Thunder of Eagles

Chapter Four

As Falcon rode down the street in Boulder, Colorado, the hollow clumping sound of his horse’s hooves was interrupted by a clang, then a cheer.

“You’re goin’ to be workin’ against a leaner there, Jimmy,” someone said. “Better be careful you don’t knock it down so that it becomes a ringer.”

“You boys don’t be worryin’ none about that,” Jimmy said. “I’m goin’ to knock that one off and drop mine in, clean as a whistle.”

By then, Falcon was even with the contest, and he heard the sound of the shoe hitting the steel stob, then shouts and laughter.

“I told you, you was goin’ to knock that into a ringer,” someone said.

“You jinxed me. If you hadn’t said nothin’, I would’a knocked that horseshoe plumb away from there.”

“Yeah, and if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump ’is ass ever’time he jumps,” someone else said, and everyone laughed.

Falcon continued on until he pulled up in front of the saloon. Dismounting, he went inside, stepped up to the bar, and slapped a silver coin down in front of him.

Looking around, the bartender broke into a wide grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Falcon MacCallister,” the bartender said, smiling at him. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hello, Ed,” Falcon said. “How cold is your beer?”

“I’m running a little low on ice,” Ed said. “But I can promise you that it’s colder than horse piss.”

Falcon laughed and slid his coin across the bar. “That’s good enough,” he said.

The bartender shoved the coin back to Falcon. “Your money’s no good here, Falcon. The first one is on me.”

“Thanks,” Falcon said.

“By the way, did you hear that the son of a bitch who kilt the Poindexter family escaped prison?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Falcon replied without elaboration.

“I still don’t see how it is that they didn’t find him guilty of murder. If they had just gone ahead and hung the bastard, he wouldn’t be loose now.”

“There’s no arguing with that,” Falcon replied.

“I hope they find the bastard, that’s all I can say,” the bartender said. “I heard you are the one who brought him in.”

“I am.”

“Too bad you didn’t kill him.”

Falcon took a swallow of his beer to keep from answering. He had killed his share of men—more than his share, if truth be known. He had never backed down from a fight and never would, but he didn’t have a lust for killing.

The bartender, realizing Falcon didn’t want to talk about it anymore, slid on down to the far end of the bar and began polishing glasses.

“MacCallister, you are a no-count, back-shooting son of a bitch!”

The loud, angry words silenced all conversation in the saloon, and the piano player halted his song in mid-bar, the last few notes hanging discordantly in the air. Except for the loud tick-tock of the Regulator Clock that hung from the back wall, a deathly quiet came over the room.

Falcon looked into the mirror behind the bar. The mirror was distorted so that, although he saw his challenger, he could not see him clearly enough to make out his features.

“Turn around, real slow,” the man said. “I ain’t a back-shooter like you. When I kill you, I want you to be lookin’ right into my eyes.”

Falcon took another drink of his beer, doing so slowly and deliberately.

“I said turn around, you son of a bitch!” the man repeated, his anger reaching a fever pitch.

When Falcon turned around, he saw an older man with graying red hair and a scraggily red beard. The man was pointing a Remington rolling-block .45-70 at him.

“I’ve never shot a man with one of these before,” the man said. “But seein’ as it’ll leave a hole in a bear big enough to stick your fist into, well, I’ve got me a pretty good idee what it’ll do to a low-assed polecat like you.”

Falcon noticed that the hammer was not pulled back on the rifle. “Mister, you seem to have something stuck in your craw,” he said calmly.

“You killed my boy,” the man said. “You shot him in the back. And now I’m going to kill you.”

“What was your boy’s name?” Falcon asked.

“What the hell?” the old man sputtered. “Have you done kilt so many men that you can’t even keep track of ’em?”

“What was his name?” Falcon repeated.

“His name was Manning. John Nathan Manning. I’m Carter Manning. That boy’s mama died when he was just a pup and I raised him all alone.” Tears welled up in the man’s eyes. “And I didn’t raise him up just so someone like you could come along and shoot him in the back.”

“Well, Mr. Manning, I hope I don’t have to kill you, I hope you’ll give me a chance to explain something to you.”

“What do you mean, you don’t want to have to kill me? I’m the one that’s holdin’ the gun, or ain’t you noticed? And what is there to explain about shootin’ someone in the back?”

“That’s just the point, Mr. Manning,” Falcon continued in a calm, quite voice, “I’ve never killed anyone named Manning, and I’ve never shot anyone in the back.”

“Oh, no?” Manning said, shaking his head. “I may be nothin’ but a dirt farmer, but I ain’t so far out of it that I’m goin’ to let you lie your way out of this. I got me a letter from a man named Tyree. He said he seen the whole thing.”

“Would that be Jefferson Tyree?” Falcon asked.

“Ah-hah! So, you know him, do you? Then I reckon that proves he was tellin’ the truth.”

Manning raised his rifle, but before he even got it to his shoulder, Falcon had his own pistol out and cocked. He stuck his arm out with his pistol pointed right at Manning.

“Don’t make me do it, Manning!” Falcon said sharply.

Manning stopped midway through raising his rifle and stared in shock and fear at the big hole in the end of Falcon’s pistol. Nervously, he lowered the rifle. “How’d you do that?” he asked in an awestruck voice. “How’d you get your gun out so fast?”

“Mr. Manning, Jefferson Tyree is an escaped convict. He has killed dozens of people, including an entire family,” Falcon said. “He killed more than half of them by shooting them in the back. If he says he saw your son shot, then it’s better than even odds that Tyree is the one who shot him.”

“MacCallister is right, Manning,” the bartender said. “Jefferson Tyree is a murderer.”

Manning stared at Falcon, but said nothing.

“You have a cartridge in that piece?” Falcon asked.

Manning nodded.

“Take it out.”

Slowly and deliberately, Manning rolled open the block and removed the cartridge.

“Have you had your dinner?” Falcon asked.

“What?”

“Dinner,” Falcon repeated. “Have you had your dinner tonight?”

“Uh, no. I had me some deer jerky while I was ridin’ down here,” Manning replied.

“Deer jerky’s not much of a dinner.”

“It’s all I had.”

“How about having dinner with me? I’ll buy.”

“Mister, what kind of man are you?” Manning asked. “I come here to kill you. You could’a kilt me, but instead, you’re askin’ me to have dinner with you.”

“I want you to get to know me,” Falcon said. “I want you to know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that I didn’t have anything to do with killing your boy. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder to see if you are trailing me somewhere.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Manning said. “You could’a kilt me fair and square, and you would’a been in the right, but you didn’t do it. I don’t reckon whoever back-shot my boy would be doin’ that.”

“Then you will have dinner with me?”

Manning smiled for the first time since coming into the saloon. “You reckon I could get me a piece of apple pie with that dinner?”

Falcon returned the smile. “I know a place that serves the best apple pie in Colorado,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Well, I thank you,” Manning said. “I thank you right kindly.”

The saloon remained quiet as a tomb until Falcon and Manning were gone. Then one of the cowboys said aloud what most of the others were only thinking.

“Damn! In all my borned days, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that, no way, no how.” Dozens of loud and excited conversations broke out throughout the saloon then, while at the back of the saloon the piano player resumed his music.

“Why is it, you reckon, that Tyree wanted me to think you was the one that kilt my boy?” Manning asked as he forked a piece of apple pie into his mouth.

“Tyree wants me dead,” Falcon said. “And if he can get someone else to kill me, all the better for him. And if that person gets himself killed trying to kill me, well, that’s no loss to Tyree. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t pick a fight with your son just to set this up.”

“It takes one evil son of a bitch to do somethin’ like that,” Manning said.

“You just described Jefferson Tyree.”

“You know, I should’a known better than to think you was the one who shot my boy,” Manning said as he forked a piece of apple pie into his mouth. “I’ve heard tell of you, and I ain’t never heard nothin’ bad about you before. I reckon I was just so heartbroke over losin’ my boy that I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. I hope you don’t hold that a’gin me.”

“I understand,” Falcon said. He chuckled. “By the way, Mr. Manning, if you ever decide to actually use that rifle on someone, may I give you a little advice?”

“A man’s a fool that ain’t willin’ to listen to a little advice,” Manning replied.

“Make sure you have the hammer pulled back,” Falcon said.

Manning laughed as well. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Yes, sir, I’ll remember that.”

“And, don’t go after Tyree. Believe me, he has made enough enemies in his life. Someone is going to take care of him for you. That is, unless you’re just burning to do it yourself.”

“I ain’t necessarily burnin’ to do it myself,” Manning answered. “I don’t care who kills him. As far as I’m concerned, dead is dead.”

Higbee, Colorado

Marshal Titus Calhoun was sitting at the desk in his office, going through wanted posters, when his brothers Travis and Troy came in.

“Titus, we got us a problem down at Maggie’s place,” Travis said.

Titus didn’t look up from his posters. “I told Maggie that if some cowboy doesn’t pay for his whore, that’s her problem, not mine. I can’t be wastin’ the city’s time or money collecting for her.”

“This ain’t nothin’ like that, Titus,” Troy said. “It’s the Clintons. The Clintons and a couple of their cowboys.”

“I thought Maggie said she wasn’t goin’ to let them in anymore.”

“That’s just it. She met them at the door and told them they couldn’t come in, but one of ’em cut her face pretty good; then they went in anyway. All the girls ran upstairs and have locked themselves in one of the rooms, and the Clintons are raisin’ hell down in the parlor.”

“How do you know all this?” Titus asked as he stood up and reached for his hat.

“There was three or four customers in there when this all started,” Travis said. “They come runnin’ out into the street. I seen ’em and asked what was goin’ on, and they told me.”

“How long ago?”

“Hell, not more’n a minute or two ago,” Travis said. “I yelled over at Troy, then we came down here.”

“All right,” Titus said. “Let’s get down there.”

Maggie’s place was at the opposite end of the street from the city marshal’s office, but by the time Titus and his two brothers, both of whom were his deputies, were halfway there, they could hear what was going on.

They could hear the angry exchange of shouts between men and women.

“Go away!” a woman called.

“What do you mean go away? Our money’s as good as anybody else’s money!”

“I wouldn’t split the sheets with any of you if you paid five times as much as the others.”

“You whores better get down here now! You got one minute to get down here,” another man’s voice shouted. “We got Maggie. We’ll start cuttin’ her up if one of you don’t come down.”

“Go away!” the woman’s voice shouted again.

“We’ll go away after we’ve had our fun.”

There was a crowd gathered around outside Maggie’s place, and Titus had to push them aside to open up a path so he and his brothers could get inside. When the three of them were on the porch, Titus placed his finger over his lips in a signal to his brothers to be quiet. Then he looked in through one of the windows.

He saw Ray Clinton sitting on the parlor sofa. Ray was a very big man, at least six feet four inches tall, and weighing well over two hundred pounds. Cletus Clinton was standing at the foot of the stairs, yelling up at the women. Ray and Cletus Clinton were sons of Ike Clinton, whose La Soga Larga ranch was the largest spread in Bent County. Titus also recognized Deke Mathers and Lou Reeder, who were two of the cowboys who rode for the Clintons.

Cletus was holding a bottle and he turned it up for a long, Adams’ apple-bobbing drink before he shouted again.

“I’m not teasin’,” he said. “If one of you whores don’t get down here in the next minute, we’re goin’ to start carvin’ Maggie into little pieces.”

Titus looked around the parlor for Maggie, but didn’t see her.

“Any of you see Maggie?” he asked the other two, speaking quietly enough not to be heard. “I don’t want them to start cuttin’ on her when we go in.”

“I’m down here, Marshal,” a woman’s voice said.

Turning, Titus saw a heavyset, bleached-blond woman standing just behind the hydrangea bush. She was holding a handkerchief to a cut on her face, though there was very little blood on the handkerchief, and, when she pulled it down, he saw that the face wound was light.

“They’re so drunk they think I’m still in there,” she said. “They didn’t see me leave.”

Titus looked in through the window one more time, just to make certain none of them was holding a gun.

“All right,” he said to Travis and Troy. “Are you boys ready?”

“Ready,” Troy said, pulling his pistol.

“Say when,” Travis said. He was also holding a pistol.

“On the count of three,” Titus said. Then he counted aloud. “One, two, three!”

Titus pushed the door open quickly; then he and his two brothers rushed into the parlor.

“What the hell?” Cletus said, turning toward the front door as the three lawmen burst in. “What are you—”

For a moment, it looked as if he was going to reach for his gun, but before he could do so, Titus Calhoun stepped up to him and brought his pistol down sharply on Cletus’s head. Cletus went down.

“What did you do to my brother?” Ray shouted angrily, getting up from the couch.

“Easy, there, big man!” Calhoun said, swinging his pistol toward Ray. “You’re too damn big for me to pistol-whip. I’d have to shoot you.”

“No,” Ray said, sitting back down and putting his hands up. “No, there ain’t no need for you to be doin’ anything like that.”

“Get Maggie in here,” Titus ordered.

Travis stepped out on the front porch to call out to Maggie. When she came inside, she was no longer holding the handkerchief to her face and the cut, such as it was, was no longer bleeding.

“Did they do any damage to your place?” Marshal Calhoun asked.

Maggie looked around the parlor, then shook her head. “Nothin’ that I can see,” she said.

“Which one of them cut you?”

“I’m not sure which one it was,” Maggie said. “But I think it was him.” She pointed to Deke Mathers.

“I didn’t do no such thing!” Mathers said.

“Or it could’ve been him,” she said, pointing to Reeder, “Or him,” she added, pointing to Cletus, who was just now beginning to get up.

“Damn, Maggie, you’ve pointed to everyone but Ray. Are you sure it wasn’t Ray?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t him,” Maggie said. “I would have remembered if it was him.”

By now, the five other women had come downstairs. Even if Titus did not know what kind of an establishment this was, he would have been able to tell by the makeup and dress, or more accurately the undress, of the women.

“Were any of you women hurt?” Titus asked.

“No,” one of them answered. “We were scared, but we weren’t hurt.”

“Did any of you see which one of them cut Maggie?”

The women all looked at each other, then shrugged.

“None of us seen it,” the oldest of the bunch said. She looked nearly forty, though Titus knew for a fact that she was not yet thirty. The dissipation of her occupation had taken a severe toll on what had once been a very pretty young girl.

“Well, pick one of them,” Titus said. “I can’t make an arrest unless you press charges.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do that,” Maggie said.

“You aren’t going to do what?”

“I’m not going to press charges,” she said.

“Why the hell not?”

“I’m trying to run a business here, Marshal,” Maggie said. “If I pressed charges every time someone got a little rowdy, I wouldn’t have any customers.”

“Ha!” Cletus said. “I reckon that means you ain’t got nothin’ on us. So, why don’t you just go on back to marshalin’ and leave us alone.”

“Get out of here,” Calhoun said.

“We’re goin’, we’re goin’,” Cletus said. “Come on, boys, let’s go over to the Hog Waller. The girls over there ain’t as pretty, but they’re a hell of a lot more friendly.”

“No,” Titus said.

“No? What do you mean, no? No what?”

“No, you aren’t goin’ over to the Hog Waller,” Titus said. “When I told you to get out of here, I mean go on back to your ranch. I don’t want you in my town tonight.”

“You got no right to run us out of town,” Cletus complained.

“You’ll either leave town, or spend the night in jail,” Titus said.

“On what charges?” Cletus asked. “You already heard Maggie say she wasn’t going to press no charges.”

“I’ll press charges myself.”

“Oh, yeah? And just what would those charges be?”

“I would charge you with pissing me off,” Titus said. “Now, go on, get!”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Titus looked over at Ray. “There ain’t neither one of you got as much sense as your youngest brother. But Billy isn’t here, and you seem to be a little smarter than Cletus. Get him out of here, Ray. Get him out of here, or I’ll throw his ass in jail, then shoot him in the middle of the night for trying to escape.”

“What?” Cletus shouted. “Ray, did you hear what that son of a bitch just said?”

“Yeah, I heard,” Ray replied. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, I—”

That was as far as Cletus got before Titus pointed his pistol at Cletus, then pulled back the hammer. The clicking sound of the pistol being cocked stopped Cletus in mid-sentence.

“Come on, Cletus,” Ray said. “Let’s go.”

With his eyes glaring hatred at Marshal Calhoun and his two brothers, Cletus reluctantly followed his own brother outside.

Titus, Travis, and Troy went out on the front porch with them, then watched them mount up and ride away, amidst the cheers and catcalls of the crowd gathered there.

“Troy, Travis, get yourselves a rifle,” Titus said. “If any one of those men come back into town tonight, shoot them on sight.”

“Gladly,” Travis said.

“Thank you, Marshal,” Maggie said. She smiled. “I thank all three of you. In fact, you three have one free visit coming,” she added. “You can choose any girl you want.”

Overhearing Maggie’s offer, the men in the crowd laughed out loud.

“What about us, Maggie?” one of the men called. “Don’t we get a free visit?”

“Sure,” Maggie said.

“Great!”

“When pigs fly,” Maggie added, and her comment was met with good-natured laughter. “Come on in, boys,” she said. “We’re open for business again.”

Titus watched several of the men go back inside, but there were still several milling about on the street outside the whorehouse.

“All right, boys, the show’s over,” Titus said. “Let’s break it up. Go on back about your business, unless going to see one of Maggie’s whores is your business.”

When the crowd broke up, Titus, Travis, and Troy started back down toward the marshal’s office, where Travis and Troy could get a long gun for the rest of the night’s patrol.

“Hey, Troy, did you give Maggie’s offer a thought?” Travis asked.

“Are you kidding? Lucy would kill me. If fact, if she even hears the offer was made, she’ll be on me like a duck on a june bug.”

“Damn,” Travis said, laughing. “What do you think, Titus? Is our brother henpecked or what?”

“He doesn’t have to worry about Lucy,” Titus said. “If I caught him taking Maggie up on her offer, cheatin’ on a good woman like Lucy, I’d bust his head myself.”

The three brothers laughed and joked as they walked down the middle of the street. The sounds of merriment from the two saloons, loud and raucous from the Hog Waller, and a bit more reserved from the Golden Nugget, told them that the town was having another normal night.