Go-Ahead Rider Read online

  “Did you have enough?” said Rider.

  “Oh. Oh, yeah,” said George. “Plenty. I’m full. Stuffed.”

  Exie moved back to the table with the coffeepot in her hand. She poured her husband’s cup full, then turned to George.

  “Kawi jaduli?” she said.

  “Yes,” said George. “I could take some more coffee. Wado.”

  When Exie had filled George’s cup, Rider stood up, his cup in hand.

  “Lets go outside,” he said.

  George picked up his cup and followed Rider out. Rider had two log cabins built no more than twelve or fourteen feet apart. The space between the cabins was paved with flat stones and fenced in on both sides with a low picket fence. It was to some chairs and small tables in this “dog run” that Rider led George. They sat down in the pleasant evening air and looked over Tahlequah. Rider’s home was built up on the high bluff east of town so that they looked down at the back side of the new capitol building. The town looked quiet enough. They could see only a few people still milling around the streets.

  “Captain Rider,” said George, “—or maybe I should call you Sheriff Rider now.”

  “I get called both ways,” said Rider. “Call me what you like.”

  “What are the big issues before the Council that drew so many people to town?”

  “Main thing is the railroad issue. You know we had to let the railroad go through by the treaty we signed after the Civil War. They just recently got it finished on down to Texas.”

  “Yeah,” said George. “I rode it to Muskogee coming home.”

  “There’s some wanting to bring tracks right in here. Into Tahlequah,” said Rider. “The Council’s pretty well divided on the issue. The full-bloods is all against it. The mixed-bloods is mostly for it. Except for old Mix Hail. Mix is only about a quarter Cherokee, I guess, if that much, but he’s lined up with the full-bloods on this issue. In fact, he’s sort of their ring leader, and a couple of his friends, other mixed-blood council members, are kind of following him along. At least they’re not committed one way or the other yet. The way the other side has it figured, the ones that want the railroad to come in here, if it wasn’t for old Mix, they could pull them other two over to their side real easy and have it made.”

  George slurped some coffee, and he thought that it sure did taste good, drinking it out in the night air.

  “Why does everyone care so much about the railroad coming in?” he asked.

  “Railroads change everything, George. They bring all kinds of people in. Some say if the railroad comes in, gambling, liquor, prostitution and all kinds of crime is bound to follow. The ones who want it say it brings prosperity, progress, new business. I imagine they even got ways figured out where they can make a profit from it personally, at least some of them. Old Mix and the full-bloods, well, they want Tahlequah to stay like it is.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I ain’t paid to think, George, just to uphold the law.”

  George squinted at Rider in the dim light of the evening. Rider had declined to express an opinion on the railroad issue, yet George felt that Rider had already in an indirect way made his feelings known. George thought that Rider wouldn’t like to see the railroad come into Tahlequah.

  “Anyhow,” Rider continued, “the council members is all in town, some with their families. Others just come in to be here while the Council’s in session. Some are here because they care about the issues, I guess, and they want to be right here to learn about the decision just as soon as possible after it’s made. Some just use the council session as a good excuse to come to town and have a party. Then there’s some railroad people in town. They’ve hired a man named Omer Lyons, a mixed-blood citizen. His job, I think, is to try to convince the councilmen to vote for the railroad. Oh, yeah, because of all this activity, Elwood Lovely’s in town, too.”

  “Who’s he?” asked George.

  “Deputy U.S. Marshal assigned to this part of the territory out of Fort Smith, Arkansas.”

  “You don’t need him around, do you?” said George.

  “I’m glad to have him,” said Rider. “You know, I’m not allowed to arrest a white man. Not unless he’s a Cherokee citizen.”

  “Rider,” said George, and he felt suddenly bold addressing the man so familiarly. He had noticed at dinner that Exie called him Rider. Just Rider. Of course, she had said it in Cherokee, Agiluhdisgoi. And he was feeling good being back home. He was comfortable there with Rider and his family, and maybe, he thought, because he was an orphan with no home, he just wanted to find a family to belong to. Just then Tootie and Buster came running out of the house, and one jumped on one of Rider’s knees and one on the other. They talked for a little while in Cherokee. George thought that he understood something about going to bed. Then they each kissed their father, and they ran back into the house.

  “Rider,” said George, “I think I’d like to try that job.”

  Chapter Two

  They were up early the next morning, and after a big breakfast of eggs and sausage and biscuits and gravy cooked by Exie, they went down to the office in the jail. Jesse Halfbreed and Tom Spike Buck were asleep in their cells. Rider built up a little fire in the stove and put some coffee on to boil. George, figuring that he might easily wind up with that chore, watched closely. Then Rider sat down behind his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out some papers.

  “Got to do some paperwork on those boys we threw in yesterday,” he said. “You might as well watch over my shoulder so you’ll know how to do them. Now we got old Tom Spike Buck on drunk and disorderly, and we got him for carrying a weapon. Jess Halfbreed, we got him for drunk and disorderly, carrying a weapon—which we wouldn’t have if he hadn’t run out of his own house carrying that pistol—and we got him for resisting arrest.”

  He finished filling out the two forms and put them to one side. There were two remaining forms, different from the first ones.

  “These here,” he said to George, “I got to fill out on you. This one’s to get your dollar from yesterday. This one’s to employ you permanently.”

  When Rider had finished his paperwork, he checked the coffeepot and then poured two cups. When the two had finished their coffee, Rider picked up the paperwork from his desk.

  “Come on,” he said. “We have to go see the judge and the clerk.”

  When Rider and George reached the capitol building, the special deputies were already gathering. Rider called them all together there in front of the building.

  “Boys,” he said, “I want you to meet our new deputy sheriff. This is George Tanner. Some of you might remember Hickory and Modean over at Park Hill. George is their boy. He’s just back from four years at Harvard.”

  Then he turned to George.

  “George,” he said, “these are all special deputies hired just for the council meeting, and they’re all good men if you ever need a hand. Remember them. This is Elmer Lee, Brodie Hicks, Delbert Swim, Earl Bob, and Beehunter.”

  George shook hands with each man in turn while Rider kept talking.

  “Beehunter don’t talk English, so if you need to tell him anything, you have to talk Cherokee—or else get an interpreter.”

  Then he spoke for a short while in Cherokee to Beehunter. George guessed that he was telling Beehunter what he had already told the others in English. While that was going on, George noticed men in suits beginning to show up. Council members gathering for the meeting, he figured. Then Rider sent the special deputies to their posts.

  “Come on,” he said to George.

  They walked up to the front door of the capitol and went inside, and Rider went over to an office door and opened it to peek inside. He said something which George couldn’t hear, then looked back at George.

  “Come on in here a minute,” he said.

  George followed him inside the office, and there he saw a gaunt figure of a man dressed in an expensive suit. He was a very dignified-looking gentleman, with white hair and a l
ong, white beard. He had pale, almost watery, blue eyes and a benign expression on his face. George thought that he looked like some kind of missionary.

  “Sir,” said Rider, “this is George Tanner, my new deputy. George, this is Principal Chief William P. Ross.”

  George hoped that the chief didn’t notice his jaw drop. The chief extended a thin, white hand, and George took it.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Tanner,” said Ross. “I hope the job works out well for you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said George.

  Rider took their leave of the chief and led George back into the hall and up the stairs to the second floor. He gestured toward two large doors toward the back of the building.

  “That’s the council chambers,” he said. Then he turned toward a small office at the front. “This is the judge’s office. Come on.”

  They went inside and found the judge at his desk. When he saw the two men he stood up to greet them.

  “Good morning, Go-Ahead,” he said.

  “Good morning, your honor. I’d like you to meet my new deputy, George Tanner. We’re upgrading the sheriff’s department. George is a Harvard graduate. This is Judge Boley, George.”

  “Harm Boley,” said the judge, extending his hand for George to shake. “It’s a pleasure.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, sir,” said George.

  “We brought you a couple of arrest reports here,” said Rider, and he handed Boley the forms he had filled out on his two prisoners. The judge glanced over the reports.

  “Mmm,” he said. “Jess again. This time it’ll be a hundred lashes for him. Oh, well, some people never seem to learn.”

  He sat back down, checked a register, and filled out two small slips of paper, which he then handed to Rider. Rider tucked them into a vest pocket.

  “Have you been to the clerk’s office yet?” asked the judge.

  “Not yet,” said Rider. “That’s our next stop.”

  “Drop this off there for me, would you please?” said Boley, handing Rider a large envelope.

  “Be glad to.”

  They took their leave of the judge, and as they headed for the stairway, the sounds of the council meeting could be heard through the big doors. They went by the clerk’s office, where George was introduced once more and Rider turned in the two papers on George and delivered the envelope from Judge Boley. Then they returned to the sheriff’s office.

  “Let’s have one more cup of coffee and then get to work,” said Rider.

  “What do we do?” asked George.

  “Well,” said Rider, pouring coffee, “we arrested two drunks yesterday. Now we got to try to find out where they got their booze.”

  He handed a cup of coffee to George, poured himself one, and moved around behind his big desk. Then he motioned toward a smaller desk over in the corner of the room.

  “That’s yours,” he said.

  George went over to the desk and put his cup on it. He pulled out the chair and sat down. He put his hands on the wooden desk top and felt it. His desk. He liked it. Rider had reached down to pull open a bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a pistol in a holster, which was wrapped in a leather belt, and put it on top of his desk. He shut the drawer and opened another, from which he took out a badge. Then he stood up, picked up the gun and badge, and walked over to George’s desk. He put the badge down on the desk in front of George.

  “Pin that on,” he said.

  George stood up and picked up the badge. He held it in his hand for a moment and felt its slick surface, felt the star points, and then he pulled aside the left lapel of his suit coat and pinned the badge on his vest, just where Rider wore his. Rider put the pistol on George’s desk.

  “I tried this out once,” he said. “It’s the latest thing, but I guess I’m just too used to my old Colts. This is a Starr double-action Army .44.”

  “Double-action?” said George.

  “You don’t have to cock it. Just pull the trigger.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “We’ll go out sometime and let you try it out.”

  George pulled the Starr out of its holster and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, the way Rider carried his Colts, but he found it to be too uncomfortable. He put it back in the holster and strapped on the belt. By the time he had done that, Rider was back behind his desk again. He opened up a drawer and called George’s name. George looked up just in time to catch a box of .44 bullets Rider tossed at him.

  “You might as well load that thing,” said Rider. “And keep the shells. I don’t use .44s.”

  George loaded five shells into the Starr and was about to put in a sixth.

  “I’d leave that one empty,” said Rider. “Always keep the hammer on an empty chamber for safety.”

  George carefully set the hammer on the empty chamber, holstered the Starr, and glanced over at Rider. Then he pulled off his suit coat and hung it on a coat tree that stood just inside the door. He made a mental note to get himself a pair of boots as soon as possible.

  “You ready to go to work now?” said Rider.

  “Yes, sir,” said George. “Whatever you say.”

  Rider pulled a big key out of a desk drawer and tossed it to George.

  “Here,” he said. “Go let those boys out of their cells and send them in here to me.”

  George went to the cells, which were upstairs from the office. The prisoners were standing by the doors in eager anticipation. George unlocked the cells and pulled open the doors.

  “Come on,” he said. “The sheriff wants to see you.”

  The prisoners both knew their way around the jail, so George let them lead the way back into the office. Rider was sitting behind his big desk, his feet propped up on a comer. On the desk in front of him were two handguns besides his own. George recognized the old Remington .44 he had taken from Jesse Halfbreed. The other, an Army Colt .44, he assumed was the one Rider had confiscated from Tom Spike Buck. The two prisoners hesitated just inside the office.

  “Come on over here,” said Rider.

  They walked across the room and stood before the big desk.

  “You two remember what you was trying to kill each other for yesterday?” said Rider.

  Jesse Halfbreed shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and, keeping his eyes on the floor, he grinned a sheep’s grin.

  “No, sir, Go-Ahead,” he said. “I can’t remember nothing. I was too sick.”

  Tom Spike Buck just looked sullen.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You were drunk on whiskey, weren’t you?” said Rider.

  “Yeah, I guess we were maybe,” said Halfbreed, still smiling an ingratiating smile, trying to be friendly. Buck said nothing.

  “Where’d you get it?” said Rider.

  “Uh, what?” said Halfbreed.

  “Where’d you get the whiskey? Who sold it to you?”

  “Oh. Well,” said Halfbreed, “I can’t seem to remember. I—I was pretty sick.”

  “I don’t know,” said Buck.

  Rider sighed. He picked up Jesse Halfbreed’s Remington and dismantled it. Then he did the same with the Colt.

  “Put the pieces in your pocket,” he said. “You know it’s against the law to carry a gun around here. You go home. Both of you. And don’t put those back together until you’re in your own house.”

  The two prisoners began picking up the pieces of their pistols and dropping them into pockets. Rider pulled out of his vest pocket the two slips of paper he had gotten from Judge Boley. He handed one slip to each of the men.

  “These are your court dates,” he said. “You don’t show up, either one of you, and I’ll come after you, and it’ll be worse on you than it is now. Now go on home.”

  While Tom Spike Buck turned and walked quickly out of the office, Jesse Halfbreed sort of bowed and scraped his way out backward.

  “Yes, sir, Go-Ahead,” he said. “I’ll be there, and I’m going right home now. I’ll be there on time.
Thank you.”

  When the two men had left the office, Rider finished off his coffee with one gulp, stood up, and then tucked his two Colts into his waistband.

  “Inena,” he said.

  Even though the last time Rider had said that to him George hadn’t responded properly, he did understand the Cherokee command “Let’s go,” so he followed Rider outside. They went around behind the jail, past the courtyard with the hanging scaffold to a corral and barn which Rider identified as the sheriff’s barn. They saddled a couple of horses and rode down the main street. By the capitol building square, Rider stopped and conversed briefly in Cherokee with Beehunter. Then he turned to George.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Everything’s under control here.”

  They rode to the Capital Hotel, where they dismounted, hitched their horses, and went inside. The proprietor, the same man George had seen the day before, looked up from behind the counter.

  “Morning, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Morning, Bean,” said Rider. “This here’s my new deputy, George Tanner. George, this is Bean Riley. He owns this place.”

  “We met yesterday,” said George. “Sort of. Good morning, Mr. Riley.”

  “You found yourself a job right fast, didn’t you, Mr. Tanner?” said Riley.

  “Well,” said George, “the job kind of found me actually, but I’m glad of it.”

  “What can I do for you?” said Riley.

  Rider lounged up against the counter, leaning on one elbow, and he looked sideways at Riley.

  “Somebody’s been selling whiskey down this way, Bean,” he said. “You seen or heard anything that might help me track it down?”

  “No. I seen a couple of guys looked like they’d had some, but that’s all.”

  “Who was they?” said Rider.

  “Jess Halfbreed and Torn Spike Buck were by here yesterday looking pretty well tanked up.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Afraid so, Sheriff.”

  “Okay,” said Rider. “If you hear anything that might help, let us know.”