Okla Hannali

by R. A. Lafferty

  Forbis Agent wrote out his broadsides by hand then. Hannali rigged up a waxed-stone, grease-carbon apparatus (a primitive mimeograph) that made copies. A few of these, but not enough, were legible. So the whole nation of the Innominee went to work writing out copies by hand. And Forbis Agent rode around the country passing out these handwritten broadsides.

  By this activity, Forbis Agent (a slight man in himself) became a nuisance to the big Indians of the Choctaw South and to the Texas men who had made alliance with them. They sent men to kill him while he was on his rounds.

  Albert Horse learned of the plot to kill Forbis. Albert did not — as he would have done six months earlier — go to Hannali with the information. Albert did not want murder on one side any more than on the other. He went to Hannali's son Famous Innominee who had become a man as tall as his father when no one was looking. Famous Innominee and Albert Horse gathered up six other men and ambushed the ambushers — those who had been sent from the South to kill Forbis.

  The ambushers had followed Forbis into a draw. They were in no hurry; they did not intend to take him for several miles yet. They were drifting along saddle-sleepy in the sunshine — and Famous Innominee had the drop on them and had his men all around them. Famous told them to fall off those horses, and they fell off.

  Famous was as tall as his father, six foot five, and this day he wore jack boots that added many inches to this height. Famous was afoot and his men mounted, but he stood on a little rise, and he looked down into the eyes of the hired killers. He was lean as a lance except for big hunched shoulders and massive hands; he had a crooked grin and a whip-lashing voice, he scared those men.

  But they didn't kill the intruders, although those men had come to kill Forbis Agent. Albert Horse and one other man held guns on them; five men beat them almost flat into the ground with staves; and Famous Innominee spooked them with his grin and flayed them with his voice.

  Those men lay near dead for that evening and the night. The next morning, Albert Horse managed to have them discovered and helped by men passing by; so they returned to the South. One of them reported to his masters that Famous Innominee could lash a man with his voice alone so as to break him open and make him bleed.

  A vengeance had now been vowed on all the Innominee, but it wouldn't be effected carelessly. Famous Innominee had become almost as feared a man as his father Hannali.

  Several men of good minds were met one day at Hannali's House to discuss affairs. We know them all.

  “I am reminded,” said Peter Pitchlynn, “that the persecution of our people was really by the government of the North. It was the northern national thing that drove us out. Now we have promises — I cannot credit them fully, but I do give them some credit — that we will receive fair and equitable treatment from the Confederacy.”

  “Our persecution was not by the government of the North,” said Hannali, “it was by the everywhere government but it was by the states of the South and the men of the South it was in the South that it happened it was South lands that we were robbed of but it was the government entire you cannot say that it was of the North.”

  “Its continuation is the government of the North,” said Peter. “This is the snake we cannot kill. We know we will not have justice from the North, though presently they have a just man. The North passes. Why is it wrong that we choose the future thing?”

  None of them doubted that the South would win the coming conflict.

  “We must choose neither of the perditions,” said Strange Choate.

  “We must remain uninvolved, and it is the hardest choice we will ever make. Our only chance of survival rests on this standing apart.”

  “Why have it come to the people again,” asked Hannali, “why are the people to have never peace that we be desolated once more have God forgot us that we try to be good people we have had our destruction and our death it should not come to us the second time even Christ was crucified but once.”

  “It may not be so severe as that, my father,” said Famous.

  “Yes, it will be as severe as that, my grandson,” said Strange Choate. “We will be extinguished, ground to death between two stones. I am old enough to be able to see over that hill and I see our disappearance. But if we must go, let them remember us as we were. Let us stand up clean in this matter away from the mud of the North and the gumbo of the South. How is it that you waver, Little Peter?”

  “They close in on us and we are compelled to take sides,” said Peter Pitchlynn. “We are not masters of our fate. It may be presumptuous to suppose that we have a fate. We become, all at once, people of no moment.”

  “I am a man of moment,” said Famous, “my father is and my grandfather is. You are wrong, Peter.”

  “No, I am right. There is a man who says that the Indians are only a satire on the white men, as the white men are only a satire on the gods. It may be that we are no more than a caricature of a caricature.”

  “I know who is that man,” said Hannali, “he have a big beard and he lie into it he is the man who speaks of gods and know not God he is a caricature of a man it is not we who are he is the second Devil of the Indians do not listen to the big crooked man friend Peter he is a mouth man he is not a real man may we not ever come so low.”

  But Peter Pitchlynn had been listening to many sorts of men. He had often talked to Robert Jones and other rich white-man Indians of Oklafalaya; he had talked to the Texas men and the Arkansas men who now began to have great influence in the Territory. He talked many times with the government Indian agents: Douglas Cooper of the Choctaws, William Garrett of the Creeks, Samuel Rutherford of the Seminoles, George Butler of the Cherokees. These white men had always been friends of the Indians, and they had all thrown in with the Confederacy.

  He had talked to all sorts of men, and he was confused. The magic was flaking off him like bark from a sycamore tree.

  3.

  Which woman have wet mud feet? I remember every blade of grass that I have ever seen. The boy with the watery eyes.

  The dates were various: the secession of South Carolina on December 24, 1860; Jefferson Davis becoming President of the Confederacy on February 9, 1861; Lincoln inaugurated twenty-three days later; the first noteworthy shots fired April 12; and on April 15, Lincoln declared that insurrection existed and called for troops. So it had begun.

  In our Indian Territory, Union forces were withdrawn from Forts Washita, Arbuckle, Cobb, Gibson, and all other posts in July of 1861. This made the Unionist Indians feel that they were abandoned. It lent strength to the contention of the trusted Indian agents that the Confederacy had now succeeded as the legitimate government of the Territory. When the Union Army was withdrawn, these agents had been the only government men of any sort remaining in the Territory. Their defection had great influence. The Indian Territory did not leave the Union; the Union left the Territory.

  The Union soldiers in the Territory had been good fellows, young, rough, easy-going. They had always gotten on well with the Indians. Yet, as soon as they were gone, and in several accidental cases a little before, there was a wave of hatred against them; they became cowards, jayhawkers, niggerheads, thieves. Well, somebody was turning out the words, and we know who. The wave of hatred was a very contrived thing, but it could kill.

  In that same July 1861, a man or an apparition was seen near Hannali House. Then he was not seen again for several years.

  This specter had the appearance of a Union soldier — a straggler from the withdrawal. Newly fervid Confederate Indians led by white men had followed this man or apparition to kill him. These men had wounded him but not brought him down. They tracked him through a muddy ravine near the Canadian River. Then the tracks ended in a confusion.

  This was good mud and wet sand, and the markings were clear; it was the interpretation of those markings that was foggy. For the tracks of the man ended. There were short steps as though he had stopped and teetered — about to fall. And then no more mark of hi
m.

  But there were also the footprints of a woman there. These came almost to the point where the tracks of the man ended. Then they turned around and went back whence they had come.

  “That man he could not have fly,” said one of the Indians, “he was too bad shoulder-shot to fly.”

  The white man in charge looked at the Indian angrily. He never knew when these wooden-faced fools were joking. But the tracks of the woman led to Hannali House, and the tough Confederate captain from Texas — with two other white men and nine Indians — came to the House right at dawn. They demanded to search the place.

  Hannali Innominee refused them entrance. His son Famous came and supported the father with a steel voice edged with derision.

  “So. A man has been tracked to within a half mile of here, and now you can track him no further? You are no Indian trackers. You are white men with ocher smeared on your faces. You could not track a goat if he wore bells.”

  Those nine Indians didn't want any part of Famous Innominee, not on his own ground. They knew that the dude was a swift strong man who could bad-eye them till they froze like ground squirrels before a bull snake. They feared him as their fathers feared his father. The captain from Texas had also heard of the Innominee.

  “I don't understand about those tracks,” said the captain. “I agree with the tall bucko that these men aren't the best trackers in the world. I know blue-eyed Texas scouts who'd track a man through the air if he went that way. But I'm pretty sure that the man we're after is in your house, and I mean to search the place.”

  “You have no idea how strongly I mean that you will not search my house,” said Hannali. “Nobody search my house while I live.”

  “We may fix that too,” said the Captain.

  “Another white man officer once put a term on my life but he did not call it when it was due,” said Hannali.

  “I'm familiar with the tale, and I'm impressed by it. Well then, Senator Innominee, what is your suggestion?”

  “I will not see any soldier man of either side in my house while there is war,” said Hannali, “this is my sworn word you cannot search my house with the men you have here we spook you my son and I your Indians look at my house and count on their fingers they do not know whether my other sons and daughters' husbands are in the house or not it does not matter two of us are enough we whip you we chill you now take my word I will not see any soldier man of any sort in my house while there is war I swear this.”

  “I'm inclined to believe you,” said the captain. “Even your enemies — and you have more of them every day — say that your word is good. And it's a wild idea that the man could have gotten to this house. It's a wild idea that he could have gotten anywhere, but he's gone.”

  The men wrangled awhile, and then the Southerners went away without searching the house.

  “Which woman have wet mud feet,” Hannali asked of the family.

  “It does not matter which woman, Father,” said Famous, “it's done.”

  But Hannali saw the answer from his own doorstep. He had only asked the question to mask his feelings. He knew the marks of every shoe in his household. Hannali knew the answer, but we have not been able to learn it. It remained a family secret.

  Even little Natchez — she was strong as a colt in spite of her small size — could have done it. Marie DuShane had once hefted big Hannali onto her shoulder for a joke, and Hannali would weigh more than twice as much as this wraith. Martha Louisiana could have lifted a horse. Sally could have done it easily. Hazel, Luvinia, Helen Miller, Rachel Perry, Marie Calles, any of them could have done it.

  One of them had gone out before sunup that morning — knowing that someone was in trouble — had found the wounded man and had seen that he was being hunted down to his death; had taken him up on her shoulders and carried him — so as to leave none of his tracks — the half mile to Hannali House. And the Indian trackers, of course, had understood it all. They knew why the footprints of the woman were deeper when going back to the house. Whichever woman it was, she had carried the man into the house, and he was there now. This was the man they would look at and not see for several years.

  Hannali went to his strong room and found what he had expected, but by his word he did not see the man at all. He called loudly for warm water and oil and unguent and linen and whiskey — such things as are needed for the wounded. And after he had patched the man up he spoke softly to himself.

  “Never could I believe that such a darkness would come over my eyes it is almost as if there were someone in the room with me and I can see no one I am give my word that I will see no soldier of any kind in my house while there is war it is sad that my poor eyes should fail me I have been proud of my seeing.”

  “If your sight has failed, how about your memory?” a tired voice asked somewhere in the room. “I have an advantage over you. A man is remembered as a man, but a boy is not always recognized in the later man.”

  “My memory is unimpaired it is only my eyesight that have failed,” said Hannali, “I remember twenty-eight years ago this springtime a man spoke to me and twenty others in a dream come to the mountain he said I arose in the morning and rode to the mountain on the way we picked up a white boy we frighted him with the notion that the men of Oklafalaya would cut off his ears now it comes to me the notion that those same men would cut off his head and it not be a joke.”

  “The name of the boy?” asked the voice of the wounded man.

  “A voice comes to me out of the air,” said Hannali, “it asks do I remember the name of a boy I have just say to myself that my memory is unimpaired I remember every name or word that I have ever heard I remember every blade of grass that I have ever seen every scent that I have ever smelled every object to which I have put my hand every notion I have ever had in the dark of night my memory is unimpaired only my eyes grow curiously dim.”

  “What was the boy's name?” again asked the voice of the man that Hannali couldn't see.

  “His name was Robert Pike he was a boy who rode down from Missouri he was fourteen years old a pale boy with watery eyes he wanted to see the wild Indians in Okla Falaya he didn't know that the Indians in Okla Falaya were not wild then it comes that now they are.”

  “I have found that out,” said the voice.

  “I dream the face of that boy before me now,” said Hannali, “I fancy how he would look when he had become a man I build up in my mind what would be that face it is almost as if I see that face before me now.”

  The wounded Union soldier was Robert Pike from Missouri. The Innominee kept him hidden in their house for several years. They maintained the fiction that they could not see him. They were Freedom Indians and they could give no harbor to any soldier while there was war.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1.

  The United Nations was established at North Fork Town in 1861. There are men here today who would lead us like sheep. Robert Jones owns the Choctaws.

  The United Nations was established at North Fork Town in the Indian Territory in June of the year 1861. Its members were the Creek, Seminole, Caddo, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee Indians.

  Like another organization of identical name that was established four score and four years later, the first and original United Nations was conceived partly in deceit and partly in sincerity. It was announced that it was to be a continuing assembly where the nations could discuss their common problems and advise as to common actions. Some good men remained in the organization for its duration. But from the very first the apparatus was rigged, contrived, subverted, and made the tool for a peculiar and alien policy.

  We will not pursue further the parallel of the two organizations, but we do not lay off for fear of giving offense, only to get on with our main account.

  “It is fun to give offense,” Hannali Innominee said boldly at the first assembly of the original United Nations, “it is fun to throw the truth rock and hear which hit dogs howl what are we sheep t
hat we should allow ourselves to be led by false shepherds there are men here today who would lead us like sheep.”

  The big Choctaw with the given name of Six-Town or Six-People (Hannali) was delegate to this new Six People affair called the United Nations. The assembly grounds near North Fork Town were only five miles from his own Big House, and he lodged many of the delegates with him.

  The United Nations was not the great show that it might have been earlier. The last of the old assemblies had already been held; this was the first of the new sort. There was Indian oratory, but not the old deep Indian oratory. There was the Chinese-sounding tone speech of the Cherokees; proclamations in the Caddo that sounded like the barking of happy dogs; and measured eulogies by men of the other four tribes who all spoke languages of the Muskogee family — languages that are jointed and ordered and sounded something like our own. Then the Indian stuff had to go.

  The languages of the nations would have no place in the United Nations after the introductions. There were certain white men there — not white-man Indians, not Indian agents, certainly not delegates — who were running the show. They ordered gruffly that the Indian nonsense should stop and everybody should talk English.

  But nobody can orate in English, certainly Indians cannot. English could only be the prose to their poetry. It has no real song or sweep to it. One cannot play it like an instrument.

  The hell one cannot! Just two weeks later they would hear Albert Pike do it. They would hear a deep white man orator who used English as a compelling instrument. They would be swayed by his great voice as no voices had swayed them since those of Pushmataha and Moshulatubbee. They were hungry for high oratory.