Knights of the Golden Circle

by Eugene Lloyd MacRae

  Rory took a couple of big steps to catch up, heading for his own parked car, "But you're still trying."

  Chet nodded, looking sad. "Kinda got a little personal for me too, I guess. I had to do an interview with an old girlfriend, Josie McDaniel. She married one of the other guys from school and moved over to the next county," Chet said. "Real looker, you know. I was a little backwards with the ladies and missed the signals...hells bells missed the entire boat...never had a chance with anyone else after that. Anyway, broke my heart when I had to talk to her about her youngest girl. Little tom-boy who disappeared while she was out treasure hunting."

  Chet continued walking but Rory stopped in his tracks.

  Chet took a couple more steps and stopped, looking back at Rory, "Something wrong?"

  "You said she was out treasure hunting? They said the same thing about the boy...."

  Chet put his hands in his pockets and shrugged, "That's just what a lot of the young'uns do around here. Doesn't really mean much. Heck, we did it when I was a kid. Me and Bobby Fin used to treasure hunt these woods around here for years."

  "What for?"

  "The treasure," Chet said as if he had expected Rory to know all about it.

  "The treasure? What treasure?"

  "The one buried by the Knights of the Golden Circle."

  Chapter 4

  GOLDEN PUBLIC LIBRARY

  RORY STEPPED INSIDE the old building and was immediately surprised. The large open space was filled with ornate wooden carvings, gleaming old tables, polished oak chairs and even smelled like an old library. The smell of old books and yellowing newspapers was powerful. But he also saw bright lighting and dozens of computers with patrons tapping away and printing out reams of paper. At the far end of the room, he could see dozens of youngsters gathered around a number of tables, talking softly and laughing and keeping an eye on the older ladies who were obviously the staff or 'library police' who kept them in line. Rory looked over at the staff and saw the small, short woman he wanted. She was sitting behind an old, wooden desk that had the sign 'Information' on it. Her name tag read: Sara Madison.

  Rory stepped to the desk, "Ms. Madison? Chet Calhoun said you could help me find information on The Knights of the Golden Circle."

  The small woman looked at him over her glasses, "Oh, he did, did he? Do I look like a personal information kiosk for Calhoun's friends?"

  Rory felt uncomfortable under the woman's steady gaze. "Well...I'm not really a friend. I just–"

  "Smartest thing you've said so far," Sara Madison said. Suddenly she broke into a cheeky grin. She pulled off her glasses as she got up, letting them hang from a chain around her neck. "I suppose I can help you. What is it you need to know?"

  Rory felt an embarrassed grin linger on his lips. He wasn't sure if he was the butt of a joke or she was really happy to know he wasn't Chet's friend. "Well, maybe you can tell me who these Knights of the Golden Circle were. And about this treasure–"

  "Ah, the treasure," Madison said as she tapped the side of her nose. "Is that what this is all about. Want to find, it do you?"

  Before Rory could answer, the woman moved away, waving for him to follow her.

  The small, short woman talked back over her shoulder as she walked across the library floor, "Back at the end of the Civil War, nine trains were sent to get Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the other politicians up in Richmond, Virginia. That was the Confederate Capital at the time. Union troops were moving in and they had to evacuate Richmond to avoid capture But the trains weren't just there to carry people," Ms. Madison stopped and turned, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial hush. "It was also a treasure train. Loaded on board was the Confederate treasury, the assets of six Virginia banks and a whole lot more. A lot more. It was loaded onto the trains and driven into Georgia, where it disappeared. Poof," she said with her hand simulating an explosion.

  "Poof?" repeated Rory. "No one knows anything about what happened after–"

  "Oh, of course they do. Stop trying to ruin the story," Ms. Madison complained as she shook her head, "some people just don't have a sense of mystery, I guess."

  Rory opened his mouth and then closed it, a smile lingering on his lips.

  The small, short woman turned and continued her walk across the library, explaining more of the story as Rory followed, "It was buried somewhere, is what happened. Legend says it was turned over to the Knights of the Golden Circle, who buried it."

  Rory wondered why he had never heard about this, "The Knights of the Golden...?"

  "Circle. The Knights of the Golden were a secret society in the 1800s. Legend says it was started in Lexington, Kentucky, on the fourth day of July in 1854. The circle refers to the geographic circle of countries they were going to take over as part of an economy built on slavery. Their plan was to create a virtual monopoly on the world's supply of tobacco, sugar, and cotton. The circle was centered on Havana, Cuba–"

  "I would have thought it would be centered on the southern rebel states. Why Cuba?" Rory asked.

  Ms. Madison stopped in front of a filing cabinet. "I'm not really sure, to tell you the truth," she admitted with a frown. "All I know is it was to be centered on Havana and included our Southern states, as well the West Indies, parts of South America and Mexico. Maybe they figured a lot of those places would be easy to invade and take over."

  "If the train went down into Georgia, why would people be looking for the treasure up here in South Carolina?" Rory asked.

  "Well, for one thing, the legend says caches of money were buried all over the place by the KGC in anticipation of the South rising again. You'll find KGC signs supposedly leading to caches all over the Southern States and even as far west as South Dakota. But you also have to understand it in the context of local history. The Knights of the Golden Circle had their start in the formation of what were called Southern Rights Clubs in a number of southern cities in the mid-1830s. These clubs were inspired by the influences of John C. Calhoun. He was a Senator from South Carolina and a vice president under John Quincy Adams and ole Andrew Jackson himself."

  "Calhoun? Any relation to Chet Calhoun?" Rory asked.

  Ms. Madison tapped the side of her nose with a finger, "No lint collecting on you. His great–great–great grand-daddy. Family legend says Ole John C. his-self had a son name of Daniel Jackson Calhoun. And Daniel Jackson was the one who reorganized the Southern Rights Clubs into the KGC on that day over in Lexington, Kentucky. At the very least, he was a very influential member. It was under his instructions, that the treasure train was unloaded in Atlanta and supposedly a large wagon train brought it up into South Carolina. It only traveled at night, but a lot of people reported its passing. Wagon after wagon after wagon were said to squeak under the heavy load of the treasure. After the Civil War, the KGC went underground and became even more secretive, if that was possible."

  "Why didn't Chet say anything about that?"

  Ms. Madison looked left and right, then, lowered her voice again, "Well now. According to ole John C's political theory of republicanism, it included the automatic approval of slavery. And remember what I said about what the Knights of the Golden Circle wanted to create...?"

  Rory nodded, "An economy built on slavery."

  Ms. Madison tapped the side of her nose and nodded, "Like Chet, most of us here have to live with the stupidity of our ancestors and it's not something we like to talk about openly."

  "I can understand," Rory said in sympathy.

  Ms. Madison turned her attention to the filing cabinet, pulling open the top drawer, "Anyway, these are our files on the Knights of the Golden Circle and the events regarding that part of our history."

  Rory looked dismayed at all the files stacked in the cabinet drawer.

  "Yeah, tell me about it," complained Ms. Madison. She bent over and tapped three other drawers underneath the one she had pulled open, "All of these are filled with more information. Despite the state grants to get all those computers and Internet conne
ctions, we still don't have any of those fancy machines to scan and store everything digitally so...."

  Rory nodded his understanding, "Thank you."

  Ms. Madison started walking away, leaving Rory to his chore of research.

  As Rory put his hand on the open drawer, Ms. Madison turned and said, "Oh, and there's more information in the books on top of the filing cabinets. And those long shelves of books beside you have more information, including local history."

  Rory took a deep breath as he looked around, wondering if he really wanted to go through all of this information. Then he pulled out several folders and set them on an old wooden table. Sitting down, he started looking through the files.

  "WHATCHA DOIN'?"

  Rory looked up.

  It was a young girl, about nine years old, dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt that had the name and picture of some pop singer across the front. The young girl's red hair and freckles reminded him of his sister Skye Steele when she was about the same age. The young girl was leaning on the other side of the table, elbows on the table and both hands propping up her chin.

  "Just looking at some things," he said as he looked back at the file in front of him.

  "You going to look for the treasure?" the young girl asked.

  Rory looked at the young girl and shook his head no, "Just looking."

  The young girl was quiet for a minute and then sat down in a chair, "I used to look for the treasure all the time. But now momma says I can't go out in the woods no more."

  Rory looked across at the young girl again. Her hands were crossed on the table now and she looked sad. "Why not?" he asked.

  "Cause momma says she doesn't want me to be kidnapped like Corry. That's where he was when he was kidnapped, in the woods looking for the treasure," she said.

  "That would be Corry Haney? I heard about him," Rory said.

  The little girl nodded her head, "Me and Corry used to go out into the woods all the time looking for the treasure."

  "I see."

  The little girl put her hands on the side of her mouth and spoke to Rory confidentially across the table, "Corry was my boyfriend."

  Rory suppressed a smile but nodded. "Did Corry know he was your boyfriend?"

  The little girl covered her mouth and giggled, shaking her head no. "But I was working on him," she added. "Just like momma said she did with daddy. She had to work on him a loooong time." The girl looked down at the table, "He died in Iraq."

  Rory's heart went out to her, "I'm sorry to hear that."

  The little girl nodded, "I don't really remember him. But momma says he was nice. Corry's daddy died in Iraq too. They was best of friends."

  Rory didn't have to say much in return. The story of two best friends from a small town, fighting for their country and each leaving behind their young family was difficult enough for older folks to handle, let alone a young girl.

  The little girl got up and walked around to Rory's side of the table, "Would you like me to help you figure anything out? Corry was really smart when it came to this stuff. And he taught me a lot about it."

  "He did?"

  The girl nodded emphatically, "Showed me how to read the signs. And how to find more–"

  "Signs?"

  "The treasure signs," she said as if he should know.

  "What are the treasure signs?"

  She looked at Rory like he had two heads. "If you're gonna look for the treasure, you have to know about the signs. C'mon," the young girl said. She reached out and took Rory's hand, pulling to get him to stand up.

  Rory got up and allowed the young girl to lead him towards the back of the library.

  She walked right to an exit door and pushed it open, leading him outside. They moved across an open expanse of grass at the back of the library, then over a sidewalk and onto the street.

  Rory felt a little awkward, being led by a young girl and he didn't even know her name. "Where are we going?"

  "Not far," she said simply.

  Reaching the sidewalk on the other side, the little girl pulled Rory to the left and past a number of old single-dwelling houses with louvered shutters, metal roofs, and white, weather-beaten boards that needed paint. A few minutes later, they were walking past larger, two-story homes with big wrap-around porches and double-hung windows.

  Rory noticed a police car sitting further down the street. He hoped the officer behind the wheel would ask questions first and not shoot the stranger in town, walking with one of their young children.

  "This way," the young girl said as she pulled Rory to the right, across a lawn and between two of the large, two-story houses. They entered a large, sparse backyard and headed for an old, gnarly tree at the back. She stopped at the tree and pointed, "That right there on the tree is one of the signs from the Knights of the Golden Circle. It leads to treasure."

  Rory cocked his head and looked at the tree. He saw the amazing outline of an old, old stick figure carved into the thick bark. It looked like a star above a man riding on a horse. Or was it?

  Rory moved in for a closer look, feeling the contours of the figure in the bark with his fingers, "How do you know what it means?"

  The young girl stepped closer and pointed, "See how the head on the horse is looking forward?"

  "Okay...."

  "But the head of the rider under the star is looking back? Corry said that means–"

  "Emma?"

  Rory turned and saw a woman standing back by the house

  "Hi, Mrs. Haney," Emma said as she waved. "I'm just helping this man figure out the treasure stuff."

  Rory realized the woman was Donna-Lou Haney, the waitress back at the diner and the woman whose son had been kidnapped.

  The black haired beauty with the trim figure looked with concern at Rory. She waved Emma towards her, "I think your momma is calling for you."

  Emma cocked her head and she listened intently, "I can't hear her...."

  "Emma-Mae Houston, you just go on now, you're momma is calling," Donna-Lou insisted.

  The young girl glanced at Rory and waved, "Okay. Bye." She then skipped past Donna-Lou Haney and towards the front of the house.

  Donna-Lou Haney crossed her arms as the girl disappeared around to the front of the house, "Who are you? And why are you in my yard?"

  "I apologize for that," Rory said with a nod of his head. "Emma is not easy to ignore. I was talking earlier with Chet Calhoun –"

  "You know Chet?" Donna-Lou asked. She tilted her head in a questioning look.

  Rory shook his head no, "I just met him. I was over at the radio station and we got talking. He suggested I look up some information at the local library. Which is where I met Emma and she dragged me over here–"

  "If you don't mind, I gotta get back to work," Donna-Lou said as she turned and headed for the front of her house. She took a few steps and then turned, giving Rory a look that said he should be leaving too.

  Rory followed several feet behind her and back towards the front of the house.

  Donna-Lou Haney stepped around towards the front porch.

  Rory kept walking towards the sidewalk.

  A car pulled to a stop in front of the house. Two honks on the horn sounded, "Hey Donna-Lou, how are you?" Chet Calhoun was leaning out the driver side window, grinning and waving.

  Donna-Lou Haney smiled and waved back.

  "Hey there, Mr. Steele. You need a lift?" Calhoun asked as Rory stepped onto the sidewalk.

  "I left my car over at the library," Rory said. It's just a short walk –"

  "Hop in, no need to wear out shoe leather when you don't have to," Calhoun said amiably.

  Rory nodded and walked around to the other side of the car. He looked over the roof of the car at Donna-Lou Haney.

  She was now staring at him with her arms crossed.

  Rory opened the car door and got in.

  Calhoun honked twice and yelled goodbye to Donna-Lou Haney. As he pulled away from the curb Chet looked at Rory, "Find anything out at th
e library?"

  Rory shook his head no.

  Calhoun drove, not a peep from him for a moment. And then he glanced sideways at Rory, "Find out anything from Donna-Lou? About her son, I mean?"

  Rory glanced at Calhoun and then shook his head no, "We didn't have much of a conversation, I'm afraid."

  Calhoun nodded, "She ain't been the same since Corry was took. Too bad. Beautiful woman like that. Smart as a whip too. Everybody figured she was headed to a big-time university. But she got pregnant with Corry. Husband was Merle Haney, star quarterback for the local high school football team. He got a scholarship from Alabama but decided to fight for his country like his daddy and his granddaddy and his great granddaddy did. Family tradition, I guess. Got killed over in Iraq a week before Corry was even born. Real shame. Nice guy."

  Rory simply nodded at the info dump.

  Calhoun pulled to a stop beside Rory's Jaguar, "What you gonna do now?"

  Rory gave that some thought for a moment. Then he said, "I guess I'll just head for Greenville. I have someone to meet." He reached over and extended his hand, "But it's been nice meeting you, Chet. Maybe I'll be back this way some day and I'll look you up for a coffee or something. Learn a little more about that treasure."

  Chet Calhoun shook Rory's hand vigorously, "That would be nice. It's been a real pleasure meeting you, Rory Mack Steele. Almost a good ole southern name that."

  Rory nodded and got out. A few minutes later, Rory gave Chet two honks, received two honks in return, and headed for Greenville, South Carolina.

  Chapter 5

  GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

  THE SUN WAS HIGH AND WARM, the sweet fragrance of the nearby tulip trees carried across the air on a light breeze as the three large men stood side by side across the wide laneway, fully intent on intimidating ninety-year-old Grace Patterson.