Pride of Eagles by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-07-13T04:00:00+00:00

There’s a low green valley on the old Kentucky shore,

There I’ve whiled many happy hours away,

A-sitting and a-singing by the little cottage door

Where lived my darling Nelly Gray.

Oh! my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away,

And I’ll never see my darling anymore.

I’m sitting by the river and I’m weeping all the day,

For you’ve gone from the old Kentucky shore.

Falcon slipped out of the saloon while Kathleen was still singing, then walked through the town until he reached the Martin house. He started to go around to the back entrance that led to his private room, but the front door opened and Frances stepped out onto the front porch.

“Mr. MacCallister, I’m still up,” she said. “You can come in this way if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Falcon said, stepping up onto the porch.

Frances moved back to let him in, then frowned as she saw his eye.

“Oh, my,” she said, putting her fingers up to touch the red and black swelling. “What happened to your eye?”

Frances’s fingers felt cool to the heated swelling around his eye.

“I sort of ran into somebody’s fist,” Falcon replied with a chuckle.

“I hope the other fella looks worse,” Kathleen said.

“I don’t know how he could,” Falcon said. “I haven’t seen myself in a mirror yet, but I have a feeling this looks pretty bad.”

“Come on into the parlor and sit down,” Frances invited. “Let me see if I can do something about your eye.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Falcon said dismissively. “It’ll be all right.”

“Nonsense. I’ve seen wounds like this before. It will swell shut if you don’t let me take care of it.”

Falcon sat down in the parlor as Frances disappeared. She returned a moment later with a piece of raw, red steak.

“What are you doing?” Falcon asked, surprised to see the steak in her hand.

“There is nothing better than a piece of steak to keep the swelling down,” Frances said.

“Yes, I’ve heard that. But Frances, I can’t let you waste a good steak like that just to put over my eye. Not with the cost of meat.”

Frances chuckled. “It’s not actually a waste,” she said. “This was supposed to be your steak, but you didn’t eat dinner here tonight.”

“No, I didn’t,” Falcon said quietly. He sighed. “But I should have,” Falcon said. “It would have saved a lot of trouble.”

“You mean like the shooting in the theater and down by the depot?”

“You’ve heard about that already?”

“Cody told me,” Frances said. “He said he saw the whole thing. Or at least, he saw the part that happened at the depot.”

“Yes, Cody was there,” Falcon said. “I’m sorry that it happened at the depot. Especially as the train was coming in. I’m very lucky that it wasn’t much worse than it was.”

“From what Cody tells me, you didn’t have any choice.”

“That’s true, but . . .” Falcon paused in mid-sentence.

“But what?”

“I never seem to have any choice when something like this happens,” Falcon said. “But I must be responsible, because it happens so often. The average person doesn’t suddenly find himself in a deadly shoot-out.

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