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  THE MACCALLISTER METHOD FOR DEALING WITH BULLIES

  “I think I’ll tear your damn head off, boy.” Buford Sanders stood up; he was nearly as tall and wide as Jamie but had a huge belly. “I’ve killed men with my bare hands.”

  Jamie smiled. “So have I, you puss-gutted, loudmouthed son of a bitch.”

  The two men closed on each other.

  Buford took a wild swing that would have taken Jamie’s head off if it had connected. But Jamie had sidestepped quickly and popped the man on the mouth with a solid left and followed that with a hard right to the jaw. Sanders stood flatfooted for a moment—no one had ever hit him so hard in his entire miserable life. Jamie was pleased to see his opponent’s confusion—he’d hated bullies since he was a child.

  Buford rushed him, trying to get Jamie in a bear hug. Suddenly, Jamie jumped into the air and kicked out, the sole of his moccasin smashing into Buford’s face. The force of the kick sent the loudmouthed bully-boy to the floor, blood dripping from nose and mouth. Men had come rushing into the bar to see the fight and stood smiling as Jamie MacCallister kicked the crap out of the man who had beaten and terrorized so many of them.

  Jamie battered the man with terrible punishing blows to the face and belly. Finally, he finished him off with a right-handed blow that broke bones. Buford Sanders toppled over, landing on the floor with a mighty crash. He did not move.

  Jamie MacCallister had hardly worked up a decent sweat.

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  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  DREAMS OF EAGLES

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

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  Table of Contents

  THE MACCALLISTER METHOD FOR DEALING WITH BULLIES

  BOOK YOUR PLACE ON OUR WEBSITE AND MAKE THE READING CONNECTION!

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Praise

  Prologue

  Book One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  BOOK TWO

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  BOOK THREE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Notes

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1994 William W Johnstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  The WWJ steer head logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-3752-0

  Somebody said that it couldn’t be done.

  But he with a chuckle replied

  That maybe it couldn’t, but he would be one

  Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

  —Edgar Albert Guest

  I slept and dreamed that life was beauty.

  I woke—and found that life was duty.

  —Ellen Sturgis Hooper

  Prologue

  In the late summer of 1837, Jamie Ian MacCallister, one of only two survivors from the battle at the Alamo, his wife Kate, and a small group of friends had pushed deep into uncharted country that would someday be called Colorado. They kept on pushing until Jamie, who was scouting far ahead of the wagons, came to a long wide valley, a respectable creek running right down the middle of it; the valley nestled amid towering mountains. Jamie dismounted and jammed his hands into the earth. The earth was dark and rich. The pass he had used to enter the valley was wide and not likely to be blocked, at least for very long, by snow. The valley was lush with timber. Jamie rose, still holding the handfuls of rich earth and looked all around him. His long shoulder-length blonde hair fanned under the breath of wind. He nodded his head and put the earth into a cloth sack. Then he mounted and rode back to the wagons. He tossed the sack to the big man called the Swede.

  “How about that, Swede?”

  The man smelled the earth, then fingered it. He grinned. “It will grow good crops, Jamie.”

  Jamie rode back to his wagon, driven by Kate. “We’re almost home, Kate. Just a few more miles. It’s beautiful, it’s lovely, and it’s lonely, but I think you’ll like it.”

  She smiled at him. “If you like it, I like it.”

  A few miles further on, Jamie halted the small wagon train and pointed to the long valley. “Yonder she lies, people.”

  The children piled out of the wagons and ran forward, the tall grass waist high on the youngest.

  “Jamie, it’s the most beautiful place I have ever seen!” Kate whispered.

  “It’s our home, Kate. We’ve come home at last.”

  Book One

  One

  The journey of Jamie Ian MacCallister had been a torturous one even before he met and fell in love with Kate Olmstead when they were both just children back in Kentucky.

  Born in the wilderness of western Ohio, Jamie had watched his parents and baby sister killed by rampaging Shawnee. The chief had taken Jamie prisoner and kept the boy until he was twelve, when Jamie and a young white woman named Hannah had escaped the village. Jamie’s early years had been brutally hard, forcing the lad to grow up very quickly. He had been adopted by Tall Bull and Deer Woman and raised a Shawnee, learning the warrior’s way while most white boys his age were learning their ABCs and playing marbles and mumbly-peg and hide and seek. At thirteen, Jamie was a grown
man. His childhood had been virtually nonexistent. He was tall and broad-shouldered, tremendously powerful. He was lean of hip and strong of arm, his wrists larger than most men’s forearms. He did not know his own strength. His eyes were blue and his hair was blonde, worn shoulder length. His face was tanned and rugged, the jaw square and slightly dimpled. Women considered Jamie handsome. Jamie never gave a thought to it one way or the other.

  Jamie and Kate fell in love the moment their eyes touched. From that instant forward there would be no other woman for Jamie and no other man for Kate.

  After Jamie’s escape from the Shawnee town, a young childless couple, Sam and Sarah Montgomery, took Jamie in to raise as their own. But again, a chance for some vestiges of adolescence were denied Jamie, for there were those in the Kentucky village who considered Jamie more savage than civilized. Kate’s father, Hart Olmstead, forbade his daughter to see Jamie and beat her savagely whenever he learned of their clandestine meetings.

  At fourteen, Jamie was forced into a killing and had to flee into the wilderness, branded an outlaw and brigand. Shortly after that, Jamie returned to the Kentucky village for Kate and together they rode westward to start a new life. They were married in the town of New Madrid, Missouri, and pushed on. They settled in the wilds of east Texas, in an area known as the Big Thicket, and immediately started a family. And what a family it was! Before Jamie became involved in the Texas drive for independence from Mexico, he had fathered eight children, for twins and triplets ran strong on both sides of the family tree.

  Moses Washington, an ex-slave who, with his wife, Liza, had escaped from slavery in Virginia and settled in the Big Thicket before Jamie and Kate arrived, summed it up this way: “Good God, boy! Are You and Kate tryin’ to populate east Texas all by yourselves? Am I gonna have to put a bundlin’ board between you two? Slow down!”

  The Alamo slowed them down.

  Sam and Sarah Montgomery and Swede and Hannah showed up in the Big Thicket country a couple of years before Jamie left to fight at the Alamo, and a small community was carved out of the wilderness.

  Then Jamie was called to fight. Jamie Ian MacCallister was the last man to leave the Alamo, ordered out at the last possible moment by Colonels Travis and Bowie with a pouch of messages from the gallant defenders of that old church. He was ambushed along the way, first by Tall Bull, who had been looking for Man Who Is Not Afraid, Jamie’s Shawnee name, and then shot out of the saddle by a Mexican patrol. He was left for dead in a ditch beside a rutted road. The last farewells from that proud garrison, that bastion of Texas freedom, lost for all time. He was found and taken in by a Mexican family.

  When he finally recovered from his near-fatal wounds, Jamie felt the vastness of the west silently calling him. His grandfather was out there somewhere in the shining mountains, a mountain man. Jamie asked Kate if she would like to move west.

  “I go where you go, love,” she replied.

  Moses and Liza and their children, Sam and Sarah Montgomery, Swede and Hannah and their children, and Juan and Maria Nuñez and their children packed up and headed west with Jamie and Kate and their children. They would be settling a wild and often savage land, untamed, uncharted, free, and open. Soaring on the wings of eagles. Dreaming the eagles’ dreams.

  Two

  The settlers had it all worked out. Sam was going to raise horses, Swede and Moses would be the farmers, Juan had brought sheep, and Jamie would hunt and trap and explore and in his spare time, look for gold.

  “There is no gold west of the Mississippi, Jamie,” Sam said. “Everybody says that.”

  But Jamie would only smile at that and reply, “Whatever you say, Sam.” Preacher had told him there was gold. But the few mountain men who knew of it were keeping it to themselves. They didn’t want a whole bunch of people to come a-traipsin’ in and messin’ up everything.

  The additional men Jamie had hired in San Antonio left to return to civilization. Now the little group felt they were truly alone in the vastness of the high country.

  But not for long, for there were cabins to build and horses and cows and sheep to look after and the men must hunt to provide food for the long winter ahead of them. There was meat to jerk and smoke, and Jamie and Hannah had taught them all how to make pemmican, a mixture of melted fat and ground and dried wild berries.

  And Hannah was heavy with child. The women said she would birth in a few days. So the cabin of Swede and Hannah would be the first one up. With all the men working, that did not take long, then it was on to the other cabins. The men had wanted to build them behind log walls, like a fort, but both Jamie and Hannah had said no to that.

  “The Indians know we’re here,” Jamie told the group. “One tribe or the other has tracked us the entire way. We’re building right in the middle of Ute and Arapaho country. The Cheyenne are around us as well. We must not show any signs that we are unfriendly or hostile to the Indians. We can live together, but it’s going to take some time to build trust. Many of these Indians have never seen a white woman before. Probably most have not. They’ll be curious about you. Don’t show fear when they do make an appearance. An Indian despises fear more than anything. Stand up to them without being belligerent about it. They’ll demand a lot more than they truly expect to get. This winter will be important, for then when we hunt we can share what we hunt with them. Tomorrow I’m going to find a village and talk with them. I’ll be gone for several days, maybe a week. Maintain a sharp lookout and don’t stray far from the settlement. And keep a good eye on the kids.”

  * * *

  Jamie was aware he was being followed after only a few miles from the settlement in the valley. A mile further, he crested a hill and suddenly wheeled his big horse, facing to the rear. He lifted his index finger and made the sign that he was alone. Then he placed both fists together, the fingertips of his right hand touching the center knuckles of his left hand, signaling that he wanted to council, or talk.

  The Utes came out of the timber in a rush, galloping their horses toward him. There were six of them. Two carried old rifles, three had bows and arrows, and the sixth, the leader of the group, carried a huge lance. The leader touched the sharp point of the lance against Jamie’s chest. Jamie did not flinch, just stared into the unreadable eyes.

  “Is this the way you treat someone who comes in peace?” Jamie asked.

  The leader grunted and slowly pulled the lance back, lowering it. “I talk your talk some good,” he said. “Whites talk peace and mean war. How you different?”

  “How are you called?”

  “Black Thunder.”

  Jamie hid his surprise, for Black Thunder was a great war chief of the Utes. “I have heard much of Black Thunder. It is said that he is a fair man and a brave man. The same is said of me. I am called Man Who Is Not Afraid.”

  Black Thunder did not conceal his surprise. When he spoke, his tone was somewhat more respectful. “Also called Man Who Plays With Wolves and Panthers.”

  “That is true.”

  “See scar.”

  Jamie opened his buckskin shirt and the Indians all crowded forward, peering closely at the long scar on his chest.

  Black Thunder grunted and pointed to a brave who was about five feet two inches tall but very powerfully built. “Small Man have no-good brother who was with foolish Shawnee when they attack you in spring. Small Man’s stupid brother said you are much brave and mighty warrior. But Small Man’s brother lie a lot, too. Not know when to believe. I believe him now. He said that Little Wolf was wrong to attack you. I guess so. You here, Little Wolf dead. You settle here for live?”

  “We do. And we will cause no trouble. We will be a friend to all who are friends with us. Come the cold winds and the snows, we will share what we have. That is a promise and I do not give promises lightly.”

  “Not take promise lightly. All those children with white hair and eyes of color of skies, they yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”
>
  “How many wives you have in your wooden lodge?”

  “Just one.”

  Black Thunder shook his head solemnly. “She must be tired. You come visit us someday. You will be welcome. We go now. You go in peace.” They wheeled their horses and were gone.

  Jamie did not hear Black Thunder mutter, “Man Who Is Not Afraid start own tribe.”

  * * *

  Jamie quickly cast a sobering pall over the jubilation of those back at the settlement. “Black Thunder will keep his word—probably. But he is the war chief of only one band of Utes. Not the entire nation. And Indians often raid in another tribe’s territory. There are a half-dozen tribes who hunt and raid in this area. You must never let your guard down, never go unarmed. Know where the kids are at all times. Horses will be the main attraction, for we have some of the finest stock west of the Mississippi. We’ve got to build a fine corral and not some rawhide affair.”

  Jamie didn’t say it, but of them all, Juan Nunez and his sons would be in the most danger from rampaging Indians. For although his flock of sheep was small, it would not remain that way for long. And grazing sheep had to be kept on the move in order to preserve range. That meant that Juan would, most of the time, be several miles from the cabins tending his sheep. Alone and vulnerable.

  But fate dealt the pioneers a good hand that first fall and winter in the long valley in the high country. They saw no Indians and were trouble-free. The winter was bitterly cold and long, but the settlers were snug in their cabins. And much to the disgust of the children, there was plenty of time for schooling. For that was something that Jamie insisted upon.

  The livestock survived the harsh winter, and come the spring, it was not just the stock who gave birth when the warm winds began to blow. Sarah Montgomery’s cycle of barrenness was broken with the birth of twins. Maria Nuñez gave birth. Hannah had delivered a boy early the past fall. And for once, Kate did not birth. And Jamie took a lot of good-natured kidding about that.