“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. Then he chuckled. “I mean, yes. But what are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”
“I had a pa and brothers who fought on both sides of this war,” Falcon said. “I reckon I’ll be going back home to Colorado and hope they all show up.”
“Some of your family was fightin’ for the Yankees?” Thomas asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you think that’s all going to work out when you get back together again?”
“Pa made us feel free to choose whichever side we thought was right. The war’s over now, and we’ve all done our duty as we saw fit. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but for the MacCallisters, the war will be behind us once and for all.”
At that moment, the train passed over a rough section of railroad, jarring Falcon from his memories and bringing him back to the present. He sat in his seat for just a second, only slowly becoming aware that the war was long behind him. He had been recalling the last battle in which he had been engaged, and wounded. And though he did not know it at the time, his brother Matthew MacCallister had commanded the troops across from him in that very battle. And, like Falcon, Matthew had also been wounded.
Once more, Falcon pulled the letter out to look at it. This was the first time he had heard from General Garrison since that time in Texas so long ago.
Pueblo
“Hey, boys, watch this,” Ray said. “I’m going to do me the fandango.”
Ray, Cletus, and Billy Clinton were at the Four Aces Saloon in Pueblo. Their meeting with the cattle buyer wasn’t until the next day, and though Billy suggested they might just have a good dinner and go to bed, neither Ray nor Cletus would hear of it. They were determined to go to a saloon, and Billy had no choice but to go with them. Billy, in keeping with the promise he had made to keep an eye on his brothers, had nursed a single beer for most of the night.
“Ha!” Cletus said. “What makes you think you can get your big ass to do a fandango?”
“Just watch,” Ray said.
Ray, who was so drunk he could barely stand, hauled his big frame up and began stomping around in what he assumed was a fandango dance. Cletus started clapping his hands in accompaniment. Ray got his feet tangled and fell hard to the floor.
“Haw!” Cletus said, laughing out loud. “If you are a fandango dancer, I’m a Injun chief.”
As Ray tried to get to his feet, he fell again, only this time he fell into a table where four other men were sitting.
“What the hell?” one of the men asked angrily. Roughly, he shoved Ray off the table and onto the floor. “If you can’t hold your liquor, mister, you got no business drinkin’.”
Getting pushed to the floor had a temporary sobering effect, and Ray got up slowly, then started toward the man who had pushed him. The man, noticing then how large Ray was, held up his hands and tried to back away from him.
“I don’t want no trouble now,” he said.
Ray smiled, then picked the man up and threw him. He landed on another table, crashing through it. Several others rushed Ray then, and grinning broadly with pure enjoyment, Ray began taking them on, singly and in pairs.
Finally, someone drew a gun and, pointing it toward the ceiling, fired it. The noise of the gunshot got everyone’s attention, including Ray’s.
“Stop it, you big ape! Stop it now!” he shouted.
“Friend, that’s my brother you are pointing your gun at, and if you don’t put it down now, I’m going to kill you,” Cletus said in a low, menacing tone.
“Your brother, huh? Well, unless you want your brother killed, you’ll lower your gun,” the armed saloon patron said.
Cletus cocked his pistol. “I don’t care what you do to him. I think I’ll just kill you anyway,” he said.
“What?” the armed patron shouted, his anger turning to fear. He threw his gun down. “No! My God, no!”
The others at the table scattered, and all the rest of the saloon patrons moved quickly to get out of the way.
Suddenly, Cletus collapsed to the floor, having gone down because Billy had stepped up behind him and hit him over the head with the butt of his pistol.
“What the hell, little brother?” Ray said. “Whose side are you on?”
“Think about it, Ray,” Billy said. “If Cletus kills that fella, he’ll wind up hangin’.”
Ray nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess you are right.”
“Gentlemen, I would like to apologize for both of my brothers,” Billy said to the men at the table, though his apology extended to everyone else in the saloon at the moment. “I’m afraid they are both a little drunk.”
“They are both a lot of drunk,” one of the men who had been sitting at the table said. “Seems to me like the best thing for them would be to sleep it off in a jail cell tonight.”
Billy shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “No, sir, I’m not going to let that happen.”
“Then will you at least get them out of here?”
Billy nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That, I will do. Ray, pick up our brother.”
With little effort, Ray picked Cletus up and threw him over his shoulder. The three brothers left the saloon, then walked across the street to the hotel where, earlier, they had taken a room.
“Is your friend all right?” the hotel clerk asked when he saw Cletus draped over Ray’s shoulder.
“He’s fine,” Billy said. “He’s just drunk.”
Billy shepherded both his brothers upstairs to the single room they had rented. Ray and Cletus fell into the one bed and, almost immediately, began snoring. Billy threw a couple of blankets out on the floor, intending to sleep there, but after tossing and turning for several minutes, it became obvious to him that sleep wasn’t coming.
Billy got up. Then, shaking his head in frustration, he sat down in a chair beside a lamp table. Turning up the lamp, Billy took out a tablet and pencil and began writing.
To Kathleen
Like a blooming flower to behold,
Your beauty shines through.
If only I were so bold
To declare my love for you.
But cruel is the fate
That keeps us apart.
Divided by families that hate,
I cannot speak what is in my heart.
Billy had never shared his love of writing poetry with anyone in his family. More importantly, he had not shared with anyone his feelings for Kathleen Garrison.
Chapter Eight
Falcon MacCallister had been on the train for the better part of sixteen hours. With his knees jammed up against the seat in front, his arms folded across his chest, and his hat down over his eyes, he’d tried to sleep, but sleep had been sporadic at best.
It was just after eight o’clock the next morning when the train stopped in Pueblo. There, three young cowboys got on. It was obvious they had been drinking all night long, and in fact they were still drinking because one of them was carrying a bottle.
As Falcon examined them more closely, though, he decided that they weren’t cowboys after all. At least, they weren’t cowboys working for twenty dollars and found, for these young men were all wearing clothes that were well cut and well sewn. All three had fine Stetson hats encircled by silver hatbands, and one of them was wearing a gunbelt with two pearl-handled pistols.
“Well now, lookie here,” the one with a bottle said. “All these folks are asleep. What do you say we wake them up and invite them to a little party?”
“Shhh,” the youngest one said. “Cletus, let’s just find a seat and settle down somewhere.”
“Listen to Billy, will you, Ray?” Cletus said. “You know, I’m worried about that boy. He don’t know how to have fun.”
“Ray, Pa sent us over here to get a price on our cows, not to get drunk and raise hell.”