Rage of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  Nance didn’t notice that he and his men were stinking and filthy, their clothing dirty and soiled. He didn’t notice that they all looked like a bunch of bums. He didn’t care about going back and trying to round up his cattle and starting over. He just wanted to kill Falcon MacCallister and the man’s kids.

  Nance Noonan had quietly slipped over the line into the darkness of insanity.

  The only brothers he had left alive, Penrod and Hodge, were watching him closely. They knew something was very much wrong with their brother, but they didn’t know what. Neither one of them was smart enough to understand it was insanity that had taken over their brother’s mind. They would figure that out before too much longer.

  Nance sat on the ground long after the sun had edged over the horizon and drank coffee and muttered to himself. He drew strange symbols in the dirt while his kin waited for him to tell them to mount up and ride.

  But Nance was slipping deeper into the world of madness. He was no longer capable of telling anybody anything that would make any sense.

  Most of Nance’s cousins saddled up their horses and rode out without saying a word to Nance. Penrod and Hodge and the few kin who were left made no attempt to stop them.

  Nance’s brothers began talking, talking about Nance. Nance didn’t hear them, or if he did hear the words, they didn’t register in his sick mind. Words to Nance were now incomprehensible.

  One of Nance’s cousins walked over to him and slipped his guns out of leather. Nance didn’t notice. He continued to hum and talk to himself and draw those strange symbols in the dirt. Occasionally, he would laugh out loud and look around him with eyes that were strangely vacant.

  Nance soiled himself, peeing in his already dirty underwear. That was what finally got through to Penrod and Hodge.

  “I think somethin’ done snapped in his head,” Penrod remarked in a low voice.

  “He’s gone crazy,” Hodge said. “I seen an ol’ boy lose his marbles one time. He acted just like Nance is actin’.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  Only a few miles away, to the south, Falcon had fixed his breakfast, packed up his gear, and was riding back toward the camp of Nance and his Double N crew. He had made up his mind to finish this little war that day. Hell ate up the distance, moving Falcon closer to what he thought would be a showdown. It would be, but not the kind that he imagined.

  Penrod walked over to his brother and shook him by the shoulder. “Nance. We better get movin’ now, boy. You hear me, Brother?”

  Nance didn’t look up. His brother’s words were nothing but a roaring in his head.

  “Nance, we got to do somethin’, boy. We got to move out of here. It’s time to go.”

  Nance hummed a little song. Penrod walked away from his brother and sat down a few yards away. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it, then rolled and smoked another one. He did not know what to do. He couldn’t just leave his brother out in the middle of nowhere.

  Penrod looked around the camp at the others. At that moment he saw them all, including himself, for what they really were. They were all filthy and nasty and they all needed a good long hot bath . . . some of them more than one.

  “Pitiful,” Penrod said, loud enough for all to hear. “We sure don’t look like very much.”

  “You sure as hell don’t.” Falcon spoke, just a few yards away.

  Heads turned, eyes wide in surprise that anyone could slip up on them that easily.

  Falcon stood there, both hands filled with .44s. “Unbuckle your gunbelts and kick them away from you,” Falcon ordered. “And if you want to die, just touch the butt of a gun and I’ll start shooting and I won’t stop until my guns are empty and all of you are on the ground.”

  Gunbelts quickly hit the ground.

  “That’s better,” Falcon said. “Now then, what’s wrong with Nance?”

  “Somethin’s gone bad in his head,” Penrod replied. “He’s real sick, MacCallister. We got to get him to a doctor.”

  Falcon looked at Nance. The man was slobbering down the front of his shirt and humming a little melody over and over. Falcon could smell the stink of him from where he stood. It was really rank. Nance had soiled himself, from the way he smelled, more than once.

  “A doctor won’t be able to do Nance any good,” Falcon said. “Just commit your brother to an asylum, probably.”

  “Reckon where one of them is?” a Noonan cousin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Falcon said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, either. I came back to kill you.”

  That produced a babble of excited voices. Penrod’s voice finally overrode all the others. “We’re done huntin’ you, Mr. MacCallister. That was all Nance’s idea anyway. Yeah, we went along with it, ’cause he was the boss. But he ain’t nothin’ no more. He’s . . . goofy.”

  Falcon certainly couldn’t argue that. Falcon looked at each member of the Noonan clan. They were a sorry-looking bunch, for a fact. All the fight was gone from them. They were finished; there was no doubt in Falcon’s mind about that.

  “All right, Falcon said. ”Pack up your possibles and get Nance on a horse. There’s bound to be some sort of asylum for the insane down at the capital. Take him down there. But hear me good, boys: Stay clear of Colorado. If I see any of you there, I’ll kill you. I won’t say a word to you; I’ll just shoot you where you stand. You understand all that?“

  They all did, and said so several times in very excited voices.

  Falcon nodded his head. “Leave your six-guns where they are and ride out of here. Keep your rifles to hunt meat. Move! Get gone right now!”

  The Noonan clan was gone in five minutes. Out of sight. Heading for the capital. Nance sat his saddle and hummed and slobbered and peed his underwear.

  Falcon walked out from the camp to look at the hastily covered bodies of Rod Stegman and his kin. Coyotes had already been working on them during the night, pulling away the branches and small logs and moving the rocks to get at the bodies. Falcon looked up into the sky. Great black carrion birds were gathering, slowly circling in patient expectation of something to eat.

  “Hell with it,” Falcon muttered. “It’s all over, far as I’m concerned. I’m going home.”

  Thirty-Four

  Several weeks later, Falcon rode into MacCallister’s Valley just about an hour before dawn. He topped the ridge and sat his saddle, looking down at the town his parents had founded so many years ago. It appeared to have grown even since he’d been gone. Falcon rode slowly into town, avoiding the main street, and up to the livery stable. There was no one in sight. The liveryman was probably having breakfast. Falcon stabled his horse and rubbed him down and was forking some hay for him when the stableman walked in.

  “Well, Mr. MacCallister! Lord have mercy but it’s been a while since we’ve seen you.”

  “Jake,” Falcon greeted the older man. “You be careful around this horse. He’ll hurt you.”

  “I can tell that just by lookin’ at him. I’ll warn Maxwell to stay clear of him.”

  “Do that. You seen my kids, Jake? I bet they’ve grown about a foot since I’ve been gone.”

  “Why . . . your children are in St. Louis, Mr. MacCallister. Attending a private school. Your sisters thought that was best for them some months back.”

  “I see,” Falcon spoke the words slowly. He was speechless for a moment. Then he cleared his throat. “Well, my sisters probably know best. I’ll get me some breakfast and then be over at the Wild Rose.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. MacCallister. I’ll take good care of your horse.”

  Falcon slipped in the back door of the café to avoid seeing any townspeople ... he just didn’t feel up to that at the moment. The cook spotted him and Falcon held up a warning hand. The cook nodded his head in understanding. Falcon took his breakfast in the storeroom, eating alone, then walked the alley to his saloon, one of the finest and best furnished saloons in the entire state. He used his key
to enter through the back door and made his way through the darkness to his office. He lit the lanterns and opened the windows, airing out the large room. Then he made a pot of coffee. While the coffee was brewing, he washed up and shaved, then changed clothes, choosing one of the suits he always kept in a closet in his office.

  Falcon poured himself a huge mug of coffee and sat at his desk for a time, his thoughts busy.

  “I don’t belong here anymore,” he muttered. “I don’t know why that is, but I can feel it. It’s all wrong for me somehow. The Valley has turned sour for me.”

  One of the swampers came in and was momentarily startled to find Falcon sitting in his office, at his desk, drinking coffee alone. Falcon told the cleanup man to pour himself a cup of coffee and then waved him to a chair.

  “Tell me what’s been happening since I’ve been gone,” Falcon said.

  “Well, sir, your brother, Jamie Ian, has gone to Denver for a time, something about bankin’ business and statehood or somethin’ like that there. Two of your sisters, Joleen and Mary Kathleen, have gone to San Francisco for something or another, I ain’t real sure of the why-fors of that trip . . .”

  The man drank his coffee and brought Falcon up to date on his family and the town. The more the man talked, the more Falcon realized that he just didn’t fit in to Valley any longer. He was out of place. Something had happened to him during the time he’d been gone.

  The town was the same. But Falcon had changed.

  Long after the swamper had finished his coffee and begun cleaning up the saloon, Falcon sat in his office and drank coffee and entertained his thoughts.

  He wasn’t real sure what he should do, but he knew one thing for certain: He wasn’t going to stay in town for any length of time.

  He would see to some business, visit his brothers and sisters, and then drift. His mind was made up about that. No point in staying in a place where you don’t feel you belong.

  Falcon went out the back door and walked the backstreets to the livery stable. There, he saddled him a horse and rode up to his parents’ grave site. It was clean and had a profusion of flowers planted all around. The MacCallister kids saw to that. The grandkids weren’t so attentive, and probably the next generation after them might come up every year or so ... if that often.

  Perhaps that was the way it should be, Falcon thought. Time doesn’t stand still; it’s constantly moving, and people changing with it.

  Falcon stood by the graves for several moments, then put his hat back on his head—a new hat that he’d bought in a town on the way back. On the way back home? No, he thought. For some reason I can’t explain—and perhaps never will be able to explain—this isn’t home anymore. I have a business here, I have a large ranch here, I have lots of family here. But this just isn’t home for me any longer.

  Falcon turned away from the graves and mounted up, riding out to his ranch. There, he talked to the foreman for about an hour, then rode back into town. He didn’t worry about the ranch, for his older brother, Jamie Ian, would see to the paying of all bills and the payroll and so forth . . . just as he’d been doing for a year now.

  * * *

  He spent the rest of the day visiting with those brothers and sisters who were in town. The next day he bought supplies and picked out a packhorse from his own stock at the ranch. He’d used this horse before and knew it would trail well.

  He’d told his brothers and sisters that he was going to hit the trail; they would see him again when they saw him.

  The next morning, Falcon pulled out before dawn, heading south. He was going to check out New Mexico, he hadn’t been there in many years.

  As he put more distance between himself and the town, Falcon felt a load being lifted from him. He knew he wasn’t cut out to stay in one place for very long. He was a wanderer. Maybe someday he’d settle down again—maybe. But the way he felt at the moment, he doubted it.

  He’d seen a lot of country, but he wanted to see more. He wanted to see the Pacific Ocean again and he wanted to see the deserts. He wasn’t looking for trouble, and he hoped he wouldn’t run into any. He just wanted to wander for a time... maybe for a very long time.

  He smiled as he thought of Big Bob Marsh and Jack Stump enforcing the law in the town of Gilman. There damn sure wouldn’t be any trouble in that town as long as those two were wearing the badges and keeping order. And as wild and woolly as those two were, once they took that oath, they would be arrow-straight.

  “All right, Hell, ol’ hoss,” Falcon said, pushing his hat back on his head. “Let’s you and me go see what’s over the next hill.”