“In a pig’s eye I’ll go back,” Megan said.
“Ahh, he was just teasing you,” Falcon said. “We’ll water the horses and find out if they’ve seen anything.”
When they arrived and tied their horses off at the hitching rail, they could hear the cow bawling in the barn.
“Damn, I wonder why they haven’t milked the cow yet?” Falcon said. “That cow sounds awful anxious.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello the house! Anyone home?”
“Falcon, there’s something wrong here,” Matthew said. “I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, it is a little strange,” Falcon said.
“Let me know what you find out,” Megan said as she started toward the privy. “And tell them for crying out loud to milk their damn cow. It’s cruel to let it go this late.”
The cow bawled again, and Falcon looked toward the barn. “I don’t know who lives here,” he said. “But it looks like they keep the place up really well. And anyone who keeps a place up this well wouldn’t let a cow go this long without being milked.” He started toward the back.
“Where are you going?” Edward asked.
“Something’s not right, here. I’m going to have a look around.” Falcon pulled his pistol as he started toward the barn. When he got to the back of the house he heard the sound of a hundred or more buzzing flies. The sound stopped him cold. He had heard buzzing flies before and he knew when they buzzed with this kind of intensity, there was a reason.
Falcon moved slowly toward the barn, then he saw her, lying on the ground just in front of the barn. He ran to her, but she was covered by so many black flies that it almost looked as if she were moving. He put his pistol away and shook his head.
“What have you found?” Edward asked coming up then. “Oh, my,” he said when he saw the woman’s body.
“It takes one evil son of a bitch to do something like this,” Falcon said.
“It does indeed. And to think that monster has my daughter.”
“Falcon, maybe you’d better come over here!” Matthew called alongside the corral fence.
“What is it?”
“Here,” Matthew said, pointing.
Falcon saw a man was lying on his back with at least three bullet holes in him. A hammer was still grasped in one hand, and a little pile of nails lay beside his other hand.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt but that they came through here,” Matthew said. “But why, in God’s name, did they have to kill these people?”
“Resupply,” Edward said.
“What?”
“They have Mary Kate with them. They can’t very well go into a store and obtain provisions right now, so they are having to survive by what they can acquire from the land. I expect that if we examine the larder we will find their stores depleted.”
Morgan went into the pantry, then came back a moment later.
“There’s flour and cornmeal scattered all over the floor in there,” he said. “The coffee bin is empty.”
“I expect their smokehouse has been raided as well,” Matthew said.
“What are we going to do, now?” Megan asked.
“We’re going to bury them,” Falcon said.
“Just like that?” Edward asked. “Don’t you think we should notify the authorities?”
“Why?” Falcon asked. “They would still be dead, and we know who did it. We can’t just leave them here. Megan, you milk the cow. Morgan, you and Matthew see if you can find something to use as a shroud for them. If necessary, we’ll wrap them up together. I’ll start digging.”
“I’ll help,” Edward said.
They found a couple of spades in the barn, then Falcon pointed to a tree. “I expect that would be a good place to bury them,” he said. As they got closer they saw a small grave marker. “It looks like it’s been used before,” Falcon said.
LYMON BYRD
infant son of
CLYDE and EMMA BYRD
“At least we know who they are, now,” Falcon said as he turned the first spade full of dirt.
Matthew found some boards and a saw in the barn and he made two grave markers, rounding off the top and making a point at the bottom so they could be driven into the ground. He painted their names on the markers, then took them out to where Falcon and Edward were digging.
It took about an hour to dig both graves with Matthew and Morgan spelling them. Both Clyde and Emma Byrd were wrapped in individual shrouds and lying alongside the open graves.
“Shouldn’t we say something before we just dump them in?” Morgan asked.
“I’ve buried soldiers with an Anglican prayer,” Edward said. “It’s very short; I can say it if you’d like.”
“All right,” Falcon said.
The others bowed their heads as Edward intoned the prayer. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after skin worms destroy these bodies, yet in their flesh shall they see God. Amen.”
“Amen,” the others said.
“All right, we’ve done all we can do here,” Falcon said. “I think we had better get started. I don’t want them to get too far ahead of us.”
It was late afternoon when they approached the little town. From this perspective, and at this distance, the settlement looked little more inviting than any other group of the brown hummocks and hills they had encountered for most of the day. They stopped on a ridge and looked down at the town as Falcon removed his canteen from the saddle pommel. He took a swallow, recorked the canteen, then put it back.
“What do you think?” Morgan asked. “You think they’re there?”
“They could be. This looks like it’s far enough out of the way that the people in the town may not have heard of them. And even if they aren’t there, it seems unlikely that the kind of men he’s got riding with him are going to pass up a chance to stop at a saloon.”
“So you think we should go down?” Edward asked.
“Yeah, I do.” Slapping his legs against the side of his horse, Falcon headed the animal down the long slope of the ridge, wondering what town this was.
A small sign just on the edge of town answered the question for him.
LINCOLN
Population 246
If You Lived Here,
You Would Be Home Now!
The weathered board and faded letters of the sign indicated that it had been there for some time, the funny little saying perhaps put there when there was still some hope and pride in the town. The truth is, Falcon doubted that there were 246 residents in the town today, or that there were even half that many.
In addition to the false-fronted shanties that lined each side of the street, there were a few sod buildings, and even some tents, straggling along for maybe one hundred yards or so. Then, just as abruptly as the town started, it quit, and the prairie began again.
Falcon had an affinity for such towns; he had been in hundreds of them over the last several years. He knew that in the spring the street would be a muddy mire, worked by the horses’ hooves and mixed with their droppings to become a stinking, sucking, pool of ooze. In the winter it would be frozen solid. It was summer now, and the road was baked as hard as rock.
The buildings were weather-beaten and some were barely standing. The painted signs on front of the buildings were mostly faded and hard to read. A couple of men were pitching horseshoes in a pit right next to the blacksmith shop. In front of the apothecary two men with white hair and white beards were sitting in chairs that were tipped back against the wall. They looked over the five riders who came into town, but, it seemed to Falcon, with very little curiosity.
“There’s a café there,” Falcon said, pointing to a building that said: THE BULLDOG CAFÉ. Morgan, why don’t you and Matthew take Megan in there and have dinner?”
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Megan asked.
“I will if the saloon has food. I’m going to see what I can find out.”
“We’ll all go,” Matthew
suggested.
“No,” Falcon replied. “First of all, we’re not taking Megan into a saloon. And secondly, how will we find out anything if all of us barge in there? Edward, I do want you to come with me, though.”
“Why him and not me?” Matthew asked.
“If any of Ackerman’s men are in the saloon, Edward might recognize them,” Falcon said. “I doubt that you would.”
“He is right, Matthew,” Morgan said. “Falcon, are we going to spend the night here?”
“We may as well.”
“Then I’ll get us some rooms at the hotel.”
“Good idea.”
Although the town was quite small, it had three saloons. Marvin Boyle and Les Waters were in the Ace High Saloon, Ackerman having sent two of his men into town to have a look around.
Because the money under the water tank had been in cash, Ackerman had already given the men their share, which came to eighty dollars apiece. Boyle and Waters had eaten a meal in the café and were now enjoying a whiskey.
“We’re supposed to be lookin’ around town,” Waters said.
Boyle laughed. “We are lookin’ around,” he said. “I’m lookin’ at that woman, and I’m lookin’ at that woman, and I’m lookin’ at that one.” He pointed to each woman in turn.
“Hey, what do you say we get us a woman while we’re here?” Waters suggested. “The major don’t need to know.”
“Yeah, good idea,” Boyle said. “But before we do, let’s check out the other saloons first, see which one has the best-lookin’ whores. I’ll go over to the Red Bull while you check out the Silver Bell. We’ll meet back here, then decide where to go.”
“What if what me ’n you think is good lookin’ is different?” Waters asked.
“You think that little ole’ gal we got with us is good lookin’?” Boyle asked.
“I don’t think about it one way or another. Not with what the major’s sayin’ about we can’t touch her ’n all.”
“Yeah, but, do you think she’s good lookin’?”
“Well, yeah, she’s good lookin’. But I’m tellin’ you right now we ain’t goin’ to find nobody that looks like her in no saloon.”
“No, we ain’t, and that ain’t the point. But you said what if we think good lookin’ is different. To me, this proves that we both will think the same thing.”
“Yeah,” Waters said with a giggle. “Yeah, you’re right. Oh . . . and don’t forget, we got enough money to buy us the best-lookin’ whore we can find.”
“All right, let’s go find us one,” Boyle said. The two men left the Ace High.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Boyle and Waters were making their plans over at the Ace High, Falcon and Edward were dismounting in front of the Red Bull Saloon.
“I’m going in first,” Falcon said. “You wait just outside the door until I call you.”
“Why?”
“Because, over the years I’ve developed a way of entering saloons that seems to work for me,” Falcon said without any further explanation.
Falcon pushed open the batwing doors and went inside. As always when he entered a strange saloon, he checked the place out. To one unfamiliar with what he was doing, his glance appeared to be little more than idle curiosity. But it was a studied surveillance. Who was armed? What type guns were they carrying? How were they wearing them? Was there anyone here he knew? More important, was there anyone here who would know him, and who might take this opportunity to settle some old score, real or imagined, for himself or a friend? He was pretty sure that, this far from his normal territory, and especially in a town this small and this remote, he wasn’t likely to see anyone. But it was always better to be cautious.
It appeared that the only ones in the saloon were people of the town and the nearby cowboys. Only a couple of them were armed, and it looked as if they were wearing their pistols only as an afterthought. Falcon doubted they had ever done anything with them except, perhaps, plunk away at a few snakes. The bartender stood on the other side of the bar managing his guests by pouring a drink here, refilling a beer mug there, doing so with all the dexterity of an orchestra director. Behind him was a glass shelf, filled with bottles, in front of a mirror, the reflection in the mirror doubling the number of bottles.
“All right, Edward, come on in,” Falcon called quietly.
Edward came inside, then the two of them stepped up to the bar.
Seeing them, the bartender moved down toward him. “Whiskey,” Falcon said.
“Would you have Scotch?” Edward asked.
“Old Overholt,” the bartender said.
“Then I’ll have a beer.”
The barman drew a beer for Edward and pulled the cork on a bottle of whiskey for Falcon.
“You two boys are new in town,” the bartender said. It wasn’t a question, it was a declaration.
“We’re not in town,” Falcon said. “We’re just passing through.”
Edward raised his beer to take a drink, then he paused. “Falcon,” he said quietly. “The man just coming in, standing at the door.”
“You know him?”
“Yes. That’s Private Marvin Boyle. Or at least, it was Private Marvin Boyle. He is one of the three men I charged with murder. I’m sure he is with Ackerman.”
“Pull your hat down and don’t look around,” Falcon said.
But Falcon’s suggestion was too late. Boyle had seen and recognized Edward.
“You son of bitch!” Boyle shouted. He pointed toward the bar. “Turn around!”
Falcon turned toward Boyle. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Stay out of this, or I’ll kill you, too,” Boyle said.
“No, we don’t have to . . . ,” Falcon shouted, but his shout did nothing to dissuade Boyle from his intention.
Boyle drew his pistol, and Falcon waited until the last minute before he drew his own. Boyle had his pistol up and aimed when Falcon drew and fired in one, lightning-fast, fluid movement. His bullet caught Boyle in the chest, and Boyle dropped his unfired pistol and clamped his hands over the hole in his chest. He looked down with a quizzical expression on his face as the blood spilled through his fingers.
“Son of a bitch,” he said in surprise. “You’ve kilt me.”
Boyle collapsed to the floor and Falcon stood there for a moment longer, holding the still smoking pistol.
“Do you see anyone else in here that you know?” Falcon asked quietly, as Edward took a quick look around before he responded.
“No,” he said.
“Damn. I didn’t want to kill him. He could have led us back to Ackerman.”
“You obviously had no choice,” Edward replied.
“I think you should go on down to the café and join the others,” Falcon said. “I expect I had better stay here until the town marshal arrives to check up on this.”
“All right,” Edward said. “Will you be coming down as soon as you are finished with the marshal?”
“Yes, I may as well. After this, I don’t expect I’ll be getting much information in here, tonight.”
The marshal and a deputy arrived less than a minute after Edward left. No one had to summon him; the town was so small that the gunshot was heard from one end to the other. He paused for a moment and looked down at the body. Boyle’s gun was still clutched in his hand.
The marshal took off his hat and ran his hand through his thinning hair, then he put it back on and looked up to address everyone who was in the saloon.
“Who did this?”
“I did, Marshal,” Falcon said.
“Why did you shoot him?”
“Hell, Marshal, he didn’t have no . . . ,” the bartender started, but the marshal held his hand out to stop him.
“I asked him, not you.”
“I didn’t want to shoot him,” Falcon said. “I wanted to talk to him. But since he was about to shoot me, I had no choice.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“You don’t know h
im, but you wanted to talk to him. He didn’t want to talk to you, so he tried to shoot you. Is that about it?” the marshal asked cynically.
“Yeah, that’s about it,” Falcon said.
“What’s your name?”
“MacCallister. Falcon MacCallister.”
There were a few gasps from the other customers in the saloon, and the marshal’s eyes opened wide.
“Well, that changes things,” the marshal said. “More ’n likely he was just tryin’ to make a name for himself.”
“I expect that’s it.”
“Wow,” the bartender said. “I’m goin’ to put up a sign that says Falcon MacCallister kilt a man in here! That’ll for sure bring in business.”
Falcon drained the rest of his whiskey, then swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Will you be needing me for anything else, Marshal?”
“No, I don’t reckon I will. I can get all the information I need from these folks, that is, from the ones that seen it.”
“I seen it, Marshal!” someone shouted, and his shout was echoed by several others.
Falcon left the saloon as the witnesses were crowding around the marshal. He walked, quickly, down to Annie’s Café, and when he stepped inside he saw the others sitting around a table in the back of the room. He started toward them, picking up a chair from an empty table so he could join the others.
“We must be very close,” Falcon said. “I’m sure the man I killed was one of Ackerman’s Raiders.”
“I’m absolutely positive he was one of the Raiders,” Edward said. “He was one of the first three people that Ackerman turned out of the guardhouse, shortly after he was cashiered from the service.”
“And that being the case, I don’t think Ackerman would have let him come into town if they weren’t real close by.”
“I think you are right,” Edward said. “What did you tell the marshal when he got there?”
“I didn’t have to tell him much,” Falcon said. “The marshal thinks that I was Boyle’s target.”
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