Evil at Hand
No sooner had the Yankees arrived in New Orleans than the time for my departure of the city presented itself.
I had told General Pike I intended to return to my duties in the Indian Nations upon completion of my mission and he had consented.
Before leaving, though, I intended to spend time with my partner in crime, with Father, and with multiple glasses of Sazerac at the Pickwick Club. I plead guilty to enjoying New Orleans for about two weeks longer than necessary and, in hindsight, I am glad I did, for those days after the heist proved the last of Father’s life.
I found his lifeless body sitting in his study with a dropped glass nearby, the floor still wet with bourbon. While certainly a man in elder years, Father had appeared relatively vigorous during those days and I stood perplexed at his sudden passing. I stooped to the floor to sniff the remnants of his last drink and detected a garlic-like scent. I strongly suspected he had been poisoned.
I made all arrangements for a funeral service and for placement of his remains in the family tomb. Out of concern for her life, I instructed Marguerite to stay away from Father’s home until I returned from Indian Territory. I made arrangements for her to stay with a distant cousin not too many blocks away. Marguerite and I discussed at length how she should remain discreetly out of sight.
The night before leaving for the Indian Nations, I spent a few hours at the Pickwick enjoying first one Sazerac and then another. While feeling the full effects of the drink, I detected queer behavior from surrounding club members—men conversing in hushed tones while seeming to occasionally glance my way, and club staff looking at me with strange expressions. Everyone around me seemed privy to something concerning me of which I remained unaware, and I did not enjoy the feeling. Did they know about the heist? Did they know about Velazquez? Did they know where I stashed the booty?
The elite of New Orleans frequented the Pickwick Club, and I surely knew that some of that same cadre helped create and organize the Knights of the Golden Circle some seven years earlier under the leadership of George Bickley. Some within my midst that night seemed aware of my past transgressions and of foreshadows of things to come. Not enjoying the ambiance, I decided to leave the premises and set out for the Indian Nations the following morning.
I departed 57 St. Charles Avenue and made for Canal Street, crossed it, and then took an alleyway on my way to the apartment deeper in the Vieux Carre. At the opposite end of the dark, narrow thoroughfare stood two dark figures in the shadows, and these were certainly not shadow people. I pondered reversing course to avoid the two but decided to advance and face what was probably the sort of inebriated loiterers I had encountered many times before.
As I advanced to within nearly fifty feet, the two crept from their partly concealed positions and stood directly in my pathway. Without hesitating, I walked straight toward them.
It became obvious the two stood in wait for me, and my thoughts envisioned a probable robbery in my immediate future—that or questioning by Yankees as to the purpose of my late-night prowling.
My heart beat ever rapidly as the distance between me and the alley cats decreased, and so loud was the booms that they rang in my ears. Fear coupled with a genuine interest in their intentions served to heighten the exhilaration of the moment.
As I wedged my way between the two, the one on my left shoved me hard against a brick wall and laughed. The one on my right remained quiet.
“It’s time for answers, Broussard.”
“Get your damned hands off me before I kill you both.”
“Full of swagger, are you? I guess it takes such to pull off what you have.”
I charged from my position against the brick wall to attempt a break, but to no avail. The two closed in and commenced a short beating.
“Now, listen very carefully. You are going to tell us where you stashed the plunder, and you are going to tell us right now.”
The two stood directly against either side of me, and I knew I couldn’t break free from the predicament.
The quiet one finally spoke, but not before a swift and deep punch to my solar plexus.
“Unless you want to die in this alley tonight, you’d best start talking. And those are orders from the top.”
I remained quiet and the two, in unison, slammed me against the brick wall again.
Up to then, I had fairly left both hands in the pockets of my cape gripping the handles of my blades. My alleyway enemies made it clear they fancied fights of the eye-to-eye variety, and that proved their undoing. My gut and both sides of my head ached from the blows, and I increasingly grew tired of the stench of their breaths so close to my face. To boot, I received a premonition that maybe these two, or K.G.C. operatives like them, were responsible for poisoning Father.
I had taken about all I intended from the sons of bitches.
The time lay upon me.
I presented both blades in one swift motion, starting deep at the navel of both men and working upward, a stem-to-stern type affair. Even in the darkness, I beheld the whites of eyes now enlarged with shock and figured it a perfect time to finish the job, twisting and ramming both blades deep in my respective victims until the act of their falling separated them from my Bowies.
The two then comprised what looked like a single crumpled heap in the alleyway and I jumped over it as I exited the scene. From there to the apartment, I made sure to avoid any other living human being whether Southern or Yankee, and the latter variety seemed to be increasing in numbers with each passing day.
From then on, especially while in New Orleans, I had to behave as the followed man I probably was, followed by those either paid by K.G.C. leaders to beat out of me the whereabouts of the hidden stash or by those who simply learned of the robbery on their own and wanted to know the location of the booty.
On the following day, during a visit with Velazquez to inform her of my return to the Indian Nations, she notified me of her own imminent departure of the city to partake in yet another mission. I did not ask for details and knew she would not divulge had I done so. In my eyes, she stood as the quintessential loyal K.G.C. agent. I, on the other hand, owned just enough allegiance to The Circle to heed Father’s words:
“Just slither within its ranks as unnoticed as possible, play the game, play it smart, wait it out until the end, and, when the end comes, as it most certainly will come, have yourself situated on the other side of the world, if possible.”
That did not, however, keep Velazquez and me from enjoying several glasses of Sazerac to complement a more than memorable last rendezvous in New Orleans.
We ended our revelry with me slightly inebriated, but lucid and robust enough to endeavor an escape of my home town, a city now occupied by hordes of Yankees. I also stood coherent enough to understand the irony of attempting a break from a city where killers of Yankee occupiers are shot or hung, all to make a break for the Indian Nations where killers of Yankees are awarded medals. While I love my Crescent City, the thought of returning to a land where Yankees are still fair game seemed gratifying to me.
Loreta and I walked to the front door arm-in-arm. As we kissed goodbye, I felt reluctant to release her from my embrace.
Loreta stood at her front door looking slightly forlorn as I walked toward the street and away.
“Drouet, we will meet again?”
“Just you make sure to finish your duties safely and get back here to me. A bullet has not been made that will keep me from getting back here to you.”
Not knowing whose watchful gaze we were under, I bowed slightly and tipped my hat to her. As I turned to close the gate, I glanced again at her and quickly brought my hand to my heart and patted it twice, discreetly inferring my affections for her. She smiled gently in return and raised her hand to her own heart.
I stepped away as she quickly turned to go back inside her home.
7
Working Outside of New Orleans
In leaving New Orleans, I chose circuitous routes
.
I journeyed along hidden pathways under the darkness of night while retrieving from memory the location of nearly-forgotten trails discovered during my early years, the sort of thoroughfares known only to the young and carefree. I began to breathe easier as I trekked north and west, putting greater distance between myself and the new Yankee residents of New Orleans. It also felt pleasing to know I left behind scores of K.G.C. thugs who crept amidst the cracks, crevices, and alleyways of the Crescent City.
To hell with them all. The job of retracing my original tracks back to Caddo Gap and General Albert Pike lay upon me.
The Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas somehow seemed a welcoming site after my work of previous weeks. The spring breeze whispered through the tall pines, and I inhaled it deeply. I found the secluded cabin where I took the oath and made myself known to the sentries who allowed me entrance at once to the audience of General Pike.
“Hello, General.”
“Do you make it a habit of murdering our agents in alleyways?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re proving to be smarter than I ever believed you capable. Where did you hide the former contents of the mint building?”
I had been thinking about that inevitable question from Pike long before he asked it, and I decided to deny him that information. As long as I withheld the whereabouts of the stash, I could confidently expect to be kept alive, as K.G.C. assassins are less apt to murder one who knows the location of a vast treasure.
“General, I respectfully decline to mention the whereabouts of our plunder. You’ll respect that I selected the choicest hiding spot in Louisiana, I’m sure.”
“Yes, and now I see that you are proving to be infinitely smarter than I ever believed you to be. Your father would be proud.”
“Father is dead.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“News seems to travel fast these days.”
“Our network is vast and acts as a sponge in the collection and as a beacon in the communication of information crucial to our cause. Drouet, you do know that the booty you hid will be used to fund our agents in the field?”
“I am quite aware of that, General.”
“Good, because you will distribute said resources to said agents across the country, along with private dispatches, as we deem necessary. You will begin soon.”
“General, I explicitly told you of my intentions to return to General Watie and his forces in the Indian Nations once I fulfilled my duties in New Orleans. I will continue my work with The Circle when the war ends.”
Pike smiled a devilish smile, one that I did not like.
“And return you will, Drouet. You will immediately return to the service of Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie, a southern hero now called the Swamp Fox—and long-time clandestine agent of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”
“Watie?”
“He has been with us since shortly after The Circle was formed. He believes in its founding principles.”
“As I said to you before I left this cabin for New Orleans some many weeks previous, I am honored to fight by his side.”
“Good. Now that I am no longer an official of the Confederate States of America, you will answer to Watie, not only in matters of war but also in matters related to The Circle, for now. Understood?”
“Understood. The Circle’s network seems as vast as you have described.”
“Drouet, when this war broke out, the cause of the Confederacy became the cause of our Circle, even if only briefly. But I am no longer an official of the Confederacy, and the Confederacy will eventually be no more, certainly so after the recent unfortunate events in New Orleans of which you witnessed firsthand. I have to now re-devote my energies to the cause of The Circle, a cause that helped ignite the war, to begin with.”
Just then, I saw the dark outline of a shadow person in the corner of the room. It lingered for a moment longer than usual before dissolving into nothingness.
“Well, then, I stand ready to report to General Watie as soon as possible, General.”
“Very good, Drouet.”
I set out for the Indian Nations the following morning.
When I left the fighting Confederate Indians for New Orleans a relatively short time before, I did so with a guilty conscience. Those men comprised a bold lot, and it did not feel right leaving their midst in the middle of a war. Nevertheless, I returned in time for the events mentioned earlier in this narrative—the Battle of Honey Springs, where we suffered defeat, and the successful captures of the J.R. Williams steamboat and the Federal supply wagon at Cabin Creek.
While the spoils of both those captures seemed unequal to the booty taken from the mint building, I enjoyed a certain excitement and exhilaration non-existent during the New Orleans heist, a fact due in large part to the bullets returned in our direction from the Yankee soldiers manning both vessels during said attacks.
Now, by 1864, General Watie had certainly heard the bleak news coming from the east, and he knew the Confederacy could not hold out much longer. As a top K.G.C. operative, he enjoyed constant dispatches through The Circle’s vast network covering both the northern and southern sections of the country. I stood proud of assisting him and his forces. They fought on as aggressively as ever, attacking and raiding whenever and wherever possible.
Nevertheless, as a man of The Circle, Watie planned for the future, as per the purpose of the K.G.C. and General Pike by that time. Throughout what is now eastern Oklahoma, Watie and his men hid away much of the guns and ammunition seized from the aforementioned raids of 1864, and from other, smaller raids before and after.
By war’s end, Watie had become acquainted with Jesse James, another ardent member of The Circle, through their mutual friend, General Pike. After Pike’s release from Confederate military service, he spent every waking hour coordinating the activities of the K.G.C., recruiting new agents and coordinating the concealment of money and arms for future use. James had suffered beatings at the hands of northern soldiers and watched as they tortured his stepfather, providing the former religion-filled, peace-loving farm boy with ample reason to hate Yankees wherever he found them. Further, his family owned six slaves who worked on the family hemp farm, providing Jesse with all the prerequisites necessary to join The Circle. In Jesse James, Pike found a perfect K.G.C. agent, marauder, and assassin.
Pike and Watie knew of James’ guerrilla activities toward the end of the war. Those activities included, among other things, successful raids on Yankee steamboats and wagon trains in Arkansas, making his war résumé similar to that of General Stand Watie who made a living doing the same in Indian Territory.
One day in 1864, Watie summoned me to his tent. When I arrived, he welcomed me inside his quarters and showed me a recent dispatch from General Pike. The dispatch noted a recent conversation between Pike and George Bickley, a Cincinnati physician and the original founder of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Their conversation had centered around recent unfortunate turns of events for the Confederacy’s war effort and the inevitable surrender to come. Both Bickley and Pike agreed that The Circle moved immediately into its post-war chapter, an era necessarily involving raids upon banks, trains, steamboats, ships, stagecoaches, and wagon trains to procure the money and materials needed to pursue the annexation of territories to comprise its desired slave-holding empire.
Bickley had suggested the Cincinnati-based Ohio and Mississippi railway as The Circle’s prestigious first target. A resident of Cincinnati who had traveled via the Ohio and Mississippi line on many occasions, Bickley knew the line lacked essential security and stood as a sitting duck for war-seasoned raiders—looters such as Jesse James, Watie and myself. Bickley also knew the train carried multiple safes of the Adams Express Company, the ultimate object of the job.
Watie refused to gallivant off to rob an Ohio train while leaving his Cherokee Mounted Rifles alone with Yankees increasingly ever-present in the Indian Territory. That
left the Ohio job to me and Mr. James, Watie said.
I met with Jesse and Frank James and their men outside Southwest City, Missouri barely a week later. I came upon their camp as the sun began to set.
“Hallo the camp!”
“Come in slowly with your hands in the air.”
I walked in and gave the K.G.C. sign for recognition on the battlefield—that is, with hands open, palms touching and resting upon my head with fingers pointed forward. A man then stepped to within five feet of me and signaled his K.G.C. response by placing his open hands upon his shoulders where an epaulet is usually worn with elbows close to his side.
Staying within K.G.C. protocol for introductions among those who had never before met, he then uttered, “Are you a Knight of the Golden Circle?”
“I am.”
“How am I to know you are a K.G.C.?”
“By my password.”
“Will you give it to me?”
“I did not receive it, but I will letter it with you.”
We then proceeded to spell out the password with him beginning with the first letter and me answering with the second, and so on.
“S.”
“O.”
“L.”
“D.”
“I.”
“E.”
“R.”
“May I enter?”
“You may enter.”
I immediately and silently counted those around the campfire and, with the addition of myself, the gang numbered fifteen.
The gazes of the gang members indicated a deep suspicion of me. They watched my every move as I found a place to stand by the fire. I began asking myself if I could survive the days ahead amongst this lot.
Shadow people lurked everywhere at the edge of the camp. I wondered what the shadowy figures watched and listened for.
The man with whom I had exchanged the K.G.C. signs and passwords introduced himself.
“I’m Frank James.”
As soon as I introduced myself, we heard footsteps from the surrounding woods. Just then, one of their members emerged from the darkness and walked directly toward me.
Ghost Knights Of New Orleans Page 4
