by Charles Ray
He stretched and contorted his body to rub the back of his neck where it felt like he’d been stung by a wasp. The rubbing made it feel better, but his fingers told him something was wrong. At first, he couldn’t figure out what it was, then, he realized that he didn’t feel the leather thong that he always wore around his neck, the thong that held his medicine bag. He slapped his hand against the front of his shirt. The comforting presence of his bag was gone. His eyes went wide.
Oh no, he thought, my medicine bag is gone. Then, he looked again at the retreating figure, as it reached the edge of the stream down from the camp and stood upright. He could see clearly then that it was Bass Reeves, the black man who worked for the white man’s law, and that he was holding something in his hand. Peering intently, Yah-ko-te saw what was in the deputy’s hand, and his blood went cold.
Bass Reeves was holding his medicine bag. His medicine bag! The deputy was raising it high in the air, and then, oh my, he thought, this cannot be happening. The deputy threw the bag out into the stream, where it began to sink at the same time it was being swept away by the current.
Deep inside his mind, where only he could hear, he screamed, ‘No-o-o-o-o-o!’ He pulled against the chain that held him fast to the wagon wheel.
He had to get his medicine bag back. Without it he was just another wizened old man. He had no power over others without the charms inside that bag.
“Bass Reeves,” he cried. “Bass Reeves, you must help me.”
Bass strode to where he lay and looked down at him. There wasn’t a trace of sympathy in his expression.
“What you want, old man?”
“Get me my medicine bag back, Bass Reeves.”
“That bag got all your magic in it?”
“Yes, yes. My medicine bag has all of my magic in it, I must have it back.”
“Now, why should I be doin’ that? You used that stuff to try to kill me.”
Yah-ko-te’s mouth flopped open, closed, and opened again, like a fish gulping for air after it has been removed from its natural element. It took him a few heartbeats to process what the deputy had just said. It was true. He had put a curse on him, had doomed him to die. But now, with his bag gone, his medicine gone, the curse had no effect. The man wouldn’t die, at least, not on this day. He, however, would be like the dead who walk without his bag.
“I give you my word, if you get me my bag back, I will not harm you again. I will protect you against all evil.”
“Now, why is it I don’ believe you?”
“I speak straight, Bass Reeves. I will belong to you for as long as I breathe if you will only get me my bag back.” He hated having to beg, but it was that important. “Please, I will be like a dog, following you wherever you go, doing whatever you say.”
Bass looked back at the river. The bag was so far downstream now, it could be seen only because of the dun-coloring of the moleskin bag, only a tiny corner of which was still above water.
“Sorry, old man, but that there bag is long gone. It ain’t gon’ stop ‘till that stream dumps its water into the Red River, and after that the Mississippi, and out to the gulf. You ain’t never gon’ get that bag back, so you’d best be gettin’ use to not havin’ it.”
Tears streamed down the old man’s face. He seemed to have shrunk to half his original size, and looked like what he was, an old, worn-out Indian medicine man who could no longer keep up with the younger braves of the tribe, and who the women looked at with pity or disgust, instead of the longing that they’d had for him when he was young. There was no two ways about it, he would die in the white man’s jail, a frail old man, or, without his medicine bag to protect him, the other prisoners would fall upon him like hyenas on a dead deer carcass.
“I am begging you, Bass Reeves, if you have any good in that black heart of yours, get me my medicine bag back.”
“Ain’t gon’ happen,” Bass crossed his arms across his massive chest, a look of triumph in his dark brown eyes.
“Then, let me go into the forest and get more charms to make a new bag,” Yah-ko-te said. “It will not be as strong as my old bag, but it will do.”
“I’m sorry, old man, but your days of makin’ medicine is over. You goin’ to court, where you gon’ have to answer to the charge of cattle stealin’, and if you found guilty, you gon’ spend some time in jail just like every other cattle rustler.”
Yah-ko-te looked up at him, at the dark spirit that had overcome his medicine. The Great Spirit had deserted him in favor of this one. His chin slumped toward his sunken chest in defeat.
“You are a bad man, Bass Reeves,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, but I ain’t dead,” Bass said, and then he turned on his heels and headed for the fire, whistling a tune as he walked.
Chapter 12
After a good night’s sleep, and a breakfast big enough to feed two men, the next day, Bass was in good spirits as they resumed their journey to Fort Smith. The old Indian medicine man lay cringing in a corner of the prisoner wagon muttering to himself, much to the delight of the other prisoners. O’Malley rode beside Bass in front of the two wagons, while Floyd took his turn driving the prisoner wagon.
“You lookin’ your old self this mornin’, Bass,” O’Malley said.
“I’m feelin’ more like my old self,” Bass replied. “I tell you, yestiddy, I was feelin’ mighty poorly. I really thought I’se gon’ die there for a while.”
“You started gettin’ better soon’s you throwed that old man’s medicine bag in the water. What give you the idea to do that?”
“When I woke up this mornin’, I thought for sure I was dyin’. I had the craziest dream. Then, as I was layin’ there, I remembered what Elijah said about them juju folks needin’ they conjure bag to be able to hex folks. So, I just took that old man’s bag and throwed it away.”
O’Malley chuckled. “So, you do believe in that stuff.”
“Naw, I ain’t sure I do.” Bass tried to put conviction in his voice, but he could hear it wasn’t there. “Aw, I think he was workin’ on my mind is what made me sick. So, I figger if he could mess with my mind, I’d mess with his. You see how he got when I throwed that bag away? I don’t whether that stuff is real or not, but I do know he believes it is, and that he needs that bag for it. So, no bag, no magic.”
O’Malley rubbed at his chin. “I don’ know, Bass. I saw what happened. That old man said he was puttin’ a hex on you, and you started gettin’ sick right away. Now, you sayin’ it’s ‘cause he believes in it, but it ‘pears to me, that for it to make you sick, you have to be the one believin’ in it.”
“I don’ wanna talk about it no more,” Bass said. “I still think I just had some kinda stomach bug, or maybe somethin’ got in my food, and it just happen to be the same time that old man started shootin’ off his mouth.”
O’Malley was quiet for a long time, his face screwed up in concentration. When he spoke, he did so with hesitation. “I know you always sayin’ that there ain’t no such thing as coincidence. For all what you just said to happen, it’d have to be one whale of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Bass glared, then that softened into a frown, and finally, a look of resignation. “Bill, they’s exceptions to every rule. My rule about there bein’ no coincidences, just had its exception. Now, I know you just keep talkin’ up this ‘cause you worried about me. Well, you can stop worrying, ‘cause I’m fine, and that old medicine man’s gon’ spend a long time up at the pen in Detroit where he can think about how he been messin’ with people’s mind.”
O’Malley thought some more.
“Yeah, I reckon you right,” he said. “Anyway, it’s just good to see you back in good health again.”
Chapter 13
Their arrival at the jail in Fort Smith was met with great fanfare. Word had reached the city before they did that Bass had captured the wily old medicine man, Yah-ko-te. Several deputies had gone after the old man, and all—before Bass—had failed.
Word had ever reac
hed Marshal Fagan’s office, and he was among the crowd of deputies and jailers standing at the entrance when O’Malley pulled the prisoner wagon to a stop, and he and Floyd went to the back to transfer custody of the fugitives to the federal jailers. Bass, who had gotten O’Malley to write the trip report that morning before they broke camp, dismounted and walked over to face Fagan.
“Howdy, marshal, I didn’t think I’d see you until after we got all these folks locked away,” he said.
“I heard you captured the infamous Yah-ko-te,” Fagan said. “I didn’t want to miss seein’ this.”
Fagan smiled when the two posse men grabbed the old man’s shoulders and lowered him to the ground, where a jailer grabbed his arm and started pulling him toward the entrance. Yah-ko-te pulled back at first, but against the larger size and greater strength of the jailer, had no chance, so he simply went limp, requiring the man to drag him.
“What’s wrong with him?” Fagan asked.
“He’s just put out ‘cause he put a curse on me, and it didn’t work. Oh, and I took his medicine bag and throwed it in the river.”
Fagan laughed. “Bass Reeves, you are one tough hombre. I was worried that you might not be able to catch that old fox, but I see I should never have worried.”
“He just one old man. I don’ understand what all the fuss was about.”
Fagan cocked his head to the side, and eyed Bass with a tinge of suspicion. He smiled. “By the way,” he said. “Looks like you got one more body there than you had warrants.”
“Yeah, this dumb boy over in the southwest part of the territory in some little no-name settlement tried robbin’ a citizen at gunpoint in the middle of the street in the middle of the day.”
“And, you just happened to be there?”
“Standin’ close ‘nuff to hear him tell the poor fella, ‘yo money or yo life.’ I tell you, if it wasn’t for the fact he was breakin’ the law, it would’ve been downright funny. Matter of fact, it was funny, ‘specially the look on his face when I got the drop on ‘im and told ‘m he was under arrest for attempted robbery.”
Fagan smiled and patted Bass’s shoulder. Even though the deputies had the authority, and the responsibility, to act when they became aware of a crime being committed, because the pay was meager, and, as in this case, there was usually no reward to be collected, he knew that a few of them looked the other way. As much as it rankled him, with more than two hundred deputies to supervise, he just grunted and bore it. It helped that he had a few men like the tall, dark man standing beside him, who took their oaths and jobs seriously, and who actually tried to bring law to the untamed western territory. Among these men, Bass Reeves stood out. Tall, muscular, and imposing, he was also fiercely dedicated to doing his duty.
“You know if there’s a reward out for him?”
“Naw, couldn’t be. He said this was his first time.”
Fagan looked at him in wide-eyed surprise, then he laughed so hard, tears formed in his eyes, and he had to clutch at his gut. Finally, he recovered and wiped his eyes. “You mean, you done caught this young pup in the process of committing his very first crime?”
“Sho nuff did.”
“Well, that means no reward. Sorry about that.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry for, marshal. I got enough in that wagon with prices on they head, this trip was quite profitable.”
“Reckon it was at that. Guess you’ll be happy to get home to Nellie and the young-uns?”
A flicker of a frown crossed Bass’s face. “Uh, sho will. They must be more work to be done ‘round that place since I left. The two oldest boys and my oldest daughter do what they can, but they still ain’t big enough to do some of it, so when I’m gone, stuff just piles up.”
“Okay then, give me your report and get on home,” Fagan said. “I know that brood of yours will be happy to have you back.”
Chapter 14
Homecoming was every bit as chaotic as his arrival in Fort Smith. His brood of ten, from an infant not yet walking to teenagers, swarmed the yard from all points of the compass as soon as they heard one of his younger sons, whose name he could never remember, yell, “Papa’s home!”
All crowded in on him as he dismounted, all, that is, except for his eldest. Bennie, had grown into a lanky teenager, still filling out, but looking a lot like his father. He was the only one whose name Bass had no problem bringing to mind. The two of them, Bass knew, were also similar in personality. Neither was very good at displaying emotions in public. In addition, he was reaching the age when young men start looking at young women as something other than nuisances, and when he was last at home, Nellie had informed him that Bennie was ‘seeing’ a young woman who lived on a neighboring farm, and it was getting serious. Bass resolved to have a talk with his son at the first opportunity.
For now, though, he would have to quiet his brood down with a thrilling story or two of his trip, so that he could have some time alone with the person who really mattered, his darling Nellie.
Bass had met Nellie in Texas during the war, just before he ran away to the territory to escape his sometimes-abusive master. She, too, had been a slave, a housemaid of a wealthy planter in Texas. When Lincoln issued his emancipation proclamation, Bass returned to Arkansas and bought a small piece of land with money he’d saved during his stay in Indian Territory, and then immediately gone to Texas, found Nellie, and married her. Their courtship had been short, but Nellie, free and working as a cleaning woman now, remembered the tall, muscular brown-skinned man with the quick smile and deferential manner, and did not hesitate to say yes when he proposed marriage.
When she came out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron, the yard went quiet. It never ceased to amaze him how, as small as she was, she had as much, if not more, control over the children as he did, and he knew that his control was due to his overwhelming size.
“You children leave your daddy alone,” she said in that tone that was gentle, yet at the same time, demanding. “He just got back after a long trip, and I expect he’d like to rest a bit ‘fore y’all drive him crazy with your wantin’ to hear stories about what he done.”
“Aw, mama, he don’ look all that tired,” one of the younger girls said. “We just wan’ here one story. You don’ min’, do you papa?”
In truth, he found sitting on the front porch telling stories to be relaxing, but he wasn’t about to contradict Nellie. After all, she was the one who had to control them during his long absences, and he didn’t want to undermine her authority.
“Yo’ mama’s right, child,” he said. “I’se plumb tuckered out. Whyn’t you young-uns let me get a few hours’ sleep, and then I’ll tell you a whole buncha stories. Some of ‘em will make that nappy hair of yours stand straight out from yo head, they will.”
“You jokin’, right papa?” Bennie asked, finally moving up and joining the rest of the children.
He tried to act all grown up, Bass thought, but he liked hearing about father’s adventures as much as the rest.
“Naw, son, I ain’t jokin’ one bit. After I get some rest, I’ll tell you the story ‘bout how I caught this old Creek medicine man, and he done throwed a curse on me, but I still whupped him.”
“You just makin’ that up, papa,” another of his daughters said. “Ain’t no such things as curses, ‘cept the bad words some of the boys use at school.”
Bass looked around at his children, making eye contact with each one of them, even though he struggled to remember their names. “You young-uns best not ever let me hear you using cuss words, you hear. Man what’s gotta cuss ain’t got much useful to say.”
He was answered with a chorus of ‘yes, papa,’ and ‘we don’ use no bad words.’
“Good, now y’all gon’ and play, or finish yo chores. We’ll have stories right after supper.”
Dutifully, though reluctantly, they went off in all directions to resume doing whatever it was they were doing before he arrived, leaving him alone with Nellie on the front por
ch.
“Welcome home, husband,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “I missed you, as usual.”
“I missed you too, lady,” he said.
“You miss me, or you miss my cookin’?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Both, my darling, both. Now, which am I gon’ get first, you or your cookin’?”
She looked up into his eyes, and as he gazed back into hers, he saw why he’d loved her so hard for so long. She had the most soulful eyes he’d ever seen. She also had a playful streak, which was another reason he loved her so. “Well now, I reckon we got time fo I has to start supper, so I guess you gets me first. Do that please you?”
“Missus Reeves, that please me like you wouldn’t believe.”
Hand in hand, they went inside the house, closed the door, and to ensure they weren’t disturbed by one of the children coming in for a sneak bite of food when their mama wasn’t looking, bass propped a chair against the door.
RENEGADE ROUNDUP
THE ADVENTURES OF
BASS REEVES
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL
CHARLES RAY
CHAPTER 1
By the time they arrived in the Chickasaw Nation Bass Reeves and his entourage had six fugitives chained in one of the two prisoner wagons he’d brought along on this trip past the deadline, that imaginary line in the dirt some eighty miles west of Fort Smith, beyond which deputy marshals were warned by the fugitives who hid out in Indian Territory that if it was crossed their lives were forfeit. Bass had made many trips across that line and had yet to lose in an encounter with any outlaw foolhardy enough to go up against him.