Go-Ahead Rider

by Robert J Conley

  GO-AHEAD RIDER

  GO-AHEAD RIDER

  ROBERT J. CONLEY

  M. EVANS

  Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

  Published by M. Evans

  An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  www.rowman.com

  10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

  Distributed by National Book Network

  Copyright © 1990 by Robert J. Conley

  First paperback edition 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows:

  Conley, Robert J.

  Go-ahead Rider / Robert J. Conley

  p. cm. — (An Evans novel of the West)

  I Title. II. Series.

  PS3553 0494G64 1990

  813'.54—dc20

  ISBN: 978-1-59077-408-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-59077-409-0 (electronic)

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter One

  George Tanner wasn’t prepared for the sights and sounds that greeted him in Tahlequah when he stepped off the stagecoach. The sidewalks of the small town were crowded with people jostling each other, and the streets were busy with the traffic of wagons, carts, and men on horseback, going, it seemed to George, in all directions at once. It reminded him of the traffic of the big eastern cities he had seen. And there in the square was a large, two-story brick building that had not been there four years earlier when he had left to go to college. He knew as soon as he saw it, though, that it was the new Cherokee National Capitol Building. They had been talking about it back then before he had left.

  Then he realized that the Council must be in session. That was the only likely explanation for the extraordinary crowds of people in town. Council meetings had always drawn large crowds to Tahlequah, but this was the largest he had ever seen. At least he thought it was. His luggage was stacked there on the sidewalk in front of the Capital Hotel where the stage driver had dumped it, along with George, and he had to find someplace to stash it while he looked for a place to live.

  The Civil War in Indian Territory had cost him his parents and his home, and his raising had been finished in the Cherokee Orphanage. Three years after the war had ended, George’s education was finished as far as it could go in the Cherokee Nation, and Mr. Grant, the missionary, had made all the arrangements and had sent him to college at Harvard. Now, his college education completed, his new degree in the classics in hand, George Tanner had come home to the Cherokee Nation. He had come home, but he had no home. Since he had been deposited there in front of the Capital Hotel, he decided to try for a room. He went inside and found the proprietor there behind his counter.

  “I’d like a room for the night,” said George.

  “You won’t find anything in town,” said the proprietor. “Haven’t you seen the crowds out there? Everything’s taken.”

  George was slightly taken aback. He couldn’t think of where else to turn. The man, he thought, was probably right about there being no rooms available in town.

  “Well,” he said, “I just came in on the stage. I have some luggage out on the sidewalk. Can I leave it here?”

  The proprietor scratched his head and looked around, looking as if he were searching for an excuse to say no. Not finding one, he answered with a shrug.

  “I guess you could stash it here behind the counter,” he said, “for a while.”

  “Thanks.”

  George lugged it inside and put it where the man indicated, then went back out onto Muskogee Avenue, the busy main street. He couldn’t help but notice that a majority of the people in town had the appearance of white people, like the proprietor of the hotel and like—well, he thought, like me. He assumed that, also like himself, they were mostly mixed-blood citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

  He needed to find a place to stay, and the prospects looked pretty dim. Even so, his curiosity pulled him toward the new capitol building. It was certainly the most impressive building in town, probably, George imagined, in the whole territory. He felt a surge of pride just standing there looking at it: the capitol building of the Cherokee Nation, his national capitol. The square on which the capitol stood was noticeably free of the wandering crowds, but George saw five armed guards on the square. Obviously their job was to keep the crowd away from the building while the Council was in session. He decided not to challenge them by seeing just how close he could get to the building before they would stop him, so he stood on the sidewalk across the street from the square to study the new edifice.

  Then he heard a shot. It came from somewhere up on the north end of the street. There wasn’t a whole lot up there. The Cherokee Male Seminary, the oldest institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi River, was up there at that end of the street, and there were a few small shops and some scattered residences, mostly small log cabins. George looked toward the sound just like everyone else did, and then there was another shot. A few souls, either brave or foolhardy but certainly curious, started to run in that direction. The rest, including George, craned their necks to see what they could see from their relatively safe positions. George felt a hand slap him on the back, and he turned his head. It was Captain Go-Ahead Rider, who had been a captain in the Indian Home Guard, U.S. Army, during the Civil War, and that was the only thing George had known about him. George had been just a youngster back then, but he had seen Rider and he’d heard people talk about him. Rider wasn’t wearing a uniform anymore, though, and George saw that he had a star pinned on his vest.

  “Inena,” Rider said, and he started to move on.

  “What?” said George.

  Rider hesitated and looked back.

  “Don’t you understand Cherokee?” he said. “Come with me. You’re deputized.”

  George knew that a district sheriff of the Cherokee Nation could deputize any citizen when he needed help, and he knew that any citizen so deputized who refused to comply was subject to a fine. His funds were limited, and he still didn’t have a place to live. Besides that, Go-Ahead Rider had been for several years a hero to George, so George followed him. Rider led George up toward the north end of the street and the edge of town, and there the crowd thinned out. Another shot was fired. George still couldn’t tell just where the shots were coming from. Rider turned toward the curious few who had come up the street just about as far as he and George.

  “Get on back down there now,” he said. “Someone could get hurt here.”

  Another shot rang out, and the people turned and ra
n back down the street. Rider shot a quick glance toward George.

  “You got a gun?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” said George.

  In his belt Rider had two Navy Colts, and he pulled one out and handed it to George butt first. George took the gun and, feeling somewhat awkward and stupid, held it out in front of himself aimed at the ground about five feet away.

  “Right up there,” said Rider, pointing to a log cabin up the hill about a hundred yards from where they stood. “Jesse Halfbreed’s in the house there, and back there behind, somewhere in them trees, is Tom Spike Buck. They’re both drunk. I’d rather not shoot them, but shoot them before you let them shoot you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said George.

  “You go over there behind that big oak and watch the front of the house. I’ll get Tom first. Then we’ll worry about Jess.”

  Rider started out for the trees but not in a direct line. He made a wide circle so that he could slip up on Tom Spike Buck. George stood and watched him for a minute, looked at the cabin, and then ran straight for the big oak. He got safely behind the big tree, and then he peeked around it, but he had lost sight of Go-Ahead Rider. Rider must have already made it to the trees behind the cabin. George focused his eyes on the front door of the house as Rider had told him to, and he waited. Then he thought, My God, what if I have to shoot a man that I don’t even know just because he’s drunk and just because I happened to be standing there handy when Go-Ahead Rider needed a temporary deputy real fast? Of course, he remembered, Rider had said that he shouldn’t shoot unless he had to. Still, he felt like he was in a pretty touchy situation.

  Then it got quiet, real quiet, and George started to get nervous. He didn’t know what was going on in either the house or back in the trees. He felt his palm begin to sweat against the butt of the Colt .36. Then he heard Rider call out from in the trees.

  “Jess,” he said. “This is Sheriff Rider. I just knocked Tom over the head, and he’s out cold. Ain’t nothing left for you to shoot at. Toss that gun out and come out of the house.”

  Another shot sounded, and George couldn’t be sure from where he was posted, but he figured that Jess Halfbreed had fired out the back of the house at Rider. Then the front door flew open, and a man, Jesse Halfbreed, George guessed, came running out. He had a pistol in his hand, and he was running straight for the big oak that shielded George. Apparently he didn’t see George, and thought that Rider was alone, and George was determined to keep it that way for as long as possible. He pressed himself against the trunk of the big oak and waited. He waited until he could hear the man’s feet pounding the ground and knew that he was getting close. Then George peeked around the tree trunk. The runner was nearly on him, but he had just looked back over his shoulder and hadn’t seen George peer around the tree. It looked to George as if the man intended to race right past the tree and keep going. Just as he was about to pass the oak, George stepped out and stuck a foot in his path. The fugitive went sprawling facedown on the ground. He lost his grip on his pistol, and it flew out beyond his reach. He looked up and saw George, then he started to scramble forward after his lost weapon, but George stepped up quickly and set down a foot hard on the man’s hand, the one that was reaching for the gun. He aimed the Navy Colt at the man’s head and thumbed back the hammer.

  “Just be still,” he said. “I sure don’t want to kill you.”

  “I’m sick,” said the captive, but he relaxed, and George moved forward to pick up the gun he had dropped, an old Remington .44. He tucked it in the waistband of his trousers and stepped back beyond the other man’s reach. Then he looked off toward the trees. Rider was dragging a limp body out into the open. He looked up to see George and waved at him to come over.

  “Get up,” George said, and he marched his prisoner over to the sheriff.

  “You watch these two,” said Rider. “I’ll be back.”

  Rider walked back down onto Muskogee Avenue and approached a man in a wagon. Pretty soon he climbed up on the wagon seat beside the driver, and the man drove his wagon up to where George was waiting. They loaded the two prisoners into the wagon and drove them to the jail, a small stone building just south of the capitol. When Rider had locked up the prisoners, he took George into his office and offered him a cup of coffee. George accepted. Rider handed him the coffee, and George returned the Navy Colt to Rider and gave him Jesse Halfbreed’s Remington.

  “Sit down,” said Rider.

  George sat and sipped at the hot coffee.

  “I owe you a dollar for that job,” said Rider. “I have to put in a request for it, but you’ll get it. I’m Go-Ahead Rider.”

  He stuck out his right hand, and George took it in his.

  “I know who you are,” said George. “I didn’t know you were sheriff, though. Not until just now.”

  “I was appointed sheriff of Tahlequah District about a year ago,” said Rider.

  “I’ve been away,” said George, “to school. I’ve been gone four years.”

  “You’re the Tanner boy, ain’t you?” said Rider. “From Park Hill?”

  “Yes, sir. George Tanner. You know me.?”

  “I knew your father. He was a good man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  George Tanner felt just a bit pumped up inside, finding out that Go-Ahead Rider knew who he was. Rider had been famous among the Indians since George’s childhood, and not just among the Cherokees. He was known throughout Indian Territory, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. And he had recognized George, and that made George feel proud.

  “I saw you get off the stage,” said Rider, “and when Jess Half-breed’s wife came to get me and said there was trouble up at her house, I decided to try you out.”

  “You’ve got five deputies out there,” said George.

  “And I want to keep them out there. They’re temporary help hired for the duration of the Council meeting to keep order around the capitol building. There’s a bunch of folks in town and some hot issues before the council.”

  Rider stopped talking and opened up a desk drawer from which he took out a corncob pipe and a tobacco pouch. He filled the pipe, struck a wooden match on the side of his desk, and lit the tobacco.

  “What are your plans, George?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I just got back from college. I guess I’ll look for a job of some kind. As soon as I find a place to live. There don’t seem to be any rooms in town, and my old home place is gone. Burned during the war.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Rider. He puffed on his pipe. He was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped on a comer of his desk. He wore high, black leather boots with his trouser legs tucked into them. His two .36-caliber Navy Colts, retooled to accept bullets instead of balls and black powder, which he had previously carried in the waistband of his trousers behind his wide, black belt, were lying on the desk in front of him. His black vest, on which his star was pinned, was hanging open, the two sides connected only by a gold watch chain, and under the vest he wore a loose-fitting, white cotton shirt. His coal-black hair grew to his shoulders, and the white smoke from his pipe, which seemed to hover momentarily in wisps around his head before it slowly rose and dissipated, only served to set off by stark contrast his dark brown skin. He wore a thin mustache, the ends of which grew down past the corners of his mouth. His eyes were nearly black and his features finely chiseled. He seemed to George Tanner almost a perfect picture of the war hero or the fighting frontier lawman.

  “I need a full-time deputy,” Rider said finally. “Permanent. You want the job?”

  George’s face registered surprise. He looked at Rider, then quickly looked back down at the cup he held in his hands. Staring into another’s eyes was not considered polite among the Cherokees. Staring too long and hard was even considered threatening.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never thought about being a lawman.”

  “What did you study in college?” said Rider.

  “The classics. You know, Greek and Latin.”<
br />
  “Mmm,” said Rider. “Where did you go? What school, I mean.”

  “Harvard.”

  “I like the way you handled yourself out there just now with old Jess,” said Rider.

  “Thank you.”

  “So what do you say?”

  George stood up and paced the floor. He did need a job, and he needed a place to stay. He had been offered a teaching position back east when he had graduated, but the idea of teaching just hadn’t appealed to him. Besides that, he had wanted to go home. But a deputy sheriff? He turned back to face Go-Ahead Rider, who sat calmly smoking his pipe.

  “Why me?” said George.

  “I liked your father.”

  “I just don’t know. I never handled guns much. I did box and wrestle in college. I don’t know, Captain Rider.”

  “Well,” said Rider, “let’s go get your bags and put them up at my house. You’ll stay with me for tonight. You can think about the job and give me an answer in the morning. If you decide you want to try it out, we’ll make it temporary. Give it a month to kind of try each other out. Come on.”

  * * *

  That evening they were all gathered around the table in Go-Ahead Rider’s home: George Tanner, Rider, Rider’s wife, Exie, and the two Rider children, Tootie, a nine-year-old girl, and Buster, a five-year-old boy. Rider said a prayer in Cherokee, and then they all dug in. They had catfish and dumplings and sweet corn and greens. The Riders spoke only Cherokee at home. Tootie was learning English at school and could speak some, but little Buster knew only Cherokee. Exie could understand English but couldn’t—or wouldn’t—speak it. George’s Cherokee was not quite as good as Exie’s English. He understood some. It had been four years since George had even heard Cherokee spoken, and the language sounded good to his ears. When the meal was finished, George leaned back in his chair from the table.

  “Wado,” he said. He did know how to say “thank you” in Cherokee. “That was real good.”

  Exie smiled and said something back to him which he couldn’t quite make out. He looked at her for a moment, and then he glanced at Rider.