The Outlaw Josey Wales

by Forrest Carter

  The clear call of a nighthawk brought instant movement by the Indian. Nighthawks do not call in the light of day. He moved with silent litheness; taking his rifle, he glided to the rear door of the one-room cabin ... dropped to belly and slid quickly into the brush. Again the call came, loud and clear.

  As all mountain men know, the whippoorwill will not sing when the nighthawk is heard... and so now, from the brush, Lone answered with that whipping call.

  Now there was silence. From his position in the brush Lone listened for the approach. Though only a few feet from the cabin he could scarcely see it. Sumac and dead honeysuckle vine had grown up the chimney and run over the roof. Brush and undergrowth had encroached almost to the walls. What once had been a trail had long since been covered over. One must know of this inaccessible hideout to whistle an approach.

  The horse burst through the brush without warning. Lone was startled by the appearance of the big roan. He looked half wild with flaring nostrils and he stamped his feet as the rider reined him before the cabin door. He watched as the rider dismounted and casually turned his back to the cabin as he uncinched saddle and pulled it from the horse.

  Lone’s eyes ran over the man; the big, holstered pistols, the boot knife, nor did he miss the slight bulge beneath the left shoulder. As the man turned he saw the white scar standing out of the black stubble and he noted the gray cavalry hat pulled low. Lone grunted with satisfaction; a fighting man who carried himself as a warrior should, with boldness and without fear.

  The open buckskin jacket revealed something more that made Lone step confidently from the brush and approach him. It was the shirt; linsey-woolsey with a long open V that ended halfway down the waist with a rosette. It was the “guerrilla shirt,” noted in U.S. Army dispatches as the only sure way to identify a Missouri guerrilla. Made by the wives, sweethearts, and womenfolk of the farms, it had become the uniform of the guerrilla. He always wore it... sometimes concealed... but always worn. Many of them bore fancy needlework and bright colors... this one was the plain color of butternut, trimmed in gray.

  The man continued to rub down the roan, even as Lone walked toward him... and only turned when the Indian stopped silently, a yard away.

  “Howdy,” he said softly and extended his hand, “I’m Josey Wales.”

  “I have heard,” Lone said simply, grasping the hand, “I am Lone Watie.”

  Josey looked sharply at the Indian. “I re’clect. I rode with ye once... and yer kinsman, General Stand Watie, 'crost the Osage and up into Kansas.”

  “I remember,” Lone said, “it was a good fight”... and then... “I will stable your horse with mine down by the river. There is grain.”

  As he led the roan away Josey pulled his saddle and gear into the cabin. The floor was hard-packed dirt. The only furnishings were willows laid along the walls draped with blankets. Besides the cooking utensils there was nothing else, save the belt hanging by a peg that carried a Colt and long knife. The inevitable gray hat of the cavalry lay on a willow bed.

  He remembered the cabin. After wintering at Mineral Creek, Texas, near Sherman, in ’63, he had come back up the trail and had camped here. They had been told it was the farm of Lone Watie, but no one had been there... though there was evidence left of what had been a farm.

  He knew something of the history of the Waties. They had lived in the mountains of north Georgia and Alabama. Stand Watie was a prominent Chief. Lone was a cousin. Dispossessed of their land by the U.S. government in the 1830’s, they had walked with the Cherokee tribe on the “Trail of Tears” to the new land assigned them in the Nations. Nearly a third of the Cherokee had died on that long walk, and thousands of graves still marked the trail.

  He had known the Cherokee as a small boy in the mountains of Tennessee. His father had befriended many of them who had hidden out, refusing to make the walk.

  The mountain man did not have the ‘land hunger” of the flatlander who had instigated the government’s action. He preferred the mountains to remain wild ... free, unfettered by law and the irritating hypocrisy of organized society. His kinship, therefore, was closer to the Cherokee than to his racial brothers of the flat-lands who strained mightily at placing the yoke of society upon their necks.

  From the Cherokee he had learned how to hand-fish, easing his hands into the bank holes of the mountain streams and tickling the sides of trout and bass, that the gray fox runs in a figure eight and the red fox runs in a circle. How to track the bee to the honey hive, where the quail trap caught the most birds, and how curious was the buck deer

  He had eaten with them in their mountain lodge-pole cabins, and they had brought meat to his own family. Their code was the loyalty of the mountain man with all his clannishness, and therefore Lone Watie merited his trust. He was of his kind.

  When the War between the States had burst over the nation, the Cherokee naturally sided with the Confederacy against the hated government that had deprived him of his mountain home. Some: had joined General Sam Cooper, a few were in the elite brigade of Jo Shelby, but most had followed their leader General Stand Watie, the only Indian General of the Confederacy.

  Lone returned to the cabin and squatted before the fire.

  “Breakfast,” he grunted as he extended the pan of fish to Josey. They ate with their hands while the Indian looked moodily into the fire. “There’s been a lot of talk in the settlements. Ye been raising hell in Missouri, they say.”

  “I reckin,” Josey said.

  Lone dusted meal on the hearth of the fireplace and from a burlap extracted two cleaned catfish, which he rolled in the meal and placed over the fire.

  “Where ye headin’?” he asked.

  “Nowheres... in pa’ticular,” Josey said around a mouthful of fish... and then, as if in explanation, “My partner is dead.”

  For a few harrowing days he had had somewhere to go. It had become an obsession with him, to bring Jamie out of Missouri, to bring him here. With the death of the boy the emptiness came back. As he had ridden through the night he had caught himself checking back... to see to Jamie. The brief purpose was gone.

  Lone Watie asked no questions about the partner, but he nodded his head in understanding.

  “I heard last year thet General Jo Shelby and his men refused to surrender,” Lone said, "... heard they went to Mexico, some kind of fight down there. Ain’t heard nothin’ since, but some, I believe, left to join up with ’em.” The Indian spoke flatly, but he shot a quick glance at Josey to find the effect.

  Josey was surprised. “I didn’t know there was other’n thet didn’t surrender. I ain’t never been farther into Texas than Fannin County. Mexico’s a long way off.”

  Lone pushed the pan toward Josey. “It is somethin’ to think about,” he said. “Men sich as we are... our trade... ain’t wanted around hereabouts... seems like.”

  “Something to think about,” Josey agreed, and without further ceremony he walked to a willow bed and unbuckled his guns for the first time in many days. Placing his hat over his face, he stretched out and was in deep sleep in a moment. Lone received this unspoken confidence with implacable routine.

  The days that followed slipped into weeks. There was no more talk of Mexico ... but the thought worked at the mind of Josey. He asked no questions of Lone, nor did the Indian volunteer information about himself, but it was apparent that he was in hiding.

  As the winter days passed, Josey relaxed his tensions and even enjoyed helping Lone make fish baskets, which he did with a skill equaling the Indian’s. They set the baskets in the river with meal balls for bait. Food was plentiful; besides the fish they ate fat quail from cunningly set traps on the quail runs, rabbit, and turkey, all seasoned with the wild onion, skunk cabbage, garlic, and herbs Lone dug from the bottoms.

  January, 1867, brought snow across the Nations. It swept in a great white storm out of the Cimarron flats, gathered fury over the central plateau, and banked its blanket against the Ozarks. It brought misery to the Plains Indian, the Kiow
a, the Comanche, Arapaho, and Pottawatomie... short of winter food they were driven toward the settlements. The snow settled in four-foot drifts along the Neosho, but driftwood was plentiful and the cabin was snug. The confinement brought a restlessness to Josey Wales. He had noted the leanness of Lone’s provisions. There was no ammunition for his pistol, and the horses were short of grain.

  And so it was, as they sat silently around the fire of a bleak evening, Josey placed a fistful of gold pieces in Lone’s hand.

  “Yankee gold," he said laconically, “we’ll be needin’ grain... ammunition and sich.”

  Lone stared at the glittering coins in the firelight, and a wolfish smile touched his lips.

  “The gold of the enemy, like his corn, is always bright. It’ll cause some questions in the settlement, but,” he added thoughtfully, “if I tell ’em the blue pony soldiers will take it away from them if they talk…”

  Bright, crystal-blue days brought the sun’s rays in an unseasonable warmth and melted away the snow in a few days and fed new life into the rivulets and streams. Lone brought his gray gelding to the cabin and prepared to leave. Josey carried Lone’s saddle to the door, but the Indian shook his head.

  “No saddle... also no hat... no shirt. I’ll wear a blanket and carry only the rifle. I'll be a dumb blanket buck, the soldiers think all Indians with a blanket are too stupid to question.”

  He left, riding along the river bank, where the marshy bottom would hide his tracks ... a forlorn, hunched figure under his blanket.

  Two days passed, and Josey felt the tenseness of listening for Lone’s return. The feeling of the trailed outlaw returned, and the cabin became a trap. On the third day he moved his bedroll and guns to the brush and alternated his watch between river bank and cabin. He could never have been persuaded that Lone would betray him, but many things could have happened.

  Lone could have been found out, backtracked by a patrol... many of them had Osage trackers. He had moved the roan from the stable and picketed him in the brush when on the afternoon of the fourth day he heard the clear call of the nighthawk. He answered and watched as Lone slipped silently up from the river bank, leading the gray. The Indian looked even more emaciated. Josey suddenly wondered at his age as he saw wrinkles that sagged the bony face. He was older... in a dispirited sense that had suckled away the sap from his physical body. As they unloaded the grain and supplies from the back of the horse the Indian said nothing... and Josey volunteered no questions.

  Around the fireplace they ate a silent meal as both stared into the flames, and then Lone quietly spoke. "There is much talk of ye. Some say ye have killed thirty-five men, some say forty. Ye’ll not live long, the soldiers say, for they’ve raised the price fer yer head. It’s five thousand in gold. Many are searching fer ye, and I myself saw five different patrols. I was stopped two times as I returned. I hid the ammunition in the grain.”

  There was a touch of bitterness in Lone’s laugh.

  “They would’ve stolen the grain, but I told them I had gathered it from the leavings of the post... thrown out by the white man because it made the white man sick... and I was takin’ it to my woman. They laughed... and said a damn Indian could eat anything. They thought it was poisoned.”

  Lone fell silent, watching the flames dance along the logs. Josey splattered one of the logs with a long stream of tobacco juice, and after a long time Lone continued. “The trails are patrolled... heavy... when the weather breaks, they’ll begin beatin’ the brush. They know ye are in the Nations... and they'll find ye.”

  Josey cut a plug of tobacco. “I reckin,” he said easily, with the casual manner of one who had lived for years in the bosom of enemy patrols. He watched the firelight play across the Indian’s face. He looked ancient, a haughty and forlorn expression that harked backward toward some wronged god who sat in grieved dignity and disappointment.

  “I’m sixty years old,” Lone said. “I was a young man with a fine woman and two sons. They died on the Trail of Tears when we left Alabama. Before we were forced to leave, the white man talked of the bad Indian ... he beat his breast and told why the Indian must leave. Now he’s doin’ it again. Already the talk is everywhere. The thumpin’ of the breast to justify the wrong that will come to the Indian. I have no woman... I have no sons. I would not sign the pardon paper. I will not stay and see it again. I would go with ye... if ye’ll have me.”

  He had said it all simply, without rancor and with no emotion. But Josey knew what the Indian was saying. He knew of the heartache of lost woman and child... of a home that was no more. And he knew that Lone Watie, the Cherokee, in saying simply that he would go with him... meant much more... that he had chosen Josey as his people... a like warrior with a common cause, a common suffrage... a respect for courage. And as it was with such men as Josey Wales, he could not show these things he felt. Instead, he said, "They’re payin’ to see me dead. Ye could do a lot better by driftin’ south on yer own.”

  Now he knew why Lone had refused to sign the pardon paper... why he had deliberately made an outcast of himself, hoping that the blame would be placed on such men as himself... rather than his people. On this trip he had become convinced that nothing would save the Nation of the Cherokee.

  Lone took his gaze from the fire and looked across the hearth into the eyes of Josey. He spoke slowly. “It is good that a man’s enemies want him dead, for it proves he has lived a life of worth. I am old but I will ride free as long as I live. I would ride with such a man.”

  Josey reached into a paper sack Lone had brought back with the supplies and drew forth a round ball of red, hard rock candy. He held it up to the light. “Jest like a damn Indian,” he said, “always buying somethin’ red, meant fer foolishness.”

  Lone’s smile broadened into a deep-throated chuckle of relief. He knew he would ride with Josey Wales.

  The bitterness of February slipped toward March as they made preparation for the trail. Grass would be greening farther south, and the longhorn herds, moving up from Texas on the Shawnee Trail for Sedalia, would hide their own movements south.

  Mexico! The thought had lingered in Josey’s mind. Once, wintering at Mineral Creek, an old Confederate cavalryman of General McCulloch’s had visited their campfires, regaling the guerrillas with stories of his soldiering with General Zachary Taylor at Monterrey in 1847. He told tales of fiestas and balmy fragrant nights, of dancing and Spanish senoritas. There had been the thrilling recital of when the emissary of General Santa Anna had come down to inform Taylor that he was surrounded by twenty thousand troops and must surrender. How the Mexican military band, in the early morning light, had played the “Dequela,” the no-quarter song, as the thousands of pennants fluttered in the breeze from the hills surrounding Taylor’s men. And Old Zack had ridden down the line, mounted on “Whitey,” bellering, “Double-shot yer guns and give ’em hell, damn ’em.”

  The stories had enthralled the Missouri pistol fighters, farm boys who had found nothing of the romantic in their dirty Border War. Josey had remembered the interlude around that Texas campfire. If a feller had nowheres in pa’ticlar to ride... well, why not Mexico!

  They saddled up on a raw March morning. An icy wind sent showers of frost from the tree branches, and the ground was still frozen before dawn. The horses, grain-slick and eager, fought the bits in their mouths and crow-hopped against the saddles. Josey left the heading to Lone, and the Indian led away from the cabin, following the bank of the Neosho. Neither of them looked back.

  Lone had discarded the blanket. The gray cavalry hat shaded his eyes. Around his waist he wore the

  Colts’ pistol, belted low. If he would ride with Josey Wales... then he would ride as boldly... for what he was... a companion Rebel. Only the hawk-bronze face, the plaited hair that dangled to his shoulders... the boot moccasins... marked him as Indian.

  Their progress was slow. Traveling dim trails, often where no trail showed at all, they stayed with the crooks and turns of the river as it threaded south th
rough the Cherokee Nation. The third day of riding found them just north of Fort Gibson, and they were forced to leave the river to circle that Army post. They did so at night, striking the Shawnee Trail and fording the Arkansas. At dawn they were out on rolling prairie and in the Creek Indian Nation.

  It was nearing noon when the gelding pulled up lame. Lone dismounted and ran his hands around the leg, down to the hoof. The horse jumped as he pressed a tendon. “Pulled,” he said, "too much damn stable time.”

  Josey scanned the horizon about them... there were no riders in sight, but they were exposed, with only one horse, and the humps in the prairie had a way of suddenly disclosing what had not been there a moment before. Josey swung a leg around the saddle horn and looked thoughtfully at the gelding. “Thet hoss won’t ride fer a week.”

  Lone nodded gloomily. His face was a mask, but his heart sank. It was only right that he stay behind... he could not endanger Josey Wales.

  Josey cut a wad of tobacco. “How fer to thet tradin’ post on the Canadian?”

  Lone straightened. “Four... maybe six mile. That would be Zukie Limmer’s post... but patrols are comin’ and goin’ around there, Creek Indian police too.”

  Josey swung his foot into the stirrup. “They all ride hosses, and a hoss is what we need. Wait here.” He jumped the roan into a run. As he topped a rise he looked back. Lone was on foot, running behind him, leading the limping gelding.

  Chapter 9

  The trading post was set back a mile from the Canadian on a barren flat of shale rock and brush. It was a one-story log structure that showed no sign of human life except the thin column of smoke that rose from a chimney. Behind the post was a half-rotted barn, obviously past use. Back of the barn a pole corral held horses.

  From his position on the rise Josey counted the horses... thirty of them... but there were no saddles in sight... no harness. That meant trade horses... somebody had made a trade. For several minutes he watched. The hitch rack before the post was empty, and he could see no sign of movement anywhere in his range of vision. He eased the roan down the hill and circled the corral. Before he was halfway around, he saw the horse he wanted, a big black with deep chest and rounded barrel... nearly as big as his roan. He rode to the front of the post, and looping the reins of the roan on the hitch rack, strode to the heavy front door.