Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

“That’s wide-open prairie. You can see for miles. If more than him is coming, I’ll have plenty of time to make other plans. Now you and Hays get on into town. Get drunk, have a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow. I may have something I want to talk to you about.”

  He just looked at me and shook his head. “And to think I always looked up to you because I thought you was so smart.”

  I ignored the remark and asked him if he’d seen Harley, our foreman. Hays had ridden over close and kept his mouth shut while Ben and I were having the argument about Shay Jordan. Now Hays said, pointing, “Boss, I think he’s down thar on the south range. They got a pretty good herd gathered there and are cutting out the shippers.”

  I said to Ben, “How’s Harley coming along with the cut?”

  He was still sulking a bit. But he said, “I reckon he’s just about finished. Didn’t you notice the amount of cattle they got held up near the headquarters range?”

  “Ben, I ain’t been able to ask Norris. Do you know if he got the stock cars arranged with the railroad before he got shot?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Then you better look into that when you get into town. Make that the first thing you do. You got any idea how many cattle Harley finally thinks he’ll be able to get?”

  “He told me somewheres between a thousand and ’leven hunnert. Closer to ’leven hunnert.”

  “Then you better see to those cars. We either ship ’em or feed ’em, and I’d a hell of a lot rather ship ’em. Does anybody know what the market is doing?”

  Hays said, “I hear’d it’s still up.”

  I said, “Well, I’m going to find Harley. I want to start moving cattle toward the rail spur day after tomorrow.”

  I was starting to turn my horse away when Ben said, “We might have more important matters to attend to.”

  I was far enough around so I had to turn to look back at him. “Like what?”

  He said, “Your funeral. You ride out there depending on the honor of the Jordans.”

  I didn’t say anything, just touched my spurs to the horse’s belly and set out to look for Harley. I wanted to be able to give Norris the good news that I was getting him some money to invest. That’d be the best medicine I could put in his hands.

  I spent a quiet evening with Nora that night. After supper she was surprised to see me bring my whiskey into the parlor and settle down with her. She said, “You’re not going up to the big house for your usual confab?”

  I shook my head. She was over on the settee darning one of my shirts. I did not believe it was possible for Nora, without company in the house, to sit down on the settee without her hands being busy with some kind of sewing or knitting or crocheting. At least I’d never seen her that way. I said, “Naw, hell, I haven’t seen you in a week. Thought we’d do some catching up.”

  “But you’re a week behind on the ranch and the latest men-talk. And whiskey-drinking. What have you told Howard? About what Charlie Stevens told you?”

  “To begin with, I ain’t told you all of it yourself.”

  “Stop saying ’ain’t.’ ”

  “Howard took his time letting me in on some information. I reckon I’ll do the same.”

  “What haven’t you told me?”

  “What I haven’t told you.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  I poured myself a drink and got comfortable in my big overstuffed morris chair, which was just like the one Charlie Stevens had. I said, “It’s all the answer you’re going to get. I take it J.D. has calmed down on the teething business. He ain’t squalled near as much as he was before I left.”

  “Doctor Adams was out on his weekly visit to Howard. He came by and left me off some paregoric to rub on his gums. It does do the trick.”

  I was very comfortable. My mind was a long ways away from the next day. We talked until about ten o’clock, not about much, but just the sort of quiet conversation men and their wives can make. I said, “It will be good to get things back to normal again.”

  “What’s normal for you, Justa? I’ve known you six or seven years. I mean known you close, and the nearest thing to normal for you is mostly trouble. What are you going to do about the Jordans?”

  I yawned. “Well, one thing I’m not going to do is worry about them. That’s what we pay a lawyer for.”

  “No, I mean about the young one, the one that shot Norris.”

  I looked at her. I’d learned it was much better to look at her straight if you felt a lie coming on. “What about him?”

  She stopped darning. “Justa Williams, if you think that I believe you’re going to let someone shoot your brother and not take some sort of action, then you’ve got another thing coming. Or else you believe I can be fooled mighty easy. Now tell me the truth. What are you up to?”

  “Goddammit, Nora—”

  “I have asked you and asked you not to swear in the house.”

  “Yes, and we screw, but you won’t let me say it.”

  She raised her hands and let them fall back in her lap. “I never thought I’d hear the day you’d talk like that to your own wife. Who do you think I am, one of the floozies in Wilson Young’s house of prostitution?”

  I said, trying to keep from laughing at her pretended indignation, “How do you know Wilson has got a whorehouse?”

  “Because he told me on his last visit. And now that you’ve succeeded in getting the ’little wife’ off the subject of the Jordans, are you pleased with yourself?”

  I went over and knelt down by her and put my head on her breast. “I know something that would please me more.”

  I left my house at about nine-thirty the next morning, riding the big sorrel gelding. I’d decided he was about as steady as any animal I had around the place. It was a cool morning, but I’d eschewed a jacket, settling instead for a heavy shirt. I didn’t expect guns to enter into it, but I still wanted to be as unencumbered as possible. I figured Shay for a bully, not a fool. I figured he’d know he couldn’t match me in a shooting contest. Trying to frighten Norris was one thing, coming at me was another, and I reckoned he’d asked around and had been told.

  I passed the headquarters house and saw Howard sitting out on the front porch taking the morning sun. He’d probably been up since four. He said it was hard to sleep when you got old. He said he didn’t know if that was because you didn’t need as much sleep, or you just didn’t want to waste what time you had left on laying there with your eyes closed, which you’d be doing soon enough anyway. I gave him a wave, but he wasn’t looking my way, and I was a good hundred yards off and his old eyes might not have been able to make me out at such a distance.

  The end of the drift fence was, because of the direction it ran, nearly as close to town as it was to the ranch. It was at the far western edge of our deeded property, though we grazed cattle beyond it, but not so as to interfere with anybody else’s grazing rights.

  I rode slowly through the tall yellowing grass. As soon as we got the herd shaped up for shipping, we’d begin haying it with the big McCormick reaper every cowhand on the place hated with a vengeance. If you couldn’t do it on a horse a cowboy didn’t want any part of it, and we generally lost one or two good men every year during haying season just because they couldn’t put up with it.

  I was taking my time. There was no rush. For a minute or two I let my mind stray to Ben and Norris, wondering what I was going to tell them about the truth that had been withheld from us for so long. But there was no rush to decide. Norris was hurt, and what I knew really didn’t matter that much. Certainly it didn’t change anything.

  Off to my left I could see the fence at a distance. Rather I could see the tops of the fence posts straggling along over the prairie; I certainly couldn’t see the wire. I turned my horse slightly to the north a little more so as to hit the end of the fence when I arrived at it. I was in a part of the prairie that was a little more rolling than flat, and I couldn’t see any sign of Shay Jordan. That didn’t mean he was
n’t coming; it just meant he might be hidden down in a meadow or behind a little hummock.

  I kept riding, and then I saw him. I traced the line of the fence with my eye and saw that he was already at the end of it, about two hundred yards away. I put light spurs to the gelding and loped him until only about thirty paces separated me and Shay. Then I pulled the sorrel down into a walk and headed straight toward where Shay was sitting his horse. As I approached I shifted my eyes back and forth over the near terrain. It was just high-grass prairie with no trees or anyplace else to hide. It looked empty. I figured Lew had succeeded in convincing the boy that the only way to end the trouble was to show up and take his medicine.

  With about ten yards between us I pulled up my horse. I didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. I said, “You shot my brother. I’m here to settle the matter.”

  He might have been a fairly handsome young man except for the sneering, insolent look on his face. He said, “He pulled a gun on me.”

  “No he didn’t. And you know he didn’t and I know he didn’t.”

  “What, was you thar?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, boy. You and I both know how that gun got on the floor. Maybe it matters to the law, but it don’t matter to me. Now, how you want to settle this?”

  “You whupped my pa. Th’owed down on him with a pistol and whupped him. I was jest evenin’ the score.”

  “I used a gun to make your pa get off his horse. He was making threats and I was going to settle it. It was a fair fight. If he told you different he’s a liar. Now you Jordans don’t seem to be willing to let this land dispute be settled in court. I reckon, then, we’ll get it settled here and now. I’m gonna break your goddam arm just like you broke my brother’s. I can do it with a bullet, though I got to warn you I ain’t that good of a shot and I might miss and hit you in the chest. Or I can do it with a fence post. It’s your choice. But I can guarantee you that you are leaving here today with a broke arm.”

  “Like hell I will,” he said. He let his hand come up near the butt of his gun. His horse took a nervous pace or two toward me. I was watching his horse; the animal was jittery, not well-trained. One gunshot and he’d probably go to bucking.

  I said, “Boy, you better give this some thought. You are setting yourself up to be looking at the inside of a pine box. Get off that horse and take a licking. And this is my last warning.”

  Even as I said the words I became aware of something to my right. I shifted my eyes. Just off to my right side a man was coming up in the grass to one knee. He was no more than ten yards away. He had a gun in his hand. I started to draw, and I heard gunshots from behind me. The man, a man I’d never seen before but who looked vaguely familiar, stood up, and then dropped his gun and fell over. I heard someone from behind me yell, “Justa!”

  And then the gelding suddenly reared up, and I felt something thunk into the pommel of the saddle, and then a burning on my leg and I had my revolver out and was leaning down and to the right, keeping a tight hold on the gelding, keeping him reared up, and firing under his neck at Shay Jordan. I thumbed and fired as rapidly as I could because it was difficult to aim with the gelding dancing around like he was. I thought the first shot hit Shay, but on the second I saw him go backwards, throwing his revolver in the air. I got off one more shot as he was going over the end of his horse.

  Then the gelding was settling back to all fours. I sat there for a second, the sound of the gunfire still ringing in my ears and the smell of the gunpowder all through the air. There was a man standing to my right with his hands in the air. It wasn’t the man I’d seen aiming at me. This man was Rex Jordan.

  After a moment I bolstered my revolver and stepped off the gelding. He was trembling a little. I looked at my saddle. The slug from a bullet was embedded in the pommel. I looked down at my leg. My pants were torn midway down the inside of my thigh. A little blood was trickling out. I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure why the gelding had reared up. But if he hadn’t, Shay’s bullet might have found me instead of my saddle. I’d probably never know what had spooked the gelding. It could have been a snake, it could have been an insect, or it could have been Providence. I didn’t figure I’d ever find out. All I knew was that I’d been lucky as hell.

  I looked over to my far right. Ben and Ray Hays and Lew Vara were coming toward me, though Lew was veering off more toward where Rex Jordan was standing with his hands in the air.

  They came up and stopped. I looked at them for a second, and then I walked over to where Shay was laying on his back in the tall grass. He was dead. He’d taken one bullet in the chest and one in the face. I figured he’d gotten the last as he was going off his horse. The third shot had caught him in the right arm. I didn’t know if it had broken the bone or not. I turned around and walked over to where Lew was holding Rex Jordan under guard. The man I’d seen go down was laying on his side a few yards away. He looked like he’d been shot to pieces. I said, “Who’s that?”

  Lew said, “That’s Luther, Luther Jordan.”

  I turned to Rex Jordan. “Well, ya’ll wouldn’t have it any other way except the hard way. This is the result.”

  Rex had his head down. “I was not here to shoot you,” he said. “I never drawed a gun. I come to try and settle this matter with words.”

  Lew said, “That don’t mean you ain’t going to jail. You and your brother and your son set up a bushwhack. I was here and I seen it.”

  I said to Lew, “Let it go, Lew. He’s lost enough.”

  Lew said, “Yeah, but does he know it?”

  Jordan was still staring at the ground. “Yes, I know it. I don’t want no more trouble.”

  I looked around. “You’ll need help getting your dead home. I’ll ride back to my headquarters and have a buckboard sent.”

  Lew said, “Justa, I ought to put him in jail.”

  I said, “Did he ever draw his revolver? Did he ever fire?”

  Lew shook his head. “No, but maybe that was because he never got a chance to. When Luther come up out of that grass we cut down on him before Rex could do anything. Who knows what he might have done if we hadn’t been here, if you’d been alone.”

  I looked at Ben, who hadn’t said anything. I said, “I was wrong.”

  He give me a little smug look like he knew it, had known it the day before, and was always going to know it and never let me forget. “Yeah,” he said.

  Hays said, scratching under his shirt, “W’al, if this ain’t worth a bonus I don’t know what is, and I don’t mean the shootin’. We had to tie the horses near two mile from here an’ then walk all the way to here. An’ had to start early so’s to git here ahead of these bushwhackers. Had to lay in the goldarn weeds for better’n a hour waitin’ fer these sonsabitches to show up! Bugs bitin’ me an’ snakes crawlin’ around an’ I don’t know what all. Lordy!”

  I bought Jordan out to give him a way out of the country. We didn’t need the extra deeded acreage, but it was a way to end the matter and end the lawsuit and get his kind out from underfoot. It was an easy enough purchase since our bank held the loan on the ranch he’d bought, so I just gave him back his down payment and five hundred dollars on top of that to smooth his path out of the country. It was all handled through the bank, so I never saw the man again.

  The wound in my leg was caused by a little brad that had been popped out of my saddle by the force of Shay’s bullet. It had actually had enough force to bury itself about a quarter of an inch under my skin. I’d had Nora dig it out so she could see what it was and see that it wasn’t no bullet. But she’d still been suspicious. She’d said, “I have never heard of a piece of hardware coming out of a saddle with enough power to go into a man’s leg. There is something fishy going on here, Justa Williams.”

  I’d said, “There you go. Always doubting me. Now I’m responsible for how they make saddles and what can happen when you rope a two-thousand-pound steer going full tilt and the rope hits the saddle horn. That’s right, I’m trying to put somethi
ng over on you. Actually, Nora, I was in a gunfight and this here brad you’d just dug out was what he was using for bullets.”

  She’d given me a look. “Now you are trying to act the fool. I swear, Justa, if I could ever get a straight answer out of you I’d probably drop over.”

  A few days after Norris got home I got hold of Ben, and he and I walked a ways out into the pasture from the headquarters house. We stopped at a place where the sound of the bay could come softly to us, and lit cigarillos. As simply as I could I told him everything I knew and everything I’d learned from Charlie Stevens and Howard. When I was through he just stood there for a moment staring off. Then he turned around and started back towards the house. I was not at all sure how he was going to take it. I said, “Well, what do you think?”

  He shrugged. “It’s kind of sudden. I don’t know what to think. I’m going to have to study on it.”

  “That’s the way I was.”

  “Explains a lot, though, don’t it? I mean about how different me and you are from Norris.”

  “Yeah.”

  We kept walking. About halfway back he stopped. He looked at me. “But it really don’t make a hell of a lot of difference, does it?”

  “Not to me.”

  “It ain’t like we was kids. We’re grown men. And both of them mothers is gone. And Howard will be gone soon enough. Then it will just be the three of us. Have you told Norris?”

  I hesitated a moment. I wanted to tell Ben how I felt, and I wanted to tell him in such a way that he’d understand it and maybe feel the same way. I said, “The truth be told, when I found out up in Oklahoma that Norris was my half brother I was kind of glad. There was so much difference between us. I didn’t want us to be full-blood. But then . . .” I hesitated again.

  Ben said, “Then you saw him in that sickbed.”

  I looked at him and nodded. “Yeah. Then he could never be anything but my full brother.”

  Ben smiled slightly. “I reckon you don’t think we ought to tell him anything about this.”