Scream of Eagles (20 page)

“And after that?” Rick asked.

“I was told there is a little cowtown that was settled two/three years ago on the Little Colorado River,” Jamie told the men. “It's called Horsehead Crossing.
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We can resupply there and then cut south into the Muggyowns.”

“And if we're lucky, we won't see another human bein' for days,” Logan said. “It's gettin' crowded out here.”

The bacon fried, Jamie dumped slices of potato and bits of onion into the grease and watched them sizzle. Bread was ready in another pan.

“That do smell good,” Red said. “Gets my mouth to sali-vatin' something fierce.”

The men filled their tin plates with food and their cups with coffee and settled back against their saddles to enjoy the evening meal.

The Wild West was still plenty wild, and would be for several more decades, but Logan was right: settlers were pouring in. Despite the hardships of the land and the warring Indians, people kept coming. Little settlements were springing up all over the country. Many of them would wither and die within a few years, but some would grow and prosper, just like the pioneers who had left everything behind to come west in search of a new life.

“There any gold to be found down in the Muggyowns?” Rick asked.

“I 'spect,” Logan said. “But one thing that there's a plenty of is Apaches. We got Hopis and Navajos all around us now. And we'll be ridin' right through Zuni country. The Papagos is way down south, near the Mex border. Havasupai Injuns is over to the west and some north. When I furst come through here there wasn't no white men. I recollect that we scared the piss outta some Injuns. They didn't know what to make of us; didn't know what the hell we was. When we farred our guns, them Injuns scattered like the wind.” He looked over at Jamie. “You and me and Red and Canby, now, we're the last of a breed . . . you know that, Mac?”

“I've been told. But men like my Falcon and Rick there, they'll carry on and travel the trails that we blazed.”

“For a fact,” Red said. “Reckon how things is back in your little town of Valley, Mac?”

“Oh, all right, I 'magine. Not much happens up there.”

* * *

At mid-afternoon, Joleen hitched up the buggy and drove first to town, to pick up some things at the store. She gossiped for a time with some ladies—the talk was all about the disappearance of Ben—and then drove up to Jamie's cabin. Out of long habit, Joleen carried a little .41 over-and-under derringer in the side pocket of her dress. Valley had been long settled, but there was still the occasional thug or hooligan who wandered through. Although doing harm to a woman in the West was about the best way known to wind up on the wrong end of a rope.

Cathy's paint pony was standing dejectedly at the hitch rail. “Now why didn't that child put him in the corral?” Joleen questioned.

Joleen walked up to the porch, opened the front door to her pa's cabin, and stepped into hell. Rough hands grabbed her before she could get to her pistol. She was flung to the floor, her clothing being ripped off before she hit the boards. She started to scream, and a fist exploded pain in her head. She slipped into a cloudy haze just as her legs were being spread apart.

“Mama!” Cathy cried.

After having their way with Joleen and Cathy, the outlaws panicked and fled. What sense they possessed had returned to them, and they knew that if found, there would be no trial. They would either be hanged or shot on the spot . . . or worse. In the West, rapists had been known to be dragged to death, stoned, buried up to their chins in anthills, and staked out naked in the sun to slowly die.

The outlaws had tried to set fire to the cabin, but shortly after they rode away, the fire went out. Cathy was naked and unconscious on the bed. Ben was still tied to the chair, swimming in and out of consciousness. Joleen was naked and unconscious on the floor, having been clubbed on the head and left for dead after the men were through with her.

Ben managed to start his chair rocking from side to side until it toppled over. He then struggled toward the open front door and out onto the porch. There, he shoved too hard with his feet and threw himself off the porch, hitting his head on the steps and dropping once more into darkness.

Pat MacKensie got worried when he came home from the fields and Joleen and Cathy Lou were gone. The other kids did not know where they were, but the buggy was gone and so was Cathy Lou's paint pony. Pat paced the floor for a time, and then rode into town, heading for Matthew's office. He passed the Scott boy along the way and hailed him down.

“I seen her hours ago, Mr. MacKensie. Headin' up toward her grandpa's place. Then I seen Mrs. MacKensie headin' up that way 'bout two hours or so ago, in the buggy.”

“Come on, Johnny. Ride with me. Something's very wrong about this.”

As soon as Pat saw Ben lying by the front steps, unconscious and bloody and tied to the chair, he told Johnny, “Ride like the wind, Johnny. Ring the alarm bell and get Matthew and the doctor up here. Go, boy!”

Pat looked in the house and almost vomited at the sight. He quickly composed himself and found blankets to cover the nakedness of the women. He knew better than to try to move them until the doctor arrived. He pumped water and went to Ben, bathing the man's face until Ben regained consciousness.

“Outlaws,” Ben gasped. “Joleen and Cathy?”

“They're alive,” Pat said grimly. “But just barely.”

Pat cut the ropes that bound Ben and got another blanket to cover him with. The MacCallister boys thundered up and jumped out of their saddles. Dr. Prentiss looked at Pat and started to kneel down beside Ben.

“See to the women in the house.” Ben pushed the words past smashed and swollen lips. “They've been used very badly.”

Matthew turned to a deputy. “Get a posse together and get on the trail. I'll be along.”

Morgan said, “I wish Pa was here.”

Matthew looked up at him. “In a way, I'm glad he's not.”

* * *

The outlaws rode hard for several miles, then cut southwest, heading for what would someday be called the Four Corners area, where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. They weren't really thinking; just riding in what at first was no more than a blind panic to get away.

Back in Valley, no one knew how to get in touch with Falcon, and they certainly had no idea where Jamie might be. The posse trailed the outlaws for a week, then lost them in a heavy rain shortly after entering the San Juans. Matthew reluctantly turned back.

Cathy Lou would be all right, with a lot of love from family and friends.

But Joleen lay in a coma.

“I've done all that I can do,” Dr. Prentiss told the family. “It's in God's hands now. We just don't know that much about head injuries.”

The family could do nothing but wait.

The stage drivers began passing the word all up and down the line, leaving messages at relay stations. It might take months, but eventually Jamie would get the message.

* * *

It was a tired and dusty group of men who rode into the newly formed and raw cowtown of Holbrook. Because of recent Indian trouble, the town was the westernmost stopping point on the stage line, for the time being.

The stage had not yet arrived, but since it was seldom on time—sometimes it was several days late; when it did arrive it was often peppered with bullet holes and had so many arrows sticking out of the coach it resembled a large porcupine—no one gave that much attention.

Jamie and friends stabled their weary horses, rubbing them down and seeing that they had water and food before seeking comforts for themselves.

The men had their spare clothing washed and ironed while they soaked and scrubbed and soaped in tubs of hot water behind the barbershop and then had haircuts and shaves. When they began to once more resemble human beings, they dressed and looked around for a place to have a drink and then get something to eat that someone else had cooked, served on real plates.

The marshal of the town had spotted the men as they rode in, and gave them time to get cleaned up before he ambled over for a closer look-see at the strangers.

Glass of beer in hand, the marshal took a seat at an adjoining table and asked, “You boys have any Indian trouble on your way in?”

Jamie looked at the man. “Not a bit. We were spotted a number of times, but for whatever reason, they left us alone.”

The marshal eyeballed the men for several seconds, thinking: Injuns may be savages, but they ain't fools. This bunch of ol' boys has Curly Wolf stamped on them as clear as a brand. Even the younger one has the look of a bad man.
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“I ain't tryin' to nose into your business, boys,” the marshal continued. “But any news 'bout Injuns or road conditions is welcome here.”

“The road was all right,” Logan said, after downing his whiskey and holding up his glass, signaling the barkeep for a refill. “We did check out some smoke and found a settler's house had been set on fire. But that was a good day's ride east of here. There wasn't a livin' soul about and no bodies. Corral was empty.”

“House set south of the road?”

“Yep.”

“The Saunders ranch.” The marshal spoke the words softly. “They were sure they could make friends with the Indians and live in peace.”

“They probably did with the Hopi and Zuni and the Navajo,” the old mountain man said. “But not with the 'Pache. I been roamin' the West since rain was wet, and I ain't never seen a more disagreeable bunch of people than them goddamn 'Paches. Hell, I even got along with the Pawnee and the Blackfeet . . . most of the time. But I hate them goddamn 'Paches.”

“You're not alone in that,” the marshal said drily. “No sign of bodies, hey?”

“No,” Jamie said. “But they might have been caught in the house when it burned and were buried under the debris when the roof collapsed.”

“Better that than taken prisoner,” the barkeep said, setting a bottle of whiskey down on the table. “You boys ever come up on what's left of a man or woman after the Apaches got done havin' fun with them?”

“I have,” Logan said, his words soft, but his eyes as hard as flint. “Eyes gouged out, tongue cut out, privates cut off, and the back of their ankles cut so's they can't do nothin' but flop around on the ground in agony. Sometimes they last for days 'fore they die. I don't know who in the hell ever come up with this ‘noble red man' crap.”

The marshal nodded his head in total agreement. Of all the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi River, the Apache was probably the most despised and feared. The residents of the Southwest did their dead-level best to wipe them from the face of the earth, and came very close to succeeding.

“I don't mean to stare, mister,” the marshal said to Jamie. “But are you Jamie MacCallister?”

“I am.”

“I got a long letter for you over at the office. It come in on the stage last week. The last stage we've seen, by the way. It's been handed from driver to driver for nearly two months. It's from Valley, Colorado.”

Jamie started to get up, and the marshal waved him back into his chair. “You eat your meal. I'll go over and get the letter and bring it to you. It'd be an honor.”

Jamie was just digging into his food when the marshal returned and handed him the well-worn envelope. He put on his reading glasses and tore open the envelope. As he read, his face hardened. He quickly scanned the letter and then read it more slowly the second time.

“Trouble, Mac?” Red asked.

“Yes. Bad trouble.” He explained the contents of the letter. Everyone in the saloon had fallen silent, listening.

The barkeep was the first to break the silence after Jamie had folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and tucked it away in a pocket.

“If they stay on the trail the posse followed, they'll probably come through here. There ain't jack-shit west of here for a hundred miles, 'cept maybe some way stations, providin' the goddamn Apaches ain't killed ever'body there and burned the buildings.”

On that particular east to west trail through north central Arizona, Winslow would not come into being until 1880, and Flagstaff in 1881. The Apaches' war with the whites would continue, off and on, until 1894, when all surviving Apaches were rounded up and hauled off to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo died there in 1909. During his last years, the great Apache warrior eked out a living selling souvenir bows and arrows to tourists.

“You want to head for home, Mac?” Logan asked softly.

Jamie shook his head. “There is nothing I can do back home. But I think I'll postpone my trip into the Muggyowns. I want to stick around and see if these bastards”—he tapped the pocket holding the letter—“come through here. I want to be waiting for them.”

Red opened his mouth to protest, and Jamie held up a big hand. “No, you boys go on. We'll hook up again someday. This is something I have to do myself.”

“I do understand,” Logan said. “We'll stick around long enough to rest the horses and resupply, and then we'll be on our way.”

Jamie finished his meal and then left the table to walk outside and sit by himself and read the letter again.

“Are we just going to ride off and leave Mr. MacCallister here alone?” Rick asked.

“That's the way he wants it, boy,” Red said.

“It don't hardly seem right.”

The older men smiled at one another, Logan saying, “It's just something he's got to do by himself, boy.”

Rick toyed with his coffee cup. “I . . . ah. Well, it's just that I have this feeling we'll never see him again.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” Canby said. “But he'll always be a friend, and that's something to value, right?”

Rick nodded his head. “I reckon.”

“Mac's carryin' a load of grief right now, boy,” Red said. “Mayhaps he's thinkin' that if he had stayed to home, this awfulness might not have happened. When it comes to family, a man gets to thinkin' them kind of thoughts when tragedy befalls.”

Rick looked at Jamie, sitting on the bench in front of the saloon, reading the long letter from home. “He just looks, well, so
alone.”

“Sometimes it's best to stand alone, boy,” Logan told him. “You think about that when you get a quiet moment.” He pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Where you goin'?” Canby asked.

“I'm gonna find me a bottle, crawl up in the loft of the stable and get myself drunk.”

“I wonder what Mr. Mac is gonna do?” Rick said.

“What's Mac gonna do?” Logan questioned. “Why, he's gonna wait for them trash who hurt his family. Then he's gonna kill them. That's what he's gonna do. It's what's expected of a man . . . leastways out here, it is.”

“Won't be that way for long,” Canby said. “I seen that comin' last post I was on back east. Now they got fancy lawyers and duded-up judges who say a man ain't got the right to deal justice to them who's done him a hurt. They say only the courts has that right.”

Logan snorted. “Be a mighty sorry damn day when that kind of thinkin' takes hold out here.”

“Well, it's a comin'. Bet on that.”

“I hope I ain't around to see no shame and disgrace like that. But I'll tell you one thing.” He jerked a thumb toward Jamie. “Yonder sits a man that won't pay no attention to such foolishness.”