Falcon, Stumpy, and Wildcat ordered beer. The Snake bunch ordered whiskey, then took their bottles and shot glasses to the tables and sat down. Stumpy and Wildcat positioned themselves at opposite ends of the plank bar. That left Falcon and Lars standing near the center the bar.
Falcon sipped his beer and ignored the young man. Falcon figured it would take at least a couple of shots of Who Hit John for Lars to get his courage worked up.
Several minutes ticked by, with no one saying a word. The Snake men glared at Stumpy and Wildcat. Stumpy and Wildcat grinned back at them and deliberately slurped their beer as loud as possible, followed by loud smacking noises and belches.
“That’s disgusting!” Lars finally said, glaring at Wildcat. “Why don’t you go outside and sit with the hogs?”
“If you don’t like it in here, you can always leave,” Wildcat told him.
Falcon hid his smile. Just as Stumpy and Wildcat had done, Falcon had taken an instant dislike to Lars Gilman, accurately sensing that the young man was spoiled and arrogant and very much accustomed to getting his own way whenever he chose... no matter what the cost.
The Snake riders seated at the tables were edgy, not liking this situation. They were experienced gunhands, and knew if trouble started inside the saloon, neither side would emerge victorious. The two older men at the ends of the long bar had the better positions, for they were standing. And while they would surely go down, before they did they would put a lot of lead into the men seated. The Snake riders had seen right off that the two older men were each wearing two guns: one in leather, the other tucked down behind their gunbelts. The Snake riders also knew how dangerous these older men were, for they were the last of a breed known as mountain men, and there was no back-up in them.
“I guess you think these old men belchin’ and carryin’ on in public is funny,” Lars said, cutting his eyes to Falcon.
“It doesn’t bother me, sonny boy,” Falcon replied, holding his beer mug in his left hand.
Lars tossed back another shot of whiskey and set the glass down with a bang. “Well, it bothers me.”
“I suppose you just might be a little bit more delicate than the rest of us,” Falcon said. “Your sense of propriety’s much more easily bruised.”
Lars turned at the bar to face Falcon. “Huh?”
“That means you a pretty little flower, boy,” Wildcat said. “Maybe a petunia.”
“Now, you just wait a damn minute here!” Lars flared, his face reddening.
“Or maybe he’s a black-eyed Susan,” Stumpy remarked. “Or a pretty little buttercup.”
A couple of the Snake riders ducked their heads and hid their smiles.
“Tell me, Mars,” Falcon said. “You shot any dogs belonging to little boys lately?”
“My name is Lars, damnit! Not Mars!”
“Oh, excuse me. Well, have you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“You’re a liar, Gars,” Falcon said softly. Falcon cut his eyes. Stumpy had left the room and he wondered why.
Lars turned slowly to face Falcon. “No man calls me a liar!” Lars’s face was beet red with anger.
“I just did, sonny boy. You killed Jimmy Bailey’s little dog for no reason. And I’ll tell you what you’re going to do about it.”
“What I’m goin’ to do?”
“That’s right, Jars. What you’re going to do. You’re going to find Jimmy a puppy and bring it over to him and deliver it personally. That’s what you’re going to do.”
“When Hell freezes over!”
“Oh, I think it’s going to be before then.”
Stumpy walked back into the saloon carrying one of the sawed-off shotguns. He took his position at the bar and broke open the Greener, loading up both barrels and snapping it closed. Then he smiled at the Snake riders.
One of the Snake hired guns sighed. A sawed-off shotgun at this range could kill or seriously wound half a dozen men.
Young Lars was on his own for this go-around.
Lars looked at the smiling Stumpy and the very lethal shotgun and turned a little green around the mouth, realizing that any move his men might make on his behalf could well result in their death.
“Don’t you think that would be a nice gesture on your part, Bars?” Falcon asked.
“You go right straight to hell, mister!”
Falcon smiled and took off his gunbelt, laying it on the bar. He faced Lars. “Now then, you spoiled brat. Either tuck your tail between your legs and ride out of here, or stand up on your hind legs and fight.”
Lars knew he had to fight. He had absolutely no choice in the matter. If he didn’t, no matter how much his father paid the men and told them to take orders from his son, they would not follow him. They would lose all respect.
Lars took a closer look at the man facing him. God, he was big, with muscles that bulged his obviously expensive shirt. Lars noticed the man’s boots. Again he got the impression they were very expensive. Who the hell was this Val Mack?
But Lars was no coward. He’d had his share of rough and tumble fistfights, and he was not a little man. He’d worked hard all his life and his shoulders and arms were packed with muscle. He slowly took off his fancy gunbelt and laid the rig on the bar. He was very conscious that the eyes of all his men were on him. He watched as Falcon pulled on a pair of thin black riding gloves he’d taken from a hip pocket of his jeans. Lars wondered about that. He was not yet experienced enough as a fighter to know that a thin leather covering on the fists both protects the hands and enables a person to hit harder.
Lars suddenly lunged at Falcon. Falcon sidestepped and gave the younger man a hard shot to the belly. The air whooshed out of Lars and he grabbed at the bar for support. Falcon stepped back and let him catch his breath.
Lars cussed Falcon after he’d sucked in some air and again lunged at him. Falcon lashed out with a right and left that both connected on Lars’s face. The blows stopped the blowhard cold. Lars shook his head to clear the cobwebs and stood for a moment, glaring at Falcon.
“You know where you can find a cute little puppy for Jimmy?” Falcon asked.
Lars spewed out a few cusswords about Falcon’s question, Jimmy Bailey, and dogs in particular, and stepped in. Falcon let the younger man’s blows fall on his shoulders, doing no real damage, although Lars thought he was inflicting a great deal of abuse.
Falcon abruptly shoved the man away and popped him on the nose, bringing a thin flow of blood.
Lars backed away and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He stared down at the blood for a second, then began yelling. He seemed outraged at the sight of his own blood. He wiped his nose again and lifted his fists, finally getting some smarts about fighting this man who stood in front of him, smiling.
Lars stepped up to the invisible mark and flicked out a probing left. Falcon slapped it away. Lars tried a right and Falcon slipped a straight left through the gap and again connected with Lars’s nose, snapping his head back and bringing a grunt of pain. Before Lars could recover, Falcon was all over him with lefts and rights, the blows smashing into the man’s face and mouth and nose. This time, one of the blows flattened Lars’s nose.
Falcon stepped back, allowing the younger man to catch his breath. He had to breathe through his mouth because of his damaged beak.
Lars was game, Falcon had to concede that. He plowed in, his eyes wild with fury and his fists pumping and windmilling. He connected with a fist to Falcon’s head that stung and another hard fist to Falcon’s jaw that drove the bigger man back. Falcon quickly recovered and stepped right back into the fray.
Falcon busted Lars solidly on one ear, which brought a yelp of pain, and followed that with a shot to the gut. Lars doubled over and Falcon hit him with a uppercut that straightened the man up, his eyes glazed over.
Falcon bored in with hard lefts and rights, pinning Lars against the bar. Falcon sensed the fight was nearly over. He hit Lars twice more, a very solid left and righ
t, and Lars slumped down to the saloon floor. Falcon backed up and waited.
But Lars wasn’t going to get up for a couple of minutes; he was hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Falcon lowered his fists and pulled off his gloves, tucking them in a back pocket. He stepped to the bar and finished his beer, then signaled the post owner for a refill. None of the Snake riders made a move except to lift their shot glasses.
Falcon was halfway through his beer before Lars groaned and tried to stand up on very wobbly legs and rubber knees. He didn’t make it, slumping back down until he could will his head to cease its spinning.
“I expect you to personally bring Jimmy a puppy,” Falcon said. “All bathed and prettied up. A nice friendly little dog. You hear me, Lars?”
Lars groaned a reply.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He turned and looked at the Snake riders. “You boys be sure to remind Lars and his father about the puppy. I wouldn’t want a disappointed little boy. Understood?”
Several of the Snake hands nodded their heads.
“That’s fine,” Falcon said. “I’m glad we got all that straightened out.” He looked down at Lars. “Right, Lars?”
Lars groaned.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Falcon rubbed his jaw and smiled ruefully. Lars could hit, and hit hard, no doubt about that. He just didn’t know how to fight. And Falcon doubted the young man would live long enough to learn, unless he had a drastic change in attitude.
Falcon finished his beer and turned to his men. “Let’s ride, boys. We’ve got a ways to go.” He looked down at Lars, sitting amid the cigar butts, squashed hand-rolled cigarette butts, and tobacco juice. “I’ll see you in a few days, Lars. When you personally bring the puppy dog to Jimmy.”
Falcon, Stumpy, and Wildcat walked out of the saloon, all of them wearing smiles.
A few of the Snake riders were also smiling.
* * *
“You really think Lars will bring Jimmy a puppy?” John Bailey asked his foreman that evening after supper.
Kip nodded his head in the fast-fading light of day. “Yes I do, John. The son got his butt kicked over this puppy. It’s a matter of honor to the Gilman name now. Miles just might even come along with the son.”
“Be a sight to see,” John said softly. He grunted. “Been many a year since Miles has been over here.”
“I said he might come along.”
“I think he will, Kip, now that you mention it.”
“Well, if he does, it’ll be for more than one reason. And you know it.”
“To check out the place. Yeah, I know it.”
“Maybe he’ll bring the kid with him.”
“The kid?”
“The Silver Dollar Kid.”
John spat on the ground. “It’d be like him to do that. He always did like to show off his pretties.”
Kip chuckled as the shadows deepened around the ranch. “Maybe Miles thinks just the sight of the Kid will scare us all off.”
John carefully rolled him a smoke then handed the sack and papers to his longtime friend. “That just might have done it ’fore Val Mack showed up. Or whatever his name is.”
The foreman nodded his head in agreement. He rolled his cigarette and said, “Cookie thinks he knows who Val Mack really is. He just can’t pull the name up. He swears he’s seen him before.” Kip thumb-popped a match into flames and lit up.
“And you know too, don’t you, Kip?”
“I got me an idea, John. But it’s so far-fetched it’s unreasonable.”
“Who do you think he is?”
“I think Val Mack is really Falcon MacCallister.”
That shook the rancher right down to his boots. He cut his eyes and stared at his foreman for a long moment. “Jamie MacCallister’s boy?”
“Yep. I seen the boy ’bout fifteen years ago down in Colorado. Just the one time it was. He’s older now, heavier by a few pounds. But he’s still the spittin’ image of his pa.”
Cookie had limped up to lean against the corral rail. The older man nodded his head. “It’s him all right. Now that you’ve dug up the name, it fits. I seen him years back when I was heppin’ push them beeves up from the south. The boy was dressed all in buckskins and looked ’bout as wild and untamed as them Cheyenne he was travelin’ with.”
“Well, I’ll just be damned!” John Bailey breathed. “Falcon MacCallister workin’ for me. Lord, the MacCallisters is the richest family in the state. Maybe in the whole west. They’re worth millions of dollars, way I hear it.”
“For a fact, John,” Kip said. “The grandpa found all sorts of gold and silver and marked the locations. He personally never had much use for wealth. He give it all to Falcon’s pa. Jamie used some of the money to buy land—thousands of acres of land. He bought MacCallister’s valley. That piece of land stretches for fifty, sixty miles, runs north and south, I believe, and it’s about twenty or thirty miles wide. The MacCallisters own it all, ’ceptin’ what they sold to friends. Then he bought the land east and west of the valley and bought mines all over the west. He done it all on the sly, without nobody ’ceptin’ his wife knowin’ anything ’bout it. He hired lawyers and bankers in big cities to invest his money wisely, and they done it, too. He bought stock in railroads and factories and inventions that nobody thought would prove out. But they did. When Jamie was killed a few years back, he was the richest man west of the Mississippi. He left it all to his kids. But most of them was already wealthy in their own right.”
“And Falcon, so the stories go, was always the wild one, sort of like his pa,” Cookie said. “Always wantin’ to see new country, and always takin’ off to travel the high country alone. He finally settled down and married him some sort of Injun princess, a half-breed French-Cheyenne woman and they had several kids. She was kilt a couple of years back and Falcon hit the high lonesome, all full of grief, trackin’ down the men who kilt his wife.”
“That’s the story, all right,” Kip said.
“But I heard somebody sayin’ Falcon was wanted for killin’ two lawmen over in Utah . . .” John paused and sighed. “All right, now the pieces of the puzzle is comin’ together. Those lawmen was Noonan’s. Brothers of Nance Noonan, wasn’t they? A federal marshal and a local sheriff, way I heard it.”
“That’s the way I heard it,” Kip said, pinching out the butt of his smoke.
“And Falcon MacCallister is workin’ right here on the Rockingchair range,” Cookie breathed. “Hard to believe.”
“You know all these old mountain men know who he is,” Kip said. “They was all friends of Falcon’s pa. That’s why they all come arunnin’ when Falcon sent out the word for help.”
“Do we let on that we know?” Cookie asked.
John Bailey was silent for a moment, then he sighed and said, “We might as well. One of us is sure to let it slip accidental.” He smiled. “I sure would like to be there when Miles hears the news.”
Laughing, the three men walked toward the bunkhouse, to confront Falcon.
Sixteen
Within forty-eight hours the news had spread all over that part of Wyoming: Falcon MacCallister was working for the Rockingchair spread, and it was he who’d bought all those sections of land, and had all that money deposited in the local bank.
Miles Gilman sat in his darkened study and watched the evening shadows creep slowly around the room. He’d already sent a wire about Falcon to the local deputy federal marshal’s office down at the territorial capital and received the bad news: The warrant had been lifted on Falcon. Falcon MacCallister was as free as an eagle.
“Falcon MacCallister,” Miles whispered. “Of all the people in the west to show up and take sides with John Bailey, it would have to be him. Damn!”
Miles sighed heavily and lifted the glass of whiskey. He started to take a sip, then grimaced and placed the glass back on the side table. Outside, several of the hands were playing with the little puppy he’d gotten for his son to take ove
r to the Rockingchair ... whenever Lars was able to get out of bed, that is. Falcon had really given him a beating. Maybe tomorrow they could both ride over. Seventy-two hours was long enough for Lars to lollygag about in bed, getting waited on hand and foot by his sister. Disgusting!
Miles stood up and walked over to the window, watching for a moment as the hands played with the dog. It was a cute puppy. Miles had always like dogs.
He shook his head and turned away from the window.
Matters were going sour—he could feel it in his guts. But turning back was impossible . . . Miles knew that much for a certainty. Everything was in motion and rolling. It couldn’t be stopped. This was one train that was going to go straight to the end of the track, and anyone who tried to stop it was going to get run over, and that was that.
And if that person’s name happened to be Falcon MacCallister... too bad.
Nance was bringing a number of men up with him. My God, the man had seven brothers and about fifteen cousins alone. Probably forty hands, most of them drawing fighting wages. Add that number to Miles’s crew and Rod Stegman’s hands... God, it was an army.
An unstoppable army.
Miles sat down and picked up his glass of whiskey. Took a sip. He felt better after thinking it through. Yes, he did. He felt a few hunger pangs touch his stomach and wondered if the cook had any supper left.
Miles finished his drink and walked to the kitchen. Lars was sitting up in the den, Terri sitting beside him. Boy looked like a tree full of owls: both eyes discolored, lips still swollen some, one ear all puffed up. Miles wondered if his son had landed even one blow on Falcon. Probably not.
“We’re going to take that puppy over to the Rockingchair in the morning,” Miles told his son. “Be ready to go at dawn.”
“I’m going too,” Terri announced.
Miles nodded his head, knowing it would be pointless to argue with the girl. “Fine. We’ll make it a family affair. Where are your brothers?”
Terri shrugged her shoulders and looked at Lars. He mumbled, “Out with the herds.”
Miles’s other sons didn’t stay at the ranch much, preferring the line shacks to the big house. Miles didn’t understand that, but didn’t dwell much on it. They were all growed-up men and could do as they damn well pleased . . . and usually did.
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