I thought to myself it must have been old White Sut’s bear.
23
I FOUND OUT THAT BELLE BLUE, A PRACTICAL WHORE IF THERE EVER was one, had written down the names of all the militiamen who stood up with me when the two marshals interrupted the horseracing that day in Dog Town. I guess in her business, she thought it was good policy to keep track of names. Whores have to do their best to stay in good with the law.
After Coon Rattersee’s first raid on Ned Christie, Belle gave the list to Bird Doublehead, who was the new Cherokee judge in Tahlequah. I liked Bird Doublehead; he was a reasonable man, if a little slow in his thinking. If you ran into Judge Bird Doublehead when he wasn’t expecting to see you, it would take him a minute or two just to think to say hello.
Bird Doublehead had some plain sense. He took the list of names over to Judge Parker himself, and the two judges agreed that an effort to arrest the whole militia wouldn’t work. Most of the militiamen had brothers or sons who would feel the need to avenge them if they were fatally interfered with. Killing would follow killing, until the hills would run dark with blood.
So, the old brokenhearted Judge wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant, and the President decided to amnesty me. I guess he was afraid that if I ever got loose with the Cherokee Militia, I might try to refight the War.
Later, Belle Blue fell on hard times. I suppose most whores do, though some I’ve known have retired and married respectable. She lost most of her teeth, got religion, and took to singing at camp meetings. I sometimes helped her out with a dollar or two, if I happened to be in Dog Town.
After all, if Belle hadn’t wrote down those militia names and taken them to Bird Doublehead, I wouldn’t have my amnesty from President Ulysses S. Grant, who later died himself.
24
NED’S FORT WITHSTOOD THE FIRST SIX POSSES THAT CAME AT IT. The marshals would make a big show, and shoot up most of their bullets on the first day. Then they’d camp in the woods for two or three days or a week, and yell at Ned to surrender. If they tried to approach too close, accurate rifle fire drove them back. Ned killed no more marshals—they soon learned to hide better—but he wounded several. A good percentage of the marshals around Fort Smith had knocked-down shoulders, or busted hips, from incautious behaviour while assaulting Ned’s fort.
Every time I heard that a posse had gone after Ned, I felt like I ought to go and help him. The fact that me and the rest of the militia boys had got amnestied meant that the white law had more time to concentrate on Ned. In time, after they had suffered a few bad defeats, Ned became about the only person in the Going Snake District that the white law really wanted. Even the whiskeysellers seldom got harassed, in the years of Ned’s war.
Finally, I went to Judge Bird Doublehead myself, and asked him what the chances were that President Grant might give Ned an amnesty, too. After all, he was costing the government a whole lot more in marshaling salaries than I ever cost them.
Judge Bird Doublehead didn’t have to think long about that matter.
“The President does not want to be bothered with any more news from the Going Snake,” he told me bluntly.
“Well, how would you know that? Is your name Ulysses S. Grant?” I asked. It riled me that Bird Doublehead, whom I had often fished with, felt confident that he could speak for the President of the United States.
“No, it ain’t, but I’m still in the right about this matter,” Bird said.
“Why, I suppose,” I replied. “You’re a judge, and a judge can’t be in the wrong.”
“They can be wrong when the law’s cloudy,” Bird Doublehead informed me.
“What’s cloudy about this situation?” I asked him. “Ned Christie is a fine citizen, and you know it.”
“Yes, I like Ned,” the Judge agreed.
“Then you ought to put in a word for him with the President,” I told him.
But Bird Doublehead wouldn’t do it. And that was that.
25
SEVERAL TIMES, I STARTED TO GO VISIT NED AND JEWEL. BUT BECCA held me back.
“No. You stay away from Ned’s,” Becca told me.
I had just decided on the trip a few minutes before. I walked down to the lots and noticed my new bay mare looking frisky. The notion of a trip came to me, and visiting Ned Christie was the first thing I thought about. I saddled the mare, and walked back to the house to inform Bec of my plans. Then she hit me with the “no.”
“What?” I asked, thinking I might have misheard. Maybe I had given her the impression that I was off on a drinking spree.
“No. You stay away from Ned’s,” Becca said, again. Not only did she use the same words twice; she used the same tone, too. Never before in our marriage had Rebecca given me an order, flat out. I didn’t like the feel of it.
“Don’t be telling me what I can’t do,” I told her, steaming a little. “Ned’s my Keetoowah brother. If I want to go visit him, I will.
“Besides, our Jewel is married to him,” I reminded her. “Why wouldn’t I want to go visit my own daughter?”
Becca looked at me with a chill in her eye.
“Ned’s in trouble, Zeke,” she told me. “But you ain’t, anymore. You’re pardoned. Nobody’s coming ’round trying to shoot you or hang you or arrest you. We’re living here in peace. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Well, I’d like it, too, Bec—but Ned’s a fellow warrior,” I told her. “I can’t desert him in his hour of need, and I can’t desert our daughter.”
“You got three children here. What about them?” she asked me, still with the chilly look.
“I’m not going away forever, I’m just going on a visit,” I repeated, trying to keep my tone polite.
“If you’re killed or hung, you’ll be gone forever,” she said.
I stopped talking, and so did Becca. We just stood there, looking at one another. I was set to go, and would have liked a word of good-bye, but Becca wouldn’t soften. I got tired of looking at her, and mounted the bay mare. The mare acted like she might crow-hop if I wasn’t careful with her.
Then Becca stepped off the porch, and caught my bridle rein. That was another thing she had never done.
“If you leave, I leave,” she said. “I’m too old to be having the worries I have, when the law’s after you and you’re on the scout. I’m too old, Zeke. I won’t have it.”
I was dumbfounded. I never expected Becca to threaten me in that way. Then I remembered that she had left before.
“I won’t come back, this time,” she told me. “If you go to Ned’s and get yourself mixed in this trouble again, I’ll take the triplets and go. You can batch forever, if that’s your mood.”
I couldn’t think of what to say. On the one hand, I was riled, though she was right about the law. They would be after me again, if I mixed in Ned’s conflict. But Ned was my Keetoowah brother, and Jewel was my daughter—Becca’s, too.
“What about Jewel? Just tell me that,” I said. I thought if anything would turn her, it would be mention of Jewel. But Becca’s will, once she decided something, was like bois d’arc wood: you couldn’t cut it, you couldn’t break it, and you couldn’t wear it down.
“Jewel chose the path of her husband,” Becca said. “She’s cleaving to her husband, like the Bible says she should. She’s got the Lord, and she’s got Ned. She don’t need you, but I do . . . and so do the triplets.”
“So you’d just leave her be?” I asked. “We lost one daughter up on that Mountain. Do you want me to stand by when there’s a risk of losing another?”
“Yes,” Becca informed me. “Jewel chose her man. Let her man care for her. You’ve got three children right here. They need you.”
We stopped talking. Becca still held the reins of my mare.
“That’s a damn stiff line,” I told her. “Turn loose of my goddamn bridle.”
She turned loose of the bridle, and walked back up on the porch. I was trying to decide whether she meant it or not; it might just be a bluff. But Becca went r
ight on in the house, without looking at me again.
I sat on the mare about ten minutes, thinking Becca might come back out and continue the discussion. But she didn’t come back out. Finally, I dismounted and went inside. Becca sat at the table. She didn’t look up at me. The more I studied her, the less I thought she was running a bluff. Becca didn’t play cards; it was against her religion. She didn’t bluff. If she said a thing, she meant it.
“I don’t enjoy taking orders from my wife,” I told her. I sat down at the table across from her. She looked at me, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t bear it, Zeke! That’s what I’m telling you!” she cried. “It ain’t like I’m ordering you to go milk the cow, or telling you what harness to buy. It ain’t . . . a thing . . . like that!”
I deplored a situation in which my wife would sit there crying at me, though that was the plain fact of the matter: there she sat, crying.
“I can’t stand the fear of you dying,” Becca said. “I’d rather live away from you, than have that fear in my mind every day.”
I let Becca cry some, before I answered. When she was calmer, I tried to take her hand. But she yanked it away.
“Death’s always a neighbour, Bec,” I said. “I could walk up the creek to fish, and get et by White Sut’s bear.”
Becca tightened her lips, and got up from the table.
“You might kill a bear, but you can’t kill all the marshals in Arkansas. That’s the difference,” Becca said. “You can’t, and Ned can’t, either.”
“I don’t know, he’s killed a passel of them already,” I told her. But she was gone out the back door, to her garden.
The last thing she said was the truest: I couldn’t kill all the marshals in Arkansas, and neither could Ned. I pretended to dispute it, but I knew it was true. Sooner or later, Ned would have to give up to the white law—or else die by the gun.
That night on the porch, Becca said another thing that surprised me. Becca had taken to dipping a little snuff. Though it was against her Bible teachings, she did it anyway. The triplets were in the lots, trying to ride the milk-pen calf; Pete was snoozing next to her rocker.
“Ned Christie don’t want your help, Zeke,” Becca said, out of the blue.
“Of course he wants it. What would make you think he don’t?” I asked.
“Because he’s the kind of man that wouldn’t,” Becca said. “He’s got that pride.”
I tried to get her to explain what she meant, but she wouldn’t. She dipped snuff, and rocked in her chair until the moon came out.
26
THEN, IN THE THIRD YEAR OF NED’S WAR, WHEN HE HAD CRIPPLED five posses and was a hero to all the tribes in the Territory—to the Seminole and the Chickasaw, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, and the Creek—she died on me, my Bec—died delivering a stillborn child.
It was the hardest blow of my life.
From the moment she knew the child was in her, Bec was afraid.
“I’m too old, Zeke,” she told me. “It’ll kill me, unless I’m lucky.”
Rebecca wasn’t lucky, and neither was the tiny little girl she carried. The birth came during a sleet storm; no doc could get there. May and me did our best, but still my Becca died. I believe the shock of the baby’s death was what finished her, finally. When May told her the baby was stillborn, Becca just slumped back in the bed, and gave it up.
Linnie was so upset, she ran off into the woods and nearly froze. Minnie sat in the corner near the fireplace, and cried and cried. Willie cut his foot bad with an axe the very same day. He was cutting firewood, and the log was icy.
The ground was frozen too hard for grave digging, and so we had to put Becca and our baby girl in the smokehouse until there was a thaw.
It was in February when it happened.
I have been moody in my spirit, in the month of February, ever since.
27
IN THE SPRING OF THAT YEAR, NOT MORE THAN A MONTH AFTER Becca died, a sixth posse from over the hills came at Ned. Old Judge Parker didn’t order it; he had left the bench at the turn of the year. The new judge was named Josiah Crittenden, and I suppose he was a terror. He didn’t like the notion of a lone Cherokee warrior defying the white law, so he sent fifteen men after Ned.
Luck was with Ned Christie, though, for a bitter blizzard struck. Ned and Jewel were snug inside their fort, but the possemen were exposed. Then, a second blizzard struck before the first one had time to thaw.
The Mountain was nothing but a ridge of ice. Seven or eight of the possemen lost toes to frostbite, and one even lost a foot. The posse-men banged away at the cabin for over a week, accomplishing nothing. Ned fired three shots and wounded two of the possemen, one of them through the lung. The weather refused to moderate, and the posse finally gave up. Ned Christie had turned back the white law again.
When the weather did moderate, and the blooms of spring began to color up the meadows, I buried my beloved wife and daughter, and then decided I better go visit Ned and Jewel. I had sent word to Jewel about her mother, of course, but it was a terrible hard winter, and travel unpredictable, as that posse had found out.
Besides, people were afraid to get too near Ned’s fort. I gave the news of Becca’s death to several men, hoping one of them would eventually make the trip. I told Hunter Langley and Bic Acorn and Scot Mankiller, hoping one of them would run into Ned. But I had no sure report on the matter, and finally decided I better go myself. Jewel had a right to know that she had lost her mother, and I suppose I wanted to be with my oldest daughter and grieve a bit. The triplets were still young; they had each other, and had already bounced back, mostly, as children will.
But I wasn’t young. I wanted to sit with Jewel, and talk about Becca. Jewel and me had memories we could share. I never spent much time remembering Becca when she was alive; there was always too much to do. Of course, there’s always too much to do on a farm. When Bec was alive, I might skip out for a day or two, but I generally got the planting done when I needed to plant, and kept up with the work pretty well, with the help of old Sully Eagle.
With Becca gone, it was harder. Some days, I’d set out to do a chore and end up not doing it at all. I’d sit by the fire and smoke, or go up to the smokehouse and drink whiskey. On those days, the memories came over me like a flood.
Rather than drown in them, I decided to go see my Jewel. I had hired Bill Dutch to be my handyman while I was gone, and left the triplets with May. May had as much energy as they did, and could keep them corralled better than I could.
It wasn’t just Jewel that I wanted to see—I had a serious hankering to see Ned, while I was about my grieving. I wanted to see what his thinking was on his situation, now that he had turned back six posses. The Cherokee Senate was due to start its new session in a couple of weeks. I wanted to talk politics with Ned, and then see if there was any way the Cherokee Nation could muster its forces and help him in his fight.
I stopped in Tahlequah on the way, procured the loan of a stout mule, and loaded it up with every kind of provision I could think of, including a few ribbons and a bright swatch of cloth for Jewel. With Ned not leaving the Mountain, I figured they might be running low on thumbtacks and baking soda and such.
By good luck, Tuxie Miller happened to be in town, getting a tooth pulled. It must have been a pretty bad tooth—Tuxie’s jaw was as black as if someone had hit him with a brick. He yelled a good healthy yell when the dentist yanked the tooth out, too. It wasn’t until he yelled, that I knew he was in town.
“If that mule wasn’t loaded to the gunwales, I’d pile on a barrel of molasses,” Tuxie said, when he walked up to me. “The younguns have been pestering me to bring home some sweetening, but I ain’t got no way to carry a barrel of molasses.”
“I guess you could rent your own mule,” I suggested.
“Nope, Dale would never stand for the expense,” Tuxie said, and he was right about that. Dale was known to keep a close clutch on the family purse.
“I’m
surprised she let you squander money on a dentist,” I told him. “She could have pulled that tooth by herself. All she would need is a good pair of pliers.”
Tuxie ignored that point. He was the sort of man who didn’t allow much jesting at the expense of his wife. I remembered that the old fool who ran the store had some sugarcane stalks stuck in a barrel—I suppose they had come up the river from Louisiana. I went back and bought twelve of them, for the Miller young ones. Sugarcane stalks were a lot easier to fit on my mule than a barrel of molasses would have been.
“I guess I ought to buy a stalk for Dale,” Tuxie said.
“Why, no—buy her ribbon, Tuxie,” I said.
The thought just made him look doubtful.
“What would Dale do with a ribbon?” he asked.
I let the matter drop. Twelve children, and the man still didn’t know that women like ribbons. I wanted to talk to him a bit about Ned’s situation on the ride up the Mountain, but the dentist had neglected to pack the tooth hole adequately. Every time Tuxie tried to converse, blood poured out of his mouth. He spent most of the ride home spitting.
“Dern, Tuxie. If a stranger picked up our trail, he’d think somebody gored an ox, from all the blood you’re spilling,” I told him.
“I wish I owned an ox. It would ease the plowing,” was Tuxie Miller’s reply.
28
THE MILLER YOUNG ONES GNAWED UP THAT SUGARCANE LIKE beavers in a lumberyard. By the time we got home, Tuxie had bled all over himself, a sight that annoyed Dale.
“Get them overalls off, I’ve got to wash them or that blood will never come out,” she said. The tooth hole was still bleeding, but Dale soon stopped that by poking cotton in it with a knitting needle. The woman gave me but a scant hello. I believe she meant to hold Polly Beck against me until the end of my days. But she set me a place at the table, when suppertime came, and allowed me to share the meal, which was beefsteak and gravy. They had built themselves a log house this time, but hadn’t quite finished chinking the logs. That was how Dale occupied herself after supper, while Tuxie and me smoked. The children were as bright eyed as little coons, and every single one of them took after their mother.
Zeke and Ned Page 46