Knights of the Golden Circle
Part 4: Plotting Their Next Move
"Another Chinaman has joined the camp. I road here as soon as I could. Didn't even report in. No one saw me leave."
"Just what we need. Did you get a good look at him?"
"He is different than the rest of them. Tall, doesn't have the braid like all the others do. Looks almost like he would belong here. Might be a half breed."
"How do you know that?"
"He sounds familiar. I may have seen him before," said a third man.
"Where have you seen him?"
One of the hooded men pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
"This arrived at the Sheriff's office today in Melborn, along with several other posters. I'm surprised the Sheriff didn't even notice."
The leader unfolded the paper.
"So, this man is wanted for murder in China. We may be able to use this to our advantage."
"Should I return the poster to the Sheriff's office?"
"And alert every bounty hunter that this man is in our territory?"
"There may be other posters in other towns."
The leader wrote several names on the back of the poster.
"The railroad workers are supposed to arrive at these towns over the next several weeks. I managed to get a schedule."
"Go to those towns and see if any more posters have arrived. And if you see any take them down. If anyone questions you, tell them the man was caught. Get some help on this. Let everyone know in the usual way. I want to get a look at this Chinaman myself. I want to know why he's so dangerous, why such a high reward is being offered. Once we know more about this guy, we might be able to persuade some of them to work for us and get rid of a common threat."
"If we do that, won't that be the same as allowing those Chinese heathens to stay here, that we approve of them being here? I don't like them any more than you do, but if we let them capture this man, they're going to want some of the reward."
"You may be right. That could be a problem."
"And if they do receive any amount of reward, they're going to want to settle down in some community, maybe right here in our own town."
"The days of slave and master are gone. No matter how much we would like to see those days return they will never be again. You know my thoughts on this. I might accept former slaves as neighbors, but you can't get me to accept a Chinaman. They are nothing but heathens. They enslave white women. They don't even believe in God. They bring their own idols and try to build their own temples. If they won't work for us, then they won't live to see another day."
"Then the raids will still continue, even when this Chinaman is gone."
"Of course. The railroad will still go through, but we will make it perfectly clear that we don't want any Chinese staying here. Now they just replenished their supplies. We will not raid them again. We've raided their supplies three or four times in the past two weeks. I think we need to hit something else."
"Isn't it too soon to have another raid?"
"This won't be any ordinary raid. This is what we're going to do," and the leader explained his plans.
That night the raid did commence, but no one expected there to be one complication. A lone figure stood silently in the shadows and waited. He was barefoot and made no sound. As the men charged out of the dark heading for the powder wagon, that same lone figure also emerged. He quickly grabbed a hold of one of the slower riders on horseback and pulled him from his mount. When the others realized they were being attacked, they circled around to surround the lone figure, but he was too swift. He moved like a cat and leapt like a deer, unseating another man from his horse just as swiftly as the first. It soon became clear that the powder wagon was not the main target.
"Circle him, take him alive. Use your ropes."
"Why don't we just kill him and drag his body away."
"Because he's worth more alive."
When the men on horseback continued to try to surround the barefoot defender, he always seemed to find an opening, either a gap where a horse should have been, or he would duck and roll underneath the nearest stallion's belly and emerge outside the circle. The figure on foot played that move twice and was able to unhorse two more riders.
Just as suddenly as the raid began, others came rushing up, trying to protect what they thought was another raid on their supplies. This time they carried firearms. When the shooting started, what raiders were still on horseback raced from the scene. No one died in the camp that night, but three men were now prisoners of the railroad.
'I don't understand. How could one man beat three men on horseback?" The leader questioned his men after they returned and told him what happened.
"He was fast. Not like the others."
"Obviously, and now three of our men are prisoners."
"They won't get anything out of them. They took the final oath. Believe me, they won't betray the brotherhood."
"And in the meantime, we lose three good men. There's got to be another way of getting this Chinaman. He's going to spoil our plans."
"I know a way, but it's going to take some careful planning. They don't know about me. Boss-man Hendricks thinks I've gone to either recruit more workers or to wire the head office about the raids. If I return tomorrow, no one will suspect I'm a part of this. I'll look around and see if there's anything that I might learn. I'll let you know in the usual way."
Continues with Part 5