“Now, what’s this, Zeke? A goddamn war party?” he asked. He started to ride over to me, but stopped when he saw the ten-gauge.
“It’s the Cherokee Militia, Coon,” I informed him. “It’s our task to keep order in the Going Snake.”
“Why, I expect it’ll be orderly enough, once you’re arrested,” he declared.
“You’ll not arrest me today,” I told him.
Coon reddened in the face. He had done the same, when I refused him the gobbler he tried to claim.
“My warrant is from the Governor of Arkansas,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’re wicked enough to disobey the Governor of Arkansas, are you, Zeke?”
“I don’t live in Arkansas, don’t know the Governor, and don’t care to,” I said bluntly. “The marshaling profession has lost seven men in the Going Snake lately. I’d hate to see it lose five more, but it could happen, if you don’t turn around and go home.”
Milo Creekmore trotted up to Coon, at that juncture. Milo was a deputy marshal of some experience who had the good sense to tread lightly when faced with a broad disadvantage in numbers.
The other three marshals were just young sprouts. They looked green as sycamore leaves.
“Hold up, Coon. Let’s stay nice and calm, while we talk this over,” Milo said.
“That’s good advice, Milo,” I agreed.
Coon Rattersee, though, was full of bluster. He didn’t appreciate Milo’s advice.
“You can go home if you’re so goddamn interested in staying calm,” he said. “I was sent here by the Governor of Arkansas to arrest a felon, and there he sits.”
Coon pointed a rangy finger at me. But being a man of experience,
Milo had encountered bluster before. He had a chaw in his mouth the size of a turkey egg. When he spit, a man didn’t want to be anywhere near him, unless he fancied tobacco splatter.
“I see him, Coon,” Milo said. “There he sits. And then what?
“Them boys with him don’t seem friendly toward us,” he added. “If I had known we was up against twenty-five men, I would have ordered my coffin before I left home.”
“We hope not to shoot you, Milo,” I said.
“I hope you don’t neither, Zeke,” Milo agreed. “Why don’t you just surrender, and make Coon happy?”
“I don’t care whether the fool is happy or not,” I said. “He has ridden in here on a foolish quest. As you can see, you’re considerably outnumbered. A quick trip home would be what I’d advise.”
Coon Rattersee swelled up and got red—so red, that I leveled my shotgun at him, hoping the threat of a chest full of buckshot would keep him from going for his gun. If Coon started shooting, the three green boys would think they had to back him up, in which case my militiamen would cut them all down. There’d be a bunch more bodies to pack off to Fort Smith.
“Why, goddamn you! You’re a worse rascal than I thought,” Coon said.
I held my peace, but I didn’t lower my shotgun. Coon had ridden up a little too close when he thought he could cow me. At such a near distance, a shotgun blast would go right through him, just as it had through Sam Beck. Coon Rattersee knew it, too.
He frothed, but he didn’t try for his gun.
“When did you get up your militia, Zeke?” Milo asked, in a mild tone of voice. I think he considered the crisis over, and wanted to engage in a little neighbourly conversation to cool the atmosphere.
“We’ve had it awhile, Milo,” I replied.
Coon, now that he had decided not to make a fight of it, blustered a little more, mostly for the benefit of the young marshals, I guess.
“Now goddammit, Zeke. What am I gonna tell the Governor of Arkansas?” he asked. “He’s the Governor. He expects cooperation, when he sends a troop of marshals to place suspects under arrest.”
“I don’t care what you tell him, Coon,” I said. “I guess you can tell him the Cherokee Militia stood you down.”
“Now, Coon,” Milo said. “Now, Coon.” I think he was afraid there might be a flare-up yet.
“Who said you could get up a militia anyway?” Coon asked. “You look like a bunch of goddamn pea farmers, to me.”
“Well, Coon, be that as it may,” I said, “we’re the Cherokee Militia, and that’s that.”
There wasn’t much more to talk about. The little posse of marshals in the yellow slickers milled around a little on the other end of town. While they were milling, Victor Horsefly walked down to the blacksmith’s and pitched the anvil out into the middle of the street. Then he picked it up again, and pitched it back. In idle moments, Victor liked to pitch anvils around. It was his favourite pastime. He was far too strong just to pitch horseshoes, like the rest of us did. When Victor pitched a horseshoe, that was the last you saw of the horseshoe. He could sail a horseshoe halfway across the District, he was that strong.
Just before the marshals rode away, Coon Rattersee came loping back to where I sat with the Militia. We intended to wait until the men in the yellow slickers rode on out of town.
“Zeke, I have this to say,” Coon told me. “We will not take you with us today, but you’re to consider yourself a prisoner at large.”
“A prisoner at large? What’s that?” I inquired.
But Coon had already turned, and was loping away. I guess he thought making me a prisoner at large was a clever way to save face, or maybe he thought it would help him with the Governor—I don’t know.
What I do know is that was the last attempt the white law ever made to arrest me. I guess I remained a prisoner at large for the rest of my life.
21
OUR TURNING BACK THE MARSHALS IN TAHLEQUAH DID NED Christie a bad turn, I believe. It may have built up antagonism in the marshaling forces. It wasn’t but a week before Coon Rattersee struck again, and this time, he struck at Ned.
Coon probably figured we couldn’t get twenty-five men high up on the Mountain where Ned lived, and he was right. But what he hadn’t reckoned with was Ned himself. Coon came back with Milo Creek-more and the same three green boys. No doubt, Coon was surprised when he rode into the clearing and saw Ned’s fort. Ned yelled a warning, but Coon didn’t react quick enough. Ned shot Milo Creekmore and two of the green boys before the party of marshals could get back to the cover of the forest. Milo Creekmore didn’t die, but Ned’s bullet shattered his hip. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
Milo was better off than the young marshals, both of whom were shot dead. Coon Rattersee was so hot that he wouldn’t leave, which any sensible posseman would have done, considering that he had two young men dead on the ground and his most experienced marshal crippled for life. He stayed in cover all day, shooting at Ned’s fort. Of course, he had no chance of hitting Ned, and the bullets made no impression on the logs.
They say Coon Rattersee was down to four rounds of ammunition, when he gave it up. He picked up the bodies under cover of night, and rode back to Fort Smith in the dark.
Milo Creekmore almost died on the trip back.
22
THAT’S WHEN NED’S WAR BEGAN IN EARNEST: WITH COON Rattersee’s foolish raid. Ned had taken the warrior path, and no one could turn him from it. After that day, with Milo Creekmore wounded and the two young marshals killed, I don’t suppose anyone tried.
From that time on, through four years of raids, the peaceful farming life was lost to Ned, and to our Jewel, too. They lived and fought together—the warrior, and the warrior’s woman. Even Tuxie and Dale Miller, their near neighbours, saw little of them after that.
Each posse that came—and I believe there were seven in all—was a little larger than the last. Nobody, not even the Millers, wanted to be drawn any deeper into Ned’s war. The Millers had twelve children by then, and they had been burned out once. I believe they would have stood up for Ned in a court. But a posse ain’t a court; it’s more like a firing squad.
No one could blame the Millers for not wanting to get lined up and shot.
Two weeks after the standoff in Tah
lequah when the Cherokee Militia sent Coon Rattersee home, who should race up to my house but that skinny bailiff from Fort Smith? I wouldn’t have been much more surprised if an angel of the Lord had lighted on my porch.
The man—I believe his name was Chilly—looked scared, mighty scared. He was twisting his head every which way, and shaking like a leaf.
“I just seen something terrible, Mr. Proctor,” Chilly said.
“What might that be, sir?” I asked. “Has that ugly boar of mine got loose again?”
“No. I seen a head in the road,” he said.
“Well . . . a head off what?” I asked, thinking he meant an animal head of some kind.
“Off White Sut Beck. I think that’s his name,” the bailiff said. “Wasn’t he that old man who charged the courthouse and picked up that man you choked?”
“White Sut Beck’s lost his noggin?” I said. I doubted the story, at first.
“Yep. His head’s in the road, about two miles back,” the bailiff said.
The bailiff looked so scared it made me think the story might be true.
“Maybe that wild Davie sawed it off with that saw knife of his,” I suggested. “The old fool was hard to get along with. It wouldn’t surprise me if Davie done for him.”
“Well, I didn’t see Davie,” Chilly said. “All I saw was that head.”
He declined to ride back down the road and show me the head, even though I offered to let him carry my ten-gauge for the trip.
“I don’t believe I better,” he said. “I’m going to be having bad dreams about that head, as it is.”
So I left the bailiff with Becca and her cousin May. I had invited May into the household to bring a little merriment. She brought the merriment, and was a fine little cook, as well. She was feeding Chilly pork sausage and blackeyed peas when I left. The triplets, shy around strangers, were staring at him as if he was as dangerous as a panther.
Chilly Stufflebean wasn’t as dangerous as a panther, but something that dangerous or worse had torn off old White Sut Beck’s head. It was laying right there in the road, just where Chilly said it was.
I had Pete up with me in the saddle. Before I even spotted the head, Pete’s hackles rose, and he began to snarl like he’d snarl at a badger.
I had to backtrack nearly a mile from White Sut’s head before I found his body. It had been laying dead a day or two, at least, and there were bear tracks everywhere.
I studied the situation for an hour or more, trying to puzzle out what had happened. Pete was quiet during this period, you can believe. He could smell the bear and had sense enough not to do much barking and growling, not with a bear in the vicinity. Pete wouldn’t even make a good bite for a bear, and he knew it.
As best I could figure from the tracks and the signs, old White Sut must of got himself tangled up in the chain he used to chain his bear. Probably the old man was drunk, or maybe he was beating the bear. He was known to pound on it with a post, if he didn’t like its behaviour.
Somehow, he must of got the bear chain wrapped around his neck. When he did, the bear spooked and run off with him, and then kept running until the old man’s head came off. How the head got a mile from the body was a mystery beyond my powers of reckoning. Maybe the old bear was sorry he had popped the head off his master, and dragged White Sut’s body around for a while, hoping the old fool would come back to life. White Sut had that bear for years; it’s likely that the beast had become attached to him, despite the beatings.
I put the head with the body, and piled some rocks on them to keep the varmints off White Sut for another night. They had torn him up some, but there was still enough of the old man to bury. I meant to go find Frank Beck, with whom I had become quite friendly, and get him to help with the grave digging in the morning.
Chilly was asleep in the rocking chair when I got home. He must of been the victim of a terrible fatigue, to sleep so soundly with the triplets shrieking and screeching from the porch. Becca had put a blanket over the man.
“Don’t wake him,” she said. “He’s rode all this way to bring you an amnesty.”
“A what?” I said.
“An amnesty. It’s like a pardon. That’s what the man said,” Becca told me. “It’s from the President himself. It means they won’t be coming after you no more.”
Becca’s eyes had a bit of sparkle in them, when she mentioned the President. I was dumbfounded: Becca’s eyes hadn’t shined in a year, and here she was, talking about a pardon from the President. She had tucked her best blanket around the man who brought the news, too.
“The President? You mean Ulysses S. Grant?” I asked.
“Why, I don’t know, Zeke . . . I think that’s him,” Becca said. She paid little attention to politics, living back in the hills as we did.
It was an unexpected bit of news. I couldn’t remember what I had done that I would need a pardon for, unless it was the accidental shooting of Polly Beck. It was all I could do to restrain myself from waking up the bailiff and requiring him to explain.
But Becca made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate any interference with the man’s sleep, so I did the next best thing, which was to take my fiddle and go out in the smokehouse to celebrate. I played the fiddle and drank, while the triplets chased fireflies down by the pond. They finally wore down and went to bed, but I was keyed up by the news and drank most of the night, before visiting Becca in bed. She was still shining at me, too—another surprise. Becca hadn’t brought her shine to bed in many a long month.
We fiddled and faddled to our hearts’ content, but I was up with the dawn, to question Chilly Stufflebean.
Chilly wasn’t up with the dawn, though. It took a while to get him awake, and then he didn’t recollect where he was for the first few minutes. Finally, he went down to the well and sloshed water on himself, until he was in his right mind and ready to tell me about the amnesty.
“It’s because you got that militia up that the President granted you that amnesty,” Chilly informed me. Water was dripping off his hair.
“Hold on, now. What is an amnesty, just so I’ll be clear on the matter?” I asked him.
Chilly was silent for a while, after I asked the question. I don’t believe he was too clear about what an amnesty was, either—or it may have been that he just couldn’t think clearly when his head was wet.
“Well, it means the Judge ain’t going to send no more marshals to arrest you,” Chilly said.
“All right. But what made him decide to stop?” I asked.
“Your new judge, I reckon,” Chilly said. “I know he sent over names of all the militia you had with you at the Dog Town fight. Judge Parker looked over the list, and decided he couldn’t scrape up enough marshals to arrest all of you. So he wrote a letter to the President, and told him the facts. I guess the President decided just to call it off.”
Chilly pulled a letter out of a little oilskin pouch, and handed it to me. I could read Cherokee like a tribal elder, but the letter was written in legal English, most of which made no more sense to me than a chicken track. I could read names pretty well, though, and there was the President’s name, right at the bottom: Ulysses S. Grant.
“I hope whatever killed that old man don’t catch me on the way back,” Chilly said.
He was a good deal more interested in getting home safe than he was in the fact that I held right in my hand a piece of paper signed by the greatest general that ever fought a war. Just seeing the name made me proud: I had been a loyal soldier of the Union army, and here I stood with an amnesty from my commander-in-chief
Becca and May cooked Chilly Stufflebean a fine breakfast—there were biscuits, and corn on the cob, and ripe persimmons. Becca even gave him a big dish of clabber with cinnamon on it, as a special treat. But the cooking and the cinnamon was mostly wasted on Chilly. The thought of having to ride down the road where old White Sut’s head was, disturbed his appetite to the point that he could scarcely eat.
Then another lucky thing happened, which w
as that Frank Beck rode up with some mail in his saddlebags. He looked so relieved when I told him White Sut was dead that I thought he was going to cry from happiness. It annoyed Bec. She was of the opinion that you ought to mourn your kinfolk, no matter how rascally they were.
Later, though, Frankie told me that White Sut had threatened to kill him three times in a week, because Frank had poisoned his buzzard. Frank had recently taken up with Edna, who had been left at the mill when his brother Little Ray ran off with a younger whore. Edna particularly despised the buzzard; I guess the scabby old thing had taken to roosting on her windowsill. She told Frank she was leaving unless he did something about the buzzard, so Frank shot a possum and mashed some strong strychnine up inside it. When the buzzard ate the possum, it soon fell off its roost and died.
Once he figured out what had happened to his buzzard, White Sut laid plans to kill Frankie—a fact which he informed him of several times.
“White, he didn’t make no idle threats,” Frank told me. “I ’spect if that bear hadn’t yanked his head off, I’d be dead by now.”
His relief was so great that he offered to go dig the grave himself, leaving me with an idle morning before me. Even though all the facts were explained to him, Chilly Stufflebean was shaking so hard he couldn’t cinch his saddle on securely. Finally, I told him I’d ride along with him to Tahlequah, to get him over the worst part of the road. I rook a rifle with me. White Sut’s old bear was a free bear now, and bears can be cranky.
“I hope I don’t have to serve no papers over here again,” Chilly
Stufflebean said, when we were nearly to Tahlequah. “The first time I come, there was that shootout. This time, I seen that head. I believe I’d prefer to live out my life in Fort Smith, Arkansas, if nobody minds.”
The bear did not appear.
A month or two later, I heard that a bear with a collar on showed up in Mobeetie, Missouri, and run a bunch of Sunday folks out of a church. The bear ran off, and eluded all pursuers.
Zeke and Ned Page 45