Zeke and Ned (2 page)

“If fish could live in mud, we could go fishing right here in the street,” Tuxie remarked.

Tuxie looked up and frowned. Across the street from where Zeke had been slinking along stood three reasons why the man kept his back to the wall.

“There's the Squirrel brothers, they don't like me, neither,” Tuxie said. “We could have gone to Dog Town—most people like me in Dog Town. We could even have gone over to Siloam Springs. I've never even had a fistfight in Siloam Springs. You would have to bring me to the one town where nobody likes me—and it's too muddy to get down off my horse, besides.”

Before Tuxie Miller could list any more reasons why they ought to get out of Tahlequah, they spotted Zeke Proctor again. This time, he was sidling along beside the meeting hall, the long building where the Cherokee Senate convened. Though the Cherokee Nation considered themselves separate from the rest of America, their laws, courts, and jury system were modeled after those of the whites. Lawlessness in the Cherokee Districts had been on the upswing ever since the Civil War, when desperadoes from the North and South sought to take advantage of murky law enforcement along the border between Arkansas and Indian Territory. Tuxie himself had an aversion to controversy, and was not a force in tribal government; but Ned Christie was a respected member of the Cherokee Senate, and a scrupulous one at that.

“I wonder why Zeke's so suspicious all the time,” Ned asked. “There ain't many people as suspicious as Zeke Proctor.”

“Why wouldn't he be suspicious?” Tuxie inquired. “The Becks don't like him, the Squirrels don't like him, and neither does Bear Grimmet.”

Zeke was short but hefty, and the coal black Pete was fat. The sight of the short, hefty man and his fat dog sidling along the wall of the meetinghouse amused Ned Christie.

“I get tickled every time I look at Zeke Proctor,” he said.

He waved at Zeke, who waved back; Pete barked. Tuxie saw that Ned had a gleam in his eye, the gleam he was apt to get just before he got drunk, or fell in love. Since little Lacy, Ned's sweet young wife, had died of cholera the year before, Ned had been mighty moody. Tuxie had a feeling that Ned was nearly ready for a new wife.

“If we had a bottle of whiskey, Zeke might invite us home,” Ned said. “He looks like he's thirsty for some good whiskey, to me.

“Old Mandy sells the best whiskey,” he added—a pointless remark, in Tuxie's view. Old Mandy sold the
only
whiskey, at least the only whiskey available in Tahlequah. An occasional white whiskeyseller would wander through the District, peddling rotgut. But Zeke and Ned, and even the mild Tuxie, knew better than to purchase bad whiskey from a white man. Bad whiskey was known to make a man blind for days; and sometimes, for life.

“Go see if you can talk her out of a bottle,” Ned said. “I ain't got no cash on me, but she knows I'm good for it.”

“I ain't goin' in there while Bill Pigeon's horse is tied outside,” Tuxie protested. “Bill Pigeon's been known to shoot at people for no reason at all, 'specially if he's drunk.”

Ned trotted off toward the meeting hall without so much as a reply. Ned was casual about danger, particularly dangers that might only apply to Tuxie. It was partly because Ned was so handsome, Tuxie felt. Ned Christie was the handsomest man in the Cherokee Nation— women just dropped in Ned's lap, heavy and sweet as dewberries in June.

Also, Ned was a dead shot with rifle or pistol. He would often blow squirrels out of the very top of some elm tree or sycamore, and he would not spoil the meat, either. He would just shoot the limb right beside where the squirrel was resting, and the squirrel would come sailing down. Ned would pick it up while the squirrel was still stunned from the fall, and whack it against a stump a time or two to finish it off.

Tuxie himself would rarely even see the squirrel until it hit the ground. He did not like to be tilting his head up toward the sky, if he could avoid it. His Aunt Keta, who had often taken him skunk hunting when he was a boy, told him his brains would run out his ears if he tilted his head up too often. Later on, people tried to persuade him that his brains were not really that runny, but his Aunt Keta's warning had a power over him. He preferred to leave squirrel hunting to people like Ned Christie. Ned had no fear of runny brains, or of anything else that lived on Shady Mountain, where he made his home.

While Tuxie was wondering what to do about the whiskey he was expected to purchase, Pete took a sudden run at Ned's big grey horse.

Pete came skipping through the mud, snarling and spitting like a badger. He ran right up behind the grey, and was able to jump high enough to get a good grip on his tail.

That horse ain't going to appreciate a thing like that, Tuxie thought; and sure enough, he was right. Ned did not seem to notice the fat, black dog hanging on to his horse's tail—but the horse noticed. The big grey let Pete hang for a moment, and then kicked him about ten feet into the air. Pete got right up and leaped for the tail again. This time, the grey kicked him sideways, into a bunch of speckled chickens who were pecking around in the mud, hoping for a wet worm. The chickens squawked and flapped their wings, running back toward Old Mandy's chicken house, feathers flying.

Zeke whistled at Pete, who trotted over to his side, as bold as if he had not been kicked twice by an animal a hundred times his size.

Tuxie dismounted, and followed the speckled chickens. It occurred to him that Old Mandy might be hiding some of her whiskey in the chicken house.

Just about the time Ned caught up with Zeke Proctor, he noticed the Squirrel brothers heading up the street. They were well spread out—Rat Squirrel rode on the west side of the street; Jim Squirrel was on the east side of the street; and Moses Squirrel was right in the middle of the street, where the mud was deepest.

Zeke Proctor did not manifest the slightest interest in the Squirrel brothers.

“You ought to train that horse better,” he said to Ned. “A well-trained mount would know better than to be kicking at Pete.”

“If you had a tail and Pete was hanging from it, I guess you'd kick him, too,” Ned said mildly, as he dismounted.

Zeke had a wispy moustache and goatee, though his shoulder-length hair was thick and black. He wore a big floppy hat, to avoid the necessity of squinting in the powerful June sunlight. He had three pistols and a large knife stuck in his belt, and carried a rifle.

Pete rolled on his back, hoping his master would tickle his belly, but Zeke's mind was not on tickling dogs.

Ned had a notion there was bad blood between Zeke and the Squirrel brothers, but he could not remember offhand what the bad blood was about. His deceased wife, little Lacy, had been a Squirrel herself—he did not particularly want to be shooting down one of her
brothers, if he could avoid it—but here they came, plodding silently through the mud.

Zeke and Ned were both members of the Keetoowah Society, a conservative group whose main purpose was to see that the Cherokee people kept to the old ways. Their leaders believed it was important to try and work at a kind of peaceful, live-and-let-live existence with white men when possible, but not at the expense of Cherokee tradition and independence. The forcible removal of over seventeen thousand Cherokees from their native land was too fresh a memory, and the Keetoowah aimed to see that history did not repeat itself.

Zeke Proctor's father, a white man by the name of William Proctor, had married Zeke's full-blood Cherokee mother back in New Echota, Georgia. Zeke himself had come up the Trail of Tears with his mother's people when he was only seven years old. Watching many of his own people suffer and die on the long journey to Oklahoma wedded Zeke Proctor to the Cherokee way forever.

Ned Christie was a full-blood, born and raised in the Cherokee Nation. The Keetoowah Society strongly supported Cherokee governmental authority and favored their own law enforcement, especially after unscrupulous whites began crowding into the Cherokee Nation after the Civil War.

The Squirrel brothers were not members themselves, and if they were on their way down the street to kill Zeke Proctor, Ned would have to fight along with his Keetoowah brother. He did find it irksome though, that hostilities seemed to be brewing before he had even been in town long enough to procure a drink of whiskey.

He had not come to Tahlequah to fight; in fact, he had come with courting on his mind, and the object of his affections was Jewel Sixkiller Proctor, Zeke's own daughter. Young though she was, Jewel stood out as the beauty of the whole valley—tall and long stemmed like a lily flower, with huge almond eyes, blue-black hair cascading to her waist, and a comely figure beyond her years. Ned had made up his mind that he wanted to marry Jewel, and he meant to concentrate his energies on persuading Zeke to let him court her: that was why he promptly sent Tuxie off to get whiskey. Zeke had a mighty thirst, and would undoubtedly be more amenable to marrying off his daughter after he had imbibed a bottle of Old Mandy's fine whiskey.

So, under the circumstances, the Squirrel brothers were a vexation,
at best. Ned felt his temper rising at the mere sight of the bothersome trio.

“Are them Squirrels out of sorts with you?” he asked Zeke after he had dismounted. “They act to me like they're out of sorts.”

Zeke Proctor's eyes got hard as pebbles when he was challenged, but they were not particularly pebbly at the moment. Pete was still rolling around on his back, hoping to be tickled on the belly. Tuxie Miller was standing in front of Old Mandy's chicken house, looking useless.

“I'll handle the Squirrels,” Zeke said. “Why'd you get off your horse?”

There was not much friendliness in Zeke's tone, and it put Ned off a little. It might mean that Zeke would have preferred him just to keep on riding, and not get into any courting talk about Jewel.

“I prefer to shoot from a standing position, if I'm called upon to shoot,” Ned replied, a little stiff in tone himself.

Meanwhile, the Squirrels had arrived, lining themselves up to the west of the meeting hall. Rat Squirrel was picking at a scab on his chin.

“Zeke, don't you be going around the mill,” Jim Squirrel said.

“Fair warning, Zeke,” Moses added.

Zeke looked at the Squirrel brothers with half-lidded eyes.

“You boys get along now,” Zeke said mildly. “Can't you see that Ned and me are working on Senate business?”

“What Senate business?” Rat Squirrel wanted to know.

“You ain't a senator, Rat, we can't be talking to you about Senate business,” Zeke said. He spoke in the mildest tones. The mild tones were a characteristic that confused many men about Zeke Proctor. He could be talking along to you in mild tones, and then between one mild tone and the next, he'd be putting bullets in you, faster than a tailor could stitch.

“Stay away from the mill then, Senator,” Jim Squirrel said. “Polly's our sister, and she's a married woman. We don't want you sniffing around her, and she don't want it, neither.”

“If I need to know what Polly wants, I guess I can ask her myself,” Zeke said.

“You boys get along now,” he said again, looking Moses Squirrel right in the eye. His tone had abruptly stopped being mild, and his eyes were pebbly.

The Squirrel brothers looked at one another, sideways looks that did not require them to completely take their eyes off Zeke.

Ned dropped his hands onto the handles of the two .44s his father had given him when he was twelve. He decided to mainly shoot at Moses, since Jim and Rat were known to be erratic marksmen, and Moses could shoot.

Zeke chose that moment to reward his dog, Pete, with a lengthy tickle on the belly. Pete wiggled in delight. Ned supposed it was a ruse; Zeke would come up firing at any moment.

Almost as Ned thought it, firing commenced—but it did not come from Zeke or from the Squirrel brothers. Three men came dashing out of Old Mandy's house, with Bill Pigeon right behind them. Bill Pigeon stopped, stood flat footed, and emptied two six-shooters at the fleeing men. One man flinched, but all three kept on running.

“Bill, he's testy, ain't he?” Zeke remarked. He walked over to his horse and climbed on. The Squirrel brothers, distracted by the gunplay, trotted over to Bill Pigeon to inquire what had been the cause of the quarrel.

Tuxie Miller was waving from a bush behind the chicken house. He was excited—he had a whiskey bottle in each hand.

“Zeke, Tuxie's got whiskey,” Ned pointed out.

“I see that, let's go drink it,” Zeke said.

W
HEN
J
EWEL
S
IXKILLER
P
ROCTOR SAW
N
ED
C
HRISTIE RIDING UP TO
the house with her father, her heart began to flutter like a trapped bird.

The sun had just come out, and she was spreading wet laundry on some red haw bushes behind the house. She wanted the laundry to get as much sun as possible. It had been so rainy lately that a few of the clothes smelled a little mouldy from never getting quite dry. The six-year-old triplets—Linnie, Minnie, and Willie—were playing nearby.

It annoyed Jewel that her heart behaved so, just because Ned was coming. It fluttered against her rib cage, like a mockingbird or sparrow that had flown in a window of the house and could not find its way back out. She wanted to stay calm and composed, and just go on spreading the laundry on the red haw bushes.

But she was not calm and composed, for the sight of Ned Christie
stirred up something in her, something she could not control. Even her fingers seemed to lose their strength when Ned Christie showed up: Jewel promptly dropped two clean shirts on the wet grass, an occurrence that would have annoyed her mother, Becca, had she seen it. Linnie, the most helpful of the triplets, picked up the shirts for her before they got very muddy.

Zeke and Ned and Tuxie Miller splashed across the little creek behind the barn, and came trotting on toward the house. Zeke was carrying Pete in front of him in the saddle. Pete was too short legged to keep up with the horses when the men were riding fast. They must have ridden through a heavy shower, for the sunlight sparkled on droplets of water in Ned Christie's long, black hair. He was the tallest man Jewel had ever seen, but that was not why her heart began to flutter when he came visiting. He hardly spoke to her—no more than a “hello,” or maybe a “thank you,” if she offered him chicory coffee— but his eyes would not leave her alone. Mostly she cast her own eyes downward when Ned was in the house. She focused on her sewing, or on tending to the triplets. The triplets had come late in Becca's life, and were quite a handful. Jewel was almost full grown and had to help her mother keep an eye on the three feisty children. They were quick as little wildcats, and just keeping them out of the big fireplace where the women did the cooking was a hard job.