Massacre of Eagles

CHAPTER TWO

A Crow village on the Meeteetsee River, Wyoming Territory

It was just after sunup and Running Elk left his tipi to walk out onto an overlook where he could view the mountains around him. Though it was late spring, the higher peaks were still covered with snow. Interspersed with the snow-covered peaks were the slab-sided cliffs rising a thousand feet or more into the sky. At the lower ranges were the sage-covered mountains that lay in ridges and rolls, marked here and there by patches of light and shadow from the early morning sun. On the lower elevations of the treeless mountains, elk were grazing.

Down in the valley he could see, sparkling silver in the sun, the Meeteetsee River. Alongside the river was a small herd of antelope, and sneaking up on them, a wolf was hunting his morning meal.

Today, Gray Antelope and Howling Wolf were going hunting. Running Elk would have gone with them had they asked, but they did not. He had not been hunting since returning from the white man’s school, and he missed it, but he knew it was not his place to invite himself.

When Running Elk was back East attending Carlisle Indian School, they changed his name from Running Elk to Steve Barr, and they told him and the other students that the Indian ways were bad. They said he must get civilized and be like the white man. While he was there he wore white man’s clothes, cut his hair as a white man, ate white man’s food, went to the white man’s church, and spoke the language of the white man. If any of the students were ever overheard speaking their native tongue, they were severely punished.

The books Running Elk learned to read told how bad the Indians had been to the white men. They made no distinctions among the Indians as to what tribes were friendly and supportive of the white man and what tribes were enemies. Running Elk was Absaroka. The Absaroka were called Crow by the white man, and though most of the Crow were in Montana, many had settled in the Big Horn Basin just outside the newly designated Yellowstone National Park. The Crow were a Siouan language tribe, but they maintained an identity beyond that of the Hunkpapa, Lakota, Oglala, Mineconjou, Brule, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne, who were their traditional enemies. Because of this natural enmity, the Crow had been allies with the U.S. Army during their fight with the Sioux.

Running Elk had been gone for four years, and when he first returned to his tribal home, he was treated as a stranger because of the ways and habits he had acquired while away. It took a while for the rest of the tribe to accept him, but Quiet Stream had greeted him warmly from the first day he was back. Quiet Stream was a young woman who had caught Running Elk’s eye even before he left for school. Now he was thinking about marrying her, but in order to do so, he would have to present gifts that would satisfy her father, Stone Eagle, and convince him that he was worthy of his daughter.

“Could it be that the others are right, and you have lost your Indian ways? Had you not gone to the white man’s school I would not have been able to sneak up on you.”

Turning toward the sound of the voice, Running Elk saw Quiet Stream, smiling at the trick she had just played on him.

“You did not sneak up on me. I heard you.”

“Oh? And has the white man also taught you to lie?”

Running Elk laughed. “You are right, I did not hear you. But that is because you cross the ground like a butterfly.”

“Ah ha, another lie you learned from the white man,” Quiet Stream said. “But this lie, I like.”

Running Elk saw Grey Antelope and Howling Wolf mount their horses as they left for their hunting trip. Quiet Stream read, in his eyes, his disappointment at not having been invited to go with them.

“You should have gone with them,” Quiet Stream said.

“No.”

“Do you not wish to hunt with Running Elk and Grey Antelope? I think you do. I think I can see this in your face.”

“They did not ask me.”

“Perhaps they did not know you wished to go. You should have asked them.”

“One should be invited, one should not ask,” Running Elk said.

“Have you not asked my father for me?” Quiet Stream asked. “Or has only White Bull asked?”

“White Bull has asked?” Running Elk replied, surprised by Quiet Stream’s announcement.

“Last night, he came to our tipi and asked my father if he could marry me.”

“What did Big Hand say?”

“He said another has asked, and that he must think on this.”

“What do you say?” Running Elk asked.

“It is you I prefer,” Quiet Stream said. She smiled. “And I will say this to my father. Do not worry, he will listen to me.”

White Bull and Running Elk were friends, and had been friends since both were young, but Running Elk had gone to the white man’s school and White Bull had not. It wasn’t a matter of Running Elk choosing to go; in fact, he had had no choice in the matter at all. He had been chosen by the Indian agent and told that he would go.

Since Running Elk had returned, the relationship between him and his old friend had changed. There was no animosity between them, but neither was there the closeness there once was. And now, with both young men interested in the same woman, the situation could only worsen.

Grand Central Terminal, New York

Buffalo Bill was in the main concourse surrounded by a dozen or more newspaper reporters and photographers. Falcon was several feet away, standing with Andrew and Rosanna, both of whom had come to see him off on his trip.

“I see that Mr. Cody is surrounded by his adoring press,” Andrew said.

Rosanna laughed. “My, brother, do I detect a twinge of jealousy?”

“Jealousy?”

“The press is around Mr. Cody, but not around you?”

“You know better than that, Rosanna. I abhor the press.”

“I know, dear. So I wouldn’t call attention to it if I were you. No doubt they would be over here as well, if they knew that you were here.”

“If they knew that we were here,” Andrew said, emphasizing the “we.” “For they would not come to see me, alone.”

“They are calling our train,” Falcon said.

Just inside the gate leading to track number thirty-one, a man appeared with a megaphone. Holding the megaphone to his mouth he called out loudly, his words clearly audible.

“Train for Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Cleveland, and Chicago, now boarding on track thirty-one! All passengers proceed to the train now!”

Rosanna hugged Falcon. “You are the only one in the family who ever comes to see us,” she said. “Is it any wonder that you are my favorite brother?”

“He’s your favorite brother?” Andrew said. “What about me?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Andrew. Falcon is my brother, you are my twin. And you are my favorite twin.”

“All right then, that’s better, that’s . . . ,” he paused, realizing then what she had said. Falcon and Rosanna both laughed, then Andrew laughed with them. He reached out to take Falcon’s hand.

“I agree with her,” he said. “You are also my favorite brother.”

As Falcon and Cody started toward the gate, Falcon heard one of the reporters behind him call out.

“Hey! Look there! Aren’t those the MacCallisters? Yes, that’s Andrew and Rosanna, the famous actors.”

“What are you two doing here?” another asked and, glancing back over his shoulder, Falcon saw that the entire press corps had hurried to their side. He saw, too, that his siblings were handling it with their usual aplomb.

“It’s Buffalo Bill Cody!” a passenger said as Falcon and Cody stepped into the palace car of the train. Almost instantly the other passengers crowded around him and, obligingly, Cody began signing autographs. Smiling and shaking his head, Falcon found a seat at the rear of the car and watched with bemusement.

“Do you know Buffalo Bill?” one of the other passengers asked Falcon.

“Yes.”

“Is he a real man of the West? Or is he merely a showman?”

“Trust me, Buffalo Bill is a real man of the West,” Falcon said. “He was a Pony Express rider, a buffalo hunter, a soldier, and a scout for the U.S. Cavalry. He is also a recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

“I thought that was all hokum, just to promote his show,” the passenger said.

“It isn’t hokum,” Falcon said. “And I’ll correct something else you said. He isn’t merely a showman; he is a showman of the first order.”

“Is that so? Maybe I have made a mistake in my judgment of him,” the passenger said. “I wonder if I could get his autograph. For my children, of course.”

“Of course,” Falcon said. “If you ask for it, I am sure he will give you his autograph. I have found him to be most generous in such things.”

That night, as Falcon lay in his berth, feeling the gentle rocking motion of the train and hearing the sound of steel wheels rolling on steel track, he recalled the last time he had been with Buffalo Bill. The memory was so strong and so real that he didn’t know if it was a memory or a dream.

It was a time before the Buffalo Bill Wild West Exhibition, when he was still known as Bill Cody. Falcon had been wandering through the West with no particular reason or destination when he found himself in Hayes City, Kansas. He met Bill Cody in the saloon, and because Cody had once ridden with the Pony Express, as had a close friend of Falcon’s, the two discovered a mutual connection.

The two men were enjoying each other’s company, exchanging stories and gossip, when they learned that a local rancher and his wife had been killed and their eighteen-year-old daughter raped, leaving a soulscarred shell of the vibrant young girl she had been.

The man who had perpetrated the crime was Drew Lightfoot, a well known desperado who had boasted that he would never be taken alive. Already a wanted robber and murderer, Lightfoot had committed crimes against one of the leading families of the county, and the reward for his apprehension had doubled. He was now worth two thousand dollars, dead or alive.

“And he says he’ll never be taken alive?” Falcon asked the man who had brought the news to the saloon.

“That’s what he says, all right.”

Falcon finished his beer, then stood up.

“Where are you going?” Cody asked.

“I’m going to see what I can do about granting that fella’s wish that he not be taken alive,” Falcon said.

Cody stood up as well. “Do you want company?” he asked.

“A good friend is always welcome company,” Falcon replied.

Soon after they got onto Lightfoot’s trail, they learned that he wasn’t traveling alone, but had five others with him, and was riding as the head of a gang of robbers and cutthroats. If that made Lightfoot more formidable, it also made him easier to track, for the Lightfoot gang was leaving a path of murder and robbery all across western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

They caught up with him in Puxico, Colorado. Passed up by the railroads, Puxico wasn’t even on most maps. Falcon surveyed the town as he rode in. He had seen hundreds of towns like this one, a street faced by falsefronted shanties, a few sod buildings, and even a handful of tents, straggling along for nearly a quarter of a mile. Then, just as abruptly as the town started, it quit.

In the winter and spring the single street would be a muddy mire, worked by horses’ hooves and mixed with their droppings, so that it became a stinking, sucking pool of ooze. In the summer it was baked hard as a rock. It was summer now, early afternoon, and the sun was yellow and hot.

The saloon wasn’t hard to find. It was the biggest and grandest building in the entire town, and Cody pointed to it.

“I’d say our best bet would be to start there,” Cody said.

“I’d say you are right.”

Loosening their pistols in their holsters, the two men walked inside.

Anytime Falcon entered a strange saloon he was on the alert. As he surveyed the place, he did so with such calmness that the average person would think it no more than a glance of idle curiosity. In reality it was a very thorough appraisal of the room. He checked out who was armed, what type of weapons they were carrying, and whether they were wearing their guns in a way that showed they knew how to use them. There were five men sitting together in the back of the room, and they were surveying Falcon and Cody as carefully as Falcon was surveying them. Falcon knew it wasn’t idle curiosity that had drawn their attention, and he was certain they were the men he and Cody were after.

“Cody,” he said quietly.

“I see them,” Cody answered just as quietly.

The bartender stood at the end of the bar, wiping used glasses with his stained apron, then setting them among the unused glasses. When he saw Falcon and Cody step up to the bar, he moved down toward them.

“Two beers,” Falcon said.

The bartender had seen the way Falcon and Cody had examined the five men in the back, and he had seen the way the five men had studied them. He poured the drinks with shaking hands, and Falcon knew that they had found their men.

“Do you know why we are here?” Falcon asked quietly.

“I reckon I do,” the bartender replied, his voice strained with fear.

“I’m told there are six of them. I see only five sitting back there.”

The bartender raised his head and looked toward the stairs at the back of the room, but he said nothing.

“Would the one upstairs be Lightfoot?” Falcon asked.

Again, the bartender said nothing, but he answered in the affirmative with a slight nod of his head.

“Thanks,” Falcon said. He finished the drink then looked toward the flight of wooden stairs that led upstairs to an enclosed loft.

“You go after him,” Cody said. “I’ll take care of these galoots.”

“All right.”

Falcon pulled his gun as he started up the stairs. The five in the back, seeing that, stood up as one, pulling their pistols as they did so.

“Hold it!” Cody called, pointing his gun at the five. “Drop your guns, all of you!”

“The hell you say!” one of the five men shouted, and they turned toward Cody.

Seeing that Cody was now in danger, Falcon called to them from the stairs. “Do what he says!” Falcon shouted.

One of the five men fired toward Cody and another fired toward Falcon. Even though the five men outnumbered Falcon and Cody, they were at a disadvantage because they were bunched into one big target, whereas their targets were separated.

Guns roared as they all began firing. Smoke billowed from the barrels of the guns, filling the saloon with a thick, acrid cloud. When the smoke moved away, the five were lying on the floor. Then, from the room at the head of the stairs, Lightfoot emerged, gun in hand. He fired at Falcon, and a hole the size of a man’s thumb and the height of a man’s chest appeared in the wall right beside Falcon as the heavy .44 caliber slug tore into the wood.

Both Falcon and Cody returned fire at the same time and Lightfoot, struck by two bullets, tumbled over the banister and, turning in midair, landed on his back on the very table around which his five confederates had been sitting.

An unexpected roughness in the track jarred Falcon from his sleep and he lay in his berth for a moment, halfway between dream and wake as the scenes of that event, so long ago, gradually faded away. He heard the sound of the train whistle as he drifted back to sleep.