Zeke and Ned (52 page)

It was Ned's war; yet I fault myself for it some. I seen that light on the Mountain, and I had a feeling, then, that it might be a posse. I ought to have waited and made sure, but I had Becca with me, and because I wanted my wife home and happy, I put it out of my mind.

In the evening of that same day, I got her home. Ned's mule was a balker; the trip was terrible slow.

“I can walk faster than this mule,” Becca said, at one point. Becca was ever impatient. She got off, and walked five miles, taking Pete with her—she and Pete got way ahead of the mule, too. But then she wore out, and had to get back up and let the mule carry her the rest of the way.

Frank Beck was waiting on our porch when we got home. From the looks of his horse, he had ridden hard.

“Now what is he wanting? We didn't invite him,” Becca said. She was put out with all the Becks. It went back to Polly, I guess.

But Frank Beck was decent. Even Pete hardly barked at him, when he got down from in front of my saddlehorn. The minute I saw Frank, I had the fear that he had come with bad news . . . mostly I felt it for my not making sure about that light.

“Hello, Zeke . . . it's terrible news,” Frank said.

When he told it, Becca began to cry to the saints. Her cries rent the air so that all the chickens ran out from under the porch and hightailed it. Pete crawled under the porch, and we didn't see him again until nighttime. Becca fell down on her knees, from grief.

“We lost our Liza, Zeke!” she shrieked. “We lost our Liza!”

“I know, Bec . . . ,” is all I said. There was no comfort I could offer her. One moment I felt like crying myself; then the next moment, I wanted to jump on my horse, find Tailcoat Jones, and kill him. He was a raider and a raper in the War, and he's a raider and a raper still.

“I had better be going, Zeke,” Frankie Beck said, after Becca sank to her knees.

“I would offer you a meal if I had one, Frank,” I said. “I thank you for taking the trouble to come. . . .”

I wanted Sully Eagle to pasture the mule. I had Rebecca to tend to.

“Have you seen Sully anywhere?” I asked Frank.

“Sully? He's dead,” Frank informed us. I don't really think Becca heard him, when he said it.

“Dead?” I said, still stunned by his account of the attack on Ned's place. “Dead of what?”

“Just dead of death, I guess,” Frank replied. “He's in the corncrib.”

“Well . . . I swear,” I said.

Frankie's information was accurate: Sully was dead in the corncrib. The big rattler that lived in the shucks was coiled on his chest when I went to look. The rattler rattled at me till I was of a notion to shoot it. But finally, the old snake just crawled away.

Sully hadn't died of snakebite, either. He had just died of death, like Frankie Beck said.

The fact that the rattler had coiled on his chest I considered an omen of war.

I
DIDN'T CLOSE AN EYE THAT NIGHT, AND NEITHER DID
B
ECCA
. S
HE
rocked all night in the rocking chair, holding one of Liza's dolls, Pete laying beside her the whole time.

“I ought to go see if Ned's alive,” I told her, come sunup. “If he's dead, I'll be needing to bring Jewel home. Do you want to come?”

Becca kept putting the little rag doll against her face. She had cried till the doll was soaked.

Finally, she shook her head.

“You go on, Zeke,” she said. “I don't want to be leaving our place again—not till I'm put in my grave.”

“I better get moving. There's no telling what kind of shape Jewel's in, even if Ned's alive. I got to bring her back here, and then go get the triplets. But I hate to leave you with no company, Bec,” I said. “I don't want you to grieve yourself to death.”

Rebecca didn't answer. She just sat there, rocking with Liza's doll.

“I fault myself for this,” I confessed. “I ought not to have ridden off without seeing about that light.”

Becca looked old, then—as old as if she'd lived a thousand years.

From the look in her eye, I had the fear that she might be losing her mind. I was afraid if I left, I'd come back and find her demented.

But I misjudged my Becca. While I was stabling the mule and saddling a horse, she went inside and cooked me up some bacon. I was surprised that there was any bacon, but she told me she and Sully had slaughtered the only pig they could catch. The rest had gotten loose and gone wild.

“It's a long ride back. I want you to eat,” she said. “Don't be talking to me about faulting, either.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Life's but a quilt of faults, and I patched the quilt, same as you,” Rebecca told me. She was wrapping me some meat to take on the trip, when she said it.

“If anybody comes by, see if they'll bury Sully for us,” I told her, just before I left. “If Sully's left out much longer, there'll be buzzards on the barn thick as fleas.”

Becca looked irritated, like she used to look if I woke her up before she got her sleep out. Only now, it was her grief I was waking her up from, I guess. But it was a practical concern; Sully was dead in the corncrib, and I had to hurry to Ned's.

“I'll tend to him, Zeke, you go on,” she said. “Jewel's the one needs help now.”

“He might be too heavy for you to carry,” I proffered.

“Then I'll drag him with the mule, if he is,” Becca said. “I've dug graves before—I buried my own father. I'll get to it in a minute, before it gets too hot.”

I didn't say more. Becca was a woman of her word. I put the bacon in one saddlebag, and filled the other with ammunition. My packing the bullets didn't sit right with Becca. She gave me a look, and it wasn't the look of a woman who was losing her mind.

“Who are you planning to shoot with all those bullets?” she asked.

“Why, I don't know who I might shoot,” I told her. “I expect I'll shoot the goddamn cur that killed our daughter, if I see him.”

“I thought you were going to see about Jewel and Ned,” she said. “I didn't know you were going off to fight.”

“I ain't going off to fight,” I said. “But I want to be ready, if it comes to that.”

Becca got up, put the doll in the rocking chair, and picked up a
spade that was leaning against the porch. The chickens had returned, and were clucking. The chickens had always liked Becca. When she was cheerful, she kept corn in her apron, to scatter for them. She wasn't happy now, but she tolerated the hens anyway.

“I come home to be a wife to you, Zeke,” she said. “I didn't come home to be a widow.”

She looked at me, while the hens clucked.

“I'll dig a grave for Sully,” she said. “I don't want to have to be digging a grave for my husband, not after losing our baby girl.”

“The bullets are just a precaution, Bec,” I said. “There'll be a war now. I don't want to be caught without bullets.”

Becca looked at me. Then she walked over by her garden, looking for a place to dig Sully Eagle's grave.

O
N THE ROAD PAST
T
AHLEQUAH
, I
MET
S
HERIFF
C
HARLEY
B
OBTAIL
.

Charley had a little place where he grew corn and sweet potatoes. Charley was known to have a big appetite for sweet potatoes. He looked fearful when he spotted me. I guess he thought I was going to shoot him for having been my jailer. Charley was renowned for the sweet potatoes, but not for good judgment; I always wondered how he made sheriff over in Tahlequah.

Those jail days in Tahlequah seemed a long time ago. Worse troubles had come, and they had probably come to stay.

“I guess you heard about the raid,” Charley said, when I rode up. “Are you going for vengeance, Zeke?”

“I'm going to Ned's, if he's still alive. I need to see how my daughter's doing,” I told him.

“They say Ned's blinded—that's about all I know,” Charley volunteered. “Tuxie was burned out, too. It's an outrage to the District, burning farms out like that.”

“Well, I've got to hurry, Sheriff,” I said. “I expect you need to weed your corn.”

Charley Bobtail had been scared to see me come; now he seemed as scared to see me go. I guess he thought Tailcoat Jones might show up and shoot him or hang him, or at least burn up his corn crop. Tailcoat had burned the Millers out for no reason. He just might enjoy hanging a Cherokee sheriff for no reason, too.

M
Y THOUGHT WAS TO STOP BY THE
M
ILLERS' ON MY WAY TO
N
ED'S
. I wanted Tuxie's opinion on what had happened, and what we ought to do.

But when I got there, there were no Millers, and no house, either. Their home had been a frame structure; it had burned all the way down to its foundation. I didn't see a soul, but I heard banging down at the barn. The barn wasn't burnt, but it wasn't much of a shelter, either, not for a family of twelve. Dale rode Tuxie day and night, but she hadn't ridden him hard enough to get him to fix the barn roof, which had holes you could throw a mule through.

I thought Tuxie must be pounding something on the anvil, which was on the far side of the barn and out of sight. I approached him cautious, thinking he might be jumpy, but the man pounding the anvil was Rat Squirrel, who jumped nearly out of his skin when he saw me, despite my cautious approach.

Seeing Rat was a big surprise. He was not known to be friendly to the Millers, or to anybody else. He was trying to straighten a horseshoe on the anvil, but he seemed drunk. He was only striking the horseshoe about one lick out of three. I suppose he thought he was welcome to the use of the anvil, since Tuxie wasn't home.

It was the first time in my life that I had seen Rat Squirrel without his brothers, a fact I mentioned to him at once, hoping to put him at his ease.

“Why have you wandered off without your kin, Rat?” I inquired. “I've never seen you in your life apart from your kin.”

“I didn't wander, Zeke . . . it was my dern brothers who wandered,” Rat said.

“Wandered where?” I asked.

“Jimmy went up to Kansas and married a wild slut with buckteeth,” Rat said. “He brought her home, but she didn't like Moses, 'cause you shot off his jaw and got him surly.”

“Moses was surly long before I shot off his jawbone,” I informed him. “And I wouldn't have shot it off if he hadn't been planning to hang me.”

“Anyway, that buck-tooth gal ran off, and Jimmy's chasing her. He says he can't get enough of buck-toothed women,” Rat said.

“Where's that damn surly Moses?” I asked.

“Went to Little Rock,” Rat said. “There's a doc in Little Rock who is supposed to be able to make jaws.”

Rat kept looking at me, and then at the trail, while he attempted to straighten the horseshoe. I expect he was worried about the posse, too. Everybody was worried about them.

“What have you heard about the posse?” I asked him.

“I heard Ned killed about half of it,” Rat said. “Our best mule ran off, that's why I'm here. I want to find that mule and get on home before the next posse shows up.”

“Well, good luck in your search, then,” I said, before I rode off.

Despite his villainy, I felt a little sorry for Rat Squirrel. He was a man with no friends, and no abilities, either. Rat would be easy pickings for a posse, or for anybody else who came along and wanted to pick him.

It made me hot, thinking about the posse. A bunch of white ruffians rode over the hill, armed with the white court's authority, and plenty of firearms. They burned out two families, killed one of my daughters, and done Lord knows what to the other one. I decided then and there that if Ned Christie could see at all, I'd talk him into helping me get up a militia.

There were hellions among the Cherokee at that time, but most Cherokee people were decent and law-abiding. They didn't deserve to live scared, jumping every time a horseman rode up to the barn. The more I thought about it, the more I took to the idea of a militia. It would need to be well armed, and well mounted, too, so the men could gather quick in case of attack. Twenty men who could ride and shoot might be enough. The white law would likely think twice before challenging twenty Cherokee fighters.

I meant to talk to Ned about it, if he was well enough to talk when I got there.

O
N THE RIDE UP THE
M
OUNTAIN
, I
BEGAN TO THINK OF OUR
L
IZA
, and my spirits started sinking. The shock had wore off, and the fact was there: our Liza was dead. Our Jewel was a real sweet daughter, but she was never much of a talker—Liza was my talky girl. I could sit her in my lap and yarn to her for hours, about her Grandma and Grandpa Proctor; about my traveling the Trail of Tears when a mere boy; about
meeting Becca and marrying her; and my talky girl always had something to say about the yarns. We used to joke that Liza would only stop talking the day she died. It seemed a cruel joke, now that a posseman from Arkansas had quieted Liza forever. The dead were piling up now, in the hills, but I never expected my sprightly little girl to be a part of the pile. Frank Beck said he heard it was an accident, but you don't hit a girl with a stick of firewood by accident. If the man that done it could be identified to me, I meant to see that he died in his turn. But it might be I would never see the man.

Whether I found him or not, there would be more killing. The whites hadn't wanted the Cherokee in Georgia; now, they didn't want them west of the Arkansas River, either. I figured out why, finally: whites have always been scared of Cherokees, because they don't understand them. My ma and pa loved Georgia; they loved the streams and valleys, the hills, the woods, their friends and families, their home and their land. They were rooted in the very soil they planted their crops in, and that held the bodies of our dead loved ones. White folks don't understand or respect those things like Cherokees. They jump around from one place to the other like frogs in a hailstorm. Indians ain't wanted anywhere, but they're a pure fact of life. Forming a militia would let the white law know we Cherokees meant to stay.