William Johnstone - Eyes of Eagles

“MacCallister!” the shout came from a man standing in the middle of the wide street.

“That’s me,” Jamie said.

“You kilt my kin a few years back. He were ridin’ with Olmstead and Jackson.”

“He should have picked better company,” Jamie replied, cocking the heavy pistol.

“You’re a dead man, MacCallister!”

“No, I’m not,” Jamie said. “But you damn sure are.” Then he shot the man right between the eyes at a distance of about a hundred feet.

Standing a half block away, Carbone and Martine exchanged glances. “ Asombroso! ” Martine breathed. “What a man!”

Jamie filled his right hand with a loaded pistol and turned at the sounds of running feet. Two unshaven and dirty men, both with pistols in their hands, came to a sliding stop about fifty feet from Jamie.

“Tonight that whore you married will be a widder woman, MacCallister!” one yelled.

Jamie plugged him and the man standing beside him and left them flopping in the mud of the street. He went in search of the last two. A ball knocked adobe from a building and bloodied Jamie’s cheek. Another ball tore up ground at Jamie’s feet just as he lifted a pistol and drilled his assailant in the belly. The man sat down in the mud on his butt and began screaming. The eighth man jumped out into the street with a loud oath and leveled a rifle. Jamie turned sideways to present a smaller target, lifted the pistol, and fired, the ball taking about half of the man’s head off.

Jamie quickly reloaded and called out in a calm voice to Martine and Carbone, who were standing awe-struck by a building, “Collect all their weapons and shot and powder. Take them back to our wagons.”

“ Sí, señor!” both men said.

Jamie walked back into the cantina just as the man he’d hurled against the wall was getting up. Jamie returned him to the dirty floor with a ham-size fist. The sounds of the man’s jaw breaking were loud in the quiet room. Jamie found a bucket of water and threw the contents onto the man’s face. He stood over the utterly terrified man and glared down at him.

Jamie must have looked like a mountain to the man.

“I’m going to leave you with a horse pointing east, and these words of warning,” Jamie told him. “If I ever see you again, no matter what the circumstances, I will kill you where you lie, sit, squat, or stand. Is that understood?”

The man was unable to speak because of his shattered jaw, but he nodded his head vigorously.

Jamie turned his back to the man and walked out, and yet another chapter was added to the mushrooming legend of Jamie Ian MacCallister.

Fifty-two

“Any trouble in town?” Kate asked, noticing the tiny cuts on Jamie’s cheek from the flying adobe.

“Not much,” Jamie said. “I just met with some ol’ boys who came out west to see me.”

“Were they glad to see you?” Kate asked, her tone dry enough to empty a well.

“I don’t think so,” Jamie replied, washing his face and hands in a bucket of water and drying off with a rag. “But I’m the last thing they saw before they met the devil.”

“Uh-huh. You missed the nooning; we’ve already eaten. But I saved some stew and bread for you. You think you can stay out of trouble long enough to eat?”

Jamie grinned, bent down, and kissed her. “I will sure try, darlin’.”

Kate blushed as the kids giggled. She shoved at him, perhaps moving him an inch, at best. “Oh, go on, you!”

Jamie sat down and began eating, as Martine and Carbone returned and began whispering to the others. Hannah smiled, and the others shook their heads in astonishment.

A few minutes later, a delegation from town rode out and approached Jamie warily, after making certain Jamie could see they were not armed. “Sir,” a well-dressed man said. “Those men back there... ah, the recently deceased, they were carrying ample funds.”

“I don’t want it,” Jamie said, sopping a hunk of bread into the seasoned stew.

“They had no papers on them, so we don’t know where to send the money.”

“How about the man with the busted jaw?”

“He left town quickly. Heading east. He was in considerable pain but would not let the doctor examine him.”

“Smart man. Do whatever you want to with the money. Give it to the poor.”

“Will you be leaving soon, sir?” another man asked nervously.

“Come the morning.”

All the men seemed to sigh.

“How many men did my husband kill?” Kate asked.

“Ah... seven, ma’am.”

“Is that all?” Kate said with a straight face. “A few years ago, he killed forty.”

“ Forty! ” a rather plump gentleman blurted. “Good God!”

Jamie sighed and finished his bowl of stew. He hoped Kate would hush up, for he knew only too well what a wicked sense of humor she had.

Kate smiled at him and walked over to the wagon to finish packing away supplies. Jamie breathed a bit easier. “We’ll be leaving in the morning,” he told the delegation. “And I apologize for the trouble in town.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mr. MacCallister,” another man said. “What bothered some people was your... coolness about the entire affair. There was quite a crowd gathered to witness the, ah, demise of the last, two, ah, gentlemen.”

Jamie grunted. Then he stood up, swiftly and silently as was his fashion. The group of businessmen all quickly backed up and that move infuriated Jamie. But he very carefully held his temper in check and smiled and was cordial as he shook hands with the men, bidding them good day.

When they had departed, he heard the sounds of muffled giggling coming from the wagons. He turned to see all the women gathered up in a knot, aprons covering their mouths to stifle the laughter.

“Very dangerous fellow there, Kate,” Hannah said, then bent over double with laughter.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “How can you sleep at night knowing such a brigand is lying next to you?”

“Isn’t it a disgrace?” Kate said, trying her best to keep a straight face. “I’ve never been run out of town before.”

The women all started laughing and Jamie shook his head and walked off, leaving the women howling at the disgusted expression on his face.

Swede caught up with him. “What in the world is all that about, Jamie?”

“I just got run out of town.”

“And they think it’s funny? ”

“Hysterical.”

Sam and Juan walked up. “What set the women off? They’re laughing like a bunch of idiots.”

“Jamie just got run out of town,” Swede said.

“Run out of town? And they think that’s funny? ”

“I guess.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Juan asked.

“I don’t know,” Swede said. “You’ll have to ask Jamie. He told me.”

“Jamie...” Sam started.

“This is where I came in,” Jamie said. “Excuse me.” He walked off just as Moses and Wells walked up.

“What’s wrong with the women?” Wells asked.

“Jamie got run out of town,” Sam said.

“And they think that’s funny? ” Moses asked.

Jamie covered his ears with his hands and went down to talk to the horses.

* * *

Just as dawn was splitting the sky with color, Jamie swung into the saddle and took the lead. “Let’s go see the mountains,” he said, and the wagons moved out.

Outside of town, Jamie swung off to one side and looked back at the Alamo as the wagons and livestock lumbered past him. The sun was touching the old mission, bathing it in a pure light from the Heavens.

Jamie smiled, recalling Bowie’s words as he read them by the dim candlelight in Bowie’s room. He imagined Bowie when he was full of life and how he might have spoken those words. He could almost hear Bowie’s strong voice.