding into a small town, and he checked the sign to see where he was.

  WELCOME TO

  MEEKER

  Town of Friendly People

  Falcon was impressed by the bustling activity of the small town. It was alive with commerce; from freight wagons lumbering down the street, to carpenters erecting a new building, to a store clerk who was sweeping the front porch of his place of employment. A black dog was curled up on the corner of the porch. The store clerk swept around him.

  On either side of the street, well-maintained and clean boardwalks ran from one end of the town to the other. At a few places, there were planks stretched all the way across the road so that pedestrians could cross from one side of the street to the other without having to walk in the dirt or mud. Just ahead, Falcon saw a young woman and a small girl crossing, so he slowed the pace of Lightning to let them cross safely before he reached the plank.

  When the woman and girl had successfully negotiated the street, Falcon clucked at his horse, and it stepped up the pace, heading toward the livery, a little farther down.

  Then, quite unexpectedly, Falcon heard several gunshots from the other end of the street. Looking back toward the sound, he saw three men backing out of a building. A sign identified the building as the Bank of Meeker.

  The three men backed out to a fourth man who was holding the reins to three more horses.

  “Off the street! Everyone off the street! We’re comin’ out shootin’!” one of the men shouted, and he fired a couple of shots down through the middle of the street. With shouts and screams, the people who were on the street when the shooting started scattered.

  The three robbers climbed quickly into the saddles. Mounted n
ow, they started shooting up the town as they began their getaway, galloping in Falcon’s direction.

  “Halt!” a man shouted, stepping off the boardwalk and pointing a gun toward the four men.

  The four riders fired at him, and the brave young man who attempted to stop them went down, twisting around as he fell. Falcon saw the sun flash off a badge on his vest.

  Most of the townspeople had cleared out of the way, but looking across the street, Falcon saw the young girl who had been with the woman who crossed the planking just a moment earlier. Whether curious, or confused, Falcon didn’t know, but the little girl had wandered out into the street.

  “Rebecca! No! Come back here!” the little girl’s mother shouted.

  The window of the shop right behind the mother shattered as a bullet hit it, and great shards of glass came crashing down onto the boardwalk around her.

  The woman screamed, but again, she called out to her daughter. “Rebecca, come back!”

  Urging Lightning into a gallop, Falcon raced toward the little girl, bent down from the saddle, and scooped her up. Frightened, the little girl began crying, and Falcon galloped back over to the little girl’s mother, dismounted, and handed the child to her.

  “Keep her with you. Go back inside, now!” he shouted.

  Falcon’s immediate goal was to get the child and her mother to safety, but now he found himself in the path of the robbers’ escape route.

  Turning toward the robbers, he saw they were rapidly closing the distance between them and him. He didn’t need to see the muzzle flashes and puffs of smoke to know that they were shooting. He could hear the bullets whizzing by his head so close that they were no longer zinging, now they were actually popping.

  Raising his pistol, Falcon fired at one who was closest to him. He saw a puff of dust and a mist of blood fly up from the impact of the bullet. Then, even as that robber was tumbling from his saddle, Falcon aimed at the next nearest one, firing a second time. Again he hit his target, and this one fell to join the other in the middle of the street.