“If you tell me your story, I won’t write it.”
Falcon chuckled. “Well, if you don’t write it, what good will it do for you to hear the story?”
“I am more than a writer, Falcon. I am also a hunter, fisherman, explorer, and even an archaeologist of sorts.” Zane Grey laughed. “As well as a dentist and one-time baseball player, though at neither of them did I enjoy much success. But mostly, I am a man with a consuming curiosity. And it is that curiosity that has allowed me to realize what accomplishments I have achieved. So I am appealing to you to please satisfy that curiosity for me. Tell me the story. I swear to you, I will not write it.”
Falcon looked over at Libbie.
“It’s your call, Mrs. Custer.”
Libbie put her cup down. “Falcon,” she said. “In the years since my Autie was killed, I have written books and articles, I have lectured, I have granted interviews, and I have answered letters—all designed to tell the truth about what happened. Of late, there have been articles printed which would disparage my husband’s good name. You are a man of honor and integrity—anything you might say to add to the story could only help to promote my cause.
“I not only approve of you telling the story, I am asking you to please do so.”
“It’s been over fifty years,” Falcon said. “And I’ve never told this story to anyone before. I’m not sure I can do it justice.”
“Big Grandpa, I’ve heard a lot of your stories. You tell wonderful stories,” Rosie said. “You can do it justice.”
The others laughed at the young girl, who, after having served the cookies, had come back into the room and was now sitting quietly over in the corner.
“There you go, Falcon, validation from an unimpeachable source,” Zane Grey said.
“I warn you, it is a long story.”
The author laughed. “I’m a novelist, Falcon, I deal in long stories. Please, go ahead.”
Falcon finished his coffee, then put the cup down. “The year 1876 was what historians will call an eventful year,” he began. “In Philadelphia, they celebrated our country’s centennial. Colorado became a state, they invented the telephone, and at a lonely place in Montana, General Custer and two hundred sixty-five brave men were killed.
“But in order to tell my role in all this, I suppose I need to go back six months earlier, and start with an attempted stagecoach robbery.”
Chapter Two
Jim Garon was thin, with obsidian eyes and a hawklike nose. He stepped up onto the rise and looked back down the road. The coach was just starting up the long incline and the horses were straining in the harness. He could hear the driver whistling and calling to the team, and he could hear the squeak and rattle of the coach.
“Andy? Poke? You boys ready?” Garon called. “It’s comin’ up the grade now.”
“So what, it’ll be five, maybe ten minutes afore it makes it up here,” Andy said. Andy Parker came up to stand beside Garon and look back down the hill toward the coach.
“Yeah, well, I want us all to be in position when it gets here,” Garon said. “The coach will stop as soon as it reaches the top, in order to give the horses a blow and let the passengers get out and walk around.”
“How much money is the stage carryin’, do you think?” Poke Waggoner asked, coming up to join the other two.
“Poke, you’ve asked that question a dozen times,” Garon said. “I don’t know how much it’s carryin’. Let me ask you a question. How much money are you carryin’ right now?”
“I ain’t got much more’n a dollar,” Poke said.
“Well, there you go. I’m pretty sure the coach is carryin’ more than a dollar,” Garon said.
Andy laughed.
The driver’s whistle sounded much louder now, and looking back, Garon was surprised to see how far up the hill the coach had come.
“I thought you said it was goin’ to take ten minutes or so,” Garon said.
“I figured it would,” Andy replied.
“Well, it didn’t. So I suggest we get back out of the way now and just wait.”
There were six passengers in the coach: a mother and two children, one of which was a babe in arms, the other a rather rambunctious four-year-old; a doctor who was gray-haired and overweight; a lawyer who was impressed with his own importance; and Falcon MacCallister.
Falcon was riding next to the window, and as the stage made a turn on one of the cutbacks, he saw a couple of men at the top of the long rise. He would not have paid that much attention to them, except for the fact that they were obviously trying to stay out of sight.
Falcon opened the door.
“Look here, what are you doing?” the lawyer asked.
“I’m going up top,” Falcon replied without any further explanation.
