Zeke and Ned (54 page)

Tuxie was too busy chomping to reply. Dale Miller was slicing the deer guts into sections; I expect she was planning to make sausage. Dale was a worker, I'll say that for her. The rest of us would wear ourselves to a nub, and Dale would still be working.

That night, when things had settled down, I noticed that Ned was wakeful. He kept sitting up, which he wasn't supposed to do, twisting his head around toward the Mountain. Ned was said to have exceptional hearing; I wondered if he heard something I couldn't hear. I suppose that posse could have taken on reinforcements and be headed back to finish Ned.

“Is it horses?” I asked.

“No horses,” Ned said. “I'm just smelling the air.”

I thought since he was awake, it might be a good time to mention my notion of a militia. The posse might not be on its way that night, but posses would come again, and keep coming until we showed them we wouldn't take it.

But Ned hardly listened to my talk of a militia. He kept craning his head around toward the Mountain, though he had the poultice tied around his eyes and couldn't see.

“You can get up a militia if you want to, Zeke,” he said. “I expect it would help the folks down in the flats, if you did.”

“It would help you, too, if it was a strong militia,” I told him.

“Nope. What I need is a fort,” he said. “I aim to go as high up the Mountain as I can, and build one for me and Jewel. I aim to start the day I get my eyesight back.

“I won't be burned out again,” Ned declared. “I aim to get some land on top of the Mountain and build a fort with walls so thick the white law can't burn it—not unless they bring fire from hell.”

I saw his mind was set. I didn't say more about the militia. We shared some tobacco and sat on the grass, not saying much. Ned was in no mood for sleep, and neither was I. I wanted to get home to Becca and my triplets, but I felt I mustn't run off hasty again—not with Ned blinded, and unable to shoot.

If Tuxie Miller could have shot as well as he ate, he could have held off any amount of law. But the fact was, he couldn't shoot a fence-post at five feet.

I passed a week with Ned and Jewel and the Millers, helping out as best I could. Jewel's bruises healed, and she got most of her strength back. Jewel was quieter than ever, and she scarcely left Ned's side, unless it was to help Dale Miller with some chore. The sparkle was still gone from her eyes.

Long before the week was up, Ned wanted to yank the poultice off, but Dale Miller fussed at him so hard, he let be.

When he did take it off, he could see as good as ever, though only out of the one eye. To prove it, Ned and Tuxie and me went squirrel hunting, high in the woods. Ned's rifle had been found, no worse for wear. His shooting was no worse for wear, either. One-eyed or not, he shot the limbs out from under six tasty squirrels, not missing one time. Tuxie and me popped away at squirrels all afternoon, and only killed two.

When finally it was time for me to go home to Becca, Ned walked up to my horse and told me he had taken a vow never to speak the

English language again. The bullet had left Ned's nose twisted a little to the side, and he wasn't quite as handsome as he used to be. But he was still a great warrior in the eyes of the Cherokee Nation. He had survived attack, and so had my Jewel, his wife; he wanted me to spread the word among our people. He wanted them to know that he would never speak the enemy's tongue again. Becca was fluent in Cherokee and English. Being that the Cherokees were the only Indians with a written alphabet, Becca had made certain Jewel learned how to speak and write in both languages, too. She had crooned all our babies to sleep by singing hymns to them in Cherokee, and Jewel knew most of the words to those songs herself. I figured, rightly, that Jewel would be able to keep up with Ned in the language department. To my knowledge, Ned Christie kept his word: he only spoke the Cherokee tongue for the rest of his life.

B
ECCA HAD THE TRIPLETS THERE, WHEN
I
GOT HOME
.

From the look of the new grave, Sully had been well buried in back of the garden. I guess that big old rattler didn't care to stay, with Sully gone. I never saw it again.

Pete was whimpering when I came in; Willie had stuck Pete's tail in the fire. When they saw me, the triplets came at me like a swarm of honeybees. I was about wore out from my trip to Ned's, but I tussled with them and yarned with them all till bedtime.

Becca was quiet during supper. She didn't want to talk about the troubles in front of the triplets.

We were in bed and had blown out the lantern, when Becca finally got around to asking about Jewel and Liza.

“Liza's buried in a pretty spot,” I told her. “The grave's at the edge of the trees. It's grassy all around it.”

It was a few minutes before she asked about Jewel. I thought she might have fallen asleep, but she was just laying there in the dark, thinking about our Liza, I'm certain.

“Was Jewel poorly, Zeke?” Becca asked, in a whisper.

“Yes . . . they were rough on her,” I admitted. “She lost the baby, and I was afraid the first night that we were going to lose her, too, Bec. But Old Turtle Man came, and she got better. She was up and doing, when I left.”

Becca got quiet again. She didn't say another word, not for a long time. It made me uneasy, Becca being so quiet for so long. Sometimes the quiet can seem louder than noise, late at night.

“Jewel's a young woman,” I reminded her. “She's but seventeen. She's got Ned, and she's got time to heal up and get over this.”

Becca shifted around a little in the bed, before she answered me.

“There's some wounds time can't heal, Zeke,” Becca said. “You ought to know that by now.”

T
HEN THE NEWS CAME THAT
T
AILCOAT JONES HAD DROWNED
, unexpected news for sure.

Rat Squirrel brought it. He was perplexed by the disappearance of his best mule, and came by to ask if I had seen any fresh mule tracks. I hadn't; then Rat came out with the news about Tailcoat Jones.

“Drowned?” I said. “Why was the man in the water?”

“All I heard was that he went out in a boat with a whore, and they got caught in a bad storm,” Rat said. “Maybe the storm turned the boat over—nobody knows.”

“Why take a whore out in a boat? There's better places to take a whore,” I remarked.

“I don't know,” Rat confessed. “I hope a dern storm didn't drown my mule. It'll be hard to get the plowing done, without that mule.”

T
HE NEXT WEEK
, I
WENT IN TO
T
AHLEQUAH AND MADE A SPEECH IN
the Cherokee Senate about the need for a well-equipped militia. I had hoped Ned would be able to come, but he couldn't. He felt it best not to leave Jewel just yet.

That being the case, I felt free to speak for him. Chief Bushyhead was annoyed that I had let Pete come in the Senate building with me, and he picked Pete up by the scruff of his neck and threw him out in the street. Pete sat under the window and whimpered for the rest of the session, making it difficult to hear the speeches, but Chief Bushy-head didn't care. He was too deaf to hear much of the speeches anyway. Chief Bushyhead knew what he thought about most of the
questions before he even called the Senate into session. Speechifying made little impression on him.

“A militia will only aggravate the white people and lead to more fighting and bloodshed,” he told the Senate—whereupon the notion was promptly voted down.

The fact that my notion had been voted down so promptly riled me, I have to admit. Also, I didn't appreciate having my dog thrown out the door. There was no rule on the books saying personal dogs couldn't attend Senate sessions.

While riled, I made my speech.

“You are a bunch of goddamn cowards,” I said. “Ned Christie, our noble warrior, has taken a vow never to speak the English language again. There have been depredations visited on our land and our people, so many I can't keep count anymore. Our women have been mistreated and murdered, valuable structures have been burned, and livestock have been lost, as a result. I say we band together into a militia and smite our enemies, next time they show up to burn and rape.”

I thought I made a fair speech, but I might as well have been talking to the chickens, for all the good it did. The old deaf Chief got his way.

All right, then, I thought, I'll raise my
own
damn militia. By sundown, I had ten men, only two of them drunk. Arch Scraper, Tail Sixkiller, Blackhaw Sixkiller, John Walkingstick, Thomas Walking-stick, George Beanstalk, Duck-Wa Beemer, Jesse Still, Ned Still, and John Looney were the men. They all promised to avoid horse races and stay out of gambling halls, in case the white law showed up in force.

Later, as I was about to head home, well pleased with my militia, Sheriff Charley Bobtail informed me that my name was one of five on Judge Parker's arrest list, along with Ned Christie and three of the Becks.

“He'll play hell arresting me now, unless he's got most of the United States Army over there in Fort Smith,” I said.

Charley Bobtail had no opinion about the matter. Charley had looked a little poorly ever since the big shootout in the courtroom. In my view, Charley Bobtail had too mild a disposition to be a sheriff, besides which he couldn't cook worth a damn. A sheriff who's expected to keep the health of his prisoners ought to be able to cook, in my view.

“Why don't you resign, Charley, and avoid all this hell?” I asked, before I rode off. “You could just sit there on your farming place, and grow sweet potatoes for the rest of your life.”

Charley got a gleam in his eye, when I mentioned the sweet potatoes.

T
HE NEXT NEWS
I
HEARD OF
N
ED
C
HRISTIE WAS HE HAD BOUGHT A
steam engine, and a fine pair of mules. I expect he borrowed money from his pa for such a purchase. The mules were to drag the logs for his fort; the steam engine was to power a little sawmill he used for the cutting. Frank Beck brought me that news.

Frank Beck was turning into a fine neighbour. He said Davie had left the Territory, planning to find a gold mine in Colorado. I could only suppose with his wild brother gone, Frank wanted to be shut of the bad blood between us.

Frank didn't mention White Sut, and I didn't inquire.

“If he's got a sawmill and two big mules, I guess he's building his fort,” I told Becca later. “Ned's a good builder. Jewel will be safe, once he gets that fort finished.”

Becca was churning butter. I don't know if she didn't hear me, or if she wasn't convinced, but she didn't say a word.

I
T WAS BECAUSE OF THE MILITIA THAT
I
ENDED UP GETTING MY
amnesty from President Ulysses S. Grant himself. I would never have supposed President Grant would be required to take notice of me at all, or of our militia, which we called the Keetoowah Militia, because most of the boys in it belonged to the Keetoowah Society and did their best to keep to the old Cherokee ways and customs—ways that our people had practiced in the Old Place, before the white men came and inflicted their ways upon us.

The only reason I ended up with an amnesty from President Ulysses S. Grant was that two white marshals from Little Rock let a whiskeyseller get away. The whiskeyseller was one of Belle Blue's sons, Zacharias Blue, or Zack for short. Zack was young and reckless and sold whiskey openly at times when he should have been amusing himself
by whoring or fishing. Zack's whiskey was not the pure stuff Belle Blue concocted; the two marshals came to know about him because a man had gone blind, from drinking Zack's whiskey.

The fellow, whose name was Johnson, disliked being blinded by the liquor so much that he took recourse to the law. The marshals sent to arrest Zack were named Lee Chaney and Cephus Washburn. They were dispatched from Little Rock instead of Fort Smith because Judge Ike Parker's wife had died suddenly of a tumour, and the Judge had closed the court for a month, to wrestle with his grief.

If Judge Parker had been running his court at the time, I doubt the trouble in Dog Town would ever have happened. Ike Parker would have had better judgment than to send two men who couldn't shoot, and who could barely ride, to Dog Town to arrest one whiskeyseller.

I guess the judge in Little Rock thought any fool could arrest an Indian or a whiskeyseller. It was a mistake quite a few judges make, in my experience.

Marshal Chaney and Marshal Washburn rode right past Zack Blue, when they rode into Dog Town. Zack put his hat over his eyes and pretended to snooze as soon as he saw the marshals coming, and the marshals bought the bluff. Zack waited until they were well past him, and then slipped off into the hills.

There was a fine meadow about a mile north of Dog Town, popular with people who liked to race horses. I was there with a dozen or so militia men, matching some two-year-old horses run against each other. We were not racing serious, just running little hundred-yard matches, when the two marshals rode up.

There had been no disturbances recently, and I had about forgotten that I was a candidate for arrest, when Marshal Lee Chaney discourteously rode up to me while I was adjusting a stirrup and shoved a six-shooter rudely into my ribs.

“By God, if you're Zeke Proctor, I'm taking you to Fort Smith,” Lee said.

“Oh—I ain't Zeke,” I replied. “Zeke's my younger brother. That's him on that sorrel filly.”

The man on the sorrel filly was actually Looney. He was ten years younger than me, and looked nothing like me at all. You would think even the dumbest lawman would see through such a trick, but it convinced Marshal Chaney.

He took the six-shooter out of my ribs, and as soon as he did, I
whistled up the militia. In less than a minute, the two marshals were in the middle of twelve Cherokee militiamen, all armed and competent.