The Mercy Seat (47 page)

The one blond boy stayed in the wagon, held the horses, just sat there looking down, and then next thing I knew in all the commotion, he'd slipped down and come over to stand by the two girls. That was the first I knew he wasn't a part of that other bunch but one of John Lodi's. He's a big old kid, I bet you going on six feet nearly, and blond as he can be. Wearing suspenders. Good-looking boy, kind of gawky. I don't know what in the world he was doing riding up with the rest of them, but he come in with them, and then they separated after that. He stood with his sisters, and he did about like they did, which was nothing. Just stared straight ahead. In a minute Tecumseh Moore headed up to try and calm the cussing boy down some, and quick as his back was turned, the blond one went in the stable and squatted down by his father on the dirt floor. I didn't see him say anything, he just crouched down there by him in the dirt, and here in a little bit Moore seen him and went in and told him he'd better come on outside.

And of course along about then is when I remembered Jelly home sick in the bed, and I turned around with Edna on my hip and went on back to the house. I didn't see when that colored deputy showed up nor anything more about it, but I witnessed plenty enough to allow I didn't sleep too good that night.

But, now, there's one thing has got me completely baffled, and I want you to see if you can figure it out. You just calculate a little bit. All right. Now, I got there five minutes after the killing, maybe less even. Twenty minutes more, they found the little scrawny one. Five or ten minutes after that, here come the pretty one, and it wasn't fifteen minutes more till the whole rest of the bunch come in the wagon from Waddy Crossing. Maybe you can explain it to me. In less than an hour they was every one there but the dead fella's poor wife. You know and I know couldn't nobody send word eight or nine miles to Big Waddy Crossing and them children get back to Cedar in that amount of time. And that one girl was walking—you know it takes two hours and better to walk it. Those children had to know a killing was going to happen, don't you reckon? Long before it come down.

D
ad told it this way. Said it started back wherever they come from and there was another man in it besides them two, said there was guns mixed up in it some way, and old bad blood, and it was this third man somehow brought it all to a head. John Lodi never was one to tell his business, so I believe my daddy had to piece it together from one thing and another, whatever-all Lodi had told him and what folks around here said, and then, too, what Dad himself witnessed, which was pretty near start to finish of the killing—he was the main testifier at the hearing, I saw that myself—but if there's anybody knew anything about it to speak of, I believe it was my dad. So Dad said there was a running feud between these two brothers went way back to the land of their birth, and now, how it worked out them to be simultaneously fussing and living just practically one on top of the other—that's how my dad told it, said their houses wasn't fifty feet across the lot from each other, front to back—well, that part I don't know. This third man that was in on it, I don't believe he was any kin, but he'd known them back in the place they'd come from and been with them somehow on this deal.

So Dad said this fellow—his name was Tanner—said he showed up from Texas one evening. Rode into Cedar one evening on a big old bay gelding, leading a fine-looking train of fifty choice U.S. Army mules. Stolen, of course, but now I'll tell you something: that man didn't have to ride clear from the bottom to the top of the Choctaw Nation to sell those mules. He could have unloaded them just anywhere along the line, from Broken Bow to Talihina. Been a lot smarter to sell 'em down around Idabel or somewheres, the quicker shut of them the better, instead of parading them two hundred rough-going miles through the Kiamichi Mountains. There was deputy U.S. marshals crawling all around in these hills. I guess the man liked to live reckless, or else he was plumb ignorant, I don't know, but anyhow, here he come, paraded them critters right through town here and on up to Big Waddy Crossing. Word got around about this bunch of mules Fate Lodi had for sale, and folks come around and bickered and bartered and bought maybe a half dozen, and then this fellow Tanner went up to Muskogee or somewheres and unloaded the rest. I believe he got a little nervous to get out of town. Dad said the law at Fort Smith had also got wind of this fine bunch of mules Fate Lodi had for sale, but said by the time the marshal come nosing around, Tanner was already on the scout up to Sallisaw or someplace in Cherokee country, and the six or seven mules they'd sold hereabouts all had new traces, new harnesses, new masters—and new marking, I expect, burned into their rear ends.

Well, sir, that was the first of this fella Tanner coming, but it sure wasn't the last. Him and Fate Lodi, I don't know what-all they got into up yonder, gunrunning, horsethieving, bootlegging, no telling what. You'd hear about it, Dad said, like it was just a den of thieves at Big Waddy Crossing. That little community had quite a reputation at one time. Kept it up, Dad said, till that colored deputy carried Fayette to Fort Smith one time on a charge of introducing spirits into the Territory, but seem to me like Dad said they had to turn around and let him go again—couldn't find no evidence and wouldn't nobody testify against him. Old Tanner had already gone on the scout to Creek Nation, and that was all she wrote for them two's little partnership. But, now, what-all Tanner had to do with it I don't know, but I know it was something hatched up between them two, Fate and Tanner, that set a match to the feud between the two brothers. My dad told this to me in so many words, he said, “When Tanner showed up with them mules from Texas, John Lodi changed in his being from that day forward.” That's just what my dad said.

I can't say that I noticed anything different. I can't recollect that I knew anything about it at the time—or anyhow I didn't hear about any mules Fate Lodi had for sale up at Big Waddy Crossing, because I was just a boy then and I had other things on my mind. And John Lodi walked in from Waddy every morning and came on to work and walked home at night same as always, and he didn't quit that or miss a day of it, I reckon, from the minute he went to work for my daddy right up until the afternoon of the killing. I've thought about it since then, thought about what my dad said. “He changed in his being.” I've tried to fathom what Dad meant.

After Lodi made me that muzzle loader I got to hanging around the stable pretty good, what time I wasn't out in the woods hunting or just whenever I thought I could get by at it without my dad locating me some little chore. I wasn't too work-brittle at that age. But I figured me and Lodi were pardners, and I'd go hang around when I could. He didn't perturb me like he used to, whether he had his hat on or off, and he'd showed me ever bit of the gunmaking from start to finish, explained to me just what he was doing as we went. Lodi never was much of a talker, and he didn't talk no more nor no less after he'd got that gun finished than I'd ever known him, so I didn't lay that off to him being changed in his being. All I figured was he'd just turned back normal, which for him was silent, and I didn't think a thing in the world about it then. Nor do I yet. That wasn't the kind of thing Dad was talking about.

Pondering on it, even now, all these years later, there's only one little incident I can think of. It was inconsequential to my mind at the time—or I shouldn't say inconsequential, because I remember I studied on it a lot—but what I mean, it wasn't something I looked at and said, Well, here's a man changed in his being. But later I thought back on it, and I believe this is part of what Dad meant.

I'd come in the livery one morning. Now, it must've been a Saturday because I know it was morning—I had a little something on my mind, that's how come me to remember—and I wasn't in school. We had us a little subscription school right here in town then, first white school around in these parts, I believe, and Mrs. Edith Hawkins was the teacher, what we called the schoolmarm, and my dad paid a dollar a month to send me and DewMan both, but DewMan quit. But I did go whenever Dad didn't need me, which was most of the time because he had Clyde and DewMan both still home till I was nearly grown, and my mama wanted me to and so I did. So I'm going to say it was a Saturday, and I come into the stable on this particular Saturday morning and Dad was there, naturally, bent over with a hoof grasped up between his legs, trimming a pitiful old white plowhorse belonged to Manford Slocum, and Mr. Slocum and two or three others was over in the new part, around the stove, waiting and talking, how I already told you folks were apt to do. Lodi was at the forge, working the bellows up good and hot, just huffing away. Well, the minute I seen my dad I kindly started backing up toward the doorway. I thought I might just go on to the creek bottom without any lead. I was entirely out of bullets, see, otherwise I'd a been long gone rabbit hunting—that's what I had my mind set on. There was a nice little new snow on the ground.

Right off, Dad looked up and saw me. I figured he'd say, “Step over here a minute, Grady, I need you to do this-that-'n'-the-other.” But he didn't say a word, just went back to cutting on that old yella hoof. Well, none of the men over there seemed to notice me or pay me any attention, so I thought I might just as well stay, and I eased over to where Lodi was pulling a big old red froe blade out of the fire, and he laid it on the anvil yonder and went to town, bang bang bang bang. He didn't pay me any mind either, and of course that's what you want when you're a boy, ordinarily. You don't want grown men's eyes too close on you; it kindly embarrasses you, and besides, you figure if they're looking at you too hard they're going to pretty quick find something wrong. Except, see, I had this little business on my mind, and I was looking to get Lodi's attention without drawing any from my dad.

So up to that point wasn't a thing in the world unusual. Nothing was any different to any other time I went in that stable, except maybe how my dad didn't give me a job nor even blink at me hardly, but that's not what I mean to tell you about.

Now, I'll just be honest about it. It wasn't purely that nice little snow, which we didn't have every day in winter even back then, and it wasn't only that brand-new custom-made rifle that I hadn't had over six weeks or a month, but I also had me a brand-new beagle pup, and I was just about to have a fit to hunt her. She was coming up on half grown then and she wasn't this big, she could cut a trail through any kind of bramble, but oh, she was shy of humans. She'd duck and tuck tail and run off from any human being, me included; you flat couldn't touch her. That's how come Clyde to give her to me. He was going to shoot her but I talked him into letting me have her. I thought I could get her to come to me, but she never would do it. But I want to tell you something, people—now, that little beagle dog could hunt. Oh, she had a tender voice, and when she took the trail there wasn't no shaking her off it, and that pup never would run trash. Just a pure-dee rabbit dog from the word go; only thing wrong with her, she was just so timid to a human. I finally did have to shoot her, never could get her to come to me, but I'd just got her off my brother along about a day or two before this particular Saturday morning I'm speaking of, and I didn't have a whole lot else on my mind except needing to take her out. Wasn't going to do no good to take her out, the way I saw it, if I didn't have anything to shoot at a rabbit with when she run one around. So I had me a problem.

Here in a little bit, I got to thinking about these bullets, about what in the world was I going to do about being out of bullets, because I was just itching to take that pup out. Now, what I mean bullet, I'm not talking about these manufactured cartridges like you think of; I mean lead balls you make yourself. That's what you shoot in a muzzle loader, and all you need for it is a good bullet mold and a hot fire and some lead. But, now, I didn't have none of them things, and of course you know who did. He'd give me about four dozen when he finished rubbing in the linseed oil on that red-oak gunstock, made me a present of them in a piece of leather wrapped up like a tobacco pouch, only the sinew wasn't strung through any holes. You just unfolded it like a handkerchief, and there they laid, just as perfect and round. He taught me how to lay one in my palm and pour blackpowder over it till it covered it, and that'd be your proper load for one shot. Well, he just taught me how to shoot that gun altogether, how to shoot period, and of course I shot every last one of those lead bullets he gave me in no time, just pecking at songbirds and stumps and what-have-you, and now here I had me a new hunting dog and no ammunition and I was in a terrible fix. I only knew one way to get some more of'em, and I couldn't no more go about it than I could've jumped over the moon.

Well, I got to hemming and hawing around there, and I don't know if I ever actually said a word but I know I stood there at his elbow the longest time with the words sawing at the edge of my mouth. I thought near about every human way possible to bring up the subject, and likely I got out a grunt or two even in between all them clangs, but I couldn't just come out and ask him, there was no human way. After a while Lodi went to douse that froe blade. He liked to tripped over me—I was standing just nearly on top of him, right in front of the trough. I jumped back, and something about that hot iron swinging or me jumping or something, I don't know what it was, but something unstuck my mouth and I blurted out, “Mr. Lodi, reckon I could borry your bullet mold and some lead a minute? I got to mold me some bullets for that rifle you made me. I got a new hunting dog I got to take—”

Oh, he give me a look durn sure shut my mouth. Didn't say a word, but he looked at me like he'd about wring my neck, and he turned with the tongs and plunged the blade in. Here that iron went to sizzling—oh, you could smell it—bitter, hotfire and burning, like hellfire itself. If I thought I was uncomfortable before, now then I was sure in a distress. I believe I was shaking. I didn't know what to think or how to act. You never saw such a look in all your life, or I hadn't, just a look as black as sin. Well, he never paused a second but went on about his work. I glanced over at Dad, and he didn't act like he'd seen anything. I looked over at the men yonder, and they had their heads together chawing and jawing; they didn't pay either one of us any mind.