Revenge of Eagles

CHAPTER 21

“It stinks in here,” Dagen complained as he, Monroe, Casey, and Fargo looked through the cave where Ponci had done his self-amputation to see if they could find the money.

“You can put up with a little stink,” Fargo said.

“A little stink? We could be up to our bottom lip in shit and it wouldn’t stink anymore,” Dagen said.

The others laughed.

“What the hell are we lookin’ for?” Monroe asked.

“What are we looking for? We’re looking for the money,” Fargo replied.

“Yeah, I know that. But is it in a bag or what?”

“It could be,” Fargo said. “But like as not it’s ...” He stopped in mid-sentence, then leaned over and started tossing a few rocks aside.

“Have you found something?” Casey asked.

Fargo pulled out a set of saddlebags, then opened the flap and looked inside. A broad smile spread across his face.

“Here it is, boys.”

“Is the money there?” Dagen asked.

“It’s here.”

“Let’s divide it up,” Dagen said.

“Not here.”

Dagen looked at the other two men and, sensing that they were behind him, he looked back at Fargo. Fargo was holding the saddlebags and looking down inside. He didn’t notice that Dagen had pulled his gun.

“Yeah, let’s do it here,” Dagen said.

“I’m in charge here,” Fargo said. “And I’ll decide when and where we divide the money.”

Dagen pulled the trigger and the gun flashed and boomed loudly inside the cave. A little puff of dust flew up from the front of Fargo’s shirt and his eyes opened wide in pain and surprise. He dropped the saddlebags and put his hand over the wound.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “You killed me.”

“Yeah,” Dagen said easily. He pulled the trigger a second time, and Fargo went down.

Monroe and Casey looked on with shock.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Casey asked.

“Because I don’t believe the son of a bitch had any intention of dividing up that money,” Dagen said. “I think he was planning on just stringin’ us along for a while, then, first chance he got, he was going to run out on us.”

“When do you plan on dividing the money?” Monroe asked.

“Right now,” Dagen said. He smiled. “That is, as soon as we get out of this stink.”

Leaving Fargo dead inside the cave, the three bandits walked outside into the bright sunlight. Dagen took a deep breath.

“Damn, it feels good to be able to breathe again,” he said.

“Yeah,” Monroe said. “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve stayed in there.”

“Ha,” Casey said. “If you think it stinks in there now, what’s it goin’ to be like when ole Fargo gets ripe?”

“Ain’t goin’ to be that much worse,” Dagen said. “Fargo always did have a stink about him anyhow.”

The others laughed, even though they knew that they probably smelled just as bad.

Dagen dumped the money out onto the ground; then the three men squatted down around it and began counting it out. It totaled fourteen thousand, two hundred dollars.

“Looks to me like it’s a couple hundred dollars short,” Monroe said.

“Ponci must’ve taken some of it,” Dagen said.

“Maybe, but don’t forget, Fargo had some too. We ought to go back in and see how much he has,” Casey suggested.

“You want it, you can go in and get it,” Dagen said, picking up his share of the money. “I doubt he has a hundred dollars on him, and for me, it ain’t worth goin’ back into that stink for no more’n thirty dollars, which is about what we would each get.”

“Yeah,” Casey said as he stuck the money inside his shirt. “Yeah, that’s what I think too. So, where do we go now?”

“Anywhere we want to go,” Dagen said. “We don’t even have to stay together no more if we don’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Monroe said. “But till we get back to town it might be better if we stayed together.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve heard talk of some renegade Indians. I don’t want to run into any all by myself.”

“Monroe’s right,” Casey said. “I say we stay together till we get back to Sassabi Flat.”

Dagen shook his head. “We can’t go back there.”

“Why not?” Monroe asked. “They got whiskey, whores, and food there.”

“Fargo killed one of the whores, remember? And he killed the bartender too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Casey said. “Damn, where can we go?”

“How about Providence Wells?” Dagen suggested. “They got whiskey, whores, and food there too. And there ain’t none of us ever been there, so there won’t be nobody there that know us.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Casey said.

The three men mounted. Then Casey looked over at Fargo’s horse.

“What about Fargo’s horse? Should we take him with us?” Casey asked.

“Why?” asked Dagen.

“We can sell ’im.”

“We got enough money, we don’t need to be bothered with tryin’ to sell no damn horse.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be right just to leave him here,” Casey said.

Dagen pulled his pistol and shot Fargo’s horse in the head. The animal dropped without a sound.

“Son of a bitch!” Casey shouted in surprise.

“Now it won’t bother him to stay here,” Dagen said. “Let’s go.”

Falcon saw the vultures first, from at least a mile away. Then, as he drew closer, he saw a large brown form on the ground, and knew that it was a horse.

It looked as if one of the horses had gone down, leaving the outlaws with four men and three horses. Although he felt bad about the horse, he knew it would slow the men down somewhat and make it easier for him to track them.

Something didn’t look quite right when Falcon finally reached the horse. He couldn’t put his finger on what was bothering him ... maybe it was just intuition. Whatever it was, Falcon decided it was worth a closer look, so he dismounted, then walked over to examine the horse. Kneeling beside it, he ran his hand across the legs of the horse, but he couldn’t find any sign of a broken bone.

“What happened here?” he asked aloud. “If you didn’t go down on them, why would they shoot you and leave themselves one horse short?”

Falcon lifted the head, then let it drop. There was still some flexibility in the animal, so it hadn’t been dead long.

Sighing, Falcon stood up, then removed his hat and ran his hand through his hair. Looking around, he saw a set of saddlebags lying open near a boulder. Looking back at the dead horse, he saw the horse had its own saddlebags.

Falcon walked over for a closer look at the saddlebags near the boulder, and when he stuck his hand down inside, he pulled out a little paper band, the kind of paper band that is wrapped around stacks of money. He read the printing on the band.

$100

WESTERN EXPRESS COMPANY

Looking around the area, Falcon saw the opening to a cave. Pulling his pistol, he moved up to one side of the opening, then cautiously looked inside.

That was when he became aware of two things: the overwhelming stench coming from inside the cave, and the fact that Fargo Ford was lying dead on the floor of the cave.

Holstering his pistol, Falcon pulled his knife and went into the cave.

“Two down and three to go,” he said aloud. “You men just keep killing each other off. That makes my job real easy.”

It was after dark when Falcon got to Providence Wells. Dismounting in front of the saloon, he walked along all the horses that were tied to the hitching rail, then saw one that he had seen before. It was one of the horses Pete Tucker had been holding during the botched holdup attempt back in Calabasas. That meant that the men he was looking for were here.

Going inside the saloon, Falcon looked around, but didn’t see anyone he recognized.

“Yes, sir, what will it be?” the bartender asked.

“A beer,” Falcon said. He decided against asking for any specific information, believing he could find out more just by being quiet and observing.

Falcon had just about finished when a girl came down the stairs and stepped up to the bar. One eye was red and swollen.

“Good Lord, girl, what happened to you?” the bartender asked.

“Nothing,” the girl said, putting her hand up to cover the eye.

“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ You’ve got as big a shiner there as I’ve ever seen on anyone.”

“He ... he wants a bottle of whiskey,” the girl said, nodding back toward the bar and putting some money on the bar.

“What happened to you? Did that fella hit you?” The bartender reached up to touch the girl’s eye, but she pulled away from him.

“No, please,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Honey, it looks to me like you’ve already got it. What’s going on up there? Listen, you want me to go tell him his time is up?” The bartender started toward the end of the bar.

“No, don’t!” she said. “It’s all right, nothing is going on.” She reached out to grab him. “Nothing, honest. Please, don’t start anything. There are three of them.”

That caught Falcon’s attention. “Three of them, you say?” he asked.

“Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t all three with me,” the girl said. “The other two are with other girls.”

“Why are you interested?” the bartender asked. “Do you know these three men?”

“I’m not sure. When did they get into town?”

“No more’n a couple of hours ago,” the bartender said. “At first, we was glad to see ’em ’cause they’re spendin’ money like water. But the drunker they got, the meaner they got, and right now I’d like to see ’em be on their way, money or no money.” Then, to the bar girl, he said, “Honey, you don’t have to go back up there. Not if he’s beating you.”

“It’ll be all right,” the girl insisted, taking the whiskey. “I just don’t want any more trouble, that’s all.”

She started for the stairs, but by the time she reached the bottom step, Dagen, wearing only his trousers and gun belt, appeared at the railing on the upper balcony.

Falcon recognized him at once as one of the men he had seen back in Calabasas, and he turned toward the bar and pulled his hat down. Because Dagen was standing on the landing above, Falcon’s hat had the effect of preventing the outlaw from getting a clear view.

“Hey, you! Bitch!” Dagen called down to the girl. “I sent you down there to get a bottle of whiskey, not to have a quilting bee. You’ve been down there long enough. Get back up here!”

“Mister, she’s already been up there long enough,” the bartender said.

“What do you mean, she’s been up here long enough? I decide when she’s been up here long enough.”

“Well, you know how it is,” the bartender replied, forcing a laugh. “I mean, she is a working girl. There’s other gents in here wantin’ her time too. I can’t let one man just have all her time. Why, how’d it be if you was waitin’ on her right now?”

“Yeah? Well, I ain’t waitin’ on her,” Dagen said. “But I want to be fair about it,” he added with a mirthless smile. He looked down over the floor of the saloon. “Who’s waitin’?” he asked. “Who else wants her?”

The bar girl looked out over the floor, her eyes showing an expression of desperate hope that someone would back up the bartender. There was absolute silence. The other men, who didn’t want any trouble, managed to avoid the girl’s pleading look.

“Well, now, that’s just what I thought,” Dagen said. The smile left his face. “They don’t nobody but me want her, ’cause she’s nothin’ but a worthless slut. Now, you get back up here.”

The girl shut her eyes tightly, squeezing out a tear. She started up the stairs, then stopped. Clenching her hands into fists, she shook her head resolutely.

“No,” she said. “No, I’m not coming back up.”

“What do you mean you ain’t comin’ back up? I paid for you! Do you hear me, girl? I paid for you! You belong to me.”

The girl put her hand down in a dress pocket, then pulled out two crumpled bills.

“Here is your money,” she said. “I’ll give it back to you.”

Dagen pulled his pistol and pointed it toward the girl.

“I don’t want my money, bitch. I want you. Now you get back up here or else I’m goin’ to put a bullet right between your eyes.”

The room was now deathly quiet, so quiet that the loudest sound to be heard was the steady tick-tock of the clock that hung from the back wall. And because of the silence, Falcon’s quiet words resonated loudly.

“Miss, if you’re not busy now, I’d like a little of your time,” he said.

Dagen looked toward Falcon, then, recognizing him, gasped.

“You!” he said. “You’re Falcon MacCallister, ain’t you?”

“I am,” Falcon said.

There was a gasp of recognition among many in the saloon, for though none had met him, all knew about him.

“I thought we killed you.”

“You thought wrong,” Falcon said.

“Yeah, well, I guess I did. What are you doing here?”

“I thought I might have a drink,” Falcon said. “And maybe spend a little time with a woman.” He looked pointedly at the girl. “That woman,” he said.

Dagen shook his head. “Huh-uh. Better pick yourself another one. This one’s comin’ back up to me.”

“I don’t think she wants to do that, and as a matter of fact, I don’t want her to do it either.”

“What the hell do I care what she wants?” Dagen said. “She’s got no choice. Neither do you, mister. Or haven’t you noticed that I happen to be holding a gun in my hand.”

“Oh, yeah, I see the gun,” Falcon said. “But what are you going to do with it?”

“What do you mean what am I going to do with it?” Dagen answered, obviously exasperated by Falcon’s question.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Falcon said as if patiently explaining something to a child. “You see, you are pointing that gun at the girl. But she’s not your problem ... I am. If you move it toward me, I’m going to kill you. If you shoot her, I’m going to kill you. If you so much as twitch, I’m going to kill you. The only way you are going to get out of this alive is to drop your gun right now.”

“What? Are you crazy? Your guns are still in your holster,” Dagen said.

“What’ll it be, mister? Are you going to drop the gun, or are you going to die?”

“Mister, if you don’t get out of here right now, I’m going to kill this girl,” Dagen said.

“Go ahead.”

“What?”

“Go ahead,” Falcon said. “While you are shooting her, I’ll be shooting you.”

With a shout of rage, Dagen swung his gun toward Falcon and fired. The bullet slammed into the bar just alongside him. In one motion, Falcon had his own gun out and he fired back just as Dagen loosed a second shot.

Dagen’s second shot smashed into the mirror behind the bar, scattering shards of glass but doing no further damage. Dagen didn’t get off a third shot because Falcon made his only shot count.

Dagen dropped his gun over the rail and it fell with a clatter to the bar floor, twelve feet below. He grabbed his chest, then turned his hand out and looked down in surprise and disbelief as his palm began filling with his own blood. His eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward, crashing through the railing, then turning over once in midair before he landed heavily on his back alongside his dropped gun.

Dagen lay motionless on the floor with open but sightless eyes staring toward the ceiling. The saloon patrons, who had scattered when the first shot was fired, now began to edge toward the body. Up on the second-floor landing, a half-dozen girls and their customers, in various stages of undress, moved to the smashed railing to look down on the scene.

Gun smoke from the three shots merged to form a large, acrid cloud that drifted slowly toward the door.

Upstairs, Monroe had opened the door from his room to tell Dagen to have his whore get an extra bottle of whiskey. Before he could say anything to Dagen, he heard Dagen call Falcon MacCallister by name.

“Son of a bitch!” Monroe said under his breath. He stepped back inside and grabbed his pants, then dashed back into the hall. He started to stop at Casey’s door just long enough to warn him, and he got as far as putting his hand on the doorknob.

He hesitated. Why the hell should he warn Casey? Let Casey look out for himself. In fact, the longer Dagen and Casey could delay Falcon, the better it would be for him.

Monroe ran down to the end of the hall, lifted the window, climbed out onto the mansard roof just below; then, even as he heard the shooting, he dropped down to the alley. He moved around quickly to the front of the saloon, mounted, and rode away, fighting the urge to put his horse into a gallop.

When Casey heard the shooting, he jumped from the bed and grabbed his gun, then ran out into the hall, where he was joined by at least three other whores and two other customers. He ran to the head of the stairs and looked down to the saloon below. That was when he saw Dagen lying on his back, his gun on the floor beside him. A tall man with a smoking gun in his hand was standing over Dagen, looking down at him.

“Oh, shit!” Casey said. He fired at the tall man, but missed. Those around him screamed and started running.

The bullet from Casey’s gun buzzed by Falcon’s ear and plunged into the floor beside him. Falcon looked up, but couldn’t return fire because of the people around Casey.

Casey turned and ran back down the hall, and Falcon ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Just as he reached the top of the stairs, he saw the second door down on the right side closing. He looked at one of the women, who was cowering in fear on the opposite side of the hall. Silently, he used his pistol to indicate the door he had just seen shut, and with a quick nod she verified it was where Casey had gone.

At that moment Falcon heard glass crashing. The son of a bitch was escaping through the back window!

Falcon kicked open the door, then ran inside. The back window was smashed out and he stepped over to look through it, then sensed someone moving up behind him.

Falcon turned, just as Casey was bringing his gun down to smash him on the head. Falcon managed to deflect the blow, moving it away from his head. It did crash down on his shoulder, however, and a numbing, shooting pain caused him to drop his pistol.

Unarmed now, Falcon had no recourse but to wrap his arms around his assailant in a bear hug. It had the effect of pinning Casey’s arms by his sides, so he could not raise his pistol. Falcon threw Casey to the floor and he heard Casey gasp as they went down. Then he felt all the strength leave Casey’s body.

Carefully, Falcon raised up from him, and saw a bloody shard of glass sticking up through Casey’s neck. Casey flopped a few times; then he died.

When Falcon stepped back out into the hallway, the same girl who had indicated which room Casey went into, now pointed to the open window at the end of the hall.

“The other one went out that way,” she said.

“Thanks.”

By the time Falcon got back downstairs, the sheriff had arrived.

“Mister, you’ve got some explaining to do,” he said.

Falcon wished now that he had taken a badge from Sheriff Corbin.

“My name is Falcon MacCallister. Get in touch with Sheriff Corbin at Oro Blanco; he’ll tell you what this is all about.”

The sheriff smiled. “I don’t have to get in touch with him, Mr. MacCallister. He’s already sent me a letter. Fact is, he sent ever’ sheriff in this part of the territory a letter, explaining what you are doing.”

“Did he tell you everything I’m doing?” Falcon asked. He nodded toward Dagen’s body. “What I need to do to stop an Indian war?”

“Don’t do it here,” the sheriff said cryptically. “I’ll have the bodies taken down to the undertaker’s office. You can do what has to be done there.”

Jane Stockdale was taking clothes down from the line. She removed the pins from a large bedsheet, then took it down.

“Oh!” she gasped.

Removing the bedsheet exposed a man standing behind it. He was holding a pistol.

“Where at is your man?” he asked.

“He’s in the house,” she said. “And if he sees you here, he will shoot you.”

In fact her husband was not here. He and Timmy had gone into town to buy some supplies. But Jane was afraid to tell the man she was alone.

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. If your man was here he’d be out here right now, wantin’ to know what is goin’ on. That is, if he was a man.”

“He’s here,” Jane said, though her declaration sounded weak even to her own ears.

“Uh-huh. Then who was that man and kid I seen leavin’ in the buckboard about fifteen minutes ago?”

“Who are you?” Jane asked. “What do you want?”

“The name is Monroe. And what I want is a little food, that’s all. Just a little food and I’ll be on my way.”

“All right,” Jane said, fighting to keep her voice calm.

“I would never like it said that I turned away a hungry man.” She started toward the house.

“Hey, you, wait a minute,” Monroe said. He pointed at Jane. “I know who you are now. You was on that stage, wasn’t you?”

Jane gasped. She had realized, almost from the moment she first saw him, that he was one of the men who had robbed the stage, killed the shotgun guard, and later killed Cloud Dancer. But she had thought it might be dangerous to let him know that she recognized him, so she had not challenged him.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said, still trying to pretend he’d made a mistake.

“The hell you don’t. You was on that stage all right. You, your kid, a drummer, an Injun girl, and MacCallister.”

“Why did you kill her?” Jane asked, no longer trying to keep up the pretense of not knowing him. “Why did you kill Cloud Dancer?”

“Cloud Dancer? That was her name?”

“Why did you kill her?” Jane asked again.

Monroe started to tell her that it was Ponci who killed her, that he didn’t have anything to do with it. But he changed his mind, deciding it might be better if she feared him.

“I killed her because she wouldn’t do what I wanted her to do.” He leered at Jane. “Do you get my meanin’?”

“I ... I suppose I do,” Jane admitted.

“Good, good, I’m glad we understand each other. So, just to show me that you do understand, I want you to take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I said take off your clothes,” Monroe said.

“I ... I thought you were hungry. Let me get you something for you to eat.”

“There will be plenty of time for food later,” Monroe said. “Take off them clothes.”

“Please,” Jane said in a pleading voice. “Don’t make me do this thing.”

“I ain’t goin’ to ask you again,” Monroe said, pointing his pistol at her head and cocking it.

Slowly, reluctantly, and fearfully, Jane began unbuttoning her dress.

She pulled the dress over her head, then began unlacing the camisole. When she had it completely unlaced, she looked at him pleadingly.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t make me do this.”

Monroe’s eyes were clouded with lust, and Jane thought she could see something red deep down inside them. She opened the camisole and felt the effect of the air on her bare nipples.

Then, to her shock and surprise, the side of Monroe’s head seemed to explode as blood, brain matter, and bits of bone spewed out from his temple. Monroe’s eyes rolled back, showing all white. Not until he was falling did she hear the distant report of a rifle.

Jane gasped, but she didn’t scream. Instead, she just looked down at Monroe’s body as she dispassionately relaced the front of her camisole. She had herself covered by the time the man who shot Monroe came strolling up.

“Mr. MacCallister,” she said. “I might have guessed it was you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Falcon said. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right,” Jane replied. She turned her back to him as she continued to lace up the camisole. “If you’ll forgive me, I’ll try and recover my modesty, if not my dignity.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Mrs. Stockdale,” Falcon said. “Your dignity was never compromised.”

“Five,” Keytano said, counting the scalps Falcon laid on the ground before him. “You have killed five of your white brothers.”

“They were white,” Falcon said. “But they were not my brothers.”

“You also killed six Apache,” Keytano said.

Falcon shook his head. “I killed only five. One of your brothers was killed by another.”

Keytano shook his head. “They were Apache,” he said. But they were not my brothers.”

Keytano put his hand on Falcon’s shoulder, and Falcon did the same.

“You and I are brothers,” Keytano said.

Falcon smiled. “It’s good to hear you say that, Keytano,” he said. “Because I’ve got a silver mine that needs to be worked. And as it turns out, it’s pretty close to your territory.”

“Hear me,” Keytano called out, loud enough that the many who had gathered in the center circle could hear his words.

“This is Dlo Binanta. From this day forward, he is my brother. For him, I will be a white man, and for me, he will be an Apache.”

“Well, I thank you for that,” Falcon said.

“It is okay,” Keytano said. He smiled. “For I know you will share twenty percent of your silver mine with me.”

“You want twenty percent of my silver mine?”

“Is it not the way of the white man to take what is not his?” Keytano asked innocently.

Falcon laughed out loud. “Keytano,” he said. “All I’ve got to say is, you are one hell of a fast learner.”