Okla Hannali

by R. A. Lafferty

  They didn't catch Yahola the Fox. An apocryphal story (and most of these apocryphal stories were true) has it that Alligator ordered the Fox bound, loaded in a wagon, and carted off to Kansas against his will. He did arrive in Kansas, where he died the following spring. The Seminole warrior Halleck Tustennuggee was in command of the skeleton force that made the brief stand at Shoal Creek, and most of the others present were die-hard Seminoles. They covered the retreat of the remnant, the last of the Snake Creeks who made the break through the snow to Kansas.

  These Seminoles were astute men in their own way, but there was one aspect to them that was incredibly childlike. Most were still under sentence of death by the United States for their leading outlaw resistance bands in the Florida wars more than thirty years before. They imagined that they would be remembered, that the Union officers to be met in Kansas would be the same Union officers they had fought in an earlier generation, that they would be shot immediately under the old order. They would as soon die where they were.

  There was only a handful of prisoners taken at this battle that was hardly a battle. It may not be true that McIntosh ordered them exterminated; it was the nature of these men that made this necessary.

  Alligator was trapped alone in a draw, bareheaded and barefoot in the snow, and holding an empty rifle like a club.

  “Surrender or die!” they told him.

  “I die,” the graying Alligator said simply, so they killed him there.

  Stand Watie was furious that there had not been a pursuit of the final Snake Creeks who had escaped under cover of the “battle.” He set out with his killers, “big-man” Cherokees on that pursuit. His racing forces caught and cut down hundreds of the fleeing Snake Creeks. Seven hundred Creeks died on this last flight, but likely more of them died of cold than were killed by the hunters of Watie and Cooper. About seven hundred all told (most of them from the earlier flights) got to Kansas safely; this was out of the original three thousand of them before Round Mountains. But the able-bodied men of them swore that they would take retribution ten times over for the murders, and they would do so.

  “The Snake is dead on the Mountain, and who will care for her children? The calf tries to suckle at the dead cow. My enemy has counted coup upon me, and the White Eyes have murdered my mother.

  “The parfleche is empty, the lodges are burned, it is dismal to die this way. Who will set up the poles for us? Who will know the right way to tassel the lance?

  “Oh the lips that are cold! Oh the fine bodies that come to stink! Oh the smoke that will not rise again!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1.

  Why have God punished us so grievously? Sundown Day for us. With the principality.

  Some months had gone by, and the Territory had been bleeding to death from its thirteen civil wars. Every settlement in the Territory had been under attack. Every town had been destroyed. All but one of the strong houses of the Choctaw North had fallen.

  One day Hannali Innominee awoke — not knowing that he had slept — absolutely shaking with horror. He had been napping in the daytime when it came to him. He'd had these horrifying intuitions in his life several times before, and they had never been mistaken.

  He broke out of the house and ran to a ravine hardly a hundred yards away, for his black intuitions always carried complete details.

  “Why have God punished us so grievously who try so hard to be good,” he cried as he ran, “it is because I have broken my word my parole.” What did he mean by that? He didn't doubt what he would find. He had seen it in every detail when he wakened in horror.

  Salina Innominee was done to death in the little ravine. It was a stark, bloody thing. We will not linger on it.

  That was the earthly end of Sally — a very good girl who was possessed by a Devil. But there is something about her ending that we miss, that we would still miss if we examined her closely. But Hannali caught it, not at his first intuitive vision of the horror, not at his actual coming to the site of the murder, but as he tried to compose himself. There was a mystery in the middle of the bloody business.

  The murder of Sally Innominee was a stark bloody thing, but there was something peculiar about it. She had been struck dead with a single stroke — suddenly, painlessly, almost compassionately. The brutal and bloody business had all been done to her body after she was dead. Hannali — due to a lifetime's experience in which violence had a part — was able to sort out these effects with half his mind. Even the bloody business after she was dead was less than it appeared. The blood from the one wound had been spread to make it appear that she had been wounded many times. It was as though someone had staged and disarrayed the body after the killer had left.

  But she was dead, and the Devil had killed her. That she had died suddenly and painlessly was small solace.

  Ten minutes are gone — all that we can allow Hannali to recover from the shock. He has lived back through thirty years in those ten minutes, and he is back in the house. He stands silently with a coarse paper in his hand, the screed he knew he would find.

  Perhaps the man wrote in his own hand this time. He may have picked up the writing art during his irregular soldier life; and this was the longest missive he ever wrote.

  “Fat man I draw you out I warn you dou not come this is the only time I ever warn you I have kill your heffer calf it was not easy for mixed reasons for me to dou this thing. You want find me? I tell you where in Hitchiti Meadow I wait for you — ”

  The writing did not trail off, but the mind of Hannali did. There was more here than simple outrage; this was a trick within a trick. Hannali's passion over this would never be spent; the Devil had killed his daughter; it was the final lightning stroke out of the horrifying cloud that had hung over his family for a generation.

  Sally — Salina — was gone, the best girl ever, but for a long time she had been defective in her mind. But there was a second prong to the present attack, and Hannali analyzed it as he read.

  “In Hitchiti Meadow I wait for you,” ran on the screed of the Devil, “and at the Nourth rim I take one free shot at you from four hundred yards but no outher advantage then you will know where I am then one of us will kill the outher — ”

  Hannali's mind broke off again. He was an old badger who scented every trap, and this one was so strong that it stank. But a badger won't avoid a dog trap in any case. Hannali raised his hackles to the taunt of the Devil-Dog, knowing all the time that it was bait and that it might be fatal.

  Hannali's great son Famous had gone from the house for several days, and someone had known that he was gone. It was their rule now that one of those strong men, Hannali or Famous, should always be at the house. The raiders would not try it if even one of them was there; they were much afraid of the Innominee men. Oh, this was a double attack! But how to handle it.

  “This is sun-down day for us fat man,” the letter ran on, “there is one thing you dou not know about Whiteman Falaya I want tell you he is not one all pece man like you think he is many pece man it was our father Poushmataha said even the buzzart sometime gag but what he dou when he have gag it out is he not still buzzart come get me fat man I taunt you out I tell you one thing thou there are worse men loose than is Whiteman Falaya you think that is not pospel there are men in this so bad they scare me as I scare outhers there four I dou not care which of us it be let it be bouth and I am end in every way come shooting fat man I wait for you alone this much is true Whiteman Falaya.”

  Besides Hannali, there were two men in the house; Forbis Agent, the bookman and dreamer, and Robert Pike, the invisible Unionist soldier. The women were there: Natchez, Marie DuShane, Martha Louisiana, the three mothers; Luvinia, Hazel, Helen Miller, and Marie Calles. And the children, the biggest of them no more than half-grown — the smallest still infants.

  Two men, good men but not strong men in the sense that Hannali and Famous were; seven women; twenty-four children. Hannali gave them rapid instruction
s. Then he took his rifle, looked again at his dead daughter, and went out afoot on the manhunt.

  “I cannot let one thing go I cannot let the other go,” he said, “I would have to be two different men in two places God give me strength for it You owe me this God how have I sinned that this should happen to us?”

  Hannali walked rapidly to Hitchiti Meadow. He would have to deal with the double menace one prong at a time. He dimly concurred that there were worse men loose than Whiteman Falaya; he caught a whiff of those men now. Whiteman Falaya was only the Devil — a Devil who was scared when he learned that there were men so much worse than himself. He wanted it over with, he wanted the sundown day for himself. Well, he would get it, or Hannali would get it.

  A cloud purled out of the southwest. Within a very few minutes it would cover the sun, and by that time one of two men would be dead.

  The mind of Hannali Innominee was cleared somewhat when the “free” shot of Whiteman Falaya caught him in the fat loin.

  It was now battle with the principality.

  2.

  In Hitchiti Meadow I wait for you. Perfect shooting on the edge. The ghost is fleshed. Time run out.

  Whiteman Falaya had tricked him, of course, but Hannali had expected the trick. The “free” shot had not been from four hundred yards but from less than twenty. The ghost killer was behind Hannali.

  Whiteman Falaya had not been in the meadow, but in a clump before its entrance. He indicated his position — more than by his shot — by his laughing, chuckling, barking, gobbling cry. This was the Indian gobble — the most eerie death challenge of all.

  In the thinnest strip that one can slice from a second, Hannali rolled to shallow cover and caught the whole background with his eye. He knew every tuft here, every jag of turf, every reed, cedar snag, bush, clump of grass; and he knew which had been disarrayed.

  It was his own land, the same to him as the inside of his house or head. Here he would not be had by anyone.

  Hannali scented his man strongly; he caught the excitement and arrogance in the scent, and also a touch of fear. Every man who had ever heard of him was afraid of Whiteman Falaya; but Whiteman himself — and Hannali could sort out the emotions that made up that body scent — was exhilaratingly afraid of Hannali.

  Hannali knew — probably he had always known — that he himself was better at this stalker-killer game than was Whiteman, possibly better than any man whatsoever. But he was shot painfully, and time would run out on him as he would weaken from loss of blood. He had known that the shot would be close and in the back; he had been waiting for it. He also knew that the shot was not meant to kill. Whiteman did not miss at fifty yards, nor did Hannali himself. Either of them could drill a turkey in the eye at that distance.

  Whiteman Falaya was moving rapidly and silently, in deep cover, along the fringe of the meadow. The good ears of Hannali could not hear him, and the sharp eyes could not catch any movement; moreover, Whiteman was circling in the direction opposite that which Hannali at first guessed. Even the scent was lost by the shifting of the wind. But there are secondaries by which even a ghost may be tracked.

  The Kiowas can tell you the flight of a hawk in the sky yesterday afternoon, going only by the marks of rodents on the ground. And by such secondary means Hannali was able to track the ghost in the bush.

  A kingbird set up a slight squabble some distance away. A nighthawk, farther away and in another direction, grunted and flopped up off a stump — and Hannali had a triangulation. There was the click-click of grasshoppers rising, some distant and some near. There was the snick of a field rat going through the roots of the grass. These disturbances could be charted.

  There was nothing supernatural about the ghostly-moving Whiteman Falaya, but there was something very near to it in the sharp sensing of Hannali. It was as though a giant traveling finger pointed out the whereabouts of Whiteman Falaya as he skirted the meadow silently.

  Hannali fired!

  He fired even before he saw the fractional movement; had he waited for it, he would have missed. He fired at where the adversary — a shallow slice of him — would have to be. He hit.

  The only sound was a sharp intake of breath forty yards away, and Hannali knew that he had creased Whiteman in the buttocks. The cover there was too shallow by an inch or so. Whiteman would have been by there in less time than a hummingbird's blink, but Hannali caught him at his instant of transit.

  The shot both lifted dust and skinned Whiteman. Lower by its own diameter it would have ricocheted. Higher, it would have missed or cut the man less painfully. This was better shooting than drilling a turkey in the eye. It was perfect shooting on the edge.

  “The ghost is fleshed,” said Hannali to himself. He meant that Whiteman could no longer move in absolute silence. No man, tensed and in pain, can do so. By his wound, Whiteman had taken on the heaviness of the flesh.

  Hannali stood erect — in the open — and he had the advantage. He was out in a meadow four hundred yards across, with no real cover, and he disdained what slight cover there was. It was his opponent, in the lush tangled cover that fringed the meadow, who was pinned down. Whiteman could not show even an eyeball for an instant without having it pierced to the brain. Hannali had simply settled his dominance in this by his calm and sure presence.

  Try it, Whiteman, try it!

  Whiteman Falaya flicked up a finger. And lost a nail. But Hannali's shot had not now come from fifty or forty yards out. It had come from eight. He was right on top of Whiteman. It was heavy Hannali, wounded and tightened up, who was able to move noiselessly when they came to the showdown call. Hannali was the ghost now.

  He had Whiteman pinned down in the too-shallow cover, unable to move at all, and was almost standing over him. Hannali was a sure man and he had a sure thing. Whiteman had never played at murder with a complete man before. He had only played with ordinary men.

  But was time running against Hannali? Not in the immediate case. Whiteman would be losing almost as much blood as Hannali, and Hannali had more blood to lose.

  But the other time was running out. The second prong of the threat stampeded back into Hannali's mind. Hannali sniffed the air. Nothing. Nothing yet. It was three-quarters of a mile.

  “Finish it fat man,” Whiteman Falaya called out, “come crash in you kill me but I kill you too we go together to die is all I got left.”

  “I've a duty to live till another day,” said Hannali evenly.

  There were flat rocks there of five to eight pounds heft. Hannali began to toss them over the ledge cover onto Whiteman. There was the sound of a heavy fall on the rib cage, of a mean glancing blow off the skull. Hannali had Whiteman's body outlined behind the edge.

  “You hurt me,” called Whiteman. “Fat man you will learn that there are worse men loose than Whiteman Falaya.”

  “I learn it now,” said Hannali. He sniffed again, and it was there. All doubt vanished with the first rifle shots three-quarters of a mile away. Time had run out.

  Hannali crashed in shooting. He had not the time to kill carefully. He killed Falaya, but Whiteman got in his second shot. Whiteman had a pleasantly dark dead face, seeming younger than it could have been. And Hannali's own face was horribly ashen. He'd have died from that second shot if he hadn't another duty unfulfilled.

  3.

  Great Red Flowering. Dead with her hair still on fire. The end of the world of Hannali Innominee.

  Hannali was running back to his house. He was bleeding out through his ribs now, and a man has no business running when he is shot there. Three-quarters of a mile, and already the hot-smoke scent of it came to him.

  How fast can a twice-shot man run three-quarters of a mile? How fast can an old heavy man do it even when the raiders are putting the torch to his house and his family? The worse men than Whiteman Falaya had set fire to Hannali's house, and they would shoot down anybody who ran out from the flames. In the house were two men — good men but not
great men, seven women, twenty-four children.

  “It is sundown day for us Fat Man,” Falaya had written.

  “It is no sundown day for me and mine yet,” Hannali groaned furiously. But the second shot into the rib cage had robbed him of breath and strength. A bear can charge thirty yards after he is killed by such a shot. Hannali was more bear than a bear, but could he charge three-quarters of a mile?

  Hannali had planted red roses in front of his Big House, even though they were a white man thing. He enjoyed that flick of red splendor whenever he came onto the house from the front. But he did not enjoy the great red flowering that engulfed the house now.

  Both the low-flopping wings of the house were on fire. They burned so hot that they exploded outward here and there, but the whole house would not go so quickly. There were stone rooms with flagstone floors that would not burn completely; there were strong rooms in the house.

  The defenders and raiders were dueling it out. The guns spoke sharply, and Hannali understood every one of them. He knew the voice of every firearm in his establishment, and he could catalogue the guns of the raiders — the Sharp's Carbines, 52 Spencers, 44 Henrys. They were not the indifferent Indian trade rifles, and they were not shot by unorganized raiders.

  From the house, someone was shooting with a very sweet little rifle of Hannali's, but the shots were going too high — singing away in the air like hornets. That was Forbis Agent trying to repel the raiders and make his own broadsides meaningful, but he hadn't the knack.