1824: The Arkansas War Read Online Free PDF Page B

saddled.”
    The big young colonel smiled. “Chester’s five years older than I am. Not as tall, I admit. Still, it seems a bit silly to be calling him a boy.”
    Who else would even think that way? A black man was always a “boy”—and the colonel’s was a slave, to boot.
    But the innkeeper wasn’t about to argue the point. Not now, for a certainty, when he was trying to keep his tavern from being turned into a shambles.
    Where reason hadn’t worked, perhaps outright pleading would.
    “Colonel…Jack Baxter’s the meanest man in northern Kentucky. Just take my word for it. Been that way since he was a kid. He’ll pick a fight over anything. And, uh…”
    Houston’s smile widened. “And, in my case, he’s got real grievances.”
    “I guess. Depending on how you look at it.”
    “Well, then!” Cheerfully, Houston came into the hallway, moving the innkeeper aside the way the tide shifts seaweed. “As an of-fi-cial of the United States government, I figure it’s my bounden duty to listen to the complaints of a taxpayer.”
    Over his shoulder, as he moved toward the stairs leading down to the tavern’s main room: “He
does
pay taxes, doesn’t he?”
    “As little as he can,” the innkeeper muttered, hurrying after him. “Please, Colonel—”
    “Oh, relax, will you?” Houston’s soft Tennessee accent thickened noticeably. “I bean’t a quarrelsome man. In fact, my mama told me she almost named me Tranquility instead of Sam.”
    He started down the stairs, not clumping as much as a man his size normally would. Partly because he was wearing Cherokee-style boots to match the blanket he still had over his shoulders, but mostly because he was very well coordinated. The innkeeper had been surprised by that the night before. There were usually impromptu dances in the tavern of a Friday evening. Half drunk—better than half—Houston had still been able to dance better than anyone else. Any man, at least.
    “Almost,” he added.
    The innkeeper was following close behind. “ ‘Almost’ is what I’m worried about, Colonel.”
    Houston chuckled. “I told you, Ned, relax. Just have Mrs. Akins fry me up a steak.”
    “No porridge?”
    The chuckle came again. “Don’t think porridge would do the trick. At all.”

    By the time Ned Akins scurried into the kitchen, gave his wife the order, and got back into the main room, the worst had happened. He was just in time to see Houston pull out a chair at the table in the corner where Jack Baxter was having his breakfast. A moment later, the young colonel was sitting right across from him.
    Houston was smiling cheerfully. Baxter returned the smile with a glare.
    It wasn’t a very big table, either.
    “And I just put in a new window,” Akins muttered to himself. Fortunately, the window was a good ten feet from where Houston and Baxter were sitting. Maybe it wouldn’t get smashed up along with everything else.
    The room had fallen silent. Even packed as it was with men having their breakfast, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Most of the diners were travelers passing through on business, not locals. But it didn’t matter. Every one of them had heard Baxter’s loudly stated threats, should the nefarious nigger-loving traitor Sam Houston dare to show his face. And the fact that Jack Baxter was the meanest man in town could have been surmised by a half-wit, upon fifteen seconds’ acquaintance.
    Houston turned his head part way around, ignoring Baxter’s glare. “Oh, Mr. Akins—I forgot. Be so kind as to tell your wife that I prefer my steak cooked rare. No blasted leather for me, thank you. When I stick my knife into meat, I want to see it
bleed.
”
    He turned back to Baxter. “I’ve got quite the knife, too. Here, let me show you.”
    From somewhere under the blanket, Houston drew out a knife that looked more like a short sword than what any reasonable man—certainly any reasonable innkeeper—would have called a knife. It was all Akins