Zeke and Ned

  Tuxie accepted that answer, and went quietly to sleep. Then, while Ned was brooding about the impertinence of Dale Miller for presuming to tell him what was proper, as if he did not know himself what was proper, it occurred to him suddenly that Dale’s impertinence might have provided him with a key to his freedom—or at least, to a trip away from home. He needed to find a preacher; why should he not go look for one?

  Ned sprang up, ran to the lots, and within minutes had his horse caught and saddled. Jewel had just finished milking her nannies, and she looked alarmed when she saw him saddling up. Ned, through, had his story ready.

  “I got to go, Jewel. Tuxie says there’s a preacher living over at Stump Town now,” Ned told her.

  “What? Where’s Stump Town?” Jewel asked. Though apprehensive about him leaving, she was pleased at the thought of a preacher. It thrilled her that Ned was still on the lookout for one.

  “Ain’t you been to Stump Town? It’s over by Mule Water,” Ned said, lying rapidly. “Stump Town’s not much of a place, but they do a lot of preaching there.”

  “Why, if it’s not much of a place?” the nosey Liza inquired.

  “Because it’s on the flats, Liza. It’s easier for preachers to get to places on the flats,” Ned said. He was aware that he had just created two places that did not exist, but he was so eager to get to Tahlequah and hear some town talk that he felt little guilt about the lies. Before mounting his horse, he strode over and gave Jewel an ardent kiss, ardent enough that it left her a little flustered. Since their quarrel about his absences, Jewel had been more welcoming of ardent kisses, and had even given him a few of her own. She was aware that Ned had a powerful restlessness in him, so in their private moments, Jewel was as sweet as syrup now. She wanted Ned to be happy, and considered that the only thing she had to give him was herself. She gave him what he wanted, when he wanted it, even if it meant making excuses to

  Liza, or leaving Liza with no one to chatter at in the early morning or the afternoon.

  “Will you be back by dark, Ned?” Jewel asked. Even her desire to be married proper did not cancel out all her fears about staying on the Mountain without Ned.

  “I doubt it . . . it’s a far piece to Stump Town,” Ned said. “Maybe Tuxie will stay the night. The way he’s snoring in the rocker, he might not wake up till then, anyway.”

  “I’ll cover him with a quilt, if that’s the case,” Jewel said. Before she could say more, Ned was loping away. Despite her knowledge that he was going on an errand which would officially join them as man and wife, Jewel’s heart sank at the sight of Ned leaving. It sank and sank, until she was close to tears, standing there by the livestock lots. She lost interest in the foaming goat milk she had just taken from their smelly old nanny. Jewel felt so low for a few minutes, that she wondered if it had been right of her to have ever left home. She was so bound to Ned Christie that she could not be happy an hour unless he was there. She knew that kind of strong feeling could not be right, for men had to have their times to roam. But the desire to keep Ned with her every day was the strongest feeling she had ever felt, and she found herself helpless before it.

  Once, during a haying time, a wild bull had burst out of the forest and knocked over three wagons in its charge. Jewel felt that her feeling for Ned was as strong as that bull had been. She could not stop it, or even direct it—the feeling raced through her with an awful force, dragging her this way and that. She knew there must be something wrong with her that she felt so much and was so helpless with feeling; she also knew she would have to moderate it somehow, once their child came, in order to give the baby decent mothering. But at the moment, there was nothing she could do about it. Ned, her husband, was not even out of sight, and she already felt desolate with missing him. As for Tuxie, he was welcome to stay, but having him as a guest was not the same as being able to sleep with her husband’s strong arms around her.

  She sat the milk bucket down, grabbed the slop bucket from Liza, and went to slop the pig. At least it was a moment of something to do. Ned expected her to keep up the place and not neglect the chores. Doing the chores meticulously and thoroughly, and seeing that all the animals were well were the only things that gave her any consolation when Ned was away. She might be bleak in her heart and too fearful to sleep at night, but she kept up with the chores and was a good wife, even if extraordinarily lonely.

  “Are you going to have Ma over to the wedding?” Liza asked. “Ma’s spirits might pick up if she could come to your wedding.”

  “Ma’s way over past town,” Jewel pointed out. “I doubt I could get her here in time. If Ned shows up with a preacher, I guess we better just do the wedding as soon as we can.”

  “I’ll be here, at least,” Liza said. “I wish Ned had a brother, so I could marry, too.”

  “What if his brother didn’t want to marry you?” Jewel posed. “He might not like your yapping.”

  “I guess I could be quieter, if I was married,” Liza said. She had given up her notion of marrying Tuxie Miller, if his wife should pass away. Getting wounded so severely had aged Tuxie, and to Liza he looked too old now to be her husband.

  “I doubt it—you’re a born yapper,” Jewel said, a little unkindly. She was annoyed with her sister for being so neglectful of the pig.

  13

  WILLY BECK’S STAY IN THE TAHLEQUAH JAIL WAS BRIEF—JUST AS long as it took him to walk in the front door, through the jail, and out the back door. Sheriff Charley Bobtail was so upset at having a dead white marshal presented to him for burial by a live white marshal that he merely told Willy to go inside and put himself in a cell, while he discussed legal arrangements with Marshal Dan Maples.

  Willy, seeing that the back door of the little jailhouse was unlatched, simply walked through it, strolled into the woods, and went home, a walk that took him a brisk nine hours.

  Now he was high on the Mountain, watching his fierce brother Davie try to drag some wolf cubs out of a den they had located. They had ridden up on the Mountain with White Sut, who was looking for his runaway bear. White Sut had taken to sleeping in the fireplace at night. He was covered with soot and ashes, and had singed his white mane of hair in several places by resting his head too close to live coals. He meant to kill the bear for desertion if he found him, and also to recover the good log chain the bear had taken with him in his flight.

  A black she-wolf, recently whelped, crossed their path on the Mountain, and Davie killed her, not twenty yards from her den. The notion of having a pack of pet black wolves immediately took hold of Davie.

  “If I had a black wolf pack running with me, I doubt any man would oppose me,” Davie said.

  “Don’t but one man oppose you now—Ned Christie,” Willy reminded him.

  It was not ten minutes after he said it, while they were both on their knees trying to reach in the wolf den, when they heard a horse loping along the high trail to Tahlequah. Willy stood up, thinking it was probably White Sut in pursuit of his bear. The old man had muttered when Davie had asked him to help them dig out the wolf cubs. When White Sut muttered, his kinfolk, including Davie, left him strictly alone, for the old man’s mutterings were usually a prelude to violent fits. But the rider Willy glimpsed loping along the old narrow trail through the post oak thicket was none other than Ned Christie himself—the one man living who had bested Davie Beck in a fight.

  The old trail was twisted through a post oak thicket with abundant underbrush. Not many people knew of it, and very few chose to use it. There were several easy roads in the District. If Ned Christie chose to make his way to town by such a difficult route, it was probably to avoid the very fate which had fallen Willy Beck himself: arrest.

  “Davie, it’s Ned, he’s going to Tahlequah on the old trail,” Willy said, excited. Maybe they could get ahead of Ned. If they hurried, Davie might be able to ambush Ned, and avenge his disgrace.

  But Davie had his arm so deep in the wolf den he did not understand what Willy was saying, at first. He extracted one w
olf pup and stuck his arm in to get a second, when he suddenly gave a wild shriek and jerked his arm out, a full-grown badger attached to his hand. The badger had come in the other entrance to the den and was about to feast on black wolf pups, when Davie grabbed him—a mistake he instantly regretted. The badger bit clean through Davie’s hand with eight sharp little badger teeth. Davie jumped up and began to run in circles, trying to sling the badger off his hand. But the badger held on grimly, until Willy finally clubbed him with a pistol butt. Then, before they could kill it, the badger scuttled back into the wolf den, spoiling Davie’s plan to accumulate a pack of black wolves. He had to be content with the one pup already captured, which Willy secured with twine and put in his saddlebag.

  The badger also spoiled any hope they might have had of ambushing Ned Christie. Davie’s hand was pouring blood; soon, his pants and all his gear were bloody. When he finally realized he had missed a chance to shoot Ned Christie in the course of being badly chewed on by a badger he could not even manage to kill, Davie Beck’s fury was so extreme that he picked up a stick and began to beat his horse— though his horse was blameless in the whole affair.

  “Why are you beating your horse?” Willy inquired. The inquiry was a mistake, as Willy soon discovered. A second later, Davie knocked him flat with the same stick, breaking it in the process. In Willy’s view, the fact that he was being beaten with a weak stick was all that saved him from a first-class beating.

  Later, when Davie was calmer, they began to speculate about Ned Christie. The old trail that Ned was using ran along a shoulder of the Mountain that early settlers called Idiot Ridge. It was said that the first woman to settle on the Mountain had lost her mind from loneliness and had become an idiot, wandering on the ridge and eating berries and nuts, until a black wolf killed her. That at least was the story; it had all taken place long before, when White Sut was a young man. At the time, White Sut worked for a slaver, who brought slaves over the Mountain from Mississippi. When questioned about the idiot woman, White Sut was not forthcoming. He had been an adept slaver, and knew the old mountain trails better than anyone alive, unless it was Old Turtle Man. But unlike the healer, White Sut was seldom in the mood to impart useful knowledge to his many nephews and grandchildren. White Sut had sown his seed liberally throughout the District and beyond, but he had no interest in the human crop that resulted.

  “You sure it was Ned?” Davie asked, as they rode back toward the mill, the wolf cub whimpering in Willy’s saddlebag.

  “It was Ned,” Willy said. “He was headed off the Mountain. He don’t want to go the regular roads, for fear he’ll get arrested, like I done.”

  Davie agreed with that assessment.

  A mile or two later, they came across White Sut. He was sawing angrily at his saddlehorn with his big bowie knife. White Sut paid no attention to his vagarious descendants. He lived for himself, and rarely responded to human inquiry. He had mashed his balls on the saddlehorn when his horse jumped a creek, at which point he decided that the saddlehorn was a dangerous obstruction which could not be tolerated. It was a well-set saddle-horn, and was not coming off easily, although he kept the bowie knife sharp as a razor.

  “You ought to use my saw knife, White, if you want to get shut of that saddlehorn,” Davie said. “What you need is a saw.”

  But the old man muttered at him, and Davie knew he better let matters be. Then Willy and Davie loped off toward the Beck mill.

  “Let’s round up the boys and go kill that goddamn Ned,” Davie said to Willy, as they rode.

  “Why round up the boys? I thought you’d want to kill him yourself,” Willy said.

  By way of answer, Davie rode up next to Willy and backhanded him hard, promptly knocking out one of his front teeth. Davie did not like to be asked questions, not by his brothers, or anyone else. He had not forgotten that Willy and Frank had deserted him in his hour of need— that is, when Zeke Proctor had been strangling him—by jumping out the courtroom window, in view of which Willy should not get to keep all his teeth, or any of his teeth, for that matter.

  What Davie did not want to say was that he only had two shells for his pistol. Two shells could well be an insufficient number to bring down an opponent as nimble as Ned Christie.

  When Davie and Willy reached the mill where most of the Beck clan had been housing themselves since T Spade’s death, they noticed that White Sut’s bear had returned and was sleeping on the back porch. White Sut was walking toward the porch carrying a thick fence post, and upon reaching the bear immediately began to beat him with it, causing the bear to howl like he was being murdered. White Sut’s molty old buzzard sat on the roof of the mill, pulling feathers out of himself. It watched the bear get his beating, as did Frank Beck.

  When the prospect of ambushing Ned Christie was presented to Frank and Little Ray Beck, neither brother proved enthusiastic about the opportunity. Little Ray had recently arrived from Dog Town with a slut named Edna, whom he had cajoled away from Belle Blue’s establishment. He excused himself from ambush duties, complaining of severe cramps in the legs, the result of too much time spent in lustful exercise with Edna. Frank Beck, for his part, had been promised a turn with Edna, and was looking forward to some lustful exercise of his own.

  Even old White Sut might be enlisted in the campaign. The big sorrel horse that Ned had shot eventually died, and now White Sut had nothing but a scrawny black mare to carry him on his wanderings. In his youth, White Sut had done some scalp hunting in the Texas territory. Once, they had all happened on a dead whiskeyseller on the trail to Dog Town, and White Sut had scalped him, on a whim. Perhaps he would scalp Ned Christie, once they killed him.

  “Ned Christie’s going to town, White,” Davie said. “Now’s our chance to kill him.”

  He had to repeat the remark three times before White Sut heard him. White Sut was beating the bear for all he was worth, and the bear was howling so loud that no one could hear anything else.

  When White Sut finally wore out, the bear crawled under the porch, driving out four hounds that Frank Beck kept.

  White Sut Beck normally refused on principle any request from anyone for help of any kind. When Davie mentioned that Ned Christie was in town, White Sut looked at him out of his old, red, demented eyes and did not answer. He had worn himself out beating his bear and did not want to be bothered with errands.

  “White, he’s the goddamned rascal that shot your horse,” Davie reminded the old man. The sorrel had got them home to the mill, but was dead by morning. “I thought you had in mind to cut his head off.”

  “You cut it off. I’m going hunting,” the old man announced. “Pay you a dollar for the head, when you get back with it.”

  With no further ado, he picked up a rifle and walked into the woods. A little later, the buzzard rose off the roof and flew away, in the direction his master had gone.

  In the end, all Davie managed to get out of his family was six bullets, and he had to steal those. Little Ray Beck had carelessly left his pistol outside the room where he had cramped his legs through lustful exercise with Edna. Davie took the six bullets out of the pistol so that he would have a full gun at least, when he challenged Ned. He gave one of the bullets to Willy, instructing him to shoot Ned Christie in the back if he got the chance. The other five he kept for himself.

  On the ride to town, they encountered White Sut, sitting on a stump next to the trail, chewing acorns. White Sut was so wild that Willy sometimes forgot the old man was nearly a hundred years old— or maybe it was only ninety—White Sut had always been vague about his age. But there he sat, looking mighty old, on a stump eating acorns as if he were a squirrel.

  “You ought to have shot that foul old bear, White,” Davie said. “You’ve whupped it and whupped it till you’re worn out.”

  White Sut made no reply. He had passed beyond much conversation, years before. He was thinking of a black-skinned girl he had brought over the trail from Mississippi, in the slavery days. She had been slender, with a tig
ht, wiry braid almost as long as she was tall. He had thought at the time that maybe she had been a queen where she had come from, somewhere in Africa; her eyes had been wide set, and slanted up at the corners. She was the most winsome woman he had ever sold, winsome enough that she had stayed in his mind for sixty years.

  As Willy and Davie rode on toward Tahlequah, a shadow crossed the road. When they looked up, they saw it was White Sut’s molty old buzzard—he landed in a post oak tree nearby.

  “If White don’t outlive his buzzard, I ’spect the damn bird’ll eat him,” Willy said.

  Davie looked up at the buzzard, sitting on a limb, its head sunk into its shoulders. It looked like it had no neck.

  “I ’spect,” he replied.

  14

  ZEKE HAD FORGOTTEN HOW HARD LIFE WAS, ON THE SCOUT. IN HIS youth, he had gone on the scout several times, to escape legal harassment for little irregularities in his behaviour. He had once been given to much rowdiness and gambling; he had even run with the wild Davie Beck for a short while, pursuing whores they had heard about in remote regions beyond the District. In those days, of course, there were no fences in the District, and disputes over stray livestock were frequent and sometimes reached the courts.

  Those times on the scout were not much more than extended picnics. Zeke would ride up to the Cave and carouse for a week or two with whatever ruffians were there. Sometimes, a few of them would ride up to Kansas or over to Arkansas and rip through some little town at night, racing their horses and shooting their guns like real desperadoes. Other times, Zeke and a companion would go deep into the forest on a big hunt. Several times he had taken a bear, and once had even killed a panther.

  Sleeping out had not bothered him then, even if it was wet or sleeting. He would roll up against a big rock with his feet to the fire, sleep a few hours, and wake up ready to hunt.

  The day he left his home, stung by Becca’s refusal to be a wife to him, a cloud bank settled over the District and a slow, heavy rain began. Zeke had rushed off in such high dudgeon that he had neglected to bring either a slicker or a tarp. He was soon soaked, and he lived soaked for a week, for the rain continued with few breaks for seven days. He sent word to Sully Eagle, asking the old man to bring him the slicker and the tarp, but a week of hard rain followed, and the old man did not appear.