Rage of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “You settle down,” Puma told him. “We get this poor woman and what’s left of her family on the road, the war’s on. ”

  “And we better not meet up with no .44 or Snake or Double N riders neither,” Big Bob added. “ ’Cause if we do, I’m gonna read to them from the Scriptures. Count on it.”

  A quaint western expression meaning there would be blood on the land.

  “In spades,” Puma added.

  “All right,” Falcon said simply.

  “Damn right it is,” Big Bob said.

  “There ain’t even no goddamn lard left to smear on those children’s burns,” Puma said, his voice shaking with rage. “Goddamn men who would do this. Goddamn’em right straight to the pits of Hell.”

  Falcon kept his silence. There was no point in talking . . . not at the moment. Falcon understood that the mountain men were about to declare war, and it was not going to be pleasant. Falcon knew he had to handle this in a very delicate way, for if he attempted to get bossy with these old boys, they would just tell him to go to hell.

  It was the condition of the kids and their pain-filled eyes that did it. Falcon knew that, for he felt the same way. Making war on adults was one thing, making war on kids raised the hackles on any decent man.

  The wagon was loaded and the team hitched up. The woman wiped her eyes and turned away from the fresh mound of earth.

  “I’ll come back and fix up a marker for your man, ma’am,” Big Bob gently told the woman.

  “That’s kind of you, but there’s no need,” she told him. “My man loved the land. Let him become a part of it. It’s the way he’d want it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the big man replied softly, but with unmistakable rage just behind the words.

  Be blood on the moon very soon, Falcon thought. The fuse is lit and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

  Falcon and his friends trailed the wagon and the family over the long dusty miles into town. They made it just in time, for the bank was only a few minutes away from closing time. Willard almost went into apoplexy when the woman walked in with Falcon, for he knew with some degree of certainty what was about to take place, and was powerless to do anything except go along with it.

  Puma took the kids over to the general store to have them outfitted with new clothes while Big Bob took the boy over to the doc’s to have his burns attended to. By the time all that was done, Falcon had bought the sections of land and the woman was picking out a couple of new dresses at the store.

  Falcon arranged for rooms at the hotel and got the family settled in. Then the three men went over to the café for an early supper.

  While waiting for their food, Big Bob asked the waitress, “You see any Snake, .44, or Double N riders?”

  “Not a one today,” she told him. “I ’spect some of them will be coming in later on this afternoon.”

  Big Bob smiled ever so slightly and thanked her. Falcon watched as the big man cut his eyes to Puma and received a small smile in return. Falcon knew then the two men had already agreed on some sort of plan and the best thing he could do, hell, the only thing he could do, was stay out of their way.

  Before leaving the ranch, Falcon and Big Bob and Puma had packed a bit of grub and secured bedrolls behind their saddles. They had planned to spend a couple of nights out. They would not be expected back at the ranch.

  Working on his second huge slab of apple pie, Big Bob looked at Falcon, who had finished his meal and was drinking a cup of coffee. “You can go visitin’, if you like. Count your money, or somethin’. Don’t interfere with me and Puma.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Bob,” Falcon replied.

  “Good,” the big man said.

  “But do you mind if I sort of tag along with you?”

  “Long as you don’t make no speeches to none of them hired guns,” Puma said. “Me and Bob is fixin’ to settle accounts for that good lady over yonder, and her kids.”

  “I promise, no speeches.”

  “Then you’re welcome to come along with us.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We might need an extra gun,” Big Bob said. “But bear in mind I said gun, not no long-winded talks.”

  “Anything you say, Bob. This is your show.”

  “Good.”

  “But the other boys will be upset they weren’t invited,” Falcon added blandly.

  “That’s their problem,” Puma said, after taking a slurp of coffee. “And don’t be tryin’ no slick snake-oil words to talk us out of doin’ this deed, Falcon. It won’t work.”

  “I had to try.”

  “Well, stop tryin’.”

  The man who owned the leather and gun shop walked into the café and sat down at the table next to the three Rockingchair men. “I just heard what happened to that farm family, Mr. MacCallister. I want you to know I don’t hold with night riding, and I ’specially don’t hold with the harming of women and kids. And I’ll tell Gilman the same thing.”

  Falcon nodded his head. “How many others in town feel the way you do?”

  “More than you might think. It’s just that Gilman and his toughs have a lot of the townspeople buffaloed, that’s all. Hell, man, we want other folks to come into the area. That’s business for us. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to want to keep people out.”

  “I did wonder about that,” Falcon replied, motioning for the waitress to come refill his coffee cup. Big Bob and Puma rose from the table and walked outside, to stand on the boardwalk.

  “Those ol’ boys of yours is on the prod, aren’t they?” the shop owner asked.

  “All the way on the prod.”

  “It’s a good way to get themselves killed.”

  Falcon smiled. “Those men don’t have any plans to get planted anytime soon, mister. I can assure you of that. My advice to you is when you see .44 or Snake or Double N boys come in, you gather up your family, go home and close the door, and stay there, because it’s going to get wild in this town shortly after any of those night-riding bastards hit the street.”

  “Not every rider from those ranches took part in that raid,” the citizen pointed out.

  “But they know those who did,” Falcon came right back. “And that makes them just as guilty.”

  The citizen looked at Falcon for a long moment, then took his coffee cup and moved to another table. Falcon smiled and lingered for a time, smoking and drinking his coffee. He paid for the meals and walked outside. Big Bob and Puma were across the street, sitting on a bench about a hundred feet from the entrance to the Purple Palace.

  Falcon looked out toward the edge of town. In the distance he could see a moving dust cloud. Riders coming in. He didn’t have to point it out to Big Bob or Puma; they’d probably seen it before he had.

  Falcon glanced up at the sky. There were clouds rolling in. It had been several weeks since a good rain, and they were due for one. From the looks of the sky, they were going to get a good soaking.

  The dust cloud grew closer. Falcon could count six, no, eight men riding into town. He stepped back into the shadows created by the boardwalk’s awning and waited. He wasn’t sure what Big Bob and Puma had in the way of plans, but knowing them as he did, Falcon had a hunch it would be very direct. He had noticed that before coming to town with the woman and her kids, the mountain men had each dug out a spare pistol from their saddlebags, loaded it up full, and shoved it down behind their belts. Whatever the two men had in mind, Falcon would be comfortable betting a bundle that when it started it was going to be very quick and very nasty. And very bloody.

  The riders had reached the edge of the town and stopped. Falcon couldn’t figure what they were up to. Then they all lined up abreast and Falcon got it then: They were going to race up the main street, probably to the Palace saloon. They would create enough dust to cover everything in town, plus endangering anyone who might be caught in the street.

  And that’s not all they were going to do: They were also going to irritate the hell out of Big Bob and Puma, for t
he men had washed very carefully and spent several minutes getting the trail dust out of their clothes before going to the café.

  Falcon rolled him a smoke and looked carefully up and down the street. It was deserted. Somehow the residents of the western town had smelled the invisible odor of trouble on the hot summer wind and everyone had headed for the inside.

  The riders came in a rush, whooping and hollering and galloping their horses as fast as they could run up the main street of town. The dust the pounding hooves kicked up was terrible, a thick choking cloud that hung over that section of town for a moment, and then settled to cover everything.

  “Stupid,” Falcon muttered. “And arrogant.” He brushed the dust from his shirt, then took his hat and slapped the dirt from his trousers. “That makes me mad!” he said.

  “The men were only being exuberant.” The familiar voice came from Falcon’s left.

  Falcon cut his eyes. Reverend Watkins. He sighed. Falcon really did not feel like putting up with the preacher this day.

  “A little dust is no reason to start trouble,” the preacher said.

  “I don’t intend to start any trouble, Preacher. But look around you: There’s no one on the street. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  “Not really,” the minister replied. “Is it supposed to tell me something?”

  “How long have you been out west, Preacher?”

  “A few months. Why?”

  “And you came from where?”

  “Boston. Why?”

  “Just curious, Preacher. That’s all. Just curious.”

  The riders who had galloped into town were a mixed crew of Double N, Snake, and .44 hands. Most of them wore two guns, tied down. They were a loud and profane bunch as they swung down from the saddles and swaggered about, making sure that anyone out and about both saw and heard them.

  Big Bob and Puma rose slowly from the benches and began slapping the dust from their clothing. Falcon watched as the two mountain men also furtively slipped the hammer thongs from their six-guns.

  “Boston is a lovely city,” Reverend Watkins said.

  “I know,” Falcon replied, not taking his eyes off the milling gunhands. “I’ve been there.”

  “You have visited Boston?”

  “Yes. Also New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis, and a few other large cities. You’d better get off the street, Preacher. All hell’s about to pop here in a minute. A stray bullet doesn’t care who it hits.”

  Watkins ignored the advice. “How did you like our lovely city?”

  “Too damn big,” Falcon told the preacher. “Too crowded for my tastes.”

  “Yes. Well. I suppose to a western man it would seen so.”

  “Get off the street, Preacher! Damnit, do what I tell you to do.”

  The gunhands had noticed Puma and Big Bob. The hired guns were snickering and poking one another, whispering among themselves, making, Falcon was sure, any number of crappy comments about the two older men, and making them loud enough for the older men to hear.

  The gunslicks were not aware of it, but they were talking their way into an early grave. Once, when Falcon visited New Orleans, he heard a Cajun make a comment about a man with an alligator mouth and a hummingbird ass. That pretty well summed up the hired guns.

  Far in the distance, thunder rumbled. That storm was still many miles away. But the storm that was building on the main street of town was growing in quiet intensity, without the added attraction of lightning and thunder as a prelude.

  The lightning and thunder would come along soon enough, in the form of gunsmoke and lead, to be followed by blood and pain.

  Falcon unconsciously touched the butt of his second six-gun, stuck down behind his gunbelt. Watkins’s eyes followed the movement.

  “You are going to start trouble!” the preacher exclaimed. “But those cowboys haven’t done anything.”

  “Shut up, Preacher,” Falcon told him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Get off the street.”

  “You men over there!” Watkins suddenly shouted at the gunslicks. “It’s a trap. You’ll all be killed! Run for your lives!”

  “Son of a bitch!” Falcon cursed, as the hired gunnies grabbed for pistols.

  One of them pointed a gun at Big Bob and Bob jerked iron and drilled him in the belly.

  The summer breeze that had been whispering on the main street of Gilman suddenly erupted into a full-blown storm.

  Twenty-Two

  The gunhand screamed and dropped his pistol, both hands holding onto his perforated belly. He sank to the dirt and horse crap of the street and stayed there, on his knees.

  Another of the land-grabbing crew spotted Falcon as he stepped forward on the boardwalk and figured he was part of the setup. He snapped off a shot that missed Falcon and blew the preacher’s hat off his head. Reverend Watkins let out a startled whoop and jumped for the protection of the nearest doorway.

  Falcon triggered off a round that caught the night rider in the shoulder and spun him around. He dropped his pistol and fell back against the boardwalk, out of this fight.

  Big Bob and Puma had their fists full of guns and were letting the hammers fall and the lead fly. The battle on the dusty street was over and done with in fifteen seconds. The Snake, Double N, and .44 riders were down, several of them dead or dying, the rest wounded.

  Big Bob and Puma were unscathed, as was Falcon. Horses were settling down after some wild seconds of bucking and rearing, with some of them breaking loose from the hitchrails and galloping away up the street.

  As the gunfire faded into no more than a hard memory, and the gunsmoke blew away in the quickening breeze that was preceding the summer storm, the doctor stepped out of his office, black bag in hand, and stood for a moment, looking at the carnage in the street. Then he stepped off the boardwalk and walked over to the nearest wounded man and knelt down.

  The man that Big Bob had drilled in the belly was still. Falcon walked across the street and looked down at him. He was dead, on his knees in the dirt of the street. Falcon noticed that his boots were run-down at the heel and both soles had holes in them. The dead man was no more than twenty-five years old, at the most.

  “That one shot my husband!” the woman’s voice came from the balcony of the hotel.

  Falcon turned to look at the settler’s wife. She was pointing at a man who had been wounded in the leg and was stretched out in the street, his leg broken by the .45 caliber bullet.

  “I’ll never forget his face,” the woman added, then turned and walked back into the hotel.

  The night rider with the busted leg cussed the woman, loud and long.

  “Here now!” the doctor admonished him. “There’ll be no more of that.”

  The night rider cut his eyes and cussed the doctor.

  “What a nice bunch of boys,” Puma said, stepping off the boardwalk and walking over to stand beside Falcon. “You can tell right off they had proper raisin’.”

  The night rider with the busted leg cussed Puma.

  The doctor looked up at Falcon. “This the bunch who burned out the farmer last night?”

  “Yes.”

  Another night rider told Falcon what part of his anatomy he could kiss.

  “That’s disgustin’!” Big Bob said to the wounded man. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, boy.”

  The gunhand directed his obscenities toward Bob.

  “You started it now,” one of the slightly wounded paid guns said to Falcon. “There’ll be no stoppin’ our boys once they hear about this.”

  “Where’s the damn law in this town?” Puma asked one of the citizens who were gathering around to gawk at the dead and the wounded.

  “There ain’t none,” the citizen said. “The last marshal we had quit.”

  “This one just died,” another citizen said, standing over a man sprawled facedown in the dirt.

  “Good,” Big Bob said.

  On the boardwalk, Reverend Watkins had found his bullet-perforated hat and
was now raising his voice in prayer.

  Several rather ample ladies from his church had gathered beside the minister and were singing “Rock of Ages.”

  “I always did favor that song,” Puma said. “Almost brings a tear to my eye.”

  “That’s good,” Big Bob told him. “Your face could stand a little water on it.”

  Several more ladies had joined their church sisters on the boardwalk and a choir was now in full tune.

  “If he passes the collection plate, I’m gone,” Puma said.

  “You men are disgraceful!” a citizen told Puma.

  “I know it,” the mountain man said sorrowfully. “But mama done her best to raise me right.”

  “Oh, Lord!” a wounded night rider suddenly hollered. “I need something for the pain! My belly’s on fire!”

  “You want me to kick him in the head?” Big Bob asked the doctor. “That would shore shut him up for a time.”

  “I think you men have done enough for one day,” the doctor replied, not looking up from his emergency ministering to the wounded.

  “Hell, I was just tryin’ to hep,” Bob said.

  “Let’s go get us a drink,” Puma suggested. “I don’t think we’re wanted here.”

  “Yeah,” Bob said, doing his best to keep a hurt expression on his face. “I feel plumb left out and rejected.”

  “Good,” the doctor said. “Please do leave.”

  “Grouchy thing, ain’t he?” Puma said. “Come on, Bob. My feelin’s is hurt.”

  The two mountain men walked off toward the Stampede Saloon.

  The two night riders who were only slightly hurt had already limped off to their horses, ignoring any medical help, and ridden out of town. The doctor looked up at Falcon. “That puncher who told you there’d be no stopping them now wasn’t joking, Mr. MacCallister. This shoot-out just started the war.”

  Falcon shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Then you’d better tell your carpenter to start knocking together a lot of caskets. You’re going to need them.”

  Falcon walked off toward the Stampede, to have a drink with his friends.

  * * *

  Gilman, Stegman, and Noonan didn’t wait long to strike again... they sent night riders out that same night. But this time the night riders ran into a hail of gunfire and were beaten back by a settler and his family. The farmer lost his barn to fire, but his house and possessions were saved. The next day, Falcon and his men and the farmers who lived within half a day’s ride of the settler’s place were there, raising a new barn. By that evening, the farmer was back in business and Stegman, Noonan, and Gilman were furious.