Crusade of Eagles

by J. A. Johnstone

  CRUSADE OF EAGLES

  William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Notes

  Chapter One

  The cold rain had begun before dawn, and continued to slash down on the small relay station that was the last stop before Colorado Springs. Looming blackly in the night was a large green Concord stage with yellow letters proudly proclaiming the carrier: MACCALLISTER STAGE LINES. It had rolled into the station at nine o’clock the night before, drawn by eight prancing horses blowing fog in the cold night air, and driven by a wizened old driver who pulled the team to a halt.

  There had been six passengers on board the stage, four men, one woman, and her nine-year-old daughter, and they had stepped down from the stage exhausted and grateful for the sparse comfort offered by the way station for the night. Their luggage had remained in the tightly lashed leather boot, dry and secure despite the rain that had started this morning. The window curtain, however, did little to keep out the rain, and the hard leather seats would be cold and wet for today’s travel.

  Last night, the six had eaten a late supper of stew and biscuits provided by Gulley Andrews, the manager of the way station. After that, they went to bed, warm and dry.

  Now, in the predawn darkness, Loomis Tate was sitting on a bale of hay eating cold beans from a can and looking through the rain toward the way station, which was some thirty yards distant. Loomis was a man of medium height and size, distinguished only by his pockmarked face and a drooping left eye.

  Matt Logan had climbed up into the loft a little earlier and was looking toward the east. Logan was tall and thin, almost cadaverous-looking. He had an oversized nose. Ron Michaels and Ken Strayhorn were keeping warm in one of the stalls. Michaels was an albino, and even the men who rode with him found him creepy. Strayhorn was short and stocky, with red hair and a bushy beard. Drew Tate was standing in the doorway relieving himself, no more than six feet away. Although Drew was Loomis’s brother, the two men didn’t look anything alike. Drew was almost nice-looking, until one looked into his eyes. They were obsidian, almost serpentine. He had a mustache that he groomed daily.

  “What the hell, Drew, you got no more manners than to piss that close to where a man is eatin’?” Loomis growled.

  “Sorry,” Drew said. “Wasn’t thinkin’.”

  “That don’t surprise me none. You don’t never think.”

  “It ain’t right, you talkin’ to me like that,” Drew said. “We’re brothers.”

  “The only reason we’re brothers is ’cause Ma wouldn’t let me’n Kelly hold your head underwater when you was born,” Loomis growled.

  “Yeah, well, still, you got no right to talk to me like that. Kelly don’t never talk to me like that.”

  “Yeah, well, Kelly ain’t got much more sense than you do,” Loomis said, speaking of their other brother.

  “It’s gettin’ light in the east,” Logan called down from the loft. “I reckon they’ll be comin’ out soon.”

  “Get the horses ready,” Loomis ordered. “Soon as we get the money, we’ll be ridin’ out of here.”

  “How come we don’t just hold ’em up out on the road?” Drew asked. “I ain’t never heard of robbin’ a stagecoach afore it even leaves the station.”

  “No, and neither has anybody else, which is exactly why we’re a’doin’ it this a’way,” Loomis replied. “Doin’ it like this means there ain’t no chance they can get away from us. And ’cause we’ll catch ’em by surprise, more’n likely, they won’t put up no fight.”

  “Lights on in the house,” Logan called down. “They’s folks movin’ around inside.”

  “Won’t be long now,” Loomis said.

  Inside the way station, the kitchen was filled with the rich aroma of coffee and frying bacon. Falcon MacCallister was in the kitchen, leaning against the sideboard, drinking coffee as he watched Gulley Andrews and his wife, Mary, preparing breakfast for the coach passengers.

  “Normally, we don’t ’low no passengers in here till breakfast time,” Gulley said. He chuckled. “But seein’ as you ain’t just a passenger, but are a partner in the stage company, I reckon you’re welcome.”

  “Well, I appreciate that, Gulley,” Falcon said. “But if you want me to wait somewhere else, I’ll be glad to go back to my room till you call.”

  “No, no. The only reason I don’t like folks in here is ’cause I don’t like nobody lookin’ over our shoulder when we’re a’cookin’. They keep trying to tell us a better way of doin’ things,” Gulley said as he removed a couple of pans of biscuits.

  “If it was me, I’d leave the biscuits in a mite longer,” Falcon said.

  “What?” Gulley asked, looking up quickly. Then, seeing the smile on Falcon’s face, he realized Falcon was teasing, and he laughed. “Well, if you don’t like the way I make my biscuits, you don’t have to eat them,” he said.

  “No, no!” Falcon said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll eat your biscuits. Mary’s gravy would make anybody’s biscuits taste good.”

  Mary laughed. “I see you know who to flatter, Mr. MacCallister,” she said. She had been making gravy, and now she poured it into a big bowl.

  “Uhmmm, that really looks good,” Falcon said.

  “Gulley, breakfast is all ready now,” Mary said.

  “Billy,” Gulley called to the stage driver. Billy McClain and Ben Jackson, his shotgun guard, were sitting at the dining room table, drinking coffee.

  “Yeah?” Billy answered.

  “Call your passengers down,” Gulley said. “Breakfast is ready.”

  “I’ll see to the team,” Ben said. Ben was in his fifties, a retired army sergeant who had served all through the Civil War, as well as during several of the Indian campaigns. He had been with Reno during Custer’s last fight.

  “You can wait until after breakfast if you want,” Billy said.

  “No need. I’ll just grab me a biscuit and bacon, and by the time you folks are finished eatin’, why, we’ll be all ready to go.”

  “Here you go, Ben,” Mary said, cutting open a biscuit and laying on two thickly cut pieces of bacon. She handed it to the shotgun guard.

  “Thanks, Mary,” Ben said.

  From his place in the barn, Loomis watched the back door of the house open, then slam shut as someone hurried through the dark and the rain.

  “Here comes someone from the house,” Loomis hissed. “Get back out of sight.”

  Ben slipped into the barn, then removed a match from a waxed, waterproof box to light a kerosene lantern. When the fl
ame was turned up, a small, golden bubble of light cast long shadows inside the barn.

  “Good mornin’, horses. I hate to get you out of a nice warm stall on a rainy day like this, but we got a long run ahead of us,” Ben said, talking to the animals. “So we may as well get started.”

  It was warm and dry inside the barn, though the sounds of the wind and the rain outside were testimony to the cold, wet beginning of the new day. The barn was redolent with the aromas of leather, cured wood, horseflesh, and hay. Ben walked over to the first of the eight horses that would form the hitch for the coach. He was just opening the gate to the stall when he saw someone standing in the shadows.

  “Who are you?” Ben asked. “What are you doing here?”

  That was as far as Ben got, because before he could say another word, a very pale hand came up from behind him and clamped down on his mouth.

  “Ungghnn!” he said, trying to call out.

  Another hand, equally colorless, came around, this one holding a knife. Ben felt the painful slice of the knife as it slit his throat.

  One of the passengers was a whiskey drummer, going to Colorado Springs to sell his wares to the saloons there. Mac Goff was short, with a narrow face and a hooked nose. Owen Gilmore, a lawyer, was overweight, red-faced, and sweated a lot. George Poindexter was the third male passenger, and he was young and clean-cut. The lone woman was exceptionally pretty, and her five-year-old daughter was already showing signs of being just as pretty. Falcon MacCallister was the fourth man.

  “Darlin’, I just bet you would like one of these sugar cookies I made yesterday,” Mrs. Andrews said to the little girl. She looked at the girl’s mother. “Is it all right to give her a cookie?”

  “Yes, that’s very nice of you,” Mrs. Poindexter said. “What do you say, Becky?”

  “Thank you,” Becky said.

  “Mr. MacCallister, what’s a fella like you ridin’ in a common stage for?” Goff asked. “Why, I’d think you’d be ridin’ in your own private coach.”

  Falcon chuckled. “In a way, you might say I am doing that, since two of my brothers and I own this stage line.”

  The drummer laughed as well. “I reckon you got a point there.”

  “What brings you to Colorado Springs, Mr. MacCallister?” the woman asked. This was Mrs. Poindexter, and she was the wife of the dairy farmer.

  “I received a letter from a man named James Pourtales,” Falcon said. “He asked that I come discuss some business arrangement with him.”

  “Yes, that would be Count Pourtales,” Mrs. Poindexter said.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I know him. My husband and I do business with him,” Mrs. Poindexter said. “He owns a large dairy, and we sell him milk.”

  “I thought he owned a hotel.”

  The lawyer chuckled. “Ahh, that would be the Broadmoor Casino,” he said. “Yes, Pourtales owns the Broadmoor. It is his attempt to bring culture to the West, I believe.”

  “And you think he won’t be successful?”

  “Have you ever heard the expression ‘a silk purse from a sow’s ear’?” the lawyer asked. “Any attempt to bring culture to this—godforsaken—West is akin to making a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

  “Well, I will withhold judgment until I’ve met him and seen the Broadmoor Casino,” Falcon said.

  “Is Ben comin’ back in?” Mary asked after breakfast. “I have some biscuits and bacon left over and he likes to take a few with him.”

  “I’ll take ’em to ’im,” Billy offered. He nodded toward a shotgun, standing in the corner. “Although I’m sure he’ll be back in. That’s his shotgun there, and he’s not likely to leave it.”

  “Well, I’ll just wrap his biscuit and bacon sandwiches up in a cloth,” Mary said. “But you be sure and tell him not to forget.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Billy promised. He stood up, took the last swallow of his coffee, then wiped his mouth. He picked up a canvas bag with a locked top.

  “All right, folks,” he called to the other passengers. “If we want to make Colorado Springs by noon, we need to get under way.”

  Billy and the passengers started toward the door, but Falcon stopped just before he reached the door.

  “I left my hat in my room,” he said. “Don’t leave without me.”

  Billy laughed. “Do you think I’d do that? It’s your stage, Mr. MacCallister. I may look dumb, but I ain’t dumb enough to leave my boss high and dry.”

  Goff laughed. “You ain’t likely to leave anyone dry in this weather,” he joked.

  The other passengers laughed as well; then, as Falcon started back to his room, they went outside. The stage was standing where it was left the night before. There was no team attached.

  “Damn,” Billy said. “Ben ain’t hooked up the team yet? That’s not like him.”

  As Billy and his passengers started through the rain toward the stage, five men, with guns drawn, suddenly came from the barn.

  “Hold it right there, folks,” the leader of the group of men called. He had a pockmarked face and a droopy eye.

  “What is this?” Billy called. “Where is Ben?”

  “Ben? That’d be the fella that come out here to hitch up the team?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s back there in the barn. Seems he sort of stuck his neck out.” He giggled at his own joke.

  Had an artist made a painting of the scene being played out in the yard of the way station, it would have been gray-washed by the falling rain. On one side of the canvas there was the barn and stagecoach. On the other side, the house. In between the barn and the house, Loomis and his men formed one line, while the driver and his passengers formed another line.

  Becky stared pointedly at the albino.

  “Mama,” she said. “That man has pink eyes.”

  “Hush, dear!” Mrs. Poindexter said, frightened at how the albino might react.

  The albino, who had endured a lifetime of stares, said nothing.

  “Are you the driver?” Loomis asked Billy.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “The name is Tate.”

  “Tate?” the lawyer said. “Would you be Loomis Tate?”

  “That’s me,” Loomis said. He glanced toward the rotund lawyer, then nodded. “Yeah, I thought I recognized you,” he said. “You’re a lawyer, ain’t you? I seen you back durin’ one of my trials. Maybe I should have used you then. My lawyer sure didn’t do me no good.”

  “I don’t work for free,” Gilmore said haughtily.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know what that means,” Loomis said. “But it don’t matter none. The judge had his time schedule for when I was to get out of prison, and I had mine.” He smiled broadly, though instead of making his face look more pleasant, it exaggerated the drooping eye and pulled the other one into a grotesque mask.

  “You escaped from prison, did you?” Billy asked.

  “Yeah, I did,” Loomis answered. He nodded toward the bag Billy was carrying. “I take it that bag you’re a’totin’ over your shoulder is the money shipment bag?”

  “It’s an express bag,” Billy said. “I don’t have no idea what’s in it.”

  Loomis chuckled. “Well, then, that makes me smarter’n you, don’t it? ’Cause I do know what’s in it. You’re carryin’ a ten-thousand-dollar shipment to a fella by the name of James Pourtales.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Billy said.

  “Toss the bag over.”

  Billy shook his head. “I don’t think I want to do that.”

  “What’d you say?” Loomis asked.

  “I’m responsible for this shipment,” Billy said. “You’re goin’ to have to take it from me, ’cause I ain’t handin’ it over.”

  “Michaels. You and Strayhorn bring . . .” He paused and looked at Billy. “What’d you say his name was? The man who come out for the horses?”

  “Ben.”

  “You two drag Ben’s body out here,” he said. “I think the driver needs a
little convincin’.”

  The albino and Strayhorn put their guns back in their holsters, then went into the barn. A moment later, they came back out, one holding each of Ben’s legs, dragging his body through the mud behind them.

  “Mama, what’s wrong with him?” Becky asked.

  “I killed him, little girl,” the albino said. “Same as I’m goin’ to kill your mama if the driver doesn’t do what we tell him to.”

  “No! Don’t hurt my mama!” Becky cried, wrapping her arms around her mother’s legs. Her mother pulled Becky’s face into her skirt.

  “Michaels, there ain’t no call for you to be scarin’ the little girl,” Loomis said. He looked back at the driver and passengers. “But it’s up to you folks whether or not she sees anyone else get kilt.” “You,” he said, pointing to the whiskey drummer. “Take that bag off the driver’s shoulder and toss it over here to us.”

  “Stay where you are, Goff,” Falcon called down from the porch.

  Loomis looked over toward the sound of the voice, and saw that another man had come from the house and was now standing out at the edge of the porch, looking down at them. His gun was still in his holster.

  “What did you say, mister?” Loomis asked.

  “I told Goff to stay where he is. If you want that money pouch, you’re going to have to get it yourself.”

  “What are you buttin’ into this for?” Loomis asked. “It ain’t your money.”

  “It isn’t yours either.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s goin’ to be mine, soon as I get my hands on it,” Loomis said. He put his gun away and started toward the driver.

  “Take another step toward that money bag and I’ll kill you,” Falcon said.

  “What?” Loomis said in surprise. He barked what might have been a laugh. “I’ll give you this, mister. You got a lot of gumption, bracing us without so much as a gun.”

  “Oh, I have a gun,” Falcon said easily. “It’s in my holster, just like yours is. And yours, and yours,” he added, pointing first to Tate, then to the albino and Strayhorn.

  “Maybe you didn’t notice, mister, but my gun ain’t in my holster,” one of the other men said.