Smiling, he walked over to the table and touched the brim of his hat.
“Mrs. Kirby, how nice to see you,” he said. He looked at Gary, who still had his arm in a sling.
“How is your arm?” Falcon asked.
“I have shown it to everyone,” Gary said. “I’m the only one of my friends who has ever had a broke arm,” he added proudly.
“Broken,” Mrs. Kirby corrected.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m the only one.”
Mrs. Kirby laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Correcting his grammar is a losing battle,” she said. The smile left her face. “Have you heard the rumor about Mr. Bellefontaine? Do you really think he is dead?”
“Generally, when the rumor is that strong, it is true,” Falcon said. “I’m sure he is dead. The question, of course, is who killed him?”
“It could have been almost anyone,” Mrs. Kirby replied. “As I told you before, he was not a man one could easily like. I imagine he had many enemies, and since the story came out of his brutal activity with those poor people in the Crow village, almost anyone could have done it. I’m just glad that my husband had already left Mr. Bellefontaine’s employ. We are going back East, tomorrow.”
“Well, I wish you all the luck in your move,” Falcon said.
“So, did you just drop by the table to visit? Or would you like a piece of fried chicken?”
“I would love a piece of fried chicken.”
The first shot rang out, just as Falcon reached for the drumstick.
One year later—excerpt from the now-published
Before we come to the conclusion of this factual story of the adventures of Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody, I believe it would serve the reader well if a perfect picture could be summoned from my imperfect words, by which the reader could visualize the appearance of Falcon MacCallister on the day of the events to be here described.
Falcon MacCallister is a plainsman in every sense of the word, yet unlike any other of his class. He is north of six feet in height and looks even taller due to his bearing. He has broad shoulders, well-formed chest and limbs, a face that, though cured by exposure to wind, sun, rain, and cold, is nevertheless considered handsome by every woman who has ever made the observation. Whether mounted or afoot, Falcon MacCallister is one of the most perfect specimens of manhood one might ever see.
Of his courage, there can be no question, for it has been tested far too often for there to be any doubt. His skill in the use of the pistol and rifle is unerring, while his deportment is entirely free from all bluster or bravado. He is anything but a quarrelsome man, yet he has been involved in innumerable conflicts, always instigated by another party, and almost always ending in the death of his adversary.
On the day of the parade and picnic and while celebrating the victory over Mean to His Horses, extensively written about in a previous chapter of this book, Falcon MacCallister was confronted by the desperadoes, Sam Davis, Lee Regret, and Lucas Depro. Without regard to the safety of the innocent men, women, and children of DeMaris Springs, the three brigands began firing at Falcon MacCallister with the intention of killing him.
“MacCallister, you have drawn your last breath!” Davis yelled. “For my friends and I have come to lay you in your grave!”
“It is not I who will die this day, but you, for I am armed with the power of right!” Falcon called back. As he shouted at the villainous three, he drew his pistol and with but three shots, none wasted to put the innocent to danger, killed the men who would have killed him.
And with their demise, this story of Falcon MacCallister and Buffalo Bill Cody, a factual account more thrilling and exciting than anything I have written of the two of them before, despite that it is true, comes to an end. Buffalo Bill has returned to tour with his Exhibition, and Falcon, though earnestly invited to be a part of the show, declined. As of this writing Falcon MacCallister continues to live in the wind, and his destiny now, as it ever shall be, is danger.
Turn the page for an exciting preview of the blockbuster new series, America’s leading Western writer captures the most violent chapter in frontier history—in the saga of a Yankee with a rifle, an outlaw with a grudge, and a little slice of hell called . . .
SAVAGE TEXAS
by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone
Authors of
Coming in September 2011
Wherever Pinnacle Books are sold
“Texas . . . Texas . . .”
—LAST WORDS OF SAM HOUSTON, SOLDIER, PATRIOT, AND FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
CHAPTER ONE
Some towns play out and fade away. Others die hard.
By midnight Midvale was ablaze. The light of its burning was a fire on a darkling plain.
It was a night in late March 1866. Early spring. The earth was quickening as Midvale was dying.
The well-watered grazing lands of Long Valley in north central Texas supported many widely scattered ranches. Midvale had come into being at a strategic site where key trails came together. The town supplied the needs of local ranchers and farmers for things they couldn’t make or grow but couldn’t do without.
A cluster of several square blocks of wooden frame buildings, it had a handful of shops and stores, several saloons, a small cafe, a boardinghouse or two, and a residential neighborhood.
Tonight Midvale had reached its end. Its passing was violent. The killers had come to usher it into extinction. Raiders they were, a band of cutthroats, savage and merciless. They came under cover of darkness and fell on the town like ravening wolves—gun wolves.
The folk of Midvale were no sheep for the slaughter. The Texas frontier is no place for weaklings. For a
