It took Hannali thirty years to build his Big House. It was not finished then, but he added no more to it after the Second Time of Troubles. Into the house went boatloads of limestone quarried north of the Three Forks of the Arkansas, sandstone, crab orchard stone, shale. There were even blocks of granite brought by wagon and roller from the Wichita Mountains. Hannali drove bargains in stone and timber in the course of his trading, and every addition to the house represented an era in his life.
It did not seem out of place when Hannali added New Orleans ironwork to a portion of the house, nor when he built the steepled lookout tower. It was not a distortion when he set in a ruby-red window. These things gave it force and power.
There was one visitor who said that the House looked like a giant turkey buzzard flopped down on the ground and ready to flap into flight again. This was not so. It looked more like a big barn owl, with its huge head, and wings spread out low.
For about thirty years, the peace in the Moshulatubbee Choctaw North was maintained by about a hundred strong settled men and their followers holding in such Big Houses. It was the feudal Middle Ages of the Choctaw Nation.
The House became a large part of the life of Hannali after he had become, as he once wrote, “a widdo were with three wifes.”
2.
The end of the French wife. A Canadian River storm. Blood of my liver and clay of my clay.
It was early in her second pregnancy that Marie DuShane awoke in absolute fury to the true situation in Hannali House. She had been ignorant and blind. She hadn't even guessed that such a thing could be.
She had believed Martha Louisiana to be a slave woman whose son could have been fathered by anyone at all. She paid small attention to the little girl Natchez who lived with other Indians in one of the odd buildings being connected up to the main house. She believed Natchez's young son to be a little brother for whom she was caring, and took Natchez herself for only a child.
Marie DuShane was the white wife, and had no regard for Indians or Negroes. She was not consciously proud. It was simply that she didn't see them, any more than she saw the mules and the cattle.
But Hannali had been embarrassed several times when Marie DuShane reported Martha Louisiana for insubordination. Then one day, Martha Louisiana merely chuckled at a foolish command Marie gave her, and Marie stepped back aghast at it, but puzzled at her own confusion. Martha Louisiana had been insubordinate before. This was different.
It drifted down on Marie like white light, like snow falling on the hills. Marie nearly went blind when it struck her.
Martha Louisiana had chuckled with Hannali's own rumble. No other relationship could bring it so close. They had been intimate.
Marie DuShane set up a French screaming and activity and went after Martha Louisiana with a whip to show her how a slave should be. The French wife had gone wild, and she caught Martha Louisiana front on with a long stinging slash.
Martha Louisiana tasted blood running down her face at the first crackling stroke. Her dangerous chuckle turned into the exploding growl of a wounded she-bear and she moved in. Nothing could stop her when she moved forward. She overpowered Marie DuShane, took the whip away from her, and then slapped the white woman till she was near senseless.
“I am no slave woman. I am the wife before you,” Martha Louisiana said heavily. She threw Marie DuShane to the earth and ground her unconscious with her heels.
And that was the end forever of the French wife of Hannali.
“He will have to put away the white woman. This cannot be,” said Martha Louisiana sorrowfully to herself.
And that was the storm? Over as quickly as that? It was no such thing, it was only the little wind before the storm. The French wife was gone forever, but Marie DuShane was more than the white wife of a fat Indian. She had never been so white as she appeared on the outside.
Marie DuShane discovered herself — what she was. It was a sham she had played all her girl life. She was no French girl. She was a breed Indian — stormier than any full-blood and more savage than the fiercest white.
The Shawnee came up in her like a ghost, and a bloodier French than she knew that she had. She was a wild breed Indian, and she tasted her own blood as Martha Louisiana had done. The fury of Marie DuShane exploded into its second stage. She was a dangerous wild animal when she came off the ground, a wolverine, a she-devil.
Marie had a lithe strength that was unusual. She had once astonished big Hannali by hefting him onto her shoulder like a sack and whirling around and around with him. She hadn't the deep physical power of Martha Louisiana, but now she had a fire in her that Martha wouldn't be able to cope with.
Any person — believing a matter to be finished and disposed of and then finding it only begun — is at a disadvantage. Martha Louisiana was completely unnerved by the second assault of Marie DuShane after she had left her unconscious on the ground. In her astonishment she did not at first realize that this wild animal was the same woman, hardly that she was a woman at all. This was no longer the Frenchie who wore underclothes and would lift no hand in labor. This was a half-breed Canadian River storm.
Martha Louisiana was a very sturdy girl, one destined to become somewhat ponderous with age. In forward momentum she was relentless, but once she took a step backward she was lost. And she fell back before the ghastly assault.
Marie was sturdy herself and fast as summer lightning, and she bore Martha Louisiana down. The black girl could only think of keeping her throat from being torn out. She lost her confidence and went into panic, and wild Marie cut and beat her terribly and had her mouth red from Martha's blood. It was long and intense and gruesome.
When it was over with, Marie DuShane believed that she had killed Martha Louisiana who was blood-soaked and stark. And Martha Louisiana herself was sure that she was dead.
She lay in that witless confusion that comes just after death. She hadn't believed that the little white girl could beat her down and kill her, but the little white girl would never be that again. Martha Louisiana found herself stretched dead on the ground, and bleeding besides, and broken up and in great pain.
Marie DuShane had hardly started. It had happened once! It could have happened twice!
Things came into Marie's mad mind with perfect clarity. The second devil had come into her while she worked her murder on Martha Louisiana. Natchez was not so young a girl as all that! The maybeso girl had been Hannali's also. There were a hundred indications of it thronging into the mind — things that would have long since been clear to any but a blind woman.
Marie caught little Natchez — coming to see what the din was all about — and struck her down. She smashed the girl unconscious with one blow and believed that she had broken her skull. Marie was on the stricken girl with all four feet and almost beat her through the ground.
Hannali, running to pull Marie off Natchez, was quite sure that Natchez was dead. And it was close, for Natchez was unconscious for three hours and would not be able to walk for a week. Hannali hunched over her and sobbed out his clay-footed soul.
“The scrawny little girl that never hurt anything in her life she was so good you wouldn't believe it even the wild birds flew down when she called them now Marie DuShane have killed her all because I am a bad-hearted man who had done great wrongs she was the light of my life she was my first springtime now Marie DuShane have killed her the little scrawny girl who would never get fat now I die too no do not touch her Marie DuShane you have killed her.”
“No, I don't believe that I have, Hannali,” said Marie DuShane, still trembling but beginning to be composed. “I hoped I had, but she's not dead.”
“Do not touch my little girl she is broken like a bird the blood that runs out of her is my own now have God struck my family why have He not struck me who am guilty.”
“It's all right to let me touch her, Hannali,” said Marie DuShane. “The storm's gone out of me now. Why should I harm a little girl because myself was a blind woma
n?”
“You have killed her Marie DuShane for the sin that was mine.”
“Oh, then I'll bring her back to life. Oh, she'll live, she'll live! Hannali, we'll fix up your little bird again.”
“Permit that I see the child,” said the bloodied Martha Louisiana, coming off the ground and forgetting that she was dead. “With you and with me it is one thing, Marie DuShane, and it may never be settled. But you should not have struck down the child. All your life you will regret it.”
“May I have a long life to regret it in then,” said Marie, “I see that I will have many things to regret.”
Natchez did not die. And when she became well, she was the only well one of them. Marie DuShane and Martha Louisiana had both died a little.
It was three days later that Hannali and Marie DuShane and Martha Louisiana came to talk at the pallet of Natchez, for that girl was still too weak to get up.
“We will have plain talk now,” said Marie DuShane. “All four of us are responsible for this.
“My husband Hannali is responsible for being a great springtime fool. It will do him no good to protest that he knew no better. He did know better! We are not animals. We are people, and we have not acted like people.
“I am responsible because I was a blind woman, and because I did not regard the others as people at all. I have done great wrong in not knowing what was happening.
“And Martha Louisiana has done great wrong because she did know what was happening, and she accepted it.
“And Natchez has done wrong because she is no such child as all that. One does not say maybeso when a big evil comes.
“Now then, Hannali, I will tell you exactly what you must do. And you will do it!”
“I will do whatever I must to make things right Marie DuShane tell me then I do not see anything at all no way to make it right.”
“First you must put away Natchez and she no more be your wife.”
“This I cannot do she is the light of my life she is my first springtime how could I ever put away a scrawny little girl like that,” protested Hannali.
“You have to do it. There is no other way.”
“It will kill me it will break my soul.”
“Well then, it will kill you. And which of us deserves an unbroken soul? Say it, Hannali! Before God there is no other way.”
“I will put away Natchez and she no longer be my wife,” said Hannali heavily and with an empty face.
Natchez began to cry.
“Now finish it, my husband,” pursued Marie DuShane. “The other thing must be ended also, however close it may have been. You must put away Martha Louisiana and she no more be your wife.”
“This I cannot do she is from an earlier springtime she is my black people she is blood of my liver and clay of my clay.”
“We are all of the same clay, I find,” said Marie DuShane. “I will permit no delay in this. Cut the limb off, don't grind it off. This terrible thing must be over with. Say it, Hannali! You know what must be.”
“I will put away Martha Louisiana and she no longer be my wife,” said Hannali in dull agony. The weight had gone out of him.
Martha Louisiana sobbed quietly.
“It has been a terrible business, and now it is finished,” said Marie DuShane. “I myself will be a better person. We will do all that we can to right this wrong. These two and their children be yet of our family, but not in the old way.
“And now, my husband, you have no wife but Marie DuShane, and we have long lives ahead of us. Gradually they may become more happy.”
“I will put away Marie DuShane and she no longer be my wife,” said Hannali as though talking in a dream.
And the whole world missed a beat at the echoing gasp of Marie DuShane.
But that is the way it would be. Hannali was unmoved in this.
“I cannot put away one wife I cannot put away two wifes I can only put away all three wifes a wrong such as mine cannot be righted by thirds in all my life I will no more touch woman will our lifes really grow more happy after a while what will it be for the children that you three are now carrying.”
“Perhaps we should pray that we lose them or that they be born dead,” said Marie DuShane disconsolately.
“Perhaps I will not permit that we pray to lose them not even that of yours, Marie DuShane,” said Martha Louisiana solidly.
Hannali Innominee touched woman no more in all his life. And their lives did grow more happy after a very long time.
3.
The man with the talking horses. Name rolls is Indian stuff. The nations in him. Jim Pockmark and Timbered Mountain. Who else knew them all?
There was another element in the life of Hannali Innominee during the more than seventy years after his coming to the new Territory. This was his traveling life.
Hannali traveled every year of his long life in the Territory. Some years it would be no more than four or five weeks; but many times it would be four or five months, and twice he ran years together being gone eighteen months each time.
It was common for such settled farming Indians as the Choctaws to take a wandering year when they were young men. It was in memory of the centuries when they traveled always — a form of initiation that young men should go off in their time, singly, or in twos and threes, for an adventure year. Thereafter, the stories of his adventures were part of a man's stock in trade. A man must have adventures, or he must be able to fabricate adventures; and if he could not do either, then he was not a complete man. When a man told stories to his grandchildren he would begin, “It was in the Year of my Wandering.”
Hannali had taken his own wandering year, while he was still in his teens, into Florida of Spain. Then he had taken another wandering year and another. And after he came to the new country, he wandered a part of every year, for this was one of the things he could not do without.
He came to know every big river of the West, and all the high plains, and the mountains, and the farther mountains. He knew every Indian nation of the West. But mostly he visited and lived with the Cheyennes — with them especially — with the Apaches, the Caddoes, the Pawnees, the Kiowas, the Arapahos, the Comanches. And wherever he went he was accepted.
There was a duality about Indian hospitality: Those who needed it most were accorded it least. Indians were inclined to kill a lonely friendless traveler who seemed to be down on his luck. But a man of presence and front was accepted, and Hannali could always be such a man.
He came to be called, gradually over the years: Fiddling Bear by the Cheyennes, Big Frog by the Apaches, Laughing Bull by the Caddoes, Talking String Man (from his Choctaw habit of stringing words together without a break) by the Pawnees, Fat Beaver by the Arapahos, Mule Doctor by the Comanches, the Man with the Talking Horses by the Kiowas.
Hannali knew all the great Indians of the Plains for several generations. The names he could have dropped had he wished!
Leave us here and meet us again on the other side of the creek if you find such things tedious. But if you do, you will miss a hundred better men than any you will meet tomorrow. Cataloguing was as much a part of the deep oratory of the old Indians as of the old Creeks. Names are magic, for the name is the same as the soul. Name rolls is Indian stuff. They are woven into the fabric of this thing, and it will ravel if we tear them out.
Of the big Cheyenne men, Hannali knew Black Moccasin, High Wolf and High-Backed Wolf, Painted Thunder, Gray Hair, Dull Knife (“So tough he dull the knife” his name meant), Seven Bulls, Limber Lance (the name was given him by his wife who was an earthy humorist, but for all that he sired seven sons who were strong warriors), Left Hand Shooter, Wooden Leg, Walking Rabbit, Hail (Autsite), Wild Hog, White Elk, Sun Maker, Little Wolf (the Cheyenne, but Hannali also knew the Sioux Little Wolf), Roman Nose and Roman Nose Thunder, Walking Coyote, Crazy Mule, Crow Indian (who was a Cheyenne and not a Crow Indian), Raccoon (Mats-Kumh), Little Horse and Panther his brother-in-law, Porcupine Bear and his son Porcupine, Rolling Bull, Plenty Ca
mps, Island, Black Moon (his name really meant Black Sun, but it must be translated as Black Moon from some old reluctance or taboo), Bad Face, Wearing Horns (Lahika), Lean Bear, Dry Throat, Six Feathers, Stone Calf, Tobacco, Gray Beard, Whistling Elk. Hannali knew every leading Cheyenne in their grand decades.
Hell, they were nothing but a bunch of horse Indians, you say. But from one view, there were no greater men ever than the horse Indians. They were the first All-American athletes, and they haven't been surpassed. They were the astute country-boy politicians whose wards ran from the Cross-Timbers to the Shining Mountains. They were the poets who could chant the empty plains full of buffalo, and who can do it now? They were the legendary lovers and clowns and storytellers.
The Indians were seldom baptized or formally named. A name grew on a man, and he might have several successive names in his lifetime.
Hannali knew the Sioux: Black Leg, High Backbone, Bloody Knife, Red Cloud, American Horse, Crow King, Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail, Cut Belly, Little Big Man. But he was never a Sioux man. With the Sioux, you like them or you like them not.
He knew the fine Arapahos: Left Hand (Nawat), Little Raven, Storm, Flat War Club, Crane, Bull.
And the Crows: Big Prisoner, Kit Fox, Standing Alligator, Plenty Coups. But the Crows were not his special people.
He knew the Anadarkos — Pockmark and Jim Pockmark and Jose Maria. And Nez Perces — Looking Glass, Tap-Sis-Li, White Bird, Joseph, Hush-Hush-Cute.
The Comanches — they were as fine as the Cheyennes — Bull Hump, Shavehead, Horseback, Paha-Yuca, Ten Bears, Traveling Wolf (Ishacoly), Shaking Hand, Morning Voice, Katemsie, Sun Eagle, Coyote Droppings (Ishatai), Mo-Wi, Black Horse, Toshaway, Quannah Parker.
Lean Apaches: Leading Bear, Thin Man, Taza, Zele, Victorio, Red Sleeve, Goyathlay (best known by his variant name Geronimo, but he hadn't that name yet when Hannali knew him, about 1860).
Okla Hannali Page 8
