Judge Parker didn’t stop splitting his firewood until I was about twenty feet away from him. He wore a dark coat, and a string necktie, neatly knotted. From that fact alone, I took him to be an unusual man. Very few people in Arkansas, or in the Cherokee Nation, either, put on a string necktie when they need to split a little firewood.
It was a sultry morning, and the Judge was perspiring some, though the heat didn’t seem to tempt him to remove his coat.
“Hello, I’m Ezekiel Proctor,” I said, at which point the Judge looked at me severely and put down his axe.
That was all he did: just looked. He didn’t say a word.
“Pardon my curiosity,” I said, “but do you always wear your frock coat when you need to split a little wood?”
“No, just since my missus died,” the Judge said. “I promised her I’d dress proper, and not become a slouch.
“It’s a promise I mean to honour,” he added. His voice broke when he said it, and I believe I saw tears in the man’s eyes.
“Why, I’m sorry, Judge,” I said at once. “I see that I’ve intruded on the memory of your wife.”
“Sir, it would be hard not to, I have such a passel of memories of her,” the Judge said. At that point, he took out a cotton handkerchief and carefully wiped his eyes.
“Forty years’ worth,” he added, tucking his handkerchief back in his lapel.
“Your bailiff was kind enough to help me,” I told him. “I brought back two marshals—one dead, and one crippled.”
“Who killed the dead one?” the Judge inquired.
“I did,” I admitted. “He was shooting recklessly into a crowd of people. One of the people he shot was the other marshal. In fact, the other marshal was the first person he shot.”
“It’s a poor record, ain’t it?” the Judge said. “I sent a pair up recently, and one of them shot and killed the other.
“If there’s a moral, I don’t know what it is,” he added, shaking his head.
“I hear Tailcoat Jones drowned in the river,” I said.
“He drowned, and his whore, too,” the Judge told me. “Mr. Jones washed up in about a week, but the whore has never been found.”
The old Judge looked weary and sad. I knew his reputation, and had braced myself for a quarrel, but I don’t think he had the spirit for a quarrel.
“Have you come here to give yourself up, Mr. Proctor?” he inquired.
“No, I ain’t—because I ain’t guilty of nothing, though I did shoot the woman by accident,” I said. “I admit that—but I didn’t start the fight in the courtroom, I was an unarmed prisoner at the time.”
“Sir, I’m chopping wood, not trying cases,” the Judge reminded me. “If you’re disposed to surrender, you’ll have to look up the Sheriff. I’ve closed down my court for forty days, and I don’t want to hear of these matters in the meantime.”
“Forty days? Why that’s as long as the Flood lasted,” I told him. “There’ll be so many crimes committed in that length of time, you’ll be hard pressed to catch up.”
“I expect you’re right,” the Judge said. Then he heaved a big sigh. “But my court’s closed anyway. My wife Martha was a help and a comfort to me for forty years. I figure I owe her a day of mourning for every year, and she’s gonna get it.”
He turned, then, and headed for his house. But he stopped after two or three steps, and looked back at me.
“I will ask you one question, since I am unlikely to have another opportunity,” he said. “I don’t believe Mart would begrudge me a question.”
“What’s the question?” I asked.
“Is this man Ned Christie a decent man, or is he a killer?” the Judge asked.
“Ned? Why, he’s as decent a man as the Cherokee Nation can boast,” I said. I was glad for the chance to say it, too.
“You’re certain about that, are you?” the Judge asked.
“Damned certain,” I told him. “He’s a senator, and a fine upstanding fellow. I wouldn’t have allowed the man to take my oldest daughter for his wife, if that weren’t the honest truth.
“My daughter’s but little more than a girl, and those goddamn marshals you sent outraged her to a point where she was hard put to live!” I added. My temper flared up sudden, at the thought of Jewel’s ordeal.
“And my other daughter was killed outright!” I reminded the man. “You’ve got a grief, and I’ve got two. You ought to try those goddamn killers you hired, when you start your court up again.”
The Judge just looked at me.
What could the man say? He knew I was right.
“I’m much obliged for the information about Mr. Christie,” he said, finally.
“It’s accurate information, Judge,” I assured him. “Ned Christie’s an honest citizen.”
“I expect he is, but I doubt it will save him,” the Judge said.
“Why, it ought to save him!” I declared. “Why won’t it?”
“It would take a prophet to know,” Judge Parker said, “and I ain’t a prophet. I’m a judge, and a slow one, at that. I’ve spent forty years trying to separate right from wrong, and I’ll tell you, sir—it’s a damned hard task.
“I could hardly do it when I had Mart, and now I don’t have her and never will have her again,” the Judge said, as he turned toward his house.
I stood, and watched him go. It was clear from the shuffling way he moved that Judge Isaac Parker was a brokenhearted man.
16
I PROWLED THE SALOONS FOR AN HOUR, HOPING TO LOCATE ONE OR two of Tailcoat’s men. I would have done some fine strangling, if I could have found one or two, but the word was they had all gone back to the Natchez country. I didn’t choose to follow; Mississippi’s too swampy for me. I went there once, to hunt bear. I had a cough for a month, from sleeping in mouldy clothing.
In one of the saloons, there was a newspaper fellow of some sort. He had a long-winded name, and was drunk as a pup. He said he had been in Fort Smith for a month, waiting to meet me, or Ned.
“Why, you could stay here for a year and never meet us,” I told him. “The reason for that is we don’t live here. I just came today to deliver a dead man.”
The fellow had three initials to his name and was so drunk, if you hung him up and drained him, nothing but whiskey would come out. He claimed he intended to come to the District and get the facts about me and Ned.
“Come a-flying, then,” I told him. “I’ll tell you some fine, true yarns. I can’t vouch for Ned—I expect you’ll have to learn Cherokee if you want to talk to him.”
“Cherokee? Why’s that?” the fellow asked, in some surprise.
“Because Ned Christie has took a vow never to speak the English tongue again,” I told him.
I guess that news excited the fellow. He pulled out a little tablet and started scribbling before I even got outside.
Lonnie Vont was in his underwear when I got back to the ferry. He had his clothes spread out on some barrels, hoping they would dry. He looked nervous when he seen me coming in the wagon. I felt duty bound to return the vehicle to Dog Town, even though it was far out of my way.
“Howdy, Lonnie—have a refreshing swim?” I asked, once on board.
“It’s a wonder there’s any river left, Zeke,” Lonnie replied, in humble tones.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because I feel like I swallowed about half of it,” Lonnie said. “Besides that, I lost both shoes in that gummy mud.”
“I trust that will teach you not to gossip about my gunplay, Lonnie,” I told him. Lonnie looked like an old muskrat who had nearly drowned in his own hole.
He winched that ferry across the Arkansas as fast as he could winch. I guess he figured if he took his time, I might lose my temper and heave him back in the river again.
17
AS I RODE BACK THROUGH THE HILLS, NED CHRISTIE AND MY JEWEL were much on my mind. I would have dearly liked to go see them. But Dog Town, where I was obliged to return the wagon and the place on the h
igh part of the Mountain where Ned had built his fort, were in opposite directions. Plodding up the Mountain to Ned’s place would be slow work, and I’d have to journey all the way back to Dog Town, once I had my visit out.
My other concern was Becca, who had been low and weepy since the news came of Liza’s death and Jewel’s abuse. Becca didn’t shuffle through her days quite as slow as the old Judge, but the fact was, she had lost a daughter and was brokenhearted, too.
I stopped feeling at ease in my mind when I was gone too long from Becca. My fear was she might slide down so low in her feelings that she would bog in megrims and melancholy, never able to enjoy the sunlight again, or take a little pleasure in scattering corn for her hens.
As I was passing through Tahlequah, I had the good fortune to notice Arch Scraper, waiting at the blacksmith’s. If he was at the blacksmith’s, he was very likely waiting. The blacksmith in Tahlequah was known to be slow as Sunday meeting. It was Arch’s brother’s team I was driving. Petey Scraper had been enjoying the horserace, but had headed for the timber at a racing pace himself when Marshal Chaney started firing his pistol. I had borrowed the wagon and team with Arch’s permission, and thought I could save time by asking him to take it home to Petey.
“No, I ain’t speaking to Petey,” Arch said, with no more than a glance at me when I made the request.
That was no surprise. The Scrapers stayed on the outs with one another almost as often as the Becks, though no Scraper of my acquaintance was near as cranky as Davie Beck, or old White Sut, either. The Scrapers worked a farm together, but that didn’t stop them from quarreling.
“Arch, I didn’t request that you hold a conversation with him,” I pointed out. “All I want you to do is take his team and wagon home. I have an important errand up on the Mountain, and Dog Town is ten miles out of my way.”
“Don’t care if it’s a hundred miles out of your way,” Arch retorted. “I ain’t driving Petey’s team home.”
“Now, why would that be such a goddamned hard chore?” I inquired. “You’re going to the farm anyway.”
“What if one of them horses went lame on the way?” Arch said. “Petey would claim it was his prize racer and charge me fifty dollars for the sprain.”
“Now, Arch,” I said. “Just use your common sense. I drove this team to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and it didn’t go lame. Why would it go lame between here and your farm?”
Arch Scraper was always chewing on a twig. He kept several twigs in his shirt pocket, just for that purpose. I have never known him to chew tobacco; twigs are what he likes to chew. Once or twice when he was excited, he’s been known to swallow the twig he was chewing on, but he didn’t swallow it on this occasion.
“I got no interest in common sense,” he said. “What I go by is my sense, and my sense is that I’d be a damn fool to touch Petey’s team. He wouldn’t like it.”
“Arch, you’re the one loaned me the team,” I reminded him. “I’d think he might thank you for bringing it home safe.”
“Think what you like, Zeke—I ain’t doing it,” he said.
“Would you do it if I paid you a quarter?” I asked. “You’re going home anyway. Why not go home a quarter richer?”
The one thing I knew about the Scrapers was that they liked cash money. I thought a quarter in cash money would bring Arch around, but the fool argued me all the way up to a dollar and a half, before he gave in. By then, I was so determined that he’d drive the team home, I would have offered him $100, if that was what it took. I was about ready to curse him when he finally gave in.
“If you ain’t stubborn, I don’t know what stubborn is,” I told him.
Arch just took my money, and chewed another twig.
All the way up to the Mountain, I was disquieted in my feelings about Becca. I had squandered a dollar and a half, just to persuade Arch Scraper to drive his own brother’s team home so I could go pay Ned and Jewel a visit; and yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about Becca, which was an odd thing. A year ago, before the tragedies started accumulating, I could ride off on a hunt, or go to a horse race, or gamble a little, and never give Becca a thought, even if I was gone two weeks. I had to do my roaming and get my mind clear of family duties from time to time. It was the right of a man to roam with a free mind. Becca had a fine house and ample food for our young ones. She had her chores and her children, and I never doubted her ability to keep the place up, and the children well tended to.
Since the troubles, though, I couldn’t roam with a free mind. I kept thinking about Becca. It seemed she had filled up so with sadness, since Liza’s death. I didn’t know how to drain the sadness, either. She never smiled, even at the triplets. I had been thinking lately of hiring a young cousin of Becca’s, a spry girl named May, to come and live with us, just so the triplets would see a happy face and hear laughing in the house once in a while.
What I couldn’t get out of my mind was an old neighbour woman of ours named Louisa Faulks. Her old man and her only son died within a year of one another. I liked Louisa, and after her men died, I offered to let her come live with us and help with the triplets. But she just wouldn’t come. She lived alone with a milk cow and two cats. She dipped a little snuff, and ate mostly turnip greens, so far as I could tell. I called her Mother Faulks and went by to visit with her whenever I passed near her shack. Sully Eagle courted her a little, after her old man died, but Mother Faulks wouldn’t have Sully.
One day, Mother Faulks’s milk cow got the bloat and died. Mother Faulks took the cowbell off the old hussy, found a sturdy post oak limb, and hanged herself with the strap that had been on the cowbell. I noticed some buzzards circling over the poor old woman’s shack, and was shocked to find her, black in the face, hanging from that post oak limb.
I guess coyotes or foxes got the cats. I intended to bring them home for the triplets, but couldn’t locate either one of them.
It was old Mother Faulks I had on my mind, as I trotted up the Mountain. It would be a dreadful thing for the triplets if Becca took the hanging path. Of course, it would be a terrible thing for me, too. I hadn’t wanted to associate with anyone but Becca since she came home with me from Ned’s and Jewel’s on that slow mule of his. I still liked to watch young horses run, but except for that, most of my pleasures were home pleasures. Becca and I could sit on the porch together for hours, rocking but not talking, and listening to the triplets chatter, if they were in earshot. Maybe I’d play my fiddle a bit. Even with the sadness on her, Bec was the only companion I sought. It was unusual—most of my life I had enjoyed the company of men—rowdy men, too, usually. But now, I preferred to stay home with my wife.
I wavered in my mind, but I kept going toward Ned’s. Every traveler brought tales of the fort Ned had built, high on the Mountain. None of them said much about Ned himself, other than to say that his nose was a little twisted. No one so far had mentioned Jewel, and Becca wouldn’t ask.
The fact was, I had expected to despise Judge Parker, but in fact, I had liked the look of the man. It might be that he would falter under his grief and give up the court, but I didn’t really expect it. He wore that tie to chop wood; probably he would face up to his loss and go on with his duties. I thought the old Judge might give us a fair hearing, and was hopeful I might talk Ned into going with me to the court. It was a better gamble than gunfights.
The moment I came into the clearing where Ned’s fort was, I knew the courthouse approach was not to be. The trees had been cleared for 150 yards all around the house. That was because Ned didn’t mean for anyone to come sneaking up on him again. I had thought people were mainly exaggerating, when they said Ned was building a fort. People do exaggerate in the District—they’ve had me slipping out with more women than I ever slipped out with—so I figured when they talked of Ned’s fort, they meant he had built himself a well-fortified house.
But for once, the gossip was accurate: the structure I saw when I rode into the clearing was a fort—not a house. There were no windows on the secon
d floor at all, just slits for firing rifles. There were no windows on the ground floor, either—just thick log walls.
Right away, it made me feel sorry for Jewel. The house that got burned up, the one Ned brought her to as a bride, was big and roomy, with glass windows that let in the light. There was usually a breeze through the windows or the door, if it was muggy and close. There was a fireplace big enough to cook a pig in, and a wide hearth for relaxing. When I was younger—of course, Ned was younger then, too—we used to sit by the hearth and try to whistle tunes. Ned’s whistling made me jealous. He made whistling tunes seem as easy as breathing. I couldn’t whistle half the tunes that he could, and my whistling was so thin he practically had to be sitting in my lap to hear it. The fireplace cast enough light that a woman could sit and sew by it, or even thread a needle if she needed to.
That house had been a place to encourage enjoyment, and that was far more than I could say for the building I was looking at in the clearing Ned had made to prevent sneaks from sneaking in close to him.
The new house was a fort, and forts weren’t made for enjoyment, unless what you enjoy is killing and dying.
My Jewel stepped outside just then. I expect she saw me through one of the slits on the second floor. She didn’t run to me, as Liza would have, but then Jewel had never been a child who would rush up and hug me. But she did remember my stiff knee, the one I injured years before in a fall from a ladder, and came out to hold my stirrup steady so I could easy my boot out.
“Hello, Pa,” she said.
“Jewel, is that your new house?” I asked. I was hoping, at least, to see the sparkle back in her eyes, but it wasn’t there. She was pale as a salamander, too. I guess the color had bleached out of her from living in such a dark place.
“Yes, Ned built it himself,” she said, once I had dismounted.
I hugged her and hugged her. Jewel didn’t cry, but I could feel the sadness in her, just from the hugging.
“Jewel, why would Ned want to put you in a place like this?” I said, walking around and studying the walls. “How would the sunlight ever get in such a house?”