Zeke and Ned (37 page)

What Sully wanted Ned to understand was that he was not casual about the movements of the Beck clan. He had once paid them little mind, but since T. Spade Beck had shot at him, he had taken severe precautions in regard to the rest of the Becks. He did not mix up days and months, not when he was dealing with people who were inclined to shoot at him. Spirit time was always there; he could make trips in it in times of safety. He had seen the Becks yesterday, and had only just managed to scrunch down behind a big log to avoid being spotted.

“I seen them yesterday—don't be vexing me,” Sully said. “It's bad enough I fell out of that tree.”

“Somebody killed a white marshal in Tahlequah yesterday,” Ned informed him. “That's why I was asking so particular about the Becks.”

“Oh,” Sully replied, “why didn't you say so?”

“Because I was waiting to see if you'd broke your neck,” Ned said. “I was in town all day yesterday. A lot of people are probably going to
think I killed that marshal. You might have to talk for me in the courthouse, if it gets that far.”

Sully did not answer. His neck was not broken, but he felt a little dim in the head. A good nap in the cornshucks with his big rattler would be nice. He had come to think of the big snake as his protector. He slept better when he knew the snake was there, rustling around. If the Becks came after him in the cornshucks, the snake would get them.

“Does that horse ride double? I need to get to Zeke's,” Sully said.

“He rides double,” Ned said. “Zeke's is where I'm headed. Is he home?”

“No, Zeke's on the scout,” Sully told him.

Ned helped the old man on the horse, and hurried on to Zeke's place. It was a disappointment to hear that Zeke was gone, but at least Becca would be there. He had a taste for her cornbread; she was his mother-in-law now, and would not mind cooking for him. He could give her news of Jewel. Jewel had sent word to her mother about the baby and had asked her to visit, but the word might not have reached her.

“How is Becca?” he asked Sully. “We don't hear much news over on the Mountain.”

“Becca? She keeps to herself,” Sully said.

When he knocked and then stepped into Zeke's house, Ned was surprised at how clean the place looked. When Zeke was home, he sowed confusion in the household arrangements. The table was usually covered with tobacco pouches and traps and ammunition. Zeke was always mending harnesses, or working on a mule collar, or cleaning a gun. He preferred to do the work at the big kitchen table so he could enjoy family life while he was working. He liked to drink chicory coffee with plenty of whiskey in it. If Zeke was a little tipsy, he might sing ditties to the triplets, or play an old fiddle he kept handy by the fireplace. Ned always enjoyed visiting Zeke, because things were lively at Zeke's house, in contrast to his own house, which had been rather dank and dull until he persuaded Jewel to move in with him.

Now Zeke's house was silent as a church. Ned had spotted the triplets, up in the barn loft, and had tried to gobble like a turkey to lure them down. The triplets did not like his gobble as well as they liked Tuxie's, and so they did not come down. Pete was not around to bark at him, either—that was unusual, considering how barky Pete was.

“Hello, Becca. Any grub?” Ned asked, when he stepped through the door. Becca had been knitting, but she immediately got up and began to poke at the fire. Her look was not unfriendly, but it was cautious. Ned knew he ought to try and get on an easy footing with Becca, for Jewel's sake, but he did not quite know how to go about it.

“There's taters and greens,” Becca said. “I'll warm up a pot. What's the news from Jewel?”

“We sent word, didn't you get it?” Ned asked. “There's a baby coming.”

“No, I didn't get it, I don't get much news here, not with Zeke gone,” Becca said. She turned her back to Ned, and busied herself at the stove. For a moment she felt weepy, and she did not know why. Of course when a woman went off with a man, as Jewel had with Ned, it was to be expected that babies would be coming—that was nature. Becca was not sorry for her daughter; it was just that
her
life had taken a lonely turn of late, with things as they were between her and Zeke. She had no man in her bed, and no daughters in her house, either. She had the triplets, but the triplets led a life of their own, and Becca hardly saw them from dawn till dark. Now Jewel was about to have her own family, in a house such a distance away that visiting was not easy or practical. Even Liza had left, and seemed to be in no hurry to return. Becca lived in loneliness; for a moment, Ned's news made the loneliness deepen.

By the time the food was hot, she had caught herself. It was not Ned's fault that she had decided to live separately from Zeke. She served Ned taters and greens, and put some plum preserves on the table to go with his biscuit. He looked tired, but when she asked if she could spread a pallet for him, Ned shook his head.

“I'd better be going on home,” he said. “Jewel don't like it when I'm gone at night. There's trouble in Tahlequah. I need to see Zeke, if you know where to find him.”

“What sort of trouble?” Becca inquired.

“Two dead white marshals,” Ned told her. “I imagine I'll be accused of killing one of them.”

Becca asked no questions. She found it better not to question men any more than she felt necessary. The moment of sadness she had felt when she heard about the baby came back to her suddenly. Jewel's little child was not even born, and yet Ned, its father, would most likely be accused of a killing—the killing of a lawman. It meant he would be
hunted, and that he would have to run. Zeke was running even now, but Zeke did not have a young wife who would soon have a child. It meant hard times for Jewel, who had always been the cozy one, needing her mother and sister and Zeke.

Jewel feared darkness and had never liked to be alone. But now, if Ned was accused of the killing of a white marshal, he would have to run, and run hard and far. Jewel's child would be coming; she might even have it alone, and raise it alone. Becca looked at Ned, who was eating taters and greens as if he were starving. She wondered if she ought to ask him to allow Jewel to come home until the trouble passed—
if
it passed. Becca did not know Ned very well, but she liked him. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask; but she did not. Something in his manner warned her away from the question. He looked, to her, like the kind of man who would want to keep his wife at home—keep her at home, come what may.

“So where is Zeke, do you know?” Ned asked, between bites. Becca had been looking at him closely, so closely that it made him a bit uncomfortable, though he supposed it was a mother-in-law's right. Twice she had seemed to have a question in her eyes, but she did not ask it.

Just as he spoke, Sully Eagle limped in, reeking of grease. Sully used grease as a remedy for all ills, and falling out of a tree was ill enough to warrant good greasing, in his view.

“She don't know, and I don't, either,” he said, in response to the question about Zeke. “He was at the Cave, but he left. Too much company.”

“Well, I need to see him,” Ned said. “If he comes by, tell him to get word to me. I'll meet him on the Mountain somewhere.”

“He won't come by,” Becca said, looking out the door. “You'll have to go track him if you want to see him.”

Something in her tone, and the way she stood gazing at the hills, caught Ned's attention. Zeke was her husband; and yet, she had spoken of him in a faraway tone, as if he were merely a friend—someone she did not expect to see again. It was an unusual way for a woman to speak of her husband. Then he remembered that Liza said Becca had left Zeke for a while, and gone to live with her people. It was puzzling, but he was hungry and in a hurry. He looked at Becca, to see if she had anything more to say about Zeke. But she was staring out the door,
looking at nothing he could see. The way she stood, with her feet planted wide apart, reminded him of Jewel. The urge to get home and hold Jewel in his arms came back to him with a rush. He had a sudden urge to start being a better husband to Jewel. He did not want the day to come when Jewel would speak of him as distantly as Becca had just spoken of Zeke, her husband.

It might be that Becca had reached a place so far away from Zeke that she could not come back, no matter how loud he played the fiddle, or cut up with the triplets. Inside her, she was gone to the hills— or that was how it seemed to Ned.

Sometimes Jewel had gotten far away from Ned in her spirit. Those moments had frightened him, too. He remembered the first time it had happened: it was when he had taken her from her home to be his wife. They had been riding together on his horse and had stopped for a short rest. Ned helped Jewel down off the horse, and she stood staring back at the way they had come, looking as if she were no longer there with him. She stood that way for more than a minute. Ned finally had to walk around and stand directly in front of her to get her attention back to him. When she allowed her spirit to come back to where they stood together, Jewel looked startled—as if Ned had slapped her. Then, turning shy, she looked down at the ground, as Ned helped her back onto the horse.

Jewel's faraway look had been a worrisome thing to Ned. It had concerned him then; and now, seeing Becca, he reminded himself that he did not want Jewel drifting off to the hills in her spirit, the way her mother had just drifted.

Ned rushed through the rest of his meal, so as to get on home to his Jewel. The grease on old Sully was smelling up Zeke's house so bad that it was spoiling the taste of Becca's food.

When Ned finished, Becca followed Ned outside to his horse. She had one or two things more on her mind, but Ned had suddenly gotten impatient, as men would, and could hardly sit still another minute.

“Have you and Jewel got married proper yet, Ned?” she asked, once he was astride his horse.

Ned looked abashed—of all things for Becca to ask, when he badly needed to be on his way.

“That's why I went to town,” he told her. “I went off to find a
preacher. You know Preacher Williams died, before he could marry us. Jewel sent me off, she's anxious to have a preacher come before she has the baby.”

Becca felt a sudden anger. This man who could hardly wait a minute after his meal was finished, had taken her daughter away. With no warning, he had ridden in and taken her off. Though he had not meant to, he had ended up taking both her daughters, for Liza could not stand being without her sister. She knew the anger she was feeling was unfair—what Ned had done was nature—but she still felt the anger, like a slow burning in the middle of her chest.

“You do proper by my Jewel!” she chided, suddenly. “You find a preacher, and do proper by her . . . she ain't your whore!

“And you stand by her, too!” she added. “She's just a girl. You stand by her, Ned!”

“Why, Becca . . . I mean to,” Ned said, astonished and a little frightened by her vehemence.

“I mean to stand by her,” he said, again.

But Becca Proctor did not hear him. She burst into tears, turned, and hurried back toward her house.

W
HEN
D
AVIE
B
ECK LEARNED THAT HE HAD MISSED A CHANCE TO
kill Ned Christie, he immediately ran outside the mill and began to beat his brother Willy as he would beat a cur. White Sut Beck had pounded his runaway bear with a fence post until the fence post broke in two. Davie Beck picked up half the post, and laid Willy out with it, looked upon by Frank Beck and Little Ray Beck and old Roy Tagus, the trader who had brought the news. Old Roy traveled around the District selling sewing needles and sharpening kitchen knives. He also sharpened harrows, rakes, axes, posthole diggers, hatchets, and any other tool that needed to have a sharp edge in order to perform as it should. Old Roy was almost as old as White Sut, but he was far less wild, and the sight of Davie beating his brother with a fence post caused his stomach to churn.

“He was right there asleep under a bush!” Davie yelled. “If you'd kept your eyes open, we could have caught the son-of-a-bitch and cut his head off.”

“White Sut offered me a dollar for the head,” he reminded Willy bitterly, who did not hear the reminder.

“Well, that's what they say in Tahlequah, at least,” old Roy said. “I didn't see Ned myself.”

He was wondering if it had been wise to call at the Beck mill. He had once done a brisk business with Polly Beck, but Polly was dead, and her in-laws unpredictable. Davie Beck was not the sort of man to worry about whether the knives were sharp; he would be just as happy to stab an enemy with a dull one, if the enemy was handy.

Now he had caused a flood of blood to pour out of his brother's nose, due to the fact that an enemy
had
been handy, but had got away.

“You should have kept your goddamn eyes open!” Davie yelled, standing over Willy, whose eyes were closed at the moment, due to the unfortunate fact that he was unconscious. White Sut's bear, far back under the porch and still smarting from its own walloping, began to whimper. It was afraid it would be the next one beaten, though its master, White Sut, was not present, having ridden off the day before without a word.

Davie did not beat Willy as long as he normally would have, because the hand he liked to wield the post with, his right hand, was sore from having been bitten by the irate badger a few days before.

“I don't know why you're so mad at Willy,” Frank Beck said, once Davie's temper had subsided a bit. “At least you killed a marshal.

“It's not every day you kill a marshal,” Frank repeated, hoping the thought would lift Davie's spirits. It was not that Frank Beck particularly cared whether Davie was happy; it was just that when Davie was
not
happy, violent fits were apt to slop over from Willy, the usual target, to anyone who happened to be nearby—and Frank was nearby.