Dreams of Eagles (7 page)

Jamie watched him make a big deal out of commanding his men to leave. They wouldn't go far. Only back to the mouth of the blind canyon. That was fine with Jamie. He was in no hurry to pull out. He had plenty of food, there was graze for the horses and water for horse and human. If the Blackfeet found the entrance, Jamie could pile bodies up head high, for he had two rifles and six pistols, all fully loaded and ready to bang. He had his bow and arrows and his big Bowie knife. It would be one hell of a fight, that was for sure.

But Jamie didn't think the Blackfeet would stay long, for they were a long way from home and he knew they were not on the best of terms, at this time, with the Cheyenne and the Arapaho. He would wait them out.

The passageway behind him was probably a hundred yards long and twisting, the stone walls around the hidden little valley hundreds of feet high. Even if the horses whinnied, they would not be heard.

Jamie returned briefly to the horses. They had grazed some, drank their fill of the cold, pure spring water, and rolled. They were fine. Jamie returned to the mouth of the opening. He would remain there until the danger was past.

Several times during the night, the Blackfoot war chief returned silently to the small copse of timber. He would stand for a few moments, listening, his eyes busy. Jamie could feel his anger and frustration. The Blackfoot war chief knew his prey was near. But if he could not find the opening in the daylight, he certainly was not going to find it at night. He returned once more just after dawn and prowled the timber, actually coming within a few yards of the opening. Still, he failed to spot it. Finally, he threw up his hands, and with a snort of disgust, he walked out into the clearing and yelled. His horse was brought to him and he swung up and rode away. This time, Jamie felt he really was leaving.

Jamie stayed in the tiny clearing for another twenty-four hours, resting and eating. Come the dawning, he packed up and saddled up, leading the horses to the entrance of the passageway. Jamie stood in the timber for several minutes, listening and watching. Birds pecked the rocky ground for food and squirrels were chattering in the timber above the cul-de-sac. But he knew that really meant nothing. For if the war chief had returned to lie in wait for him, the animals would have grown used to his presence.

Jamie could wait no more. He walked back to his horses and rode out. At the mouth of the cul-de-sac, he rode smack into the Blackfeet.

The war chief had sent most of his men on ahead, staying behind with three of probably his best warriors. With a scream of triumph, the Blackfoot rushed Jamie. Jamie leveled his rifle one-handed and shot the war chief in the chest, the heavy ball knocking the Indian off his horse and creating panic among the three warriors with him, as Jamie had hoped it would. For without their chief, the three others, in all likelihood, would not continue the fight. They would have to make medicine.

Amid angry shouts, Jamie put the scene behind him and rode hard to the west, hoping to throw off any pursuers. Several miles later he stopped to rest his horses. He could spot no signs of being followed. He had guessed correctly; the Blackfoot warriors were confused and not likely to pick up the chase now.

But one thing had caught Jamie's eyes: two of the scalps tied to the war chief's lance had come from whites. And they were fresh scalps. One of them appeared to be that of a woman.

Jamie decided to backtrack the war party. He waited an hour, then rode cautiously back to the entrance of the blind canyon. The Blackfeet were gone, riding north, taking the body of the war chief with them. Jamie found the trail of the war party and began tracking it south and slightly east. After two days' ride, he found wagon ruts and concluded that this must be what some people were now calling the Oregon Trail. He was undecided as to what direction to go, east or west. He finally chose west. A few miles later, he found what he had been hoping he would not find. The remains of a small wagon train. The wagons had been turned over, looted, but not burned.

The buzzards and ground scavengers had made a mess out of the bodies, but Jamie could tell that some of the women and girls had been raped. He squatted down amid the carnage and thought back. None of those Blackfeet had been wearing any articles of white man's clothing. They had been traveling light, and carrying no booty. Jamie inspected the wagons. He could not find even one arrow.

“Indians didn't do this,” he muttered to the wind, which thankfully carried off the stench of the bloated dead. “White men did this. Renegades.” He wondered if Jack Biggers had been a part of it and later had a falling out with the others in the gang. “More than likely,” he concluded. That story about the trappers had seemed a little thin to him.

Jamie found a shovel and began the task of burying the bodies. There was no way of knowing who was man and wife, or what child belonged to what parent. He could find no identification and didn't feel right searching the stiffened and bloated dead. He buried them all in a shallow and common grave, then piled rocks and small logs over the grave.

After a short rest, Jamie began the task of more carefully going through the wagons. He knew that movers cached valuables in hidden places. He had just risen from the log when he heard the sound of hooves. Horse and the pack animal were hidden in the timber out of sight. Jamie picked up his rifle and slipped into some brush.

It was a half-dozen mountain men, coming from the south, heading north. Their pack animals were loaded, so Jamie guessed they'd been down to Bent's Fort or some other trading post he had yet to learn of for supplies.

“Someone come along an burred 'em,” a big mountain man rumbled.

“This wasn't the work of no Injuns,” a second man declared.

“No, it wasn't,” Jamie said, stepping from the brush.

A half dozen rifles were trained on him.

“Who you be, lad?” the big mountain man asked.

“Jamie MacCallister. You might know my Grandpa.”

The rifles were instantly lowered, for all could see the strong family resemblance. Jamie gathered up the reins to Horse and the lead rope on the pack animal and walked over as the men dismounted. They shook hands all around.

“You got any idee who done this deed, lad?” Jamie was asked.

“Only a guess. But I strongly suspect that a man called Jack Biggers had some part in it.” He told them about Jack.

They all had a good laugh when he told them about Horse kicking Biggers in the butt. The huge mountain man looked at Horse, who was looking at him. “I'd not like to tangle with that brute. He's got killer eyes.”

Jamie stroked Horse's nose and the animal nuzzled him gently. “Harmless as a baby,” Jamie said with a smile.

Another mountain man said, “I heard tell of Jack Biggers.” He frowned. “Give me a second. Yeah. Now I recall. They was some shady-lookin' men down at the Fort talking about some kin of theirs they'd come west to hook up with. Jack Biggers was the name, all right. They all looked like highwaymen to me, they did.”

Then Jamie told him about the Blackfeet he'd had a run-in with.

“You mean that damn hole in the wall is really there?” the big mountain man hollered. “Why, I been thinkin' Preacher was lyin' all these years.”

“It's there, all right. And saved my bacon, too, it did,” Jamie replied. “You watch out for those Blackfeet. I imagine they're some irritated about my killing that war chief.”

“ ‘Some irritated' is talkin' light, lad,” yet another mountain man said. “Was you 'bout ready to leave this place?”

“I was going to go through the wagons and see if I missed anything the first time around. But if I found cash money, I wouldn't know who to send it to, and I wouldn't keep it for myself.”

“I would,” the fifth man finally spoke.

“Well, the rest of us wouldn't, Barney,” the big man said, a note of finality in his words. “They's the blood of innocent folk on that money. Babies and the like. Let it rest like the dead it rightly belongs to.”

Barney held up a hand. “All right, Gabe. All right. But how do we know that MacCallister here ain't already found the money and is just talkin' for our benefit? He's probably got it in his pocket right now. Who says he's some angel?”

Jamie took one step and popped Barney on the mouth with a huge left fist. Barney went down as surely as if he'd been pole-axed. He was not unconscious, but he was hovering very close to it. “No man casts aspersions upon my character,” Jamie said. “No one.”

Barney groaned and put fingers to his mouth. They came away bloody. He spat out a piece of broken tooth and struggled up to one elbow. He shook his head. “I'll kill you for that, MacCallister,” he said.

“If you do, it'll be from ambush,” Jamie told him. “You don't have the courage to face me hand to hand.”

The other mountain men stood back, taking no part in this. Their code stated that every man saddled his own horse and stomped on his own snakes.

Finally, after Gabe silently looked at the other four mountain men and received a slight nod from each of them, said, “Here is where we part trails, Barney. I'll not ride no more with a fool. You know this here lad's reputation as good as the rest of us. And when Silver Wolf hears of what you just said ‘bout his grandson robbin' from the dead, that ol' he-coon will be comin' after you, and anyone who rides with you. And I'd sooner have the devil hisself after me than Ian MacCallister. You git to your feet and git gone, Barney.”

“Yeah,” another mountain man said. “I never did like you no way. I always shook off and didn't believe all them stories I heard ‘bout you robbin' from the dead back east. But now I see they was all true. I dasn't trust you no more, Barney. So git movin'!”

Barney slowly got to his feet, being careful to keep his hands away from the brace of pistols stuck behind his belt. “Damn your eyes! All of you! You've not seen the last of me.” He cut mean eyes to Jamie and wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. “And you, MacCallister, me and you, we'll meet up some day. Bet on it.”

“I'm not hard to find, Barney. But why wait? Why not settle it right now? Guns, knives, or fists. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me.”

But Barney would have nothing to do with that suggestion—certainly not with fists, and he was no knife fighter. His was the way of a back-shooter.

As Barney was vanishing into the wilderness, leading his pack horse, Gabe said, “Look down your back trail often, Jamie MacCallister. Barney ain't been ridin' with us very long. I don't want you to think that we partner-up with skunks and weasels. But out here we like to give every man a chance to prove his worth. I think all of us has been knowin' for several months that Barney was no good.”

“What's Barney's Christian name?” Jamie asked.

“Why ...” Gabe frowned. “Let me think. I heared it oncet, I know. Yeah! Saxon. That's it. Saxon.”

* * *

Long after the mountain men had said their farewells, Jamie sat away from the burial site and thought it over. Saxon. Another of the clan who had sworn to kill him. Another family who had sworn blood oaths to bury Jamie Ian MacCallister. But was Barney Saxon a part of that family? Jamie felt sure he was. Come to think of it, now that he had time to think it through, the family resemblance was there.

Jamie sighed. Would it never end? Was he to be faced with personal vendettas the rest of his life? “Probably,” he muttered. “Perhaps I was born to that.”

With a shrug of his massive shoulders, Jamie tucked the name of Barney Saxon in the back of his mind and stood up. He had work to do. No time to be lollygagging about, wondering about what might or might not occur in the future. Jamie stepped into the saddle and pointed Horse's head north.

* * *

Jamie prowled the country all that summer, from the Red Desert north to Togwotee Pass and back again. He saw a few white men and a lot of Indians—mostly Cheyenne, Sioux, and Crow. When they learned who he was and knew his intentions were honorable, he was welcomed into their villages. But he never went in without fresh meat from a recent kill. A Cheyenne woman made him new moccasins, a Crow warrior gave him a fine quiver, and a Sioux chief carved him a pipe. They were three of the most peaceful, lovely, and eye-opening months Jamie had ever spent. In the middle of August, Jamie pointed Horse's head south and began the long journey back to the Colorado valley and Kate and the kids.

If there was a spring, Jamie knew where it was. If there was a fine meadow with good graze, Jamie had it stored in his head. He had a wealth of information to share with Fremont. If and when he ever got to meet the man, he thought with a smile.

Jamie crossed the Sweetwater and stayed to the east of the Red Desert—called that because of its red clay—and made camp along the banks of the North Platte. His camp was very near the exact spot where, some twenty-five years in the future, the Army would build Fort Steele to help protect the Union Pacific and the Overland Trail. It would remain an active post until 1886.

Jamie had long run out of flour and sugar and salt and coffee, and as he gazed wistfully at the skinny rabbit impaled on a spit over a low fire, he made up his mind to cut east and stock up at a trading post over on the Laramie River. Once provisioned, he would head straight south to the valley . . . and Kate.

* * *

The trading post was a busy one, both for trappers and Indians, and on the day that Jamie rode in it was unusually busy. Or at least it seemed that way, with about a dozen men lounging outside and eight or ten inside the low-ceilinged, dark interior. Jamie had to bend down to enter the place, and the men inside stopped their buzz of conversation to take in Jamie's size. Jamie stood six-four and had the bulk to go with that height.

“Damn!” one man muttered.

Jamie was not a drinking man, only occasionally enjoying a whiskey, and after three months alone in the wilderness, this was one of those occasions.

Jamie walked to the rough bar and ordered. He towered above the men on either side of him. One of the men stared—not an unfriendly stare, just curious.

“You resemble a feller I been knowin' for years, lad. Mayhaps you're related. Ian MacCallister?”

“My Grandpa,” Jamie said, then took a sip of the whiskey. He opined it was at least a week old.

“You'd be Jamie MacCallister, late of Texas.”

“That's right.” Jamie had been warned not to say anything about what he was doing up in the Wind River country.

“Folks shore didn't lie none about the size of you,” the man's companion remarked quite pleasantly. “I've seen full growed grizzly's that t'wern't up to you.”

“The bigger they are the harder they fall, I always say,” a man spoke in low tones from a darkened corner. “ 'Sides, I ain't never seen none of that pup's graveyards.”

Jamie smiled and ignored the man. Take any room filled with men, whether they be rough outdoorsmen or soft-handed dandies, and there will always be at least one who is disagreeable and thinks he has something to prove.

“That's Buford Sanders,” the man on Jamie's right whispered. “He's a bad one, lad. He's killed men with his bar hands.”

“So have I,” Jamie replied, and took another small sip of his whiskey.

“Even drinks like a little girl,” Buford kept it up. “I reckon he slips out of his dress when he has to associate with men.”

Jamie didn't know why Buford had chosen him to needle. But he had taken all of this nonsense he was going to take. He set the cup on the bar and the crowd around him parted, swiftly moving to one side or the other. The barman moved quickly to gather up the jugs of whiskey and stow them in a safe place.

Jamie turned around and looked at the thoroughly obnoxious individual. “I have a suggestion for you,” he said. “And it would behoove you to pay close attention. For I am only going to say it once.”

“Speak your piece, you silly fop!” Buford said with a dirty laugh.

“Very well. My suggestion is this: it would be very wise on your part if you were to immediately shut that goddamn flapping mouth of yours, you ignorant son of a bitch! ”