Ride the Panther (31 page)

“I never trusted Featherstone,” Carmichael said.

“He was a good man once, or so I was told. War changes a man.”

“Maybe it just hid what was there all along,” Carmichael said.

“I reckon as you’ll be heading into Chahta Creek,” Booth spoke up. His tone was formal; his sun-darkened visage, framed by a shock of white hair and beard, wore a stern expression.

“After I’ve dealt with the Knights and Tullock Roberts.”

“Yes, of course. I had no doubt but that you’d finish what you started. But afterwards, I should like to ride with you. If you have no objections to a bull-headed lawman tagging along.”

“None at all,” Jesse said.

The parson marshal pursed his lips a moment, then extended his hand in friendship.

“I’m a little late in this, Jesse, but welcome home.” He chuckled as he shook hands with Ben McQueen’s eldest son.

Moments later the dust of their departure was settling at Jesse’s feet. The Union officer had one final act before he could join the column. He had one final farewell to make, one last reconciliation to attempt.

He shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun and spied the twisting gray tendrils of smoke rising from the top of the knoll behind the house. Pacer knelt by a medicine fire, his long-limbed frame outlined against a brilliant azure sky. His voice drifted on the north wind as he called on the All-Father for guidance. Despite his fair skin and his unbound mane of red hair, he sounded for all the world like a Choctaw warrior praying for guidance, for answers Jesse hoped to supply.

Sunlight dappled the surface of Buffalo Creek. As if strewn with jewels, the watercourse gleamed and sparkled the length of the valley. The wind carried the cool kiss of winter, and formations of geese, ever the precursor of the changing seasons, had begun to appear with regularity over the northern hills. Patches of grass had begun to yellow, and the red oaks trembling in the wind were turning brown and preparing to lose their lustrous foliage.

Jesse climbed the hill behind the house, retracing a well-worn route. How often he had followed this same course to find his grandmother conversing with the spirits. Now he approached his brother, kneeling before a similar prayer smoke. Jesse could not deny that something stirred in his own soul as he took his place alongside his younger brother. Pacer Wolf wore blackleg trousers and cavalry boots, but he had stripped to the waist and his muscular torso bore a single streak of blood where he had slashed his own flesh and added his own blood to the flames.

Jesse picked up a stick and began drawing in the dirt between them. He outlined Buffalo Gap and scrawled in a series of Xs to denote the covered pits.

“I’ve given the Tellicos instructions to halt the column at the opposite end of the gap. We’ll draw the wagons up in a line. The Knights will have to come at us right down the middle. They’ll figure we only have time for one volley and then they’ll be through our line of defense. The pits will break their charge, confuse them, and allow our gunfire to really do some damage, enough I hope to take the fight out of them. Strung out in a column we’d be at their mercy. That’s why I’ve been waiting. I’d rather fight Tullock on my own ground. Well, he’s coming and I’m going to have to deal with him.”

Pacer studied the crude sketch at his side, then looked at his brother. He reached out and cupped the medicine bag that Raven had given him long ago. He had never opened it or examined its contents and he never would.

“My brother, you carry the medal and it is your birthright and your legacy of our family. It is the path you must walk. You have embraced the white truth and I, the red truth.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think,” Jesse said. “Nor do you know yourself. Daniel Pacer Wolf McQueen…Jesse Redbow McQueen…see it in our names. We hold both truths, my brother. Deny one and you can never be more than half a man. I know that now. I can love my country and fight to preserve it and still hear the spirits whisper in the wind, still be a seeker of visions, still find magic among the bones of the rain.” Jesse reached out and placed his hand upon his brother’s shoulder. “I need you, little brother. When the Knights of the Golden Circle charge down that valley, I shall need the Choctaw Kid.”

“It is not my fight.”

“Yes, it is,” Jesse retorted. “Because these are women and children, storekeepers and farmers, innocent folk just like at
Lawrence.
”

The Choctaw Kid gave a start as if he’d been slapped across the face. The allusion to Quantrill’s raid achieved the desired effect. Memories flooded back. The pain of being a part of that debacle and the shame. How many times had he replayed the incident in his mind and tried to stop it from happening, to halt the guerrillas’ onslaught? One could never undo past mistakes. But Pacer could stop that past from repeating itself. He’d been looking to the flames for an answer. Maybe it was time he looked to himself.

He studied Jesse, and the haunted expression left his face to be replaced by a hint of a smile. “It will be like old times,” Pacer said.

In that moment, Jesse knew he had his brother back. He reached inside his coat and handed Pacer the banker’s handwritten confession. The McQueens had a common enemy now. “Old times,” said Jesse.

I
N THE WANING AFTERNOON
, the western horizon became awash with scarlet and gold light while high wispy clouds turned to lurid pink like a puckered wound. A man didn’t need to talk to spirits to sense the foreboding in the air.

A gunshot reverberated the length of the narrowing passage. It was a signal from Gip Whitfield stationed at the opposite end of the pass and it meant the Knights of the Golden Circle were in the valley.

The men behind the wagon barricade halted in midsentence or straightened where they dozed, and came alert and studied their backtrail as a horseman who could only be Gip Whitfield made his way through the gap, taking care to keep close to the hills and skirting the traps that subtly patched the floor of the pass.

Jesse McQueen froze for a moment, turned to Pacer at his side, and said, “Now it begins.” Then he continued along the length of the wagon barricade searching for any weak spots in his makeshift defenses. The fortifications weren’t exactly formidable. Success depended on confusion and blunting the night riders’ initial charge. On the hillsides well out of the line of battle, families had gathered in groups of a half-dozen or more to share food and the warmth of campfires. The townsfolk were nervous. The freed slaves even more so. Everyone had heard Gip’s signal, and a pall of quiet had fallen over the camp.

The McQueen brothers made an incongruous pair to be sure. Pacer wore the gray and black uniform of a Rebel raider, while Jesse had donned his Union tunic and short-brimmed campaign hat, his buckskin trousers, and worn black boots. In a land divided by war, they were on the same side in this fight.

Theotis and Moses Tellico were passing a jug of “corn likker” back and forth in the center of the wagon line. The brothers were itching for a fight. Moses noticed Jesse and held up the jug to offer the Union officer a drink. Jesse politely declined. Anything the Tellicos had a hand in brewing was better left untasted. It was said their coonhound broke into their still one night and after lapping a snootful of home brew went blind the next day. The Tellicos were the stuff of legend, no two ways about it.

“It’ll be dark in another hour,” Theotis said with an over-the-shoulder nod toward the red sky.

“Go easy on the moonshine, Theotis,” Jesse warned. “I want you to be able to use that Hawken rifle.”

“Shee-it. I won’t even need to aim. Them night riders will be thick as ticks on a hound.” Theotis took another pull on the jug, then wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve and grinned.

“I been thinkin’, Jesse,” Moses spoke up. “We’re the bait, ain’t we? Yessir, all of us here is bait for them traps we dug.”

“Better we face Tullock here than strung out through the Kiamichis,” Jesse said.

Moses poked his crooked nose in a kerchief and blew. He blinked, and wiped his upper lip and returned the rag to his pocket.

Si Reaves and seven of the field hands filed down from the hillside to join the defenders at the barricade.

“Where do you want us, Mr. Jesse?” McQueen took quick stock of the volunteers. Si Reaves was the only man bearing firearms among them. But his companions were resolved and determined to fight for their freedom with rock, club, or bare fist if need be. Once slaves, now free, they were of a single mind. Not one man, woman, or child was going to be brought back to Honey Ridge in chains. “Anybody get through, we drag ’em down and take their guns,” Si added, loud enough for all the townspeople at the barricade to hear. “Abolition” was a fine word, Jesse thought, but now it was time to do something more than talk. He had a Dragoon Colt holstered at his side and a second gun tucked in his belt. He drew this revolver and handed it over to one of the field hands, a wiry young man with a noticeable limp.

“You ever loaded cap and ball before?” he asked.

The black man shook his head. “No, suh. But I reckons I can learn.”

“I’ll show him, Mr. Jesse,” Si added.

Hack Warner left his position along the line carrying an extra rifled musket, and passed the weapon to another of the field hands. Al Teel and Linc Graywater came forward, one with a shotgun and the other, a Navy Colt .36. In a matter of minutes the field hands were armed and offered a place behind the defenses. Gip Whitfield seemed uncomfortable by the proximity of the black men but he kept his complaints to himself.

Jesse and Pacer continued along without incident.

“You know brother, they’ll try to take us in one charge. Tullock will throw everything he has at us.”

“I’m counting on that,” Jesse stated matter-of-factly. The more confusion the merrier, he decided. He looked over at the fires dotting the western hillside. The women and children were camped out of harm’s way. He studied the long-haired women and excited children at play. Now where was Grandmother Raven? Well, she had to be somewhere. At least she was safe, he thought with satisfaction.

He noticed Carmichael Ross parting the women and children like the Israelites the Red Sea as she descended the hill at a brisk pace with Lorelei in tow, hurrying through the dying sunlight toward the barricade. Jesse took one look at the editor’s demeanor and braced himself for the worst.

“What now?” he muttered as the two women approached.

Lorelei shifted nervously and avoided Jesse’s gaze. She tried Pacer, but he was as stern looking as Jesse. Both McQueens suspected something was wrong. Lorelei had come down from the hillside to confirm their fears.

“Raven is gone,” Carmichael said, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” Jesse asked. He gave Lorelei a sharp look, his features dark with anger. “I told you to stay with her.”

“Your grandmother had other ideas,” Lorelei defensively replied. She retreated a step as if expecting Jesse to strike her. It took her a few moments to realize she had misjudged him. “She took a horse and rode off through the trees.”

“My God, where was she heading?” Pacer Wolf exclaimed. As quickly, the answer came to him. “The farm—she’s back at the farm.”

Lorelei nodded. “She said no one was going to chase her from her home. She made me promise not to tell either of you until it was too late to bring her back.” Lorelei brushed her auburn hair back from her oval face and tried to look innocent. “Raven can be very persuasive.” She hooked a thumb in her belt. Lorelei wore brown canvas pants and a coarsely woven work shirt. A gun butt jutted from her waistband. A floppy-brimmed hat rode high on her forehead. “As for me, I’ve chosen my own place to fight.”

“You’ll do as I say and go where I tell you,” Jesse snapped.

“In a pig’s eye,” she brusquely told him.

“Better back off, Jesse, and save your breath,” Pacer interjected. “I’ve already been down this same road with her. Miss Lorelei here has a mind of her own.” He spied Gip Whitfield riding at a dead gallop toward the barricade. The Texan avoided the floor of the gap and kept close to the treeline, skirting the hills. “Raven will be all right,” Pacer added. He appraised Lorelei’s garb, noting her revolver and a pouch that contained a couple of loaded cylinders for her Colt.

“I can shoot as well as any man. Better than most,” she explained. “You’ll need me to watch your back.”

Pacer saw no reason to try and talk her out of such a decision. Lorelei had her own way of doing things. “Just try and stay out of trouble.”

“Me? Of all the nerve. I’ll have you know, Mr. Pacer Wolf McQueen, you’re going to be glad I’m here before this game is finished.”

Jesse turned from the bickering couple and looked aside at Carmichael. But the editor wasn’t about to take sides.

“Raven will be all right,” she said. “Tullock won’t harm her. Even in his rage.” Ross patted the barrel of the shotgun she had slipped from her saddle scabbard. “The women don’t need me. And I owe those night riders for the
Courier.”

Jesse peered over the barricade at the opposite end of the gap where the headwaters of Buffalo Creek bubbled out of the side of a rocky slope and cut a furrow in the valley floor. He resisted the temptation to take his gray and race back to the farm. But his place was here, his responsibility, right here.

“Oh, grandmother,” he sighed.

Raven McQueen, by her own choice, was on her own.

B
IG TULLOCK ROBERTS HELD
up his hand and motioned for his men to continue on past while he reined his horse off the creek trail and rode up to the farmhouse and the medicine woman who watched him from the front porch. Cap Featherstone, Sawyer Truett, and a Creek cattle rancher accompanied him.

“You want us to burn the place?” asked the pockmarked rancher. He had close-set eyes and a cruel turn to his mouth and a torch that he was eager to light. All he needed was the word from Roberts.

“No,” Tullock replied.

“Her medicine is strong. It would not be a good idea,” Sawyer Truett cautioned. He was wary of the woman. To bring her harm could openly invite ruin.