Destiny of Eagles Read Free Page B

answering it, so he wadded it up and started to toss it into a wastebasket.
    Then he hesitated, stared at the wadded paper for a moment, and finally smoothed it out to reread it.
    He did remember Billy Puckett, remembered him as sort of a short, stocky man who laughed a lot. He remembered him as being a physically strong man too, though he didn’t know if he really was that strong, or it just seemed so from the perspective of a twelve-year-old.
    Falcon hoped that he had made a good life for himself, and he wondered if Puckett had ever heard about what happened to Falcon’s father . . . how he had been murdered by an assailant who mistook Jamie MacCallister for his son Falcon.
    What did he mean when he said he had something he needed to get off his chest? Whatever it was, was it something Falcon even wanted to know about?
    Damn.
    He needed to know now, just to satisfy his curiosity.
    Falcon had become somewhat of a recluse over the last three years, protected by his small circle of friends from inquiring reporters who wanted to write his story for the big newspapers back East. It was only natural then that rumors would start. One story had it that he had been killed in Abiline, shot in the back as he played a hand of poker. Another insisted that he had been hanged out in Tucson. The wildest and most improbable rumor suggested that he’d joined the crew of a windjammer and was sailing the seven seas. Falcon got quite a laugh from that one.
    One thing those rumors did do, though, was help him maintain his privacy over the last three years. And in order to preserve that privacy, he’d been about to discard this letter until he started having second thoughts about it. Finally, he decided that three years was long enough to wallow in self-pity. It was time to step back into the world, and how better to do so than to answer an invitation from an old friend?
    Falcon went down to the telegraph office and sent a wire back to Belfield.

    THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE INVITATION STOP I ACCEPT STOP WILL ARRIVE BY TRAIN AS SOON AS ARRANGEMENTS CAN BE MADE STOP FALCON MAcCALLISTER

    Chicago, June 5, 1884
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    The Convention Hall in Chicago was crowded with people, filled with cigar, cigarette, and pipe smoke, and festooned with American flags and red, white, and blue bunting. In addition to the hall decorations, each delegation was identified by a placard that identified its particular state, while large posters, photographs, and banners were thrust up on poles over the various delegations. Most prominent were the names of those men who had put themselves forward as candidates for the nomination of their party for President of the United States.

    RE-ELECT PRESIDENT CHESTER ARTHUR
    Â 
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    JOHN A LOGAN, OF ILLINOIS,
A MAN WE CAN TRUST
    Â 
    Â 
    JAMES G. BLAINE, THE ROCK OF MAINE
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    SENATOR JOHN EDMONDS, FOR
HONESTY IN GOVERNMENT

    In addition to the primary delegates who were seated in chairs on the floor, alternate delegates crowded the balcony that encircled the auditorium.
    A man wearing the hat of a Western Union messenger was walking the floor, calling aloud for “Mr. Powers, of the Third District of Michigan! Telegram for Mr. Powers, of the Third District of Michigan!”
    Many others were roaming the floor too, most of them working the delegates for their particular candidates. Amos Crockett from Maine was one such delegate, campaigning for fellow Mainer James G. Blaine. He, and Joe Murray, who wasn’t a delegate but was present at the convention, and also campaigning for Blaine, had called Roosevelt to one side. Roosevelt was a delegate from New York.
    â€œTeddy, I’m going to ask you again to switch your support from Senator Edmonds to James G. Blaine,” Murray said.
    â€œI can’t do that, Joe,” Roosevelt said. “I believe Mr. Blaine to be a corrupt man.”
    â€œI’ll have you know, sir, that Mr. Blaine is from Maine,” Crockett said. “You call