1824: The Arkansas War

CHAPTER 25

Natchez, Mississippi

The bullet missed, but it did manage to shatter a bottle of whiskey sitting on the bar top that was close enough to shower Ray Thompson with its contents. Crouching behind the bar next to Powers, he cursed bitterly. It was rotgut, naturally. He'd be stinking for hours. Assuming he survived the next few minutes.

"Can't you ever just keep your mouth shut?" he hissed.

Powers finished reloading his pistol. "Damnation, this tavern was my old watering hole." He peered up at the bar top above them. "How many were there?"

"Four, till you shot one and I shot another."

"The tavern keeper?"

"He ran off. I don't think he was one of them. But they'll have friends coming, you watch. And meantime they've got us pinned here, and"-Ray rapped a knuckle against one of the planks that formed the base of the bar-"sooner or later it's going to occur to those stupid yahoos to try to shoot through these planks to see how thick they are. I'm not looking forward to the results."

Powers winced. "Neither am I." He gave Thompson a calculating look. "We got no choice, I'm thinking. Right at 'em is the only way."

Ray shook his head. "Yeah, we got no choice. But I'm only joining you if you swear you'll stop using your own name."

"Yeah. Fine. I swear. Mother's grave, whatever you want."

Thompson didn't bother to answer. He was too busy gauging the distance to the only unshattered bottle still on the bar top.

"I'll go first, right over the top. You come around the side."

Powers nodded. Since there was no point in dallying, Ray rose up enough to tap the bottle over with the barrel of the pistol.

Almost instantly, a shot was fired, smashing into the wood behind the bar.

"Thank God for yahoos." But he was erect before he finished the statement, where he could see the room, his pistol tracking the man who'd fired.

Dumber'n sheep. The idiot was standing up, reloading. Ray shot him in the chest. Then, lunged to his left, just in time to evade the shot fired by the man's partner. He kept lunging leftward, half running and half scrambling, but never dropping out of sight. That would keep the man's eyes on him while Scott Powers's shot came from the other side of the bar. Ray stopped and looked over. Good enough. He didn't think Scott had killed him outright, but it was good enough.

"Fucking yahoos," Powers snarled on their way out of the tavern. "Why the hell do they care if we hurt Clay's chances? The bastards never bother to vote, anyway. Too stupid to read the ballot."

Ten minutes later they were ready to head for the Natchez Trace.

"Now we're horse thieves, too," Ray complained as he led his mount out of the barn they'd broken into.

Powers was in a cheerier mood. "Lookit this. Found it tacked on the wall in there."

He handed over a printed notice.

Thompson didn't look at it, though, until they were out of the town's limits. Killing three or four men might be forgiven in Natchez, depending on who their friends and relatives were, but stealing a horse was a hanging offense.

When he did look at it, reading slowly because of the horse's gait, he whistled.

"Ten thousand dollars. Whoo-eee. "

Then he shrugged and handed it back to Powers. "Lot of good it does us."

But Powers was still smiling. "O ye of little faith. I know him, Ray. Andrew Clark's the first cousin of an old friend of mine."

Thompson looked over at him skeptically. "And what of it? He did the killing in Washington, Scott. If your geography's gotten hazy since our seafaring days, that's about a thousand miles from here as the crow flies-and we ain't crows. By now he could be anywhere."

" 'Could be,' sure. But he won't be. Where's he going to go? That's a snooty family he comes from, real Georgia gentlemen. If he'd killed Houston, he'd have been all right. They'd hide him as long as it took. But killing Houston's wife, won't nobody in those circles touch him. In fact, they'd turn him in faster'n anybody. Even the yahoos in Louisiana would. Well, half of 'em, anyway."

Ray thought about it. That was true enough, actually. Killing a woman, unless she was a whore or a cheating wife, was one of the few ways a man could cross the line with Southern and Western roughnecks. Almost as bad as horse stealing.

The last thought reminded him of their own predicament. "What're we going to do with these horses, Scott?"

"Let 'em go; what else? As soon as we reach Port Gibson. That's stretching it a little, but I figure we can probably get away with it. Being as there was four of them, and us not knowing how many friends they might have."

Again, Ray thought about it. That was:

Also true enough. There was a certain protocol involved. Actually stealing a man's horse was a hanging offense, sure enough. But if a man let the horse go while it was still close enough to find its way home-or be returned by someone else who knew the brand-most people were inclined to let it go as more-or-less borrowing the horse just to get out of a bad spot. Which theirs had certainly been. Often enough, it became a laughing matter.

It wasn't surefire, of course. But at least it gave you an arguing point if you got caught.

"Okay, then what?"

"Port Gibson's where we want, anyway." Powers flashed Thompson a grin. "Being as how you and me is for a Mississippi steamboat and St. Louis. I figure we can get hired on, easy enough. This soon after the massacre, a lot of the regular men'll still be nervous about steaming past the Arkansas."

Thompson grimaced. "Scott, I'm nervous about steaming past it. Unless they're even dumber than yahoos, they'll still have that flotilla there. One or two boats anyway-and they're likely to be none too fussy about diplomatic protocol. What if they stop our boat and search it? They find us, we're for the rope."

"Yeah, sure. But it's been two and a half months since Arkansas Post. I figure by now the U.S. State Department has made plenty of protests to the Confederacy on the subject of interfering with American commerce on the Mississippi. Say whatever else you will about the bastard, Quincy Adams ain't no slouch. As long as we stay out of sight when our boat gets to the Arkansas, we should be safe enough." His cheery expression was disfigured for a moment by a scowl. "Which won't be hard, since we'll probably be working in the boiler room."

Ray matched the grimace. Boiler room work was just as hard as it was dangerous.

Not, however, as dangerous as staying in yahoo country, with their names black as mud because of that damned Bryant. And even if they always used aliases, there were just too many men in the area who knew them personally.

Nor could they return to more civilized parts of the United States. Leaving aside what difficulties they might encounter because of Bryant's articles-which could be serious, given that Clay might well be the next president-they had several other awkward issues to deal with. Scott had arrest warrants out for him, and Ray had creditors. Not the sort of creditors who demanded imprisonment for debt, either, as a last resort. The sort who started with broken knees.

"All right, then."

"Oh, stop being gloomy," Scott said. "We need to get to St. Louis anyway, on account of this." He patted the pocket into which he'd stuffed the reward notice.

"Why?"

"Don't you pay any attention? I told you. Well, maybe not all of it. Andrew Clark's cousin is the black sheep of the family. He's the one person Clark could find shelter with, and he's in Missouri."

"In St. Louis?"

"Well. No." Powers seemed to be avoiding his gaze. "Further west. Missouri Territory."

Ray rolled his eyes. "Wonderful. He's a bandit, isn't he?"

"Some might call him that, I suppose."

" 'Some,' " Ray mimicked sarcastically. "Let me guess. Ninety-nine out of a hundred citizens of Missouri."

Scott grinned. "Nah, not that many. Maybe ninety-five out of a hundred."

He gave Ray a sideways look. "What? You worried about our good names?"

Thompson said nothing. What was there to say?

"What I thought. Face it, Ray. We ain't exactly upstanding citizens, our own selves. Not even around bandits. Southern ones, for sure."

New Antrim, Arkansas