Only the Gallant (9 page)

Jesse glared at the soldiers. Beyond them, he noticed several of the townspeople had also come to watch, and one of them appeared to be taking notes. McQueen had a feeling his court-martial would make the local newspaper.

“Maybe I have,” he retorted, loud enough to be heard by everyone present.

A shove from behind sent him staggering out of the encampment and onto the wheel-rutted street that led toward the center of town. He looked around at Captain Elys, whose stern features appeared etched in stone. Jesse spat in the dirt and continued on his way, taking with him nothing but his gun and his shame.

“God, I hate to see that,” General William Sherman muttered. Sunlight poured through the unshuttered window and turned the hardwood floor beneath his feet the color of butterscotch. He kept an unlit cigar firmly clenched between his teeth and looked more gaunt than usual as he watched what only he and Major Peter Abbot and the poor bastard outside knew to be a charade. The general turned to glare at his bespectacled visitor seated on a bench perusing a child’s primer he’d discovered on the floor beneath a bookshelf. Peter Abbot sensed the general’s stare and looked up.

“What do you want me to say, General Sherman?”

“I don’t know,” Sherman replied. His tall, rail-thin frame was bowed with the burden of command. “Maybe we should have told the men. They were pretty rough on McQueen.”

“If we had told the men outside, then we might as well have posted broadsides throughout Memphis declaring the whole procedure to be a fraud, a fabrication concocted by myself to plant a Union agent in the midst of the enemy,” Abbot flatly stated. He removed his wire-rim spectacles and wiped the lenses on a swath of cloth fished from his pocket. Abbot was dressed as a drummer now, a purveyor of women’s undergarments and bolts of cloth. “General, with all due respect, in this business, the fewer people who know the truth, the better. The only reason I’ve told you is that I wanted to make sure you didn’t have McQueen shot instead of court-martialed.”

Sherman glanced up sharply, removed the cigar from his mouth, and tossed it in the nearest wastebasket. This black business had even ruined his taste for tobacco.

“It galls me to see an innocent man dishonored and humiliated as has been done this day. How do you stand it, Major?”

“I don’t watch,” Abbot matter-of-factly replied. He set the primer aside and clasped his hands. “I sometimes wonder if it weren’t better to be born a dog; to live, eat, sleep, to get by in ignorance. To die and be done with it. No decisions, no subterfuge, no right or wrong to worry about. Yes, I envy such an existence.” Abbot stood and ambled over to another cabinet where Sherman kept a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and a couple of glasses. He poured a measure for himself after the general nodded his unspoken permission and then returned to his bench. He crossed his legs and leaned against the wall. “But I have been born a man in a time of war.”

“And what sort of man is young McQueen?” the general wondered aloud.

“One who loves his country, General Sherman,” Abbot replied. He sipped the bourbon, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Ben McQueen is just about the bravest and most honorable man I have ever met. His sons are cut from the same cloth.” He raised his glass in salute to Jesse McQueen and gulped the last of the bourbon. It burned a fiery path down his gullet and he sucked in a lungful of air to temper the heat.

“So now what do we do?” Sherman gruffly inquired. He preferred his battles out in the open, both camps drawn up to either side of the battlefield. It was easier to order men to die when the way was clear and all parties were at risk. He wouldn’t have traded places with McQueen for all the cigars in Virginia.

“We wait,” Abbot told him, “for Johnny Reb to make the next move.”

T
HE COURT-MARTIAL WAS ALL
the talk among the patrons of the Channel Cat Saloon down by the waterfront. And as most of the men lining the bar or slumped in chairs around the card tables wore blue uniforms, the conversation became louder and more threatening the longer Jesse remained in the room. He was seated in a corner with his back to the wall, and a bottle, three-quarters empty, rested on the table in front of him. The empty shot glass was like a challenge, daring the man to chance one more drink.

Jesse no longer wore his previous uniform. He had exchanged his blue trousers for a pair of faded brown canvas pants and a coarsely woven cotton shirt. Black boots, his leather gunbelt, and a worn-at-elbows brown frock coat completed his attire. He yawned and ran a hand through his shaggy black mane and wished he’d been able to talk the merchant of Evans’s Mercantile into extending him credit for a hat. The merchant, however, was a shrewd Southerner who recognized a bad deal when it was offered him. He kept his hats and sent Jesse on his way bareheaded.

A chorus of ugly laughter erupted from along the bar. At a table nearest to McQueen’s, five crewmen from the transport
Henry Clay
gambled for one another’s pay. One of the cardplayers, a swarthy, pinched-face engineer, had lost all his money and was looking for someone to blame for his misfortune. Naturally, he found just the man responsible. Ignoring the protests of his associates, the engineer shoved clear of the table and lumbered unsteadily across the room toward the solitary ex-soldier in the corner. When he reached Jesse’s table, the engineer leaned forward on his knuckles. Beads of sweat dripped from his jowls.

“Hey, turncoat, I heard all about you,” he said. “Bad luck. You brung me bad luck is what.”

Jesse poured himself a drink and, lifting the glass to his lips, surreptitiously surveyed the room. Yes, there they were, two men in civilian clothes standing near the door, trying not to call attention to themselves. They had been following him throughout much of the evening, from one waterfront tavern to another. The Channel Cat was the loudest, most crowded, and smoke-filled of the lot. The owner was a Union sympathizer and eager to serve the federals and take their money. For a mere dollar, one Yankee greenback, a man could even visit one of the girls in the rooms upstairs and have a
real
good time.

Jesse peered past the rim of the glass at his two “shadows.” They were a mismatched pair. One sported a carefully trimmed goatee and mustache. He looked strong and, even in the ragged attire of a farmer, carried himself like an aristocrat. There was something decidedly familiar about him, but McQueen was certain he had never met the man before. His companion also wore the down-at-heel raiments of a dirt farmer, and a poor one at that. Yet from the look of his ruddy complexion and firm, round belly, the man had not missed too many meals.

The
Henry Clay’s
engineer shifted his stance to block Jesse’s line of sight.

“I said what are you gonna do about it?” The engineer was drunk and looking for trouble.

“Leave the man be, Hank,” another of the crewmen called out. “Come and take a dollar from the pot and spend it on a gal upstairs.”

“Better listen to your friends, Hank,” McQueen quietly added, his brown eyes hard as granite. He did not want trouble, but if it came … No. He swallowed his pride and began looking for a way out.

The engineer glanced around at his companions, who offered no encouragement. Suddenly a mustachioed corporal at the bar raised his whiskey bottle and shouted out, “Here’s to President Lincoln! Here’s to the United States! And down with Johnny Reb and them who turns their back on the Stars and Stripes!” Then he tilted the bottle to his lips and drank three times.

Several soldiers stood and shouted “Hurrah” and raised tankards and glasses in salute to the corporal’s sentiments. The
Henry Clay
’s engineer grinned and wiped his nose on his forearm. He frowned, remembering the turncoat, and swung around. “Now as I was … ” He was talking to an empty wall. He blinked and rubbed his eyes and stared at the empty seat as if half expecting a trail of blue mist to rise from the chair marking where Jesse had been. “What the hell?” the engineer muttered, shook his head, and decided to take his cohorts up on that dollar. He staggered past the open window to the right of the corner table. Like almost everyone else in the tavern he’d been so busy “hurrahing” the Union he hadn’t noticed McQueen swing a leg over the sill and drop into the black alley outside.

But the two men by the door had seen McQueen make his escape, for they had ignored the boisterous throng. Bon Tyrone and Spider Boudreaux had no cheers for these blue-clad aggressors and what they represented. Tyrone nodded to the bald man beside him and started for the door. But the Cajun had a tankard of hard cider to finish and started to protest. Tyrone shrugged and, facing the room, wiped a hand to his mouth. “Here’s to General Grant!” The soldiers were getting into the mood now and cheered wildly.

“Here’s to General Sherman,” Boudreaux called out, and took another swallow from the tankard. Again the soldiers in the Channel Cat responded.

“And three cheers for Jefferson Davis,” Bon Tyrone called out. “Hip, hip, hooray!” And the tavern crowd, without realizing what had been said, raised their voices in a hearty hurrah for the president of the Confederacy. Spider Boudreaux gulped and set his tankard down and followed the Gray Fox out the door. On “hip hip” number three, the cheering died. “What the hell?” a voice called out, and the soldiers in the bar began looking around for the culprit who had instigated such a treasonous salute.

Jesse headed straight down River Street, leaving the taverns behind. He had spent half the night squandering the last of his money on bad whiskey and cheap conversation. To one bartender he had renounced any loyalty to the Union and in another saloon he had asserted that federal troops were without honor. On a street corner he had drunkenly voiced such sentiments as to rouse the ire of some passing soldiers, and only by the grace of their commanding officer did he escape a savage beating. But the Channel Cat had been his last stop. He had established his sentiments. Now it was time for action.

He left the tavern district and spied the drummer’s wagon, its team of bay geldings ground-tethered in a vacant lot. With a furtive glance over his shoulder, Jesse veered toward the paneled wagon, shuffling and wavering just enough to give the impression of a man who’d reached his limits. He stepped up to the rear wheel, unbuttoned his fly, and proceeded to urinate against the hub.

“Goddammit, Jesse, I’m under here.” Major Peter Abbot’s harsh whisper drifted up from beneath the wagon.

“I know.” McQueen chuckled. “Serves you right for putting me through that show this afternoon.”

“Son of a bitch. All over my bedroll,” Abbot muttered.

Jesse heard the sound of blankets and gunbelt and boots being pulled away from the spreading puddle. “Better stay under the wagon, I think I’m being followed.”

“Oh, hell,” Abbot groaned. “Think you’re so smart … no respect for your elders … Ben didn’t whip you enough when you were young. …Of course you’re being followed. I’ve seen them. Dirt farmers, my ass. If one of them isn’t a Confederate officer, I’ll eat my hat. Well, no, I won’t, seeing as you’ve pissed on it.”

“Calm down, Uncle. My my, you do have a temper,” Jesse said, buttoning his pants. He leaned on the wheel rim and scraped the bottom of his boots clean on a spoke. “I’m heading south,” he added.

“Tonight?”

“Be safer than staying in Memphis what with half the army thinking I ought to be strung up and the other half shot.”

“You don’t have a horse.”

“I’ll steal one. I spied plenty of mounts in a corral yonder.” McQueen glanced toward a barn and corral set well back from the bluffs midway between the town proper and the rowdy streets and alleys by the docks where Union gunboats and transports were moored along the banks of the Mississippi.

“That’s Doc Stark’s herd.”

“Even better,” McQueen replied. His boots were scraped clean. There was no reason to linger by the wagon any longer without arousing the suspicions of whoever might be watching. “I’ll be seeing you, Uncle.”

“Jesse. I promised your pa I wouldn’t let you come to any harm. Don’t make a liar out of me. The Starks are a mean bunch.” The voice seemed to be coming from the front axle up near the singletree. The major had maneuvered to dry ground. Jesse was astonished. Damn if Abbot didn’t sound almost worried. Uncle Peter must be getting softhearted in his old age.

“No problem,” said Jesse. “The Starks will never know I’ve paid them a visit. Not till they count their tally. Remember, I’m part Indian.” McQueen hitched up his trousers, stepped around the drummer’s wagon, and headed toward the corral and the herd just waiting for him to make his pick.

A full moon bathed the restless herd in its silvery light. Wild mares and stallions circled the fencing and kept clear of Jesse as he opened the gate, leaving it unlatched. He trod steadily across the trampled earth. A roan stallion swung about to confront the intruder. The horse neighed and pawed the ground and shook his flowing mane as if it were a battle flag.

Jesse began to chant in a soft sibilant tone the words a Choctaw horse trader had taught him. It was a spirit song only a few men knew, for the ways of the Horse Clan were guarded and mysterious.

“Be gentle, brave one,

For you and I will be brothers.

We will ride the wind.

You will carry me and

Sweet grasses shall be

Yours to eat.

Be gentle, brave one,

For your brother is coming.”

The blaze-faced roan gazed warily at the approaching human but held its ground as if spellbound by the chant. Jesse, pausing after each step, advanced on the stallion until he had drawn close enough to reach out and stroke its neck and muzzle. The stallion’s hot breath fanned the man’s knuckles, and the animal trembled as Jesse continued to run the flat of his hand over its flesh, all the while steadily repeating the spirit song. At last it was time for the moment of truth.

McQueen adjusted his belt, then gripped the stallion’s bloodred mane. He checked the silent barn for a telltale movement. If the stallion fought him, the noise was bound to attract attention. The open doorway remained black and empty. Good. He’d caught the Starks sleeping. They’d never know. …