Zeke and Ned

by Larry McMurtry

  Dale finally softened a little, when I told her of my loss.

  “That’s hard, Zeke,” she said. “And just as you two were getting back to being married folks again.”

  “Yep, just as we were,” I admitted. “I don’t know if Jewel knows Becca died. Do you ever see her or Ned?”

  Tuxie had nodded off by this time, tipped sideways in his rocking chair. I guess having that tooth pulled wore him out.

  “They’re living a hell, Ned and Jewel,” Dale told me. “If there’s to be any heaven in it for them, it’s not in the here and now.”

  “I mean to petition the Senate to find some way to get the law to leave them alone,” I told her. I rarely discuss Senate business with anyone, but the circumstances were desperate—and Dale Miller was forceful in her thoughts—more forceful than her husband, who was asleep anyway.

  “You better see Ned about it first,” she told me.

  “Why, I will, Dale, if he’ll see me. That’s one of the reasons I came,” I replied.

  Dale didn’t answer, nor did she explain her remark. She was still chinking logs when I finally stretched out by the fire and went to sleep.

  29

  THE MILLER CHILDREN WERE MANNERLY. DALE AND TUXIE HAD SEEN to that. Every single one of them thanked me for the sugarcane, before I rode off the next morning.

  Dale was dipping her chickens in a washtub. She had procured some solution that was supposed to rid them of mites. The chickens didn’t appreciate her concern. The ones that had been dipped were running around squawking, and the ones that hadn’t were doing their best to elude the children, whose chore it was to fetch them over to Dale.

  “Many thanks for the supper, Dale,” I said, walking over to the washtub. Dale was dipping chickens two at a time. She had two hens in each hand, when I approached her, but she looked up at me as if she might have an opinion to convey.

  “You ought to bring Jewel out with you, if you can,” Dale said.

  I was startled by the comment. Dale Miller was all family, and it was a surprise to have her tell me I ought to persuade Jewel to come out. I remembered what Becca said when we had our quarrel. Jewel had chosen her path; it was her duty to cleave to her husband, as Dale had cleaved to Tuxie—twelve children’s worth.

  “It’ll come to that anyway, Zeke,” Dale said. “There’s talk that they’re bringing a cannon, next time they come after Ned.”

  “A cannon? Up here?” I asked. “Now it would take some fine mules, and not a few of them, to drag a cannon up this rocky old hill.”

  “Mules ain’t scarce in Arkansas, Zeke,” Dale said. She looked sad when she said it; I expect Dale had come to care for my Jewel.

  “Why bring a cannon after one man?” I said. “It’s a dern long way to drag a cannon. That would mean a passel of expense.”

  Even as I said it, though, I remembered the War. The generals on either side—Lee, or Grant, or Sherman—took cannon where they wanted cannon. Terrain didn’t daunt them.

  The shock to me was that the white law would go to such trouble and such expense for one man: Ned Christie.

  Tuxie ambled over, a little pale from his tooth removal, and I sounded him on the rumour.

  “There’s a marshal named L. P. Isabel who led that last posse,” Tuxie said. “They come by here on their way out, hoping Dale would help them take off their frostbit toes.”

  “And did she?” I inquired.

  “Why, yes. She took off twelve toes, mostly with the sheep shears,” Tuxie said. Dale was too busy dipping chickens to contribute to the discussion.

  “Good Lord! Twelve?” I said.

  “Yep—a dozen toes,” Tuxie told me. “Frostbit toes smell worse than putrid meat. But old Isabel was riled. He vowed to get Ned if it was the last thing he does. He said he was coming back, and aimed to bring a cannon.”

  “Good Lord,” I said, again. It made me understand why Dale thought I ought to bring Jewel out. Cannonballs are no respecters. They’ll smash women as well as men, if a woman happens to be in the vicinity when the cannonball hits.

  “Do you think Ned’s fort can withstand a cannon?” I asked Tuxie. In the War, Tuxie had been at Vicksburg, and I supposed he had ample experience of cannon from that siege.

  “Well, one cannonball won’t knock it down,” he said. “But if they bring a wagon full of cannonballs, I expect it’s the end for Ned.”

  “Maybe he’d best slip out,” I said. “Ned’s a fine woodsman. An army couldn’t find him if he went on the scout.”

  Tuxie just shook his head.

  “Ned ain’t like he used to be, not since they shot out his eye and abused Jewel,” Tuxie said.

  Tuxie choked up after he made that statement. I didn’t know whether his tooth had bled into his throat, or whether some memory had caught him—maybe a memory of happier days, when he and Ned had hunted together and roamed the hills near their boyhood homes.

  “Ned’s all fight now. It’s what he waits for,” Tuxie said. “He won’t be leaving that fort, unless they blast him out.”

  “I guess Dale’s right, then,” I said. “If they’re planning to bring a cannon up the ridge, I expect I ought to try and bring Jewel out, till this lets up.”

  Tuxie shook his head, turned around, and walked over to pick up a jug that had once contained Dale’s mite-killing liquid.

  “It won’t let up,” he said. “And Jewel won’t come.”

  “I’d better go see for myself, then,” I told him.

  The Miller children were scattered all over the hill, trying to chase down the last dry chickens, when I rode away.

  30

  NED AND JEWEL WERE PLANTING THEIR GARDEN, WHEN I CAME INTO the clearing. They had plowed a big circle around the fort, so they could get to cover quick, if a posse showed up while they were planting. What it meant, too, was that fresh food would be handy, just a few steps out of the fort, if they got besieged. They could always sneak out at night and gather beans and spuds, or pull a few ears of corn.

  It was a smart arrangement, and yet, the sight of it chilled me. Tuxie had been right: Ned and Jewel were not likely to leave. They had water and food and a good strong fort; it would take a determined posse with time to spare—several months’ time, probably—to flush them out.

  My Jewel was pale, and had lost considerable more flesh since last I had seen her. The young curve of her cheek was gone; she reminded me so much of her mother that it gave me a start.

  I guess Ned sniffed me or something, for he had his Winchester in his hand, waiting when I rode into the clearing. He was gaunt as a hawk, and his sightless eye had filmed over. Jewel’s eyes lit a little when I rode up, but neither of them smiled. I guess they were through smiling, Jewel and Ned, which was a pity. Ned had such a fine, deep laugh, in his carousing days.

  “I’m glad I ain’t the one that will have to weed this garden,” I told them both, when I dismounted. “My back don’t bend as easy as it used to, and a garden this big will require a passel of bending.”

  Jewel hugged me, and Ned shook my hand. But after that, we just stood there, not knowing what to make of one another. Jewel was my own daughter, and Ned my oldest friend—and yet, we seemed all but strangers, the two of them were so changed.

  I suppose it was living with just themselves that made Jewel and Ned awkward to visit with. They knew what to do with enemies, but had stood distant so long from family and friends that they could not enter back into the normal round of life: a life where goods were bought and sold, and horses raced, and babies made and born, and quilts patched by womenfolk and such.

  I can josh most folks into some little kind of conversation, but I had hard going with Ned and Jewel. It was as if they were braced together in silence, like saints of the church. I remembered what Becca had said about Ned not wanting my help, and realized, now, that she had been right. Jewel did her best to be polite; she asked me if I wanted coffee. Ned gave me the Keetoowah greeting; then he propped his rifle against the wall of the fort and went back
to planting spuds.

  I accepted the coffee, mostly as a means of getting a private word with Jewel.

  “Jewel, did you know about your ma?” I asked, when we were inside.

  Jewel nodded, and looked down.

  “Scot Mankiller told me,” she said.

  “That’s Ma gone, and Liza, too,” she said. “I expect I’ll soon be seeing them in heaven, if those white men don’t let Ned be.”

  Jewel looked grave when she said it, but she didn’t look scared.

  I saw, then, that it wasn’t going to be the kind of visit I had hoped for. Ned hadn’t offered to unsaddle my horse; Jewel hadn’t asked me if I planned to spend the night. It wasn’t meanness in their attitude. It just seemed like it hadn’t registered that they had a visitor.

  I thought I ought to speak my piece, at least to my daughter, while I had her alone. Her eyes kept looking out the door, seeking Ned—she seemed anxious that something might happen if she let him out of her sight.

  Riding along the ridge from the Millers’ on the way to Ned’s, I was full of words I meant to say to my Jewel, and I had another set of words I wanted to say to Ned.

  But now that I was standing three feet from Jewel, looking her in the face, all the words I had been thinking of saying blew out of my thoughts like leaves in a dust devil. Jewel was a woman now, and she was doing exactly what her mother thought she ought to do, which was to cleave to her husband. News of the cannon that might come with the next posse wasn’t going to matter to her. She could hardly be at peace, unless she could locate Ned with her eyes.

  I couldn’t ask Jewel to leave with me. She would think I was daft. I felt like a fool for having come with such an expectation. It seemed like a reasonable hope when I was still in town, or at the Millers’, or even at my place. But Ned and Jewel were at war now, and ways of living that normal people expected didn’t mean a thing to them. I had been in the War, myself; when I was a fighting Bluecoat, I forgot the normal things, too, except for drinking whiskey. Stuck way off on some guard post in the fog, with one or two boys for company, I’d forget the horseracing, and the baby making, and the quilt patching, and the like. All I could think about at such times was the Rebs. Were they coming? And if they weren’t when would they—and how many?

  But I volunteered for that War, because I wanted to fight the Rebs. It was bastards from Georgia and Carolina and the South that herded up the Cherokees and the other Indian people, and marched them along the Trail of Tears, where my ma died, and many another. I had good reason to fight the traitors and the killers that herded us away from our homes and our farms, taking away nearly everything we owned, breaking our hearts and our spirits, and causing us to die by the thousands on that march.

  Jewel had no such reasons for being in a war. She had come home with her husband to bear children and care for a family. She hadn’t courted trouble, but here she stood, in a fort, of all things, with boxes and boxes of bullets stacked against one wall. My daughter Jewel seemed farther away than her own mother—and her own mother was dead.

  “Jewel, I don’t know that I could bear it if I lost you, too,” I blurted.

  A sag came on Jewel, when I said it. She looked down again, and turned away. She started for the door, but she stopped and turned back, taking my hand for a moment.

  “Ned got Preacher Joe to come,” she said. “The two of us are married proper now, Pa.”

  “Well, that is one good thing, honey,” I said.

  But she was already gone out the door.

  31

  I WAS RAISED TO BE USEFUL, SO I PITCHED IN WITH THE PLANTING. Ned looked a little startled when I got myself a shovel and joined in the work.

  “You ain’t the only man in the world who knows how to plant a spud, you know,” I said, when he threw the startled look at me.

  Ned kept a milk cow staked to a long grazing rope, moving the stake every day so the cow would have fresh grass. I didn’t see any pigs; I guess they butchered them and salted them down, so they would have plenty of meat inside if the whites showed up in force.

  Ned seemed to prefer to work in silence, so I obliged him for a while. I unsaddled my own horse and put him out to graze by the milk cow. In the afternoon, we walked over to the creek, washed the dirt off our hands, and took a long drink. I didn’t mind the working, but I felt like I was going to bust if I didn’t say something about the situation Ned was in.

  So, I just came out with it.

  “They say they’re bringing a cannon, next time a posse comes,” I informed him. “I’m surprised the authorities would drag a cannon this far, but I guess that L. P. Isabel is a determined fellow.”

  “He froze three toes himself, I expect it riled him,” Ned replied. “Dale Miller cut them off with the sheep shears.”

  He nearly broke down and smiled, at the thought of the marshal’s discomfort, and Dale’s brass.

  “Are you determined to die, then?” I asked. I knew I had best seize my chance for a discussion while enjoying a cool drink of water.

  “Nope, ain’t aiming to,” Ned replied. “They’ve come at us six times, and not made a dent in this fort. They can’t get close enough to burn us out, and I doubt these logs would burn, even if I let them build a bonfire.”

  “Yes, but what about the cannon?” I asked him. “They’ll make a dent in the fort, if they bring a cannon.”

  Ned did smile, then.

  “I’ll worry about that when I see the cannon,” he said. “I doubt they’ve got the patience to blast me out. Even with a cannon, it might take a month.”

  “Well, now, that depends on the cannoneer,” I said. “I’ve known gunners that could put a cannonball down a chimney at six hundred yards.”

  “Yes, but I doubt any of them fellows are available in Arkansas,” he said.

  “I think it’s a risk,” I told him.

  Ned shrugged, and started walking back toward the garden.

  “These possemen ain’t patient,” he said. “They come hell-bent-for-leather, and shoot every gun they’ve got as fast as they can shoot, until they bust the barrels. Then they wait for a week, griping, and getting drunk. Then the weather gets cold, or else it gets hot, or else it gets rainy, and the whiskey runs out. About that time, I manage to wing one or two of them, which is usually enough to make them go on home.”

  “It might not be that easy forever,” I told him.

  “I don’t know much about forever,” he said. “It’s been that way six times.”

  Ned almost started having a normal discussion again, and then he remembered that he was done with normal discussions.

  He drew back.

  “You ain’t going to live forever yourself, Zeke,” he added, giving me a stern look.

  I thought I might as well say my piece about the Militia, while Ned was at least listening.

  “I’ve got up a fine militia, Ned,” I told him. “It’s Keetoowah brothers of ours that’s in it. We put twenty-five well-armed men in the field the last time they sent marshals after me. The result was, it turned them back, and me and most of the boys got pardoned.

  “They know they ain’t got the manpower to arrest twenty-five of us,” I went on. “So, they gave up. But there’s just one of you . . . where you’re concerned, they won’t give up.”

  “I’d say they made a bad choice, then,” Ned replied. “I expect they could whittle down two dozen of the boys easier than they can take me.”

  “Why, Ned, that’s vain,” I told him. “What makes you think you can outfight twenty-five men?”

  “The fact that I got a fort, and they ain’t,” he said. “A fort’s proof against ambushes, and ambushes is what you have to fear.”

  That was the end of the conversation, as far as Ned Christie was concerned. I started talking about the Senate, and how I thought I could win a vote on an order for his protection. My plan was to have five or six militiamen take turns helping Ned guard the fort, but before I even finished describing my plan, Ned shook his head.

 
From the way he looked at me, I knew he’d had enough of my blab. But I’m a terrier, when I’m talking. I won’t be shook off that easy.

  “You should listen to me, now!” I told him, getting louder. “I’m not only your friend, I’m the father of your wife. The white law won’t give up. It’s got no reason to. There’ll always be young fools willing to take a chance on killing a famous outlaw, and there’ll always be governors or judges who’ll deputize them.”

  Ned went back to his gardening, as if I wasn’t even talking.

  “Another thing is, they know where you are,” I went on. “If you was willing to go on the scout, you might have a chance. These woods will hide you till you’re an old man. Jewel can live at home, and you can slip in and see her when it’s clear.”

  That seemed to anger him. He whirled towards me, with fight in his face.

  “My wife will live where I live,” he said. “I’ll either protect her, or die in the effort.”

  A little later, I saddled my horse and got ready to leave. I think Jewel would have asked me to stay, for seeing me seemed to bring back memories of a time when families visited freely. But the memories didn’t come quick enough—or strong enough. Jewel was half willing to ask me; maybe, if I hadn’t irked him, Ned would have been half willing, too. But they had lost the habit of society.

  When the shadows began to stretch out from the ridge and it was time to quit the hoeing, Ned and Jewel stood together again, and nobody asked. Ned shook my hand hard, as I was leaving, and Jewel hugged me hard, too. If I had asked, I’m sure they would have spread me a pallet for the night and made me a meal.

  The truth was, I felt too peculiar to ask. One minute, I was glad I had come; the next minute, I regretted making the trip. I felt like I’d visited two ghosts. Tailcoat Jones had done a better job than he knew, before he drowned with his whore. He hadn’t killed Ned or Jewel, but he drove them from the common walks, and the child they should have been raising in happiness was lost to a hillside rape.