Worthy of Trust and Confidence

CHAPTER 1

C
aptain Will Scott and Sergeant Jonas Beard rode directly up to Colonel Martin. “The Indians that left the reservation are just over the next hill about one-third of a mile from here,” reported Scott.
“Do they appear hostile?" asked Martin.
“No, they are just camped around a small spring that sits between these hills,” replied Scott. “The ten horses they took with them from the reservation are grazing peacefully. We eyed them with glasses and there are no braves on watch. There are 23 in the camp.”
“All right,” said Martin. He disdainfully eyed Scott and Beard, who were dressed in working cowboy style clothes, and said, “You two need to stay back since you are not properly uniformed.”
“If it’s all right, Colonel, Sgt. Beard and I will ride east around this hill and be in position to spot any horses that might scatter,” asked Scott.
“Fine,” snapped the Colonel. “Just stay out of the way since neither of you is part of my detachment. You’re just scouts.”
“Just give us about 30 minutes before you move the column up, Sir,” replied Scott, as he and Beard swung their horses away from the group.
As they rode away, Beard looked at Scott and laughed. “He really made you mad, didn't he?”

“If this wasn't the army, he would be on the ground missing some teeth,” growled Scott. “I don't know whether he ignored you because you are black or because you're 'just a sergeant'!”
“Don't let it bother you,” replied Jonas. “The officers that count know I'm the best horse wrangler in the Army.”
As the two moved out of sight, Martin motioned to his two captains. “Have the column advance in a skirmish attack line,” he ordered.
“Are we finally going to get some real action?” asked Captain Johnston.
“Yes, we are,” answered Martin, as he moved into position out front and in the center of the line. “Let's go teach these Indians how the cavalry treats savages who break the rules.”
Scott and Beard were about half-way to where they wanted to be when they heard the bugler sound the charge. A volley of rifle fire quickly followed. Scott and Beard could hear shouts and screams.
“What the heck!” Scott exclaimed, turning his horse and starting to canter up the hill toward the Indians. Beard was right beside him and asked, “You don't think . . .” as they crested the hill.
The sight below shocked even the two experienced veterans. Every Indian, man, woman or child appeared to be dead or wounded. There were soldiers off their mounts walking among the Indians and killing the wounded. Martin was in the middle of the camp swinging his cavalry saber over his head and urging his men on.
Scott kicked his horse into a gallop down the small hill directly toward Martin. Will saw Martin dismount and stride over to an Indian boy who appeared to be about fourteen. The boy was obviously wounded, on one knee and trying to use his arm to push himself up. The colonel kicked the boy back down and, raising his saber over his head, stabbed the boy in the middle of the chest. As the colonel pulled the bloody saber out of the boy and held it straight up, he let out a gleeful shout.
Twenty feet away, Will's horse was sliding to a stop with Will hitting the ground running. As his pistol came out, he shouted, “I'm going to kill you, you worthless, no-count murderer.”
“Cap'n, Cap'n, wake up, wake up!” exclaimed Jonas Beard, shaking Scott awake. “You're having the dream again.”
Scott woke staring into the worried face of Jonas Beard. “I'm sorry I had to come into your room, Captain. You were yelling ‘I'm going to kill you, you no-count murderer,’ at the top of your lungs. All of my boarders will want to move out,” he continued.
Scott struggled back to the present and said, “I'm sorry, Jonas, I really don't have the dream much anymore.”
The dream always ended at the same place. Jonas Beard, a half-length behind Will, had seen what Will was about to do and had clipped Will with the butt of his pistol. Will had dropped like a rock and woke up a day and a half later in an Army Stockade. His cellmate had been Jonas Beard. Will was charged with the attempted murder of a superior officer, and Jonas was charged with striking a superior officer.
While Will woke up with a headache, it was nothing compared to the headache that traveled up and down the Army chain-of-command. There had been a Bureau of Indian Affairs official on the reservation when the detachment returned, and he immediately telegraphed Washington about the atrocity. The President chewed out the Secretary of the Army, and the trouble traveled downhill quickly. Will and Jonas had been released from the stockade, but confined to the Post. Colonel Martin was gone, immediately transferred to a post on the Canadian border.
After reviewing Will and Jonas' service records, the Secretary of the Army made several command decisions. He ordered Jonas transferred to his hometown of Washington, D.C. and granted him an early but full retirement.
Will Scott was a specialist in guerrilla tactics and spying on the enemy, which made him somewhat unique. The Secretary of the Army was friends with Chief Taylor of the Secret Service, so he sent Taylor a copy of Will's service record. After reviewing the records, the Chief thought Will would be a perfect operative. Will and Jonas had traveled to Washington, D.C. together and within three weeks of this incident, Jonas was retired and William Stanclift Scott was sworn in as a Secret Service Operative . All in all, the Secretary of the Army was right proud of himself.
Now it was five years later, and Will was waking up in a Washington, D.C. boarding house owned by Jonas and his family. Most of the boarders didn't know it was owned by a black family. They just knew it was extremely clean and the food was outstanding.
“Do you still have the headache?” asked Jonas ruefully.
“No,” answered Scott, “almost never. Besides, you and I both know that the headache saved my life. Even the Secretary of the Army couldn't have smoothed over me killing Martin,” added Will.
“You get dressed. Breakfast will be up in a little while,” said Jonas, heading for the door.
“Hey,” Will said. “You are as bow-legged as ever!”
Jonas answered with a derogatory salute as he closed the bedroom door.
Will lay in the bed and reflected on his long friendship with Jonas. It had begun when Will reported to the Fifth Cavalry Unit at Fort Smith, Arkansas as a First Lieutenant. Jonas was the Sergeant-in-charge of the horses, about the only job a black sergeant could have.
It was the love of horses that had first brought them together. Beard had worked with Army horses for years, and as his own personal joke, he tested the new junior officers by letting them pick their own horses. Most had no idea, and the ones who thought they were too good to ask for advice usually got stuck with ill-mannered, ill-tempered, rough riding mounts. Beard offered the young lieutenant his pick-of-the horses, and when Scott took his time, looked over the horses, and then picked the finest horse in the corral for his own, an instant friendship was formed—a friendship that would strengthen into something much stronger during subsequent military actions.
The black man was only 5’6” or so but was lean and wiry with coffee colored skin. His face was lined and he had some gray on his temples and in his sideburns. But his one outstanding feature was that he was profoundly bowlegged.
Enough of this, Will thought, as he levered himself out of bed and got busy dressing for the day.

CHAPTER 2

W
illiam Stanclift Scott had been a Secret Service Operative for a little over five years now and knew that he had fortunately discovered his calling in life. At 6’1”, 180 lbs., he was a decent looking man, with green eyes and sandy hair. Though in his mid-thirties, his face had some lines that were prematurely there, but they complemented his overall rugged outdoorsy look. He was dressed like many Eastern businessmen. His paisley gray and silver vest was subdued; a dark gray frock coat over lighter gray trousers completed his clothes. The big difference was that nestled under one arm was a pistol in a hide-out holster. He was the kind of person people noticed, but not so different or unusually handsome or flashily dressed as to be overly remembered.
Scott stood in front of the bedroom window and stared out at 1898 Washington. After being sworn in as an operative, Will had spent a year in the D.C. office. He had worked cases in New York and Boston as well as the D.C. area. The work was interesting and there was a lot of socializing, but Will was not a city fella. He didn't really care for Washington, D.C. The political egos and the desire to line one’s pocket were always butting up against the public conscience as defined by some newspaper’s righteous indignation. He was constantly amazed at how the people in Washington could always so easily make black and white turn gray. Eventually, the Chief had assigned Will to work out of the Denver Office. It really wasn't much of an office. There were five operatives and one clerk housed in the U.S. Postal Service Building. The operatives were almost never there since the area covered was large. Mostly, they went to wherever there was a case.
It had taken three days to get to Washington by train, the ultimate in modern transportation. The same trip five years earlier would have taken a week, but his train had been pulled by three locomotives and had featured Pullman compartments and an elegant dining car.
He had hurried to Washington in response to a telegram:

Request you proceed STOP
at once to Washington STOP
New Case STOP
Serious Problem STOP
Top confidentiality utmost STOP
CHIEF.

This was not the first such telegram he had responded to, and he looked forward to this new case with the excitement due an unfolding mystery.
When Will arrived at Jonas' boarding house, there had been a message instructing him to come to The Secretary of the Treasury's Office at 11:00 am the following day. Checking his pocket watch, he hurried downstairs to breakfast. Will was particularly polite and friendly since several of the other guests eyed him warily. They had obviously heard his early morning outburst.
“The carriage you ordered is here, Captain,” called Jonas from the foyer.
“I'll let you know how long I'll be staying when I get back,” said Scott, as he hurried out the door.
It was about a 20-minute ride by carriage to the Treasury building, and Will was trying to curb his excitement. The carriage was coming down “G" street when Will saw a short man pull a lady down and take off running with her purse. A beat police officer had noticed the incident and was blowing his whistle, but Will could see the officer was going toward the fallen victim.
Will yelled to the carriage driver to stop, and then he hit the ground running. The short man had a half block lead, but Will was in top physical shape and knew he could run the man down. The mugger cast a quick glance back and could see Will was gaining. The short man took a quick left at the next corner and then stopped about 20 feet down the sidewalk. When Will rounded the corner, the short man opened his coat and displayed what appeared to be the butt of a pistol. “You might want to go someplace else, mister,” he hissed.
Unfortunately for him, as Will rounded the corner, he had pulled his pistol. Instead of seeing just a good samaritan, the short crook was looking into the business end of Will's pistol.
“Get your hands up,” ordered Will. The man's hands shot up, and he was startled when he looked into Will's face.
“Aw, Mister Scott, I didn't know that was you,” he muttered, relaxing his hands a little.
“Pinky McFadden, what do you think you're doing?” asked Will. He quickly saw that what at first appeared to be a gun butt was just a carved piece of wood. Will lowered his gun and Pinky dropped his hands.
“I was doing my usual, Mister Scott. You know I'm the best dipper in town,” bragged Pinky, using slang for pickpocket.
“I thought you had some pride, Pinky,” scolded Will. “I've never known you to knock a woman down.”
"It really wasn't my fault,” said Pinky. “The old bat . . . sorry, I mean lady, tricked me. I was in her purse slick as could be and had my hand on the money. But, she had pinned her money to her purse and when I stepped away, she felt me. All I could do was hold on to the purse and run. I really didn't mean for her to fall.”
“Pinky, what am I going to do with you?” asked Scott.
“You got me fair and square,” said Pinky, looking crestfallen. “But, remember how I helped you last time,” said Pinky with a sly look.
“That was a long time ago, Pinky,” said Scott.
“It was, Mr. Scott, but I just happen to know some micks who are making the queer and I know I could help you,” said Pinky.
“You know I don't work around here anymore and you're making me late to an important meeting,” growled Scott.
“I know, and a lot of people were glad to see you go,” weaseled Pinky.
“This is what we're going to do, Pinky. I'm going to drag you back to that beat policeman, and he will take you to the city jail,” said Will. “We are not going to tell him who I am, except to say I'm a good citizen. I'm going to talk to the men at the office, and if they are interested, somebody will be around later this evening to get you out.”
“That's great, Mr. Scott. I'll really do good. I'm not making this up. You'll see,” whispered Pinky.
“Give me that piece of wood so you don't get brained,” ordered Scott.
Pinky handed Will the carved wood and the stolen purse.
“Is there some reason you didn't come forward with this earlier, Pinky?” asked Scott.
“Aw, Mister Scott, you know how it is,” shrugged Pinky. “Besides, they are micks like me.”
“All right, let's make this look good,” said Scott, grabbing Pinky by the collar of his coat and lifting him on to his toes. Will marched Pinky around the corner and turned him over to the beat policeman. Fortunately for Pinky, the victim had only turned her ankle and was really happy to get her purse back.
Will left as soon as he could and was pleased to see that his hack had waited around. “Thanks,” Will said to the driver as he hopped in.
“Hey, I had to wait,” said the driver. “You hadn't paid the fare.”
Welcome to the city, Will thought.
By the time Will got to the Treasury building, he was 30 minutes late. Rushing to the Secretary's office, he practically barged in.
“Good morning, Captain,” beamed the Secretary, giving the younger man's hand a politician’s squeeze and acting like he was early rather than late.
“Good morning, sir,” replied Will, annoyed at being called Captain by the politician. If he had wanted to be called Captain, he would still be in the army, he thought to himself. Captain, when used by a military man, was a term of respect; when used by an appointed politician, it was just another word usually meant to butter you up.
Scott noticed the fine silk waistcoat and fancy accessories that adorned the man. Nothing but the finest, he thought.
“It’s about time,” growled a bearded older man standing to the left in the cavernous office. The tone of his voice belied the twinkle in his eye and the affectionate handshake he gave the younger man.
“Sorry I'm late, but I had to interrupt Pinky McFadden dipping a lady's purse,” said Will. “I'll tell you all about it at headquarters, Chief, when we're done here.”
The Chief was dressed like a character out of a Wild West Show. He was wearing a large Western hat with a gaudy hatband and a bright feather. His coat was subtly cut to reveal a pearl-handled revolver, and his shoulder length silver hair glistened in the lamplight. It was a characterization the Chief carefully cultivated. In a town that thrived on eccentricity and stories of the West, the Chief was a frequent topic of conversation.
Chief Taylor had been a buffalo hunter, cowboy, lawman and rancher before he made a large fortune when oil was discovered on his property in Oklahoma. His newfound wealth and a socialite wife from Philadelphia had brought him back East to the cut-throat politics of Washington, D.C. He cut a wide path in D.C., and one of his new found “friends” was Alvin T. Maddox, Secretary of The Treasury Department. Maddox had appointed Taylor as the Fourth Chief of the Secret Service, an organization ironically founded on the night President Lincoln was assassinated. The Service was originally formed at the request of President Lincoln to detect and arrest counterfeiters. In 1865, over one third of all the money in circulation was counterfeit, a not surprising fact, when just about every other bank in the country was authorized to print its own money. The success of the Secret Service in suppressing counterfeit money was well known in Washington, but it was Chief Taylor’s flamboyant recitation of cases to newspaper editors and at Washington social gatherings that fascinated people.

(*Photo #1.)
John S. Bell, a former Chief of Police from Newark, New Jersey, was the fifth Chief of the Secret Service Division. The colorful Chief was well-known around Washington, D.C. for his Buffalo Bill disguise. During his tenure, the Service had 30 operatives and in a one-year period made 407 arrests for counterfeiting. Chief Bell was the inspiration for Chief Taylor.
Taylor and Maddox were an odd combination. Maddox was shorter and relished his role as a political appointee. He specialized in backroom deals and seemed to enjoy pulling strings in the background. While Taylor came from a working background, Maddox was a New England blue blood with pedigree, a college education and an arrogant air that he kept hidden most of the time.
“Will, we’ve got a serious problem this time!” said the Chief in a tone Scott recognized as meaningful.