In their camp, the tall overland wagon stood like a big glowing lamp on the prairie grass, its canvas cover aglow with lantern light. In the covered bed, Asa peered at his maps, muttering to himself. Once or twice he glanced out into the darkness where Tuck and Billy had gone, and frowned.
Sooner or later he would have to get rid of Billy Challis. The little rooster was crazy as a loon, and it was like having a coiled rattlesnake around all the time. Still, he had never found a man better with a gun, and that could come in handy.
Where they were going, he’d need guns around him. He went back to his maps, turning over details in his mind, just as Sypher had laid it out. It was a beautiful plan, but complicated. Still, all he had to do was pull it off and he’d be a rich man.
The nine thousand dollars from the Kansas Pacific courier was only seed money. The real money would show up when they lured one of the big combines—maybe the Atchison Topeka or the Rock Island—into No Man’s Land. Despite himself, Asa was impressed by the sheer audacity of Sypher’s scheme.
Transcontinental railroading had become a glory dream for the big investors. Ever since the Union Pacific’s success, railroad ventures had sprouted like weeds. Everybody was building rails, and the competition was fierce. The Animas Spur thing had been small stuff. Railroads paid a few thousand dollars for spur rights-of-way. But for main line routes, they paid millions.
Sypher knew how to set up a route, and Asa Parker knew how to spring a trap. All he had to do was establish himself as a major landholder, right where the railroad wanted to go. Then Sypher could guide the railroad boys toward him, and when the big money came out they’d be there to sweep it in.
Asa looked around him, musing. Folly Downs was over by the fire, hogging the coffee. Kurt Obermier and Casper Wilkerson had already rolled it in for the night. Out on the rise, Tuck Kelly was trying to keep a curb on Billy Challis.
The stolen money was hidden away in the wagon, and Asa wasn’t about to turn his back on it. Billy Challis wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t hesitate to help himself to the loot if he got the chance. They were all of the same stripe. Not a one of them would hesitate to betray or kill for that much money. Only the thought of facing Asa had kept them at bay so far—that, and knowing that whichever one went for it would have the others to deal with.
Rattlesnakes, Asa thought. Like a damn bunch of rattlers. But they were all necessary ... until the job was done.
Then he’d see what he could do about getting rid of them all.
He heard footsteps and pushed back the flap. Tuck Kelly stood just outside, beyond the tailgate. “Billy just can’t stand it,” he said. “He wants to ride out there and see if there’s anybody behind us.”
“Then let him go,” Asa rumbled. “The wormy little bastard just wants a chance to go down to that tradin’ post we passed and raise hell. If that’s what it takes, let him go! But you go with him, and for God’s sake keep him out of trouble. We don’t need a lot of attention right now. Go on, get! Just keep a halter on him, and be at Wolf Creek when I get there! ”
“There ain’t anybody can keep a halter on Billy,” Tuck muttered. “That jasper’s crazy as a loon.” He ducked his head, then, not wanting to meet Asa’s eyes. If there was one man in the world Tuck feared more than Billy Challis, it was Asa Parker.
Tuck turned away, and beyond him Asa could see Billy—out by the horses—picking up a saddle. The varmint just couldn’t get enough of hell-raising, and he’d been itching about that Roost place ever since they passed it.
The place was a tiny settlement right at the east end of Black Mesa, where the Cimarron breaks began. They’d have stopped there for provisions if it weren’t for the wagon. The overland had enough supplies aboard to last all of them a month, so Asa had just kept on eastward instead of swinging down to the Roost.
Dourly, Asa watched as Billy and Tuck saddled up and rode out under a starry sky. He wasn’t especially worried. They would be back, and they’d be around when they were needed.
Tuck was slick enough so that Billy wouldn’t brace him if he didn’t have to. And nothing this side of hell would keep the sons of bitches away long while Asa held onto the money.
FIVE
Jonathan Boles Stratton arrived at Emporia on the sixth of March—just in time to see the first good thaw of an unusually early spring, had he been inclinedto notice such things, which he was not. Portersbowed and lackeys scurried to serve as he stepped from the gold-filigree lavishness of the Rock Island line’s best sedan car to the bustling platform before the train depot, followed by his ever present clerk. Crowds parted as a covered carriage pulled up, and a uniformed attendant said, “Right this way, Mr. Stratton, sir. You’ll be taken directly to your hotel.”
Jonathan Boles Stratton wore importance the way most men wore their britches—casually, carelessly, and always. As an official of the Bureau of Transportationand Railways, he expected the cozenings of politicians and the sumptuous hospitality of boosters.As chief of grants for the high plains region he had become the “man of the hour” in certain circles—theman everyone wanted to know, the man land speculators fawned over and investors scurried to please.
With authority over supplementary federal grants and loans, he had the power to designate public lands as railway grants, and thus to dictate routes for many of the rail lines sprawling ever westward across the continent. Using inducements, he could even dictate where subsidiary spurs might go.
In the national zeal to build new railways, little attention was given to how he served himself in the process. It had become the “American Way” back east—and the custom was spreading westward—to accept that people in positions of public power tended to become proportionately wealthy. It was expected.Old standards of conduct for public servants were eroding before the onslaught of self-seeking. The postwar years had produced a national cynicism that might never be undone, and once meaningful appellations such as “The Honorable” had long since lost any basis in reality.
Stratton had been a small-time politician until the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. In the subsequent realignments, Stratton had schemed his way up in the bureaucracy with ruthless determination—to a position of power with control of the fates of wealthy men, but not so highly placed as to be politically vulnerable.
The new president of the United States had pledged to serve only one term. Stratton’s appointmentwas political, but obscure, and his ambitions were simple. He set out to enjoy the fruits of public trust for as long as the trough flowed, and let others do the work. That four years was ending now, and Stratton was basking in the final glow of glory, but he still held the power of empires.
From the presidential suite at the Hotel Florence, Stratton was escorted to the dining room, where variousdignitaries awaited him. Throughout the course of a lavish meal hosted by a combine of land speculators,he was plied with questions. His responses were unfailingly authoritative and hopelessly vague. Eventually the questioners gave up. They weren’t goingto learn from The Honorable Mr. Stratton what routes the Santa Fe or the Rock Island would follow westward, or what lands would be involved.
Stratton didn’t really know. The only one present who did was a lowly clerk none of the leading citizenseven considered acknowledging, much less questioning.
Back in the lavish private suite, Stratton threw off his coat and sprawled out on his bed. “Did you get the names and affiliations of all those gentlemen?” he asked.
The clerk retrieved the great man’s coat and hung it up, then strode to a desk by the window and opened a valise. “Yes, sir,” he said. “All noted with addresses. Shall I write out the usual thank-you lettersto all of them?”
“Yes, of course. Personalize each of them a bit, as usual, and sign my name.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I assume you made note of their concerns and suggestions?”
“Yes, sir. The usual things. Most of them are lookingfor tips on where the Rock Island main line will go. Some are also inves
tors in the Santa Fe, and a few are hoping you’ll tell them where to buy land that they can sell to the government at handsome profits. If you like, I’ll bring your charts up to date with annotations of who is interested in what.” The clerk shuffled papers in his valise and closed it.
“You do that,” Stratton said drowsily. “I may want to discuss investments with some of them, privately. You understand.”
“Yes indeed, sir. I understand. If you’ll excuse me now, sir, I’ve been given a room just down the hall. I’ll get to work on these things for you right away.”
“Very good.” Stratton yawned. “And please see what arrangements these locals have made for our tour of the operations from here to Division. Ah, where is that, again?”
“A town called Newton, I believe, sir. Seventy or eighty miles west of here. Santa Fe investors and some promoters for the Kansas Pacific. You’ll have a private car waiting there. I believe you’re scheduledfor a tour of the railhead. That will be Dodge City. I’ll see to the arrangements.” The clerk picked up his valise, along with the bundle of highly secret route charts which Stratton carried with him but rarely glanced at. He started for the door.
“Oh, by the way,” Stratton called, “please make some discreet inquiries ... possibly of the hotel staff. See what sorts of, ah, special entertainments might be available to distinguished guests here.”
“Yes, sir. Possibly young ladies, sir?”
“Of course, young ladies!” Stratton chuckled. “See to it for me, if you please. You know my preferences.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll see to it, sir.”
“You’re a good man, Sypher. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Sypher spent most of the afternoon in his room, working on the charts. Two main lines presently were expanding through Kansas—one in operation to the Arkansas River at a place called Dodge, the second now laying track westward from Newton. Carefully, Sypher penciled in a corridor running west from this one, fanning it out toward the Cimarroncountry. He added route notes, and replaced the charts in their leather case.
After checking on Stratton, who was barricaded in his suite now with a stock of whiskey and three whores, Sypher went to the Western Union office, collected his messages and—for a slight fee—thumbed through the telegrapher’s collection of general delivery messages. Sypher was a careful man, and knowing what was on general delivery was always a prudent thing to do.
At first they were of no interest. Then a name jumped out at him. In a coded message—some code he didn’t know—was the name Asa Parker. The messagewas from a Kansas Pacific official in Denver, addressed to a Falcon MacCallister.
Sypher tried to decode the message, and gave up. Instead, he used Stratton’s seal to issue a general inquiry to military posts up and down the system, seeking information about someone named Falcon MacCallister.
There was no way to contact Asa Parker directly, but he did learn from the telegraph posters that a railroad courier had been waylaid south of Denver. So he knew that Parker was eastbound now ... with nine thousand dollars in hand.
It galled him to have to rely on anyone so unsavoryas Asa Parker. The man was worse than just a thief and swindler with a talent for complex scams. Parker was a ruthless cold-blooded killer. A dangerousman. Still, there was comfort in knowing how competently Parker had carried out his masquerade as a security expert. It spoke well for the next stage of the plan.
One of the telegrams Sypher sent out was to a settlement called Hardwoodville, near the western terminus of the wire. It was addressed to one ColonelAmos DeWitt—which would be Parker’s public name for the duration—and its coded message contained metes and bounds of a fifty-mile square area straddling the southern border of Kansas.
Falcon gave Woha’li’s rifle back to him and showed him how to clean it. He had no .32-20 rounds to load in it, but it seemed to brighten the kid’s spirit a little just to have the gun in hand.
At dawn, he saddled Diablo and rounded up the two strays. Then he helped the boy saddle the better of them—a long-coupled little dun with a scabbed-overbullet burn—and packed up his camp. They ate the last of the bacon and washed it down with overnight coffee, and Woha’li went to stand once more over the grave of his parents. When Falcon swung aboard the big black and headed out, the Indian boy mounted the dun and followed him, silently.
East of the grass-burn, Falcon studied the tracks again and made a decision. He needed supplies, and he knew there was—or had been—a settlement of some kind to the south, just below Robber’s Roost in the Cimarron breaks—a place called Outpost.
The men with the stolen wagon had headed east, and were a day—or maybe two—ahead of him. But with that prairie schooner they wouldn’t make more than twelve or fifteen miles a day. Falcon knew Diablocould cover three times that distance without breaking a sweat.
He turned, looking back at the kid. “I’m going to town,” he said. He pointed southward, so the boy would understand. “Town,” he repeated. “Uh ... gadu‘h. A town! Tsi ... Tsigi’ah!”
The boy stared at him blankly, then blinked and shook his head. Something like a half smile tugged at his cheeks. Falcon knew some Cheyenne—or Tisi-tsi-ista, as the Cheyenne people called themselves. He had learned a smattering of Ute, which was similarto Pawnee, and knew a few Shawnee phrases that he had learned from his father. He even knew a few words of bastard Apache. But Cherokee, the languageof the Tsalagi people, was another tongue, as different from all of those as Mandarin Chinese was from English. The Indian kid gazed at him smugly, and he wondered what he had just said.
“Higi‘a?” the boy said, mockingly. “Galsta-yuhu’sga, yonega. Hawi‘ya? Se’lu? Gadu?”
“All right, cut it out!” Falcon snapped. “You know what I’m talking about!”
The boy lowered his head, turning away, but when he turned back his dark eyes were mischievous. “Better you talk white, yoneg. Don’ good talk Cherokee.”
“I’ll be damned!” Falcon rasped. “Why didn’t you say you speak English?”
“Who give a damn?” The kid shrugged.
Falcon glared at him, then wheeled Diablo and headed south at an easy lope. When he glanced around, the kid was following along behind him, on the little dun. The third horse, the lame stray, was only a little way behind. Without a load to carry, it was moving all right, and its sprain would heal.
“No town,” Woha’li objected after a time. He was squinting, peering at Black Mesa. “No town there. Jus’ crazy yonegs. ”
“What?”
“Yonegs!” the boy repeated, saying it louder so the man might understand. “White men! Tryin’ dig holes in river. Crazy!”
“Dig holes ... in the river? You mean those Black Mesa miners?”
“Sure. They think gold there. Agido’da, my father, he heard it from Kwahadi people. Say they be gone soon. That river ... unegadihi. River will kill crazy yonegs. ”
Falcon set his course for the east end of Black Mesa. A few miles along, the prairie began its gentle slope up toward the great butte, and from a high spot Falcon used his telescope to peruse the prairies to the north and east. The wagon and its captors were not in sight, but far out on the flats—miles away—he saw a speck of movement that might be horsemen. For a moment they were in view. Then they disappeared behind one of those invisible distantswales that made the plainsland so unreadable.
He saw enough, though, to know that they were moving west.
“I guess they’re not our concern,” he muttered.
Apparently Woha’li had spotted them, too, becausethe kid shrugged at that. “You see pretty good for white man,” he admitted.
“I used to think so,” Falcon said. “Tell me something.Back there, where I found you, how did you hide like that? There wasn’t cover enough for a sage hen, but I never did see you.”
Woha‘li gave him one of those taunting patronizinglooks. “Atsalagi tsigi eligwu g’waltadodi ayonega dukana’i, ” he said.
“What?”
“A Ch
erokee can disappear from white men’s eyes. ”
“Nobody needs a smart aleck,” Falcon instructed him. He kneed the black, heading south again.
The kid frowned and fidgeted, but he followed along. He wanted to go east, not south. But after a while he accepted Falcon’s lead. As they rode, the boy gave Falcon a description of the men who had killed his parents. Falcon was impressed. The boy was observant. Soon Falcon had a mental picture of each of the six men that was detailed and accurate.
Flocks of pigeons flew above the prairie, and now and then a sleek hawk, swooping among them for a kill. “Towo’di,” the kid said, adding, “that means hawk or falcon, yoneg. Why are you called Falcon?”
“It’s my name,” Falcon shrugged. “It’s what my pa named me.”
A half hour passed, and the kid was looking at the sky again. High overhead, an eagle soared. “Woha‘li means eagle, he told MacCallister. ”Woha’li flies higher than towo’di. ”
Three hours of travel, and the south horizon was hidden behind a giant tumble of bluffs and cuts, rising above the plain. Like broken stairsteps, the breaks climbed westward to become the eastern end of Black Mesa: a natural fortress that some called Robber’s Roost. And somewhere beyond, where the land dipped toward the upper Cimarron, should be Outpost.
If the place had a proper name, Falcon had never heard it. It was just Outpost. But he had heard stories,mostly from army scouts. It was one of the most isolated, most remote, spots on the western maps, but somebody had settled in there a few years back and built shacks—a couple of old outlaws, some of Colonel Burke’s soldiers had told him once, rebels or retired renegades looking for a place to light. In the breaks, no law would come looking for them, because there was no law. They had enough trade to keep a store—mostly for outlaws on the run—and supplied it from pack-mules coming down from Folsom.
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