Talons of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  About twenty degrees above zero, with the ground covered with snow. Jamie wasn’t sure, but he thought he had passed the new year in a cave, sitting out a blizzard. “That would make it 1870,” he muttered, his breath steaming the air. “Kate’s been gone almost six months now.” And, he thought, the trail I’ve been trying to find is as cold as the weather.

  Almost six months, Kate lying cold in her grave.

  No, he corrected his thoughts as he walked his horses onto the wide street, deep-rutted from the wheels of many heavily laden wagons. That is only the shell that contained the flesh and blood of my Kate. Her soul is with Man Above.

  Waiting for me.

  Jamie stabled his horses at the livery and told the man to brush and curry the packhorse. “Don’t touch Buck,” he warned. “He bites and kicks.”

  “I wouldn’t touch that big ugly son of a bitch for fifty dollars,” the young man said. He jumped back just in time to avoid the flashing teeth of Buck, who was doing his best to take a chunk out of the livery man’s arm.

  “Don’t hurt his feelings,” Jamie cautioned him with a small smile. The smiles were coming more often now, but they were still rare. “He’s very sensitive.”

  The young man rolled his eyes and began forking hay into the stall, muttering about horses in general and Buck in particular.

  Jamie took his rifle and saddlebags and walked up the boardwalk to the only hotel that was still open in the dying town. He checked in and stowed his gear. The desk clerk froze as still as death when he reversed the book and read the name.

  Jamie Ian MacCallister.

  The legend himself. In person. In his hotel. My God!

  The clerk took in Jamie’s size. Big as a mountain. His hair was almost all gray, but the big man moved like a huge puma. The clerk sensed danger shrouding Jamie like clouds on the high peaks.

  “I’ll have a haircut and a bath,” Jamie said. “Where’s the barber shop?”

  “Just across the street, sir. To your left as you leave the hotel. May I say that it is an honor to have you here, sir. I . . .”

  But Jamie was already out the door. The clerk called for one of his swampers and told the rummy to spread the news. Man Who Is Not Afraid was in town.

  Jamie soaped and scrubbed and did it again with buckets of hot water. Then he had the barber cut his long hair short. After Jamie had left, the barber carefully swept up the graying hair. There were people who would pay a lot of money for a few strands of the hair of the man many Indians still called Man Who Plays With Wolves. Still others called the living legend Bear Killer.

  Others called him one big mean son of a bitch, but never to his face.

  Dusk was settling over the mountains as Jamie went into the hotel bar and ordered a whiskey. “From the good bottle,” he told the barkeep. He would linger over the amber liquid, savoring the hard flavor, and then have dinner. The menu on the chalkboard was beef and potatoes.

  The men who had lined the bar shifted to one side, giving Jamie the entire left side of the long mahogany. Everyone in the West knew the story of the Miles Nelson attack on MacCallister’s Valley, the death of Kate, and that Jamie was on the prod.

  After ordering his whiskey, Jamie spoke to no one in the bar, and no one spoke directly to him. A man wearing a star on his coat entered the room, looked at Jamie for a short time, then left. He did not leave because of fear, only because he knew MacCallister’s reputation and knew Jamie would not deliberately provoke an argument with any innocent citizen.

  But the marshal also knew there were a couple of ol’ boys in town who thought themselves to be tough, and when they heard that MacCallister was in town, they would brace him in hopes of gaining a reputation. The marshal didn’t want to be around when that happened. He knew that while the two so-called “bad men” were strutting around, talking about what they’d do to MacCallister, Jamie would just shoot them and be done with it.

  And when the smoke had cleared, MacCallister would go eat supper.

  The marshal went home to eat his own supper, and to hell with those two clowns who thought they were tough. In about fifteen minutes, or less, they wouldn’t be tough—they’d just be dead. And in two days, forgotten.

  Jamie had just lifted the glass to his lips when the front door banged open and cold air swept through the barroom. Jamie did not turn his head to see who it was. He had positioned himself so he could watch the front door by using the long mirror behind the bar.

  Jamie sighed as he watched the two young men. Trouble, he thought. Local toughs wanting to make a reputation. Go away, boys. Go away.

  The pair swaggered toward the bar. Both of them were wearing two guns, low and tied down.

  Damn! Jamie thought.

  The young men bellied up to the bar, and one called for whiskey in too loud a tone.

  The barkeep slid a bottle down to them. He was being very careful to stay clear of the line of fire. The knot of men at the opposite end of the bar left to take tables. No one wanted to get shot.

  “Howdy there, old-timer. The name’s Pullen,” one of the young men said. “Jim Pullen. You heared of me, I reckon.”

  “Can’t say as I have,” Jamie said, after taking a small sip of whiskey. Jamie was not really a drinking man, but he did enjoy one or two drinks occasionally.

  “Oh, yeah? You don’t get around much, do you? Well, I reckon a man of your advanced age pretty much has to stay close to hearth and home.”

  Jamie smiled. There wasn’t much of the West he hadn’t seen at one time or the other.

  “My pard, here, is Black Jack Perkins. I know you’ve heared of him.”

  “Can’t say as I have, boy.”

  “Well, he killed a man in Black Hawk, he did.”9

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jamie said, after taking another sip of whiskey. “Terrible thing, having to kill a man.”

  “Huh! Well, I killed my share of men, too. I ain’t lost no sleep over it.”

  Jamie said nothing. He placed his shot glass on the polished bar and waited. He had left his heavy winter coat up in his room and wore a waist-length leather jacket over a dark shirt. Dark trousers and boots. Out of long habit, he had slipped the leather thongs off the hammers of his twin Colts before entering the barroom. He waited.

  “You’re Jamie MacCallister, ain’t you?” Black Jack asked, stepping away from the bar and facing Jamie.

  “That’s right.”

  “I been hearin’ ’bout you all my life. I’m sick of it. I don’t think you done half of what people say you done. I think most of it was piff and padoodle. Now what do you think about that?”

  Jamie was growing very weary of the pair of would-be toughs. But he didn’t want to kill either of them. He turned to face the young man and smiled. He lifted one hand and waggled a finger at Black Jack. “Come here, boy.”

  Black Jack strutted up to Jamie, a curious expression on his face.

  Jamie hit him with a left that produced a sound much like a watermelon struck with the flat side of a shovel. Jerking one of the young man’s guns from leather, and holding the nearly unconscious Black Jack up between himself and Pullen, Jamie closed the few feet and laid the barrel of the gun against Pullen’s head. Jim Pullen hit the floor, his lights turned out.

  Jamie popped Black Jack again, and Black Jack joined his buddy on the floor for a nap. He took their pistols and walked out back to the privy, dropping the six-shooters down the twin holes. They disappeared forever with a splash.

  Back in the bar, the men seated at the tables winced at the power in those big arms as Jamie reached down with both hands and grabbed the sleeping young men by the backs of their shirt collars and dragged them outside, depositing them both in the street.

  Returning to the warmth of the bar, Jamie signaled the barkeep for another drink and then turned to the crowd. “Am I going to have any more trouble here tonight?”

  The men slowly and solemnly shook their heads.

  “Fine,” Jamie said, then took his drink into the re
staurant and sat down and ordered dinner. Outside, a citizen helped one of the marshal’s deputies drag the unconscious young men across the street. The deputy tossed them into a jail cell and slammed and locked the door.

  “Damn fools,” the citizen said.

  “They’re lucky MacCallister didn’t kill them,” the deputy said. “He may be gettin’ on in years, but that is still one war hoss, and no man to brace.”

  “Reckon how long he’ll stay in town?” the citizen questioned.

  “As long as he damn well pleases,” the deputy replied.

  * * *

  “It’s from Pa!” Matthew shouted with a wide grin, waving the envelope the stage driver had handed him. Matthew looked up at the driver. “Where’d you get this, Luke?”

  “Another driver give it to me. It’s been passed around some, Matt. I figure it’s taken near’bout two months to get here.”

  Matthew sat down on the porch of the Goldman Mercantile Store and carefully opened the envelope. Abe and Rebecca Goldman were long dead, the store now operated by their youngest son, Tobias.

  The entire town, more than five hundred people, soon gathered around, waiting in silence as Matthew read the letter.

  “Pa’s well,” Matthew finally said. Matthew was one of triplets—Matthew, Morgan, and Megan—born in 1832. “Pa was in Central City when he wrote this. He’s picked up the trail of some of the Nelson gang and was leavin’ out for Wyoming next mornin’.”

  “What’s the date?” Matt’s youngest sister, Joleen, asked.

  “There ain’t any. Hush up and listen.”

  “Don’t tell me to shush, you ox!”

  “Shut up, the both of you!” Jamie Ian told his brother and sister. “Read,” he told Matt.

  “There ain’t much more.”

  “Isn’t,” Joleen corrected.

  Matt sighed and returned to the letter. “Pa says to tend to Ma’s grave site and plant some flowers around about. He says if he comes back here and finds the site all grown up with weeds, somebody’s butt is gonna be in trouble.” He looked up into the faces of his brothers and sisters, in-laws and nieces and nephews and what have you. “That’s it.”

  “I wonder where Pa is now?” Megan said.

  * * *

  “Atlantic City,” Jamie read the faded wooden sign, “Welcomes You.”

  Jamie had bypassed South Pass City, giving it a wide berth and riding on toward Atlantic City. He had heard that several of the men he was seeking were loafing around that mining town, gambling and whoring and making trouble.

  Jamie was about to put an end to all that.

  The government had recently started building a fort near Atlantic City. It would be named Fort Stambaugh, after a first lieutenant who had been killed by Indians near Miner’s Delight. It would be abandoned in eight years.

  After the raid on MacCallister’s Valley, the Miles Nelson gang had broken up and scattered. The Pinkertons and Wells Fargo detectives, many sheriffs and town marshals all over the West, as well as federal marshals and the U.S. Army, were after them. With the gold and money taken from the bank and the stagecoach, the gang members could live well for a couple of years. By then, the heat would be off them and they could regroup . . . or so they thought.

  But they hadn’t taken into consideration one Jamie Ian MacCallister dogging their trail, riding with hard revenge burning in his trail-wise eyes.

  When the gang had struck MacCallister’s Valley, the Nelson gang was the largest in all the West. Actually there were five gangs, each with about fifteen men, robbing and raping and looting and burning from Kansas to California. Miles had pulled them all together for the raid that killed Jamie’s wife. Twenty of the gang had been killed, wounded, or captured during the raid in the valley. That left about fifty-five outlaws still on the loose. Fifty-five of the meanest, sorriest, most worthless dredges of humanity ever assembled.

  It had taken Jamie about six months to do it, but he had put together a list of men who were part of the Miles Nelson gang. To do so, he had visited with every sheriff and marshal in every town he passed through, looking at dodgers and talking with men in lock-up. A rustler might steal your cattle, but when it came to raping and killing women, shooting little kids down in the street, that was going too far. And most of the men in jail talked to Jamie.

  Jamie had a list of fifty-one names, and if it took him the rest of his life, he was going to visit each name. After the visit, he would draw a line through that man’s name.

  These men had robbed him of the most precious thing in his life.

  Kate.

  And if it cost him his own life checking off those names, well, so be it. Without Kate he was nothing.

  Just . . . nothing at all.

  Notes

  1 Eyes of Eagles—Zebra Books

  2 Dreams of Eagles—Zebra Books

  3 Dreams of Eagles—Zebra Books

  4 Eyes of Eagles—Zebra Books

  5 Fort Campbell, Kentucky, lies not far from this site.

  6 So bitter were the memories, many regions of the South would not celebrate Independence Day for many years after the War Between the States. Some sections of the South only began celebrating it again in the 1950’s.

  7 Eyes Of Eagles—Zebra Books

  8 Dreams of Eagles—Zebra Books

  9 The town also went by the name of Doe for several years.