Rage of Eagles (17 page)

Night riders struck that same night, burning out and killing a farmer who worked the land on several sections south of the Rockingchair. Falcon rode down to see the family the next day, Big Bob and Puma with him.

They found a very tired-looking woman loading up a wagon with a few meager possessions she had managed to drag from the flames before the fire consumed everything else they owned. Several children helped their mother load the wagon. About a hundred feet from the still-smoking ashes was a fresh-dug grave.

Falcon stepped out of the saddle and walked over to the woman, who was looking at him warily, through very weary eyes.

“I work for the Rockingchair, ma'am,” Falcon said. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

She shook her head. “No. We could have used your help last night, though.”

“I wish I could have been here. Do you need any money?”

Again, she shook her head. “We had a few dollars tucked away. That will be enough to get us back to civilization. Damn this country! Damn it to hell!”

There was nothing Falcon could say that would ease the woman's pain. He stood silently with hat in hand and let her vent her rage.

Big Bob and Puma stood off to one side, both of them helpless to act in the face of this tragedy. But they would act, soon. There would be a payback, in blood and pain and fire. This senseless killing and burning could not go unavenged.

“Then let me buy your land, ma'am,” Falcon said. “I'll pay top dollar. How many sections did you folks own?”

“Four. You just make me an offer, any offer, and I'll sure take it.” “

“Any offer I make will be fair, ma'am. You can count on that.”

“You're Falcon MacCallister, aren't you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Heard of you. Heard good things about you.”

“I was going to come see you folks. I've been visiting families north and east of your location.”

“How do we handle this sale? I want to get gone from this evil place.”

“I'll get a piece of paper and pencil and you write out a bill of sale and I'll give you a check or cash money. But a better way would be to follow us into town. Let me check you all into the hotel. You can clean up and I'll treat you to a new set of clothes at the store. We'll see the banker and have the transfer of title done legal and I'll have funds transferred to any bank of your choice in the nation. How about that?”

“You'll do that for us?”

“I certainly will.”

“Let me say good-bye to my husband. Give me a few minutes alone with him, won't you?”

“You take as much time as you like, ma'am. We'll finish loading up the wagon. That oldest boy of yours needs to have a doctor look at those burns.”

“Doctors cost money,” she said simply.

“Don't worry about that. Go say good-bye to your husband. Take as much time as you like. We'll get busy here.”

Big Bob and Puma were angry to the core. Falcon could tell that by their silence as they worked. It was one thing to fight a grown-up man, but to burn out a family, destroy everything they had worked for, torment women and children, kill the father right in front of his family's eyes . . . that was the work of craven cowards, men too low-down to live.

“Settle down, boys,” Falcon spoke the words in a low tone. “Just settle down.”

“You settle down,” Puma told him. “We get this poor woman and what's left of her family on the road, the war's on. ”

“And we better not meet up with no .44 or Snake or Double N riders neither,” Big Bob added. “ 'Cause if we do, I'm gonna read to them from the Scriptures. Count on it.”

A quaint western expression meaning there would be blood on the land.

“In spades,” Puma added.

“All right,” Falcon said simply.

“Damn right it is,” Big Bob said.

“There ain't even no goddamn lard left to smear on those children's burns,” Puma said, his voice shaking with rage. “Goddamn men who would do this. Goddamn'em right straight to the pits of Hell.”

Falcon kept his silence. There was no point in talking . . . not at the moment. Falcon understood that the mountain men were about to declare war, and it was not going to be pleasant. Falcon knew he had to handle this in a very delicate way, for if he attempted to get bossy with these old boys, they would just tell him to go to hell.

It was the condition of the kids and their pain-filled eyes that did it. Falcon knew that, for he felt the same way. Making war on adults was one thing, making war on kids raised the hackles on any decent man.

The wagon was loaded and the team hitched up. The woman wiped her eyes and turned away from the fresh mound of earth.

“I'll come back and fix up a marker for your man, ma'am,” Big Bob gently told the woman.

“That's kind of you, but there's no need,” she told him. “My man loved the land. Let him become a part of it. It's the way he'd want it.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the big man replied softly, but with unmistakable rage just behind the words.

Be blood on the moon very soon, Falcon
thought.
The fuse is lit and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Falcon and his friends trailed the wagon and the family over the long dusty miles into town. They made it just in time, for the bank was only a few minutes away from closing time. Willard almost went into apoplexy when the woman walked in with Falcon, for he knew with some degree of certainty what was about to take place, and was powerless to do anything except go along with it.

Puma took the kids over to the general store to have them outfitted with new clothes while Big Bob took the boy over to the doc's to have his burns attended to. By the time all that was done, Falcon had bought the sections of land and the woman was picking out a couple of new dresses at the store.

Falcon arranged for rooms at the hotel and got the family settled in. Then the three men went over to the café for an early supper.

While waiting for their food, Big Bob asked the waitress, “You see any Snake, .44, or Double N riders?”

“Not a one today,” she told him. “I 'spect some of them will be coming in later on this afternoon.”

Big Bob smiled ever so slightly and thanked her. Falcon watched as the big man cut his eyes to Puma and received a small smile in return. Falcon knew then the two men had already agreed on some sort of plan and the best thing he could do, hell, the only thing he could do, was stay out of their way.

Before leaving the ranch, Falcon and Big Bob and Puma had packed a bit of grub and secured bedrolls behind their saddles. They had planned to spend a couple of nights out. They would not be expected back at the ranch.

Working on his second huge slab of apple pie, Big Bob looked at Falcon, who had finished his meal and was drinking a cup of coffee. “You can go visitin', if you like. Count your money, or somethin'. Don't interfere with me and Puma.”

“I wouldn't dream of it, Bob,” Falcon replied.

“Good,” the big man said.

“But do you mind if I sort of tag along with you?”

“Long as you don't make no speeches to none of them hired guns,” Puma said. “Me and Bob is fixin' to settle accounts for that good lady over yonder, and her kids.”

“I promise, no speeches.”

“Then you're welcome to come along with us.”

“Thank you.”

“We might need an extra gun,” Big Bob said. “But bear in mind I said gun, not no long-winded talks.”

“Anything you say, Bob. This is your show.”

“Good.”

“But the other boys will be upset they weren't invited,” Falcon added blandly.

“That's their problem,” Puma said, after taking a slurp of coffee. “And don't be tryin' no slick snake-oil words to talk us out of doin' this deed, Falcon. It won't work.”

“I had to try.”

“Well, stop tryin'.”

The man who owned the leather and gun shop walked into the café and sat down at the table next to the three Rockingchair men. “I just heard what happened to that farm family, Mr. MacCallister. I want you to know I don't hold with night riding, and I 'specially don't hold with the harming of women and kids. And I'll tell Gilman the same thing.”

Falcon nodded his head. “How many others in town feel the way you do?”

“More than you might think. It's just that Gilman and his toughs have a lot of the townspeople buffaloed, that's all. Hell, man, we
want
other folks to come into the area. That's business for us. It wouldn't make any sense for us to want to keep people out.”

“I did wonder about that,” Falcon replied, motioning for the waitress to come refill his coffee cup. Big Bob and Puma rose from the table and walked outside, to stand on the boardwalk.

“Those ol' boys of yours is on the prod, aren't they?” the shop owner asked.

“All the way on the prod.”

“It's a good way to get themselves killed.”

Falcon smiled. “Those men don't have any plans to get planted anytime soon, mister. I can assure you of that. My advice to you is when you see .44 or Snake or Double N boys come in, you gather up your family, go home and close the door, and stay there, because it's going to get wild in this town shortly after any of those night-riding bastards hit the street.”

“Not every rider from those ranches took part in that raid,” the citizen pointed out.

“But they know those who did,” Falcon came right back. “And that makes them just as guilty.”

The citizen looked at Falcon for a long moment, then took his coffee cup and moved to another table. Falcon smiled and lingered for a time, smoking and drinking his coffee. He paid for the meals and walked outside. Big Bob and Puma were across the street, sitting on a bench about a hundred feet from the entrance to the Purple Palace.

Falcon looked out toward the edge of town. In the distance he could see a moving dust cloud. Riders coming in. He didn't have to point it out to Big Bob or Puma; they'd probably seen it before he had.

Falcon glanced up at the sky. There were clouds rolling in. It had been several weeks since a good rain, and they were due for one. From the looks of the sky, they were going to get a good soaking.

The dust cloud grew closer. Falcon could count six, no, eight men riding into town. He stepped back into the shadows created by the boardwalk's awning and waited. He wasn't sure what Big Bob and Puma had in the way of plans, but knowing them as he did, Falcon had a hunch it would be very direct. He had noticed that before coming to town with the woman and her kids, the mountain men had each dug out a spare pistol from their saddlebags, loaded it up full, and shoved it down behind their belts. Whatever the two men had in mind, Falcon would be comfortable betting a bundle that when it started it was going to be very quick and very nasty. And very bloody.

The riders had reached the edge of the town and stopped. Falcon couldn't figure what they were up to. Then they all lined up abreast and Falcon got it then: They were going to race up the main street, probably to the Palace saloon. They would create enough dust to cover everything in town, plus endangering anyone who might be caught in the street.

And that's not all they were going to do: They were also going to irritate the hell out of Big Bob and Puma, for the men had washed very carefully and spent several minutes getting the trail dust out of their clothes before going to the café.

Falcon rolled him a smoke and looked carefully up and down the street. It was deserted. Somehow the residents of the western town had smelled the invisible odor of trouble on the hot summer wind and everyone had headed for the inside.

The riders came in a rush, whooping and hollering and galloping their horses as fast as they could run up the main street of town. The dust the pounding hooves kicked up was terrible, a thick choking cloud that hung over that section of town for a moment, and then settled to cover everything.

“Stupid,” Falcon muttered. “And arrogant.” He brushed the dust from his shirt, then took his hat and slapped the dirt from his trousers. “That makes me mad!” he said.

“The men were only being exuberant.” The familiar voice came from Falcon's left.

Falcon cut his eyes. Reverend Watkins. He sighed. Falcon really did not feel like putting up with the preacher this day.

“A little dust is no reason to start trouble,” the preacher said.

“I don't intend to start any trouble, Preacher. But look around you: There's no one on the street. Doesn't that tell you anything?”

“Not really,” the minister replied. “Is it supposed to tell me something?”

“How long have you been out west, Preacher?”

“A few months. Why?”

“And you came from where?”

“Boston. Why?”

“Just curious, Preacher. That's all. Just curious.”

The riders who had galloped into town were a mixed crew of Double N, Snake, and .44 hands. Most of them wore two guns, tied down. They were a loud and profane bunch as they swung down from the saddles and swaggered about, making sure that anyone out and about both saw and heard them.

Big Bob and Puma rose slowly from the benches and began slapping the dust from their clothing. Falcon watched as the two mountain men also furtively slipped the hammer thongs from their six-guns.

“Boston is a lovely city,” Reverend Watkins said.

“I know,” Falcon replied, not taking his eyes off the milling gunhands. “I've been there.”