Only the Gallant (10 page)

“I always said you had a way with horses, Jesse,” Doc Stark’s gravelly voice sounded behind him. McQueen’s heart sank as he turned and saw the eldest of the Stark brothers step out from the shadows of a pole-framed shed at the far end of the corral. Hay had been piled beneath the shed’s slanted roof, providing food for the herd and excellent concealment for Doc. Moonlight glinted off the long barrel of his Colt revolver. Stark was dressed as a Union soldier. He seemed to sense Jesse’s astonishment.

“Yep,” he said. “My brothers and I enlisted yesterday. Been assigned to saddle-break this stock here. Now the worm has turned, eh? We’re soldiers and you—well—what are you? Let’s see … a turncoat like your brother. And caught stealing army horses. Now that is sweeter than fresh cream skimmed from a pail.” He took another stiff-legged step toward his captive. “Good judge of horseflesh, too. You picked the best of the bunch, charmed that roan proper. Reckon I’ll keep him for myself. Now stand aside.”

“And then what, Doc?” Jesse remarked, his muscles tense and ready to spring. He’d only get one chance. He had better do this right.

“Then we’ll make Big Milo a happy man,” Doc said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat you plumb to death.” Doc cupped a hand to his mouth. “Milo! Hey, Milo!” He raised the gun and fired a shot into the air. The Colt thundered and spat a tongue of flame.

McQueen swung astride the roan stallion as it lunged forward. Doc tried to bring his revolver to bear on his captive, but Jesse crouched low on the stallion’s back and Stark hesitated, unwilling to risk injury to the roan. Then he changed his mind and raised his revolver. Gunfire erupted from outside the corral. Two men on horseback blasted away at Doc, who spun on his heels and, despite his game leg, dived for the safety of the hay shed. He hit, rolling, and scrambled behind a water trough.

Jesse looked up in surprise at the actions of the two “dirt farmers” who had joined the foray. He didn’t know who they were but he was grateful. Jesse started the roan toward the gate, then had a better idea and rode back through the corral, his gun drawn and a wild cry on his lips as he fired a shot. The panic-stricken herd fled before him. Flame blossomed in the barn doorway as Milo, Emory, and Cousin Titus staggered from their bedrolls, guns in hand. They opened fire as the startled herd barreled into the unlatched gate. It tried to swing open but the crush of horses shattered the wood and tore the hinges loose and the gate disappeared under the flashing hooves.

Jesse kept his knees locked on the stallion’s belly as gunshots mingled with the thunder of the stampeding herd.

Doc Stark cursed and emptied his pistol at Jesse, veiled by the churning dust. “No!” he bellowed as his gun clicked on an empty cylinder. He’d fired the last of his loads. He hurled his curses after the stampeding herd.

Milo stood in the doorway and stared in disbelief as the horses crashed through the gate.

“C’mon!” he shouted to Emory and Titus before charging out the door.

Titus held back. He wasn’t about to blunder outside into a hail of lead. He recognized Jesse and chanced a shot. He sensed movement behind him, whirled around, and came to within a fraction of an inch shooting Cicero between the eyes. The black man held out his empty hands.

“Don’t ever sneak up behind me again,” Titus growled, and turned once again to the escaping herd. The lean little man cursed and fired his Colt, and one of the mares lurched and crumpled to the ground, blood pumping from its side. That was one horse McQueen wouldn’t steal. A lead slug splintered the wood a few inches from his skull and Titus jumped back, realizing for the first time that Jesse had help. He shifted his aim and traded shots with the two horsemen as they rode up to turn the herd and head it away from town.

“My God,” Cicero said, standing alongside Connolly. The runaway slave peered through the moonlight at the men who had come to McQueen’s aid. “Sweet Jesus, it be him. It’s the Gray Fox hisself … Bon Tyrone.” Cicero backed toward the nearest stall and his red-rimmed eyes were wide with fear. “Ain’t no man can kill the ghost. Mebbe he come for me. Mebbee he heard how I aim to steal his daddy’s gold. Mebbee …”

“I’ll put a slug in you if you don’t shut the hell up!” Titus said, already unnerved. How many Rebs were outside the barn? He stared ruefully down at the blue uniform he had recently acquired. Titus didn’t intend to find out.

Milo Stark saw the horses and Jesse McQueen and wasn’t about to let either of them escape. He thumbed back the hammer on his Colt revolving rifle and loosed a shot. Emory Stark, for the first time in his life, darted past his brother, eager to prove himself, tugging a short-barreled navy Colt from his belt.

“I’ll get him, Milo,” he shouted. But the noise of the stampede drowned him out. No matter, he thought, and let his cap-and-ball revolver talk for him.

It was no easy feat, riding bareback at a headlong gallop, crouched as low as possible. Still, if those damn Stark brothers didn’t wing him with a lucky shot, he’d be all right. As Jesse cleared the wreckage of the trampled gate and raced past the barn, he spied Milo and Emory by the light of the moon. Their barking guns outlined them where they stood. For a few brief seconds McQueen and the Starks were opposite one another. Jesse heard the whine of bullets and emptied his own Colt revolver at the flashes from their guns. It could only have lasted a few seconds. Men fired point-blank at one another in the moonlight. Thunder and fire and death hung in the air like powder smoke, then Jesse was past the barn and rounding the corral. He tucked his smoking revolver back in his belt and held on with both hands. The stallion never broke stride. Up ahead, the two men who had joined the fray on Jesse’s side took the lead and pointed the stampede toward the Vicksburg road as the barn and shattered corral receded into the night.

Doc Stark came lumbering out of the corral, making good time despite his game leg. His eyes were black with fury, and his chest heaved as he gulped in air. He looked from Emory, leaning against the wall of the barn, to Milo, standing barefoot, his bandaged fist cradling the rifle. Black smoke curled from the long barrel.

“What are you doing! Get your horses saddled!” Doc roared. He fished in his coat pocket and found an extra cylinder for his Colt revolver. He broke the weapon apart and reloaded.

“Nothin’ we can do,” Titus Connolly said from the door. “Cicero here says that was the Gray Fox himself, Bon Tyrone. No telling how many men are running with him. Besides, we got gold to worry about.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll let Jesse McQueen have these horses,” Doc snapped. “Now, saddle your nags!” He glowered like an old bull looking for something to charge at.

Milo nodded. “We’re with you. Right, Emory?”

The youngest of the three brothers merely groaned. It was all he could manage as his legs buckled and he slid down the barn wall. Splinters snagged his shirt, tearing the cloth. His hands clutched at the red stain spreading across his belly. Numbness from the waist down. He saw his brothers rushing toward him and heard a sound like voices, but from far off. Someone was telling someone else to fetch a doctor. Emory stared at the blood seeping through his fingers. How could this be? No. It was a dream. He’d wake up—wake up any minute and be safe.

Jesse McQueen never quite saw it happen. One moment he was alone, riding drag on a galloping herd of wild horses, and the next, as if materializing from the shadows, Confederate cavalrymen appeared to either side of him. A mile later still more gray-clad riders took up positions flanking the herd, and by the time another few miles had passed the number of Rebels had swelled to forty, causing Jesse to ruefully consider the empty revolver in his belt. He had his hideout gun in his boot, but it would do precious little against such numbers.

When the men leading the herd signaled for the others to halt, Jesse felt his pulse quicken and he knew his hour was at hand. There’d be no escape. As the herd slowed, one of the two dirt farmers in the lead, the oddly familiar one, dropped back and brought his horse up alongside McQueen. The supposed farmer now sported a gray hat adorned with a black plume. He scratched at his bearded chin and watched Jesse with some bemusement.

“I reckon I owe you my thanks,” Jesse said.

“Think of it as a debt repaid,” the man replied.

“A debt?”

“My name is Captain Bon Tyrone.”

Jesse nodded, catching the resemblance and fitting into place the piece of the mental puzzle he’d been struggling with. Ophelia’s brother. The resemblance was strong. “Thank you, Mr. McQueen, for my sister’s life. And for these fine horses,” Tyrone added.

“My pleasure.” Jesse glanced about at the hardbitten cavalrymen who made up Tyrone’s command. Each man carried a brace of pistols, a carbine, a big-bladed “Arkansas toothpick,” and some sported a hand ax for felling trees or splitting skulls.

“Now what?” Jesse asked, prepared to run or fight, whatever it took to stay alive.

“Join us,” Tyrone said. He chuckled softly. “I have a feeling my sister could find you the right color of uniform.”

Jesse found himself liking this dashing Rebel officer. They could easily become friends. It would make betraying him even harder. And what about pert, pretty Ophelia Tyrone?
I’d like to see her again
, McQueen thought. The roan whinnied and shook its mane, eager to run.

“Well?” Bon said. “Join us. Or ride on back to Memphis, but Lord only knows what for.”

Don’t think. Don’t feel. This is the war you must fight.

“I’ll come along.”

“Good.” Bon grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Now relax. After all … ” He gestured to the rough-looking bunch surrounding them, men who would have shot McQueen’s heart out if they’d suspected the truth. “You’re among friends.”

“P
RESIDENT DAVIS, MAY I
present Captain Bon Tyrone of the First Mississippi Volunteers,” said the diminutive Confederate general Joe Johnston, hero of Seven Pines and commander of the Army of the West.

Bon Tyrone saluted the president of the Confederacy, a hatchet-faced, sallow-skinned individual dressed simply in frock coat and trousers. Here was a quiet and unassuming man who bore the weight of his responsibility without complaint.

“Ah … the Gray Fox …” Davis extended his hand. “Tales of your exploits have resounded all the way to the capitol steps in Richmond along with the deeds of Jeb Stuart and Bedford Forrest.”

“I am honored to have my name spoken in the same breath as those officers,” Tyrone said humbly. “And may I present my sister, Ophelia, and her escort, Lieutenant Jesse McQueen.”

Ophelia Tyrone, resplendent in a pale blue hoop skirt trimmed with cream-colored lace at the hem and daringly low bodice, curtsied as if to royalty. All she knew of the Confederacy’s beleaguered president was what she read in the
Daily Whig
and heard from the occasional officer who stayed the night as a guest at Dunsinane. But to meet the president in person left her speechless and in awe.

Davis bowed and kissed her proffered hand and, as she stepped past, shifted his intense gaze to the dark-haired man behind her.

“McQueen … the name is familiar to me. I knew your father. …” Davis stroked his chin.

General Johnston spoke up. “The lieutenant stole over a hundred horses destined for Sherman’s own command. He is a remarkable horseman and has proven himself an invaluable courier between myself in Jackson and Pemberton here in Vicksburg. He is our best rider. I have never seen the like.”

“Welcome, good fellow, and well done,” Davis said, shaking the lieutenant’s hand.

“It is an extreme pleasure to meet you, President Davis,” Jesse said. His thoughts were a parade of possibilities. He could pull the Smith & Wesson from his boot and shoot President Davis dead, thus ending the butchery of war. But would it? Wars were made by more than one man. And Jefferson Davis, though the head of the Confederacy, was certainly not the heart. The suffering and bloodshed would continue until the resolve of one side or the other was crushed or until the nation as a whole, sickened by the loss of so many good men, halted the conflict out of exhaustion. No, shooting Davis would only result in Jesse’s own death.

He continued on down the line, presenting his regards to the gray-clad officers and dignitaries of Vicksburg. Tall, humorless General John C. Pemberton, the Philadelphia-born commander of Vicksburg’s defenses and the more than thirteen thousand soldiers garrisoned in the terraced city, was the last officer at the end of the presentation line. His perfunctory “good evening,” repeated to each and every guest, did nothing to impede the flow of officers and their ladies as well as the select townspeople into the ballroom of this Greek Revival manor. Carriages lined the drive, while beyond the stone walls of the gardens out on Monroe Street, the curious waited for a glimpse of the president.

The house, ringed on all four sides by gardens of boxwood and magnolias, was the stately haunt of Judge Artemus Miller, whose daughter was Ophelia’s contemporary and her closest friend.

Ophelia glanced at Jesse, placed her arm in his, and led him across the ballroom floor, removing him from the clutches of half a dozen young belles who’d swarmed like bees to honey the minute Captain Bon Tyrone entered the room.

“Shall I wait here and let you return for your brother?” Jesse chuckled.

“He can take care of himself. Rather those girls should beware,” Ophelia said.

They had entered through the French doors opening onto the garden. Once inside, McQueen had to marvel at the ostentatious setting arranged for President Davis. The pianoforte, harp, violins, and woodwinds were still being tuned, the musicians struggling to hear the pitch of their instruments over the noisy conversations filling the ballroom.

A row of long heavy tables dominated one end of the room. Behind the tables a half-dozen red-coated servants plied the guests with platters of pork and roast beef, breasts of turkey ringed with dewberry jelly, loaves of piping hot bread, pecan pies, fig cakes, and bowls of Indian pudding with two sauces, a sugary-sweet one for the ladies, and for the gentlemen, one laced with enough brandy to curl the tongue. Bowls of wine punch had been placed at intervals and were refilled as quickly as they were drained.