“Is there a doctor in this town?” Jamie asked, looking down at the badly wounded Asa Pike.
“Are you jokin’, mister? There ain’t fifty people left in this dump, and I’m gettin’ out first warm spell. ’Sides, what do you care about Asa? He tried to kill you.”
“I don’t care about him. I was just curious. He took one in the side and might make it with proper care. Of course,” Jamie said reflectively, “if he does, I’ll probably have to shoot him again some day.”
“You ain’t gonna live that much longer, MacCallister,” Asa groaned out the words. “My kin will be on your trail hard. You’ll never shake them loose.”
“Somebody hired you to kill me,” Jamie said, staring down at the man. “Who was it?”
“Go to hell!” Asa said.
But Jamie already had a good idea: relatives of the Saxons, the Newbys, the Olmsteads, and others. That blood feud had been going on for nearly five decades.
Jamie reached down and took Asa’s pistols from leather and handed them to a man standing close. “Keep these until I’m out of here. Then if Asa’s still alive, return them to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be alive, you bastard,” Asa promised. “And I’m comin’ after you.”
“You know what?” a man mused. “I just thought of something. Tomorrow’s Christmas.”
* * *
Falcon returned to Valley, gathered all his brothers and sisters around him and told them about James William and Page. Ben F. Washington took the train back to Boston before the Jones brothers could move against him. But Ben had made up his mind to return to Colorado in the early spring. He was going to travel over to Valley and begin his book there. Ben was a good reporter with a genuine talent for writing, and he was slowly coming to his senses about his sister, and feeling ashamed of himself.
Jamie rode into Denver one cold day in early 1871, and after stabling his horses and making sure they would get the best of care, he headed for the finest hotel in Denver and immediately created quite a stir.
Dressed in buckskins and looking like the wrath of God, Jamie was, at first, refused admittance into the hotel by the doorman.
“Either you get out of my way, or you’re going to be wearing your ankles for a necklace,” Jamie told the man.
The doorman wisely stepped aside.
Jamie stomped through the lobby and up to the registration desk. He was still a handsome man, and in better physical shape than most men thirty years his junior. He turned many a female head on his walk from the street to the desk.
The painter, John A. Bellingham, was staying at the hotel, and he immediately grabbed up a menu and began sketching Jamie on the back of it.
The hotel detective rushed up to see what all the commotion was about and came to a very abrupt halt when he spotted the elder MacCallister. The detective, a man who was western born and reared, quietly turned around and beat it to the kitchen. He had absolutely no desire to tangle with the man the Indians called Man Who Is Not Afraid, Bear Killer, and Man Who Plays With Wolves.
“I want the best room in the place,” Jamie told the desk clerk. “I want a hot bath and a barber, and when that’s done, I want a tailor standing by. You got all that?”
“Yes, sir! And, sir, our finest suites have the bathroom adjoining.”
Jamie stared at him. “You mean, right there close to where you sleep?”
“Yes, sir!”
Jamie shook his head. “I personally find that disgusting, but all right. If that’s the best you’ve got.”
The sheriff of Arapahoe County, Dave Cook, chose that time to enter the hotel to see why such a large crowd had gathered in front of the establishment. Dave was a brave man and an excellent law officer, but he was no fool. When he spotted the bulk of Jamie Ian MacCallister standing at the front desk, Dave simply turned around and walked out of the hotel. No way was he going to tangle with that old mountain lion. Especially since Dave was well aware of Jamie’s manhunt. Dave also knew that if you scratched one MacCallister, about thirty would feel the itch. Just the thought of thirty MacCallisters invading Denver made his blood run cold.
Dave went to his office and told his deputies to leave Jamie alone.6
Jamie lingered long in the huge tub of hot soapy water, until he was sure he’d gotten all the trail dirt from his body and hair. Standing in his long underwear, Jamie allowed the tailor to measure him for several suits and shirts and then had the barber go to work.
Jamie had his beard cut off, leaving only a moustache. While that was being done, he had his suit coat brushed and aired and the wrinkles ironed out. Before he slipped the jacket on, he tied a wide sash around his waist and shoved his pistols into the sash, butts forward for a cross draw should he need it.
Jamie walked down the steps to the lobby, looked things over for a moment, then walked into the dining room. Conversation stopped, the clink of silver ceased, waiters stopped serving, and heads turned as the tall, well-built, handsome, and very erect man was escorted to his table by a very sissy-looking maitre d’. Everything was fine until the fussy little man tried to spread the napkin on Jamie’s lap.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jamie warned him. “I really wouldn’t.”
The effeminate-acting man quickly backed away, bowing and apologizing.
Jamie picked up the menu and frowned. Damn thing was printed in French. Sighing, Jamie folded the menu and waggled a finger at the waiter.
He closed the distance quickly to stand nervously by Jamie’s table. “Sir?”
“I can’t read this damn thing. Bring me a steak, a large one, rare, and some bread and whatever else you have.”
“Some veggies, sir?”
Jamie looked at the man. “What the hell is that?”
“Vegetables, sir.”
“Oh, yeah. Some of those. Whatever you have. And bring me a drink of whiskey, too.”
“Right away, sir.”
Conversation resumed in the restaurant after that, but it was somewhat subdued. Jamie was conscious of eyes furtively shifting his way all during the meal, but he was used to that. He’d been a living legend for most of his life and understood that many people were fascinated by that type of person.
The diners respectfully waited until Jamie had finished his meal before they began approaching him for his autograph. He obliged them graciously, but was glad when the last one had come and gone.
Jamie had a brandy, then decided to step outside for a leisurely stroll and a cigar.
He stood in front of the hotel for a few moments, then lit his cigar and started his stroll, speaking to the passersby as they spoke to him, doffing his hat to the ladies and politely ignoring the batting of eyes and swishing of bustles as they flirted with him.
That amused him. Here I am, Jamie thought, a sixty-year-old man and ladies half my age, and less, are openly and brazenly flirting with me. Incredible. What is this world coming to?
He hadn’t gone two blocks before a wild, cursing shout scattered the strollers and spun Jamie around. A man stood in the middle of the street, his coat swept back, giving him easy access to his guns. All traffic had stopped.
“MacCallister! Hook and draw, ’cause tonight you die, you bastard!”
10
Jamie held up his left hand to caution the man, his right hand hovering over the butt of his Colt. “There are innocent people on the streets. Let them get clear. Let’s don’t have a lot of blood spilled here needlessly.”
“To hell with them!” the man shouted in a hoarse voice. “I’ll kill twenty of them just to get to you.”
“I don’t know you, mister,” Jamie said, stalling for time as the pedestrians began scattering out of the line of fire. “Who are you?”
“The man who’s gonna kill you and become famous, that’s who I am.”
“Have I ever done you a harm?”
“That don’t make no never mind.”
“What’s your name?”
“Boots Lowery. Enough talk,
MacCallister.”
“You really don’t want to do this, Boots. It isn’t worth it. Whatever you’re getting paid, it isn’t worth dying over.”
“Old man, I think you’re a damned coward!” Boots hollered. “I don’t think you got no sand no more. I think you’re yellow. Now, draw, goddamn you!”
“After you, Boots,” Jamie called. “It’s your play.”
Boots was fast, and he did clear leather first, but as so often happens, he missed his first shot, the bullet whining off the bricks of a building.
Jamie had turned sideways, to present a smaller target, and his shot was true. The bullet struck Boots in the center of his chest. The man lowered his gun arm as his fingers suddenly turned numb, his pistol clattering to the street. He looked down at the bloody shirt front, then lifted his head to stare at Jamie.
“You’ve killed me!” he whispered. “This ain’t the way it’s ’posed to be.”
“But that’s the way it is, kid,” Jamie said. “You wanted to dance, now pay the band.”
Boots tried several times to pull his left-hand gun. His fingers fumbled at the butt until he finally got it clear of leather. He tried to cock the weapon but could not. The pistol slipped from his fingers, and Boots sat down hard in the middle of the street. He finally toppled over on one side.
Jamie walked over to him and looked down. “Who paid you to try this, boy?”
“Go to hell, MacCallister,” Boots whispered the words.
Several police officers arrived, one of them saying, “I’ll take that pistol, mister.”
Jamie looked at him and smiled, then stuck the hogleg back behind his sash. He turned and walked away just as the first few bits of snow began falling. The gathered crowd parted silently, to give him room.
“They’ll get you, MacCallister!” Boots managed to shout the words through his pain. “Your life ain’t worth a cup of spit.”
Jamie kept walking.
“Sir!” another policeman called. “You can’t just walk off. You shot this man!”
“The man in the street shot first,” a citizen told the policeman.
“But I have to make a written report,” the policeman protested. “Stop, sir. Or I’ll be forced to place you under arrest.”
Jamie stopped and turned around. “All right. Then just write down in your pad that Boots Lowery missed and Jamie Ian MacCallister didn’t.” Jamie turned and continued his walk up the street.
The policeman put away his pencil and pad. “Oh, to hell with it,” he muttered. Then the name registered. “Jamie Ian MacCallister!” he hollered, his voice registering his shock.
Jamie turned the corner and disappeared into the cold night.
“Mama!” Boots Lowery said weakly. “It hurts, mama!”
A doctor pushed his way through the crowd, knelt down beside Boots, and opened the man’s coat and shirt. He inspected the wound. A moment later he looked up at the police and shook his head. “Better call the undertaker for this one. It won’t be long.”
Boots started hollering.
“Lay still,” the doctor told him. “And make your peace with God.”
“MacCallister!” Boots squalled. “This ain’t right. You’re an old man. I’m young.” He coughed up blood. “It’s ’posed to be you here in the street.”
“Well, it isn’t,” the doctor said, standing up. He looked down at the young man. “You actually tried to kill Colonel MacCallisters?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn fool!”
“He got lucky, that’s all,” Boots gasped, the words no more than a whisper. He closed his eyes for the last time.
“Maybe so,” a policeman said, looking down at the body. “But you’re still dead.”
* * *
“Pa’s in Denver,” Morgan said, stepping into his sister’s house, waving the week-old newspaper. “He killed a man on a downtown street.”
Matthew was somewhere out in the county, chasing down a horse thief.
“Then he might be coming home for a time,” Little Ben Pardee said. He and his wife, Kathy, Ellen Kathleen’s daughter, were over for a visit.
“I doubt it,” Morgan said. “Told me ’fore he left he’d rather not look again on Ma’s grave until she was fully avenged.” He held up the newspaper. “According to this, the man who braced Pa was a paid assassin.”
“Those damn Saxons and Newbys and Olmsteads again,” Joleen said, laying aside her sewing.
With the exception of Ben Pardee, everyone in the large room was blond-haired and blue-eyed. Ben said, “Hard to believe the colonel’s been gone near’bouts a year and a half. I wonder when he’ll come back.”
“When it’s done,” Megan said.
* * *
Jamie stood at the bar, one boot on the railing. He was dressed to the nines, wearing a new tailor-made dark suit, sparkling white shirt with string tie, and a new dark hat with a silver band. His boots were polished to a high shine. He wore both Colts in leather, low and tied down. He was clean-shaven now, except for a neatly trimmed moustache. His hair was trimmed short. Jamie stood alone at the bar, at the far end, facing the front door and batwings.
The bar was one of many located on Holladay Street, a four-block area known as the “Street of a Thousand Sinners.” The four blocks were filled with saloons, whorehouses, and gambling houses. It was said that those four blocks contained more wickedness than any other four blocks west of the Mississippi River.
Any outlaw who hit town immediately gravitated to Holladay Street.
Jamie waited at the bar. He’d heard that three of Miles Nelson’s gang were in town, and knew that sooner or later, they’d surface, and he would be waiting and ready.
There were outlaws in the saloon, but Jamie left them alone. They were not the ones he sought.
Jamie sipped his drink and waited.
A man dressed in rough and stained clothing left a table and walked to Jamie’s side, placing his mug of beer on the bar. He was very careful to keep his hands away from his guns. “I ain’t never done you a harm, Mr. MacCallister,” he spoke in low tones. “And I ain’t never been in Valley, Colorado, nor anywhere’s close to it. I’ve rid the hoot-owl trail more’un once, but I ain’t never harmed no woman nor child. And I can’t abide a man who would. The three you’re lookin’ for is up to Belle’s House of Pleasure. Soon as they get done with the Doves, they’ll be here. Son Hogg, Jim Aarons, and Glen Anderson. Nice talkin’ to you, and I’m gone.”
Jamie nodded his head in acknowledgement. The outlaw downed his beer, set the mug on the bar, and walked out.
Those seated at tables close to the long bar began seeking other places to sit, getting out of the line of fire. Obviously, the outlaw who had warned Jamie was known to many of them, and they probably had discussed it among themselves.
Jamie waited with the patience of a born hunter.
* * *
In Boston, the editor of the paper accepted Ben F. Washington’s letter of resignation with a great deal of reluctance. Not only was Ben a fine reporter, but he was a friend of the family.
“Not to worry,” Ben assured the man. “I have money. I’ve got to go back to the West. I have to resolve this personal issue.”
The editor leaned back in his chair. “I think you’re underestimating this Falcon MacCallister, Ben. He’s a known gunfighter and a bad man to fool with. If he says he’ll kill you, I believe he means to do just that. Ben . . . let sleeping dogs lie. What you plan to do is pure vindictiveness . . . it won’t help you. And it’s so unlike you.”
Ben sat down and looked at his boss and friend. “It was vindictiveness, at first. I will readily admit that. And as Falcon pointed out, jealousy. But since I’ve been back east, I’ve had a chance to think things through and realize how silly and petty I’ve been about this matter.” He shook his head. “I really behaved as a fool. Oh, hell, Frank! I’m not going to write a book that would ruin my sister’s life. Our parents won’t even be in the book. I want to write a book about Jamie Ian M
acCallister. Not a Penny Dreadful. But a real book about the man, factual. Jamie Ian and Kate. They’re both legends, Frank. Real legends. And somebody needs to chronicle their lives. But Frank, my sister needs to be told of her background. If she becomes pregnant and gives birth to some nappy headed breed . . . that would destroy Page and her husband.”
The older man nodded his agreement. “But do you have the right to do it, Ben?”
“Since I’ve come to my senses, I’ve been giving that considerable thought. I don’t really know what to do about the situation. Well, that’s not correct. I know what to do. I just don’t know how to go about it.”
“Ben, I’m going to put this resignation in my personal safe. No one else will know about it. In the meantime, I want you to continue working for us. Send in a story every now and then. When your manuscript is ready, I can get your book published. What do you say?”
Ben smiled and reached across the desk, hand extended. “I accept.”
“Good, good. When are you planning on leaving?”
“In the morning.”
“Going back to Denver?”
“For a time. Then I plan on taking the stage for Valley.”
The editor smiled. “Going to jump right into the thick of things, huh?”
Ben returned the smile. “That’s the only way, Frank.”
* * *
The men met in a hotel suite in Washington, D.C. They were the sons and grandsons and cousins of the Newbys, the Olmsteads, the Saxons, the Layfields, and the Bradfords. And they all, for various reasons, hated Jamie Ian MacCallister. Some of them hated him because their fathers had hated Jamie. That was the sadness of a long-running blood feud: the reasons for the hatred obscured in the mist and shadows of time.
“Now is the perfect time for us to rid ourselves of Jamie Ian MacCallister,” a Newby said. “That bastard has bounty hunters all over the West looking for him. A few more men, on our payrolls, won’t even be noticed in the hunt.”
“Take him alive and torture him,” a relative of Kate said. “It’s common knowledge he’s got gold hidden all over the mountains around Valley. Now that Kate is dead, the gold belongs to the family she deserted down in Kentucky, when she run off with MacCallister back in ’25 or ’26. It’s only right, and I won’t be cheated out of my share.”
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