The Which Way Tree

by Elizabeth Crook

  However, as to your letter, Judge. Thank you for saying to tell Mr Hildebrand to pay me back for what I spent and to please give me what paper and ink I need and he could expect to be reimbursed to the full extent of the cost, as from the looks of things it might mount up. Mr Hildebrand was glad to hear it. He is generous and give me a loaf of bread for free as there was no strudel, on account of he said the strudel is gone by Friday and it was Saturday I was there.

  I am glad to know you are not traveling alone as I thought, but rather with your friend Mr Pittman. He seemed like a nice gentleman at Mr Wronski’s house. He must of wrote pretty fast, and that is a impressive feat to say the least. Please tell him hello for me and to watch out for trouble for you. I am almost scared to think of you reading my reports, for fear Comanches might be sneaking up behind you whilst you do so. Both of you take good care.

  I do appreciate that you said I don’t have to write in the thorough manner I am doing. However, I will continue, if you don’t mind. I know you intend to be considerate of my time, but what need is there for that. I work all day long but have nothing important after dark. All I do at night is sit in a half-dark house with Sam and look out for Comanches. It is not a interesting life. I have read The Whale twice, start to finish, as I might of before told you, and I am not ready to read it again.

  However, to speak of the devil. These pages I am sending involve quite a bit about Clarence Hanlin, as they tell of the encounter Sam and me had with him on the morning after the panther took off with our kids, which was not many months after I seen Mr Hanlin on the Julian picking pockets. As I told you already, I had seen him on the roads with other Sesesh on occasion, and I had seen him picking the pockets of the unfortunates hanged. But until the time you are fixing to read of, I had not spoken a word to him, nor had any cause to do so. Nor had he taken any notice of me.

  I do wish I had a steel nib pen in place of quills. A pen would improve my writing a good deal. Mr Hildebrand showed me a advertisement for one that was made in New Jersey. It had a holder with it. I would not need a holder.

  Yours kindly,

  Benjamin Shreve

  MY TESTAMENT

  As I before stated, I slept all night against the door to hold Sam from going out, and in the morning we took a look around our place and seen that our two kids was missing and the panther had spooked every living creature and left the place with a feel of trespass hanging about in the air. Sam and me was unsettled and in a quandary of what to do next. Sam was of a mind to track the panther, but how were we to do that. I told her to let the whole thing alone and the panther would not be back for a good long while. It took him all those years the last time before he come back for a visit. But what Sam felt was it was not a issue of worrying over our livestock or ourselves or any other practical thing, it was a issue of revenge. The panther had spoilt her face and slain her mother, and now it had run off with the two little kids, leaving the other goats perplexed, and leaving us feeling stole from.

  I told her we did not have the means to track it, but she said we would build us a trap and capture it and do it in that way. She went on about it. She had big plans, all hogwash, about digging holes and carving spears out of sticks, and other such nonsense. I hoped she would not light upon the idea of searching out the remains of them kids and laying in wait for the panther to come back for his breakfast, being as we did not have a reliable way to dispatch him even if we was to lay eyes on him.

  To my dismay she did hit upon that idea, or the like of it. She was but twelve years old, as I have said, yet she is a tireless thinker, and now and then she will wear you down until you begin to think she has struck upon a idea that will suit. I suppose I would not be writing any of this to you, and would not of ever even known of you, nor you of me, if she had not come up with a plan I thought to be workable if not entirely sensible. She said the panther could not of ate both kids in one night, and if we was to find what was left of one of them we could hide out in a tree overhead for the panther to come back and feast on it. Then we would have us a easy shot at him.

  Have you forgot we have no good powder, I asked her.

  If we fire down, the ball will go, said she.

  How is a ball going to kill a panther by falling on it, I said. And how can you reason the panther won’t see us and think it has found three full meals instead of the one.

  She had a plan for that, of loading up water buckets with rocks and hauling them up in the tree, and strapping a kitchen knife to the end of the rifle to make a spear, and tying a rope for a lasso. I told her it would not work. She said she would see that it did, and if I would not help her she would do it herself, as she was not my slave, she was nobody’s, and had a free will of her own, and could do as she liked.

  You will pardon me, Judge, but after a good amount of discussion and frustration with her I allowed myself to think this plan was a feasible undertaking. I was but fourteen years of age myself, and not as smart as I would of liked to of been. Also, she called me a coward. She is fearsome to face down when she is scornful. Her features is not right, on account of what the panther done to her. Her mouth is stretched up on one side and she appears to grin at you even whilst her eyes is looking disgusted. And even whilst you look at her and see very well that she is puny and mulatto and a girl and not too good to gaze upon, you will figure she has all the say-so over you, though you will not know how she got it.

  So there we was, with a plan. However, I was not so rash as to volunteer to make it work. I said, You can look for the kids yourself. I ain’t helping you with that. And if you do not find one of them under a tree that’s big, you can leave me out of the whole shebang. I am not going to wait in a small tree for a panther. I want a good station.

  So she gone hunting for the kids and found one by noontime and dragged me off to see it. It was not far from the house, although out of sight of it due to a incline. The kid laid cold dead at the base of a bur oak that stood nearly ninety feet tall by my estimation. It was half covered with sticks and leaves, not ate in the least but messed up at the throat.

  There was plenty of things about the setup that did not strike me as right. For one, why did the panther just happen to pick the biggest tree to stash the remains under. And how come the sticks and leaves looked like they was piled on top of the kid, not scratched up over it.

  I said, You did not find the kid here. You found it elsewhere and carried it over here on account of it’s a big tree and you know I ain’t going to sit in a small one.

  I did no such thing, she said.

  We had words about that.

  At last she said, all right, so I done it. I carried it here from just over yonder. What difference is it. The panther can sniff it from there.

  She had a further idea too. We was to bring the nanny out and tie her under the tree, she said. We was to leave her there through the night whilst we sat in the tree. She would bleat on account of she would not want to be there with her dead kid, and the noise would draw the panther and we would get a shot at it.

  Or else wolves or coyotes will be drawn, I said. Did you not think of that.

  I did not, she owned, but I aim to chance it.

  I took stock of the tree. It was not a bad tree she had picked. The limbs was fairly high up and that was a good thing. The leaves was turned and falling but there was plenty to hide in. The trunk was wide. I got somewhat shook up thinking of how it would be to tussle with the panther if he was clawing his way up the trunk and we was up there with nothing but rocks and a unloaded rifle with a knife strapped on the end of it and a rope and one ball in a pistol loaded with bat shat. However, I was not ready to be called a coward once more. I could fairly see the word on her lips.

  We will get ourselves in the tree before dark, said she. Now help me gather up rocks.

  It is not saying a lot, as she is not a hard worker, but she did work that day. She set about gathering up rocks of every which size. We filled the water buckets and two feed buckets. It was a considerable
task getting them four buckets into the tree. I had to use the rope to get up there myself, and then Sam and me had us a time hauling the buckets up on the rope. We stretched the yoke over a couple of branches to hang the water buckets from, but it was a struggle to get them balanced in a way where they wouldn’t tump over and dump out the rocks. Sam acted in charge of the undertaking and that was a aggravation.

  The nanny goat, when we went to fetch her out of the pen, was in a bad way. Her udders was full to busting and she was missing her kids. We had to milk her to get her satisfied, but at least we got some good milk. She did not care to be led away from the other goats, and she was not too happy to see her young one half buried under sticks and leaves, nor to be staked alongside it. I think she was puzzled about its condition and that it paid her no mind. We waited for her to crank it up and make a fuss the panther might hear, but to the contrary she had nothing to say on the matter for some time. That was unnatural. After we staked her by the kid she got as far from it as the tether would let her get, which was clear around the other side of the tree. She made a few complaints and then become what is called deathly quiet and still as a stone.

  I said, I don’t know that we need her.

  Sam said, You’ll see. She will bleat when it’s dark. I believe you’re scared and don’t want the panther to come.

  I’d be a fool like you to want it to come, I told her.

  We got ourselves settled up in the tree before dark. The branches was good ones and wide enough to settle on, although the bark was enough to torture us and made me wish we could be in a naked Indian tree instead of the one we was in. I figured the acorns was a drawback, on account of they attract bears. However, what trouble was bears compared to the panther that we was alluring.

  From where I sat I could see three big old mesquites, not twenty yards off, that stood over a old Comanche grave beside a trace. The grave was said to be that of a chief buried quite a few years before I was born. It had been dug up a good many times by people passing on the trace, so all I ever seen of it was beads and charms and bones nobody wanted and which I would not of touched for a million in specie, for fear of revenge by either the dead or the living. Of Comanches, I figure both is equally bad. I could not see the bones sticking out of the dirt from up in the tree, but I knew they was there. I had looked them over on many occasions. They appeared mostly like leg bones to me. It was weird how even coyotes and varmints had nothing to do with the bones in all these years. Maybe the tales I heard was true and they was cursed.

  The moon come up, no more than a shard of light. When it was overhead we seen it in fits and starts amid the clouds drifting over the branches. I could not make out the stars on account of them being blocked by leaves and clouds. I sat with my back to the trunk and my legs straddling a limb nearly the width of a saddle, my pistol at the ready and my ears trained for the panther. The night grew colder than I had figured it would. A good many leaves dropped out of the tree about me throughout the night. Sam and me had agreed not to do any talking, so she was quiet for once. The nanny goat at times shifted about on the tether and bleated but otherwise was unnaturally quiet.

  I believe that Samantha was nearly unhinged on account of she wasn’t supposed to talk, and that was a hardship. She was scared, but she did not say so. She sat on a limb on the far side of the trunk as me, a foot or two higher up, where I could not see her from where I was myself. Halfway through the night she commenced to drop acorns down from her perch.

  What are you doing, I said.

  I want the nanny to bleat, she told me. Is she still even down there. I ain’t heard her. I can’t see her from here.

  Where do you think she could go, I said.

  Why don’t she make any noise, she asked me.

  Would you make noise if you was bait for a panther, I said.

  That shut her up for a time.

  We heard varmints rustling around, and noisy crickets, and coyotes yammering amongst theirselves off in the hills, and hoot owls having their say. I would of enjoyed the night more if I could of been sure it was not my last. The idea of the panther had me scared.

  When the sky begun to get light, and the nanny to complain about wanting to be milked, and the flies commenced to gather about on the dead kid, I said, The panther ain’t coming. It’s time to go.

  Samantha said, I ain’t leaving here just yet.

  I’ll stay half a hour, I told her, no more than that. I’m tired of sitting here holding this pistol for nothing.

  Then let me hold it, she said.

  I agreed to that bad idea. I give her the pistol and settled back on my branch for a snooze. I was just about to doze off when Sam said, Somebody’s coming.

  That woke me up pretty quick. We was used to having people along the trace every now and then, but not so often that it was common. What I seen when I opened my eyes was a fellow on horseback, and what I first noted was the horse. It was a pinto, white on black, a mustang by the look of it but tall for one, about fifteen hands, and it struck me right off as a outstanding creature. It had a way about it. A air of freedom, so that it give the impression there was nobody mounted upon it but rather it was taking a morning stroll on its own. It had no bit, only a hackamore. The way it come walking so lightly along the trace, too early in the morning to cast a shadow, made a vision that got my attention in a powerful way. I had to catch my breath before I could even look from the horse to the rider.

  When I did draw my eyes off the horse and look at the man, I seen he was a Mexican. He was finely dressed in a linen shirt and nice pants and a good looking pair of knee-high boots. He appeared past his prime. His boots and hat was black and his hair was gray, nearly white. It hung slightly long. Taken as a whole, his attire was fully black and white, so that he matched his pinto horse in a way I had not seen with a man and beast before, and have not seen since. It was like they was twins. The man was traveling light, having only a pair of saddlebags and a satchel.

  Sam said, Who might he be?

  I told her to hush, and moved to where I might keep a eye on her. The man was singing a song I did not hear the words of. We seen him look at the nanny tied to the tree but he paid her no special mind. He did not see us, as we was hidden in branches. He come alongside the old chief’s grave and paused and dismounted and stood over the grave and scraped at it with his boot. I thought he might be hatching a plan to rob it, however what would he take. There was nothing but old beads and bones. He dropped his reins and stood there, side by side with his horse, both of them eyeing the grave in what I thought was a disdainful posture. I thought it was a pretty good trick that the horse just stood and did what the man did. His mane and tail was mingled black and white, the same as the man’s gray hair. After a minute the man commenced to talk rather rough at the grave, like he was having a argument with the old chief. I could hear him well enough, although I could not make out what he said, as it was in Spanish. He went on for a time, and it was a longer argument than I would of thought a person could have with a bunch of bones.

  The sun had rose up hastily and the light was busting through the motte of big mesquites over the grave. Sam and me had to squint to keep looking, as we was staring directly into the light.

  The Mexican might of gone on even longer with the old chief I suppose, had the pinto not snorted and stomped of a sudden and looked in the direction they was headed before they stopped.

  And what do you know, but there’s a Sesesh coming along, leading a old decrepit camel and escorting a woman with her hands bound at her back. Travelers on that trace was a fairly rare thing, as I before stated, and still is, so you can imagine my surprise to see in one morning such a odd lot as this—a Mexican, a Sesesh, and a woman captive, and along with them a fine pinto horse and a camel that was complaining a fair amount. I had spied others of the army camels but had not seen this old fellow with the two humps.

  The Mexican stood there and waited. The camel was moving slow, although he did not have a load of any kind to carry. He mad
e a good deal of unpleasant noise and I surmised him to be in some pain or else just too ornery by nature to get along with. The Sesesh yanked and tugged his rope. He got behind the camel and prodded him with a stick and beat his flanks with it and was generally impatient, calling him many names I would not think I should repeat in a official report such as the one I am making. But I will tell you his language was coarse. He poked at the woman with the same stick as he poked at the camel with. She seemed to take this better than I would of thought a woman would take such treatment. In all, it was a pitiful sight to behold this Sesesh shoving and cussing at a broken down camel and a husky captive woman. Her dress was wore out and she was poorly looking. That is a kind way to put it. I could not figure what he intended with her.

  When the Sesesh arrived eye to eye with the Mexican he said, What’s a greaser like you doing with a horse like that.

  The Mexican said, What I am doing is standing here with this horse.

  His English was very good.

  I wager it’s stolen, the Sesesh said.

  The Mexican was agreeable and said it was perhaps the most stolen horse on this side of the Rio Grande. However, it was never stolen by him, he said. He had purchased the horse in Gillespie County.

  The Sesesh took his hat off to wipe his face and it was then I got a good look at him. The droopy eye was the sure giveaway. My pulse got quick when I seen it. I did not know the man’s name at this time, as you have pointed out to me, but I seen him picking the pockets of the hanged unfortunates on the Julian, and I surely did know his face.

  He spat on the ground. Are you a Texan or a Mexican, he asked the Mexican.