MacCallister, The Eagles Legacy: The Killing Read online

  “Soft ain’t exactly the word that comes to mind right now,” Kingsley said as he reached down to rub himself.

  When they rode away from the farm later that day, they were carrying with them twelve chickens, two live shoats, a sack of flour, and a sack of beans. Behind them lay the three members of the Dumey family: Chris and Martha dead, and Alma, who had been raped eight times, barely clinging to life.

  Kingsley later learned that she had died, but not before telling her neighbor, Jesse James, who was responsible.

  If it had been Sterling Price’s men who had found Alma Dumey and her slain parents, there would have been a charge of murder and rape filed against him that would have resonated with the civil authorities despite the divided loyalties of the war. But it wasn’t Price’s troops; it was Jesse James and his band of guerrillas, and Jesse James had his own brand of justice in mind. Because of that, no charges were ever brought against Kingsley for that particular raid, and unlike the other irregulars who had ridden for the South, Kingsley had left the war with no wanted papers on him.

  Now, as Kingsley thought back upon that incident so long ago, he lit a cigar and stared down at the house. Jesse James had boasted that he would find Kingsley and make him pay. But he never had.

  “Where are you now, Jesse James?” Kingsley asked, speaking aloud. “You and your big mouth? Oh, that’s right. You’re dead, ain’t you?”

  Slapping his legs against the side of his horse, he laughed as he rode on toward Kansas City, his head wreathed in smoke from his cigar.

  On the trail between Cheyenne and Chugwater

  “You sure he is going to come through here?” Lee Mosley asked.

  “The newspaper said he lived in Chugwater, didn’t it?” Dingus asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then he will be coming through here. This is the only way he can get back home.”

  “Yeah, well we been here two days now, and he ain’t showed up yet,” Marvin said.

  “He prob’ly didn’t leave yesterday because of the rain,” Lee said. “That was some rain. We most drowned our ownselves. We should’a found a place to wait it out.”

  “And maybe miss MacCallister? No, sir. I ain’t willin’ to take that chance. By leavin’ when we did, we’re sure to be ahead of him, and when he comes ...”

  “He’s comin’ now,” Marvin said, interrupting the conversation.

  “What?”

  “There’s someone comin’, one man on a horse. I would say that is more than likely him, wouldn’t you?”

  “Where are the horses? Are they out of sight?” Dingus asked.

  “They are down in the coulee, just where you told me to put ’em,” Lee said. “If that’s MacCallister, he ain’t goin’ to see ’em.”

  “That’s MacCallister all right,” Dingus said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I had someone point him out to me yesterday,” Dingus said. He pointed to a little jut of rocks about thirty yards in front of them. “Lee, you get down there and stay out of sight until he passes you. That way when he gets here, you’ll be behind him. Marvin, you get over there behind that rock on the left, and I’ll be here. That way we’ll have him from three different angles.”

  “How will we know when to shoot?” Marvin asked.

  “I’m goin’ to shoot first,” Dingus answered. “And if I’m lucky, there won’t any of us have to do any more shootin’ a’tall after that.”

  “I sort of hope you miss,” Lee said. “I’d like a crack at that son of a bitch myself.”

  “Hurry, get in position before he gets any closer. I don’t want to take a chance on him seein’ any of us,” Dingus said.

  Duff started back home to Chugwater the day after he’d made arrangements to buy the Angus cattle. The heat was intense, and what little wind there was exacerbated more than alleviated the situation because it blew in his face like a blast from the mouth of a furnace. The land, familiar to him now because he had traveled it many times over the last year, unfolded before him in an endless vista of rocks, sage, and hills. The sun heated the ground, sending up undulating waves, which caused near objects to shimmer and nonexistent lakes to appear tantalizingly in the distance. It was always a hard day’s ride from Cheyenne to Sky Meadow, and it seemed even more so now because of the heat.

  Suddenly there was the crack of a pistol and a bullet whizzed by, taking his hat off, fluffing his hair and sending shivers down his spine.

  Realizing that he was a perfect target while mounted, Duff slipped down quickly from his horse, then slapped Sky on the rump.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted at the animal, but his warning wasn’t necessary because Sky, sensing the trouble, galloped out of the way. The last thing he needed was to have his horse shot out here.

  Bending over at the waist, and running in a zigzag path, Duff got out of the open as quickly as he could, diving for the protection of a little outcropping of rocks. As he did so a second shot came so close that Duff could hear the air pop as the bullet sped by.

  Duff was a big man, but he made himself as small as he possibly could, wriggling his body to the end of the little ridge topped by rocks. Once he was in position he lifted his head to take a cautious look around.

  He saw a little puff of smoke drifting east on a hot breath of air. That meant the shooter was a little to the west, so he moved his eyes in that direction. There, he saw the tip of a hat rising slowly above the rocks.

  Evan Webb was returning to Cheyenne, having made a visit out to the Claymore Ranch, when he heard the shot. At first he feared someone might be shooting at him, then he heard a second shot and its echo, and realized that he was in no danger. Curious as to what it might be, he set the brake on the buckboard, then climbed down and scurried up the side of a bluff to look down on the other side. From here he saw clearly that three men were accosting one.

  Webb had no weapon with him, but even if he did have one, he would have been reluctant to intervene. Although it looked clearly as if the big man was the one in the right, one couldn’t always tell by first impressions. He decided to wait right here, stay out of sight, and see what would happen.

  Duff wished he had taken time to snake his Winchester out of the saddle sheath, but he hadn’t. All he had with him was his pistol, and that would have to do. As he stared across the opening he saw a hat appear. Duff aimed and fired. The hat sailed away.

  “Damn, you’re pretty good,” a voice called from the other side of the rocks. “If you’d’a waited a few seconds longer, you would’ve got me.”

  “Who are you?” Duff asked. “And would you be for tellin’ me why it is that you are shooting at me?”

  “Tell me, Duff MacCallister, are you really so damn dumb that you didn’t stop to think that if you kill someone, he might have a brother somewhere?”

  “Would your name be Camden?” Duff asked.

  “Yeah. Dingus Camden. Tyler was m’ brother, and you killed him. So now I’m plannin’ on killin’ you.”

  “I suppose it did not make any difference to you that he was holdin’ a knife to a young lady’s neck. I had no choice. I had to kill him.”

  “You had a choice. You could’a waited ’til ever’-one put their money in the piano player’s bowl like ever’one else was goin’ to do. You didn’t have to be no hero.”

  Duff fired again, this time at the sound of the voice. His bullet sent chips of rock flying and he was rewarded with a yelp of pain.

  “Did that hurt?” Duff asked.

  “Yes, it hurt, you son of a bitch! You sprayed rock into my face.”

  “That’s the way it is, Camden. You play this kind of game, you are goin’ to be hurt.”

  “Hold it!” a voice suddenly yelled behind him, and when Duff turned, he saw someone standing about sixty feet behind him, holding his gun leveled at Duff.

  “Marvin, Dingus, come on out! I’ve got ’im!” the man yelled.

  “Good job, Lee,” Dingus replied. Dingus stood up from his position behind
a rock about seventy-five feet away and directly in front of Duff. The one called Marvin stood up to Duff’s right, and he was somewhat farther away, at least one hundred feet.

  “MacCallister, do me a favor, will you?” Dingus said. “When you see my brother, tell him I said hello.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Duff said.

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “For one thing, your brother is in hell, and I don’t plan to go there. Better you tell him yourself, for you’re about to see him.”

  “Ha! There are three of us and one of you!” Dingus said.

  “That’s not a problem,” Duff said.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, Duff dropped to his knees. Startled, Dingus fired, but his bullet passed over Duff’s head, and Duff heard a grunt of pain from behind him.

  “Dingus, you dumb son of a bitch! You shot Lee!” Marvin shouted.

  Dingus had no time to reply to Marvin’s angry shout, because almost immediately on top of Dingus’s shot, Duff fired, and saw a black hole appear in Dingus’s forehead. Dingus went down.

  By now, Marvin realized two things. He knew that he was all alone against Duff, and he realized that he had not yet fired. He pulled the trigger, but one hundred feet was too far away for him to be accurate.

  Duff had no such problem. He fired back and Marvin dropped his pistol, grabbed his neck, then fell forward.

  Duff stood up then and looked at the three bodies lying in a triangular formation around him. He heard a groan from the one Dingus had called Lee, and when he went back there, saw that Lee was still alive, though barely so.

  “Damn,” Lee said, grunting through the pain. “I told Dingus this was a dumb idea.”

  Duff looked at the wound and realized that it was fatal.

  “I’m done for, ain’t I?”

  “Aye, I think so.”

  “Damn,” Lee said. He took a couple of wheezing gasps, then surrendered his life in a wheezing death rattle.

  Duff didn’t want to leave them lying here, because this was the road between Cheyenne and Chugwater. But he had no shovel, either, so he couldn’t bury them. He pulled all three of the bodies together, laid them alongside the road, then marked the spot in his mind.

  Evan Webb watched everything from his position, and debated whether or not he should reveal himself to Duff MacCallister. He knew who it was, because he had heard one of the men call him by name. And it was a name he recognized, because he had read of MacCallister’s exploits in the Cheyenne Leader. And he knew that a man who could shoot as well as MacCallister would have no problem in shooting him, even from this distance. Of course, he represented no threat to MacCallister, but in the heat of the moment, would MacCallister know that?

  Webb chose the safer of the options. He remained out of sight watching as MacCallister positioned the bodies along the side of the road, and waiting until MacCallister left the scene.

  Chapter Ten

  Kansas City Cattle Exchange

  The building was divided into two parts. On one side, there was an area that everyone referred to as “the bull pen.” It was so called because there were six desks crowded rather closely together. Behind the desks toiled the inventory clerks, men who came to work and buried their heads in endless rows of numbers. The irony was that every day they added, recorded, transferred, and were responsible for tens of thousands of dollars, and they did all that for the sum of twenty-five dollars per week.

  There was a long counter that separated the bull pen from the much larger and better-decorated director’s room where Jay Montgomery had his desk. On the back wall was a large blackboard upon which figures were written, the figures representing the latest quotes from the cattle market. In the corner was a ticker-tape machine, and at the moment one of the clerks was standing by it, holding the tape in his two hands, reading it as it came from the machine. As soon as he got all the numbers, he would transfer them to the blackboard.

  On the opposite side of the counter from the ticker-tape machine, one of the toiling clerks, Hodge Denman, watched his fellow employee examine the tape until he started transferring the numbers to the blackboard. Then Denman took off his wire-rimmed glasses, removing them very carefully from one ear at a time. Blowing his breath on the lenses, he polished them with his handkerchief, then hooked them back onto his ears, one at a time, just as he had taken them off. With his glasses cleaned, he reread the paragraph that was causing him such distress.

  We regret to tell you, Mr. Denman, that as the expected repayment of your loan did not occur as agreed upon, we are being forced to take further action. If the loan is not satisfied within sixty days, we will have no alternative but to foreclose upon the property you used for collateral.

  The loan was for four thousand dollars, and it was secured by his father-in-law’s property. Neither his wife nor her father realized that Denman was in such debt. Denman was afraid to tell his father-in-law of the crushing debt, because Denman knew that the man had little sympathy for anyone who could not manage his own affairs.

  What his father-in-law also did not realize was that his own property was in jeopardy. That was because Hodge Denman had forged his father-in-law’s name in order to use his land as the collateral backing his loan. Denman was in debt because he had a gambling habit, a habit that had taken every cent he had, and now threatened to break not only him, but his father-in-law as well.

  Leaning back in his chair, Denman pinched the bridge of his nose. How could he have let himself get into such a mess? What could he possibly do to extricate himself?

  “Mr. Denman?”

  Looking up, Denman saw his boss, Jay Montgomery, coming toward his desk. Denman stood.

  “Yes, Mr. Montgomery?”

  “We just got a telegram from Mr. Conn in Cheyenne. There is a Mr. Duff MacCallister, from Wyoming, who has requested to buy a herd of cattle. Specifically, he wants five hundred Black Angus. I want you to handle all the details. Gather the cattle, arrange to have enough cars in the lot to move the cattle, and of course, handle the transaction. He has been quoted a price of thirteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars, plus a fifteen percent handling charge.”

  “I’ll get right on it, Mr. Montgomery.”

  Denman computed the amount of money MacCallister would be charged, counting the cost of the cattle and the handling charges. The total came to fifteen thousand, eight hundred twelve dollars and fifty cents.

  Denman put the pencil down and drummed his fingers as he looked at the figure. That was a lot of money. It didn’t seem fair that some people could raise that much money when he was so desperate.

  He drafted the letter.

  Dear Mr. MacCallister:

  This is to inform you that we have received your order for five hundred head of prime Black Angus cattle. We will undertake to collect and process the cattle, then load them on the cars for shipment to you in Cheyenne. Before shipment can be completed, however, we must have in our hands a bank draft for the fifteen thousand, eight hundred twelve dollars and fifty cents. This sum will cover all costs attendant to this transaction, to include the price of the cattle and our handling fees.

  Thank you for choosing to do business with us.

  Sincerely,

  Jay Montgomery, President,

  Kansas City Cattle Exchange

  Denman was about to put the letter in the envelope when he suddenly got an idea as to how he might extricate himself from his problems.

  Putting the letter in his pocket, he walked outside. Because the Cattle Exchange consisted of several acres of feeder lots, the odor was so strong that every morning as he came to work, he could smell it for half a mile before he reached it.

  “How does one ever get used to the stink?” he asked one of the cowboys whose job it was to move the cattle from pen to pen.

  “It’s all a part of the cattle business.” The cowboy laughed out loud. “I heard someone ask Mr. Montgomery about the smell once, and you know what he said?”

  “What did he say
?”

  “He said, ‘It might smell like cow shit to you, but to me it smells like money.’” The cowboy laughed out loud and slapped his knee. “Yes sir, it smells like money, he says.”

  The cowboy was named Rob Howard, and he was who Denman was looking for now. He walked down a narrow path that ran between two very large feeder pens. Here the smell was even more intense, with the smell of the animals themselves adding to the odor of the feces.

  He saw Howard standing on the top rung of one of the feeder pens, watching as others, who were mounted, drove several cows through the open gate of the pen.

  “Mr. Howard!” Denman called.

  “Yeah?”

  “A word with you, please?”

  “Walt!” Howard shouted. “Get up here and make sure the cows don’t hurt themselves comin’ into the pen!”

  Walt rode over to the fence, then climbed up on it as Howard jumped down.

  “What do you need?”

  “I’m going to need five hundred Black Angus at a ratio of one bull to twenty-five heifers. That will be twenty bulls and four hundred eighty heifers.”

  “I can do cipherin’, Denman,” Howard said.

  “Of course you can,” Denman said quickly. I did not mean to cast any dispersions on your mathematical acumen.”

  “My what?”

  “Your ability to do math.”

  “Five hundred Black Angus?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a pretty big order,” Howard said.

  “Yes, it is. Evidently some rich man from Wyoming is wanting to introduce Black Angus out there.”

  “All right, I’ll get ’em put together for you.”

  Howard turned to go back to the holding pen.

  “Mr. Howard?” Denman called after him.