37
Jamie was tired and depressed. A lot of good men had been lost back along the Little Big Horn . . . and that included people on both sides. Jamie knew in his heart that the slaughter of Custer would pull the country together against the Indians like nothing had ever done. The Indians were finished. Oh, there would be pitched battles for another ten or so years, but while the Little Big Horn had been a victory for the Indians, it had, in Jamie’s mind, also signaled the end for them.
It was days later, at a trading post on the North Platte,
when Jamie heard the news about Falcon. To the eyes and mind of the new post owner, Jamie was just another rugged-looking old relic of a mountain man, not worth a cup of spit for anything.
Jamie bought his supplies, then had a drink and listened to the men talk. Falcon had killed two lawmen over in Utah Territory, a county sheriff and a deputy federal marshal.
But why had he killed them?
The men at the bar didn’t know that, only that he had. Falcon had left the little town riding a horse the color of dark sand—a big horse, for Falcon, like his father, was a big man. His packhorse was a gray.
Riding a horse the same color and approximately the same size as mine, and trailing a gray packhorse, just like mine, Jamie mused.
Jamie quietly left the trading post without notice and once more headed south. He stopped at Fort Fred Steele and told the commanding officer there what had really taken place at the Little Big Horn. The CO and his other officers listened intently as Jamie laid it all out, from beginning to end. They had learned about the slaughter, but knew few particulars.
It was there that Jamie arranged for a wire to be sent to his kids in Valley. He knew that by now they would be worried sick.
Jamie pushed on toward home. He crossed the Divide and felt pretty sure he was in Colorado (boundaries were still a bit illdefined), and felt better. He was not that far from home. Well, maybe a week’s riding.
About a day out of Valley, Jamie was humming an old song that Kate used to sing when two hammer blows struck him in the back, almost knocking him out of the saddle. As he struggled to stay on the horse, he thought he heard a shout of triumph. Sundown took off like a bolt of lightning, the packhorse trailing.
When he got the big horse calmed down, Jamie managed to stuff handkerchiefs in the holes in his back. He knew he dared not leave the saddle; he’d never be able to get back on the deck if he did. Through waves of hot pain, he cut lengths of rope and tied himself in the saddle.
“All right, Sundown,” Jamie gasped. “You know the way home. Take me to Kate.”
* * *
Two of Jamie’s great-grandsons spotted the slow-walking horse and the big man slumped unconscious in the saddle. They’d been heading down to the creek to fish. When they realized who it was, it scared the be-Jesus out of both of them. They took off for town, running as fast as they could. They ran right down the center of main street, yelling and hollering at the top of their lungs and pointing toward the north.
Matthew was the first to respond. He leaped onto his horse and headed toward the north road that led into town. Dr. Tom Prentiss was a minute behind him. As he rode, the doctor yelled, “Hitch up a wagon and follow me!”
As the two men cut the ropes that bound Jamie and as gently as possible eased him from the saddle, Doctor Tom took one look at the hideous wounds in Jamie’s back, and for a second, his eyes touched those of Matthew. Tom shook his head.
“Oh, goddammit!” Matthew yelled. “No!”
The wagon rattled up, and the men placed Jamie in the bed after spreading several blankets. “Take him to the clinic,” Tom told the driver. He looked at Matthew. “Gather your kin, Matthew.”
* * *
Hours later, Tom Prentiss stepped out to meet the immediate family. Only Matthew was missing. He’d been told there was a wire waiting for him at the telegraph office. The street outside the clinic was filled with friends and relatives of Jamie.
“I’ve made him as comfortable as possible,” the doctor said. “He refused any offer of laudanum. I can’t dig out the bullets. They’re too deep and I don’t know where they are. I don’t see how he made it this far.”
“How long . . . before? ...” Joleen managed to get those words out before tears stopped her voice.
“Maybe an hour, maybe a day,” the doctor said. He looked at Jamie Ian the Second. “How old is your father, Ian?”
The eldest son cleared his throat. “Pa thought he was born in 1810, Tom. But he never was real sure of that. It may have been 1808 or 1809.”
The doctor nodded his head. “During a moment of consciousness, he asked that one of you kids lay out his good set of buckskins. For now, well, all of you can go in for a moment and see him. But he won’t recognize you. He’s drifting in and out. He’s . . . ah, well, he’s been talking to Kate.”
Matthew stepped into the doctor’s outer office, a telegram in his hand. His brothers and sisters turned to him. Matthew’s eyes were bright with anger. He held up the wire. “This is from a sheriff friend of mine over near the Utah line. Seems as though a posse of men from some ranch called the N/N, and headed by several newly appointed deputy federal marshals, think they got lead into Falcon. Happened yesterday or the day before some miles north of here. What they done was they mistook Pa for Falcon.”
Joleen said, “There’ll be blood on the moon when Falcon hears of this.”
“For a fact,” Matthew said. “My friend is gonna send me more information as he gets it. How’s Pa?”
“Dying,” Ian said, then put his big hands to his face and wept openly.
* * *
Jamie Ian MacCallister, the man called Bear Killer, Man Who Is Not Afraid, Man Who Plays With Wolves, died on August the first, 1876, at eight o’clock in the morning. He was buried that afternoon, beside his beloved Kate and his grandfather, on a ridge overlooking the town of Valley. Overhead, circling and soaring high above the ridge, several eagles screamed.
Jamie and Kate were together again, never to be separated.
* * *
The next day, James William Haywood, Jamie’s grandson from Ellen Kathleen and William Haywood, opened Jamie’s will in front of the family. He had read it the night before, and was shocked right down to his boots at the enormity of Jamie’s wealth.
“Your father,” he told the gathering, “was more than likely the richest man in all of Colorado. He was worth millions of dollars. He drew up this map—” he held up a map carefully outlined on a large piece of deerskin—“about a year ago. It shows all the places where he cached bags and boxes of gold and silver. During the wanderings of your great-grandfather, the man called the Silver Wolf, who lies buried up on the ridge with Jamie and Kate, he discovered a cave of Spanish treasure. He gave that to Jamie, and now Jamie is giving it to all of you. The location is on the map. You children of Jamie and Kate MacCallister just might be the richest family in all of North America. Now, your father left some of his wealth to every member of the MacCallister family. Nieces, nephews, cousins . . . he left no one out. He left a sizeable sum of money to be used by the town of Valley. It is carefully invested and will bring in a nice return for decades to come.”
James William sighed and looked up from the pages-long will. “I never realized what a complex man Jamie Ian MacCallister was. Not until I opened and read this will. He was a self-educated man, and he did a good job of it.” He lifted the will for all to see. “We’ll go over this document point by point later on, but for now, does anyone know where Falcon is?”
“No,” Matthew said. “I received a coded wire from him last night. I replied, in code, telling him of our father’s death. The telegrapher tapped back that it had been received, but I have no way of knowing where Falcon was when he sent the wire. Hell, he might not have sent it. He might have had a friend do it.”
The young lawyer looked at Rosanna and Andrew. “And you two? ...”
“We’ve rescheduled our tour. It’s what Ma and Pa would have wanted us to do,” Andrew said. “Pa used to say that life has to go on.”
James William nodded. “It’s going to be ... strange around here without Grandpa Jamie. It’s going to take some . . . getting used to.”
“It will never be the same.” Megan summed up the feelings of all the kids of Jamie and Kate MacCallister.
After the initial reading of the will, Jamie Ian met with Matthew in Falcon’s Wild Rose Saloon and said, “Now, brother, you want to tell the truth about Falcon?”
“He’s in Utah. He’s going after Nance Noonan and those posse members. He’s going to destroy the N/N and then burn down the town. Right down to the last brick and board.”
“There were federal marshals in that posse.”
“You think Falcon gives a damn about that?”
Jamie Ian sighed and shook his head. “I reckon not.”
“Joleen summed it up the other day. There’s gonna be blood on the moon before this is over.”
The brothers walked out to stand on the boardwalk, looking up at the ridge where their mother and father and grandfather lay in peace.
“You think Pa would have done what Falcon is about to do?” Jamie Ian asked.
“It’s exactly what Pa would have done.”