The Kid had gotten his crap-smeared behind into the saddle and was waiting patiently.
Angie came to her father’s side and put an arm around his waist. She was a mess, but not near the mess she’d left Terri. Father and daughter stood and watched Miles, Terri, and the Silver Dollar Kid ride off. John had a lump on one side of his jaw and a busted lip, but other than that, he was unhurt.
“The fat’s in the fire now, folks,” Kip said. “From now on, it’ll be shootin’, not fists.”
“You’re probably right about that, Kip,” John said, then grinned. “But damn, that sure was fun!”
“John, Angie!” Martha called from the front door. “You get yourselves in here and let me clean you up. And I mean, right now! Kip, you get down to the creek and see about Jimmy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kip said, and vacated the scene promptly.
Laughing, arm in arm, father and daughter walked toward the house.
“It’s gonna get dirty from now on, Falcon,” Wildcat said. “Real low-down dirty.”
“It had to come, boys,” Falcon said. “We all knew that. From now on it’s going to be pistol play instead of cattle work.”
Puma grunted. “That suits me. Sooner we get done here the sooner I can get back home and see my Jenny.”
“You think that beast misses you, huh?” Big Bob asked.
“Shore she does,” Puma replied indignantly. “Jenny’s my baby.”
Big Bob walked off, muttering to himself about grown men that keep cougars for pets.
* * *
During the next week, Falcon visited each of the farmers and small ranchers north and south and east of the Rockingchair, warning them that everything was about to pop. He brought them spare weapons and ammunition and made certain each person who was of age knew how to use the weapons. After talking with each family member, Falcon felt sure that every family would stand and fight, and fight to the last person.
He reported as much to John and the rancher agreed.
“They’ll fight, and they’ll put up one hell of a fight,” John said. “The ranchers have been here, some as long as me. They’ve fought Injuns and outlaws. The farmers are all combat veterans from the War Between the States. A couple of them officers. They’re all good people. Not a quitter among them. Martha’s met all the ladies and speaks highly of them.”
“John, I have to ask this: Do you want to take the fight to Miles and the others?”
The rancher was reflective for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “I should, I know I should, but I just can’t do it, Falcon. It just isn’t in me.”
“I know, John,” Falcon replied easily. “It’s got to be all them. I understand.”
“You think I’m wrong, don’t you, son?”
“Speaking frankly, yes I do, John. But it’s your decision to make.”
“They’ve got to start it, Falcon,” the rancher said stubbornly.
“And you don’t think they have already?”
“That’s my decision. Can you and the other men live with it?”
“Oh, we can live with it, John. Problem is, can you and your family live with it, and do you have the right to speak for all the others?”
“I’ve spoken with my family. We all agree that Miles has got to make the first move. After that . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “... I guess anything goes.”
“All right. We’ll wait for them to open the dance. But I warn you of this: When they strike up the band, rules go right out the window. I don’t fight by rules, and neither do any of the boys. It’s going to get down and dirty real quick.”
“When the other side starts it, Falcon, deal the cards and let the chips fall.”
Falcon smiled his reply. He was a gambler, and now the game was getting to his liking.
* * *
The first bunch of Stegman and Noonan’s hands rode in. Stumpy was posted up on a ridge and was watching them through field glasses as they rode across the grasslands. He reported back to Falcon.
“They’re hired guns, all right,” the older man said, after pouring himself a cup of coffee and taking a seat at the table in the bunkhouse. “I recognized a couple of them. They’re experienced shooters.”
“Where are they out of, you reckon?” Wildcat asked.
“Some was sittin’ Texas rigs,” Stumpy said. “I seen one that I know is out of New Mexico and another that’s made quite a name for hisself out of Utah. The rest . . . ?” He shrugged. “From all over where scum gathers.”
“How many in this first bunch?” Dan Carson asked.
“I counted ten.”
“Probably more than that unless he took off his boots and used his toes to count with,” Big Bob said.
The insults started flying then, and Falcon laughed and walked out of the bunkhouse. Kip was leaning against the corral, smoking a cigarette. He looked up.
“Trouble, Falcon?”
“It’s gathering, for a fact.” He explained what Stumpy had seen that morning.
“They can gather until Hell freezes over,” Kip said. “But until they actually do something, John isn’t goin’ to strike.”
“I know. I just thought he’d want to know.”
Kip nodded his head. “The herds won’t be far behind, will they?”
“Oh, probably no more than two or three weeks would be my guess.”
“I’ll tell John.”
Kip walked to the main house, leaving Falcon alone by the corral with his thoughts. Falcon knew there were others he could call in to assist in this fight, but he also knew that numbers alone would not win it for John and the others. All more men would accomplish would be more deaths.
Dan Carson walked out to join him. The older man shaped himself a cigarette and handed Falcon the makings. The two of them smoked in silence for a moment.
“You know the easy way to do it, don’t you?” Dan broke the silence.
“Oh, sure. But do you think John would go along with that?”
“He might not have a choice in the matter.”
Kill Noonan, Stegman, and Gilman. Take out the leaders and the rest would break up.
“He’ll never go along with it, Dan. Put it out of your mind.”
“It was just a thought.”
“I had the same thoughts, believe me.”
“It’s what Jamie would have done.”
“Oh, I know that. Pa wouldn’t hesitate for a minute. Neither would I, for that matter. But this isn’t our show. We’re just the soldiers in this little war.”
Dan chuckled and Falcon cut his eyes. “Something funny about that?”
“The soldiers always have the solution, boy. The men who do the actual fightin’ always know the simple way. It’s the generals and the politicians who drag it out.”
Falcon had to smile, knowing the mountain man was right in what he said.
One by one, the others joined them at the corral, standing and smoking in silence. Finally Cookie made up the last of the nonfamily group. Kip was considered part of the Bailey family.
“John is one of the most decent men any of you will ever run up on,” Cookie said. “He’s honorable clear through. He still thinks there’s hope for Miles.”
“He’s wrong,” Big Bob replied. “Miles Gilman’s power-hungry. I can’t speak for his other kids, but Terri and Lars is just like him. Terri’s lazy and worthless and Lars is just plumb crazy in the head. That whuppin’ you gave him, Falcon, shoved him over the edge.”
“I know that now,” Falcon admitted. “I wish I hadn’t done it.”
The others looked at him, Mustang saying, “It wouldn’t have taken no big push, boy. He was set to step over the line. Borned that way.”
“And the daughter ain’t no different,” Puma allowed. “That girl’s not right in the head.”
“You mighty right about that,” Cookie said. “She’s just mean, that’s all. She’s always been that way. She’s just plain low-down dirty mean.”
“She really is?” Dan questione
d.
“She really is. She’s just no good,” Cookie allowed. “She’s done some dastardly things.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Pretty thang, though.”
Cookie grimaced. Obviously, he did not share Puma’s sentiments.
“Miss Angie damn shore wound her clock for her though, didn’t she?” Wildcat asked with a grin.
All the men, including Falcon, got a chuckle out of that. After the quiet laughter died away, Falcon said, “We’d better start posting guards now. I hate to do it, but I think it’s the smart thing to do.”
“I was gonna suggest that,” Mustang said. “Miles ain’t never gonna forget that whuppin’ John Bailey hung on him. He was some hot about that.”
“He sure was,” Stumpy said. “And him and that boy of hisn both meant what they said about killing you and John, Falcon.”
“I know,” Falcon’s words were soft in the fading afternoon light. “There are threats, and then there are threats. Both father and son meant theirs.” Falcon began assigning men to guard times. When that was done, he added, “And trouble could come any night. Including tonight.”
Eighteen
Falcon had just gone on his watch, midnight till two, when his eyes detected the slightest movement from the direction of the creek. There were no cattle grazing in that area. He waited, watching. There was another movement, off some twenty or thirty feet from the first one. Falcon knelt down, picked up a pebble from the ground, and tossed it against the side of the bunkhouse. That would be all the signal the mountain men would need. They had spent their entire lives living on the edge of danger, and the slightest sound would bring them awake.
Within seconds, the front door to the bunkhouse was cracked open a few inches. Falcon hooted as an owl, then followed that with a nightbird’s call. The door closed quickly, the mountain men picking up on one of the Cheyenne signals for danger.
But there was no way Falcon could signal those in the main house. They would have to come up alert and ready at the sound of the first shot. Falcon had told John about his plans to mount a guard and the rancher agreed it was the prudent thing to do, especially after hearing Stumpy tell of the bunch of hired guns he’d seen riding in.
Out of the corner of his eye, Falcon saw the front door to the bunkhouse open, and three men dart out, a few seconds apart, rifles in their hands. One headed for the barn, another took up position behind the woodpile, and the third bellied down behind the rocks of an old well off on the far side of the bunkhouse.
Falcon heard another nightbird call, coming from the main house, and he smiled. John was up and had seen what was going on. The old Indian fighter had been sleeping very lightly. He would have his family up and the adults ready at rifle slits, Jimmy safe behind cover. His puppy, whom he had named Freckles, cuddled safe with him.
Falcon smiled, thinking, Come on, boys. Hit us with your midnight raid. We’re ready.
Falcon looked very carefully all around him, moving his head slowly, ears straining to pick up the smallest of sounds. There! And there! And over there! The hired guns had managed to surround the spread before one moved at the wrong time and Falcon detected the movement.
Falcon heard Hell snicker softly in his stall. He wouldn’t make a sound if it was someone familiar, so that meant that a mercenary had made his way into the barn. The mountain man waiting in the barn would not give away his position until the first shot was fired outside, or unless the gunhand spotted him, but if the hired gun somehow got into Hell’s stall, he would never leave it alive, or at best would leave crippled, for the big mean-tempered horse would kill him or stomp him.
Falcon waited for the hired guns to make the first move. He didn’t think it would be long in coming, for if one was already in the barn, the rest were almost in position. And that surely meant that several were closing in on the main house, set some hundred or so yards up a slight incline from the bunkhouse. Falcon hoped John and his family were ready.
That was answered a heartbeat later when a rifle cracked from the house and a lifeless form came rolling down the incline a few yards.
“Go!” someone shouted. “They’ve spotted us. Burn the place down.”
When the torches the gunhands carried were ignited into flame, Falcon and his men opened up, laying down a hail of gunfire. The men carrying the torches went down almost immediately, mortally wounded. The torches began burning themselves out harmlessly on the ground.
“It’s an ambush!” one of the gunslicks screamed.
That’s all he got to say before Falcon drilled him in the belly with a rifle shot.
Then the night exploded in gunfire as the night raiders were caught out in the open: dark shapes that clearly stood out as they tried to run for cover.
Many of them didn’t make it, for the raking gunfire of the ranch defenders was merciless.
The firefight was over in a few minutes, the survivors making it back to their horses and heading hard for home range, leaving their dead and their badly wounded behind.
The defenders left their positions warily, but all the fight was gone from those wounded left behind. Several of them were calling for doctors. Most would not live long enough to see a doctor.
Martha and Angie stayed in the main house with Jimmy. John and Kip walked among the dead, dying, and wounded.
“You know any of them, Kip?” John asked.
“No. I never seen any of them before.”
Kip held the lantern while John knelt down beside one hard-hit gunhand. The young man had taken two .44 slugs in the belly. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
“Boy,” John said, “you got parents somewhere?”
The young man nodded his head.
“You want me to notify them?”
“No,” the young man gasped. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to them two.”
“That’s mighty hard of you, son.”
“They threw me out. Hell with them.”
John left him and walked to an older man who had taken a slug through his chest. There were pink bubbles forming on his lips. He was lung-shot. John squatted down beside him.
“Forget it,” the hired gun said. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you. Leave me die in peace.”
John walked over to another gunslick and knelt down. “I got money in my pocket,” the man whispered, “and my Ma’s name and town writ down on a piece of paper. You see she gets the money?”
“I’ll see to it,” the rancher said. “You have my word.”
“Kind of you.” Then the man closed his eyes and died.
John patted the man’s pockets until he found his wallet. There were fifty dollars in the worn leather purse and a piece of paper. He stood up and shook his head. “Fifty dollars,” he said softly. “The man died for fifty dollars.”
“Nobody forced him to sign on with Gilman,” Kip reminded his friend. “Or whoever he was workin’ for.”
John Bailey sighed. “You’re right about that, Kip.” He looked around him. “Falcon?”
“Right here, John.”
“Are there any wounded who can drive a wagon?”
“Oh, yes. One here with just a crease on his head. He’s fine otherwise.”
“Have the boys hitch up a team, please. We’ll put the dead and the wounded in the wagon and take them to town.”
“All right, John.”
“You think they’ll be back this night, Falcon?” Kip asked.
“No. I think they’re through for this night. Has anybody counted the dead?”
“Hell, we ain’t found ’em all yet,” Dan Carson called. “Here’s another one that’s hard hit and ain’t gonna make it.”
“I don’t wanna die!” the hired gun gasped, his words drifting all around the minibattlefield.
“You should have thought about that ’fore you decided to fight for pay, boy,” Dan told him, a hard edge to his words. The older man had seen death come riding up on all kinds of horses during his hard life in the wilderness.
&nbs
p; “Them ain’t very kind words, mister,” the belly-shot gunhand moaned.
“Wasn’t very kind of you and your friends to come in here shootin’ up the place and disturbin’ our rest neither,” Dan told him. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that older folks need their rest?”
“You’re makin’ light of my dyin’!” the man gasped.
“Well, I damn shore wish you’d hurry up and ex-pire, boy,” Puma told him. “I was havin’ me a dandy dream ’fore all this crap started.”
“Oh Lord!” the man cried.
“He’s tryin’ to sleep, too,” Big Bob Marsh said. “Now make up your mind whether you’re gonna live or die and get on with it.”
“Y’all ain’t decent,” another wounded man said. His wounds were painful, but not life-threatening. “I ain’t never heard such hard talk in all my borned days.”
“Stick around, sonny,” Mustang told him. “It’s liable to get a lot worser”
“Mama!” yet another dying man hollered.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” Wildcat bitched.
* * *
Noonan and Stegman arrived the next day, riding far in advance of the herd being pushed up into north Wyoming. They sat in Gilman’s study, drinking whiskey and listening to yet another one of the survivors of the abortive raid on the Rockingchair tell what happened.
Finally, Stegman waved him silent. “Get out,” the .44 owner told him. “I’m sick of hearin’ all these damn excuses.”
Alone in the study, the door closed even to Gilman’s family, Noonan said, “Miles, you was supposed to have all this area clean for us when we arrived. What the hell happened?”
“Falcon MacCallister,” Gilman said bluntly. “That’s what happened.”
“One man is responsible for this holdup?” Stegman asked. “I don’t believe it.”
“I do,” Nance said, before Gilman could reply. “I’ll believe anything about those damn MacCallisters. The old man, Jamie MacCallister, ended up ownin’ an entire county down in Colorado, plus bits and pieces of practically half the damn state. Made friends with all the damn Injuns. None of ’em would ever bother no one who lived in that damn valley of his. I don’t know how he done it. Plus, I hate that damn Falcon MacCallister. I hate all MacCallisters. Ever’ one of them.”
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