All Men Fear Me

by Donis Casey

  It took a minute for Scott to realize that the chant was turning to screams. Gunfire punctuated the yelling, and all at once there was chaos, people running for their lives, scattered by dozens of armed men on horseback, charging up the hill.

  Trent tried to struggle to his feet. “We’re rescued!”

  “Sit down, boy,” Scott hissed, “before a stray bullet gets you.”

  The prisoners huddled close under the tree, trying not to get trampled or shot in the confusion, yelling to be released at any likely looking posse member who dashed by, but nobody cast a glance in their direction. It occurred to Scott that the two of them would make good hostages for the rebels. He was getting nervous. It didn’t help when he felt someone sawing at the rope that bound them to the tree.

  A ferocious whisper cautioned them to be still.

  “Robin?” Scott said.

  “Dang it, I said hold still.” Rob was just out of Scott’s line of sight, behind Trent, whose hands had been miraculously freed from their bonds. Trent scrambled up and Rob appeared around the tree trunk in a crouch, a wicked-looking buck knife in his hand, and went to work on Scott’s fetters. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, as he sawed, “before some yahoo figures out y’all would be good bargaining chips.”

  Trent and Rob helped Scott to stand and the three of them made for the woods as anarchy reigned around them. Rob led them to the area where the horses were picketed. They were lucky to find their own horses still there. Fugitives were mounting up and fleeing right and left.

  “Looks like the cowards cut and run,” Trent crowed. Rob didn’t respond. The unnatural glow was gone from his face. He looked diminished.

  Scott grabbed the reins of Rob’s mule as he mounted. “I thank you for rescuing us, Robin, but I’m going to have to arrest you on suspicion of sabotage and maybe the murder of Win Avey and Billy Claude Walker.”

  Rob’s eyes widened. “I didn’t kill nobody…”

  Scott spoke over him. “I ain’t got time to argue with you. Let’s get out of here before Duncan and his gang decide to haul you in for inciting a riot and being a traitor.”

  “Our firearms,” Trent attempted.

  Scott ignored him. “Let’s go, boys. No time to debate the finer points of the law.”

  Chapter Sixty-two

  “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

  —Alexander Pope

  It took forever for Alafair and Mary to put the children to bed. On top of everything, Chase wanted to sleep in the parlor with Charlie, so Alafair fixed up a pallet beside Charlie’s cot before she even began to get ready for bed herself. Mary and Judy bunked in one of the two double beds in the girls’ room, and Grace happily went to sleep with her mother.

  Charlie lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, for what seemed to him to be hours and hours, trying to wait long enough for everyone to be well asleep before he made his move. Chase fell asleep instantly and deeply, in the way of seven-year-old boys, so Charlie slipped out of bed and stepped over him without worry. He retrieved his shirt and trousers from the end of his bed and went into the kitchen to pull on his boots and creep out the back door. The screen creaked when he opened it, giving him pause, but he didn’t hear anyone stir and made his way carefully down the steps before running for the barn.

  He was horrified to see the roan in the barnyard, still saddled, his reins dragging the ground as he grazed. The horse had gotten loose, untied himself somehow from the post in the barn. The animal raised his head when he saw Charlie approaching, and began to trot off toward the grassy field behind the tool shed. Apparently the roan was not convinced that this trip was necessary, for Charlie chased him, begged him, pleaded with him, for a quarter of an hour. The roan never let him get within arm’s length.

  Charlie was nearly in tears and had exhausted his supply of profanity when he gave up and ran back to the barn to saddle Pork Chop, a much more obliging horse even if he was built like a barrel. If he had had the time, Charlie would have picked out a likelier mount, but the stables were a far piece from the barn, and he was desperate not to keep Henry waiting any longer than he had to. Since he had to pass the house before he reached the road to town, he headed out at a walk. His plan to slip silently past the house didn’t pan out.

  His mother was standing on the front porch in her nightgown.

  He couldn’t see her expression in the dark, but it didn’t matter. The tone of her voice told him all he needed to know.

  “Charlie, where are you going?”

  He was caught, but it was too late. He wasn’t about to come this far with his plan only to be thwarted by his mother. He reined in by the picket fence. “Me and Henry Blackwood got it figured out who the brick plant saboteur is, Ma. We think he’s going to try to pull something tonight, and we’re going to hide and catch him in the act. We made our plans before I knew Daddy and Gee Dub would be gone, but it’s got to be tonight. Y’all will be all right.”

  His reasoning didn’t sway Alafair. “Charlie, get back in the house, now. You can’t go gallivanting off in the middle of the night on some harebrained scheme and leave us all on our own out here.”

  It was hard for Charlie to concentrate on what Alafair was saying. Pork Chop was eager to get on with his nighttime ride, and so was the boy. “Faugh, Mama, they ain’t a helpless female among you. Nobody is going to bother y’all and even if they do, Mary’s twice as better a shot than me.”

  “Charlie, your daddy said…”

  Charlie cut her off. “You don’t understand, Ma! You don’t go to town enough to hear how folks are talking about us. You don’t know what it’s like to have everybody look at you funny because your sister’s husband is a German and your uncle is a socialist. I got to prove we’re one hundred percent with the president, and then maybe they’ll leave us alone.” He dug heels into Pork Chop’s flanks and took off.

  “Charlie Boy!” He was halfway down the drive when she cried his name.

  She barely heard his reply when he called back over his shoulder. “I ain’t a child, Ma.”

  Alafair watched openmouthed as he galloped off. She was not used to outright mutiny from her children. She could feel the blood pumping in her temples.

  Gee Dub was going off to war, as was her soon-to-be son-in-law Trent. Kurt and Mary were being threatened and harassed. Robin had been accused of fomenting revolution and maybe of murder. Innocent people were being hounded and run out of town. And there was nothing she could do about any of it. And now her wild-hearted boy was rushing headlong to confront the devil.

  She was not going to have it.

  Sophronia, Grace, Mary, and Chase were standing at the screen in their nightclothes, watching aghast as Charlie staged his getaway. Sophronia crashed out the door and down the steps as Charlie rode away. “Charlie, come back! Come back before you can’t come back no more!”

  Alafair strode back up the porch steps. “Mary, do you figure you and the children will be all right for a spell while I go to fetch him back?”

  Mary was generally a cheerful woman, but the times had blunted her sense of humor. Her expression was grim as she nodded at Alafair. “Don’t worry about us, Ma. I’m just in the mood to shoot somebody. Maybe you should stop by Martha’s and take Streeter with you, or maybe Walter.”

  Mary was following her mother through the house as Alafair threw on a dress, retrieved a key from the top shelf of the armoire in her bedroom, and unlocked the gun cabinet in the corner of the parlor. She took down a rifle and a box of shells before heading for the back door. “I’m too far behind the lunkheaded youngster as it is, honey. No, Grace, I ain’t going to shoot Charlie, howsoever much I feel like it. I have to saddle up Missy and that’ll take me a fair spell to get out to the stable and all. No, Fronie, you can’t help and you can’t come. You neither, Chase. Y’all stay in the house. I mean it, now. Blanche, you help Mary with Judy. I’ll b
e back as soon as I can.”

  And with that she was out the back door and striding toward the barn, shaking with anger and outrage and fear that her hotheaded boy was riding into far more trouble than he knew. She stopped in her tracks when she saw a large, dark shape in the barnyard. A saddled horse, judging by the jingle of its tack. She slowed and walked toward it carefully, trying not to spook it. The animal stood where it was, its head turned in her direction, until she was close enough to see that it was Charlie’s beloved white-maned roan gelding.

  “Well, I’ll be,” she said aloud. She knew that Charlie and the horse had their differences, so she sized up the situation quickly. “So you decided not to go along with this idiot scheme.”

  The horse snorted an acknowledgement.

  Alafair could have passed by the obstreperous horse and gone to the stable to saddle her own mare as she had planned. But here before her stood a fast beast all ready to go. She made up her mind in an instant and strode toward him. He shied and backed away.

  “Hold still, Sweet Honey Baby,” she barked.

  The roan knew better than to argue.

  Alafair was too far behind Charlie to follow him by sight, and it was too dark to track him. All she knew was what he had told her. He and Henry Blackwood intended to catch the saboteur in the act, which meant he was headed for the brick plant. The plant covered eighty acres, and she had no idea where the boys planned to set up surveillance. The best she could hope for was to be able to get there before they went into hiding, or perhaps she could rouse the night watchman and alert him to what the boys were up to. If all else failed, she’d wake up Mr. Ober at his house and have Charlie and Henry arrested for trespassing.

  Chapter Sixty-three

  “Treachery and sedition must be combatted. Unworthy and sordid motives must be ferreted out and their authors deprived of all power for wrong doing.”

  —Tulsa County Council of Defense Report

  As he neared the brick plant, Charlie could see an armed man standing at the front entrance. He halted Pork Chop well back from the gate and studied the situation for a moment. Even from his vantage point on the main road, he could see two or three ghostly lights floating around the yard. The lanterns of the night watchmen.

  He had known that Mr. Ober had hired extra security, but it had not occurred to him until this moment that the guards wandering around the grounds were likely to interfere with his plans to catch Dutch Leonard in the commission of his crime. Yet Charlie knew about the gap in the fence. All Dutch had to do was get onto the grounds without being seen, and then if he were careful, he would be able to move around while avoiding detection.

  His mother’s voice in his head interrupted his rationalization. Why don’t you just tell Mr. Ober what you know? He’s better equipped to confront a traitor than you are.

  Charlie firmly ignored the voice of reason and turned his horse onto the field that led to the clay hills at the rear of the plant.

  He found Henry waiting for him in the copse of trees that backed up to the hills, as they had arranged. Charlie dismounted and led his horse into the trees. “Seen anything?” Charlie kept his voice low.

  “Not a thing. Where you been, young’un? I was about to decide you weren’t coming.”

  “It’s a long story. My ma saw me leave, though. I’m going to catch hell tomorrow. If Dutch don’t come tonight, I don’t reckon I’m going to be able to do this again. Not unless I leave home for good, that is.”

  Henry sighed. He had only gone along with Charlie’s wild idea because he liked the boy and he had told Alafair he’d look after him. Looking after Charlie was turning out to be a harder job than Henry had anticipated. “Well, maybe that’s just as well. I don’t know how long I could keep up this twenty-four-hour-a-day schedule.”

  “I’ll bet you money that tonight is all we’ll need.”

  “Keep your money. I’ll tell you what. If Dutch don’t show up tonight, I’ll go with you to Mr. Ober tomorrow and we’ll tell him everything you saw…” He swallowed his sentence and squinted into the dark. “I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “There’s somebody out there.”

  ***

  The guard stationed at the entrance to the brick plant held up his lantern in order to get a good look at whoever was approaching in the dead of night. A middle-sized woman on horseback, brandishing a rifle, was the last person on earth he expected to see. He walked forward to meet her as she reined at the gate.

  Alafair didn’t recognize the man, but he had the bean-pole, beaky-nosed look of the Tyler family who raised cotton out south of town. “Howdy,” she said. “Have you seen a couple of young fellows come by tonight? One of them would be on a pinto.”

  “Nobody’s been down this road since the last shift finished, ma’am, except for you.”

  “Are you acquainted with Charlie Tucker or Henry Blackwood?”

  “Can’t say I am.”

  “Well, keep an eye out for them, anyway. Both tall boys with fair hair. I fear they aim to sneak onto the grounds. My son and his friend have got it into their heads that somebody is going to slip in here tonight and do some damage, and they think it’s up to them to stop it.”

  Her warning amused the guard no end. “Ma’am, Mr. Ober has so many men guarding this plant that a rat couldn’t slip onto the premises without us knowing. I guarantee that nobody is going to tamper with any machinery tonight or any other night.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear. But I hope you’ll pass the word that they’re around. If they try to sneak into the plant, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t shoot them. My boy is sixteen and I’m hoping he’ll live to see seventeen.”

  “I’ll let my boss know, ma’am. We’ll keep a watch for them. I’ve got a fifteen-year-old son myself, and he’s always looking for ways to get his head busted.”

  Alafair guided the roan back out to the main road at a walk and started back the way she had come. She didn’t know what to do, now. She wasn’t as panicky as she had been when Charlie rode off into the dark, determined to accost a killer. There were plenty of guards around to arrest anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there. She was disappointed in Henry for going along with this scheme, though. Or perhaps Henry thought he was keeping Charlie from doing anything stupider than lying in wait all night. She hoped so. Henry had seemed like a level-headed young man.

  Should she go back and wait for Charlie to come home with his tail between his legs in the morning? The girls were probably worried, and she didn’t like the thought of Mary out there alone with a bunch of little children. Maybe she’d just take one turn around the perimeter of the plant, and see if she could catch a glimpse of the boys or old Pork Chop.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  “The necessities arising from a great emergency furnished sufficient authority for the herculean efforts of…determined, virile, loyal and fearless men…”

  —Tulsa County Council of Defense Report

  “I’ll be danged all to hell, Charlie, look yonder.” Henry spoke in an exited undertone. “I do believe that you may get your chance to be a hero yet.”

  Henry and Charlie both hit the dirt and crawled to the edge of the copse in order to get a better view of the dark figure skulking toward them along the fence. It was impossible to see the man’s face, but the figure of the skinny man in a tan Stetson with a high, uncreased crown was unmistakable.

  Henry reached over and slapped Charlie’s shoulder. “Dutch Leonard,” he whispered.

  “I reckon,” Charlie whispered back. He could hardly believe his eyes. Could it be that he was actually right? He bit his lip to keep from cheering.

  They watched in silence as Dutch approached the gap in the fence. He had come too close for the boys to take a chance on speaking to each other, so Charlie wasn’t quite sure what action they were going to take now. He expected the best thing to do was wait until Dutch slipped into the yard and then
sneak after him. He was going to try signing his intentions to Henry when something else caught his eye. “Who’s that?” he said, too surprised to keep quiet.

  Someone else had appeared at the gap and was signaling for Dutch to come on.

  “I can’t tell,” Henry whispered. “I don’t recognize him.”

  Dutch and the mystery man disappeared together through the fence.

  “It’s an inside job!” Charlie started forward on his hands and knees. “Come on, Henry.”

  Henry reached for him, but Charlie was already halfway across the open space to the fence, running in a crouch. “Dang,” he murmured, and started after him.

  ***

  Alafair was about to give up when she spotted a glint of moonlight off of something just inside the copse by the back corner of the fence. The roan huffed, and a whinny answered him from the trees. Pork Chop.

  Alafair sighed with relief and urged the roan forward. Pork Chop was tethered to a pin oak a few feet within the copse, along with a mule that she assumed belonged to Henry. But the boys were gone. “Charlie, where are you?” she called. Her voice echoed in the silence. She scanned the fence, but didn’t see the gap until she had practically ridden into it. She let out a breath, relieved, irritated, and worried all at once. She guided the roan through the gap.

  Chapter Sixty-five

  “No Mercy for Slackers.”

  —Tulsa Daily World, August 5, 1917

  Dutch and the shadowy stranger were nowhere to be seen when Henry and Charlie made it through the fence.

  “Let’s alert the guards,” Henry suggested. “There’s two of them, and I fear you and I are not equipped to take on a couple of subversives bent on mayhem.”

  Charlie was not about to capitulate now. “No, not yet. Let’s find them first. I think they must be headed for the rail siding.”

  “All right, but whether they’re there or not, I’m calling in reinforcements once we reach the siding.”