Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  I had to half smile. This was the old Norris. Here he’d narrowly missed dying, or at best losing his arm, and now he was concerned about business matters. I told him not to worry about that. I patted him on the shoulder and put my hat on. I’d taken it off when I’d come in the sickroom. Folks did that, though I’d never understood why. It didn’t help the patient none near as I could figure out. I said to Norris that I had to be going, but that Ben would come into town and see about him. I patted him on the shoulder and started for the door. Norris said, “What are you going to do, Justa?”

  “Go see my wife and son. Get some rest. Tell Howard and Ben that you turned the corner.”

  “You leave Shay Jordan to me. I’ve handled bullies before.”

  “You don’t worry about none of that right now. Just see about getting well. Every day you are in this bed is costing us money.”

  I left the infirmary with the relief flooding through my body, able now to let myself acknowledge just how worried I’d been. But even though I was thankful and grateful, I was no less full of purpose. I went straight to Lew’s office and, without preamble, told him what I wanted. “Lew, I want a favor out of you. If you won’t or can’t do it, on account of you being sheriff, I’ll understand it. I’ll get somebody else. But I just feel it will carry the weight I want it to coming from you.”

  He said, “How’s Norris?”

  I told him. He said, “Whew! I am mighty glad to hear that. Now, what is it you’re wanting me to do?”

  I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock straight up. I said, “I want you to ride out to the Jordans’. I can’t go myself or send Ben for fear they’d shoot us off our horses. The same applies to anyone else I might send. I got a feeling they are forted up out there waiting to see what we do. I want you to ride out there as the sheriff and tell them I am ready to settle this matter. Tell them I want to see Shay Jordan at the northwest end of that drift fence that seems to bother them so bad. Tell them I want to see him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Tell him it can be guns or not. That’s up to him. Tell him I’m coming alone. Tell him I’m going to break his arm. One way or the other. And tell him if he doesn’t show up I’ll shoot any Jordan I see, on sight, over the age of sixteen years old that is male. Will you do that for me, Lew? I’d like to get home and see Nora.”

  He yawned. “I figured it would be something like this. But don’t you want to rest up a little more from your trip? Take some time to play with the baby?”

  “Be time enough for that later on. Will you carry that message out there for me?”

  He nodded, still yawning. He finally said, when he could get his mouth shut so he could open it, “I’ll go this afternoon. If Shay ain’t there, I’ll tell Rex Jordan or whoever is there. If Shay has cut and run, I’ll get word to you so you don’t make the trip in vain.”

  “I got to get. I got to tell Ben that Norris is all right, and sit on him to keep him from doing anything about the matter.”

  I pushed the sorrel hard, and got home just at lunchtime. Nora was all a-flutter to see me, and gave me a long kiss and a short scolding for not letting her know I’d be home in time for lunch and so I’d just have to take what they could throw together at the last minute. As it was, I wasn’t thinking so much about lunch, but I ate some beef stew and some new bread, baked that morning, and then took on about the baby and got brought up to date on all he’d been doing while I’d been gone. And while I was hungry enough to eat, and glad to see my son and interested in his antics, I had my eye on Nora and my thoughts elsewhere from being a father.

  But the maid finally went off, got J.D. down for his nap, and then took herself off for her cabin behind the house, and I had Nora to myself. She said, “Now Justa, not in the middle of the day! Not with the baby in the next room! Justa, folks just don’t carry on like that. Justa, we’re old married folks.”

  But I got her hemmed up in our bedroom and that was that.

  Later I rolled over and got dressed and, while I was pulling on my boots, she asked where I was going. I’d already told her about Norris being better, but since she’d never realized how bad he’d been hurt, she had no way of knowing what a big relief it was for all of us. I told her I had to scout up Ben and Howard and give them the news.

  She said, “And everything went all right in Oklahoma? We’ve been so rushed since you come in the door, and then rushing me in here, shame on you, that I haven’t had a chance to ask you about it.”

  I said I would tell her all about it later, and then I went out and saddled up a horse and rode for the big house. It was a beautiful fall day for our country, mild and sunshiny. I rode through my cattle, glad to see them again. I didn’t spot Ben anywhere on the range, and I figured he might be at the house with Howard.

  But Howard was sitting out on the big porch in his rocking chair when I rode up. I dismounted, dropped my reins to the ground, and went on up the steps and dropped into a wicker chair. Howard was rocking gently. I noticed he had a whiskey in his hand that looked slightly darker than it was supposed to. But what the hell, he had one son in the infirmary and one just back from an enlightening trip to Oklahoma. I figured he deserved it. I was not, however, of a complete mind as to what I was going to say to him. I said, “Well, Dad, it looks like matters got a little out of hand around here while I was gone.”

  He said, “Son, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have you home. Ben and Norris just ain’t the same without yore steadyin’ hand on the reins.”

  “Well, it looks like matters are going to be all right.” I told him about Norris and what the doctor had said. “It appears he’s out of danger and should be home in a day or two. Though it will be a sight more time than that before he has the use of that arm.”

  Howard said, “Heaven be praised.” He looked at me. “To tell you the truth, they never let on it was that bad. Ben just said he got winged. He never give me none of the particulars.”

  “Well, that was smart of Ben.”

  We sat silent for a moment. I was gazing out at the ranch and the range I’d missed so much. Mainly I was waiting for Howard to start asking me questions. Finally he said, “You got the telegram all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Got it the second day after I got to Anadarko. I was at Charlie Stevens’s house when it come.” I glanced over at him. “Mighty precise directions for someone who didn’t know exactly where he lived.”

  Howard said, “I just went on the last place I knowed about.” He cleared his throat. “You made mighty good time getting there.”

  “Yes,” I said. I crossed my legs and took off my hat and put it on my knee.

  Howard said, “Couldn’t of taken you more than five days to get there.”

  “Four,” I said. “You got any water in that whiskey?”

  He was chewing tobacco, and he leaned over and spit off the porch. He said, “That’s making mighty good time. I’d of thought it would have taken you the best part of ten days goin’ horseback.”

  “Maybe they moved it,” I said.

  He looked over at me. “Moved what?”

  “Oklahoma. Seemed like a lot was different than what you told me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. I just let him sit there and stew. Then he said, “So you seen Charlie Stevens?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Spent the night in his house, me and Hays.”

  Howard hesitated. “You get there all right with the money? The gold?”

  “Yeah. We had a little trouble, but we got it worked out.”

  “Well, you got up there and back so fast I was kind of surprised.”

  I lit a cigarillo, scratching the match on the sole of my boot. “I thought you just wanted the gold carried up to Oklahoma. I didn’t know you was worried about the time.”

  He hesitated again. “What’d Charlie say about the gold?”

  “Didn’t say.”

  “But he taken it?”

  “It’s right there in the bank in Anadarko.”

  “
What’d he think? He send any messages?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Not that I know of. You mean to you?”

  He was starting to look uncomfortable. By his lights I should have been either full of questions or raising hell with him. But I was acting like I’d just got back from a cattle-buying trip. He spit again. He said, hesitating even longer, “He didn’t talk much about the old days? Days when we was partners and then split up?”

  “Yeah. He mentioned some of that. What you didn’t tell me, though, was that you carried on a considerable correspondence with him. How come you never mentioned that? He said he even wrote you back a few times.”

  He cleared his throat and took a drink of his whiskey. “Well, I never could be sure if my letters found their mark.”

  “Even though he answered you back?”

  He said, looking away from me, “There was considerable time passed between them exchanges. So he taken the money? Taken it in full payment of all debts?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Howard. What debts? I thought you told me you stole some money from him. Or felt like you had. That’s just one debt. And he said he give you the money gladly. What are you talking about?”

  I didn’t know why I was carrying Howard along like I was. I didn’t have no good reason. I didn’t feel bitter toward him about the way he’d treated my birth mother, or angry because he’d let us three boys go all those years without the truth. Hell, I might have acted the same in his place. Lucy was my birth mother only because Charlie Stevens had said she was and I believed him. But I couldn’t feel nothing for a woman I’d never known, and had only just heard about. Maybe all I was doing with my silence and pretended ignorance was giving Howard back some of his own.

  He said, “Well . . . I ain’t really talkin’ about nothing. I’m just surprised to find that Charlie didn’t have more to say. There’s his arm, or the lack of it, for instance.”

  “You didn’t shoot him. He doesn’t blame you for it.”

  He spit out his cud, and took a long pull of his whiskey and finished the glass. “Well, it might be said I was the cause of it.”

  “Why? Charlie said he wasn’t down here threatening you. He said he hadn’t come for any money. Was there some other reason he come?”

  He turned around and gave me a keen look. For a good half a minute he didn’t say anything. Then he said, “No, I reckon not. If he didn’t say there was another reason, then I guess there wasn’t.” He looked away, staring far out. “It was a long time ago. I guess he wants to forget too.”

  “Forget what?”

  He heaved a sigh. “Oh, nothing. I just thought he’d have more to tell you than it sounds like he did. I guess it’s for the best.”

  “What I’ll never understand was what the big secret about the whole business was. You not wanting me to take Ben with me, nor to even tell him or Norris what I was up to. I ain’t figured that one out yet.”

  He held his glass out to me. “You wouldn’t favor me with another one of these, would you?”

  “How many is that today?”

  “Just the one. Well, maybe the second. But you been gone and that’s been a worry. And now Norris layin’ up there in the infirmary with a ball through his right arm.”

  “Just like Charlie,” I said.

  His face flinched a little. “Yes, I thought on that. I thought maybe my sins were catching up to me.”

  “What sins?”

  He looked at me. “Why, Charlie gettin’ shot here on this place.”

  I gave him a slight smile. He could read what he wanted to in it. But I got up and took his glass, went in the house and poured him half a tumbler of whiskey, and then topped it off with water like it was supposed to be. The color was considerably lighter than the drink he’d been holding when I’d come up on the porch. I took it to him, but I didn’t sit down. I put my hat on. I said, “Well, I guess I better get going. I need to find Ben and tell him about Norris. I promised he could go back in town as soon as I was home.”

  Howard said, “Charlie seem to be doing all right financially?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Got about the biggest sawmill I’ve ever seen. I may buy a big lot of lumber from him and set up a lumber yard in Blessing.”

  Howard said, “Seems a long way to send for lumber.”

  I started down the steps toward my horse. About halfway down I stopped and turned. “Charlie mentioned in one of his letters about Alice, your wife Alice.”

  “You mean your mother?” He was looking at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Yes. You know who I’m talking about. Charlie said you wrote and told him that she had a terrible hard time with Norris, giving birth to Norris.”

  The trouble that had been in his face for a moment cleared. “Oh, she did. It was an awful trial for her. She said she never wanted to go through nothin’ like that again. Poor thing was never of very strong stock an’ the birth took a lot out of her.”

  I said, going down to my horse, “That must have been mighty hard on you.”

  He looked puzzled. “Hard on me? Whatever in the world are you talking about?”

  “Oh, a young buck like you was then, cut off from his wife. She was scairt to get with child again. And delicate as she was, it might have killed her birthing another baby. Kind of left you doing without, didn’t it?”

  I stepped up on my horse. His color had deepened appreciably. He said awkwardly, “That ain’t no way for you to be speaking about the memory of your mother. The woman was a saint.”

  “I reckon to put up with you she’d of had to be,” I said. “But I reckon she give in to your wants finally, though.”

  He was in deep water and stepping carefully from rock to rock. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, she’d of had to have. Ben got born, didn’t he?”

  He stared at me, not saying anything, just sitting there with his drink in his hand. Now he knew that I knew. And he also knew that I had put him in a position where he couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t give his side of it. I didn’t want to hear his side of it. If he’d of wanted to tell it, he’d had plenty of years to do it in.

  Just before I rode away I said, “Funny thing, Howard. I was up there on that Cherokee reservation and folks kept taking me for an Indian. How come that, I wonder?”

  I didn’t give him time to answer, just turned my horse and rode off to look for Ben.

  CHAPTER 12

  I found Ben out looking over the horse herd. He was having his vaqueros run the herd past him single file so he could get a look at the more than seven hundred horses. Hays was on the other side of the slim stream of horseflesh. I waited until the last horse had passed, and then rode up beside Ben and gave him the good news about Norris. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He put his hat back on and shook his head and said, “Whew! Goddam, that’s good to hear. Even if he is as hard to get along with as an old maid steeped in vinegar. I been having a hard time studying on these horses, I been thinking about him so steady. Him and Shay Jordan. I’d about decided to shoot Jordan to pieces a little at a time. Now I’ll just shoot him clean.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not. You’re not going to have anything to do with it.”

  He turned around and looked at me. “You ain’t letting him get away with that, are you?”

  I grimaced. “Don’t talk like a calf. Of course not. I’ll handle it.”

  He flared up. “You? How come you? Norris is just as much my brother as he is yours. And that Shay Jordan is nearer my age. By God, Justa, you are not going to stop me on this. An’ you better make up your mind to it.”

  I said carefully, so there’d be no misunderstanding, “The very noise you are making is the reason I’m going to handle it. I don’t want to start a blood feud in this country, and you haven’t got any more sense than to say the hell with it and go right ahead. I’m going to handle it because I know when to stop. You don’t
. If it comes to shooting that will be up to Shay, but I’m not going to draw a gun first. I’m going to pay him back in kind. I’m going to break his arm. Now whether I do it with a bullet or over my knee is of no consequence to me. But that will be the end of it.”

  Ben said, “Huh! That’s what you think. Listen, I been asking around. His uncle, Luther? That sonofabitch is meaner than hell. And he’s just out of prison in Matamoros. You think that bastard is going to be willing to say that’s an end to it?”

  I said, as grimly as I could, “Ben, it is all planned and it don’t involve you.” I told him how I’d arranged for Lew Vara to carry the word out to the Jordans, and how I was going to meet Shay in the morning at ten o’clock and that I would be alone. “We are going to meet at the northwest corner of that drift fence and settle the matter. Now you wanted to go into town today and see Norris. All right, you and Hays can take off. You’ve got plenty of daylight left and I’m sure Norris would welcome some company. Ask Adams if you can take him in some whiskey.”

  He looked at me for a long time, maybe half a minute. “You’re going to ride out to that drift fence by your lonesome?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just expecting Shay to show up.”

  “I told Lew to tell him that if he didn’t show up I’d shoot every Jordan I saw on sight. Lew will probably tell him I just intend to beat the hell out of him. He’ll show up. He can’t take the risk and not do it. Lew will convince him.”

  “Oh, I ain’t got a doubt that Shay will show up. Him and half his family.”