Revenge of Eagles

CHAPTER 3

Just a few minutes before Fargo Ford and the others gathered at the edge of town, Falcon MacCallister came downstairs to the dining room of the Railroad Hotel. Looking around the room, he chose a table in the corner, then sat with his back to the wall so he could observe everyone and everything. He was carrying his small grip with him, and he put it down by his chair.

A waiter hurried over to him, carrying a menu. “Good morning, sir,” he said.

“Good morning,” Falcon replied. He picked up the menu, which advertised the Railroad Hotel Dining Room as THE FINEST EATING ESTABLISHMENT IN CALABASAS, ARIZONA TERRITORY. What the menu did not point out was the fact that it was the only eating establishment in Calabasas. Though, to be honest, they did serve beans and tortillas at the Lucky Strike Saloon, because that had been Falcon’s supper last night after the card game.

Falcon put the menu aside without opening it. “I’ll have biscuits, a couple of fried eggs over easy, some fried potatoes, ham, and coffee,” he said.

“Very good, sir,” the waiter replied, picking up the menu and heading for the kitchen.

Shortly after buying the mine from Doc Holliday, Falcon had decided to come down and check on it. He was on his final leg now, but the last eighty miles would be by stagecoach to Oro Blanco, the location of his mine.

Oro Blanco.

The name meant “White Gold.” He didn’t know if the name was prophetic ... or just hopeful.

The stage would be leaving for Oro Blanco at seven this morning, and according to the schedule, would arrive in Oro Blanco by suppertime.

The waiter brought Falcon his breakfast, including a generous supply of butter and jam for the half-dozen biscuits.

“Thanks,” Falcon said, taking a bite of one of the biscuits as he surveyed his meal.

“I notice you are carrying a portmanteau. You takin’ the train out today?” the waiter asked.

“No, the stage. It leaves at seven.”

“Would you like to take a lunch with you? Only twenty-five cents.”

“It was my understanding that the stage would be stopping in Pajarito at noon.”

“Yes, but you never know what you’ll get in Pajarito. I can fix a ham sandwich for you that’ll be real tasty.”

“Thanks anyway, but I’ll take my chances at the stop in Pajarito,” Falcon replied.

“Suit yourself,” the waiter said, somewhat disappointed that he had not been able to make a sale. The sandwich arrangements were made strictly on his own, as he bought the makings from the restaurant and sold his products to passengers on both the train and the stagecoach.

“Waiter,” someone called, and the waiter excused himself to answer the summons.

With the waiter out of the way, Falcon managed to get into some serious eating.

Falcon was just buttering his last biscuit as Fargo Ford was leading his five men by outside. They were unremarkable in appearance, except for the fact that the six were riding together. However, because it was so early in the morning, even that didn’t arouse too much attention.

The six rode right down the middle of the street, keeping their horses at a slow walk.

“All right, we’ll dismount here,” Fargo said to the others, speaking authoritatively. “Pete, you stay mounted. You other fellas, give the reins to your horses to him. Hang on to ’em, Pete. If we have to get out of here in a hurry, I don’t want to have to be chasin’ down my mount.”

“I know what to do, Fargo, you don’t have to tell me,” Pete said.

“Yeah, well, from the looks of your face, you ain’t that smart around horses,” Fargo said, and the others laughed.

The men dismounted, then started walking toward a building about fifty yards away, Pete following on horseback with the other horses. A large sign on the front of the building read WESTERN EXPRESS OFFICE.

“Are we sure the money is here?” one of the men asked Fargo.

“Pete said it is,” Fargo answered. “So it damn sure better be, or he’ll be answerin’ to me.”

“I still don’t see why we’re robbin’ it here. Why don’t we just wait until it gets put on the stagecoach?”

“And go up against the shotgun guard and whoever else might be on the stage? No, thanks. We hit them this morning; the expressman will still be at breakfast and half the town will still be asleep. Just keep your wits about you, we’ll go in, get the money, and get out of here fast. By the time anyone figures out what happened, we’ll be ten miles from here.”

When they got within twenty yards of the building, the front door opened unexpectedly and four men came out.

“What the hell, Fargo? I thought you said nobody would be here. They’re wearing badges! That’s the law!”

“Pete?” Fargo hissed angrily. “What is this? What are these badge-packers doin’ here?”

“I didn’t know nothin’ about this,” Pete said. “You can’t blame this on me!”

“What are we goin’ to do, Fargo?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Let me think,” Fargo said.

“I’m glad you and your deputies could come, Sheriff Ferrell,” George Snyder was saying to his breakfast guests as he walked out to the porch with them.

“I’ll tell you this, George,” the sheriff replied as he patted his stomach. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why you don’t weigh three hundred pounds. I mean, what with a wife that can cook like that. I do believe that is about the best breakfast I’ve ever ...”

“Who are you men, and what do you want?” one of the deputies shouted, interrupting the sheriff in mid-sentence. The deputy pointed to Fargo and the men who were approaching the express office in what the deputy perceived to be a suspicious manner.

“Sheriff ?” George said. Like the deputy, George was concerned by the determined approach of the men.

Sheriff Ferrell looked up, as curious as the others. That was when he recognized the leader.

“Son of a bitch! It’s Fargo Ford!” the sheriff shouted, going for his gun.

At this point neither Fargo, nor the men with him, had drawn their guns. But with the sheriff’s confrontation, the guns came out at about the same time and, within seconds, the street was filled with the explosive sounds of gunfire and billowing clouds of white smoke. George Snyder, who wasn’t armed, went down with the opening volley.

Falcon was taking a sip of coffee when he heard the sound of gunshots from out in the street. Getting up quickly, he ran out onto the front porch of the hotel and looked toward the sound of the guns. He saw someone standing in front of the hotel, looking toward the far end of the street. It was Paul Gibson, one of the men Falcon had played cards with last night.

“Mr. Gibson, what is it?” Falcon called from the front porch of the hotel. “What’s going on?”

“It looks like someone is tryin’ to rob the express office,” Paul replied. “There’s shootin’ goin’ on down there.”

A bullet whizzed by, the angry buzz clearly audible to both men.

“Yeah, well, if I were you, I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of the street like that,” Falcon said.

“Damn, you’re right!” Paul replied. He darted behind a watering trough and squatted down. The wisdom of Falcon’s warning was demonstrated when a stray bullet kicked up dirt just behind where Paul had been standing but a second earlier. Another bullet whizzed by Falcon’s ear and plunged into the post just beside him.

From here, Falcon could see three men, wearing badges, standing in front of the express office, exchanging fire with six men out in the street. He happened to remember that George Snyder, with whom he had played cards last night, planned to entertain the sheriff and his deputies for breakfast. And he remembered seeing the money shipment being taken off the train yesterday.

One of the six men out in the street was mounted, and he was holding the reins of five horses. The other five were in the street, backing slowly toward their horses, all the while shooting at the lawmen. Up on the porch of the express office, one man lay belly-down, and even from here, Falcon could see the downed man’s blood pooling on the boards.

Pulling his pistol, Falcon started running toward the express office, staying up on the boardwalk. He fired once at the men in the street but hit no one. He hadn’t really expected to hit anyone; it hadn’t even been an aimed shot. He had fired at the outlaws only to let the lawmen know that he was not one of the outlaws, but was coming to join in with them.

“Fargo, the whole town is after us!” Pete shouted, pulling the rifle from his saddle holster. He jacked a shell into the chamber, then, seeing Falcon, recognized him as the man with whom he had had the run-in with yesterday.

“You!” Pete shouted. “You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you!”

Pete let go of the horses and raised his rifle to his shoulder to aim at Falcon.

“Pete, what the hell are you doing? Hang on to them horses!” Fargo yelled when he saw what Pete had done.

Pete fired, and Falcon felt the bullet fry past his ear. Falcon fired back, an aimed shot this time. Pete tumbled from his saddle. When he did so, his horse galloped, causing the horses Pete had been holding to bolt off with him. The five remaining outlaws suddenly found themselves afoot in the middle of the street.

“Fargo! Fargo! Our horses is gone!” one of the other outlaws shouted.

“I can see that they are gone, damnit!” Fargo shouted back. “You think I’m blind?”

“Give it up, Fargo!” the sheriff called from the front porch of the express office. “Your horses is gone, one of your men is down, and none of the rest of you is goin’ anywhere!”

“The hell you say!” Fargo shouted back, throwing a shot toward the front of the express office.

Falcon fired five quick shots then. He didn’t hit anyone, but he didn’t intend to. Instead, he put each bullet within an inch of the boots of each of the five men, showing them that he could kill them at will.

“Holy shit, Fargo, they’ve got us surrounded!” one of the men said.

“Give it up, Fargo!” the sheriff shouted again. Fargo hesitated for just a second; then he put his hands up.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Fargo shouted. “We give up!”

“Throw down your gun, Fargo. That goes for all of you,” the sheriff added.

Looking toward Falcon, with a snarl on his lips, Fargo threw down his gun.

“Tell your men to do the same thing,” the sheriff shouted. He made a motion with his own pistol. “Do it now!”

“Dagen, Ponci, Monroe, Casey, do like the man says,” Fargo ordered. “Throw your guns down.”

“I don’t give up my gun for nobody,” Dagen said with an angry growl.

“Have your own way, mister,” Falcon said. “Throw down your gun and live, or hang on to it and die. Makes no difference to me.” He aimed his pistol at Dagen and pulled the hammer back.

“Dagen, don’t be a fool,” Fargo said. “Look around you!”

Dagen and the other outlaws looked around as Fargo had instructed. By now several others, emboldened by Falcon’s quick move to join the fray, had come from houses and buildings as well, and they were all holding rifles, pistols, or shotguns. The outlaws were surrounded and vastly outnumbered.

“Shit,” Dagen said. He dropped his gun and, one by one, the others joined him, dropping their guns as well. Now, like Fargo Ford, they put their hands in the air.

“George!” a woman screamed, coming out of the express office. She knelt beside the man who was belly-down on the porch. “Oh, George!” she cried.

The woman turned him over; then, seeing that he was dead, she began crying uncontrollably.

“You boys are all goin’ to hang for this,” the sheriff said, coming toward them. “George Snyder was a good man, with a wife and two kids. Yes, sir, you’re all goin’ to hang, and I’m goin’ to enjoy watchin’ it. Wilcox, you and Baker take these men down the street and throw their asses in jail.”

“Yes, sir, Sheriff, we’ll be glad to,” one of the deputies replied. “Come along, fellas,” he said to the outlaws. “We’ve got a nice place all picked out and waitin’ for you.”

Seeing that everything was in hand, Falcon put his pistol back in his holster. The sheriff stepped down off the porch and started toward Falcon

“I don’t know where you come from, mister, but I’m glad you showed up. I’m Sheriff Ferrell.”

“Falcon MacCallister,” Falcon said.

“MacCallister?” the sheriff replied suspiciously. He stroked his chin. “MacCallister? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that name.”

“I had some paper out on me a long time ago,” Falcon said. “But it’s been recalled.”

Sheriff Ferrell shook his head. “No, I don’t think it was anything like that. Never mind. Whatever it was, it’ll come to me.”

Falcon nodded toward the men who were being led away. “They were after the money shipment, I take it?” Falcon asked.

“Yes, it looks like it. George got in fifteen thousand dollars in cash yesterday,” the sheriff replied. Again, he got a suspicious expression on his face. “By the way, Mr. MacCallister, you want to tell me how is it that you know about the money shipment? I thought it was supposed to be a secret.”

“It was rather hard to keep it a secret from someone who came in on the train yesterday,” Falcon said. “I saw you taking the pouch from the express car. Then, I played cards with George Snyder last night and some of the men around the table mentioned it.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Too bad things like this get talked about,” Sheriff Ferrell said. He pointed to the dead man and the weeping woman. By now a few others had come up to aid and comfort Mrs. Snyder. “If I had my way, nobody but the express company would have even known when money was being shipped.”

“Is that his wife?” Falcon asked. He pointed to an attractive woman who was on her knees beside the body.

“Yes. Her name is Emma Snyder. You say you met George last night?”

“I did. He was down at the saloon, and I got into a friendly game of cards with him and some of the other fellas from town.”

“Well, it’s too bad you just met him. You never got to know what a good man he is, or was,” Sheriff Ferrell said. He sighed. “I guess Fargo Ford thought that by hitting the express office early in the morning, nobody would be around. And ordinarily, he would’ve been right, but it just so happened that George had invited me ’n my deputies over for breakfast this mornin’, so we just happened to be here when Fargo and his gang showed up. The Snyders live there in the back, you see.”

“You called the leader of the outlaws Fargo?”

“Yes, Fargo Ford,” Sheriff Ferrell said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

Falcon shook his head. “’Fraid not.”

“Oh. Well, let me tell you, he’s a real bad one all right. He’s been nothing but trouble ever since he come to this part of the country.”

A short, balding man with a long beard came walking over from the stage depot, which was right next door.

“Sheriff, if all the excitement is over, I’d like to bring the team around now’n get ’em hitched up,” he said.

“Go ahead,” Sheriff Ferrell replied. “There’s no shootin’ now.”

As the short man returned to the depot, the sheriff resumed his conversation with Falcon.

“That was John Scanton. He’s the stage depot manager, about to hook up the team for the seven o’clock stage. Could I buy you a cup of coffee, Mr. MacCallister?”

“Thank you, no,” Falcon replied. He nodded back toward the Railroad Hotel. “I just had breakfast. And as a matter of fact”—he pointed toward the stage, which sat, without a team, in front of the depot—“I’m planning on taking that very stage out of here.”

“Oh, well, then, don’t let me hold you up.” Sheriff Ferrell said. Again, he stuck out his hand. “Thanks a lot for the help this morning. And if you’re ever back in town, I’d like to buy you a drink. Hell, I’ll buy you dinner.”

Falcon chuckled. “I’ll take you up on that, Sheriff,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I should be back through here in a few days. I’m just heading over to Oro Blanco to check on a mine I recently bought.”

“You just bought a mine over at Oro Blanco? Wait a minute, the Rey de Plata mine?”

“Yes, the Silver King. You know it?”

Sheriff Ferrell nodded. “I know it, all right. It belongs to Doc Holliday, or belonged, I guess I should say, seeing as you bought it.”

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Ferrell snapped his fingers. “Son of a bitch, I know who you are now. You were friends with Doc Holliday and the Earps, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You also ran with Mickey Free and cleaned up some of the renegade Indians who were raising hell around here a while back.”

“I did.”

Sheriff Ferrell stuck out his hand. “Well, Mr. MacCallister, I am pleased to meet you. Especially now.”

“Now?”

“Maybe you haven’t heard about Keytano.”

“Keytano? Yes, Keytano, I think I know that name. He’s Naiche’s brother, isn’t he?”

“He’s Naiche’s cousin. He’s also an Apache chief, about the only one left around here now,” Farrell said. “His band owns several thousand acres in between the Cababi and Quigotoa Mountains.”

“Is he giving you trouble?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s Keytano himself. More’n likely it’s just some renegades that’s goin’ out on their own. But whoever it is, they killed three prospectors not long ago. Of course, the prospectors was on Indian land, but the real thing has the Indians all up in arms is the fact that some settlers cut off their supply of water and their cattle are dying.”

“That doesn’t sound very smart, cutting off the water supply for a bunch of warlike Indians. I can’t say that I would blame them,” Falcon said. “Isn’t there anything the government can do to get their water back?”

“The Indian agent has taken it to the territorial governor, asking him to demand that the settlers take down the dam and let the water flow again, but the settlers have gone to court claiming that the water is on their land, to use as they see fit.”

“I see what you mean about trouble brewing,” Falcon said.

“Yes, well, so far, except for some renegades, probably led by a hothead named Chetopa, Keytano has managed to keep most of his people out of trouble. But the whole thing is a tinderbox, and it wouldn’t take much to set off another Indian war down here.”

Falcon shook his head. “I’ve had enough Indian war,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to get involved in another one.”

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing,” Sheriff Ferrell said. “That mine you bought from Doc Holliday? It’s right on the edge of Keytano’s land, so, like it or not, you’re just likely to find yourself right in the middle of it.”

“Mister?” someone called and, looking back, Falcon saw the waiter from the dining room of the Railroad Hotel coming toward him. The waiter was carrying Falcon’s canvas grip.

“Oh, damn, I nearly forgot that. Thanks,” Falcon said, reaching for it.

“My pleasure,” the waiter said. “I, uh, brought the check too.”

Falcon chuckled.

“Oh, yes, I did run out of there in a hurry, didn’t I? Here you go.” He handed the waiter a dollar.

“Breakfast was only fifteen cents, mister, and I didn’t bring no change with me.”

“You keep the change,” Falcon said.

A broad smile spread across the waiter’s face. “Gee, mister, thanks!” he said. “Thanks a lot!”

By now, over at the depot, the team was connected to the coach and the passengers’ luggage was being put into the boot in the back.

“Well, Sheriff, it looks like they are getting ready to leave, so I guess I’d better wander over there and get aboard,” Falcon said.

“Good luck to you, Mr. MacCallister. And thanks again for your help,” Sheriff Ferrell said.

“You’re welcome,” Falcon called back as he walked away.

As Falcon headed toward the stage, he crossed paths with a tall, dark-haired, bearded man who was going in the opposite direction. The bearded man was carrying a shotgun.