said the tall, long-haired, bald-topped Jubilee Usher in his soft-edged yet cannonlike voice.Boothog Wiser longed to have the power to move men as Usher did, to wrap them up into his powerful presence and move them. Yet Wiser had to be content threatening this band of freebooters and cutthroats. Whereas Usher motivated through awe, Wiser maintained control only through fear.Usher laid his big arm over the beefy shoulder of one of the band of scouts under Captain Eloy Hastings newly returned to Indian Territory from a long reconnaissance. “Fordham here tells me the country’s wide open up there.”Riley Fordham smiled. Wiser couldn’t blame him. Any man among them would kill to bask in the glow of their leader’s bright light.“Tomorrow morning, we’re pulling out,” Usher went on. “Riding north. The railroad’s up there in Kansas, boys. And you know what that means.”“Whiskey!”“Women too!”“Yes,” Usher goaded them. “All that and more. It’s about time this bunch had a holiday, don’t you think?”The roar of their voices was deafening, that band of more than forty now backslapping and shoulder pounding, dancing little jigs in anticipation of the hurraw they would have themselves once up there in Kansas Territory.“I want the harness soaped and the wagon hubs greased,”
