Blood of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “Then we’ll be our own law.” Jubal frowned. “Somebody’s got to be. Where’s Brett? He knows about things like this.”

  “He’s over at that town,” Joshua said. “Nobody knows him there, so he comes and goes ... listenin’.He’s heard about this by now, I expect—about Becky and all. Prob’ly everybody yonder has. And you know Brett. He’s gonna be layin’ for Billy Challis now—for Dorothy, and for all the rest.”

  “Brett won’t stand a chance against Billy Challis,” Falcon said. “Brett’s good with a gun, but not that good. And he’s a gentleman. He’ll hesitate to kill. Billy Challis won’t.”

  “Then we’d better be there with him,” Jubal said. “Now.”

  “Do you boys know what you’re up against?” Wylie demanded. “Do you have any idea who those people are?” He looked at Falcon, who shrugged.

  “Tell them, Mr. Wylie,” Falcon said.

  Wylie took a deep breath. “Billy Challis is a lunatic,with posters on him as far away as Illinois. Crazy as a bedbug. But he’s also the slickest gunhand this side of Fort Smith, barring maybe Asa Parker himself.”

  “Then we’ll have to get at him another way,” Jubal rasped. “I don’t care whether the son of a bitch is shot or hanged. I just want him on his way to hell, the sooner the better.”

  “If Brett can’t take him down, then who can?” Joshua glanced aside. “You, Mr. MacCallister? You’re still hurting, I see it every time you move sudden. You think you can outdraw a gunslick like that, with those cracked ribs still slowin’ you down?”

  “Maybe not,” Falcon admitted. “But maybe I’ve got more chance than Brett does.”

  Cassius Barlow hadn’t said a word through it all. The old man just listened, his head bowed in thought. Then he squared his shoulders. “Mr. MacCallister,”he rasped, “I reckon now this whole businessis Barlow concern.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Utsonati had squatted in a cedar clump, as unnoticedas the gray-green fronds around him, and watched Tuck Kelly die. He had been so close that the second bullet through the outlaw sprayed him with crimson drops.

  The man had perched himself up there to ambushthree riders below. Utsonati knew that two of them were dead. But the third one, the woman, had been luckier. Twice her rifle had found its target, and then the one called Tuck had lain sprawled on grassy caprock a dozen feet from where Utsonati squatted.

  The outlaw had gasped, and bloody froth billowed at his lips. He’d turned his head, gaping in disbelief, and Utsonati shifted a little, letting himself be seen. A look of amazement had shadowed Tuck’s dimmingeyes.

  “Dirt!” Utsonati said, his boy’s voice cracking like a whip. “Earthworm dung, I see you dying. I will still see you when you are dead.”

  A sound like gurgling sobs had escaped the bubblesat Tuck’s lips, and new blood gushed there. Then the man was gone.

  Utsonati had crept to the edge of the caprock and peered over as screams came from below, followed by a single gunshot. The boy had watched for a momentand then drawn back, feeling sick. At that distancehe could not see exactly what the man was doing down there, but what he was doing it to was no longer alive. With a frown, Utsonati had raised his rifle, but his hands were unsteady. He’d turned away, taking deep breaths, willing the sick feeling to pass.

  When he returned to the edge of the bluff, the man had been gone. Only sprawled pale limbs and death lay where he had been.

  Utsonati had almost quit, then. He had seen too much of blood and horrible death. But deep in his mind a spirit had stirred. Didanawa-i didn’t quit. The legendary warriors of the Cherokee were tenacious beyond belief. It was one of the things that had made Didanawa-i the most feared of men. All across a continent in a time long ago, the Tsalagi were known and respected ... and their Didanawa-i were feared. Among all the true people—the Shawnee and Iroquois of the east, the Cheyenne of the west, the Huron of the north ... even the haughty Lakotaand all their kin—the Cherokee were revered and feared.

  Even the horse people of the southern plains, the snake people whose name among their neighbors was Comanche and meant enemy, there was one man to always be feared—any man who was Didanawa-i.

  Didanawa-i never quit. Utsonati would not quit. With grim determination, the boy had set out afoot toward a canyon a mile away where his horse waited. Then, mounted and ready, he had taken the trail of the white man who butchered women.

  Within three miles, Billy Challis had known that there was someone behind him. The bloodlust that consumed him for a time—that wild thrill that alwayscame from hearing the screams of a female, dominating and hurting her—had been denied him, and he was wild with anger. The bitch had killed herself! There had been no thrill in what followed. Only rage.

  Over darkening terrain he had pushed his frightenedhorse, careless of its caution, until the hot rage died a little, wearing away as lust does and leaving the same dissatisfied anger that it always left. The frenzy in his head had died to a feeble trill. And with his senses cleared, he had known that he was being followed.

  He’d doubled back a couple of times, ridden into a draw, and then whipped his horse until it climbed frantically to the top, giving him a sudden unexpectedview of his backtrack. There had been no movement back there in the dusk, not even a hint. But he had known that someone was there.

  With animal cunning he’d spurred his horse, breaking into a run, and pummeled its ribs for a fast quarter-mile. Then he’d swung down, slapped its rump and watched it skitter off into the darkness. It wouldn’t go far. It was hurt and exhausted.

  Then he had cut to the right, scrambled to the top of a rise, and had lain down to wait. It was dark then, and he thought that whoever was back there had probably stopped. But the darkness would pass. The pursuer would come, sooner or later. And Billy Challis would be waiting.

  As stars came out overhead, Utsonati had slowed his horse to a walk, sniffing the evening breeze. There had been water near. He could smell the sweet odor of damp earth, a hint of mud, and the faint stench of tadpoles. Not a creek, then, he had thought. Probably just a little pond, where rainwater still stood trapped waiting for hot sun to reduce it to mud flats.

  He’d stopped, standing in his stirrups to listen to the night birds, turning his head this way and that. The rider ahead had no longer been moving. The birds had sung of quiet all around.

  Thoughtfully, the boy who was a rattlesnake had squinted at the starlight prairies around him, then stepped down and led his horse. He’d chosen a low place—a little swale between hills—and unsaddled the animal to graze. He’d made no fire, but eaten a little pemmican and drunk water from his canteen, then given water to the horse. Then he had gone on, on foot.

  The pond nearby was just as he had thought—a natural tank in a low spot between overhanging caprock ledges. Not a good place to be at night. Every wild thing within miles would come there to drink ... everything with fangs or claws, fur or scales. It was their place, not his, and he’d respected that.

  Skirting around, he’d heard faint sounds coming from the shadows. Some creatures were already there, defending their territory against intruders.

  Beyond the ledges he had squatted to smell a sage clump, then another, and found the trail of the man he was following. Sudden buzzing almost at his feet had startled him, but he stood still, and the rattler slithered off into darkness. “Utsonati,” the boy had breathed, “You know me. You are my brother now.”

  The low prairie, between the hills, was alive with creatures of the night, but Utsonati had walked among them secure. He was Didanawa-i, and they knew him.

  Without realizing it, Utsonati had passed within a hundred yards of the crest where Billy Challis lay waiting. Only when he found the man’s half-crippled horse, still saddle-bound and standing in a field of fresh grass, had he realized that the man was behind him. The murderer was on that caprock ridge that he had gone around. He was waiting there, in ambush.

  And it was then, as he worked his way back toward the hilltop, that the prair
ie had betrayed him. Just where caprock began, Utsonati had edged around a cedar thicket, and soft limestone crumbled. His feet had gone out from under him and he tumbled, rolling down the incline into moonlight. Shards and fragments clattered around him.

  He’d heard a shout, and a bullet sang off stone just inches from his head. The boy rolled, dodged, and scrambled to his feet as another shot rang and something tugged at his jacket. He had run, out of the moonlight into dark shadows.

  Chalk fragments whistled around him. A bullet whisked past his ear, and dark talus exploded before him, blinding him. And then there had been no footing. He fell, rolling and bouncing, into deep darkness.

  Darkness and sudden silence. Carefully, painfully, he had wiped the dust out of his eyes. He was in a black place, with no light at all except the faint glow of moonlight through a jagged crevice in the stone. A cave, he had thought. He’d stirred, squinting, tryingto see. He’d felt around for his rifle and couldn’t find it.

  Just darkness and silence ... and something else. Something like a low-pitched rasping growl that was very close, and he had sensed the presence of anothercreature, so close he could feel its body warmth. He’d reached out a tentative hand, and frozenas his fingers touched thick fur.

  The growl became a threatening rasp, and in the patch of moonlight there was a silhouette. It had wide alert ears and a wide furry face, and even in the darkness he had seen the glint of feral eyes and bared fangs.

  “Wa-hya’,” the boy whispered. In Cherokee, the word meant wolf.

  “Got the son of a bitch!” Billy Challis had giggled as the dodging shadow below him disappeared over the edge of the caprock slant. He could barely see in the faint light of stars and quarter moon, but there was no mistaking that last glimpse. The shadowyfigure down there hadn’t jumped or dived from the ledge. It had fallen.

  Thrusting fresh loads into his .45, Billy had started down the slope, angling toward the ledge. At its edge he’d peered downward but seen nothing—just the jumbled shadows of broken eroded limestone and the brushy slope below, angling down toward a pool of water. Whoever was down there had been invisible, hidden by darkness and the night.

  Scuttling to the right, Billy had worked down the taper of the caprock, where the ledge disappeared into hillside slope. Twenty feet, then another twenty, and the brushy slope was only a few feet below—a weedy darkness beneath the wedge of pale stone. He’d gauged the distance, started to jump, then stopped as high-pitched buzzing came from directly beneath him.

  Rattlesnake!

  Billy had backed away, shivering. He hated snakes, and it had sounded like a whole den of them, right there at the base of the rocks. It was full spring. The days were turning hot, and the nights belonged to the rattlers. He’d angled farther to the right, steppingcarefully, then stepped gingerly to the lower slope and eased down toward the water, going wide around the snakes but still keeping his eye on the place where the pursuer had fallen.

  When he figured he was clear of the snakes, he had started up the slope again, heading for that spot. Scours and crevices made the limestone bluff a puzzle of dim shapes and darknesses.

  Billy had been almost at the bluff when he heard the growl, and as he jerked upright it had become louder, more ominous. Somewhere just ahead somethingbig lurked, and its growl was so near that he could almost smell its hot breath. Plain animal fear had washed over Billy. He dodged back, and rattlesnakessang and buzzed all around, echoing one another’swarnings.

  “To hell with this!” he muttered.

  Thoroughly spooked, Billy Challis had turned and run. Something solid hit his boot and he’d felt its writhing tug as he tore free. With a shriek, he’d sprinted, gained the top of the bluff, and didn’t stop there.

  First rattlesnakes, then prairie wolves! Whoever was down there in that hole, he wasn’t worth it. Billy ran, looking to find his horse, to get the hell away from there.

  Nobody in Paradise knew that the stages were coming until riders came in from the northeast and reported three fast coaches crossing Wolf Creek at the downstream bend. By the time Asa Parker, Sypher, and O’Brien gathered at the land office, the three stagecoaches were close enough to see.

  “It’s them!” Sypher said. “The syndicate people! My investors! They’re here!”

  Parker exploded. “How did they get here without you knowing about it? You said they’d meet up with that idiot Stratton at Emporia, and we’d have plenty of word!”

  “I don’t know.” Sypher returned his glare. “Maybe they came straight from Wichita. Anyway, they’re here. And don’t try to blame me, Asa! You’ve had all spring to nail down this territory. Why aren’t you ready?”

  “Jesus Christ!” O’Brien muttered, scribbling furiouslyat papers littering his desk while he squinted at the elaborate tract map hung on the wall. “Asa ... I mean, colonel ... I don’t have titles ready for all the tracts we marked out. Hell, I don’t even know for sure which ones have squatters on them.”

  “Shut up!” Asa Parker roared. “So we got a few squatters down on Rabbit Creek. Fine! Let’s just make the best of it. Now get ready to receive payin’ guests, and make it good, O’Brien! This is the one that counts.”

  The parade into town was by far the most elegant sight ever seen in Paradise: three ornate Concord stages, each pulled by a six-up hitch and sporting laquered panels and brass trim, all flanked by riders of a different cut from the rabble that roamed the Neutral Strip.

  They pulled up and stopped in the rutted street between the hotel and the land office, and dignitariesstepped down, gazing around at the ramshackle little settlement that they had come to judge.

  Wearing his best St. Louis attire, quickly donned in the covered overland wagon which still served as his headquarters, Asa Parker came out to meet the men whose opinions would decide the investment of several million dollars.

  The man who stepped forward to study him with shrewd calculating eyes was almost as tall as Parker himself, though far more trim and manicured.

  “Colonel DeWitt, I presume,” the newcomer said. “I’m John Wigginton, chief investment officer for the Morley syndicate. We’ve come to discuss purchaseof this ... well, of whatever it is here that you are offering for sale. Let me introduce the rest of my party, and then perhaps we can rest a bit. I assumeyou have accommodations for our party?”

  “We’ll have the hotel cleared for you very shortly, Mr. Wigginton,” Sypher assured him. “We’re a bit remiss ... we didn’t know you were coming just now.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Wigginton’s unctuous smile was as warm as pond ice. “The wires are down west of Emporia, and there are no mail routes past Hardwoodville.”

  “But I suppose you met with Mr. Stratton? That he vouched for me?”

  Some of the elegantly dressed men standing behindWigginton chuckled and whispered among themselves. “He didn’t vouch for anyone,” Wiggintonsaid. “The honorable Mr. Stratton had barricadedhimself in a whorehouse at Emporia, in a drunken stupor. We decided to proceed, and see for ourselves what this Paradise Railhead plan might offer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sypher recovered quickly. “Well, fortunately,I have all of the necessary documents with me, and Mr. O’Brien is prepared to show you the holdings involved. He has a map, and charts. I assumeyou and your party are empowered to take title?”

  “If there is title to be had.” Wigginton shrugged. “This is, of course, undefined territory. We’re not interested in buying blue sky, sir. Our investors will require uncontested deeds.”

  Sypher looked offended. “Mr. O’Brien can issue deeds, of course. Deeds of clear title based upon grant of lands for railway development. What could be more secure?”

  Wigginton shrugged off the rebuff. “We want to see the actual real estate, of course. And by the way, Mr. Sypher, we passed through some of those unoccupiedsteads Mr. O’Brien’s literature proclaims. A fair number of them seem quite occupied. There are people on the land, sir. We saw structures being built, fields being plowed, fence
s raised. Not preciselywhat we expected.” He looked up at the big man standing beside Sypher. “Do you have any comment,Colonel DeWitt?”

  Asa Parker scowled. “Squatters!” he rumbled. “Nothin’ but trash, squattin’ on land that isn’t theirs. A minor problem. The Paradise Vigilance Committee will tend to them. I guarantee it.”

  “I hope so,” Wigginton frowned. “We’re preparedto invest here, sir. Don’t take us for fools, though. We’re aware that without a court of jurisdictionwe’re only looking at a railroad site patent and quit-claims. We can live with that. But at final transaction, we’ll require some assurance of possession.”

  “Colonel DeWitt” nodded. “You’ll have it.”

  Wigginton pursed his lips, took another slow look around at the “town” sprawling around them, and turned to his lead coachman. “Samuel, see to the coaches and the stock, please. I’m sure these gentlemenwill direct you to accommodations.”

  While Sypher escorted the visitors to the hotel, Asa Parker signaled to Casper Wilkerson. “How many men do we have that we can still trust?”

  “Maybe a dozen here in town,” Casper said thoughtfully. “Few more ridin’ patrol. Maybe twenty altogether. Vince Colby’s took off with the rest. The boys figure he went to stake out that Haymeadows Ranch, maybe get some horses back. Ain’t heard from him since.”

  Asa swore. The drawback to hiring drifters and owlhoots was that they were as changeable and unpredictableas the wind. “Damn bunch of fiddle-foots,”he growled. “Have somebody find Colby, and get word to everybody else. I want every man that’s drawin’ vigilante wages right here in town. Spread them out where they can watch every direction, but keep them clear of the stagecoach people yonder. And tell ’em to keep their eyes open an’ their mouths shut. Where’s Billy?”