He doubled the fist in its gray glove. It looked slim to me. I recollected it could have quite a grip.
“Oh,” he said, a-smiling, “I could go on all day about this big list of legal actions. And you and I don’t have all day.”
“I said I’d heard tell just a little bitty bit about all this,” I said. “You seem to be right much informed, Mr. Altic. Right much educated.”
“My education isn’t formal, but I have something like four thousand books where I live,” he said. “I chose each one for its useful information. Very well, John, and what have the Indians to support all these demands, these lawsuits? Why should anyone pay attention to the Indians, anyway?”
“Well,” I said, “I haven't air seen children a-playing cowboys and Shonokins.”
He laughed at that. It was a sort of crooning laugh.
“You have a perceptible gift of homespun humor, I see. But back to the Indians: All their lawsuits are predicated on the Nonintercourse Act of 1790—one of the early acts of the United States Congress—that recognized certain aboriginal rights of the various tribes.”
“I've had that explained to me one time,” I said, “by an old Cherokee medicine man named Reuben Manco. President George Washington his own self read the thing out to a bunch of Indian chiefs. And air since that day, the white Americans have been a-breaking that old law, time and time again, and maybe these Indians today have got a something to say for what it is they want. They were here first, on the ground they've just purely been run off of.”
“The point is,” said Altic, “they weren't here first. They aren't the true, lawful aborigines. The Indians dispossessed the Shonokins.”
“And I said I'd been told something about that argument.”
“We Shonokins have been pushed into hiding.” He wasn't a-smiling then. His maple-colored skin looked tight on his face. “But we've never gone completely away from the land that is rightfully ours. Never.”
“You've hidden,” I said. “Now you all want to come out of hiding.”
“We want to, and we shall.” He sort of snapped that out. “The United States Government, I say, is now in a mood to listen to fair arguments at last. To grant fair titles, which is no more than we deserve. The federal law will be on the side of my people.”
“Your people?” I repeated him. “You talk like the chief of your people. Are you?”
“I'm the chief of those that are here. The chief of us all —but never mind just now who the chief is, or where. Back to the legal aspect as recognized by human justice. Here within recent times, in the case of Montoya versus the United States, the Supreme Court clarified tribal rights and also established a specific definition for the word tribe. It goes something like this: A group of the same or similar race, united as a community under one leadership or government, and inhabiting a particular, though sometimes ill-defined territory. All right, those terms exactly describe the Shonokins.”
He talked sharp and stern, but I kept my own voice quiet. I said, “Seems to me I recollect Reuben Manco a-telling those things over to me, too. And he allowed, a tribe meant a people or nation of Indians.”
“The Supreme Court offered its definition to consider the specific problems of the Indians,” Altic said, back in his smooth-talk way again. “In any case, that word—tribe—is a word of the white man, not the Indian. It comes, as I understand, from the Latin tribus—the old Romans recognized people as tribes.”
“There may be a lot in what you say,” was all I could give him.
“I would also suggest that the word came into your use out of the Bible, where, you'll remember, there were the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel.”
I thought to myself, it would be a pure pleasure to hear Brooke Altic talk if I wasn't a-pestering myself to know just what he was a-getting at.
“And,” he went on then, “the Supreme Court needs only to be properly informed of the nature of the Shonokins to come to recognize them as a tribal group of their own. Not Indians, not whites. Not, strictly speaking, human as you define human.”
“Not human,” I said after him, a-trying to understand.
“But, nevertheless, the original and rightful owners of this whole continent that calls itself America after the Italian adventurer who never discovered it.”
He gazed through his dark glasses at the flowers in the yard. He didn't seem to think to himself how pretty they were. He just calculated.
“How do you all aim to make folks believe these things?” I inquired him.
“By our antiquities. We'll interest the experts at the Bureau of Ethnology. They can be shown where to dig up Shonokin remains of many millennia of the past.”
I looked at him hard. “You'll open up your graves for them?”
“No, John.” He sort of squinched his face at the thought. “We'll not open any graves ourselves. They can do the grave-opening and examine the remains and be convinced.”
“Convinced?” I repeated after him. “How?”
“By recognizing the special characteristics of Shonokin skeletons. There are interesting racial peculiarities. For one, our third fingers are longer than our middle fingers.”
He peeled off his left glove and held out his hand. It was a slim, smooth hand, and again I recollected how strong it could take hold of you. Sure enough, the third finger was the longest. I saw that his nails were narrow and as dark as iron, and came to lean, sharp points. More like claws than nails.
“We'll prove our rights,” he said, a-drawing the glove back on and smoothing it to his fingers. “And we'll win our rights.”
I was a-thinking all the time. “The way you put things, the Shonokins would wind up a-running this country and the whole bunch of other folks would be lucky to wind up on a reservation somewhere.”
“Would that be so bad, John?” he asked, sort of a- pushing his face at me. “If you were a Shonokin, would that be so bad?”
I got up on my feet. “Only I'm not a Shonokin, Mr. Altic.”
He got up, too. He hiked on his toes, a-trying to be somewhere near as tall as I am.
“What if we made you a Shonokin?”
I shook my head. “I don't see how.”
“Here and there we've persuaded useful men to join us,” he said. “Lawyers, for instance, lately we've needed them. What if we accepted you as a Shonokin, John, important among us?” He pushed his face again. “I could manage that for you. I told you I hold an important position.”
“How do you reckon I could help you?” I inquired him.
He held out his gloved hand. “You could start by getting me a certain jewel from Ben Gray.”
“No”—and I shook my head—“I can guarantee you that he won't give that up till he's dead.”
“Until he's dead? Hmmm.” He sounded as dark as his glasses. “By the way, John, that's an interesting belt you're wearing.”
“This?” I looked down at it. “Just a plain leather belt.”
“I'll trade you mine for it.” He pushed open his coat and put his hand to a fancy, shiny buckle. “This is worked in gold.”
“I thank you, but I won't trade,” I busted him off. For that belt had been given to me by my true love Evadare. “But tell me, why me?”
He sat down again, and so did I, after a second. “Because you can give us valuable help, John, like the born persuader I see you are. You seem to be able to influence people. You might even influence the United States Government.”
“Nair in my life have I thought I could do such a thing,” I said.
“Then think of it now.” He rocked back and forth where he sat. “We'd send you to the President himself, to make him hear and vindicate us, like another Washington. It would be worth his while. We have things to offer in exchange. Our wisdom is the oldest and greatest on Earth.”
“You sure enough make it sound thataway,” I had to grant him.
“In these long, secret centuries, we've learned to bring about wonders. We can command life and death. Man has bungled bad
ly. The Shonokins won't bungle.”
“Man,” I repeated him. “The way you talk, you sound like as if men are one thing and Shonokins another.”
“Two different creatures,” he said. “Man has descended one way, the Shonokins another. They're similar, but they're distinct.”
“Well now, what's the advice you said you'd come to give me?”
“My advice,” he said, slow and cheerful, “is to be practical and wise and modest. Don’t defy a greater power than hurricanes.”
“You reckon I'm not brave enough to challenge you.”
“If you did,” he said back, “I'd deplore your bad judgment. See here, John, we Shonokins are ancient and great. We had power and wisdom when your forefathers were still wild brutes.”
“You want to rule over men,” I guessed.
“In a word, yes.” He bit that off at me. “Forgive me if I sound blunt, if I don’t seem to favor your sort of people. That’s because my sort of people hasn't been favored at all, hasn't been considered, for long ages. Now, I've explained the rights and wrongs of the matter, John, and it's up to you to recognize them and tell them apart."
Out reached his gloved hand, like as if to shake mine, but I didn't take it. I got up again and jammed my own hands down into my pants pockets.
"Rights and wrongs aren't all that easy to tell apart," I said to him. "Now and then, it's too hard to rightly tell. But you've done a lavish of talking here. Let me reply you this. You're a Shonokin."
"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course."
"And I'm a man. What I've got to do is stay on the side of men."
He jumped up and flung back his head. "I think you'll change your mind before I'm through with you.”
"No, Mr. Altic, because you're through with me right now." My hands made fists in my pockets. "Good day to you."
He replied nair word to that. He turned on the built-up heel of his boot and slammed off fast down the path to the woods. I watched him go out of sight on the track there, then I went back up on the porch and into the cabin.
Ben Gray stood just inside the door. "You don't need to tell me what went on with the two of you," he sort of grumbled. "I was where I could hark at air word of it."
"Then you might could help me figure what he's up to," I said.
"Ain't no need to figure on that. He's up to trouble for us."
"Last night," I reminded him, "there were Shonokins out yonder. I heard them allow I was to be saved for something. But now, I don't rightly expect they'll keep a-figuring on a-saving me, since I've spoken my piece to Brooke Altic."
“Well,” said Mr. Ben slowly, “it's still right soon in the morning. But these hellacious goings-on makes me feel I’d just like a drop of blockade to help me a-thinking them over.”
He went to his shelf where the glass jar was and put up his hand for it. But he nair took hold of it.
Because just then, another hail sounded outside, a long, sort of mournful one.
“Ben Gray . . . come out; Ben Gray . . . come out.”
4
Mr. Ben took his hand back quick from the jar. “Who’s that out there?” he said. “Don’t seem to me like I know that voice.”
“It’s someone who knows you, anyway,” I said.
“Ben Gray,” called the voice again, sort of mournful to hear.
“We’ll soon see,” said Mr. Ben. “You wait in here, John.”
He crossed the floor and cracked the door out. “Three fellows a-standing yonder. They look like—”
He nair finished that, but went right on out. I stepped to a front window where I could see the yard.
In the strong morning light, I made out three shapes just at the edge of the woods, where that track to Immer started. They wore long, dark coats and low-pulled hats. I’d seen such as that the night before.
Mr. Ben was off the porch and went a-walking down the path toward them. “Who’s youins?” he inquired them. “Come on, give a name to yourselves.” He was a-walking careful, but he walked at them.
“Stop,” said the voice that had moaned his name. The middle one of the three came up with his hand, and it had a long blue pistol in it. “Just stand right where you are,” said the voice.
Ben Gray had stopped. I saw his shoulders hunch up.
“Who’s youins?” he wanted to know again.
"Never mind who we are,” said the one with the pistol. "We've got business with you, Ben Gray. Business with what you always carry in your pocket.”
"What you a-talking about?” Ben Gray's hand moved to his side pocket.
"That's right, take it out,” bade another voice, a scratchy one. "Throw it down on the cobblestones in front of you.”
I saw Mr. Ben draw up his shoulders again. It made him look taller. Then: "No!” he yelled.
And he whipped round, swift as a bird. His feet were agoing as he turned, and he ran back toward the cabin. As he ran, he buck-jumped to the right, then to the left, amongst the pines.
The one with the pistol fired it off. It didn't rightly sound like guns I knew, more of a yelp than a bang. As it sounded, Mr. Ben was out of sight, round the comer of the cabin. I took time to remember there was a gun for me, too, up there on the deer horns over the half-open door. I made a step thataway.
"No, John, let me.”
That was Ben Gray. He'd come in through a back door and up to the front of the room. He grabbed down the rifle, that old Springfield. As he dropped down on one knee, he worked the bolt. Up to his shoulder he slammed the stock, and he took aim and fired out through the door.
I'd jumped back to the window. Out yonder, I saw that those three fellows had come halfway along the path. As the rifle spoke, one of them at the right sort of stumbled and wagged his head. The other two looked his way as Mr. Ben fired again.
That time, the one at the right doubled clear over and near about went down. His two mates grabbed hold of him and dragged him, half-falling, back along the path toward the trees and the trail beyond. They made speed at it, for all they had to help him. Ben fired a third time at them, over their heads, and they fairly flew off amongst the summer leaves.
"You nair got done what you come to do, did you?” he howled after them.
The three were gone. Swallowed up by the woods. Mr. Ben dropped the butt of his rifle to the floor with a thump, and kept a-looking out through the doorway.
"You hit one of them,” I said. "I could make that out.”
"And I hope it wasn't no little slight wound,” he said, and he sounded savage. "They opened up on me in my own yard. But now they're gone.”
I, too, looked out at the yard. "Likely gone for good,” I agreed him. "You recollect that Jackson Warren told us that Shonokins are plumb scared of their own dead.”
"Shonokins,” he said after me. "You saw they were Shonokins, too.”
"They might could have been the same three that tried to visit here last night. Anyway, if the law comes to ask about it, you've got me for a witness you fired in selfdefense.”
"Shucks, I don't expect the law will air hear tell about it”
From his cupboard Mr. Ben searched out a ramrod and some patches and a little bottle of gun oil. He worked the rifle bolt to eject out the cartridges and sat down by the door to clean the bore.
We heard more voices outside, and both of us jumped up. But it was only Callie and Warren, a-carrying their kettles of honey up the steps and into the house.
"We must have brought back forty pounds of it,” said Warren, a-hoisting his load up on the table. "And we didn't get it all, at that.”
"We thought we heard gunshots,” Callie added on. "Were you shooting at something, Daddy?”
"Yes, daughter,” he replied her, calm and quiet "I was a-shooting at something.”
He had finished his job of rifle cleaning, and he fed cartridges into the magazine and put on the safety and hung the thing back on the deer horns.
"Sit down,” he said. "Hark at what's been a-going on here while you two went for those loads of h
oneycombs.”
And he related all about Brooke Altic's visit and his offers, which I’d rejected, and about the shooting afterward. Callie gasped and looked scared; Warren paid attention and didn't make a move or sound while Mr. Ben did his talking.
"They mean business,” said Warren at last.
"And goddam ugly business,” Ben Gray put on to that. "Killing business, if they can handle it thataway. One of them went off a-carrying some lead I slapped into him. If he dies, he’ll scare them up a tad, if what Jackson says about a-fearing their own dead is so.”
"Likely they weren’t so good at a-shooting in the daylight,” I offered. "That Brooke Altic fellow said something like that. After dark, the Shonokins, was what he said.”
"After dark, the Shonokins,” Mr. Ben repeated me. "When they come here in the morning light, they must have reckoned I'd be easy. They found out something another sight different.”
"Daylight or dark, this is a place of deadly danger, Mr. Gray,” said Warren. "I know you’re not a timid man, but if you were to go away—”
"Not me,” Mr. Ben broke right in on him. "I'll nair be run off my own land.”
"And if Daddy stays, I stay,” said Callie.
"And so likewise do I.” I put in my own word. "Folks, to leave out of here now would be to quit to them, give them this place of yours to take over the way they seem to have taken over that old settlement you call Immer. They want it bad, the way they want Mr. Ben’s alexandrite jewel, the way Brooke Altic seemed to want my belt. Those things aren’t wanted for good, I’ll warrant you. I’ll be a- staying, even if the rest of you go.”
"None of us are going, then,” Warren said, and I’ll be dogged if he didn’t sound happy about it. "I just suggested it; I didn’t advise it. But what do we do first?”
Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer 02 Page 4