falcon and wolf 1

 

Chapter 1

 

“Whisky, as you have real Scotch,” he said, laconically, laying down the coins on the bar. The barkeeper complied hastily. The stranger had appeared in the small town of Delaney, out of the mesas and with the dust of travel still on him. He had the sort of air of competence about him which made the barkeeper feel a need to hurry.

“Thats... oh. Thank you,” the bartender scooped up the money.

“Room. Third floor as you have one. Bath in fifteen minutes, dinner in an hour,” said the stranger. Bill Hymer, the barkeep, opened his mouth to say that the hotel did not operate under such whimsies, and found himself saying, ‘yes, sir.’

He knew who the stranger was.

They called him the Black Falcon. Some said he was half Native American; some said not. He was tanned with hawk-like features, but his eyes were blue green, and as warm as ice. His hair was dark, untidy, and collar length where it curled, as did the tips of his moustaches when he failed to cut them close. His long sooty lashes were the envy of many a woman, and his delicate features would be called effeminate on a man less confident of his manhood.  Nobody knew where he might arrive next.  What happened when he got there was usually uncomfortable for a while and then... a whole lot more peaceable after he had left.

His name, which he did not bother to advertise, was Luke Sokolov, though he was born Luke Levchenko. He did not use his father’s and brother’s names to avoid embarrassing them. He was known to work as a bounty hunter; he had been know to settle down for a few weeks on no more pay than his keep to help out a struggling rancher. Children and horses loved him; wrongdoers feared him; and honest citizens kept their distance from him.

And lawmen... reacted in one of two ways.

Luke smiled a cynical smile as the man with the star on his leather vest approached. He was about to find out which way this one would react. He kept his hands away from his pearl-handled Smith and Wesson Schofield revolvers. He favoured the model for its speed in reloading, and its heavy bore, 0.44 calibre. He liked the pearl coating for smooth handling more than for the decoration, and only one man had ever told him that he carried a lady’s weapon.

His other weapon, on his horse, was a trusty Winchester 73.  Luke had considered the advantages of using a Colt opentop revolver and the older Winchester 66 as both used the same ammunition; but the speed of reloading of the Smith and Wesson, and the heavy centrefire cartridge of the 73, had won over this convenience. He had not yet regretted it. His Winchester was a sharpshooter’s special and also had a telescopic sight. Luke could interrupt a lynching by cutting the rope at half a mile.

 

“You’re the Black Falcon; I’m told you’re trouble, and we don’t need you starting nothin’,” said the man with the badge.

That would be the hostile way, then.

Luke regarded him, levelly. He saw a man in his forties, grizzled, clean shaven, but not very well, wearing store-bought clothing which could do with brushing, washing, and better matching thread on the replacement button. Either unmarried, or his wife was no great shakes. Luke let his eyes travel down to the boots, which needed more than a drop of polish.

The gun seemed mostly well cleaned, though.

Luke permitted himself a light sneer.

“You heard wrongly,” said Luke.

“Huh?”

“You heard wrongly. I never start trouble. Where I find it, I aim to finish it. And I always hit what I aim at,” said Luke, quietly. “I followed a wanted man here. If he’s staying in this hotel, he’ll be relocating to your jail before tomorrow. If he’s staying someplace else? Well, that all depends whether they know they are granting succour to a wanted man, doesn’t it?”

The sheriff scowled.

“You sound like an easterner; we don’t need no poncy easterners telling us how to deal with varmints.”

“No, I speak like an Englishman, having English relatives, and a mother who teaches school,” said Luke, gently. “I fight like a Cossack, however, and I don’t like people who creep up behind me.”

The man who had been sidling towards him with a sap in his hand flew, by some strange art of prestidigitation, right over Luke’s suddenly dropped head as he went into a squat  and reached back to throw his would-be assailant. The man sprawled at the sheriff’s feet.

“You can’t go assaulting good citizens willy-nilly! I’ll have to take you in....” started the sheriff.

“Good citizens with a sap? Really? Have they bought you out so thoroughly?” said Luke. “Try, amigo, and I’ll take your badge from you.”

The sheriff looked terrified.

“They have my wife,” he mumbled.

Luke’s hard face softened.

“Well, you’d better take me in then, but don’t you go locking the door on me; and I’ll pay for us both to have our meals brought over, assuming this place is worth buying from.”

The sheriff brightened.

“It’s worth it,” he said. “I can’t afford it... I wouldn’t take bribes.”

“Thought you were too down at heel to be on the take,” said Luke. “An honest man who is being coerced, I can work with.”

 

“I doubt you can do much,” said the sheriff. His name, he had told Luke, was Jed Barton. They had eaten a good meal of steak with all the trimmings, and Barton was moved to unbutton his vest for the pleasure of easing the digestion of the best meal he had eaten in a long time. “I’ve given up doing anything but keep the peace in the most broad fashion.”

“You said, ‘they,’” said Luke. “I’m trailing Wily Willie Weston, whose name may sound silly, but he raped and killed the owner of a hotel in a place known as Mesquite and left her daughter scarred for life. It was vicious, but he gave everyone the slip by pretending to be taken ill. He’s a nasty piece of work who takes what he wants.”

“Yes, and he’s also the son of the biggest rancher around here, Big Bill Weston,” said Barton. “Weston is mostly law-abiding; which is to say, he  may have coerced some small ranchers to sell out to him, but nothing anyone has complained about, nor anything I can prove. But everyone is scared to act against him. His boy, Willy, has been wild from birth; it’s like he has to have what he wants when he wants it, and if denied, he gets violent. Some say he’s insane, and I say, if he’s insane, he should be locked up in a hospital where he can’t do no harm. But Big Bill and his other five sons, they’ll back Willy.  It was Chad you threw onto the floor. He owns the store in town, so don’t expect to get any provisions. Martin owns the saddlery and woodyard. Tom, Hank, and Judd work for their father on the ranch.  He has twenty hands, and they can be nasty.” He took a pull of coffee. “Yes, sir, very nasty; and if they think anyone is acting against them, they’re liable to offer a beating first, and ask questions after. Drove a lot of settlers off, so the land was left for cattle, but you know how it is.”

“I see,” said Luke. He knew how it was. Without complaints, or blatant wrongdoing, a sheriff was at the mercy of the men who had the most power. He filled the bowl of his pipe with tobacco, and went through the ritual of lighting it. He took a long pull, and blew three beautiful smoke rings.

“Oh, bravo,” said Barton, impressed.

Luke gave an impish grin. It made him look absurdly young.

“I can put a bullet through each of them as well,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it; I’d rather you didn’t prove it,” said Barton. “If I let you out in the morning, will you be on your way? They’ll let my wife out when they have Willy safely smuggled out of the country.”

“Would you do that if a rancher whose wife they had asked you? Hand in your badge and ride off?”

“No,” said Barton.

“Well, there’s the rub. I won’t, either,” said Luke. “See, I take the chasing down of owlhoots personally; we had to fight them off where my family settled. And we had help. And I swore on the grave of the Marshall who helped us that when I grew up, I’d dedicate myself to ridding the world of owlhoots. I prefer to bring them in; but if they die, I don’t lose sleep over it.”

“I believe that,” said Barton. “Suppose I let them think I let you convince me that you would ride on?”

“I have a better idea than that,” said Luke, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “But you go on and sleep; you don’t want to know what I’m up to.”

“I.... so long as I’m not involved,” said Barton.

“Give me the keys,” said Luke. “Have you a deputy, or any honest men who would back me?”

“No deputy; they shot him dead.  A terrible accident,” said Barton, bitterly. “You might have some help from Bill Hymer’s man of all work; Wolf Ninefingers. He hates the Westons bitterly. Bill Weston accused him of cattle rustling, and tortured him, hence the nine fingers. It wasn’t him, but Weston is prejudiced, and Wolf is a halfbreed Cherokee.”

“It’s a strong name,” said Luke. “You may as well leave me here, now; lock me in with my guns, but leave me the keys.”

Barton did as he was asked, hoping he and his wife would survive the consequences.

 

oOoOo

 

Luke waited for the sky to darken, made up the blankets in the cell to look like a body asleep, and slipped out, locking the cell behind him. He slid out of the back door, recalling that the general store had been two doors down from the sheriff’s office.  If the Westons were so egregiously corrupt, he felt no compunction whatsoever about robbing the store. He slid across the street first, keeping low, and in the back door of the hotel, where a man was sweeping up.

“You Wolf Ninefingers?” asked Luke, laconically.

The big, high-cheekboned man started, and a knife appeared in his hand. His face bore the scars of cuts.

“Who you?” the Cherokee snarled.

“Not an enemy,” said Luke. “Maybe, a friend. Can you taste revenge cold?”

“What you say?”

“I plan to take down the Westons. Are you with me?” asked Luke.

A fierce look of exultation came over the face of Wolf.

“Yes,” he said.

“You take my orders, you don’t go off doing what you want, understood?”

“I keep my cool.”

“Good. First thing is to rob the store blind, and cache what we take.”

“I know plenty good hiding place.”

“Good man.  I want to leave a loud surprise as we disappear; my unknown confederate, who is utterly fictional, is going to bust me out of gaol.”

Wolf frowned.

“You not in gaol. Where confederate?”

“He’s me. But I want Weston to think I have a friend.”

Wolf grunted.

“I understand.” He gave a savage grin. “We take saddler’s ponies to carry supplies, too,” he said.

“You get the ponies; I’ll start raiding the store,” said Luke.

 

 

They met at the back of the store; Luke had taken such provisions as he would normally have bought, survival rations for some weeks, corn, beans, bacon, dessicated vegetable soup, known to many as desecrated vegetables, and some onions.  Herbs and edible plants he could find in the wild. His mother was something of a herbalist, and he had learned well from her, as he learned fighting from his father. He also took ammunition, and some extra rifles, and blasting powder. It was this he had wanted for his noisy ‘escape,’ and as Wolf loaded up provender on the ponies, Luke set a tub of blasting powder, tamped it well, and ran a long fuse out back of the gaolhouse.  He threw the keys into the Sheriff’s desk drawer, where he had promised to leave them, and he stepped back to the rear of the one street of the town.

Wolf had prepared Luke’s own horse as well as his own, and nodded approval as Luke lit the fuse and vaulted into the saddle with one smooth move.

Luke must now trust Wolf to lead him surely, and to a place they might hole up and be safe. And as he went down the bed of a creek first, he plainly knew how to avoid being trailed. Luke followed, sat back in the saddle, Cossack fashion, willing to be led.

He had a light, but firm hand on his horse, and on the pony he was leading however; there would shortly be something they would not like.

 

As the sky lit up and the bang of the detonation reverberated around the valley, the horses and ponies expressed their dislike by rearing.

Luke soon had his own mount under control; Blackwind was used to noise and alarums, and only started slightly. The pony was more skittish, but a strong hand on the bridle reassured it. Wolf seemed to have little trouble too.

“Fireworks in it too?” he said, pointing to the stars bursting over the location of the sheriff’s office.

“It seemed a shame to waste the opportunity of being pretty,” said Luke.

“You are a strange one,” said Wolf.

“Whimsical,” said Luke.