Destiny of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  The distance opened to about five hundred yards. He was shooting down, and his target was at an angle and moving at better than twenty miles per hour. It was also a little over a quarter a mile away. To ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it was such an impossible shot that they wouldn’t even try.

  Falcon took in a deep breath, let half of the air out, then held it. Aaron was standing on top of the retreating boxcar, and he began dancing a taunting little jig. From this distance, Aaron was not much bigger than the front sight itself.

  Slowly . . . ever so slowly . . . Falcon began squeezing the trigger.

  * * *

  Aaron had seen Falcon take his rifle from the saddle sheath and sit down on top of the hill. The train was picking up speed now, moving faster than a good horse could gallop. The car was rattling and shaking, and Aaron was having a difficult time standing. He realized that he should get down, not only to help maintain his balance on top of the rapidly moving train, but also to make himself a smaller target. But he felt compelled to make some gesture of defiance, find some way to extract victory from the ordeal MacCallister had put him through. Instead of sitting down, he remained standing and hurled a challenge knowing it wouldn’t be heard.

  “Look at you now, you son of a bitch!” he shouted. “You killed one of my brothers, and caused the other one to get killed. But now I’m gettin’ away and you’re left suckin’ hind tit! Go ahead and shoot at me if you want to. I’m out of range, you dumb shit!”

  Aaron saw a little flash of flame from the end of Falcon’s rifle, and he saw the recoil rock Falcon back. He started to laugh at the futile attempt, then, suddenly, and unexpectedly, felt a blow in the center of his chest. He had only a moment to be surprised before he fell from the train, dead, even before his body bounced along the rocky ballast alongside the track.

  * * *

  Falcon MacCallister was not one for parties, and would not have gone to this one if Roosevelt hadn’t insisted.

  “It would mean a lot to me, Falcon, if you would come,” Roosevelt had told him. “It’s not only a celebration of the rescue of Anna, it’s also sort of an epiphany for me.”

  “An epiphany?”

  “An awakening of sorts, from my long period of grief,” Roosevelt said. He took his glasses off and polished them. “There will always be a place in my heart for Alice. But life must go on.” Roosevelt smiled. “Of course, I don’t have to tell you that, do I? We share that tragedy, you and I.”

  It was that remark, the “shared tragedy” remark, that convinced Falcon to come to the party. But now, as he dismounted in front of Elkhorn, he began having second thoughts and, had it been anyone else but Roosevelt, he would have remounted and ridden away.

  Not one to do things halfway, Roosevelt had hired a band, and the music spilled out onto the lawn where several partygoers were congregating under the trees, or around the gazebo.

  One of Roosevelt’s hands was cooking half a steer, turning it on a spit over an open fire. Another hand was brushing the glistening steer carcass with a sauce of some sort. Falcon had to admit that the aroma was very enticing.

  Roosevelt came outside to welcome Falcon.

  “I was beginning to fear that you might not come,” he said.

  “I confess to having second thoughts about it,” Falcon replied. “But a promise is a promise.”

  “Indeed it is, and that was what allayed my fears,” Roosevelt said. “Come, let’s go into the house.”

  As soon as the two men entered the house, the band quit the song it was playing and broke out into a fanfare of sorts. As if by prearranged signal, that brought all the other guests inside the house, where they crowded around in the great room. Then, calling for quiet, Roosevelt introduced Judge Andrew Heckemeyer.

  Heckemeyer climbed up on a wooden chair so he would have a commanding enough position to be seen by all in the room. Anna, beaming brightly, was standing beside the chair.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Heckemeyer said. “Those of you who know me might know that it is very difficult for me to ever say I was wrong. In fact, you might even say that I am a little stubborn.”

  “Stubborn? You, Judge? Surely, sir, you jest,” someone said, and the other guests laughed at the sarcasm.

  Heckemeyer held out his hands for silence. “All right,” he said, “I’m a lot stubborn. Which, I hope, gives more weight to what I am about to say.” He looked over at Falcon. “Mr. MacCallister, you, sir, are indeed the stuff of legends, a Western icon, and an American hero. I hereby publicly confess that my former opinion of you was wrong. And I apologize for any negative thing I ever said or thought about you.”

  “Hear! Hear!” someone shouted, and the others applauded.

  “Please,” Falcon said, embarrassed by everything. “No apology is needed.”

  “But you do accept it, I hope?”

  Falcon smiled. “I do accept it,” he said. When Heckemeyer stepped down from the chair with his hand extended, Falcon accepted it and shook it heartily. That action brought the applause of all present.

  “Mr. MacCallister, I hope you know that if there is ever anything I can do for you . . . anything at all, I’ll do it,” Heckemeyer said quietly.

  “Thank you, Judge. I appreciate that,” Falcon replied.

  Roosevelt climbed up on the chair then, and when he didn’t get the immediate attention of all, he put his fingers to his lips and whistled.

  The piercing whistle shocked many because it was so loud. Falcon had heard it before, and he just chuckled. The whistle did have the desired effect, though, because everyone grew quiet.

  “I also have something to say.” He looked at Falcon. “Falcon, I have an appointment for you.”

  “An appointment?”

  “I confess, it is a meaningless appointment unless you would happen to move to the State of New York. But I hope you will accept it with the honor it is intended to convey.”

  Roosevelt unfurled a scroll, cleared his throat, and began to read.

  “In accordance with the authority vested in me as Governor of the State of New York, I, David P. Hill, do hereby appoint Falcon MacCallister to the rank of Colonel of Cavalry in the New York Militia.”

  Roosevelt lowered the paper and looked at Falcon. “Congratulations, Colonel MacCallister,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Falcon said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t accept money, so this is all I could think of. I hope you like it.”

  Falcon smiled broadly. “I do like it,” he said. “Colonel MacCallister,” he added with a chuckle. “That sounds good. To be honest, I like it more than I probably should.”

  The others laughed again.

  “All right, friends, let the party begin!” Roosevelt said. “We’ve a lot of work to do tonight. We have half a steer to consume.”

  With Roosevelt’s announcement, many hurried outside to get in line for the barbecue. During the course of the party, so many came by to congratulate Falcon that he finally was forced to slip outside and walk over to the shadows of the far edge of the yard. He was there for but a few minutes when he felt a presence. Turning around, he saw Anna.

  “Thank you for Rhoda. She is beautiful,” Anna said. “You’re sure I can keep her?”

  “I’m sure,” Falcon said.

  Anna was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again, this time in a more plaintive voice.

  “I haven’t told anyone,” she said.

  “Told anyone what?”

  “That I . . . I killed a man.”

  “You don’t need to tell anyone,” Falcon replied.

  “I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “You had no choice.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling myself. Still, I’m having a difficult time dealing with it.”

  “You will have difficulty for a while. But you are a strong woman and you will come to accept that it had to be done.”

  “How do you deal with such things? I mean, you’ve killed so ma
ny.” Anna gasped and put her hand to her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “That’s all right,” Falcon said. “It’s a good question and, under the circumstances, you have every right to ask.”

  “All right, I’ll ask again. How do you deal with it?”

  “When a potato gets rotten, there is nothing left of the original potato. In fact, the rotten so poisons the potato that you have to throw the entire thing away in order to get rid of the rot.

  “Men are like that. When their soul becomes infested with evil, there is nothing you can do but get rid of the evil. Just remember, you aren’t killing the man, the man has already died. You are only killing the evil.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said, smiling. “Thank you. That will help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Well, I guess I had better go back to the party now. Are you coming back?”

  “In a little while,” Falcon said.

  After Anna left, Falcon remained outside. A breeze came up, colder than it had been, and he knew that the long, lingering days of a warm fall were about over. It would be winter soon, and snow would close the passes.

  He would head south in the morning. He’d never cared much for the cold.

  Notes from the Old West

  In the small town where I grew up, there were two movie theaters. The Pavilion was one of those old-timey movie show palaces, built in the heyday of Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin—the silent era of the 1920s. By the 1950s, when I was a kid, the Pavilion was a little worn around the edges, but it was still the premiere theater in town. They played all those big Technicolor biblical Cecil B. DeMille epics and corny MGM musicals. In Cinemascope.

  On the other side of town was the Gem, a somewhat shabby and run-down grind house with sticky floors and torn seats. The Gem booked low-budget “B” pictures (remember the Bowery Boys?), war movies, horror flicks, and Westerns. I liked the Westerns best. I could usually be found every Saturday at the Gem, along with my best friend, Newton Trout, watching Westerns from 10 AM until my mother or father came looking for me around suppertime. (Sometimes Newton’s dad was dispatched to come fetch us.) One time, my dad came to get me right in the middle of Abilene Trail, which featured the now-forgotten Whip Wilson. My father became so engrossed in the action he sat down and watched the rest of it with us. We didn’t get home until after dark, and my mother’s meat loaf was a pan of gray ashes by the time we did. Though my father and I were both in the doghouse the next day, this remains one of my fondest childhood memories. There was Wild Bill Elliot, and Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, and Tim Holt and, a little later, Rod Cameron and Audie Murphy. Of these newcomers, I never missed an Audie Murphy Western, because Audie was sort of an antihero. Sure, he stood for law and order and was an honest man, but sometimes he had to go around the law to uphold it. If he didn’t play fair, it was only because he felt hamstrung by the laws of the land. Whatever it took to get the bad guys, Audie did it. There were no finer points of law, no splitting of legal hairs. It was instant justice, devoid of long-winded lawyers, bored or biased jurors, or black-robed, often corrupt judges.

  Steal a man’s horse and you were the guest of honor at a necktie party.

  Molest a good woman and you got a bullet in the heart or a rope around the gullet. Or at the very least, got the crap beat out of you. Rob a bank and face a hail of bullets or the hangman’s noose.

  Saved a lot of time and money, did frontier justice.

  That’s all gone now, I’m sad to say. Now you hear, “Oh, but he had a bad childhood” or “His mother didn’t give him enough love” or “The homecoming queen wouldn’t give him a second look and he has an inferiority complex.” Or “cultural rage,” as the politically correct bright boys refer to it. How many times have you heard some self-important defense attorney moan, “The poor kids were only venting their hostilities toward an uncaring society”?

  Mule fritters, I say. Nowadays, you can’t even call a punk a punk anymore. But don’t get me started.

  It was “howdy, ma’am” time too. The good guys, antihero or not, were always respectful to the ladies. They might shoot a bad guy five seconds after tipping their hat to a woman, but the code of the West demanded you be respectful to a lady.

  Lots of things have changed since the heyday of the Wild West, haven’t they? Some for the good, some for the bad.

  I didn’t have any idea at the time that I would someday write about the West. I just knew that I was captivated by the Old West.

  When I first got the itch to write, back in the early 1970s, I didn’t write Westerns. I started by writing horror and action adventure novels. After more than two dozen novels, I began thinking about developing a Western character. From those initial musings came the novel The Last Mountain Man: Smoke Jensen. That was followed by Preacher: The First Mountain Man. A few years later, I began developing the Last Gunfighter series. Frank Morgan is a legend in his own time, the fastest gun west of the Mississippi . . . a title and a reputation he never wanted, but can’t get rid of.

  The Gunfighter series is set in the waning days of the Wild West. Frank Morgan is out of time and place, but still, he is pursued by men who want to earn a reputation as the man who killed the legendary gunfighter. All Frank wants to do is live in peace. But he knows in his heart that dream will always be just that: a dream, fog and smoke and mirrors, something elusive that will never really come to fruition. He will be forced to wander the West, alone, until one day his luck runs out.

  For me, and for thousands—probably millions—of other people (although many will never publicly admit it), the old Wild West will always be a magic, mysterious place: a place we love to visit through the pages of books; characters we would like to know . . . from a safe distance; events we would love to take part in, again, from a safe distance. For the old Wild West was not a place for the faint of heart. It was a hard, tough, physically demanding time. There were no police to call if one faced adversity. One faced trouble alone, and handled it alone. It was rugged individualism: something that appeals to many of us.

  I am certain that is something that appeals to most readers of Westerns.

  I still do on-site research (whenever possible) before starting a Western novel. I have wandered over much of the West, prowling what is left of ghost towns. Stand in the midst of the ruins of these old towns, use a little bit of imagination, and one can conjure up life as it used to be in the Wild West. The rowdy Saturday nights, the tinkling of a piano in a saloon, the laughter of cowboys and miners letting off steam after a week of hard work. Use a little more imagination and one can envision two men standing in the street, facing one another, seconds before the hook and draw of a gunfight. A moment later, one is dead and the other rides away.

  The old wild untamed West.

  There are still some ghost towns to visit, but they are rapidly vanishing as time and the elements take their toll. If you want to see them, make plans to do so as soon as possible, for in a few years, they will all be gone.

  And so will we.

  Stand in what is left of the Big Thicket country of east Texas and try to imagine how in the world the pioneers managed to get through that wild tangle. I have wondered that many times and marveled at the courage of the men and women who slowly pushed westward, facing dangers that we can only imagine.

  Let me touch briefly on a subject that is very close to me: firearms. There are some so-called historians who are now claiming that firearms played only a very insignificant part in the settlers’ lives. They claim that only a few were armed. What utter, stupid nonsense! What do these so-called historians think the pioneers did for food? Do they think the early settlers rode down to the nearest supermarket and bought their meat? Or maybe they think the settlers chased down deer or buffalo on foot and beat the animals to death with a club. I have a news flash for you so-called historians: The settlers used guns to shoot their game. They used guns to defend hearth and home against Indians on the warpath. They
used guns to protect themselves from outlaws. Guns are a part of Americana. And always will be.

  The mountains of the West and the remains of the ghost towns that dot those areas are some of my favorite subjects to write about. I have done extensive research on the various mountain ranges of the West and go back whenever time permits. I sometimes stand surrounded by the towering mountains and wonder how in the world the pioneers ever made it through. As hard as I try and as often as I try, I simply cannot imagine the hardships those men and women endured over the hard months of their incredible journey. None of us can. It is said that on the Oregon Trail alone, there are at least two bodies in lonely unmarked graves for every mile of that journey. Some students of the West say the number of dead is at least twice that. And nobody knows the exact number of wagons that impatiently started out alone and simply vanished on the way, along with their occupants, never to be seen or heard from again.

  Just vanished.

  The 150-year-old ruts of the wagon wheels can still be seen in various places along the Oregon Trail. But if you plan to visit those places, do so quickly, for they are slowly disappearing. And when they are gone, they will be lost forever, except in the words of Western writers.

  As long as I can peck away at a keyboard and find a company to publish my work, I will not let the Old West die. That I promise you.

  As the Drifter in the Last Gunfighter series, Frank Morgan has struck a responsive chord among the readers of frontier fiction. Perhaps it’s because he is a human man, with all of the human frailties. He is not a superhero. He likes horses and dogs and treats them well. He has feelings and isn’t afraid to show them or admit that he has them. He longs for a permanent home, a place to hang his hat and sit on the porch in the late afternoon and watch the day slowly fade into night . . . and a woman to share those simple pleasures with him. But Frank also knows he can never relax his vigil and probably will never have that long-wished-for hearth and home. That is why he is called the Drifter. Frank Morgan knows there are men who will risk their lives to face him in a hook and draw, slap leather, pull that big iron, in the hopes of killing the West’s most famous gunfighter, so they can claim the title of the man who killed Frank Morgan, the Drifter. Frank would gladly, willingly, give them that title, but not at the expense of his own life.