Ride the Panther (2 page)

Ben McQueen shook his head in disgust. He took no pleasure in this. “I don’t even know you.”

“Don’t matter. I ain’t nobody. Just tryin’ to earn a few dollars.” From downriver came a menacing hiss as someone bled the steam pressure from the boiler of a riverboat, the
Missouri Queen.
Ben glanced around at the sound and then down at the gun in his hand. He’d thumbed the hammer back and was ready to shoot. The attack in the warehouse had left him as skittish as a yearling. He returned his attention to the man at his feet.

“Who sent you?” Ben asked.

The wounded man, kneeling at the end of the pier, eased over on his backside to better face McQueen. “Never seen a big man move so quick.” Indeed, Ben towered over him as Seth lay with his legs splayed out and struggled to stay alive. Seth gasped and his bearded features drew tight against the bones of his face. “See that I’m laid out proper. And I want a coach with six black horses to carry me to the buryin’ ground. And someone to read words over me. You promise and I’ll tell you.”

“I promise. It will be as you say.” Ben took a step closer. “Now, who paid you to kill me?”

A lurid grin split the assassin’s ugly features as he raised a hand and pointed past McQueen. “Him,” said Seth.

Ben heard the groan of weathered wood behind him. He stiffened. A gunshot rang in his ears. Something kicked him in the back and he stumbled forward, arms outstretched, reaching into space. He felt pain, numbness, a curious mixture of both and a loss of breath and black waters rushed to engulf him as he toppled from the pier and broke the cold black surface of the river.

“Got him. Got him dead to rights,” Seth called out, then coughed and clenched his fist at the pain. “That damn mixed-blood sure put me in a bad way. But if you can get me to a sawbones…” Seth’s voice trailed off. “Oh no. Please. We had a deal—”

A second shot took the top of his head off and slammed him backward, left him dangling over the end of the pier. The weight of Seth’s upper torso gradually dragged him over the edge and into the Missouri where, like Ben McQueen, he disappeared without a trace.

O
RDINARILY, CAPTAIN JESSE REDBOW
McQueen would have cut his losses and folded his hand. But he had glimpsed something in the gambler seated across the table from him. The game had lasted most of the night and run the sun up without a break. It had begun with five men seated round the table. Now two of them were enjoying a delayed breakfast of country ham, biscuits and gravy, black coffee, and corn dodgers dipped in wild honey.

The men were gathered in the saloon on the hurricane deck of the
Westward Belle;
it was a cheerfully appointed, wood-paneled room that sported oil-lamp chandeliers hung from the generously high ceiling. A gleaming walnut bar offered just about any libation known to man. Often drinks were concocted on the spot. The
Belle’s
captain, Nicodemus Stockwood, was famous for his ability to imbibe copious quantities of spirits and maintain a level head. Jesse had expressed concern to the riverboat captain and suggested the man might curtail his proclivity for drink, to which Stockwood promptly responded with accounts of his only two accidents, both of which occurred when he was stone-cold sober.

The
Belle
was three days out from St. Louis and loaded with blue-clad troops camped amid crates and barrels on the lower deck. Rooms on the hurricane deck were reserved for merchants bound for points west and Union officers posted to the border states. Jesse wore the garb of a cavalry officer, a dark blue coat with yellow shoulder bars adorned with the two gold bars that indicated his rank and pale blue pants tucked into knee-high black boots. His coat was unbuttoned to reveal a loose-fitting white cotton shirt and the shiny brass buckle of his gunbelt.

“The raise is fifty dollars to you,” Enos Clem announced for the second time. And again he licked his lips. It was an almost imperceptible gesture, just a tiny pink flick of tongue. But Jesse had noticed. Clem was beginning to tire. Clem had been a shrewd player, taking his winnings a little at a time, riding his luck, increasing his wagers the more he came to know the other men in the game. But he had become overconfident, and he’d begun to take risks.

Throughout the night Jesse had played cautiously and conservatively, only staying in the game when he had a chance at winning the pot. Now Enos Clem figured he had the officer pegged. As the other men folded and Jesse remained, Clem had thrown caution to the wind. Now suddenly the stakes had gotten out of hand and there were six hundred and thirty dollars in gold and greenbacks on the table.

Jesse examined the cards he held: the deuce and four of diamonds, a jack of clubs, the seven and ten of hearts. It was a bust hand in any book, as bad a hand as he’d been dealt since sitting down at the table. Jesse glanced at the man on his left, a stocky good-natured lawyer who could not seem to stop yawning.

“Let’s make this interesting. According to Stockwood, we’ll be in Kansas City within the hour. I need a shave before we dock,” Jesse said, and promptly took the assortment of coins and currency in front of him and added them to the pot.

“I’ll see your fifty and bump it up another two hundred and fifty.” Jesse placed his five cards facedown on the table in front of him, like a gauntlet hurled down in invitation to a duel. The raise took the gambler by surprise. He wiped a hand across his mouth, then rubbed his eyes, and studied his opponent.

The eldest son of Ben McQueen was a handsome young officer who at the age of twenty-two had earned his captain’s rank. His eyes were dark, the color of old leaves become black with decay. His black hair was an unruly forest of curls. In his boots he stood no taller than five foot ten, but size had little to do with his presence. Even in repose, he possessed a catlike grace, relaxed in his chair yet ready to spring. He’d grown a black mustache since the Vicksburg campaign, throughout which he’d played an integral part as both Union spy and officer assigned to General Sherman’s staff. But those months of danger and bloodshed lay behind him. As for what lay ahead, only time and a certain Major Peter Abbot awaiting him in Kansas City would tell. Jesse glanced at the two men who remained in the game. His features were as flat and expressionless as an unmarked grave. The ability to disguise his intentions had saved his life on more than one occasion.

“A man would be a damn fool to cross that bridge,” the lawyer said, and tucked what remained of his cash inside his coat pocket. He rose from the table, nodded to the dozen or so spectators circling the table at a respectful distance. Clem had taken a healthy share of their money over the past three days. More than one man wanted to see the gambler get his comeuppance.

Enos Clem ran his long fingers through his brown hair and rubbed the back of his neck. He studied the officer across the table from him and then lowered his gaze to the money on the table. Sweat ran a trail along the side of his pasty white features. Tiny veins, like spiderwebs across his cheeks, reddened.

“You’re running a bluff, Captain McQueen,” the gambler muttered, sliding his thumb over the three eights he held. He had tried to draw to a full house and failed. He had expected the lawyer to fold, but the Yankee captain was proving far more stubborn. For the past hour, Clem had sensed “lady luck” was turning her back on him. He should have quit hours ago but, damn it, the lure of easy money had bound him to the table as if he had been chained to his chair. As for McQueen’s cards, Clem wasn’t nearly as confident as he sounded. The more he considered it, the less likely it seemed the officer was bluffing. No, the Yankee’s hand would just about clean the gambler out. And if he lost, then he was down to stake money, the few bills he kept tucked away inside his boot. He had figured to buy the last pot, but the tables had turned and he didn’t like it. The snickering among the spectators didn’t help matters. Sure, they’d like to see him lose it all, to throw away every last dollar. Well, Enos Clem knew when to fold, and he was not about to give his fellow passengers the satisfaction of watching him leave with empty pockets.

The steam whistle sounded three blasts to alert the passengers that Kansas City was in sight. Belowdecks the reassuring rumble of the steam engines and the throbbing revolution of the paddle wheel at the stern of the boat plunged the
Western Belle
upriver to its destination.

“The hell with it,” Clem said, and tossed his cards onto the money in the center of the table.

A cheer rose up from the merchants and McQueen’s fellow officers that filled the shipboard saloon. Enos Clem glowered and a twitch developed around his left eye. Had he been bluffed? Pride demanded he learn the truth. He slid his chair back, stood, and, leaning across the table, attempted to flip over the five cards Jesse had placed facedown. Jesse caught the gambler’s wrist.

“I’ll see those cards,” Clem said.

“You didn’t pay for the privilege,” the officer reminded him. Tension suddenly filled the room and men, despite their curiosity, began to give ground and find excuses to put themselves out of harm’s way.

Enos Clem, wearing a black frock coat, string tie, and baleful expression, could have passed for an undertaker appraising a prospective client. Jesse knew little of the gambler’s history, other than the fact he was an Easterner headed for the gold fields of California and traveling on the winnings he acquired along the way. But Jesse McQueen was no stranger to violence and he could see trouble coming like a thunderhead on the horizon of the gambler’s eyes.

Clem dropped a hand toward the gun butt protruding from the waistband of his trousers. It was a Starr revolver, caliber .44, with a sawed-off barrel to enable the weapon to ride comfortably against the gambler’s belly. He’d kept the Starr concealed beneath his vest, until now.

Enos Clem was no slouch. He moved fast, fueled by his pride and his anger. But Jesse McQueen was faster. Survival spurred him. He overturned the table and stepped forward. His right hand was a blur as he caught Clem’s gun hand in middraw and shoved the Starr .44 back in the gambler’s waistband. Clem grunted and winced in pain as the muzzle of the revolver dug into his groin.

Jesse held the gambler’s hand in an iron grip, thumbing the hammer back on the Starr and forcing his finger through the trigger guard. An ounce more of pressure and Clem would shoot himself in the testicles.

“You’ve finished one game. Better not start another,” Jesse said in a quietly ominous tone of voice. He glanced down at the revolver bulging the front of the man’s pants. “You’re not in Boston now, pilgrim. And this is one game I don’t think you’ll have the balls to finish.”

A silver dollar rolled off a nearby table, landed on the wood, rolled a few feet, then spun and settled flat against the floor. A dropped pin would have been heard just as clearly. Jesse never took his eyes from the gambler. The fire cooled in Enos Clem’s veins. It was time to cut his losses before they became—he glanced down at his crotch—unacceptable. Jesse read the surrender in the man’s lowered gaze.

The steam whistle sounded again and the boat shuddered and slowed as it approached the river town. Jesse removed his hand from the gambler’s belly gun. Clem took care to pat the wrinkles from his coat, then sniffed indignantly and, mustering the last of his pride, walked stiffly from the saloon.

The crowd of Union officers and merchants collectively sighed, relieved there hadn’t been gunplay. The quarters were too close and no one in his right mind wanted to risk a stray bullet. Jesse knelt to pick up his winnings off the floor. He was more than six hundred dollars to the good.

“Welcome to Kansas City,” someone said dryly, breaking the tension.

It would do.

“Captain Jesse McQueen. Your presence in Kansas City is urgently required. Come with all due haste. I will be staying at the home of Doctor Milburn Curtis.

Major Peter Abbot”

JESSE ABSENTLY REREAD THE
dispatch that had found him in Vicksburg, then folded the missive and tucked it away in his pocket. He glanced around the dock. The waterfront was crowded with townspeople and soldiers, buckskinners, rivermen, and freed slaves who had escaped bondage in the South and found work as common laborers in this Union-controlled town. Glistening black muscles unloaded goods from the
Westward Belle
and carried crates and barrels aboard. A couple of young lads in faded canvas pants and loose-fitting shirts drove a herd of goats up the pier and into a makeshift pen on the lower deck of the
Belle,
toward the bow.

Jesse noticed Enos Clem disembarking from the riverboat. The frock-coated gambler paused just a step off the gangplank and lit a cigar. Smoke curled beneath the broad white brim of his flat-crowned hat. He gestured to a young mulatto, a lad of eleven or twelve, who clambered down off a barrel and for the promise of a few cents took up the gambler’s carpetbag and followed the man down the pier and along the dock. No doubt Clem intended to visit the saloons along the waterfront and restore to health the contents of his much-depleted purse.

Jesse shrugged, and slung his own saddlebags over his shoulder and headed out onto River Street. No doubt the town marshal would help him locate Doc Curtis. Jesse wasn’t worried.

Peter Abbot was like a member of the family. He had served with Jesse’s father in the Mexican War and had become an unofficial uncle to the children of Ben McQueen. At the outbreak of war, it was to Peter Abbot that Jesse had come with a request to serve under the major’s command. Abbot had been only too happy to oblige. The major’s dispatches, however, were always cut and dried—“Report here” and “Go there” and “Wait until contacted.” Jesse never knew what to expect. However, one thing was certain: no matter where the major’s orders sent Jesse McQueen, the captain could always count on finding trouble at the end of the line.

The marshal of Kansas City was home tending his wife and helping as best he could in the birth of his second child, but his deputy, a laconic young man by the name of Hiram Hays, managed to bestir himself from the marshal’s chair long enough to refill a blue tin cup with coffee from the stove back near the jail cells at the rear of the building. Hiram took his time, enjoying his authority and posturing with all the gravity of a man wise beyond his years.