9
On the evening that Page was astonishing Falcon with her knowledge of her family’s dark—in more ways than one—history, and Ben was wallowing in his cold and vindictive anger, Jamie was riding into the no-name and nearly deserted mining town in the Medicine Bows. He stabled his horses and carefully rubbed them all down while they were feeding. The hotel clerk was so delighted at finally having a customer who could pay with cash money, he magnanimously gave Jamie the finest room in the hotel . . . guaranteed to have clean sheets with no fleas or bedbugs.
Jamie ordered a bath and lingered long in the hot water, scrubbing the trail dirt from him and washing his hair. Then he trimmed his beard and hair until he felt he was looking almost human again.
The dining room of the hotel had been closed for some time, so Jamie walked across the street to a small cafe and ordered his supper. Venison and beans and bread cooked and served by a man who wore his surly indifference like a badge of honor. The venison was tough, the beans undercooked, and the bread as difficult to chew as hardtack.
“As a cook,” Jamie told the man, after paying for the meal, “you’d make a fine carpenter.”
“You don’t like the grub, go somewheres else and eat in the mornin’.”
“There is no other place to eat.”
“That’s right, ain’t it?” the counterman replied with a nasty grin. “Mister MacCallister!”
Jamie stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing in suspicion; then he stepped outside. He quickly cut to his right, moving swiftly toward the dark alley. There had been something in the counterman’s tone that set his teeth on edge and made him very wary.
Just as he left the awninged walk in front of the cafe, a rifle barked from across the street, the slug knocking a huge chunk of wood from the corner where Jamie had just exited.
“Sharps,” Jamie muttered. “Take your damn arm off with that thing.”
The rifle boomed again, and Jamie guessed it to be a .50-70, or maybe even a .60 caliber. One thing for sure, he didn’t want to get hit with that damn round . . . or any others if he could help it.
Jamie ran down the dark alley and rounded the corner, turning left. He remembered that the building he was now behind was empty and boarded up. He tried the back door and found the doorknob turned in his hand. He stepped out of the snow and wind and into the quiet of the empty building.
Jamie knelt down and removed his spurs, slipping them into his jacket pocket. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness before moving toward the front of the building. He could see through the ice-frosted front windows of the building across the street, one lamp burning in the street-side window.
A shadow passed in front of the lamp-lit window: a man on the warped boardwalk. A man carrying a rifle. Behind him a few yards, another man, also carrying a rifle. Jamie recognized the shape of the weapon: a Sharps rifle.
But he couldn’t be sure these were the men who had fired at him. He was certain in his mind they were hunting him, but they could also be two men returning home from hunting game for the supper table.
Jamie tapped on the window with the barrel of his pistol and then hit the floor. The window exploded, and shards of glass flew as the night was filled with gunfire.
“No doubt about it now,” Jamie muttered, belly down on the cold floor.
He crawled to the nearest corner of the room and peeked out through what remained of the frosty glass. No sign of the two men.
Then he heard a boot scrape on the boardwalk, followed by a soft curse.
“That wasn’t him in the building,” a voice sprang out of the night, coming from the other end of the boardwalk. “May have been an owl beatin’ agin the winder. MacCallister wouldn’t make no mistake like ’at.”
Jamie silently stood up, both hands filled with Colts and said, “He damn sure wouldn’t.” Then he cut loose with both pistols.
The man on the boardwalk, standing not two feet from Jamie, took the slugs in the chest and fell silently to the frozen street, his rifle clattering on the icy ground.
Jamie ran through the building and exited out the back door, running hard toward the far edge of the short block. He stopped, listened, and could hear the sounds of cursing. He slipped up the dark alley to the street and paused. A few dogs were barking, but only a few. Most of them had enough sense to find a warm place on this freezing night and stay put.
A man suddenly jumped out of the shadows and began his run across the street. A man carrying a Sharps rifle. Jamie stepped out of the alley and shot the running man, the impact of the bullet turning him around several times and finally dropping him to his knees in the street, the Sharps falling from his hands.
Jamie walked up to the moaning man as a crowd began to gather.
“Asa Pike,” a man said. “He’s a gun for hire. You better hunt you a hole and pull the ground in over you, mister. Asa’s got a whole passel of kin, and they’ll all be comin’ after you.”
Asa fell belly down on the frozen street and moaned. “You’re a dead man, MacCallister,” he gasped.
“MacCallister!” another citizen said in a shocked tone. “Jamie MacCallister?”
“Yes,” Jamie told him.
“I don’t know this one over here,” a man shouted, standing over the man sprawled by the edge of the boardwalk. “But he’s deader ’an hell.”
“Is there a doctor in this town?” Jamie asked, looking down at the badly wounded Asa Pike.
“Are you jokin’, mister? There ain’t fifty people left in this dump, and I’m gettin’ out first warm spell. ’Sides, what do you care about Asa? He tried to kill you.”
“I don’t care about him. I was just curious. He took one in the side and might make it with proper care. Of course,” Jamie said reflectively, “if he does, I’ll probably have to shoot him again some day.”
“You ain’t gonna live that much longer, MacCallister,” Asa groaned out the words. “My kin will be on your trail hard. You’ll never shake them loose.”
“Somebody hired you to kill me,” Jamie said, staring down at the man. “Who was it?”
“Go to hell!” Asa said.
But Jamie already had a good idea: relatives of the Saxons, the Newbys, the Olmsteads, and others. That blood feud had been going on for nearly five decades.
Jamie reached down and took Asa’s pistols from leather and handed them to a man standing close. “Keep these until I’m out of here. Then if Asa’s still alive, return them to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be alive, you bastard,” Asa promised. “And I’m comin’ after you.”
“You know what?” a man mused. “I just thought of something. Tomorrow’s Christmas.”
* * *
Falcon returned to Valley, gathered all his brothers and sisters around him and told them about James William and Page. Ben F. Washington took the train back to Boston before the Jones brothers could move against him. But Ben had made up his mind to return to Colorado in the early spring. He was going to travel over to Valley and begin his book there. Ben was a good reporter with a genuine talent for writing, and he was slowly coming to his senses about his sister, and feeling ashamed of himself.
Jamie rode into Denver one cold day in early 1871, and after stabling his horses and making sure they would get the best of care, he headed for the finest hotel in Denver and immediately created quite a stir.
Dressed in buckskins and looking like the wrath of God, Jamie was, at first, refused admittance into the hotel by the doorman.
“Either you get out of my way, or you’re going to be wearing your ankles for a necklace,” Jamie told the man.
The doorman wisely stepped aside.
Jamie stomped through the lobby and up to the registration desk. He was still a handsome man, and in better physical shape than most men thirty years his junior. He turned many a female head on his walk from the street to the desk.
The painter, John A. Bellingham, was staying at the hotel, and he immediately grabbed up a menu and began sketching Jamie on the back of it.
The hotel detective rushed up to see what all the commotion was about and came to a very abrupt halt when he spotted the elder MacCallister. The detective, a man who was western born and reared, quietly turned around and beat it to the kitchen. He had absolutely no desire to tangle with the man the Indians called Man Who Is Not Afraid, Bear Killer, and Man Who Plays With Wolves.
“I want the best room in the place,” Jamie told the desk clerk. “I want a hot bath and a barber, and when that’s done, I want a tailor standing by. You got all that?”
“Yes, sir! And, sir, our finest suites have the bathroom adjoining.”
Jamie stared at him. “You mean, right there close to where you sleep?”
“Yes, sir!”
Jamie shook his head. “I personally find that disgusting, but all right. If that’s the best you’ve got.”
The sheriff of Arapahoe County, Dave Cook, chose that time to enter the hotel to see why such a large crowd had gathered in front of the establishment. Dave was a brave man and an excellent law officer, but he was no fool. When he spotted the bulk of Jamie Ian MacCallister standing at the front desk, Dave simply turned around and walked out of the hotel. No way was he going to tangle with that old mountain lion. Especially since Dave was well aware of Jamie’s manhunt. Dave also knew that if you scratched one MacCallister, about thirty would feel the itch. Just the thought of thirty MacCallisters invading Denver made his blood run cold.
Dave went to his office and told his deputies to leave Jamie alone.
Jamie lingered long in the huge tub of hot soapy water, until he was sure he’d gotten all the trail dirt from his body and hair. Standing in his long underwear, Jamie allowed the tailor to measure him for several suits and shirts and then had the barber go to work.
Jamie had his beard cut off, leaving only a moustache. While that was being done, he had his suit coat brushed and aired and the wrinkles ironed out. Before he slipped the jacket on, he tied a wide sash around his waist and shoved his pistols into the sash, butts forward for a cross draw should he need it.
Jamie walked down the steps to the lobby, looked things over for a moment, then walked into the dining room. Conversation stopped, the clink of silver ceased, waiters stopped serving, and heads turned as the tall, well-built, handsome, and very erect man was escorted to his table by a very sissy-looking maitre d’. Everything was fine until the fussy little man tried to spread the napkin on Jamie’s lap.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jamie warned him. “I really wouldn’t.”
The effeminate-acting man quickly backed away, bowing and apologizing.
Jamie picked up the menu and frowned. Damn thing was printed in French. Sighing, Jamie folded the menu and waggled a finger at the waiter.
He closed the distance quickly to stand nervously by Jamie’s table. “Sir?”
“I can’t read this damn thing. Bring me a steak, a large one, rare, and some bread and whatever else you have.”
“Some veggies, sir?”
Jamie looked at the man. “What the hell is that?”
“Vegetables, sir.”
“Oh, yeah. Some of those. Whatever you have. And bring me a drink of whiskey, too.”
“Right away, sir.”
Conversation resumed in the restaurant after that, but it was somewhat subdued. Jamie was conscious of eyes furtively shifting his way all during the meal, but he was used to that. He’d been a living legend for most of his life and understood that many people were fascinated by that type of person.
The diners respectfully waited until Jamie had finished his meal before they began approaching him for his autograph. He obliged them graciously, but was glad when the last one had come and gone.
Jamie had a brandy, then decided to step outside for a leisurely stroll and a cigar.
He stood in front of the hotel for a few moments, then lit his cigar and started his stroll, speaking to the passersby as they spoke to him, doffing his hat to the ladies and politely ignoring the batting of eyes and swishing of bustles as they flirted with him.
That amused him. Here I am, Jamie thought, a sixty-year-old man and ladies half my age, and less, are openly and brazenly flirting with me. Incredible. What is this world coming to?
He hadn’t gone two blocks before a wild, cursing shout scattered the strollers and spun Jamie around. A man stood in the middle of the street, his coat swept back, giving him easy access to his guns. All traffic had stopped.
“MacCallister! Hook and draw, ’cause tonight you die, you bastard!”