Massacre of Eagles

CHAPTER FIVE

On the Northern Pacific Railroad in Dakota Territory

Angus Ebersole had seven men with him. In truth, it made his gang a little unwieldy by having so many, but it also made him formidable. There were few posses that were this large, and no target he ever selected would have as many guards as he had men.

He was waiting now with his men along the Northern Pacific Railroad for the train that would be coming through in about half an hour. The train, he knew, would be carrying the payrolls for Fort Lincoln, Fort Rice, and Fort Harrison. The payrolls for three army posts would be a considerable amount, enough money so that, even divided eight ways, it would make this operation a very profitable one.

“Dewey, Hawkins, do you have the wood laid out on the track?”

“Yeah, it’s all there. Think we ought to light it yet?”

“Not yet, we don’t want it to burn down too much before the train gets here.”

“Hey, Taylor, what are you going to do with your money?” Peters asked.

“I’m goin’ down to Arizona where the weather is warm and the Mexican girls is hot,” Taylor replied. “I’m goin’ to get me a room, a case of tequila, and have me a different señorita ever’ night.”

“Ha! Well, that sounds good enough for me. What about you, Smitty?”

“I’m goin’ to find me a poker game,” Smitty said. “And I’ll win ever’ hand ’cause I’ll buy the pots. I’ll bet so much that the suckers won’t be able to match me.”

“Nothin’ like spendin’ your money before you got it,” Dewey said.

“Hush,” Ebersole said, holding his hand up. “I think I hear it.”

Straining, the men could hear a distant whistle.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Hawkins said. “Hadn’t we better light the fire?”

“All right. Go ahead, get it started,” Ebersole ordered.

Augmented by kerosene, the fire took quickly, and was blazing brightly when they first saw the train. From this distance, against the great panorama of the surrounding mountains, the train seemed quite small.

Now they could hear the train easily, the sound of its puffing engine carrying to them across the wide valley, echoing back from the towering mountains. When they heard the steam valve close and the train begin braking, Ebersole knew that the engineer had spotted the fire and was going to stop. Squealing, squeaking, and clanging, the train ground to a reluctant halt, its stack puffing black smoke, its driver wheels wreathed in tendrils of white steam drifting off into the night. The engineer’s face appeared in the window, backlit by the orange glow of the cab.

“What’s up?” the engineer asked. “What’s the fire for? Is there track out ahead?”

“Get your hands up,” Ebersole said.

“What? Good God man, are you telling me this is a train robbery?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m tellin’ you. Taylor, climb up there on the coal tender and keep your eyes on the two of ’em.”

Falcon was sound asleep when the train came to a sudden, screeching halt in the middle of the night. The stop was so abrupt that it woke him up, and he slid the curtains apart just long enough to look out into the aisle of the sleeper car. He saw a porter.

“Porter, what happened?” he asked. “Why did we stop?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the porter answered. “I was sleepin’ in the back of the car my ownself. I thought I might take a peek outside and see if I can find out what it is.”

Falcon saw Cody sticking his head through the curtains of the top bunk just across the aisle from him, and Ingraham was looking out from the bottom bunk.

“You have any idea what’s going on?” Cody asked.

“No, but I don’t like it,” Falcon said. “I think I’ll have a look around.”

“I’ll join you,” Cody said.

Slipping back into the bunk, Falcon pulled on his trousers and boots. Then, picking up his gun belt, he stepped out into the aisle as he strapped it on. By now, several others were looking out from the bunks: women, children, and men of all ages. Many of them were talking back and forth, wondering why the train had made such an abrupt stop in the middle of the night.

Cody stepped out into the aisle with Falcon and, like Falcon, had put on his gun belt. Ingraham stepped out as well, though, unlike Falcon and Cody, he was unarmed. When Falcon and Cody started toward the front of the car, Ingraham went with them.

“Where are you going?” Cody asked.

“With you two.”

“You stay here. We don’t know what’s out there.”

“I know,” Ingraham said, his eyes flashing with excitement. “That’s why I’m going with you.”

When the three men stepped out of the train they could see the steam drifting away from the engine, so white against the dark night that it was almost luminescent. The only light to be seen was that cast through the windows of the coaches. A few of the windows were open and heads were poked through, looking toward the front.

“You folks best keep your heads inside, we don’t know what this is all about yet,” Falcon said as the three men passed by the coaches on their walk to the front of the train.

When they got close enough to the front to see what was going on, they saw at least eight men, four mounted and four dismounted. One of the dismounted men was on top of the tender, pointing his gun toward the cab of the engine. The other three were standing on the ground just outside the express car.

“You may as well open the door,” one of the men yelled. “Because we have dynamite, and if you don’t open it we’ll blow this car all to hell.”

“Gentlemen!” Ingraham shouted. “You have chosen the wrong train to rob. The two men with me or none other than Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody!”

“Ingraham, what are you doing?” Cody asked.

“I am helping these gentlemen understand that they have made a big mistake,” Ingraham said.

The three men on the ground turned toward Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham and began firing, lighting the night up with the bright flares of their muzzle flashes. Falcon and Cody returned fire and all three went down.

“Damn, did you see that?” one of the mounted men said. “Let’s get out of here!”

“Bring me my horse!” the man on the coal-tender shouted, but the four riders who had been holding the horses of the four who had dismounted rode away without responding to his call.

“You no-count bastards!” the man on the tender shouted. He pointed his gun at the retreating robbers, but didn’t fire. Instead, realizing that Falcon and Cody were quickly closing on him, he threw his pistol down, then put his hands up.

“I give up, I give up!” he shouted. “Don’t shoot! I ain’t makin’ no fight of it!”

“Climb down,” Falcon ordered, and, meekly, the man did as ordered.

By now the train conductor, who had been monitoring events from a safe place, came hurrying up.

“Mr. MacCallister, Mr. Cody, the Northern Pacific owes the two of you a big thank you for saving the train,” the conductor said.

“MacCallister? Cody?” the outlaw said. “You mean this here fella wasn’t lyin’? You really are Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody?”

“They are indeed,” Ingraham said. “You need not feel shame over being bested in your failed endeavor, for you have been taken by the most famous and skilled shootists in the world.”

“Who are you?”

“I sir, am merely a simple purveyor of tales, a scribe who records the heroic deeds of such men as these. I am sure you have heard of me. I am Prentiss Ingraham.”

“Prentiss Ingraham?” The would-be train robber shook his head. “No, can’t say as I have heard of you.”

Ingraham was visibly crestfallen.

Because the would-be robbers had stopped the train by building a fire on the track, for the next several moments the crew and men passengers of the train worked feverishly to clear the path. They had to hurry, because another train would be coming behind them within the next hour.

“That’s no problem,” Ingraham said. “Won’t the train engineer have his light on? He’ll just stop when he sees us.”

“It won’t matter whether he has his headlamp on or not,” Falcon replied.

“What do you mean it won’t matter? Of course it will matter. If his headlamp is on, he will see us.”

“Even if the engineer did see us, it would be too late,” Falcon explained. “The purpose of the headlamp is so people can see the train and get out of the way. Once the train’s headlamp picks up something, it is already too late. The train is so fast and so heavy that it is impossible for it to stop within the limits of the headlamp.”

“So what you are saying is that if a train approaches us, it will plow right into the back of us?” Ingraham asked.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Falcon replied.

“Let’s get busy then,” Ingraham said, and he began working with renewed effort to clear the track.

Angus Ebersole, Clay Hawkins, Ike Peters, and Jim Dewey rode hard for the first mile, then stopped atop a hill and looked back down at the track as the passengers and train crew worked to clear it.

“I thought you said this would be easy,” Hawkins complained.

“I didn’t say it would be easy, I said it would pay off well,” Ebersole replied. “That train is carrying army payrolls for three forts. There’s no tellin’ how much money is there.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Hawkins said. “The money is there, it ain’t here.”

“How was I to know that Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill would both be on that train?” Ebersole asked. “There just ain’t no way of findin’ out about stuff like that.”

“You think that was really them?” Dewey asked.

“You seen how easy they cut down Smitty, Hunt, and Collins, didn’t you?” Ebersole answered. “Yeah, I think it was really them.”

“I didn’t know they was real,” Peters said.

“What do you mean you didn’t think they was real? You seen ’em, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I seen ’em. But like I said, I didn’t think there was really any such people. I thought they was like Santa Claus, I thought they was just somethin’ someone made up to tell stories about.”

“They are real, all right,” Ebersole said.

“What if we was to go back down there now, catch ’em while they’re workin’?” Dewey said. “We might be able to surprise ’em.”

“The rest of us might also get kilt,” Ebersole said.

“Damn, and I ’bout had that money spent,” Hawkins said.

“I reckon ole Billy Taylor won’t be havin’ hisself none of them Mexican gals,” Dewey said.

“Won’t none of us be doin’ nothin’,” Peters said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ebersole said, turning his horse away from the track.

Bismarck, Dakota Territory

It was mid-morning when the train rolled into Bismarck, Dakota Territory, where it was met by Mr. I.W. Emmons, the station agent. Behind them the train, temporarily at rest from its long run, wasn’t quiet. Because the engineer kept the steam up, the valve continued to open and close in great, heaving sighs. Overheated wheel bearings and gearboxes popped and snapped as tortured metal cooled. On the platform all around them, there was a discordant chorus of squeals, laughter, shouts, and animated conversation as people were getting on and off the train.

Told of the attempted robbery, the station agent summoned Sheriff Walter Merrell, who took the prisoner into custody. Within fifteen minutes of the arrival of the train the entire town was aware of the attempted train robbery. They also knew that the robbery was prevented by Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody, two of the nation’s most storied Western personalities.

The three would-be robbers who had tried to gain access to the express car had succeeded, but only in death. They had ridden the distance between the holdup attempt and Bismarck in the express car. Now their bodies were removed and laid out on the depot platform, waiting for the undertaker to call for them.

As they lay there, scores of people passed by to stare down at them in morbid curiosity. Though only two men had been shooting at them, all three had multiple bullet wounds in their torsos, and one had a bullet wound in his forehead.

“Look at that. That was some good shootin’,” one man said.

“Well, yeah, when you consider who it was that shot them, you wouldn’t expect anything but good shooting.”

“Who did you say shot them?” someone asked.

“It was Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody.”

“Wow. I sure wish I had been on the train to see that.”

“I was on the train,” another said. “But it was too dark to see anything but the muzzle flashes.”

“It sure would have been something to see.”

That same morning, Prentiss Ingraham presented himself to Marshal Jewel, editor of the Bismarck Tribune. The Tribune had been started by C.A. Lounsberry, and was made famous by its coverage of Custer’s last fight at Little Big Horn, but Lounsberry sold the paper in 1884 during his unsuccessful bid to be governor of the territory.

“My good man, I am here to offer you the sum of fifty dollars,” Ingraham said.

“Is that a fact? And just what do I have to do for you for that fifty dollars?” Jewel asked.

“Oh, you don’t understand, sir,” Ingraham said. “It isn’t what you are going to do for me, it is what I am going to do for you. I am Prentiss Ingraham, famous author and journalist. It so happens that I was on the train, and was a direct witness to the thrilling events involving Buffalo Bill Cody, Falcon MacCallister, and the would-be train robbers. I am offering you my services in writing the story for you. Normally, I would get seventy-five, even one hundred dollars for the story, but I am going to do it for you for the paltry sum of twenty-five dollars.”

“Wait a minute,” Jewel said. “I am to give you twenty-five dollars? I thought you were going to give me fifty dollars.”

“Oh, but I am, my good man. Consider that, by writing an article for you for the paltry sum of twenty-five dollars, you are to the good in the difference my efforts normally earn.”

The editor laughed. “Very well, Mr. Ingraham. I confess that I have heard of you, and it may do my paper well to have a story written by the famous author of so many dime novels.”

Borrowing a pen and paper from Jewel, Ingraham sat at a table in the back of the newspaper office and began writing the story. He heard the train whistle announcing that it was about to leave the station, but he was not concerned, for Bismarck would be their last stop as passengers. From here Ingraham, Falcon, and Cody would go by riverboat down the Missouri to Standing Rock Reservation where they would speak with Sitting Bull.

Ingraham composed the story quickly, writing it with large and easily read strokes of the pen.

Daring Train Robbery Foiled

FALCON MACCALLISTER AND

BUFFALO BILL CODY THE HEROES

Account Told by Prentiss Ingraham

This scribe is well known throughout the world for penning epic and heroic tales of the valiant and exciting exploits of America’s daring and intrepid Western heroes. But rarely has the author of such tales been privileged to be a personal witness to such courageous and audacious action as he was last night when this humble chronicler of bold events was on hand to see, with my own eyes, a performance so daring and so fearless that it made the fictional accounts of the popular Prentiss Ingraham novels pale in comparison.

This writer was on board the Northern Pacific train somewhere east of Bismarck, in company with Buffalo Bill Cody and Falcon MacCallister as part of our remarkable transit across America, when the attack occurred. With the muzzle flashes of their guns lighting up the dark night, eight armed and ferocious robbers attempted a train robbery. Bullets were flying through air as the outlaws went about manifesting their evil deed, and all on board the train were fraught with terror.

All were frightened, that is, except for the fearless duo of Buffalo Bill and Falcon MacCallister. For, unbeknownst to the would-be perpetrators of this dastardly crime, there were, among the passengers, two of America’s most storied heroes. Cool and professional in the face of danger, these two intrepid gentlemen, Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody, engaged the road agents in a deadly gunfight. And whereas the missiles launched by the outlaws flew through the night without finding any targets, the bullets fired by the intrepid duo of MacCallister and Cody wrought a terrible effect among the would-be train robbers. Three of the desperadoes were killed outright when struck by the well-aimed balls, and one was captured. The remaining four retreated into the night like the cowards they are.

Buffalo Bill Cody, as readers of this newspaper may know, is the proprietor and chief performer of the world famous Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Exhibition.

When Ingraham rejoined Falcon and Cody, he was wearing a pistol.

“That’s something new,” Cody said.

“I figured if I am going to live in the Wild West, I may as well dress for the part,” Ingraham said. “Especially in light of the excitement on board the train last night.”

“I won’t ask you if you can use that,” Cody said. “I’m sure you have been in enough wars by now that you can handle it quite well.”

“As well as any of the cowboys in your show, Cody,” Ingraham said.

Cody chuckled. “I don’t doubt it.”