Eagles Legacy: The Killing

Chapter Nine

Missouri – Kansas Border

Crack Kingsley was born and raised in Clay County, Missouri, but when the war started, he had left Missouri and ridden as an irregular with Doc Jennison and his Kansas Jayhawkers.

The Jayhawkers told themselves that they were a military outfit, and they were organized as one, though none of them wore uniforms. And, since they were what Doc Jennison called a “supernumerary military unit,” which he explained meant that they were not really a part of the Union army, they were responsible for supporting themselves. That was actually the part that Kingsley had enjoyed the most. They supported themselves by stealing from the Confederate sympathizers, whether they were banks, stores, or individuals.

It had meant nothing to Kingsley that the banks, stores, and individuals they stole from had been his own neighbors. Kingsley’s mother had been abandoned by Kingsley’s drunken father, and they had survived during Kingsley’s formative years due to the kindness of their neighbors. Rather than endearing them to him, though, it had generated a sense of inferiority, jealousy and envy. Thus when the war started, he’d had no problem crossing over to the other side.

When Crack Kingsley crossed the border into Missouri today, he realized that this was the first time he had been back in the state since the war. Like the rest of Missouri, the citizens of Clay County had been divided in their loyalties, and as many of the men of the county had fought for the North as fought for the South. What upset the citizens of Clay County about Kingsley was that he had joined the Kansas irregulars.

And, he had raided and killed his neighbors.

Looking around him, he knew exactly where he was. This was the old Dumey place. The house had not changed. The huge, scarred oak tree was still there. So too was the meandering creek. He smiled as he recalled the raid, the first raid he had ever led.

Clay County, Missouri, 1862

The raid had started under Doc Jennison, but they ran into a unit of Confederate soldiers led by General Sterling Price. Badly outnumbered, they paid a high price and Jennison ordered his men to split up and make it back to Kansas on their own.

Because Kingsley was a native of the area and knew it well, seven men attached themselves to him when they separated. At first, Kingsley was irritated by it. Then he realized that they had not only attached themselves to him, they were following him, listening to his orders. That gave Kingsley an idea. He would conduct his own raids, but with only seven men attached, he would have to be careful in selecting his targets.

He didn’t have to look far. As he and his men rode north away from Kansas City, they came across the Dumey farm. Kingsley knew the man others called “The Dutchman,” and had a strong dislike for him. He had tried to come on to Alma, Dumey’s daughter, but she was engaged to Elmer Gleason, one of the other young men of the county. Not willing to take no for an answer, he attempted to force himself upon her, and when she cried out in protest, her father heard her.

Although Chris Dumey was twice as old as Kingsley, he was a big man and incredibly strong. He beat Kingsley to within an inch of his life, then ordered him off his farm.

He had not come back until today, and now he was leading seven men.

“Boys, how would you like to have some roast pork, and maybe some fried chicken?” he asked the others.

“Where we goin’ to get that?” one of his riders, a man named Byrd asked.

“Right here on Chris Dumey’s farm.”

“You know this farmer?” Byrd asked.

“Oh, yeah, I know him.”

“That sounds good to me, too,” one of the other men said.

“All right,” Kingsley agreed. “Let’s go get ’em.”

“What if the farmer ain’t willin’ to sell ’em to us?”

“Who said anything about buyin’ ’em?” Kingsley said. He slapped his legs against the side of his horse. “We’re just goin’ to take ’em.”

Kingsley kept his eyes peeled as they rode down the small hill to the farmhouse, but he didn’t see anyone. Dismounting just inside the gate he took another look around, but saw no one.

“All right, boys,” he said with a casual wave of his hand. “Start gatherin’ ’em in.”

Three of the men started chasing down the chickens, while the other four started toward the pigpen. The chickens began cackling loudly.

“Who are you men? What’s going on here?” a loud, stern voice called.

Looking toward the porch, Kingsley saw the man who had fired him two years earlier.

“Hello, Dumey,” Kingsley said.

“Kingsley! What do you want here? I told you to never come to my farm again.”

“I know what you told me, old man. But times have changed, and I’m givin’ the orders now. We’re goin’ to take the loan of some of your chickens,” Kingsley replied.

A pig let out a squeal, and Kingsley laughed.

“And your pigs,” he added.

“The hell you will!” Dumey said. “Martha, bring me my shotgun!”

Kingsley drew his pistol and waited until the man’s wife appeared on the porch, carrying a double-barreled shotgun. Then he shot them both.

“Mama!” a voice called from inside. Alma, a young woman of no more than eighteen or nineteen, came running through the back door. She knelt beside her slain parents. She looked up at Kingsley. “Crack! You would do such a thing?”

Byrd raised his pistol to shoot the girl.

“No!” Kingsley shouted.

“What do you mean, no?” Byrd asked. “What the hell, Kingsley, have you done gone soft on us?”

“Soft ain’t exactly the word that comes to mind right now,” Kingsley said as he reached down to rub himself.

When they rode away from the farm later that day, they were carrying with them twelve chickens, two live shoats, a sack of flour, and a sack of beans. Behind them lay the three members of the Dumey family: Chris and Martha dead, and Alma, who had been raped eight times, barely clinging to life.

Kingsley later learned that she had died, but not before telling her neighbor, Jesse James, who was responsible.

If it had been Sterling Price’s men who had found Alma Dumey and her slain parents, there would have been a charge of murder and rape filed against him that would have resonated with the civil authorities despite the divided loyalties of the war. But it wasn’t Price’s troops; it was Jesse James and his band of guerrillas, and Jesse James had his own brand of justice in mind. Because of that, no charges were ever brought against Kingsley for that particular raid, and unlike the other irregulars who had ridden for the South, Kingsley had left the war with no wanted papers on him.

Now, as Kingsley thought back upon that incident so long ago, he lit a cigar and stared down at the house. Jesse James had boasted that he would find Kingsley and make him pay. But he never had.

“Where are you now, Jesse James?” Kingsley asked, speaking aloud. “You and your big mouth? Oh, that’s right. You’re dead, ain’t you?”

Slapping his legs against the side of his horse, he laughed as he rode on toward Kansas City, his head wreathed in smoke from his cigar.

On the trail between Cheyenne and Chugwater

“You sure he is going to come through here?” Lee Mosley asked.

“The newspaper said he lived in Chugwater, didn’t it?” Dingus asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then he will be coming through here. This is the only way he can get back home.”

“Yeah, well we been here two days now, and he ain’t showed up yet,” Marvin said.

“He prob’ly didn’t leave yesterday because of the rain,” Lee said. “That was some rain. We most drowned our ownselves. We should’a found a place to wait it out.”

“And maybe miss MacCallister? No, sir. I ain’t willin’ to take that chance. By leavin’ when we did, we’re sure to be ahead of him, and when he comes ...”

“He’s comin’ now,” Marvin said, interrupting the conversation.

“What?”

“There’s someone comin’, one man on a horse. I would say that is more than likely him, wouldn’t you?”

“Where are the horses? Are they out of sight?” Dingus asked.

“They are down in the coulee, just where you told me to put ’em,” Lee said. “If that’s MacCallister, he ain’t goin’ to see ’em.”

“That’s MacCallister all right,” Dingus said.

“How do you know?”

“I had someone point him out to me yesterday,” Dingus said. He pointed to a little jut of rocks about thirty yards in front of them. “Lee, you get down there and stay out of sight until he passes you. That way when he gets here, you’ll be behind him. Marvin, you get over there behind that rock on the left, and I’ll be here. That way we’ll have him from three different angles.”

“How will we know when to shoot?” Marvin asked.

“I’m goin’ to shoot first,” Dingus answered. “And if I’m lucky, there won’t any of us have to do any more shootin’ a’tall after that.”

“I sort of hope you miss,” Lee said. “I’d like a crack at that son of a bitch myself.”

“Hurry, get in position before he gets any closer. I don’t want to take a chance on him seein’ any of us,” Dingus said.

Duff started back home to Chugwater the day after he’d made arrangements to buy the Angus cattle. The heat was intense, and what little wind there was exacerbated more than alleviated the situation because it blew in his face like a blast from the mouth of a furnace. The land, familiar to him now because he had traveled it many times over the last year, unfolded before him in an endless vista of rocks, sage, and hills. The sun heated the ground, sending up undulating waves, which caused near objects to shimmer and nonexistent lakes to appear tantalizingly in the distance. It was always a hard day’s ride from Cheyenne to Sky Meadow, and it seemed even more so now because of the heat.

Suddenly there was the crack of a pistol and a bullet whizzed by, taking his hat off, fluffing his hair and sending shivers down his spine.

Realizing that he was a perfect target while mounted, Duff slipped down quickly from his horse, then slapped Sky on the rump.

“Get out of here!” he shouted at the animal, but his warning wasn’t necessary because Sky, sensing the trouble, galloped out of the way. The last thing he needed was to have his horse shot out here.

Bending over at the waist, and running in a zigzag path, Duff got out of the open as quickly as he could, diving for the protection of a little outcropping of rocks. As he did so a second shot came so close that Duff could hear the air pop as the bullet sped by.

Duff was a big man, but he made himself as small as he possibly could, wriggling his body to the end of the little ridge topped by rocks. Once he was in position he lifted his head to take a cautious look around.

He saw a little puff of smoke drifting east on a hot breath of air. That meant the shooter was a little to the west, so he moved his eyes in that direction. There, he saw the tip of a hat rising slowly above the rocks.

Evan Webb was returning to Cheyenne, having made a visit out to the Claymore Ranch, when he heard the shot. At first he feared someone might be shooting at him, then he heard a second shot and its echo, and realized that he was in no danger. Curious as to what it might be, he set the brake on the buckboard, then climbed down and scurried up the side of a bluff to look down on the other side. From here he saw clearly that three men were accosting one.

Webb had no weapon with him, but even if he did have one, he would have been reluctant to intervene. Although it looked clearly as if the big man was the one in the right, one couldn’t always tell by first impressions. He decided to wait right here, stay out of sight, and see what would happen.

Duff wished he had taken time to snake his Winchester out of the saddle sheath, but he hadn’t. All he had with him was his pistol, and that would have to do. As he stared across the opening he saw a hat appear. Duff aimed and fired. The hat sailed away.

“Damn, you’re pretty good,” a voice called from the other side of the rocks. “If you’d’a waited a few seconds longer, you would’ve got me.”

“Who are you?” Duff asked. “And would you be for tellin’ me why it is that you are shooting at me?”

“Tell me, Duff MacCallister, are you really so damn dumb that you didn’t stop to think that if you kill someone, he might have a brother somewhere?”

“Would your name be Camden?” Duff asked.

“Yeah. Dingus Camden. Tyler was m’ brother, and you killed him. So now I’m plannin’ on killin’ you.”

“I suppose it did not make any difference to you that he was holdin’ a knife to a young lady’s neck. I had no choice. I had to kill him.”

“You had a choice. You could’a waited ’til ever’-one put their money in the piano player’s bowl like ever’one else was goin’ to do. You didn’t have to be no hero.”

Duff fired again, this time at the sound of the voice. His bullet sent chips of rock flying and he was rewarded with a yelp of pain.

“Did that hurt?” Duff asked.

“Yes, it hurt, you son of a bitch! You sprayed rock into my face.”

“That’s the way it is, Camden. You play this kind of game, you are goin’ to be hurt.”

“Hold it!” a voice suddenly yelled behind him, and when Duff turned, he saw someone standing about sixty feet behind him, holding his gun leveled at Duff.

“Marvin, Dingus, come on out! I’ve got ’im!” the man yelled.

“Good job, Lee,” Dingus replied. Dingus stood up from his position behind a rock about seventy-five feet away and directly in front of Duff. The one called Marvin stood up to Duff’s right, and he was somewhat farther away, at least one hundred feet.

“MacCallister, do me a favor, will you?” Dingus said. “When you see my brother, tell him I said hello.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Duff said.

“Oh? And why not?”

“For one thing, your brother is in hell, and I don’t plan to go there. Better you tell him yourself, for you’re about to see him.”

“Ha! There are three of us and one of you!” Dingus said.

“That’s not a problem,” Duff said.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Duff dropped to his knees. Startled, Dingus fired, but his bullet passed over Duff’s head, and Duff heard a grunt of pain from behind him.

“Dingus, you dumb son of a bitch! You shot Lee!” Marvin shouted.

Dingus had no time to reply to Marvin’s angry shout, because almost immediately on top of Dingus’s shot, Duff fired, and saw a black hole appear in Dingus’s forehead. Dingus went down.

By now, Marvin realized two things. He knew that he was all alone against Duff, and he realized that he had not yet fired. He pulled the trigger, but one hundred feet was too far away for him to be accurate.

Duff had no such problem. He fired back and Marvin dropped his pistol, grabbed his neck, then fell forward.

Duff stood up then and looked at the three bodies lying in a triangular formation around him. He heard a groan from the one Dingus had called Lee, and when he went back there, saw that Lee was still alive, though barely so.

“Damn,” Lee said, grunting through the pain. “I told Dingus this was a dumb idea.”

Duff looked at the wound and realized that it was fatal.

“I’m done for, ain’t I?”

“Aye, I think so.”

“Damn,” Lee said. He took a couple of wheezing gasps, then surrendered his life in a wheezing death rattle.

Duff didn’t want to leave them lying here, because this was the road between Cheyenne and Chugwater. But he had no shovel, either, so he couldn’t bury them. He pulled all three of the bodies together, laid them alongside the road, then marked the spot in his mind.

Evan Webb watched everything from his position, and debated whether or not he should reveal himself to Duff MacCallister. He knew who it was, because he had heard one of the men call him by name. And it was a name he recognized, because he had read of MacCallister’s exploits in the Cheyenne Leader. And he knew that a man who could shoot as well as MacCallister would have no problem in shooting him, even from this distance. Of course, he represented no threat to MacCallister, but in the heat of the moment, would MacCallister know that?

Webb chose the safer of the options. He remained out of sight watching as MacCallister positioned the bodies along the side of the road, and waiting until MacCallister left the scene.