Zeke and Ned (5 page)

“Nope, he's got a room out back of the mill where he throws rotten grain,” Sully said. “That's where he breeds up his weevils.”

“Breeds 'em, and does what with 'em?” Zeke asked.

“Open one of them sacks and you'll know,” Sully said. “T. Spade
don't like you. He don't like Cherokees, and I doubt he likes Choctaws, either. He shoveled a bunch of them weevils into your corn.”

Zeke clambered up in the wagon, and began to open the sacks. He saw immediately that Sully was telling the truth: the corn meal was boiling over with weevils. Zeke kept on opening sacks, until he had opened them all. Every sack was thick with weevils. The best corn crop he'd harvested in years was ruined.

“The son-of-a-bitch,” he said when he'd opened the last sack. “You should have shot him.”

“I would have, but I didn't have no bullets,” Sully informed him.

Zeke was beginning to steam. Sully Eagle had killed men in his day; he had killed Bear Grimmet's father, for one, in a dispute over a colt. Why had he let T Spade Beck ruin the corn crop he had been entrusted with? It was a blot on Sully's otherwise spotless record.

“You had bullets when you left here,” Zeke reminded him. “What became of them?”

“I shot 'em all at a bear,” Sully said. “I jumped him over by Siloam Creek. He was a fat young bear, I think he would've made good eating.”

“Where is he, then?” Zeke asked.

“He run off into a thicket,” Sully admitted. “I hit him twice, but he kept on going. I guess he was too fat to die.”

“This is a fine damned stew!” Zeke said. “Now we ain't got no corn, and no bear meat, either.”

“You can feed the corn to your cattle,” Sully pointed out. “Cattle don't mind weevils.”

“I didn't work all spring to grow every bit of my corn for the dern heifers,” Zeke said. “You need to unhitch those mules, they're winded.”

“All right,” Sully said. “I'll go back and look for that bear after a while. He would make good eating.”

“Nope, I'll tend to Mr. Bear,” Zeke said. “I'll tend to T Spade, too. You stay here and help Becca with the chores.”

Sully was disappointed. He had once been an above-average tracker, and was convinced he could locate such a fat little bear, given a day or two, even with his diminished eyesight. But Zeke was in a temper; it would not do to argue with him at such a time. Sully got down from the wagon, and began to unhitch the mules.

Zeke headed at once for the house to collect his guns. Now that he'd had a moment to think, he realized there might be a bright side to what had happened. T. Spade Beck had declared war when he weeviled his corn. Ruining a man's corn crop was a deadly insult; Zeke could simply go and kill him. He would not have to wait for the results of the witching.

Becca and Liza were staring into the fire when Zeke came inside to gather up his arsenal. Since Jewel left, they had both been low, so low that Zeke was sort of relieved to have an excuse to go. The triplets clung to his pants leg, but he shook them off and gave them each a kiss. He gave Becca a quick peck on the cheek, but she did not even look up.

Before Sully Eagle had much more than got the mules unhitched, Zeke Proctor was back outside and on his way down the road to do battle with T. Spade Beck.

He carried a knife, a rifle, and three pistols.

T. S
PADE HAD NEVER BEEN A WAKEFUL MAN
.

He usually slept soundly through the night, snoring out of one side of his mouth. He and his wife, Polly, slept in the loft of the mill; if T. Spade did wake up, it was only to make water. He would stumble over to the door of the loft, and piss out into the darkness. Often as not, he pissed on the chickens, which the chickens did not appreciate. Sometimes the hens would get so upset that they would squawk for the rest of the night. If it was near dawn when T. Spade got up to make water, he might come back to bed with his bladder empty, thoughts of love on his mind. Polly would have to accept him with the hens clucking and raising Cain right underneath her; then, often as not, it would be time to get up and make a fire. Polly liked her sleep. Having to accept T. Spade that early in the day left her as fretful as the hens.

She mentioned the matter to Zeke, once she started slipping off with him. Zeke listened, and grinned his sly grin.

“But you
are
a hen,” he said. “You got soft feathers, like a hen should. When are you coming over to my henhouse, Polly?”

“He'll kill me if I leave, Zeke,” Polly told him.

But Zeke did not want to hear that.

“Soft feathers,” he said, again. “A man could get smothered in feathers this soft.”

A woman could get killed for letting you act like a rooster with her, too, Polly thought. But she could not help herself. She kept slipping out to see Zeke. He had a buffalo skin he brought with him for them to wrap up in on chilly days.

She never did know what alerted T. Spade, but something alerted him.

T. Spade had been in the habit of going into Siloam Springs two or three days a week to drink and play cards, but then he suddenly stopped. He only went into Siloam Springs now if he absolutely had to. He had enjoyed hunting coons at night, and frequently went fishing with one of his cronies from town, but he gave up coon hunting and fishing, too.

One day, Polly spilled coffee on him, and he slapped her so hard she was dizzy for an hour.

The worst part of it was that T. Spade started watching her in the night. She had gotten used to sleeping with the rhythm of his snoring. But then he stopped snoring, too. If she happened to wake up in the night, T. Spade would be propped up on his elbow, watching her. She was afraid to ask him what was the matter. He might turn the question around, and ask her about Zeke. Polly was not a good liar, and she knew it. She did not want T. Spade to start asking questions—she was afraid of what might happen if he got her talking. He had not hit her often, but when he did, he hit her hard.

T. Spade soon made it impossible for her to slip off and see Zeke. He stuck close to the mill, and saw to it that Polly had plenty of chores. Even if all the chores were finished, Polly did not dare take a walk. T. Spade would just sit in his chair and look at her, sometimes for hours at a time. He even built an outhouse behind the mill. They had always just gone in the bushes, like most folks, but T Spade dug a pit and nailed up an outhouse over it. He did not want Polly wandering out in the bushes—not anymore.

Polly knew Zeke must have come several times and waited at their meeting place in the woods. She missed him; she wanted him to touch her soft feathers; but there was no way she could slip off now.

T. Spade had been a freighter before he bought the mill. He had several times driven teams of oxen all the way from Tennessee. He still
had his bullwhip, and he knew how to use it. Polly was afraid he would use it on her, if she ever weakened and admitted anything about Zeke.

Soon the tension at night began to be more than she could bear. Much as she liked being with Zeke on the buffalo robe, and feeling his wispy moustache when he kissed her, fear began to drown out memories of Zeke Proctor and their pleasures. Every day, T. Spade seemed to grow more watchful and more demanding. Once, while Polly was spreading washing on the bushes, T. Spade put several big corncobs on a stump behind the mill and started cutting them in two with his bull-whip. He did not miss a single cob—a knife could not have halved the cob any cleaner. He looked at Polly when he finished, and coiled his whip.

That night, Polly had a dream that T. Spade was lashing her. When she woke from the dream, sweating and shaking, T. Spade was on top of her. Half the night, sometimes, he was on top of her—as if to show her that, though he might be old in years, he was not old in all respects.

Polly Beck had always been one to look on the bright side. A pretty day was all it took to send her spirits floating high. But under the constant pressure of T. Spade's watchfulness, she ceased to be able to take pleasure even in the sunlight. She went to bed weary, and woke up weary; sun or cloud ceased to matter to her. T. Spade was at her so much that she could barely remember Zeke's soft moustache, or the shine in his eyes when he looked at her.

It did not take T. Spade long to make his point, and his point was that he still wanted Polly for his wife. For a time, T. Spade had shown so little interest in her that Polly convinced herself he might not mind if she went off to be Zeke's new wife. Zeke could give him a cow or two, or whatever the two men decided was a fair exchange for a woman who was no longer really young, and the parting would be amicable and in accordance with custom. Lots of men in the Going Snake District had more than one wife, even though one of them might only be common-law. The legalities of it did not matter to Polly; she just did not want the men fighting. If they fought, either Zeke or T Spade would likely end up dead, and Polly would rather stay put and be a little less happy than to have either man killed.

But T Spade Beck was her husband, and he reminded her of that forcefully and frequently now. His lack of interest had been just a temporary lull. He was still determined to have her as a wife, which was a
thing Polly had to yield to. It might be in her to slip off and meet Zeke Proctor, to let him kiss her and touch her soft feathers, to let him lay with her on his buffalo robe; but it was not in her to deny her husband what was his. She had accepted T. Spade in marriage—he could release her if he chose to, but Polly could not release herself. Once T. Spade made it clear he had no intention of yielding any husbandly rights, Polly ceased to struggle. She accepted, again, her place as his wife. It horrified her to think she had been so silly about Zeke Proctor that she had tried to get the old witch woman, Spider, to witch T. Spade and make him drown.

One day, old Spider hobbled to the mill to beg a little cornmeal for her mush. Polly told her, right out, to forget about the witching. She no longer wanted her husband to drown in a creek. Zeke Proctor would have to find another woman to beguile with his soft moustache and shining grey eyes.

Once Polly let T. Spade know by her chastened demeanor that she was not going to wander from him, he finally became convinced of her fidelity, and ceased to watch her all night. He began to sleep soundly again, snoring out of the side of his mouth. He came to her often still, but no longer with a vengeance.

Polly thought the danger had passed. She felt a little wistful when she thought of Zeke, but being wistful was a lot better than fearing for her life.

Then one day, while Sully Eagle was waiting with Zeke's wagon and team, Polly saw T. Spade shoveling weevils into the freshly ground corn. He put a shovelful of weevilly maize into every one of Zeke's sacks. Sully Eagle did not say a word, and neither did Polly.

T. Spade was red in the face. He always got red in the face when he was really angry. That night, for no reason at all, he hit her so hard she nearly fell out of the loft.

Polly knew, then, that it was not over.

Z
EKE SET OFF IN A FURY TO GO KILL
T. S
PADE BECK
.

The man had shoveled weevils into his corn sacks, an insult that could only be wiped out by gunplay. Once T Spade was dead or at least shot up, he meant to lope home with Polly Beck. Then, he would send Polly, Becca, Liza, and the triplets off for a visit with Jewel, while
he armed himself for a siege. T. Spade had five brothers and a small army of cousins, some of whom would undoubtedly try to avenge him. Zeke thought he might try to persuade Ned Christie to join him until the first hostilities subsided. With a marksman of the stature of Ned Christie in his camp, Zeke felt sure he could hold off any number of Becks. Davie Beck, a wild renegade, was the one most to be feared. Davie Beck had been known to steal wives right out of their husbands' beds; the husbands unfortunate enough to wake up while the thievery was in progress were promptly dispatched. He was known to be shortsighted, however, and could only shoot effectively at close range. Zeke had no intention of letting him get in close range, a thing easy to prevent with Ned around. Ned could spot game in the woods quicker than a red-tailed hawk, and he could spot a target as large as Davie Beck two miles away.

It was eighteen miles from Zeke's house to the Beck mill. Despite his urgent fury, Zeke met with a few distractions on the way. He heard the thunk of an axe as he was riding along; when he went to investigate, he found Daniel Redbird and his son Charley trying to chop into a bee tree. Zeke had a terrible sweet tooth. There was no such thing as too much sweetening, in his book. He took a hand at the chopping in return for a bucket of honey. Daniel had a jug of whiskey in his wagon, and they resorted to the jug from time to time to relieve the monotony of chopping. The tree was a bois d'arc, and hard as a crowbar. It was so late when they finally chopped through to the honey that the three of them rolled up in the wagon for the night, and slept.

When Zeke woke the next morning, it was foggy, causing him to slow his start. Zeke had told the story of T Spade and the weevils, and the Redbirds were sympathetic—but Daniel, a nervous man, cautioned Zeke to wait until the fog lifted before hurrying on to kill T Spade.

“You could mistake your man, in fog this thick,” Daniel said.

“I won't mistake my man,” Zeke assured him. “Don't forget to leave my honey with Becca.”

He was barely out of earshot of the Redbirds, when he jumped the same fat bear that Sully Eagle had jumped. The bear loomed up in the fog, scaring Zeke's horse, Joe, so badly that he ran away, with Zeke sawing at the reins. Zeke managed to put two bullets into the bear before Joe bolted, but the horse ran for half a mile before Zeke could
get him quieted down. He dismounted and backtracked to where he had jumped the bear, but the bear had already departed.

“That bear's probably over the hill by now,” Zeke said to Joe, reproachfully. “Sully didn't get him, and neither did I.”