Jamie swiftly cut the ropes that held the man and then put a finger to his lips. The man nodded in understanding and held up four fingers, cutting his eyes to the main part of the long and low building.
Jamie nodded and moved toward the curtained archway, earing back the hammers on the Greener as he walked. The post owner lay on the floor and smiled through his headache.
Jamie slipped through the curtains and stood for a moment, looking at the four men who were lounging at the table cussing and laughing and drinking whiskey.
Carter Young was the first to spot the big man standing in the shadows of the room, the Greener in his hands. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
“Ah . . . Stone.” He finally found his voice.
“What? Man, you look like you just seen a ghost.”
“I wish I had.”
Nate cut his eyes and said, “Oh, shit!”
“I can take you back to Valley for a trial and a hanging,” Jamie said. “Or we can end it here. Whichever way you boys want it is fine with me.”
As if one mind controlled them all, the four men threw themselves away from the table. Jamie’s shotgun roared the instant he saw the men tense. Manhunting was something that Jamie was an expert at; he’d been doing it successfully for almost fifty years. Carter caught the full load from one barrel, and Jeff took the second one.
Jamie dropped the Greener and hauled iron just as Nate was filling his own hands and cocking the hammers. Jamie shot him twice, then fell into a crouch and disappeared behind the bar just as Stone’s pistols began to bark and snarl. Jamie popped out at the other end of the bar and dusted Stone twice, the slugs turning the man around and dropping him to his knees. Stone snapped off a shot that nicked Jamie’s left shoulder, burning and bringing blood. Jamie leveled his right-hand pistol and drilled Stone in the center of his forehead. Stone stretched out on the floor and did not move.
It was over.
“Hot damn!” the trading post owner yelled from the archway. “I’ve seen some sights in my time, but this one wins the prize. That was some mighty fine shootin’, MacCallister.”
“You can have their personal belongings and their horses and saddles,” Jamie told him. “That’ll help ease that lump on the back of your head some.”
“Damn shore will. Lemme tend to your shoulder furst. Then I’ll drag this trash outta here and drop ’em in a hole. I buried a horse the other day and haven’t had the time to shovel in much dirt. I’ll dump ’em at the south end; that’s where the horse’s ass is.” He gathered up bandages and a basin of hot water from the pot on the stove.
“That one there,” he said, pointing to Stone as he dipped a clean cloth into the hot water, “is the ringleader of this pack of piss-ants. I heard him talkin’ ’bout them women they raped. It was disgustin’.”
Jamie pulled his scalping knife from its sheath and knelt down beside Stone Gibson. The trading post owner watched unemotionally.
Two weeks later, the residents of Valley silently lined the streets and watched as Jamie rode down the main street. They all saw the scalp tied to Sundown’s mane. A young federal marshal stood with Matthew in front of the sheriff’s office. He was relatively new to the West and was still appalled by what he considered to be highly barbaric behavior by some westerners.
He grimaced at the sight of the human hair hanging from the mane of the big horse. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It is,” Matthew told him.
“Who is that rough-looking old man?”
Matthew smiled. “My pa,” he told the young federal marshal. “That, sir, is Jamie Ian MacCallister.”
The federal marshal gulped. “And that, ah, scalp, means he got one of the men who attacked your sister and niece?”
“No, sir,” Falcon said, walking up. “That means he got them all.”
“But acting without authority and certainly without due process,” the federal marshal said.
Falcon laughed at the young man. “Hey, Pa!” he called. “Joleen opened her eyes about two weeks ago. She’s up and doin’ fine.”
Jamie reined up and swung down. He stepped up onto the boardwalk and shook hands with his sons, ignoring the young man with the badge pinned to his suit coat. “Cathy Lou?” he asked.
“She’ll be all right, Pa,” Matthew said. “She just needs a lot of love and care.”
“Those criminals you pursued were wanted by the government for mail robbery and assault on a federal officer, MacCallister,” the young marshal said. “I’ll need a full report from you and I expect it promptly. I also—”
“Shut up,” Jamie told him.
The marshal’s mouth dropped open. “I . . . ah, I beg your pardon?”
“I said shut up. I was speaking to my sons. Not to you. When I’m finished speaking with my family, which is going to take the rest of the day and a good part of the evening, then I’ll get around to you. Meanwhile, just stand aside and be quiet.”
The lawman looked down at the badge pinned to his coat. The badge always seemed to impress most folks east of the Mississippi River. But out here in the West, he’d been told on more than one occasion where to take his badge and stick it. Which would have made walking, sitting, standing, or riding very uncomfortable.
These westerners certainly were an independent lot. And uncommonly blunt, too.
* * *
Jamie was content to stay close to home after his return, at least for a while. He thought occasionally of Logan, Red, Canby, and Rick, and wondered if they’d made it into and out of the Muggyowns with their hair.
In late 1873, Jamie received a message from the war department in Washington, D.C. An expedition into the Black Hills of Dakota was being planned and would Jamie like to be one of the scouts?
Jamie wired back, asking who would lead the expedition.
Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
At first Jamie refused, for he knew Custer from the War Between the States, and did not like the man. Indeed, Jamie considered Custer to be nothing more than a flamboyant fool (an opinion that was shared by many career army men).
Custer had been a general at war’s end, but was then reduced to the rank of captain. That didn’t last long. In less than a year, he had been leap-frogged over more qualified men and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 7th Cavalry, which was being formed up at Fort Riley, Kansas.
Since he had arrived in the West, just after the War Between the States, Custer had been involved in many skirmishes with the Indians . . . not always coming out victorious. And to those who studied such things, and Jamie did, whenever he could get his hands on the manuals, it proved that Custer was a man who possessed a fatal weakness in the area of tactics. And Jamie knew, from long years of experience, that when dealing with Indians, perhaps the greatest guerilla fighters that ever lived, one had damn well better understand tactics.
And Jamie understood that while no one could call Custer a coward, Custer was not always faithful to his men. At the battle of Washita River, it was rumored that Custer left Major Elliot and nineteen of his men to die. While that accusation was never really confirmed, from that day forward, in 1868, Custer never again regained the full loyalty of his officers in the 7th Cavalry.
“Oh, why the hell not go?” Jamie muttered. “I have nothing to hold me here.”
Truth was, he was getting bored.
Jamie saddled up and rode down to the telegraph office and wired the war department he would agree to scout for the Black Hills expedition.
Much to Jamie’s surprise, Lt. Colonel Custer wired him as soon as he heard the news and expressed great delight that the famous commanding officer and guerrilla fighter in the recent unpleasantness was going to join his command.
“What’s this all about, Pa?” Megan asked, during a visit to her father’s cabin on the ridge.
“Gold, honey. That’s the bottom line. The army says it’s going to look for a northern railroad route through Dakota and Montana—and I’m sure they are—but the
bottom line is gold.”
“But Falcon says part of that area is sacred to the Indians.”
“He’s right. Especially the Sioux. And when gold is confirmed in the Black Hills, the miners will come swarming like ants to honey.”
“And? ...”
“There’ll be trouble. I suspect another reason for this expedition is to locate a good spot to build a fort.”
“But don’t we have treaties with the Indians about the Black Hills?” Joleen asked.
Joleen had recovered from her experience and was coping. But not so with her daughter, Cathy Lou. Physically, Cathy was fine, but now she seldom smiled and had become withdrawn, rarely leaving the house without company.
“Sure we have treaties,” Jamie answered. “But progress is not going to be stopped dead in its tracks by a piece of paper. And the Indians have done their share of breaking treaties, too,” he added. He looked at Joleen. “Why didn’t Cathy come up here with you, girl?”
“She’s not feeling well, Pa. Pa?”
“Ummm?”
“We’re thinking of sending her back east. To finish her education at a private girls’ school.”
“And what does she think about that?”
Joleen sighed. “She really wants to go. She says she hates the West.”
Jamie knew all about that, for Cathy had talked to her grandpa at length. “Then send her. Finances are no problem. The family has money a-plenty.”
“That’s not it, Pa. You know as well as us that if we do that, she might never come back.”
Megan brought the coffeepot from the kitchen, and Jamie held out his cup for her to refill it with hot coffee. When Jamie was home, his family doted on him—male and female alike.
“Or she might realize that what happened to her could just as easily happen back east. It’s her life, girl. She’s reached the age where we can’t live it for her.”
Joleen nodded her head. “When do you leave, Pa?”
“In the spring.”
“Then we have plenty of time. We’ll talk more about it ’fore you go.”
Megan had hung out Jamie’s good black suit to air and was now heating the irons to press it. There were some big doings tomorrow: Ben F. Washington and Lola were to be married.
Jamie’s birthday had passed; he was either sixty-three or sixty-four years old. He thought he’d been born in 1810, but he just wasn’t certain about the date.
But he knew he’d lived a good long time. And he also knew that his age was quickly catching up with him. The past winter had been especially hard on him, his joints occasionally aching something fierce on bitterly cold mornings.
But he could still ride with the best of them and was still uncommonly strong. He had trouble reading anything up close without his glasses, but at a distance, his eyes were as good as any man’s. Jamie figured he had two or three good years left in him before he’d have to really put on the brakes and think about staying close to the hearth.
He was going to make the best of those years.
“What are you thinking, Pa?” Joleen broke into his thoughts.
Jamie smiled at her. “Oh, nothing of any importance.”
After his kids had left, and the cabin was silent, Jamie sat for a time, looking at the pictures of Kate on the mantel and on tables around the large room. “I got me a hunch, Kate. I got me a feeling that I’m gonna be seeing you ’fore too much longer. Custer is a fool, honey. And I may be a bigger fool for riding with him. I guess we’ll just have to see.”
Jamie stepped outside to stand on the porch. He looked up into the impossible blue of the Colorado sky. High above, an eagle soared and screamed.
29
Sundown was rarin’ to hit the trail when Jamie threw a saddle on him and led him around to the front of the cabin. He was to link up with Custer and his men at Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakotas, on the west bank of the Missouri River and just north of the Cannonball River.
Jamie stood for a moment, looking down at Kate’s grave on the ridge below him. “You rest easy, old woman,” he muttered. “I’ll be back, I promise you that.” He turned away and swung into the saddle.
Jamie rode down the mountain, packhorse trailing, and then up part of the main street of town. He returned the dozens of waves from friends and relatives (mostly relatives), and then was out of Valley and riding north. The day was uncommonly warm for this time of year, and Jamie felt the years being blown away from him.
This was his destiny. This was his way of life. He was no more cut out for a rocking chair than an eagle was to be confined in a cage. Jamie did not want to die in a bed, with long-faced family members hovering about. This was where he should fight the final fight, out under Man Above’s skies.
Only one thing wrong with that: he wanted his bones to lie beside Kate.
A small detail he’d have to ruminate on some.
* * *
“Colonel MacCallister,” Custer said, rising from his chair and extending his hand in greeting. “How good of you to join us. What a grand adventure awaits us in the Black Hills.”
Jamie smiled and took the offered hand.
“We’ll have at least three newspaper correspondents accompanying us,” Custer rambled on. “And several prospectors, too.”
Jamie’s expression did not change at the news of the prospectors, but silently he congratulated himself for being right about the true objective behind the expedition. He would probably never know the entire truth of the matter, but he had figured all along that certain members of congress and some money and land speculators had gambled that if Custer could find gold, the miners would swarm in by the thousands and not leave. They would force the Indians to attack, and the army would then be sent in to put down the rebellion. The Indians would then be accused of breaking the treaty, and could be rounded up and put on reservations. More country would be opened up for pioneers, and the Indians would be put in their place where they could cause no more problems.
Very neat, Jamie thought. Not very ethical, but very neat.
Later that evening, alone in his quarters, Jamie amended his thinking somewhat. He was in sympathy with the Indians, but he also realized that civilization and progress went hand in hand, and many, if not most, of the Plains Indians simply would not accept the white man’s way. They were hunters and warriors, not farmers and shopkeepers, ranchers and cowboys and laborers. They were nomadic, not settlers. And they would stubbornly hold on until the end. Jamie also knew that for many, the end was not that far away. For some, it was over.
Out in California, the warring Modoc tribe was forced into surrender, and four of their leaders, including the main leader, Captain Jack, were hanged at Fort Klamath in October of ’73.
Out in Nevada, the richest strike to date in the history of mining had occurred just a few months back, and the miners and prospectors were pouring across the land to get to Virginia City. A vein of ore, both gold and silver, had been discovered that was some fifty-five feet wide.
Also a few months back, silver was dropped as a coin, and gold was made the sole monetary standard. Many called the action the “crime of 1873.”
And Jesse and Frank James held up their first train in 1873, killing an engineer and several passengers.
* * *
Just the column itself was impressive. One hundred and ten wagons accompanied the 7th Cavalry as they pushed off from Fort Abraham Lincoln in early summer, 1874, heading for the Black Hills, the most rugged and remote part of the Sioux reservation, located in the western Dakotas.
Custer was a happy man: he was back in the field again, and he did cut a resplendent figure, dressed in his buckskins, the sun shining off his long yellow hair. George Armstrong Custer sat a horse well . . . although that was about the only thing he did well. He was unaware up to his death that a few years before, General Sherman had written to a friend, “George A. Custer appears to not have much sense.”
The band was playing gaily as the 7th moved out that day, with Custer sure they wer
e heading for fame and glory. His wife, the lovely Libbie, waved her hankie at her man, and Custer’s pets howled and barked and whined and carried on. The couple had no children, but Custer did have his pets. Lord, did he have pets! He had a tame mouse and a not so tame wolf. He had a raccoon and an opossum and forty dogs. And a pelican he had captured on the Arkansas River. Custer would, on occasion, carry the mouse in his long, flowing hair (it was sometimes quite a shock to visiting guests to see the mouse running around George’s head, occasionally peeking out through the flowing locks). History did not record whatever happened to the mouse, the wolf, the raccoon, and the opossum . . . or to the Cheyenne girl (captured after the battle of Washita) that Custer reportedly kept as his mistress.
Jamie was amused by all the hoopla as the long column snaked its way out of the fort and headed west. Custer was certain his 7th Cavalry would encounter many hostiles during this expedition and return with souvenirs of glorious victories. But Jamie knew something that Custer did not: the tribes that occupied the area around the Black Hills were gone; they were in Montana for their annual summer’s reunion.
Jamie kept that information to himself, not wanting to put a damper on Custer’s euphoric mood. When George was in a good mood, he was an amusing and charming fellow. When he was in a bad mood, he became petty, demanding, red-faced and sullen . . . and he stuttered.
Despite all that, George Armstrong Custer was a man of undeniable courage; he would, without argument, charge through the gates of hell in pursuit of an enemy.
He just didn’t have any common sense.
Jamie scouted far ahead of the long column, choosing the best places to camp for the night and the best places to ford the rivers.
As always, on this expedition George would suddenly leave the column to go hunting by himself. But George had a lousy sense of direction and never strayed too far from the main column. Not since several years back when he had galloped off to go buffalo hunting, but instead of shooting the buffalo he’d found, he accidentally shot his horse in the head, killing the animal instantly. Miles from the column, in the middle of hostile Indian country, he was lost. He finally followed his dogs back to the column. Since that episode, George had become much more careful about straying too far from the dust of his soldiers.
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