Revenge of Eagles

She pulled the dress over her head, then began unlacing the camisole. When she had it completely unlaced, she looked at him pleadingly.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t make me do this.”

Monroe’s eyes were clouded with lust, and Jane thought she could see something red deep down inside them. She opened the camisole and felt the effect of the air on her bare nipples.

Then, to her shock and surprise, the side of Monroe’s head seemed to explode as blood, brain matter, and bits of bone spewed out from his temple. Monroe’s eyes rolled back, showing all white. Not until he was falling did she hear the distant report of a rifle.

Jane gasped, but she didn’t scream. Instead, she just looked down at Monroe’s body as she dispassionately relaced the front of her camisole. She had herself covered by the time the man who shot Monroe came strolling up.

“Mr. MacCallister,” she said. “I might have guessed it was you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Falcon said. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right,” Jane replied. She turned her back to him as she continued to lace up the camisole. “If you’ll forgive me, I’ll try and recover my modesty, if not my dignity.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Mrs. Stockdale,” Falcon said. “Your dignity was never compromised.”

“Five,” Keytano said, counting the scalps Falcon laid on the ground before him. “You have killed five of your white brothers.”

“They were white,” Falcon said. “But they were not my brothers.”

“You also killed six Apache,” Keytano said.

Falcon shook his head. “I killed only five. One of your brothers was killed by another.”

Keytano shook his head. “They were Apache,” he said. But they were not my brothers.”

Keytano put his hand on Falcon’s shoulder, and Falcon did the same.

“You and I are brothers,” Keytano said.

Falcon smiled. “It’s good to hear you say that, Keytano,” he said. “Because I’ve got a silver mine that needs to be worked. And as it turns out, it’s pretty close to your territory.”

“Hear me,” Keytano called out, loud enough that the many who had gathered in the center circle could hear his words.

“This is Dlo Binanta. From this day forward, he is my brother. For him, I will be a white man, and for me, he will be an Apache.”

“Well, I thank you for that,” Falcon said.

“It is okay,” Keytano said. He smiled. “For I know you will share twenty percent of your silver mine with me.”

“You want twenty percent of my silver mine?”

“Is it not the way of the white man to take what is not his?” Keytano asked innocently.

Falcon laughed out loud. “Keytano,” he said. “All I’ve got to say is, you are one hell of a fast learner.”

AFTERWORD

Notes from the Old West

In the small town where I grew up, there were two movie theaters. The Pavilion was one of those old-timey movie show palaces, built in the heyday of the Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin silent era of the 1920s. By the 1950s, when I was a kid, the Pavilion was a little worn around the edges, but it was still the premier theater in town. They played all those big Technicolor biblical Cecil B. DeMille epics and the corny MGM musicals. In Cinemascope, of course.

On the other side of town was the Gem, a somewhat shabby and rundown grindhouse with sticky floors and torn seats. Admission was a quarter. The Gem booked low-budget B pictures (remember the Bowery Boys?), war movies, horror flicks, and Westerns. I liked the Westerns best. I could usually be found every Saturday at the Gem, along with my best friend, Newton Trout, watching Westerns from 10 AM until my father came looking for me around suppertime. (Sometimes Newton’s dad was dispatched to come fetch us.) One time, my dad came to get me, right in the middle of Abilene Trail, which featured the now-forgotten Whip Wilson. My father became so engrossed in the action, he sat down and watched the rest of it with us. We didn’t get home until after dark, and my mother’s meatloaf was a pan of gray ashes by the time we did. Though my father and I were both in the doghouse the next day, this remains one of my fondest childhood memories. There was Wild Bill Elliot, and Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, and Tim Holt, and, a little later, Rod Cameron and Audie Murphy. Of these newcomers, I never missed an Audie Murphy Western, because Audie was sort of an anti-hero. Sure, he stood for law and order and was an honest man, but sometimes he had to go around the law to uphold it. If he didn’t play fair, it was only because he felt hamstrung by the laws of the land. Whatever it took to get the bad guys, Audie did it. There were no finer points of law, no splitting of legal hairs. It was instant justice, devoid of long-winded lawyers, bored or biased jurors, or black-robed, often corrupt judges.

Steal a man’s horse and you were the guest of honor at a necktie party.

Molesting a good woman meant a bullet in your heart or a rope around your gullet. Or at the very least, getting the crap beat out of you. Rob a bank and face a hail of bullets or the hangman’s noose.

Saved a lot of time and money, did frontier justice.

That’s all gone now, I’m sad to say. Now you hear, “Oh, but he had a bad childhood” or, “His mother didn’t give him enough love” or, “The homecoming queen wouldn’t give him a second look and he has an inferiority complex.” Or cultural rage, as the politically correct bright boys refer to it. How many times have you heard some self- important defense attorney moan, “The poor kids were only venting their hostilities toward an uncaring society”?