Ride the Panther (14 page)

“Makes sense to me,” Booth said. He motioned for Moses to lead the way through the door and out of the office into the main part of the bank. A clerk had already stationed himself behind the appropriate screen.

“Who’s going to pay for these damages?” Lucius seemed aghast.

“You’ve taken everything the Tellicos have,” Jesse said.

“How dare you even suggest we make reparations out of our own accounts,” Rose Minley indignantly blurted out.

Jesse glanced up at the bullet holes. “Just call it ‘overhead.’”

Shug Jones, a chunky, taciturn man just shy of fifty who could be counted on to tend bar and keep his mouth shut, waited at the rear of the Medicine Wagon Saloon. Dobie Johnson, a slim, freckle-faced eighteen-year-old, rootless as a tumbleweed, and with a temper as quick to flare as dry kindling, kept Shug company. Cap Featherstone had seen something of himself in Dobie and had taken the young man under his wing. Dobie was wild and reckless and a favorite of the perfumed ladies of the evening whose affections could be bought for a silver dollar but whose weary hearts were beyond the reach of any man’s moneybelt.

“Unload these casks and roll ’em into the storage room,” Cap ordered, climbing down from the wagon seat. He rubbed his posterior in an attempt to get some feeling back into his muscles and climbed the back steps to the back door of his office. The Medicine Wagon Saloon was a spacious two-storied building with an office and storage room in back, a broad, high-ceilinged saloon with bedrooms upstairs for the “doves” of the Medicine Wagon to ply their trade. An ornate stairway wide enough for a man to ride a horse up dominated the north wall. A balustrade overhead topped by a heavy velvet drape formed a darkened hallway off of which seven doorways beckoned with promises of earthly delights. Whether a customer stayed for an hour or a night depended on the willingness of the fallen angel, the depth of his wallet, and the gentleman’s own stamina.

Cap Featherstone cut through his office, a sparsely appointed room with a desk, an iron safe against the rear wall, a highbacked wooden swivel chair behind a nicked and cluttered desk, and a cabinet into which the former Medicine Show huckster quickly unloaded a wooden case of champagne he had protected along the trail from Kansas. With his own personal treasure stashed away, he shrugged off his coat and opened his shirt to the waist. The arthritis in his right knee was acting up. Leaning on his gator-head cane, the big man lumbered out into his own little bit of paradise.

The saloon was large enough to hold a dozen poker tables, a faro table, a chuck-a-luck table, and, along the south wall, a massive mahogany bar with a brass footrail, brass spittoons for the patrons, and a portrait of a reclining nude across whose ample proportions trailed a gauze veil. She was painted life-size and had an alluring smile, as if inviting each man to belly up to the bar and share some special tempestuous secret known only to her.

An immense wooden chandelier like a giant wheel hung from the ceiling by a thick chain. A dozen lamps were attached to the chandelier, which could be raised and lowered as needed. A thick iron rod jutted from the top of the chandelier, and the chain passed through a hole in the rod like a thread through the eye of a needle.

The saloon was nearly empty. With Shug out back unloading the wagon, there was no one to tend the bar. Hud Pardee had taken Shug’s place behind the bar, but the only drinks he’d poured were for himself. The girls were upstairs taking an afternoon rest save for China Torrence, a solitary lass in silks and feathers and a worn blue satin gown who sat on the ample lap of a muleskinner, her arms draped around the man’s neck. China and half a dozen townfolk were gathered around one of the poker tables where Enos Clem held court with a game of three-card monte. It was a deceptively simple game to while away the afternoon. Clem showed the ace of hearts to the muleskinner, then placed the card face-down on the table and flanked it with a pair of queens, also face-down. Then in a burst of lightninglike dexterity, he passed his hands over the cards, shuffling them over and under one another. The teamster thought himself able to spot the ace and placed his bets accordingly. Enos matched him two for one and invited the others to put their faith and their wagers on the teamster’s unerring eye.

“Here you are, my good men. The ace is the eagle bird and will win you two for one. Follow the ace with your eyes as it dances with these two lovely ladies. Red queens you lose, gents. Only the ace will carry you home with money in your pockets. Here is the ace. Now here it is. But you only get one chance to find it. Here it is. Now where has it gone? Do you know, sir? Ah, you have a sharp eye, my friend, will you take a chance? The ace is the winning card. Show me the color of your money, my lads. I take no bets from widows, paupers, cripples, or children. But the rest of you, pay your money and take your chances. Twenty dollars, sir? Now there is a man with grit. I respect it, gents. But forgive me if I don’t wish any of you luck.”

The teamster made his choice. A chorus of groans followed. The prostitute who had been waiting for him to quit the game suddenly realized her would-be paramour had just lost the last of his wages. He had nothing to pay her. She jumped off his lap.

“Hey. Where are you going?” the teamster bellowed in an ugly mood. He shoved clear of the table. Cap could see trouble coming as clear as a thunderhead on a hot summer’s day. Cap made his way across the room and placed his massive form in front of the teamster, who seemed little in comparison to Featherstone.

“She’s going upstairs to wait for you,” Cap said. “And I warrant she’ll take the sting out of your losses.” One free visit was worth not having his place torn up by the mean-tempered freight hauler, and no doubt the man would not only return but probably bring some friends. Cap turned to the saloon girl and indicated the stairway with a nod of his head in that direction. China was barely nineteen, with the eyes of a woman three times her age and a sallow complexion expertly hidden beneath layers of rouge and powdery makeup. Cap didn’t know her name. He didn’t want to. The “Babylon Belles” were merely articles of property, with no more importance than the furniture or the liquor. In truth, all three were essential if he was to appeal to all the vices, but his interest was purely professional. He never wagered with his own money, drank whiskey from the bar, or sampled the sinful pleasures of the
bagnio.
This was his own personal code of conduct and as important to him as the commandments to Parson Marshal Booth. He’d added another over the past year—never murder a friend unless it was absolutely necessary. That notion came to him as he joined Hud Pardee at the bar.

The gunman with the black patch over his left eye poured Featherstone a tall glass of cool milk from a clay pitcher Shug kept below the bar. Hud helped himself to a whiskey. He had no code, but, like the trickster coyote, took advantage of every opportunity that presented itself. Whatever pleased him was fair game.

Hud looked much the same as he had in Kansas City, though he had exchanged his black silk shirt for a flannel one identical in color. He continued to wear a black frock coat and waist sash and sport a brace of Navy Colts. He brushed a hand through his ash-gray hair and then held up a shot glass of tea-colored whiskey in salute to Featherstone, who acknowledged by raising his eyebrows then turned his attention to the gambler dealing three-card monte.

“Is that Clem?” Cap asked.

Hud nodded, and waved a hand toward the gambler, who excused himself from the table. Cap noticed that one of the men, Hack Warner, had already lost a couple of precious dollars and sat at the table glaring at the queens and ace as if they had offered him some personal affront. Since the Knights had burnt him out, he had no money to spare.

Enos Clem believed in playing the odds and running with his luck as long as it held. His creed was “Play it to the bust.” And right now he was willing to let things ride. He didn’t know what game Hud and Cap Featherstone were up to, but as soon as he figured out the rules, he planned on cutting himself a place at the table.

His pale white skin befit a man who spent much of his life in shadowy, smoke-filled saloons, shielded from sunlight and fresh air. But Clem knew what he was missing and preferred it that way. On his way over to the bar, he tossed a coin to the dark-skinned piano player, a freed slave by the name of Tandy Matlock who had taught himself to play the piano at an early age. Tandy had spent the last ten years traveling from saloon to brothel throughout the Indian Territory, but he was nearing seventy now and the snowy-haired old man, reluctant to move on, had begun to think of Chahta Creek as his home. He caught the coin in midflight and touched the short brim of his hat and headed for the piano set in an alcove beneath the stairs. He took a seat before the keyboard and soon the sweet melodic strains of “Will you wait for me, oh Shenandoah” floated through the saloon.

“Enos, this here is Cap Featherstone,” Hud said.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.” Clem held out a small but respectable stack of his winnings for the morning. He had allowed the men at the table to win just enough to keep them interested, and one man to walk away with a profit which Enos planned to win back at a future date.

“Looks like the pleasure is all mine.” Cap grinned. He took the bills, cut a percentage for the gambler, and tucked the rest in his pocket. “We’ll try to make your stay with us a profitable one.”

“I figured the Indian Territory to be nothing but tipis and savages,” Clem replied. Hud slid a bottle over to the gambler. His long tapered fingers curled around a shot glass and tossed down a drink, then he sucked in a cooling breath as his eyes began to water.

Hud winked, and patted a nearby glass jar in which a coiled rattler slept in a nest of sagebrush twigs and decaying leaves. “It’s the poison from ol’ Stonewall here that gives it character.” The snake struck at the side of the bottle and Hud on reflex pulled his hand off the glass.

There was a standing offer of a shiny gold double eagle against a dollar for any man who could keep from jerking his hand back when the snake made its killing lunge, fangs bared. It was a wager no one had been able to collect on, but that didn’t stop the saloon’s patrons from trying. Cap Featherstone had lived long enough to know a man running on whiskey courage who thinks he has no limitations is an easy man to make a profit off.

“Rattler poison, my ass,” Enos Clem skeptically replied. Still, he didn’t like the way the two men at the bar exchanged those knowing glances. He decided to pursue another topic. “Mr. Featherstone. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to be here. But still I can’t help but wonder why Hud saved my skin, staked me, and brought me here all the way from Missouri.” He pursed his lips and took a moment to mentally tabulate the towns and settlements he had passed through on his way to Chahta Creek. They all had their share of saloons and games of chance. “I’m not the only gambler in the territory…”

“Indeed you are not,” Cap concurred. “However I was looking for a man who can do more than deal faro.” Featherstone motioned for Clem to draw near. “Pardee and I were looking for someone who wouldn’t mind being wealthy even if it meant a little risk now and then. Someone smart enough to keep his mouth shut. In short, we’re looking for a partner.”

Hud Pardee seemed as surprised as Enos by Cap’s announcement. He was only barely willing to tolerate a fifty-fifty split in the fortune to be made. Suddenly his share had shrunk into a third. The warning look in Cap’s eyes kept him from blurting out his displeasure.

“Partners in what?”

“Let’s call it a land venture, split three ways,” Cap said. “In the meantime you deal faro and run the games and see the house wins its share of the spoils.”

“No problem,” Clem said. He was intrigued, there was no denying it. Cap Featherstone also had an aura of success about him. If Cap was into something good, Clem was more than happy to hold onto the big man’s coattails and allow himself to be swept along with the flow.

“Are you gonna stand over here and jaw or give me a chance to win my money back?” Hack Warner said. Although he had been drinking, it didn’t affect his movements, but the stench of rotgut clung to his clothes.

Cap turned to look at Warner, who advanced on the gambler.

“It appears from your lack of manners that you’ve had enough to drink,” Cap said.

“Sure. Sober up and go on home. Only I ain’t got a home. The prettiest stretch along the Texas Road and them damn raiders come and burn me out. I built that place with my own two hands. All gone. All gone to the Knights of the Golden Circle!”

“Take a room upstairs and sleep it off, Hack,” Cap said in a conciliatory tone. “On the house.”

“I go to Lucius Minley to loan me the money to start over and he says collateral—I got to have collateral before he’ll advance me a dime. I told him my goddamn collateral got burnt all to hell.” Hack was a tough, leathery individual who had hunted and trapped with the Choctaws in Mississippi in the days before the Trail of Tears brought the civilized tribes west to Indian Territory. He had thick bushy eyebrows hunched forward in a scowl. He wore a linsey-woolsey shirt, fringed buckskin breeches, and high-topped moccasins. His hair was a mass of short brown curls shot with silver and thinning on the top.

He pointed to the table. “If I can track a snowshoe rabbit in the snow or trail a curly wolf to its den, I can by God find that little ace, one in three, and win enough to sit down to a proper game of poker.”

“I am at your service, my friend,” said Enos Clem, and flashed his undertaker’s smile. “And the house will wager three to your one on every pass of the cards, eh?” He left the bar and sauntered across the broad open room to the table where Hack Warner and a couple of his cronies were determined to beat the gambler at his own game.

Once Clem was out of earshot, Hud Pardee leaned forward and spoke softly, his single blue eye boring into the big man on the other side of the long solid-looking bar. Hud’s knee touched the wooden stock of a sawed-off shotgun Shug kept hidden in case of trouble.