Ride the Panther (7 page)

Quantrill was a dashing, fair-haired killer dressed in a blousy gray shirt trimmed with gaudy black stitchery. A black slouch hat was tilted back on his forehead. He kept four Colt revolvers tucked in his belt. When he saw Pacer approach, he shushed the desperate women with a wave of his hand. “Ladies, you’ve met Bloody Bill Anderson, well, here is another of my lieutenants who doesn’t have to dance in any man’s shadow. None other than the Choctaw Kid himself, Pacer Wolf McQueen. Best beware, he aims to have your scalps dangling from his belt.”

Quantrill and his men laughed aloud as the women fled, screaming. With memories of Quantrill and the Choctaw Kid forever etched in their minds, they ran weeping toward the nearest church. Destruction and death had descended on Lawrence, turning wives into widows and leaving mothers to mourn their butchered sons.

“Damn you, Quantrill!” Pacer shouted above the gunfire. “Call your men off. You lied. I’ll wager there never were Union troops quartered here!”

“I’ve given orders to kill every man big enough to carry a gun,” the guerrilla leader calmly replied. “I aim to teach these damn abolitionists a lesson they’ll never forget.”

“Sound retreat,” Pacer snarled, and dropped his hand to the Colt at his side. The men surrounding Quantrill trained their captured Union-issue carbines on the Choctaw Kid. They held their fire out of respect for the color of Pacer’s uniform and the fact that he didn’t pull his gun. Pacer Wolf searched their faces, hoping to catch a glimmer of conscience among Quantrill’s guard, but like their captain, the guerrillas had been hating for too long: their hearts had become empty shells devoid of tenderness. If war indeed could be said to hold a mirror up to hell, then such men were the devil’s own reflection to whom the flames of carnage had become a way of life and a source of joy.

“In good time, Kid. Just as soon as we pick this ripe town bare.” Quantrill winked at his Spencer-toting ruffians. “Every man here will make a pretty penny this day.” He started to laugh. At a touch of his heels Quantrill’s black horse started down Main Street. The riflemen filed past Pacer as they fell in behind their captain. The last man to ride past was a dashing young desperado whom Pacer knew as the older of the James brothers, Frank James. James paused astride his horse and said, “You’re either with us or agin’ us, Pacer. Make your choice.” Then he rode off after his heavily armed companions.

He remembered being blinded by the smoke and stumbling God only knew how long. He was a part of the destruction of Lawrence. It was a brand he would wear all his days. A mark he could never wash clean. He couldn’t save the town, but as he rode back through Lawrence fate provided him a single small opportunity to help curb the wholesale slaughter of the town’s young men.

Pacer found three of his friends behind the flaming remains of a two-story hotel just off Main. Sawyer Truett had cornered two young Lawrence men by the stables in back of the hotel. The stables had miraculously escaped the torch until now. Truett brandished his guns while the other mixed-bloods from the Indian Territory prepared to set the structure afire.

Truett’s prisoners could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen years of age, mere lads in dungarees; barefoot and frightened for their lives. Truett cocked his guns and fired in the dirt to stop the two boys from edging along the wall.

“Say your prayers, Yank bastards,” Truett exclaimed. The boys held out their hands as if intending to ward off the gunshots to come. Then Pacer appeared in front of them and placed his body in the line of fire. “What the hell are you doing, Pacer?”

“We’re murdering children now, is it?”

“They’re plenty big enough to carry a gun,” Truett snapped at his friend.

“Please, mister, we ain’t soldiers,” one of the boys pleaded. “Ain’t no one to keep up the farm if’n I was to join my brothers in the regiment.”

“My pa’s the preacher. He takes no side and expects the same for me,” the other boy spoke up, a note of desperation in his voice.

“Step aside, I say,” Truett warned. He was breathing rapidly and his hair was singed. His wide eyes reflected the burning hotel with the excitement of the moment as Pacer walked his mount alongside Truett’s. “We’ve been like family, Pacer. Don’t make me hurt you.”

“I won’t let you shoot them,” Pacer softly said. “It’s nothing but cold-blooded murder.”

Sawyer Truett could only stare in amazement, unable to believe what he was hearing. Then his features turned ugly and he rose up in his stirrups and leveled his Colt revolver at the farm boy and the parson’s son. Pacer drew his D-guard knife. With a flick of the wrist he sliced a crimson streak across the back of Truett’s hand, just behind the knuckles. Truett howled in pain and dropped his gun. Pacer lashed out and caught his friend flush on the jaw with the heavy brass hilt. Truett groaned, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slipped from the saddle and landed on his back in the mud. Pacer glared at the two men with the torches as if daring them to interfere. He knew them to be followers, not leaders. The men with the torches retreated out of harm’s way. Then one of them, Darvis Porter, dismounted and cautiously approached the fallen man.

Pacer turned to the youngsters. “Run to the woods. Hide there until things quiet down.” The two lads looked at one another as if doubting their good fortune. “Run, damn you!” Pacer added, and the two raced off toward the distant line of trees and never looked back. Pacer didn’t expect any thanks.

“When Sawyer comes around, he’ll kill you,” said Darvis. With the Choctaw Kid, he had ridden up from Indian Territory to join the raid. Darvis was more puzzled than ever at Pacer’s behavior. Lawrence was easy pickings. What was the matter with McQueen anyway?

“I don’t think so,” Pacer coolly replied. If his boyhood chum intended to follow the black flag, so be it. But the Choctaw Kid had business elsewhere. He pointed his pinto stallion toward the Missouri road. The heat from the burning buildings continued to warm the back of McQueen’s shirt as a reminder of all he had witnessed and, try as he might, could never fully leave behind.

Dreams…

T
HE THUNDERCLAP, SOUNDING LIKE
a Sharps buffalo gun in the confines of the barn, startled Pacer Wolf from his restless sleep and saved him a cracked skull in the process. The Choctaw lay on his back on a bedding of hay in a stall alongside his pinto. The lightning’s lurid blue-white glare streamed through the open stable door and outlined a menacing figure standing over Pacer and about to bludgeon him with an ax handle.

Pacer twisted and one long leg lashed out and caught his attacker on the side and sent the mysterious intruder sprawling into the center aisle. Pacer Wolf scrambled to his feet. He caught up his revolver and lunged for his assailant. He kicked the ax handle aside and dragged its former owner to her feet.

Pacer stepped back in disbelief and then turned up the wick on a nearby lantern to make certain—and yes—a young woman of no more than fifteen years stood glaring at him as she fought to catch her breath. His blow had driven the air from her lungs. At last her breathing became less desperate, and still full of fight, she glanced around for the ax handle.

Don’t try it,” Pacer said, brushing the hair back from his face and taking a better look at the young woman. She was a beauty despite her homespun attire—nankeen pants, a faded red shirt and mud-spattered flat-heeled boots. A battered carpetbag lay in the aisle a few feet away. Her auburn hair spilled past her shoulders in sodden ringlets and her hazel eyes blazed with defiance.

“I didn’t mean you no harm,” the girl said, “but I needed me a horse.” She glanced around the stable at the horses in the stalls and the empty tack room. “Where’s Erman? I thought you were him. Erman would never let me have a horse. He’s too afraid of the Shapters, especially Frank.”

Pacer recognized the first name. The stable’s owner, Erman Tree Hawk, was an old Osage who had finally put down his roots in Fort Smith. Pacer had paid the stable man the price of a bottle of cheap whiskey for the use of a stall for the night. The Osage took the money and left to slake his thirst at the nearest saloon and had yet to return. As for Frank Shapter or the girl, Pacer had no inkling who they were. He didn’t want to know. The Choctaw Kid had enough problems without looking for more.

“I got to find me a horse,” the girl said. “Anything faster than these old carriage nags. Frank’s got a Kentucky mare that’ll run me down for sure.”

Pacer could feel trouble coming. He almost volunteered his help but caught himself in time. “This isn’t the only stable in Fort Smith; Maybe you should try elsewhere,” he said.

“Frank’s looking for me. I can’t chance the street.” Her gaze settled once more on the pinto.

“Look here, whatever your name is—”

“Lorelei. That’s a pretty name, ain’t it?” She smiled.

“Not pretty enough to win you my horse.”

Yet this winsome lass with her smudged cheeks and flirtatious smile seemed confident. Pacer remembered how his Grandpa Kit had warned him of the fairer sex, claiming that a determined woman could be more dangerous than a coiled rattier. Pacer was beginning to understand the wisdom of those words spoken so long ago to a boy trapped between two worlds, one red, one white. Of course, Grandpa Kit had added with a wink, “Yessir, such gals might be dangerous but they can sure be a hell of a lot of fun.”

Well, right now Pacer Wolf wasn’t looking for fun. He just wanted to be left alone. He wanted people to steer clear of him while he worked things out for himself.

Nothing had happened as planned. He’d spent the past year dashing across Northern lines, disrupting communications, raiding stage lines, and helping himself to the deposits in the border-town banks, all for the good of the Confederacy. The Choctaw Kid’s reputation as a daredevil had grown. He had taken pride in his own exploits. Now, thanks to Will Quantrill, Pacer’s name was linked to the destruction of Lawrence and the deaths of innocent people. His pride had suffered a grievous blow.

Pacer watched the young woman wander over to the open doorway. She felt his eyes on her. She liked that. Lorelei checked her backtrail and paused a moment to enjoy how the downpour concealed the town behind its silvery veil. Fort Smith was shuttered and dark against the elements, and the streets were empty save for a half-dozen forlorn-looking mounts tethered to a pair of hitching rails in front of the Liberty Saloon. Mules and mares and geldings waited with bowed heads and their rumps to the elements as the late summer shower lashed the rutted street. The downpour had a relaxing, almost hypnotic effect until she spied a familiar figure sloshing through the mud. He materialized out of the gray gloom, leading a horse and heading for the stable. Had she left tracks or was he merely following a hunch? Instantly, the hairs on the back of her neck tingled and her heart began to pump excitedly. She turned and gave Pacer a quick appraisal. He wore the black-legged garments of a Confederate guerrilla, which meant he was no stranger to violence and could handle himself. But could he handle the likes of the big man lumbering toward them through the storm? There was only one way to find out.

“Where you bound for, mister?” she asked.

“I’m called Pacer Wolf. And it’s to the Indian Territory I’ll be heading as soon as this storm eases up.”

“Indian Territory? That ought to be far enough,” she muttered. She stepped back and studied him.

“I’ve heard tell the Jayhawkers and Yankees have been chasing a red-haired breed called the Choctaw Kid.” She beamed with certainty. “You’re him! As I live and breathe.” Her expression became thoughtful, as if she were planning something. Pacer did not bother to reply. He rubbed a hand across his stubbled cheeks, brushed his long red hair back from his features, then settled his hat and headed for the stall. The pinto neighed and pawed the straw-littered floor with an iron-shod hoof. The animal sensed the alarm in the man. Pacer could not put it into words, but this brash young woman left him unsettled. Something in her eyes made a man go weak inside.

Pacer had an instinct for danger and, storm or no storm, he had business elsewhere. He opened the stall and tossed his saddle over the pinto. The stallion took a breath and swelled its belly, a trick that never worked on Pacer, who nudged the pinto in the ribs and, when the animal exhaled, tightened the cinch. The bridle came next. The Choctaw Kid worked swiftly and smoothly.

Lorelei gathered up Pacer’s bedroll and gunbelt and stepped out into the aisle. She clutched the blankets to her chest. “Take me with you, mister.”

Pacer gave the matter a few moments of consideration, then caught control of himself. “Not hardly,” he said, coming out for his bedroll. She backed away. “See here, miss.”

“I can be real nice to have on the trail. And I won’t be in the way.”

“It appears you already are,” Pacer told her. “And who the hell is—” He glanced past the young woman at the bearded thick-set man looming in the doorway. He was built broad and solid. He’d been walking a while and steam rose from his rain-soaked frock coat and woolen trousers and gave him the appearance of a man carved from brimstone. “Frank,” Pacer said, completing his question and dreading the answer.

Frank Shapter paused to wipe the rain from his close-set eyes, then shifted his attention from Lorelei to Pacer and back to Lorelei, who still clutched McQueen’s bedroll to her bosom.

“You little trollop. I take you off that mud farm of your pa’s and this is the thanks I get. The minute I turn my back, you run off with some no-account drifter.”

“Hold off and let the waters clear, mister. I’m sure we can come to some kind of understanding,” Pacer interjected. Although he was in Confederate territory, the Union troops weren’t all that far off, and to a man on the run in these days of clashing armies and shifting loyalties, just about any town could be considered enemy country.

“You can go to hell,” the man in the doorway growled as he advanced on Pacer. The Choctaw Kid palmed the Colt he had tucked in his waistband and trained it on Shapter. The man halted in his tracks.

“Stand aside. I’ll be on my way,” Pacer told him.