Ride the Panther (9 page)

Lorelei had charmed Frank Shapter into rescuing her from a dirt-farm existence with a careworn mother and a brutish father who saw in his children just so many laborers to toil in his fallow fields. The marshal of Fort Smith hadn’t been much of an improvement, merely a means to an end. Lorelei envisioned herself garbed in flowing silk dresses and escorted by handsome gentlemen and riding in elegant carriages along the hilly boulevards of San Francisco.

“Won’t be much further,” Pacer Wolf said with a glance over his shoulder at the weary young woman. Lorelei was a handful, all right. He was aware of her shortcomings, but she was a fighter; she showed tremendous spirit and resiliency. These were good qualities in any man or woman. However hardened life might have made her, underneath he sensed a vulnerability that appealed to him. He didn’t know if it had been the right decision to bring her along, but he didn’t regret it.

They followed the gentle undulations of the creek for another half hour and rode past a scattered herd of about three hundred head of shorthorn cattle before the steep hills to either side drew back and the broader valley of the Kimishi River opened up in the distance. Between Pacer and the junction of Buffalo Creek and the Kimishi River, a campfire burned like a beacon atop the treeless summit of a solitary hill. Pacer reined in and a smile crept across his face. The sun had dipped below the horizon, the last blush of light had faded from the sky. Yet even in the dark of night, Pacer knew home waited just beyond that blaze.

“There’s a fire on the hill,” Lorelei warily took notice. Her instinct for survival made her cautious.

“A beacon for us.” Pacer motioned for the woman to draw abreast of his pinto. “It’s my grandmother’s way of welcoming us home.”

“But how could she know we were coming?” Lorelei asked, her disbelief obvious in her tone.

“That is Raven’s way,” Pacer replied. He realized it wasn’t much of an explanation, but it was the only one he had. Long ago he had learned not to question his grandmother’s actions. She was a medicine woman, a healer, and different from other women. He reached inside his shirt and cupped the buckskin pouch dangling from a leather cord around his throat. Raven McQueen had given him the pouch when Pacer was thirteen. He had never looked inside to examine its contents, for that would have broken its spirit power and destroyed the magic. And as Raven once told him, each life ought to have mystery.

She raised Pacer and Jesse after their mother abandoned them. Ben McQueen had arrived at the ranch with two small boys, aged four and two. Kit and Raven welcomed them and gave them a home and a sense of belonging. Though only an eighth Choctaw, the brothers had run as wild as any of the full-bloods and become versed in the ways of the red man and white. While the world of their father appealed to Jesse, it was among the Choctaw that Pacer felt most comfortable. And despite his long red hair and tawny limbs and towering physique, Pacer was accepted by the Choctaw Nation as one of their own.

Frowning, Pacer wondered if the debacle at Lawrence had changed all that. Sawyer Truett had probably spread the word of Pacer’s behavior. Treachery, Sawyer would call it, no doubt. And what of Raven? Had she learned of the raid? Would she accept him home? He studied the beacon and resolved that there was only one way to find out.

“Come on,” he said to Lorelei. At a touch of his bootheels, the pinto lifted its head from the sweet grass it had discovered and trotted off toward the hill. Fifteen minutes later at least part of his question was answered. Raven was standing at the base of the hill as Pacer cantered his pinto up from the creekbank. She was wrapped in her shawl, her long silvery black hair streaming behind her as she stood watching him, her dark eyes drifting over the girl on the Kentucky mare and back to her grandson.

Pacer dismounted and walked up to the medicine woman and in a hesitant voice said, “Grandmother. I am home.”

Raven studied him a moment How much like his grandfather he seemed, the eyes and hair, everything but the height. Kit McQueen had been a man built compact and leathery tough, much like Jesse. She smiled. Memories of the two boys whooping and hollering, always underfoot and filling her house with noise, came flooding back.

Some called the Choctaw Kid a renegade and a murderer. Others, like Sawyer Truett, had ridden by and accused Pacer of cowardice and betrayal.

Love would not allow her to believe any such foolish talk. And so by her actions she laid her grandson’s worries to rest. Raven opened her arms and her heart. Pacer Wolf McQueen had returned home.

“It is good,” she said.

R
AVEN’S MEDICINE FIRE WASN’T
the only signal that night. A couple of hours after sundown at a place called Hanging Widow Bluffs overlooking the Kimishi River and a couple of miles south of the town of Chahta Creek, a pyre of oak branches was set ablaze. Flames leaped skyward and illuminated the six-foot-tall figure of Hud Pardee, cloaked in saffron-colored robes and hood. The robes concealed his every feature as he waited in the circle of light cast by the dancing flames. He sat astride his blazed-face bay gelding with his back to the hickory tree from which a grieving widow, as legend had it, ended her life. The fire on the bluff could be seen for miles around. Pardee had built it to summon the night riders from their plantations and farms. Given to impatience, he forced himself to remain on the bluff, begrudging the minutes spent waiting. He straightened the hood, all the better to see through the narrow eye slits. A coiled serpent had been embroidered in gold thread above the eye holes. It was the symbol of his authority. He had to give Cap Featherstone credit. The old fox had sensed the Confederate forays were the means of fanning the embers of rebellion into open conflagration. All to Cap’s own benefit, and Hud Pardee’s.

And so the hooded horsemen gathered, drawn from trails and roads in every direction until more than forty men had arrived. They did not greet one another openly, for this wasn’t a social gathering, rather the Knights had come with a single purpose in mind—to strike fear into the hearts of Union sympathizers and drive out those families who dared not swear allegiance to the Confederate flag. A way of life was at stake here. It had been a good life. Despite losing their ancestral homes during their removal from Mississippi, many of the Choctaws, full blood and mixed, had prospered. They had built fine plantations and cultivated vast fields of cotton upon soil nurtured and watered with the sweat and blood of the slaves they had brought with them from the deep south. Those hooded horsemen who owned no slaves feared the Union would someday confiscate the Choctaw lands yet again and move them still further westward. The government in Richmond had ceded the Choctaws, the Cherokees, and the Creeks their lands in writing for all time and had revoked any and all claims to the Indian Territory. The Confederate President had won the trust of many among the Civilized Tribes. Why, the rebels even had a Cherokee general in Stand Watie. Now it was the Choctaws’ turn to rise up and be counted. As they formed a circle around the flames, firelight played upon the saffron robes of the horsemen and washed their raiments in its golden glow.

“Knights of the Golden Circle,” Pardee called out. “We are gathered once more to ride with honor against our enemies and drive them from our homeland. Those among our people who wish to be like dogs and fight over the scraps from Mr. Lincoln’s table, then let them head north. We are Choctaw. We are warriors. We are Knights of the Golden Circle—free men gathered in a righteous cause. Will you ride with me?”

“Yes!” came the reply as forty-three voices roared out approval.

“And what shall be the fate of Mr. Lincoln’s boot lickers, eh?”

“Drive them from our land!” the Knights answered excitedly.

“And who shall stand against us in our sacred mission!”

“No one!” the Knights shouted in return. Several of the men fired revolvers into the air. The crack of gunfire spooked a few of the horses and their riders had to struggle to bring the skittish animals under control. Tullock Roberts, one of the wealthiest plantation owners in the area, had the most trouble. He had ridden a gelding newly broke to the trail. The barrel-chested horseman tugged savagely on the reins and, despite being nearly thrown, at last brought the animal under control. Sam Roberts, a reed-thin eighteen-year-old copy of his father, laughed aloud. Tullock knew his son even through the younger man’s robes and he fixed Sam in a withering glare that silenced his son on the spot.

“Where do we ride?” another of the Knights called out. He brandished a torch that he touched to the council fire and set ablaze. Several of the other horsemen followed suit. Soon the Golden Circle became a ring of flickering flames.

“West to the Texas Road. We’ve given Hack Warner fair warning to close his station. The man has refused. What say you?” Pardee stood in his stirrups and raised his arms aloft. He resembled more a mysterious prophet than a gunfighter.

“Burn him out! Burn him out!” The outcry became a chant that rose in volume and reverberated along the river bank.

“So be it,” said the man in the serpent hood. “Let men of valor lead the way.” Pardee waved a hand in a westerly direction. As the Knights departed for the Texas Road, he slowly and deliberately circled the hanging tree and the crackling fire until the last of the Knights had departed. He wanted to make certain there were no stragglers. Any horseman who held back would immediately be suspect. Satisfied as to the enthusiasm and loyalty of his hooded legion, Hud Pardee guided his steed onto the trail west and vanished into the shadows and the settling dust.

T
HE LAST THING TULLOCK
wanted on the morning after the raid on Warner’s Station was guilt with his grits. He sat back in his chair and sighed as his mulatto house servant, Willow Reaves, scooped a second helping of buttered grits onto her master’s plate and added a couple of thick links of spicy sausage. She had already brought the biscuits and left a tureen of sausage gravy.

Tullock was a large, solid man with close-cropped sandy white hair. He had a neck as thick as a bull’s. It was said that Tullock Roberts had never been knocked off his feet and was the match of any man. His blunt, square-jawed face attempted to look contrite as Arbitha Roberts, his good wife, renewed her tirade. Arbitha’s coppery complexion was streaked with sweat as she paced the dining room, her wide hips brushing the backs of the chairs every time she changed course.

Willow Reaves, a sweet-natured slip of a girl, finished serving Tullock and hurried around the table to the Roberts’ eighteen-year-old son. Sam had relished his part in last night’s raid. He had personally driven off the way station’s horses and burned Hack Warner’s supply of hay. He was a pale young man whose tall, angular frame was from time to time wracked by an intermittent cough. A mustache and goatee the same color as his sandy hair added a few years to his appearance. He was exhausted from the night’s endeavors, but he still had the energy to admire Willow’s supple physique beneath her homespun cotton dress. The mulatto could feel the young man’s glittery eyes ranging over her form. She shifted uncomfortably and finished filling his plate with food.

Arbitha continued to berate her men. How could Tullock drag his son out on such a foray when the poor boy wasn’t well? What was Tullock trying to prove? Their plantation was prospering. The fields were as white as a snowfall with a cotton crop, thigh high and ripe for picking. What did they need with trouble? Tullock and Sam had thrown in with hooligans.

“Riding around with sheets over your heads. I say it’s a good way to charge head-on into a tree and break your necks,” Arbitha added as she ran out of steam. She slumped into her chair at the opposite end of the table from her husband. She waved Willow away as the mulatto approached with the coffee pot. The servant nodded and hurried from the room.

Willow did not like being in the way of these family confrontations; however, she was thankful for the quarrel. It kept young Sam occupied. His attentions were becoming increasingly overt and she did not know how long she could hold Tullock’s son at bay. Fortunately, his chronic illness slowed his movements and often sapped his strength. Willow, despite her diminutive size, felt confident she could fend off the young man’s attentions if he got out of hand. How Master Tullock might react was another matter entirely. The lord of Honey Ridge Plantation was quick to anger, never more so when Si Reaves, Willow’s husband and the plantation’s overseer, had stolen a horse and escaped to the north and freedom. The memory of that day in March still caused Willow to shudder. Oh, how Tullock Roberts had ranted and raved. Willow was certain had it not been for her reputation as the finest cook in all the territory, she would have borne the brunt of Tullock’s wrath. He took his overseer’s betrayal as a personal affront. Willow could not think of Si without a mixture of relief and hurt. He had escaped, well and good. Among the other slaves he was considered a hero. But to Willow, the man she loved had left her behind, abandoned her to bondage. Although time had cooled the anger, the hurt remained.

“Now, Mama, there’s a war on. This is no time for fence sitters. A man must choose a side and stand there and be counted.” Tullock ladled a dipper full of sausage gravy over his biscuits and began to eat, taking a bite of biscuit then a chunk of sausage and following that with a forkful of buttered grits. He had always called her “Mama,” even before their only child was born.

“It’s not as if we killed anybody,” Sam spoke up, hoping to placate his irate mother. “Those who stand against us need to be driven out. Our future lies with the South.”

“Exactly,” Tullock said with a nod to his son. “Anyone who feels different should leave the territory. The sooner the better.”

“Mark my word, this will lead to killing and more killing,” Arbitha warned.

“If blood is shed it will not be by our hands, not at first. But if those Federalists in Chahta Creek start something, then we will answer them an eye for an eye and a bullet for a bullet.” Tullock wiped a forearm across his mouth, noticed his wife’s disapproving glare, and picked up his cloth napkin and dabbed at his lips. He looked at Sam and winked. “Your mother’s made a tame breed out of me, son.”