Kinch Riley / Indian Territory

by Matt Braun

  “Is there any way we could reason with Ross? Maybe he could be persuaded to withdraw this plan.”

  Stevens gestured toward the rear of the room. “How about it, John? You’re the one who spoke with Ross. Will reason work?”

  The other men turned in their chairs. Ryan stared back at them and was all too aware that he’d been put on the spot. He was also aware of the answer Stevens expected. Yet he saw nothing to be gained by hedging.

  “No,” he said levelly. “You could talk yourself blue in the face, and it wouldn’t matter. Ross won’t budge.”

  Stevens arched one eyebrow. “While you’re at it, give the boys the benefit of your thinking. How far would Ross go to stop us?”

  Ryan’s face was impassive. He wrestled with himself a moment, then shrugged. “I think he’ll go the limit. Whatever it takes, that’s what he’ll do.”

  “Thank you, John.”

  Stevens took a furled map off a nearby table. Holding it overhead, he stopped before the seated men. His mouth curled in an odd smile as he let the map drop open. In the lamplight was revealed a large-scale rendering of the Cherokee Nation.

  “Here’s how we deal with William Ross!”

  Tracing an inked line on the map, Stevens’ smile turned to a smug grin. His finger skirted Tahlequah, then leaped past Fort Gibson to the Arkansas River. His eyes blazed with excitement.

  “We’re going to bypass Ross and his damned Cherokees! We’ll lay track on a beeline to the Creek Nation.”

  “God’s blood!” Scullin protested. “Are you sayin’ you mean to bypass Fort Gibson?”

  The question claimed everyone’s attention like a clap of thunder. Fort Gibson, apart from being a key military post, was the only white settlement in the Cherokee Nation. To bypass it seemed unthinkable, perhaps impossible.

  Stevens uttered a low, gloating laugh. “We’ll leave the Cherokees high and dry. Their one and only railhead will be Boudinot’s town site—Vinita!”

  “Jesus,” Scullin muttered. “I’d think the army might take a different view. They’ll not appreciate being tossed aside so lightly.”

  “I intend to discuss that very thing with General Sherman.”

  Stevens grinned and stuck his thumbs in his vest. The men stared at him with a look normally reserved for sword swallowers and magicians. At length Scullin managed to recover his voice.

  “And where would you be seein’ the General?”

  “Fort Gibson,” Stevens said. “He arrived yesterday.”

  “Well now, that is a piece of news. Do you think he’ll actually go for your idea?”

  “What I intend to propose will be to everyone’s benefit, including the Army. I think General Sherman will approve it quite readily.”

  At the rear of the room, Ryan looked on with a grudging sense of admiration. He thought Stevens had all the moral scruples of a hungry spider. Yet there was no denying the man’s cunning and his commitment to a vision. The railroad would be built despite all obstacles. There was simply no stopping it.

  Still, the irony of the situation was not lost on Ryan. Bypassing Fort Gibson might well be viewed as a mixed blessing. For William Ross and his supporters were about to see a dream partially realized.

  The Katy would make only one stop in the Cherokee Nation.

  At dawn Stevens and Ryan departed for Fort Gibson. They traveled by horseback, and their route generally followed the Texas Road. Ryan, as he had before, acted as bodyguard and guide. He rode with his shotgun laid across the saddle.

  Stevens was in a talkative mood. He dwelled at length on a plan he’d formulated overnight. At Three Forks, where the major rivers of Indian Territory converged, he would build a sprawling railhead. There, without interference from the Cherokees, he would construct as well a vast complex of shipping pens. All of which placed him even closer to the Texans and their herds of longhorns. The cattle trade would still fall to the Katy, although a bit later than he’d calculated. In so many words he congratulated himself on turning adversity to advantage.

  Ryan marked again the voice of an ambitious man. He’d always considered such men to possess an equal mix of arrogance and pride. He understood them as well as their motives. Ryan realized that to a lesser degree he had many of the same traits. He took pride in his work, prided himself on being better at it than most men. And there was a certain arrogance involved when he bet his life that he could out-wit—or outshoot—robbers and killers.

  Ryan was disturbed by these similarities. Yet in the end he believed there was an essential difference between himself and Robert Stevens. He was content with the respect of other men and the satisfaction of a job well-done. Stevens was driven to build empires and would never know contentment. His reach would forever exceed his grasp.

  They rode into Fort Gibson just before sundown. Several such garrisons, built following the Civil War, were scattered across Indian Territory. Part of a containment strategy, the purpose of these outposts was to hold hostiles such as the Kiowas and Comanches within established boundaries. Generally manned by cavalry with supportive infantry units, the forts were crude wilderness bastions. No one lived well, or comfortably, serving on the frontier.

  General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman had appropriated the post commander’s office. An aide-de-camp ushered Stevens and Ryan through the door with starchy formality. Sherman rose and came around the desk, his hand outstretched. He and Stevens traveled the same circles in Washington and neither of them was a stranger to the White House. Their handshake was cordial, almost fraternal.

  Watching them, Ryan’s first impression of the General was one of surprise. Sherman was a stocky bulldog of a man, rather short in stature. His face was square and pugnacious, covered by a wiry beard, and there was a rocklike simplicity in his manner. His badly fitting tunic gave him a curiously unmilitary appearance. Yet his piercing eyes and commanding presence left little doubt as to who or what he was.

  The Plains Tribes called him the Great Warrior Sherman and the sobriquet aptly suited the man. Sherman had led the legendary Union march through Georgia, which split the Confederacy and hastened the end of the Civil War. His peacetime command was at first the Division of the Missouri, which embraced the Great Plains. Then he had been appointed General of the Army and ordered to “pacify” the hostile tribes. Blunt and brutally practical, his instructions to his cavalry commanders were typical of the man. “The more Indians we kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next … .”

  The Bureau of Indian Affairs branded his policies as genocide. Sherman simply labeled the bureaucrats “rosewater dreamers” and went about his business with total indifference to public opinion. Sherman argued that the Army’s duty was to protect American citizens and not nomadic savages. The current U.S. President and Sherman’s former commander, Ulysses S. Grant, sympathized with the view. Sherman operated with the ruthless tactics of a soldier bent on destroying an enemy army.

  Sherman’s fame had only recently gone up another notch. A band of Kiowas and Comanches had gone on a bloody rampage through Texas, and Sherman had assumed personal command of their pursuit and capture. The upshot was several dead Indians, and their leaders sentenced to life in prison. Wholly in character, Sherman had urged that the leaders be hanged in the most expeditious manner. Afterward, he’d undertaken a tour of frontier outposts which brought him to Fort Gibson.

  Intrigued by the General, Ryan was a rapt observer as the discussion got under way. It occurred to him that Sherman and Stevens were very much birds of a feather. Both men were obsessed by their own visions of the future, and their ambition, by any yardstick, was remarkable. Moreover, they shared a mutual trait that bonded them like brothers. Their contempt for Indians was absolute and immutable.

  As the conversation progressed, Ryan sensed that Stevens was employing verbal sleight of hand. The railroader first recounted all his previous difficulties with the Cherokees. Then he elaborated on William Ross’ latest ploy to undermine the Katy. From there, he raised t
he specter of what would happen if the Katy folded and the Five Civilized Tribes prevailed. He underscored the logistical threat to the Army if rails could not be laid through Indian Territory and on into Texas. On that patriotic note, he concluded, awaiting a reaction.

  Sherman gave him a hard, wise look. “You’ve made your case, Bob. Suppose you tell me what it is you want—specifically?”

  “For several reasons,” Stevens said forcefully, “I want your permission to bypass Fort Gibson.”

  “Forget several,” Sherman growled. “Give me one good reason.”

  Stevens leaned forward, very earnest now. “The Cherokees are the greatest single threat to western settlement. William Ross, by his high-handed manner, sets a bad example for all tribes. And it’s an example that breeds resistance and encourages hostility. He has to be stopped!”

  “Not a bad argument,” Sherman said slowly. “A bit overstated but still fairly believable. So how do I justify bypassing one of my key forts? How does that put the quietus on Ross?”

  “It bypasses him!” Stevens said triumphantly. “We leave Ross and his Cherokees to wither on the vine. No railheads, no towns, no money pouring in! The other tribes will see the light soon enough.”

  Sherman mulled it over a moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was calculating and military. “How would you adjust the survey line? Keep in mind it has to be done with no detriment to the Army. We’re still a long way from pacifying the hostiles.”

  Stevens popped out of his chair. He moved to a large operations map mounted on the wall. With his finger he traced a line from the present end-of-track to a stretch of high ground situated above Three Forks. He rapped the spot with his knuckles.

  “There!” he thundered. “On that spot I’ll build you a railhead and supply depot bigger than you ever imagined. We’ll centralize all military shipments”—his finger skipped westward on the map—“supplying Fort Sill as well as the Texas posts. It will be the hub of military operations!”

  Sherman’s eyes crinkled with what passed for a smile.

  “By jingo!” he said. “That’s a sound plan. You’ve just cut my logistics problem by half.”

  “Then you’ll approve the new survey line?”

  “Well”—Sherman hesitated, gave him a conspiratorial look—“one of my commanders won’t be too happy. What you’re proposing pretty much consigns Fort Gibson to the ash heap.”

  “And the Cherokee Nation!” Stevens added with vinegary satisfaction. “William Ross will have no more influence than a toadstool. He’ll be silenced!”

  “So he will,” Sherman agreed. “All right, Bob, get to it. I approve.”

  Ryan knew he’d just witnessed a turning point in the railroad’s fortunes. His thought was borne out not quite two weeks later. On June 28, with the bridge completed, track was laid over Pryor’s Creek. The drive was on to the Creek Nation.

  Looking back, Ryan was no less impressed by the meeting with Sherman. Yet even as the rails extended southward, a vestige of doubt still remained. Stevens’ words had seemed too optimistic, almost overconfident. Ryan was certain that they hadn’t heard the last of William Ross.

  Or the Cherokee assassins.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ryan was bored. To him, idleness was all but intolerable, and there suddenly seemed no need for the services of a special agent. He found himself with time on his hands.

  One reason was the relative quiet that had settled over the Cherokees. By imposing a stiffer cattle tax, William Ross had apparently stilled his opposition. The tribal council, after approving the measure, appeared to be awaiting some countermove by the railroad. As yet, of course, no one knew of the decision to bypass Fort Gibson. The Cherokees were sure to retaliate in some fashion when it became public knowledge. But for now neither side seemed in a rush to provoke the other.

  Apart from the Cherokees, there was still another reason for the period of calm. The work gangs were now laying track seven days a week. There had been no respite and therefore no opportunity for a tent town to spring up around end-of-track. As a result the sporting crowd hadn’t moved forward from Vinita. The absence of whiskey and whores in particular seemed to have put a damper on violence. After dark the railroad camp was quiet as a church, and almost as peaceful. No one had the time, or the energy, to hunt trouble.

  For Ryan it was sheer tedium. He tried to stay busy by following a normal routine. Morning and afternoon he scouted ahead of the track-laying crews but found nothing to report. He silently prowled the camp at night but was aware that the effort was largely wasted. With time to spare his thoughts dwelled more and more on Elizabeth and her distant attitude. He brooded on the obstacles separating them and gradually worked himself into a disgruntled state of mind. His temper grew even shorter when he was forced to admit an uncomfortable truth. However hard he tried, he was unable to forget her.

  A reprieve of sorts came three days after track had been laid across Pryor’s Creek. Stevens sent for him shortly before suppertime. He found a meeting underway at the private car. Otis Gunn, the chief engineer, and George Walker, head of the survey crew, were huddled around a map with Stevens.

  Sally Palmer intercepted him as he entered. She was wearing a low-cut gown that was almost an exact match for her china-blue eyes. Unwittingly, she put a hand to her hair, patting a stray curl. It occurred to him that her vanity was curiously inward. She resembled a cat admiring itself in a mirror. She smiled and offered him a drink, and he was aware that he’d arrived sooner than expected. She was attempting to distract him until the meeting ended. He politely declined the drink.

  Looking around, Stevens rather abruptly ended the meeting. He rolled up the map and turned from the table with the other two men. Gunn and Walker seated themselves, and Stevens motioned Ryan forward. His manner seemed almost jolly.

  “Evening, John,” he said, smiling. “Hope I didn’t pull you away from supper.”

  “It’ll keep till later.”

  “Good. Have a seat, join us.”

  Ryan lowered himself into an armchair. Gunn and Walker bobbed their heads in greeting, all smiles. Some inner voice warned him that things were not as they appeared. The pleasantries and the smiles, particularly on Stevens’ part, were overdone. There was a strong scent of snake oil in the air.

  “I need your help,” Stevens went on. “You’re familiar with Colbert’s Ferry, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been there,” Ryan acknowledged.

  “Are you acquainted with Ben Colbert?”

  “Only in passing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Couple of years ago I was on the trail of a whiskey smuggler. I stopped overnight at Colbert’s place.”

  “Did he know you were a marshal?”

  Ryan shook his head. “I never went out of my way to advertise the fact. Indians tend to get closemouthed when they know they’re talking to the law.”

  “So it’s true, then?” Stevens asked. “Colbert really is part Chickasaw?”

  “No, not part,” Ryan said. “He’s a full-blood.”

  The Chickasaw Nation lay at the extreme southwestern boundary of Indian Territory. Ben Colbert was something of a backwoods businessman who operated a ferry across the Red River. Apart from natural fords, it was the only way back and forth between Texas and the Nations. Colbert’s name was known all along the frontier.

  “Since you’ve met him,” Stevens continued, “let me ask your opinion. Would you consider him a shrewd trader?”

  “Hard to say,” Ryan allowed. “I only met him the one time.”

  “Is he an educated Indian?”

  “Not to hear him talk.”

  “Do you think he’d remember you?”

  “Probably not. Lots of people pass through there every day.”

  “I see.”

  Stevens exchanged a look with Gunn and Walker. Then, still smiling, he glanced back at Ryan.

  “I’m sending Otis down to have a talk with Colbert. I’d like you to act as h
is guide.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before.”

  “I know,” Stevens conceded. “But for the most part you’ll be traveling outside the Cherokee Nation. There shouldn’t be any trouble this time.”

  “I seem to recall that’s what you said last time. And I ended up killing two men.”

  “Which we all regret,” Stevens said with exaggerated gravity. “Suppose I threw in a bonus—say five hundred dollars. Would that change your mind?”

  “Why so much,” Ryan said skeptically, “if you’re not expecting trouble?”

  “To insure your discretion. You and Otis will be traveling incognito.”

  “You’ll have to spell that out.”

  “For the time being, we want Colbert kept in the dark. There’s to be no mention of your association with the railroad.”

  “Why not?”

  “Everything will become obvious once you’re at Colbert’s Ferry. Until then, let’s just say it’s privileged information.”

  Stevens paused, nodding to himself with a cryptic smile. Ryan was confused, but he’d long since ceased being surprised by the railroader’s convoluted schemes. The man was like a Chinese box, a puzzle within a puzzle.

  “Trust me for now,” Stevens insisted. “You won’t regret it. You have my word.”

  Ryan shifted his gaze to Otis Gunn. He stared hard at the engineer a moment. “How about it, Otis?” he said at length. “Any chance I’ll regret it?”

  “Not on my account,” Gunn said with a weak smile. “We’re going there to talk, nothing more.”

  Ryan mulled it over awhile. Then, finally, he shrugged. “All right,” he said. “I could use a change of scenery anyway.”

  “Excellent!” Stevens said, grinning. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, John.”

  Sally Palmer walked forward, joining the men. She caught Ryan’s eye for an instant, looked quickly away. There was a trace of amusement hidden in her expression. And that, more than anything else, bothered Ryan.