Ride the Panther (6 page)

Back up the trail, over a dozen troopers in blue, all of them inexperienced soldiers, continued to blast away at the guerrilla though he was hopelessly out of range of their pistols. The driver and the guard glanced at one another, reached the same unspoken decision, and leaped from the coach. They retrieved their weapons from the side of the road and hurried after the guerrilla, each man anxious to be the one who dropped the Choctaw Kid. Made bold by the prospect of a reward, they raced for the bridge, hoping to pick off Pacer while his back was turned.

The horseman reached the sturdy-looking span across the steep-sided creek, the handiwork of years of flooding, and lost no time in crossing over to the opposite bank with the stage driver and the guard in close pursuit. The guard’s shotgun boomed in his hands, its report thundering above the noise of rushing water but a few yards away. The stage driver knelt in the mud and leveled a pistol at Pacer, who leaned out of the saddle and fired into the earth.

“I clipped his wings,” the guard cried out in triumph.

“Shit,” the driver muttered, and opened fire. He wanted to claim part of the kill by putting a few slugs in the Kid. Pacer straightened in the saddle and faced the two men. He held up his hands in surrender.

“We got him,” the driver roared. “Drop your guns, you blackleg bastard!”

“We? It was my shotgun that took the fight out of him,” the guard protested. “That makes him my prisoner.”

“We’ll see about that,” the driver retorted, and lumbered down the road and on to the bridge with the shotgun-toting guard in hot pursuit. Suddenly Pacer spurred his horse and trotted up the road.

“Hold it right there, Kid. I got another load of shot to send your way,” the guard warned.

“Climb off that horse, mister,” the driver shouted as he stepped onto the bridge and leveled his pistol. He smiled triumphantly as McQueen complied. But his elation dulled at the first smell of smoke. He searched the timbers and spied a telltale ribbon of smoke. Pacer had not been firing into the ground because of a crippling wound. His gun blast had lit a fuse. And where there was a fuse…

“Oh sweet Mother!” the driver exclaimed.
“NO!”

Yes.

The stage driver and guard took a flying leap back toward the creekbank. They were aided by a deafening blast and a concussive force that propelled the two men through the air and sent them skidding through the mud in a flash of fire, billowing smoke, and raining timber.

The would-be captors emerged from a puddle with brown faces and wide white eyes. Both men were surprised to find themselves still in one piece, which was a hell of a lot more than could be said for the bridge. No one was crossing Waterfall Creek today. As for the Choctaw Kid, he had vanished among the trees like a gray ghost.

The guard wiped the mud from his features and glanced back up the trail toward the oncoming troops. “What are we gonna tell the lieutenant?”

The driver, his ears still ringing, glared at his companion. “We?” the man growled. “He was
your
prisoner.”

B
RIGADIER GENERAL WILLIAM STEELE
of the Confederate Army of the West stared down at the rain-soaked money bag Pacer Wolf McQueen had deposited on his map table by way of introduction. Greenbacks and gold coins could be used to purchase much-needed medical supplies and ammunition. As for the bank drafts, unfortunately, the Rebels were without access to Northern banks, save for the guerrillas and mounted cavalry who periodically conducted raids against Union property and fled back into Arkansas. Ordinarily Steele would have welcomed a man like Pacer with open arms and been deeply grateful for the contribution. And he told the young man as much. Pacer listened and believed the officer was grateful, yet ever since riding into Fort Smith, Arkansas, he felt as alien as if he had entered a Federal encampment. A rumble of thunder filtered through the walls of the cabin Steele had appropriated for his headquarters and was now in the process of abandoning. The smell of rain hung heavy in the air and the sky outside looked threatening and dark.

“So you are the Choctaw Kid,” the general remarked, stroking his silver-streaked chin whiskers. His war-weary gaze took the measure of the man standing across from him. Steele glanced at McQueen’s strong, sun-bronzed hands, half expecting them to be covered with blood.

“I am Pacer Wolf McQueen,” he replied. Once, he had taken pride in the colorful handle he had acquired over the past year. Since the events of the past couple of weeks it had begun to wear a trifle thin.

“You don’t look like an Injun,” said one of Steele’s aides. He was a somber-faced captain named Reno, a remarkably competent officer who had made no attempt to hide his disregard for McQueen.

“My father is a quarter-blood Choctaw,” Pacer said. “He used to tell me I had white skin but a red heart.” Pacer’s attempt at a friendly interchange fell flat. The captain continued to stare at McQueen as if a wild animal had entered the room.

“Why have you come here?” the general asked. His tone was kind yet sad.

“This is the closest Confederate army I could find,” Pacer said, taken aback by the officer’s attitude. “I want to join one of your cavalry regiments.”

“You cannot buy a commission with blood money,” Reno blurted.

The general slapped a hand on the table and his cheeks reddened. “Enough, Captain. See that the orders are given to destroy the river bridges across the Arkansas. If my Union counterpart intends to pursue us, he will have to get his armpits wet.”

“Yessir,” Reno said, and with a second deprecatory glance in Pacer’s direction, he left the cabin. Pacer heard the guards snap to attention as the officer stepped through the doorway and out into the gray afternoon.

Steele returned his attention to the Choctaw Kid. “The truth, sir. Is this part of the plunder taken from Lawrence?”

“A few days ago I stopped a stage outside of Neosho, in Missouri. I heard tell there was an army payroll aboard. This is it.”

“Hmmm. Captain Reno would think me a fool, but I believe you,” said Steele. He patted the bag. The officer had already begun to calculate the best way to spend its contents. There were plenty of profiteers north of the Mason-Dixon Line eager to sell contraband supplies of medicine and munitions to the Rebels, providing the price was right.

“Then take a chance and believe me again. I took no part in the burning of Lawrence or the slaughter of its citizens. I thought we were there to raid a Union supply depot. I learned the truth too late. I have fought and killed for the cause I believe in. But Quantrill’s raid was madness. No. It was plain and simple meanness, murdering unarmed innocent townspeople, some of them mere boys.” Pacer turned away. The memory plagued him, haunting his sleep with dreams of fire and death. He had come to join the Arkansas Volunteers, to fight the war as it should be fought, with honor. “I’m not here to buy a commission, General. I rode up from the Indian Territory to find the war. I’ll fight as a private if you’ll have me.”

Steele had no doubt the young man standing before him could fight. That was, in the end, precisely the point. All of the border guerrillas were men who dealt lead for breakfast, slept in the saddle, and rode away to fight again another day. Here was a man with a lit fuse for a backbone and a heart of brimstone. And yet he did not fit the mold.

Candles sputtered on the mantel against the south wall. The table lantern painted the twin shadows of the two men upon the mud-chinked walls. The bed in the corner had not been slept in for a night and a day. Slices of bread on a platter at the corner of the table looked crusty and stale, leftovers from a man preoccupied with death. The austere interior of the cabin had none of the comforts of Steele’s headquarters in Little Rock. Giving up the cabin was easy enough. Let the Yankee general have the hard bed and the temperamental chimney with its backdrafts and the rickety ladder-backed chairs that never seemed to sit flush on the floor and groaned and creaked when sat upon.

Brigadier General Steele walked to one of the shuttered windows and opened it against a gusting wind. Six thousand men were encamped along the Arkansas River just outside the town of Fort Smith. Cookfires dotted the riverbank, where smoke curled above the treetops. Horses were led to the river and back again. Men went about their jobs with an air of resignation.

“Tomorrow I withdraw to Little Rock, where I’ll combine this force with the troops garrisoned there. In all, I can put about twelve thousand men on the battlefield against an overwhelming two-pronged Union offensive building to the north and west.” The general closed the shutters and helped himself to a drink from the makeshift table below the window. He poured a glass of bourbon for himself and his visitor, then handed the glass to Pacer. “One man won’t matter much to the good. But he could make matters even worse for a regiment with flagging morale.”

“Meaning your men would not wish to fight alongside someone who rode with Quantrill,” Pacer said in a hard voice.

“It’s easier for me to believe you took no part in that Kansas butchery. But then I know what it’s like to struggle for trust.” Steele chuckled. “You see, I’m a New Yorker. My wife is from Mississippi. I’ve put down roots in the South. Still, it has taken almost two years for my own men to trust me. And every time I order a retreat, there are some who will question my loyalties. Morale is dismal enough. I don’t wish to make it any worse.” The general finished his drink. “Any ties Quantrill or his men had to the Confederacy were severed at Lawrence. Your innocence or guilt doesn’t matter.” The general returned to his desk and unfurled a surveyor’s map of the fortifications around Little Rock. His rumpled gray uniform had a lived-in look reflecting the man who wore it. The buttons were dull and unpolished. The cuffs were becoming frayed. Steele was only in his mid-thirties, but responsibilities had aged the man and bowed his shoulders beneath the weight of an increasingly difficult task, the defense of Arkansas with too few men and supplies.

Pacer tried to think of something to say but words failed him; they slipped and slid and drifted away. Jesse might have argued and won the general over to his way of thinking. Jesse had the gift. Pacer Wolf could see no use in trying. General Steele lifted the map and slid the canvas money bag to the edge of the table. “You can take the money if you wish. It is yours, after all.”

“I’m not a thief,” Pacer growled. He had stopped the Neosho stage as an act of war and resented the implication to the contrary. “I took that money for the Confederacy. Keep it.” He turned and, without a salute, started toward the cabin door.

“We retreat,” Steele said. McQueen paused with his hand on the doorlatch. “We retreat and the Union army advances, and on the heels of a Federal victory will come the plunderers, like carrion birds.” The general placed a hand upon the map. “Go home, Pacer McQueen. And don’t look for war. It will find you soon enough.”

Pacer turned to look at the general. In the glare of the flickering lamplight the Confederate officer’s deepset features took on what to Pacer seemed a spectral quality. A gust of wind rattled the shuttered window and moaned through a crack in the log walls. Borne on the breeze came the distant call of a raven. Pacer turned the latch and stepped outside, ignoring the guards in gray who watched him with a mixture of curiosity and resentment etched on their bearded features. Pacer stepped out from under the porch roof and searched the gunmetal sky and at last spied the dark-winged bird circling above the treetops southwest of the Rebel encampment.

Pacer knew then what he had to do. And where he was going. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he caught up the reins of his pinto and left Brigadier General William Steele to his maps and his plans and his gnawing despair.

D
REAMS…

Lawrence, Kansas, was burning and there was nothing Pacer Wolf McQueen could do to stop it. Once more, he rode through the smoke-shrouded streets, a man dazed by the carnage he had unwittingly become part of. He had followed Quantrill’s black flag into town expecting to battle the Union troops stationed there. So far the only Federals Pacer had seen were a fat old recruiting officer and a pair of grizzled veterans whose crippling wounds had ended their military service. Pacer had discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of all three soldiers in an alley between a hotel and a seamstress’s shop.

“C’mon, Pacer,” said Sawyer Truett, who had joined Pacer along with a dozen other riders from Indian Territory to take part in the battle. “We’re gonna miss out.” Truett was a couple of years older than Pacer. The two had been childhood friends. In fact, Truett had come to the McQueen ranch as an orphan and found a home with the McQueens back in the Kiamichi hills.

Gunfire rattled throughout the town. Smoke churned skyward. Along the streets, guerrillas kicked in doors and crashed through shop windows in an orgy of looting and destruction. Sawyer Truett was anxious to join in the fun. A half-breed Choctaw, Sawyer was of average height, built broad and strong. A scraggly goatee covered his chin, the wispy strands blown as was the long hair poking out from beneath the brim of his battered gray felt hat. With a wild Rebel yell on his lips, Truett spurred his horse past his friend and charged into town, and the mixed-blood Choctaws behind him raised their own war cries and drowned out Pacer’s attempts to stem the tide. They ignored his protests and charged after Truett. Pacer had to wrestle his own mount under control to keep the pinto from racing off with the other horses as they trampled the bodies in the alley and disappeared into the fire and smoke.

Find Quantrill. The men will follow his orders.
Pacer knew it was his only chance to put an end to the slaughter. He had glimpsed the black flag on the opposite side of town. Quantrill was never far from his color-bearer. Pacer rode clear of the alley. He was determined to circle the town and find the enigmatic guerrilla leader. A touch of his heels against the pinto’s flanks and the animal plunged forward through the smoke and carried its rider away on his mission of mercy, a quality Captain William C. Quantrill kept in short supply. The image itself faded and dissolved into a montage of burning buildings and a confusion of townspeople rushing from one conflagration to another. At one point Pacer saw a handful of older men herded against a wall by a pair of Quantrill’s men. The guerrillas leveled their pistols and proceeded to shoot their prisoners. Pacer charged into the gunmen and sent them sprawling, allowing the townsmen to scatter and head for home. Pacer never broke stride. He spied Quantrill sitting like a statue upon a black charger at the west end of Main Street. Half a dozen men in gray waited nearby like an honor guard. Four women stood before his horse, pleading for the lives of their husbands as Pacer approached.