“Any new children to register?”
Jake gave him two names, their youngest child and their newest granddaughter.
“Looks in order. No further witnesses or documents required. Wait over there for the citizenship certificate,” the government man said. “Take the certificate and go pick your allotments in the tent with the red flag markings.” He scribbled something on the paper in front of him. They didn’t realize they’d been dismissed until he raised his head and shouted, “Next!”
Rose’s heart struggled to reconcile the unbearable sadness of Kindred’s defection, and the euphoria of permanent ownership of their ranch. They left the first tent about thirty minutes later, the precious certificate stamped, certified and recorded in Jake’s hand. Once outside, Jake asked Rose to read the document aloud. Although he could stumble through the words himself, he preferred Rose’s voice.
As a family, minus one, they made their way to the red tent, to register for their land.
Chapter 64
ROSE TOILED IN the late-morning sun on the near side of the garden, hoeing the weeds around the string bean vines, puzzling over the question of Eugene. Her son sat at the common table to eat when everyone else ate, and was a trusted hand tending the herd. Of age, he went with Jake on spring drive, proving his worth there, but still, she was afraid they’d lost him. That she’d lost him. The wound was still fresh from Kindred four years before, her oldest son’s defection from the family permanent and final. She couldn’t bear another child leaving them.
Eugene performed his obligations, faithfully, but there was little joy in the ranch life for him, anyone could see that. Neither Jacob nor Eugene had an innate gift for ranching, like their father. Eugene was dutiful, and Jacob adventurous, but with Jacob, the unsuitability didn’t carry resentment, or shame, or desperation. Jacob would forge his own way, whatever that might be, but he would be in the pocket of family whatever he made of himself, Rose was sure of it. Eugene, on the other hand, was only biding his time. For what, she wasn’t sure.
Eugene.
Her son was drowning in his dissatisfaction, and no matter how she tried to gauge his state of mind and mend fences between them, something stood in the way. She’d concocted a reason for him to be close at hand today, at the house, and yet she was out here, and him inside. She’d wanted an excuse to talk to him, find some words to bind him to her, the way it used to be. But the gulf was too wide, the specter of Elizabeth between them.
She stabbed at the weeds with a fury, row after row, and when at last she paused to take stock of her handiwork, saw a man in the distance approaching their property on a slow-trotting horse. He wasn’t yet at the clearing, and she threw down the hoe and hurried toward the house, entering from the screened back door, unhooking the loaded rifle from the wall as she passed through toward the porch. She heard a noise from the kitchen, and stopped to check it wasn’t one of the smaller children. At the top of the stairs off the kitchen was Eugene, bringing up the hogshead of sugar as she’d requested, and she motioned him to come with her. He eyed the rifle, and didn’t hesitate, following along quietly and capably at her back.
She shouldered the rifle, more for show than expectation of use, but she distrusted the white man from the moment she first saw him set foot on their land and come straight for the front door. He wasn’t freedman, he wasn’t Creek, he wasn’t Indian at all, he was white, a portrait of respectability from the point of his boots to the wide brim of his grimed hat.
“Say your piece,” said Rose, from the protection of the front porch. She lowered the rifle but kept it visible at her side, not obscured by the folds of her apron. Eugene stood to her right. Though still not come to his full growth, he was tall, measured, deliberate. Whatever held between them, she was glad for him at her side.
“Ma’am,” the man said, with a small tip of his hat. “Would this be the man of the house?”
“What would your business be?” asked Rose.
Eugene bristled beside her, as if he’d been dismissed, but he didn’t speak, cleaving to her side. She’d deal with his feelings some other time.
The man looked back and forth between them, assessing the situation. She could imagine his simplistic computation; old freedwoman with a gun, young Indian man living on the property, ranch hand or drifter.
“Well, I could talk to you, then,” he said to Rose. “No need for the rifle. No need at all.”
Something wasn’t quite right. Did he know Jake was away? Why didn’t he come closer to evening, when chores were done, the man of the ranch more likely to be at the house? She kept the rifle in place, neither inviting him in nor offering water or sofki.
“State your business, then,” she said.
“My name is Hawkins,” he said. “Wade Hawkins. Come to offer my services.”
“What services?”
“I could be great help to you and yours,” he said. “You’re Rose Simmons?” He didn’t wait for her to reply, and instead, turned to Eugene. “And which are you?”
“Eugene Simmons,” he said. Rose darted a warning glance to Eugene and he pulled back half a step, quieted.
“You appear knowing who we are,” Rose said. “So what is your business, Mr. Hawkins?”
“To the point, then,” Hawkins said. “You’re on the rolls. You and your family. And a large family it is. By law, you need a guardian to help make sure your allotments come to good use.”
“We do fine by ourself,” Rose said.
“That might be, up to now. Let me further introduce myself. I have a spread, ten thousand acres, outside Muskogee. People know me there. I have acquaintance with people who make things happen. No muss, no fuss. A land transaction needn’t be hard as the government makes out. I can get you a good price for the land you sit on here, and you’d end with hard cash in your pocket.”
“We live here, Mr. Hawkins,” said Rose. “For over twenty years. Eugene grew up on this ranch from infant, and now he’s a man.” Rose felt a charge between them, her and Eugene, and prayed that this acknowledgment of him as a man come unto his own, though only midway through his teen years, held the possibility of thaw. “We are not in the market to sell.”
“And a fine ranch it looks to be, if I may say so.” Hawkins looked out over the expanse, from east to west. “I see why you’d hold on to forty acres for your homestead.”
“We run cattle, Mr. Hawkins. Forty acres wouldn’t even be enough for my herd, let alone my husband’s.”
Hawkins looked thoughtful. “With allotments coming for twelve members of your family, surely you don’t need all the land?”
“Citizens,” Rose corrected. “Creek citizens working the land we’re entitled to.”
“But surely not all your family wants to hold on to stubborn land taking more than it gives when there’s good money to be made. You don’t speak for every one of them, eh?”
He looked pointedly at Eugene, and Eugene hung on his every word.
“Why are you here?” asked Rose. “Everybody knows the land can’t be sold.”
“Forty acres of the allotment can’t be sold. That’s the law. But with a guardian’s help, you could lease out the rest. Leasing’s not same as selling. Leasing the rights for what’s under the ground or on top of the ground brings you cash money while you still run your cattle, helps you keep up with what you have to pay the bank or other debt. Makes you a profit.”
“We still own the land, and work the land, but somebody pays us anyway?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” Hawkins said. “A little tricky, but you put your trust in me as guardian, and I draw up papers and pay in gold coin. Tomorrow. Today. I take the risk of finding an interested party.”
“What sort of interested party? Oilman? Timber stripper? Both leave the land worth less than nothing for a cattle rancher.”
“Those are two options, but there are others. Remember, there’s great risk for the pe
rson doing the leasing, and in five years, whether their bet paid off or not, the land comes back to you.”
None of this sounded right to Rose. Nothing was painless. She would be glad when Jake returned in a couple of weeks. He had a better sense of this than she did, although one thing was certain. Neither of them would give up one acre of their land without a fight.
“How much?” she asked.
“Beg pardon?”
“How much per acre?”
“If you got each of the twelve to sign, or had me appointed guardian for the minors with a guardianship waiver, I could pay $500. Cash money.”
Rose almost laughed out loud. If she’d had doubts before, she was certain now. He was charlatan, or worse. The land was easily worth $10,000. She was surprised to hear her son speak up.
“How much for one allotment?” Eugene asked.
Chapter 65
HAWKINS STROKED THE full length of his beard before answering. “One allotment is not as valuable as a block of land together, as you can imagine, but I’d say I could get you twenty-five dollars.”
Rose willed Eugene to quiet with a flinty look.
“Our signatures carry more worth than your quote. Your offer is of no interest,” said Rose. “To any of us.”
“Well, if leasing’s not to your liking, there’s selling.”
“We’re freedmen. This land is restricted. An appointed guardian must know as much. The government won’t allow us to sell.”
“Not yet,” he said. “But those are the old rules. That’s why you need a guardian. Someone to keep up with what you can do and what you can’t.” He looked to be enjoying himself. “The government changes rules when it suits them. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to follow all the ins and outs. That’s what I’m here to do for you.”
“What new rules?” asked Rose.
“Full-bloods still have all the old restrictions, but neither mixed-bloods nor freedmen will be banned from selling. Once restrictions on surplus land expire next year, freedmen can get rich.”
He painted a picture of the good life to be had with money from a sale. He talked as if Rose couldn’t possibly understand the complicated matters he dealt with. Eugene stood straight and tall by her side, but had the stunned, pathetic stare of a prairie dog in the seconds before his demise, hypnotized by a snake suddenly appeared, transferring venom to its fangs.
“I’ll get myself appointed guardian to help with your money matters.” He said this last in a solicitous tone, as if the welfare of every member of the Simmons ranch was his overwhelming concern. “Especially for the underage children needing guidance.”
Rose kept her grip steady on the rifle, even though this was a threat that couldn’t be resolved with a firearm.
“We advise our own,” she said.
She thought of her smaller children at the ranch, aged four to sixteen. The older were a different calculus, champing at the bit to make their own decisions, but with the exception of Eugene, they were all so indoctrinated into the concept of family she was certain she could contain them. Speak for them. She’d brought them up under her protection, all of them, under her roof, under her rules. What could this man do for them she could not?
“You do the best you can, I’m sure,” Hawkins said. “But much good can come from us working together. I take care of you and your family, get the best deal, whatever you decide. Once restrictions come off for freedmen next year, we can buy and sell more freely, without interference from the government. There’s money to be made.” He hesitated, a pause for effect. “Maybe it would be better for me to talk to Jake Simmons. He might better understand the opportunities.”
“My husband is back in a few weeks. I assure you, his answer is no different than mine,” said Rose. “But of course, you are free to try. Good day.”
Eugene and Hawkins exchanged a quick look, an acknowledgment that excluded Rose. She didn’t want Eugene anywhere near the influence of this man.
She waited until Hawkins left, merely a spot on the horizon, before she set the rifle down. “He’s not to be trusted,” she said.
“The government sent him to help us,” said Eugene.
“He came today to help himself. Help himself to our land. Don’t be fooled.”
“He’s an important man. He owns ten thousand acres and lives in Muskogee.”
“Never want what other people have. You never know how they got it,” Rose said.
Eugene didn’t back down, as if his silent witness to this morning’s meeting drained him of his full capacity for obedience. “I don’t belong here,” he said.
Rose’s heart skipped. What did he mean? On the ranch? On this porch? With her?
“Not everybody wants to farm or ranch for the rest of their life,” he said. “That’s not what I want.”
“What do you want, Eugene?” Rose asked. “Do you even know? Do you have any idea?”
She fully expected him to withdraw into himself, as he usually did when confronted, but he took a deep breath, and looked her directly in the eye.
“I want to live away from cows and mud and dust and chickens. I want to ride a train headed west. Or east. I want to live in a city, and meet people not knowing who I am or where I’m from, whose first question isn’t ‘who are your people?’ Who don’t peg me Creek or Cherokee, Indian or freedman, cowpunch or ranch hand. I want to sleep long in the morning and stay up with the moon at night, without a thought of a cow needs milking or a crop needs picking or a herd needs running. I want to see something new that man made. More than drinking enough rotgut whiskey to face another day of hard winter, or hard summer, and not use up my praying for rain during drought or sun during flood or calm during tornado. I want out.”
This last rendered Rose mute. This was the most she’d heard Eugene say at one time, and the first he’d said aloud how little he wanted the farm life she had to offer. She’d failed him. Suddenly she knew it true. She wondered if he had shared his discontent with Elizabeth. She stood quiet for a long time before she spoke.
“Land is who we are,” Rose said to him. “Land is our protection, land is our family, land is our life, from the time of Cow Tom. You’ll do what I say. No one sells.”
Eugene picked up the rifle from where she’d leaned it on the porch rail. He sighted down the barrel in the direction of the bunkhouse, before laying the old gun back to rest. When he looked to Rose again, his face bore such sorrow she could barely puzzle out the man he’d become. In her mind, she still saw baby fat and first steps and a young boy trailing after his brothers.
“How’d we get this way?” he asked.
The question made no sense, but she knew at once what he meant. She understood, but resented the impertinence from one so young and untested. How does anyone come to be what they are? Of necessity. By example. Day by day.
She didn’t answer.
For once, Eugene pressed. “What was he like? My great-grandfather? Cow Tom.”
“He was a great man,” she said.
“I know the things he did. But what was he like?”
Rose remembered the conversation with Kindred in the barn the night the breech calf was born, the same hunger behind the question. She couldn’t answer Kindred then, and couldn’t answer Eugene now. She’d kept the stories so close by now, at first because of the promise, but now something more, that she feared something fundamental within her would break apart if she gave in to this impulse to open the past. Grampa Cow Tom was hers.
“There’s work to be done,” said Rose. “I want you to ride the east fence line today.”
Eugene refused the dismissal. “We each come by our allotment, our hundred and sixty acres, made out to us, separate,” said Eugene. “Each should do what they want.”
“No one sells,” Rose repeated. She wanted to shake him, slap him, make him see what was important. She modulated her voice inste
ad to try reason. “That’s how we stay strong. Your father will tell you the same. But if sell you must, come to family first. Only sell to family.”
Eugene didn’t answer her, and the silence deepened between them. He stood rigid as he stared out at the vastness of the prairie in the direction where the guardian disappeared, and then with the slightest of shrugs, he left Rose alone on the porch.
Chapter 66
ROSE STAYED CLOSE to home, as she had for the last six months since the guardian’s visit, tending the ranch and the children. But even in her seclusion, rumors insinuated themselves into their everyday lives as the date approached to lift freedmen restrictions, and the government allowed all citizens other than full-bloods to sell their land allotments. The distasteful memory of the unctuous little man hadn’t completely faded, but with busy season upon them, and so much to do, Rose almost convinced herself they were safe.
She watched Eugene closely, careful to respect his disappearances to see Elizabeth a half day’s ride away. He performed his obligations, a dutiful son, but she detected a new gleam of eye, a more engaged carriage, an unexplained hopefulness Rose hadn’t seen before. He didn’t open up to her as the day he told her of his aversion for the rancher’s life, nor express his dissatisfaction again.
The eve of the deadline, Rose worked herself into such distress about Eugene she put aside her needle and thread and retired early, leaving the older girls unsupervised to clear supper dishes and close up the house for the night. She hadn’t yet changed into nightclothes, and sat on her side of the mattress, fully dressed, as Jake shed down to his long underwear. He sagged onto the bed, tired from a full day branding calves, and pulled the quilt over himself. Still, she couldn’t force herself to begin her evening routines.
“I worry over Eugene,” she said.
Jake opened his eyes. “If the boy wants to go, he’ll go,” he said. “We done all we could. You coming to bed?”
“He might still think to catch the last train to Muskogee tomorrow,” Rose said. “We can’t let him do it.”
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