Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  “Yessir,” he said, but without much spirit.

  “You get us all packed and ready and then eat with the crew. I’ll come along about one o’clock and we’ll take off. Understand?”

  “Yessir. I’ll get her done.”

  That was Ray. He’d grouch and slouch for a little, but then, come Friday, he’d be as anxious to go as if it had been his own idea.

  He said again, “Where we goin’?”

  “Why Ray, you ought to know me well enough by now to have known that if I was going to answer that question I’d of answered it the first time.”

  “So you ain’t gonna tell me? Jest drag me off ’crost the prairie no idea where ah’m bound for?”

  “No, I’m not going to tell you. And the reason I’m not going to tell you is because you would probably tell somebody else and I don’t want anybody else to know.”

  “Awww, Boss,” he said, “I ain’t gonna tell nobody else.”

  I started back toward my horse. “I know you’re not because you ain’t got anything to tell anybody.”

  I mounted up, leaving a disgruntled Ray Hays in my dust, and rode home. I put the sorrel up, unsaddling him and turning him into the corral. I wasn’t through work for the day, but I wanted him to start getting rested up for the work he had ahead.

  I was too late to eat with Nora, but she laid me out a meal of cold beef and tomatoes and onions with some light bread. She made a fresh pot of coffee and sat down to have a cup with me. I told her what I’d been up to.

  “Friday, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, busy eating. “I’ll have lunch with you and then take off.”

  “Must you be gone all that time?”

  I shrugged. “If I do it the way Howard wants. Hell, it’s a long ways. He’s got a calendar. I can’t show back up here in a week and claim we just kind of pushed the horses a bit.”

  She sighed. “It’s just such a long time.” She looked up at me. “Now that I’ve gotten used to sleeping with you I can’t sleep by myself as good.”

  “Why don’t you go in and stay with your parents? You know how much your mama and Lonnie enjoy having J.D. to make over.”

  “Yes, and they just spoil him rotten. What happened to your knuckles?”

  I gave them a quick glance. “I barked them on some kegs in the back of your daddy’s store. Dark back in that part. I was looking for the right size. Anyway, I hate the idea of you staying out here by yourself all that time. I know you got Juanita, but she ain’t no company. Go in and stay with your folks. It would make me feel better.”

  “Did you drop a keg on your knuckles?” She reached up and took hold of my right hand. “This hand is swollen. Justa, have you been fighting?”

  “Nora, one of the kegs got loose and slid around and slammed my hand against another one. A keg of nails weighs a ton. What’s the matter with you? Who the hell would I get in a fight with?”

  She gave me her look that said she knew something wasn’t quite right, but since she couldn’t prove it she’d let it go ... this time. But don’t figure to keep on getting away with these stunts, mister.

  I said, “Hell, honey, I’ve got to go off for a good long time. Let’s don’t have no unpleasantness at a time like this.”

  She gave me an appraising look but, since she didn’t have proof, she had to say, “You’re right. I swear, I’m turning into a worse nag than my mother. But Justa, you have to admit I never know what you are liable to get into next.”

  I gave her a half smile and shook my head. “You just can’t quit being the schoolteacher, can you? Of course if you want to act like a schoolteacher, I wouldn’t mind staying after school and dusting your erasers.”

  She blushed. “Justa, it’s the middle of the day. You ought not to talk like that.”

  I reached under the table and got my hand on the inside of her thigh. “What kind of talk? I’m just talking about dusting your erasers.”

  “You know very well what you meant. And get your hand out of there.”

  “I’ve got to get me enough to hold me for the next two weeks. That’s going to take a lot. Reckon we could start now?”

  “Justa, you are getting awful! Do you want Juanita to hear us? My heavens!”

  “Juanita can’t even speak English, much less understand this kind of talk. But if you’re worried, we could go out into the barn.”

  Now she did blush. She put her hand to her cheek and said, “Justa Williams, what has come over you? Do you hear yourself talking? My heavens above!”

  Of course I was just joking, knowing I didn’t have no more chance than a Catholic fish at Friday night supper. Not that Nora wasn’t nearly more than I could handle when we got right down to it, but she no longer was that sassy girl I used to court now she was a wife and a mother. And wives and mothers didn’t fuck in the daytime, especially if there was anybody else in the house.

  She ran me off pretty promptly and I got a different horse, a little bay mare, and went out and worked the rest of the afternoon with Harley getting the herds shaped up for the final cut. After that I came home just about dark, took me a cold shower in my little stall outside by the barn, and then had supper with Nora while J.D. watched and drooled over a piece of hard candy he didn’t have the teeth to bite with.

  After supper I went up for our usual drink and meeting. Dad was up and appeared to be feeling good. Looking at Howard, I told my brothers that if they had anything to get settled with me they’d better get it done then or the next night because I was leaving on a long trip Friday afternoon. I said, still looking at Howard, “And I mean a loooong trip. Maybe three weeks.” Howard wouldn’t meet my eye. Instead he leaned over to spit tobacco juice in a spittoon. I didn’t blame him. If I was doing to him what he was doing to me, I couldn’t face him either.

  Ben said, “Three weeks! Where the hell are you going?”

  Norris gave me a little half smile. He said, “I hope you’re back when that land trial with the Jordans comes up.”

  I said, “No court date been set yet, Norris. I saw Huggins three or four days ago.”

  Jake Huggins was our lawyer. He didn’t live in Blessing, but business brought him down often enough that we stayed in close touch.

  Ben said, “Where the hell are you going?”

  “North,” I said shortly.

  “What for?”

  I looked at Howard again. I said, “I’m going to investigate the sawmill business.”

  “Sawmill? We going to set up a sawmill? Hell, I can’t see us doing that. What the hell do we need with a sawmill? Why don’t we stick to what we know, cattle and horses?”

  I said, “It’s Howard’s idea.”

  The old man cleared his throat. He said, “One of you boys want to hand me another drink? That first one was so weak I didn’t know whether to swaller it or wash my hands in it.”

  Ben looked over at me. I shrugged. While he took the old man a watered drink I said, “Norris, we have given Huggins every available paper we have, haven’t we? Every title, every grant, no matter how old?”

  Norris said, “I’m not a lawyer, but we’ve got proof about four times over that we own that land. And that’s not counting the law of constant usage.”

  Ben said, “Hell, Justa, there’s gonna be a hell of a horse sale in San Antonio in two weeks. Listen, we’ve got to have some new blood. They are going to have some damn good horses there. Stock from clean up to Kentucky and Tennessee. Hell!”

  I said, “Then go to San Antonio and buy some new breeding stock. I never told you you couldn’t.”

  His face lit up. “Now you’re talking, big brother. What kind of money I got to work with?”

  I looked at Howard, but said to Norris, “Oh, anything up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Norris can set it some way on the books so it’ll look like it’s benefiting the company.”

  Ben gave me a puzzled look. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course it will be benefiting the company. It’ll improve the horse herd, and the horses a
re part of the ranch, and the ranch is part of this here company Norris is always talking about, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Twenty-five thousand be enough?”

  “Lord, yes,” he said. “I wasn’t hoping for anything like that.”

  Howard cleared his throat again and said, “Appears to me that one of my sons is tryin’ to make a point without comin’ right out and sayin’ it.”

  Of course it went right over Norris and Ben’s heads.

  Ben looked at Howard and then at me. He said, “What the hell’s going on here?”

  I said, “Ben, I’m taking Ray Hays with me.”

  “Naw,” he said. “Hell, Justa, I need Ray in San Antonio with me to look at that horseflesh.”

  I said, “You can get drunk enough on your own. You don’t need Ray Hays to help you run around them San Antonio cantinas and whorehouses. By the way, tell him to take some cold-weather clothes. I just told him we were heading north. I didn’t say how far.”

  “Well, how far?”

  I shrugged. “Till we find somebody in the sawmill industry we’re interested in.” I changed the subject before anyone could say anything. “I ran into Rex Jordan this afternoon. And I mean I literally ran into him.” Without making any more out of it than had to be told, I described what had happened. “So I want to be damn sure that we don’t give them any kind of provocation. Stay clear of the whole family. And if you can’t avoid them, walk as lightly as you can.”

  Norris had been about to come out of his chair ever since I’d told the part about Rex saying that Norris had threatened Shay. He waited until I’d finished, but then he said, “Why that lying little punk! If there was any bullyboy tactics they were on his part! I’ve a good mind to see Jordan on the street and straighten him out about the matter.”

  I said, “No, you’ve a good mind to let the matter lay. We know the truth of what happened and so does Rex Jordan. But they have a weak case in court and they know it. They’re looking for trouble, so you stay the hell away from Shay Jordan. And all the Jordans for that matter.”

  Norris said, “He came into my office. I didn’t invite him. What am I supposed to do the next time he comes swaggering around making sure I can see he’s wearing a gun, get up and leave my own office?”

  I said, “No. Tell him to leave. If he doesn’t, then send for the sheriff.”

  Norris said, “I’ll just be damned if I’ll let some little punk like that force me to call the law. I can take care of Mister Shay Jordan!”

  I ran my hand through my hair and shook my head tiredly. “Norris, don’t give me no more grief than I already got. You’re not a gunman. You’re—”

  He said, “I can take care of myself, whether you and Ben think so or not.”

  I said, “Let me finish. You’re not a gunman, neither am I. You’re a businessman and I’m a cattle breeder. Shay Jordan ain’t a gunman either, but he’s trash and he’s a smart-aleck kid that thinks it makes him a man to go shoving around and bragging and acting like a jackass. All you can get out of a scuffle with Shay Jordan is trouble. If you win you lose because you’ll be the big, mean, rich ol’ Norris Williams who not only is stealing land from the poor Jordans, you’ve got to beat him up or shoot him in the bargain. You got to realize that everybody around here does not love us. There are more than just a few who are a shade past jealous and who wouldn’t like anything better than to see us taken down a notch or two. Right now we don’t need no more public sentiment against us, not with a land dispute case coming up.”

  But Norris was still being stubborn. He said, “I won’t kowtow to any such as that Jordan fool.”

  I sighed. “Norris, your manhood is not being challenged here. You are good enough to handle Shay Jordan, but you are not good enough to handle him in the right way, and that way is to put him out of business without him getting hurt or you getting hurt. I doubt that I am. I even have some doubts that Ben is. Ain’t none of us in this room a Wilson Young, so let’s stay the hell away from trouble.”

  Norris said, “I will take whatever steps seem appropriate.”

  Ben said, “Oh, hell, Norris, listen to Justa. Dammit, you can’t be satisfied with being smarter and having more book learning than me and Justa. You want to be just as tough.”

  Norris said, “Taking sides again. That’s the way it was when we were kids and that’s the way it’s always been. Sometimes I feel like I’m not even related to you two.”

  Howard said, “Boys, don’t fight! This is family.”

  I said, “Norris, I have given Ben the exact same instructions. Last night. You heard them. I told him to stay the hell away from the Jordans. You heard me say that, didn’t you, Ben.”

  “I did.”

  I said, “So both of you listen. I’ve got to go off on this damn fool trip, and all I’m asking is that you keep the lid on the kettle until I can get back. Don’t send me off worrying about what might be happening while I’m gone.”

  Norris looked sour, but he said, “Very well. Very well, I’ll tuck my tail between my legs and cross to the other side of the street if I so much as meet a Jordan on the boardwalk.”

  I looked at Ben. He said, putting his hands up in the air, “You ain’t heard me saying a word. I’m minding my own business.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I drained my tumbler, set it on the floor, picked up my hat, and got up and started for the door.

  Howard creaked out of his rocker. He said, “Son, I’ll just walk with you to the door.”

  I gave him a look, but he just shooed me on ahead. I turned out of the room and walked down the long, dark hall to the back door. I opened it and stepped out onto the small back porch. Howard came as far as the open door. He said, “Son, I know you’re having terrible thoughts about me for asking you this favor.”

  “Howard, I am way on past terrible.”

  “Son, you’ll understand it when you see Charlie Stevens and talk to him. I’m carrying a parcel that’s got to be opened up or I’m going to bust.”

  “There you go with that mystery hoopla again. Why can’t you just tell me what all this is about and let’s mail this man a check care of General Delivery in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and save me one hell of a lot of trouble.”

  He looked plain miserable. “Justa, there’s things he can tell you, about me, about what I done . . .”

  “Why don’t you tell me yourself?”

  He shook his old head. “I can’t. I done told you it ain’t in me to do it. I can’t make the words come out of my mouth. But it’s important that you know. And when you know, then you can decide if your brothers ought to know. At least I won’t have that burden. Took me long enough to decide you should know.”

  “Now wait a minute. This is something new. First you didn’t want me even mentioning much about this trip to my brothers. Now you tell me I might find out something that they ought to know. Now just what in hell is going on here, Howard?”

  But he was shaking his head and pulling back into the house. “I’ve said all I better say. I maybe ought not to have said what I did, except I wanted you to understand I wouldn’t send you off like this unless it was mighty important.”

  I stopped him from closing the door in my face. Holding it with one hand, I pointed with the other in the general direction of the office. I said, “I hope to hell you do understand that this is not the right time for me to be leaving. We do have that land dispute, and we’ve already had two run-ins with the Jordans. I don’t see why you can’t wait until this business is cleared up and settled.”

  He was shaking his head again. “Court cases can drag on and on. And then something else would come up. There ain’t no real good time for something like this to get done. But I know I’m going fast. I can feel the strength leaving me.”

  It wasn’t like Howard to talk about his health. But I still felt like he was using it on me like a quirt. I said, “Aw, hell, Howard, you’ll probably outlive the lot of us. But I promise you this, old man. If I make that long, cold, weary,
lonesome trip to Oklahoma and get your business done, you better damn well die quick. If you don’t I’m liable to kill you myself.”

  He at least had the good grace to smile a little. “You got to indulge an old man a little, Justa.”

  “Fine.” I pointed in the direction of the office again. “But you better sit on them two hotheads while I’m gone or you are liable to see all your work go up in smoke. Or at least nine thousand acres of it.”

  “I’ll tend to ’em,” he said.

  “Of course you will,” I said. “Just like you only have one whiskey a day like the doctor ordered you. Good night, Howard. I don’t know how well a man that lies as much as you do sleeps, but get as much as you can.”

  Nora was still awake when I got home, but she was in bed with the overhead lantern on. She said, “Well, did Howard have any more surprises for you?”

  I was sitting in a chair taking off my boots. “No. Fact of the business is, I got in a few licks myself. Said things to my brothers that were intended for him. He walked me out to the door and said I’d understand when it all got done.”

  “What do you suppose he’s talking about?”

  I shook my head. “Beats the hell out of me. Even with this trouble with the Jordans coming up, he’s still dead set on me going.”

  “Are you worried about that?”

  I shrugged and stood up and took off my pants and shirt. “I’m always worried about leaving Ben and Norris to their own devices when there’s any thinking to be made. Norris is still taking his visit from Shay Jordan personally. All I can hope is that Ben can hold him down while I’m gone.”

  “That’s certainly different.”

  “Ain’t it,” I said. I went over, and was fixing to turn the lamp off when Nora reminded me I hadn’t cleaned my teeth. I said, “Aw, hell, teeth don’t need cleaning all that often. I done it this morning.”

  “March in that bathroom and do like you are supposed to.”

  So I went in and put a mixture of baking soda and salt on my toothbrush and gave my teeth a good working over. Then I rinsed out my mouth good because baking soda and salt ain’t the best-tasting stuff in the world. When I went back in the bedroom and slid in beside Nora I said, “Well, at least one good thing about this trip is I won’t have nobody around correcting my grammar or telling me not to cuss in the house or to brush my teeth twice a day. Lordy, that’ll be a relief.”