House of Purple Cedar

by Tim Tingle

  The creek was dry.

  Henry cried out. He fell to his knees and grabbed handfuls of dust. He leapt to his feet and turned around and around, stirring up clouds of dust. He choked and coughed on the powdery dust.

  Over his shoulder Henry heard the rifle shot that killed his uncle. He fled to the safety of his house.

  The next afternoon, with the soldiers several hours down the road, Henry returned to the creek. The water flowed cool and clean as always.

  Henry pushed open the back door and approached the washtub where his wife had left Roberta Jean’s dress to dry. He saw the dress hanging lifeless over the tub and saw his daughter lying on the steps of the church. He picked the dress up with the knife blade and saw once more the bloodstains in the folds of cotton.

  The marshal lived north of town, a good five-mile walk. Henry knew if he kept a brisk pace he would arrive long before light of day. He re-entered his house and stepped lightly to the kitchen and sat once again at the table. A deep and distant wind carried the owl’s call.

  “He comes closer,” the preacher thought. He dug his leather boot heels into the floor and scooted the chair backwards, away from the table. He sat in the middle of the kitchen floor, like a condemned man waiting for the call to die.

  “Little David picked up a stone,” he said, spitting on the floor and rising through the creaking soreness of his joints.

  “Little David picked up a stone, Goliath for to kill.” He held the knife aloft and watched the blade flash in the moonlight washing through the window.

  “Little David picked up a stone, Goliath for to kill.” He dragged his feet down the hallway, the knife hanging at his side. The words came faster now. “He walked unto the Philistine and flung his stone aloft. Earth trembled as the giant fell, the Philistine was dead.”

  He paused at his daughter’s doorway, considered opening it, but turned away instead. This hour was not about Roberta Jean, not even about the Choctaws or the marshal. This hour was about the creeping darkness, the power of the creeping darkness.

  “Little David picked up a stone, the giant for to kill.” He sobbed now as he spoke. “God smiled to see the giant dead, at last dead, at last the people free, the giant dead. God’s army won, the giant bleeding dead.”

  He paused and took a long, deep breath. “Little David picked up a stone,” he said, “the giant for to kill.”

  A face appeared two feet from his, floating from a square of light against the wall. Henry froze and stared at this new apparition. It was a vision of his own face, staring back at him in the coppery glass of the grandfather clock. He saw the large fleshiness of his lips and nose. He lifted his palm to his cheek and saw the clumsy bigness of his hands. He was no David and he knew it.

  “Poppa,” came a small voice from his daughter’s room.

  Henry froze. He bent down and placed the knife at his feet and slid it behind the hall clock with the edge of his boot.

  “Poppa?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Will you come be with me?”

  Henry opened the door and moved to Roberta Jean’s bedside, kneeling and easing his large frame over his daughter. Cupping her head in his palm, he lifted her from the pillow and kissed her cheek.

  “Stay with me awhile.”

  “I am here with you,” Henry said. He sat on the floor and pulled her to him. She nestled her head against his chest.

  “I am so thankful you are my father,” she said. The clock chimed the three o’clock hour and Henry knew he would stay by his daughter’s bedside till dawn. I must get the knife before anyone sees it, he reminded himself.

  “Anyone else would try to kill him,” Roberta Jean said. “We could never be God’s children again.”

  Henry clung to his daughter and sobbed till the tears washed all trace of the day’s dust from his face. “You will always be one of God’s children,” he told her.

  Father and daughter thus escaped the ravages of the day and gave way to the balm of sleep, in the blessed assurance that their lives, though scarred, would continue.

  Henry never knew what happened to the carving knife, how it mysteriously returned to the kitchen drawer the next morning. When he unraveled himself from his sitting position on the bedroom floor that Sunday, he recalled placing it behind the hall clock. But when he went to retrieve it, the knife was gone.

  Reverend Willis always considered himself to be the final guardian of his family, the last to bed and the first to arise. On the night his daughter was attacked, that duty was assumed by another family member. Young Samuel.

  Having slipped quietly through his bedroom window, leaving a room he shared with his sleeping brothers, Samuel stood in the shadows and watched his father through the kitchen window. He was determined to follow his father wherever he went that night, determined to prevent a killing, with reason if he could, with force if he had to.

  He was relieved to see his father hide the knife behind the clock and enter Roberta Jean’s room. As soon as he heard snoring, Samuel scampered like a house rodent to the clock, grabbed the knife, and dashed to the back yard, where he buried it in his mother’s rose bed.

  While Roberta Jean slept in the arms of her father, Samuel spent the night leaning against her bedroom door, so his father could not leave the house without his knowing it.

  Long before Reverend Henry Willis of the First Christian Church of Skullyville arose to preach the most difficult sermon of his life, his eldest son had already returned the family’s meat carving knife to its rightful place in the kitchen drawer.

  Brother Willis Preaches

  It was the shortest sermon anybody ever heard Reverend Henry Willis preach.

  But one of the best, someone said.

  No winding down a crooked road. Straight to the point, that sermon was.

  Amen to that.

  Willis knows how to get there when he wants to.

  Amen.

  I’m not even hungry yet.

  Hush, now!

  Well, sweetheart. You know how my stomach gets to growling sometimes.

  I said Hush!

  Straight to the point.One of the best.

  “Little David picked up a stone, the giant for to kill.” The deep familiar voice of Reverend Henry Willis eased itself over the lip of the pulpit, inspiring murmuring Amens from the congregation gathered at the First Christian Church of Skullyville. The words drifted to the back pew and hung in the stuffy air. An uneasy shifting of bodies responded to the scripture. Stones had never been Brother Willis’ way.

  “Little David picked up a stone, the giant for to kill,” he continued. “But Jesus picked up the cross,” he boomed, lifting his arms and widening his eyes. “And he carried that cross through streets of scorn and humiliation. He carried that cross. He bore that cross. He died on that cross. And he rose from the dead.”

  The congregation leaned forward now, as one.

  “He rose from the dead as we will rise. We are God’s children,” he boomed. “We are God’s children and we will be God’s children, in word and in deed, and we will act as God’s children. Forever and ever, till he returns and we rise from the dead. Let us pray.”

  Empty Prayers

  Ona Mae prayed every night for the safety of her husband. They were her sweetest and deepest and darkest secret, these prayers. She prayed knowing the danger of his duties, him being the law in a town in Indian Territory, where so many arrived fleeing from the law.

  With his bullying and drunken ways, she realized his life hung in the precarious balance of everyday fate. Any one of dozens of situations could already have resulted in his death. An ambush by angry Choctaws, a gunfight at the bar over a card game, a simple retaliation from someone weary of his relentless heaping of one abuse after another. Ona Mae prayed that Robert would survive the accumulation of evils he brought into play.

  Empty prayers.

  Ona Mae knelt every night and imagined the Lord protecting her husband from falling down dead-drunk on a sharp rock, or
passing out too close to a prowling animal in the woods behind their house, or stumbling across train tracks at the wrong time, or dying beneath the hooves of a wagon pulled by stampeding horses.

  The events were so clear and focused, her funeral dress so black, the veil so thin and lacy, the tears so deep within her chest, the condolences of friends so warm. She welcomed these prayers and knew the Lord would sift the gold from the limestone dust. Her faith was deep.

  One night, when he fell asleep in the arbor and his heavy snoring woke her, she arose and made her way to the kitchen. She put water on to boil, intending to boil potatoes for her famed salad. She had peeled three potatoes before she realized that half the population of Spiro would not, after all, be arriving the next morning to help her in her time of sorrow.

  Following the death of her husband.

  John Burleson from the railroad depot would not hold her and say, “Be strong, Ona Mae,” and she would not bury her face in his muscled and tender shoulder.

  The roar of snores through the kitchen window brought her to her senses, but she boiled the water anyway and ate instead a boiled egg, for these times of fearless privacy, so close to the sleeping beast, were rare and precious.

  At the very moment Roberta Jean struck the marshal with the black lava rock, Ona Mae was praying he would not stumble and die.

  Bill Gibbons to the Train

  Hardwicke took two lurching steps forward and fell face down in the muddy earth. Blood gushed from the top of his head, across his cheeks, and puddled against the porch steps. He sat up and spat a mouthful of blood. He wiped his lips and leaned against the wall of the church. Behind his eyelids he watched a dull and painfully slow replaying of events.

  “Noooo,” he moaned, dropping his head. Blood still streamed from the gash above his temple. He ripped the sleeve of his shirt and tied it around his head. The blood flow barely slowed. He grabbed a small handful of dirt, compressed it in his fist, and packed it tight against his skull. He retied the cloth and the blood thickened.

  Seeing his own blood had a sobering effect. Hardwicke gradually felt the full weight of consequence, the consequence of attacking Reverend Willis’ daughter on the steps of the church.

  From the moment Marshal Hardwicke realized his life was at stake––not his reputation or his pride, but his very life––he moved with a swift purpose. Gathering an armful of thick rope and a five-foot length of cord from a shed behind the church, he hurried to the spot where he knew he would find Roberta Jean, the creek crossing to the Goode land.

  Seeing her follow the path of the road, he cut through the piney woods and arrived at the creek soon after she did. He felt his breath quicken as she relaxed and crawled to the bank.

  “She thinks she is safe,” he whispered. Familiar feelings came over him.

  His hand fell so hard across the back of her neck, she made no real struggle. He removed the bloody bandage from his head and tied it around her mouth. With the smaller rope, he bound her hands behind her back. Roberta Jean slumped over in helplessness and he dragged her far from the creek.

  A thick oak offered a strong bonding place. He flung her against the tree trunk and tied a knot over her chest. He then stood and quickly walked six times around the trunk, pulling the slack and tightening the rope with every revolution. Roberta Jean stared in open-eyed horror, tasting the blood that slipped between her lips.

  With his captive secured, the marshal sat down against the trunk of a sweet pine to watch and consider his next move.

  “As I was saying back at the church,” he said, “I got to kill you. You know that. I’m sober now, but that hasn’t changed. You gonna die, so get on with whatever praying you need to do. This ain’t my doings, you dying like this. Your friend, she was the one I was after.”

  Roberta Jean closed her eyes.

  “Poppa. Help me, please,” she whispered. She knew her father would send Samuel to look for her when she did not return. They will never find me here alive. They will find me dead.”

  Her thoughts were brought to a sudden halt by a high-pitched scream. The marshal stiffened in fear. A panther was nearby and the night air vibrated with her call. Hardwicke looked over his shoulder and his eyes and hands scrambled in panic to the ground around him. Realizing he had left his gun at the church, he leapt to his feet and vanished in the pines.

  Roberta felt the presence of the cat. She knew the panther was approaching the tree. Soon the snug ropes moved as if tugged from behind. Roberta heard small ripping and clawing noises, together with low growls.

  The panther is cutting through the ropes.

  In a brief moment the rope ceased moving and Roberta saw a yellow light in the direction of the creek, a bobbing light, the sight of a lantern carried by someone walking.

  “Yakoke, sweet Lord,” she whispered and hung her head in waiting.

  Marshal Hardwicke watched from the shadows as three figures crossed the creek bridge. Knowing the night had turned against him, he retraced his weary steps to the church. He retrieved his shotgun and followed the roan-colored road till it met the railroad tracks. Thinking of how best to leave Spiro, maybe forever, he knew the luxury of regret must come later. Tonight the task was staying alive and avoiding any Choctaws as he crossed their land.

  His first thought was to hide in a clump of brush at the point where the track began a steep uphill climb. The morning train slowed to a crawl before topping the mountain and sped into a descent that carried it far away from Spiro, to the next stop fifty miles down track.

  His plans changed when he saw the yellow glow of a campfire high above the tracks. Staying in the shadows, he crept in the direction of the fire, pausing often to listen. From the dark of a juniper thicket, he observed a lone figure holding a pan over an open fire, shaking it in an easy cooking motion. A horse was tied to a nearby tree and a blanket was unrolled near the fire.

  A traveler planning on a quick meal and early sleep, he thought. Appears to be about my height.

  When the man lifted his face, Hardwicke knew he was right. He was a few years younger than the marshal, slightly less than six feet, and stout of build. Hardwicke backed away for twenty paces and approached the campsite once again, this time with the natural noise of someone announcing their presence.

  He saw the man rise and turn in his direction, then move to his blanket roll. He knelt and patted the blanket.

  Yes, your gun is there. Hardwicke smiled. You’ll never get a chance to use it.

  “Hello,” he said aloud, staying in the shadows. “I am Marshal Hardwicke, from over in Spiro.”

  “Oh, Marshal. Hello. I hope this not gonna be no problem, me spending a night here.” Hardwicke said nothing and the man put his hands in his pockets and looked to his boots. “I didn’t see no house or nothing. I’m just passing through, not looking for any trouble.”

  “No, no trouble, your being here,” said Hardwicke. “We’ve had some problems with men along the tracks a few miles east of here. I’m just checking up on things around this bend in the tracks. Train has to slow down here, you know. You by yourself?”

  “Yes, sir. Just me. On my way to Tulsa. Still got a good day’s ride, I understand.”

  “Yeah, you maybe be there in a day.” The man shuffled his feet as Hardwicke savored his discomfort.

  “I was about to make some coffee.”

  “No, I don’t have time for coffee,” said Hardwicke, staring at the man, moving his eyes back and forth from the horse to the man’s blanket.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bill Gibbons.”

  “Mind if I take a look in your saddle bag?”

  “No, sir, you go right ahead. Nothing there but my belongings.”

  “Where is your gun?” The man pointed to his blanket and made a step to retrieve it. Hardwicke stepped into the light and held up his hand. “I’ll take a look,” he said. “You haven’t fired it tonight, have you?”

  “I shot these squirrels in my frying pan,” he said, wincing hi
s face when he saw the bloody bandage on Hardwicke’s head. “Marshal, are you alright? You been hurt?”

  The marshal tightened his mouth and picked up the rifle.

  He assured himself the gun was loaded, then turned to the man and shot him in the chest. Gibbons looked at the marshal and moved his lips as if to speak. He staggered backwards while his eyes moved to his shaking hands, trying to cover the blood spreading across his midsection. His knees gave way and he twisted and fell forward into the fire.

  Hardwicke slowly moved toward him, watching as the stranger struggled to roll out of the fire. His shirt caught the flames and one hand flew to his face. Hardwicke sat down and watched him for a few minutes, smelling the searing burn of hair and flesh.

  He finally rose and stuck his boot under the man’s chest. In a slow kicking motion, he rolled him over and out of the flames. The man’s face was pink and his scalp was already bald well above his ears. As he lay on his back, still breathing, Hardwicke saw that his right cheek was covered with small scars and a searing brown liquid. He eased the gun barrel to the man’s nose, pressing it hard till the man finally opened his eyes.

  The train rounded the curve in the tracks and the whistle blew at the moment of this second blast, drowning out the sound and sending Hardwicke into an eerie dream state of watching the flesh tear from the man’s face for no apparent cause save the recoil of the rifle.

  He found a change of clothes, a hunting knife and scabbard, and a few personal items in the man’s saddlebag. He slipped the knife and scabbard in his belt and tossed the personal items into the fire. Seeing the color of the smoke darken, he peered closer. A red ribbon necklace curled and burned and released its grip on a milky white stone.

  “A gift for Mrs. Bill Gibbons,” he thought, watching the stone sink into the hot embers. He took a deep breath and felt a slow shiver move across his chest.

  He then removed the man’s boots and stripped him of his clothes. Blood still flowed freely from the wound in the man’s chest.