Ride the Panther (12 page)

Carmichael worked quickly. Perspiration tickled her neck as she cut into the wood block. She glanced up from time to time, unnerved by the temporary peace of the newspaper office. By the end of the week, she’d have the type set, the printer inked, and be cranking out the next edition. It was a time-consuming task, though a labor of love, and one to which she was committed despite the fact the Knights had frightened off her help with threats of bodily harm. She was an ardent abolitionist, and championed the cause of freedom as embodied by President Abraham Lincoln. Most of the townspeople supported her views, but not enough to risk broken bones by taking a job on the
Chahta Creek Courier.

She heard children playing on the wooden sidewalk outside the newspaper office. It was a good town whose populace were well-meaning souls, eager to help, hardworking, and independent. Full-blood Choctaws and mixed lived in harmony. Unlike the tribes of the plains, the Choctaws had long ago adopted the white man’s dress and customs. Their homes and plantations were the envy of the Mississippi farmers. Carmichael rose from her seat and looked out the window. Fronting Main she looked directly across the street at the bank. Three boys in flour-sack shirts and dungarees scampered past the window. They fired at one another with wooden guns. A girl, several years their junior and obviously someone’s little sister, toddled after the boys, determined to take part in the fun.

There was little difference between Chahta Creek and any other midwestern town. Some folks lived in neatly kept whitewashed frame houses. Others had dug the native red clays from the soil and coated the outside walls of their houses, giving them the appearance of red brick siding. The businesses scattered along Main, Cherokee, and Choctaw were single- and two-story structures with the traditional false fronts. As for the townspeople themselves, there were mostly mixed-bloods in the settlement and in the outlying farms and plantations, where wealthy landowners kept slaves and planted cotton on estates to rival anything found in the Deep South.

She watched the passing parade of townspeople, some of whom turned to wave at the woman in the window. This was a busy section of town. The newspaper office was “smack dab” in the middle of things, along with the Chahta Creek Territorial Bank and the Council House where the Choctaw came together to work out their differences and strengthen their cultural and tribal identity. Albert Teel’s mercantile was only a few doors down the street. Teel had a reputation for honesty, and his store supplied food, clothes, and hardware for townsfolk and farmers alike. Next to the mercantile was Gude’s Good Eats, where a colorful assortment of Chahta Creek’s elders gathered every morning to discuss the weather and the war and solve the world’s ills over a cup of Mary Lou Gude’s coffee and a platter of her biscuits. Heading upstreet toward the forested slope of Turtle Mountain, a person might visit a lawyer, have a haircut and a bath at Robinson’s Bath House and Barber Shop or find a comfortable room at the Choctaw House, a two-story hotel with rooms fronting on Main and Fourth. Further still were stables, a hat shop, a freight office, and the marshal’s office and jail. The schoolhouse was over on Choctaw Street. Cherokee Street was a collection of stables, corrals, saloons, and a bordello. Such establishments paled in comparison to the Featherstone Medicine Wagon Saloon and Gambling Emporium, an impressive two-story showhall that was every bit as big as the hotel and festooned with banners and lanterns. Billboards pasted to the side walls of the Emporium offered such boasts as “The Finest Kentucky Sippin’ Whiskey” and “Fleshly Delights to Excite the Senses” and yet another with a single word, “FARO,” which was all one needed to say to lure a man through the double doors. There were always plenty of dreamers and optimists eager to invest their hard-earned savings with lady luck.

Carmichael Ross did not begrudge the town its bawdier elements. Every frontier community had its vices. But it bothered her how the Medicine Wagon had come to dominate the town, casting Featherstone’s shadow across the settlement.

Carmichael Ross noticed a pair of hard-bitten riders dismount in front of the bank. She recognized them as the Tellico brothers. Theotis, the eldest, took a moment to stretch his legs. He was a big man with sloping shoulders and a round solid belly framed by a pair of faded yellow suspenders. Moses Tellico was a couple of years younger and a few inches shorter, with a black scrawl of a mustache that drooped below his chin and a crooked nose that had been the recipient of too many punches thrown in too many brawls.

The war had not been kind to everyone in the territory. The closing of northern markets coupled with an early summer drought had played havoc with the Tellicos’ farm. The brothers owned no slaves. Coming from both Cherokee and Choctaw heritage, Theotis and Moses were no threat to the large plantation owners like Tullock Roberts, but what mountain land they held was theirs to jealously guard and protect. They weren’t the kind to ride off to war to fight for some detached ideal. The Tellicos had no use for the laws and rules of civilized society. The Kiamichis weren’t a “civilized” place.

Theotis turned and from across the street doffed his black battered hat and bowed. His gallant pose seemed wholly out of character for a man in fringed buckskins whose stringy black hair hung forward to obscure his hopelessly homely features. Moses grinned over his shoulder at the editor of the
Courier
then led the way inside the bank.

Carmichael grinned. For all their unkempt appearance, the Tellicos were shrewd horsetraders and not to be taken lightly. She didn’t envy Lucius Minley, the president of the Chahta Creek Bank, if the brothers had come to renegotiate last year’s loan.

Despite their gruff and intimidating ways, Carmichael liked the Tellicos. Oh, the brothers might not be fit company for socially well-bred ladies such as Rose Minley, the banker’s wife. No, Theotis and Moses Tellico would never be welcome at the Minleys’ table. And it was probably for the best. Carmichael hoped that the brothers controlled their tempers and handled the banker with at least a smattering of finesse.

She watched the Tellicos disappear through the front door of the bank. Sunlight bathed the street. The heat was settling in now. A dust devil stirred into life by the rising heat darted down the alley alongside the bank, whirlwind dancing from sunlight to shadow in a frantic escapade that led past the rain barrel and some abandoned crates children had turned into a fort.

Jesse McQueen rode across the newspaperwoman’s field of vision, followed by burly Cap Featherstone, who bellowed at his mules in a thundering voice that rang out along Main Street and announced to everyone in the immediate vicinity the new proprietor of the Medicine Wagon had returned. Cap waved a hand toward the corner of Fourth and Main and addressed the eldest son of the man he had tried to kill in a warm, good-natured tone of voice.

“I’ll swing on over to Cherokee and have my lads unload these barrels at the Medicine Wagon. Follow me over and we’ll cut the dust and maybe I’ll be able to come up with a lie you ain’t heard, eh?”

“You’d be hard-pressed.” Jesse grinned, and rubbed the small of his back. He was saddle-weary and ready for a hot bath and a shave. He was anxious to see his grandmother, but a trip out to the homestead would have to wait until he talked with the one person in the town who might really know what was going on. “I’ll join you later, Cap. But I’ve still a ways to go yet and I’m already bone tired. I’d spit but I’m afraid the recoil would break me down.”

Cap touched a hand to the brim of his hat and bid Jesse farewell, and then steered his wagon around the corner and headed for Cherokee. A mongrel pup scampered out from the dusty front yard of the house that had once served as both dwelling place and infirmary of Dr. Linus Dick. The place was empty now, and no one had come forward to claim the stray dogs and cats the kindhearted doctor had adopted. The pup barked in defiance at the wagon and the plodding mules. Cap ignored the animal until the dog came too near the heels of the mules, then with a deft crack of his whip laid open the pup’s back side and sent the animal dashing to cover. It squirmed beneath the doctor’s porch and continued to yip as the freight wagon rolled on.

Jesse heard the commotion but his interests lay elsewhere. Carmichael Ross stepped into the doorway of the newspaper office as McQueen rode across the street. He could sense there were more people watching him than the editor of the
Chahta Creek Courier.
He dismounted and looped the reins of his gray over the hitching rail and stepped onto the boardwalk.

“Afternoon, Miss Ross. Is that your name still or has some lucky fella stolen you away from the type box and hand-crank press?”

Carmichael smiled and held up her hands to reveal the smudge of printer’s ink that stained the palms of her hands and the sleeves of her high-necked brown dress.

She made no attempt to hide her astonishment at the captain’s return home.

“Jesse Redbow McQueen, you’re the last person I expected to see. And I cannot laud the company you chose to ride into town with.”

“Cap? He’s all right. A bit of a rogue, but then again, maybe the man has earned the right. He was my father’s friend.”

“Was?” She led him into the shade of the office and offered him a seat.

Jesse gave a quick and utterly false accounting of Ben McQueen’s demise. Carmichael took it hard for all of a minute or two. Then her professionalism kicked in and she began planning a story for the next edition of the
Courier.
She was not unmoved, however.

“How are things? Really,” Jesse said. He hated to lie to the woman, but he had agreed to continue the ruse until notified by Major Abbot. Only Raven would hear the truth.

“Ah.” Carmichael tapped her lips with her forefinger. Her lips were naturally wine red. Jesse realized he had never noticed them before. And he had always thought of her as being long-featured and rather plain. But here he was sitting across from her and all he could think of was how strong-willed and courageous she seemed. And how like flawless gems her emerald eyes held him motionless, despite his fatigue. He wondered whether, if someone were to unpin her brown hair, it would hang past her waist. What was she speaking of? Oh yes. Factions. Devisiveness. Frightened people. And the Knights of the Golden Circle.

“And who are the Knights?” Jesse said.

“No one knows or cares to say. But I fear you’ll find out soon enough. Even if you’ve left the Union army,” Carmichael replied. She had sensed his distraction but didn’t know she had been the cause.

“I hold the rank of captain. But I saw no reason to advertise that or my loyalties while riding south.” He glanced out the door at the sunlit street and noticed the children playing at war with wooden swords and guns. If only men would follow the same example as these little ones and fight their battles with club and staff, then hurry home, bruised but unscathed, to the arms of their loved ones. “I passed Hack Warner’s station.”

“Burned out last week,” Carmichael said. “Old news.” A mischievous glint in her eye. “Hack Warner overheard one of the Knights having a coughing fit the likes of which just about toppled him from the saddle. There’s only one man so consumptive.”

“Sam Roberts,” Jesse spoke the name aloud. And the son was only a shadow of the father. Well, it stood to reason. Tullock owned one of the largest plantations in the territory. He had a great deal to lose, or felt he did, if the Union cause prevailed.

He would begin with Tullock and, if possible, persuade the plantation owner to peacefully reconcile his differences with his own people. Men had always followed Tullock’s lead. No doubt some men still did, under cover of night and their ghostly hoods. Yes, Tullock might even be the leader of the night riders, but it was worth the risk if he could bring the warring factions of the settlement together and avoid unnecessary bloodshed, the likes of which could only bring disaster to the Choctaw Nation.

“I’ll pay a visit to Tullock Roberts,” Jesse told the editor. Carmichael opened the bottom drawer of her desk and removed two glasses and a rust-colored bottle of bourbon. She poured a most-unladylike portion for herself and slid an empty glass and the bottle across the desk to Jesse. He grinned, remembering when he was twelve and she a woman in her early twenties how Carmichael Ross had given him a Mexican cigarillo after he had caught her smoking them out in the woods. It had been payment for his silence. She had seemed so much older then. She was younger than that now. Their relationship had changed over the course of time. And with almost two years of war behind him, Jesse had aged in ways the passage of months could not record.

“To the memory of your father,” Carmichael said, holding up her glass.

The salute made Jesse uncomfortable, but he went through with it nevertheless. He poured a measure of bourbon for himself and reached over and touched his glass to hers and brushed Carmichael’s hand with his. He didn’t mind that. Neither did she.

“To Ben McQueen. To justice for my father.” He tilted the glass to his lips. The liquid cut the dust and blazed a path to his stomach. Carmichael nodded.

“Justice…I wonder if it exists.”

“I’d like to think so,” Jesse replied. “Maybe it’s not in our power to deliver.” Jesse stood and walked around the desk and continued on over to the printing press and the trays of type that Carmichael had already prepared for printing. He noticed his brother’s name and read the column she had prepared, decrying Pacer Wolf’s participation in the Lawrence raid and labeling him a guerrilla capable of the most reprehensible conduct, an indictment in which she included all those who rode with Quantrill’s raiders or the Knights of the Golden Circle.

Jesse glanced up and met Carmichael’s frank stare. Emotions rode the warpath of his soul. His brother, his enemy.

“He’s out at Buffalo Creek,” the editor said. “With Raven.”

“Maybe I’ll ride out that way.”

“What will you do?”

“My duty,” the captain replied.

Carmichael downed her drink and had started to refill her glass when she caught Jesse watching her with obvious disapproval. “I have ten years on you, Jesse Redbow McQueen. You’re hardly fit to be my father.”