Scream of Eagles (25 page)

“We tend to take a more direct course than you boys,” Jamie said with a smile.

“I can attest to that, for a fact,” the marshal replied drily. “What now, Mac?”

“Home for both me and Rick. At least for a while, for me.”

“Well, I can tell you that the army's lookin' for you. There's trouble in the Black Hills. The government's made up its mind to settle it once and for all. They're sendin' Custer and his Seventh Cavalry in. Least that's the way I heard it.”
²⁶

“I may be up to one more ride,” Jamie said, not knowing that with those words, he had sealed his fate.

“It's beautiful, Mr. Mac,” Rick said, getting his first look at MacCallister's Valley.

“That's what I thought the first time I saw it, and I still think it is.”

“If I could have me a real home here, I don't think I'd ever leave it.”

Jamie smiled. “You couldn't find a better place, Rick. Come on, let's go home.”

The first thing, the
very
first thing Rick noticed was all the good-looking women, most of them blond-haired and blue-eyed; even the ones with dark or red hair had blue eyes. “Mr. Mac, you and your missus sure had a lot of offspring.”

Jamie got a laugh out of that. “Yeah, Rick. We sure did. I guess I'm related to about three-fourths of the town.”

Jamie got Rick settled in Lola's La Pierre Hotel, then walked down to the sheriff's office. Matthew had a worried look on his face. After greeting his father, Matthew said, “Pa, don't do it.”

“What are you talking about, boy?”

“The army wants to see you, Pa. Right now. There's gonna be war with the Indians. They want you to scout for them.”

“The army or the Indians?” Jamie asked with a smile.

“Dammit, Pa! This is no laughing matter. We got all sorts of trouble here in Valley.”

Jamie poured a cup of coffee and sat down. “You want to tell me about it?”

“Some rogue Cheyenne warriors slipped into this area about a week ago. Kidnapped Falcon's wife. It all started about six weeks or so back. Some of her family came to see her, said she was a traitor for marrying outside her race . . . or words to that effect.”

“Where was Falcon while all this was going on?”

“The first time or the second time?”

“Any of them.”

“When the family come to see her, Falcon was out in the county buying cattle. When they grabbed her, he was here, in town. They done it in broad daylight.”

“The kids?”

“They're safe. They were over with friends.”

“The baby?”

“With Megan.”

“Falcon's out looking?”

“Sure. But you know better than any of us, if an Indian don't want to be found, they ain't gonna be found.”

Jamie sat down and was silent for a moment, deep in thought. Finally he said, “I know that Marie's mother is dead. Her grandparents are dead. We're about the only family she's got. If Falcon's looking for her in Colorado, he's wasting his time. Them that grabbed her carried her north, up into the Dakotas or Wyoming Territory. All this was a warning to me, boy.”

“To keep you from scoutin' for the army?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you goin' to do, Pa?”

Jamie stood up and stretched the kinks from long miles in the saddle. “After I resupply and let the horses rest, I'm going to look for her. But don't nobody get their hopes up.”

Matthew stared at his father for a moment. “Why do you say that, Pa?”

“Because I think she's dead, that's why.”

* * *

The next day, Jamie helped Rick buy some land and set up a line of credit at the bank. Morgan was decidedly and openly irritated by his father's seemingly cavalier attitude toward the kidnapping of Marie. After only a few minutes, Jamie set him straight—very bluntly.

“Climb down from behind that pulpit, boy,” the father told the son. “I love Marie as if she was my own. But I know things about Indians that you'll never know. If it was Cheyenne that took her, and I strongly doubt it was, they done so without tribal permission. Indians is no different from whites in that they got outlaws and trash among them just like we do. Those that took Marie probably were banished from some tribe a long time ago. They won't dare take Marie back to any village. They'd be killed if they did that. You know damn well we in this valley made peace with the Indians more than thirty years ago. And they don't dare turn her loose for fear that Marie would point them out later. They used her and then killed her, boy. And then scattered to the four winds. They'll never speak of what they done—not among themselves or to anyone else. If the various Indian tribes are gathering for a fight, as the army thinks, them that took Marie will circle around and come in from the north to join up with the other warriors . . . if they'll have them. And they probably will if this is going to be an all-out war.”

“Yes, Pa,” Morgan said humbly, knowing very well he had been put in his place.

“Now I'm going to go look for Marie. But the odds are I will never find her. Falcon's going to be beside himself with grief, and he'll want to do something real stupid. It's up to you other kids to prevent that. Now tell me what's been happening up the Black Hills.”

Ben F. Washington, Matthew, and Jamie Ian the Second had been standing quietly near the door, listening to Jamie unload on Morgan. Ben said, “Thousands of miners have swarmed into the Black Hills, Mr. MacCallister. They've settled and built a town in a place that some are calling Deadwood. And the Indians are going to fight.”

“How do you propose for us to keep Falcon here, Pa?” Jamie Ian asked his dad. “Toss a loop around him and hogtie him?”

“If you have to.”

“I got me a mental picture of that,” Matthew said. “And the picture is us gettin' the hell shot out of us. Tryin' to dab a loop on Falcon would be like tryin' to rope the wind. You know damn well Falcon ain't gonna listen to but one person, and that's you, Pa.”

“Then I'll stick around for a few more days,” Jamie said. He sighed and added, “There is no point in hurrying things.”

“You really believe Marie is dead, don't you, Mr. MacCallister?” Ben asked.

“Yes. I do. And her kidnapping may have been done to try to provoke trouble between us and the few Indians remaining in this area. But it won't work. ”Jamie stood up. “I'll go buy my supplies and get ready to pull out as soon as Falcon shows up and I settle him down . . . or try to. Marie was the steadying influence in his life. With her gone, I don't even like to think about Falcon's future.”

Jamie went to have lunch with Joleen and family. No one had mentioned Cathy Lou to him, and Jamie thought he had a pretty good idea why that was. Joleen confirmed it.

“She's gone, Pa. We sent her back east to school. I don't think we'll ever see her again.”

“That's a mighty cold way of looking at it, child.”

Joleen shrugged her shoulders as she worked around the stove. The girl looked so much like Kate it made Jamie's heart ache. “You taught us to be honest and to speak our minds, Pa.”

“That I did.”

Joleen turned to face him. “If Marie is . . . dead,” she stumbled over the word. “What's going to happen to Falcon?”

“More importantly, what's going to become of the children?” Jamie countered.

“Oh, you know we'll take them in without hesitation, Pa.”

“But can you kids raise them knowing the Indian way? That was very important to Marie.”

“All we can do is try, Pa. I'm worried about Falcon.”

Joleen and Falcon were as close as a brother and sister could be. The last two children of Kate and Jamie MacCallister. Joleen born in Texas in '34, and Falcon born in Valley in '39.

“It isn't like me and your ma, girl. Falcon's in his prime. He'll find someone else. He's too young not to.”

“You can't be sure that Marie is dead, Pa.”

“I'm sure, girl. It's something that can't be explained. It's the Shawnee coming out in me.”

“You going to scout for the army, Pa?”

“Probably.”

“Pa, you're sixty-five years old. Don't you think you deserve a rest?”

“Girl, I feel no older than fifty. I'm not as spry as I used to be. I have some aches and pains on cold mornings that I didn't used to have. I can't hook and draw as fast as I once could; I got to wear glasses when I read. But at a distance, I can out-see an eagle. And I can still sit a saddle all day long, and I am definitely not yet ready for the rocking chair and shawl.”

Joleen smiled at her pa, then leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “When do you plan on pulling out, Pa?”

“Well, I've wired the army and told them I'd scout for Custer. Maybe I can keep the fool from getting killed. But I'm not leaving until I can sit Falcon down and talk to him.”

“Good luck with that,” Joleen said, more than a touch of sarcasm in her words.

Jamie left her house to walk the boardwalks of the town. He had a strange feeling that he could not shake loose. He had a feeling that he was seeing his town for the last time.

“Silly,” he muttered. Then he thought about Red, down in Eagle Pass, and the feeling that had come over his friend on that last evening on earth for him. Jamie finally shoved the strange feeling away and rode back up to his cabin. He sat on the porch until it started getting dark, occasionally looking down at Kate's grave, now covered with a wildly colored profusion of mountain flowers. The same type of flowers were growing on Grandpa MacCallister's grave.

Just before full dark, one of his grandkids—he couldn't remember the boy's name—rode up with supper, all carefully wrapped and sealed in jars and put in a wicker basket. Jamie noticed that the boy—about twelve, he guessed—seemed afraid of him.

“Sit,” Jamie told him, and the boy promptly sat. “You want some of this food, boy?”

“Oh, no, sir. I ate already. But thank you.”

“Whose boy are you, anyway?”

“Megan's my mama. I'm the youngest. Name's John.”

“When were you born?”

“1864, sir. You was off fightin' the Yankees.”

Jamie smiled. “Seems like a long time ago.”

“I reckon it was, sir. I'll be twelve this year.”

Cotton-headed and blue-eyed, Jamie thought. Damn sure has MacCallister blood in him.

“Sir?”

“What?”

“Did you really fight a grizzly bear one time?”

Jamie laughed and the boy smiled. “Well . . . I guess you might say that. I didn't have much choice in the matter, though. He ran me up a tree.”

John laughed and laughed as Jamie told him the truth about the fight with Ol' Big Paw, with Jamie only slightly embellishing the tale.

Long after the boy had left, taking the pots and plates and dishes back with him, Jamie sat and smoked his pipe and was lost in memories. Finally, he blew out the lamps and went to bed. He hoped Falcon would ride in soon.

His youngest son returned the next day at noon, looking gaunt and tired and riding with a very short fuse.

Jamie waited for Falcon to come to him. He knew he would.

* * *

Jamie pointed to a chair on the porch. “Sit, son.”

Falcon sat and said, “She ain't dead, Pa.”

“Maybe so, maybe not. But the odds aren't real good on the not. You better start preparing your mind for that.”

Falcon said nothing.

“I'm going out to look for her, son. I got eyes and ears out there in the Big Empty you'll never have. If Marie is alive, I'll find out.”

“I'll go with you.”

“No, you won't, boy. You got kids that need you to be home. They need you more right now than they ever have. And I won't brook no sass on the subject. You understand that?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“I'll say my goodbyes in the morning and pull out. Son?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“If what I suspect happened to Marie is true, don't let grief overtake you and turn you down the wrong trail, you hear? It's something you're going to have to fight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don't let the wrong cards dealt too early turn you sour, neither.”

“I understand, Pa.”

“Fine. I hope you do, son. Now shake my hand and go get cleaned up and get some hot food in you and a good night's sleep. You look like a tree full of owls at the end of forty miles of bad road.”

Falcon smiled. “Do I really look that bad, Pa?”

“You do.”

Falcon stood up and shook his father's hand. “I'll see you before you leave?”

“I'll see all of you before I leave.” One last time, that ominous thought suddenly sprang into his head. He grimaced and shook it away.

“Something wrong, Pa?”

“Oh, no. Nothing. I reckon I just ate too much of Megan's good cooking, that's all.”

“See you in the mornin', Pa.”

“Will you be staying out at your ranch?”

Falcon hesitated for a few seconds. “No. I've got a room at the Wild Rose.”

“That's right. I forgot about that. All right. Sleep well, boy.”

Jamie put on his jacket, stuffed his pipe, and sat down in his chair on the porch, smoking and thinking.

He looked down toward Kate's grave.

For the last time, that thought once more jumped into his head.

He looked down at the lights of Valley, far below him.

For the last time.

“Damn!” Jamie said irritably, wishing that thought would go away and leave him alone. He got up and walked out to the small barn. He spoke to his horses and rubbed Sundown's nose. “Want to take another ride, fellow?”

Sundown whinnied and nuzzled Jamie's neck.

Jamie went back into the house and pulled out a trunk. He removed two sets of buckskins, buckskins he hadn't worn since Kate's death, and took them out to the porch, draping them across the rail, letting the coolness of night air them out.

Back in his cabin, Jamie poured another cup of coffee, stirred in sugar and sat for a time in his chair, the cabin in near darkness. He wondered what Falcon would do, should what he suspected happened to Marie turn out to be true, but he didn't wonder long. The boy was just like Jamie, and he would do what Jamie had done. Saddle up and ride. Ride high and wide and lonesome for a time.