Okla Hannali

by R. A. Lafferty

  “That son how have I neglect to teach him to shoot proper,” moaned Hannali, “how have I so bungle a thing.”

  A cranky old shooting piece was speaking at longer intervals. This was handled by a man who tried to make every shot count; he was but a fair shot, yet it was something. There had been a boy with watery eyes who wanted to see wild Indians; now he faced coldly savage Indians and white men. It was Robert Pike, the spook who took on flesh when the sanctuary of the house was violated and he was released from his parole.

  The light squirrel rifle of Marie DuShane was talking in breed Indian, but it was a short-range piece and the raiders were right on the limit of her effective range.

  Three defenders dueling it out with fifty raiders who held back a little to let the fire do their work for them.

  Hannali sat down heavily when he was within his own range of the thing. He was sick to death, but he could not allow himself to die. He began to kill raiders from four hundred yards out.

  Hannali's return finished the raiders. The Indians among them were superstitious, and the white men more so. It was as though Hannali, having killed Whiteman Falaya who was a ghost and unkillable, was a man returned from the dead or the inheritor of a charmed life. The big Choctaw was a Territory legend, really more feared by his enemies than Whiteman had ever been. Hannali stunned them all by his return, and he killed half a dozen of them before they knew what he was about. They broke away, took to horse, and raced around the burning wings and behind the house. But they could still kill as they went.

  Hannali arose again, though it would be pleasant to stretch out and die. He staggered toward the house as though falling uphill. Like a worn-out mule, he lunged and ran because he was too far gone to walk. He felt the hot blast of the house and the crowning glow before the high gable crashed down.

  He was through his big front door and into the flaming room. Fire could not instantly fell a man as full of juice as he; he could live for a little while in fire. Forbis Agent was dead under a burning beam. Nobody else was there either in life or death.

  Hannali fought through the house and to a little plot behind. The raiders were going over the hill, and Hannali dropped the last one of them dead from the saddle. There was something artificial about the act — it was like one of the outré stories that his father Barua used to tell. He had upped with the gun and fired in sheer weariness, and seven hundred yards away a man had tumbled from his horse. It was almost a white-man story thing. Then Hannali saw something too ultimate to be a white-people affair.

  Marie DuShane was dead with her hair still on fire. The snout of her light rifle had plowed into the ground where she had fallen with it.

  If Marie DuShane was dead, then the family was dead. She had been everything to them all. She was more soaring than the little bird Natchez, and of a darker passion than Martha Louisiana. She had been, after she discovered her own person, one of incredible kindness and complete competence. Hannali had seemed to be, but Marie DuShane was the family.

  Hannali called out in a cracked voice. He got no answer from anyone. He started back through the still-standing rooms of the house. He lost his senses and fell to the hot stone floor.

  Here is hiatus. How insufficient the word for the end of the world! The world of Hannali Innominee was ended.

  When the world should start again — jerkily and without real authority — it would not be the same world nor would they be the same people in it. It would be a shadow world of shadow people. Later they would gain some substance, but they would be of another sort — of another nature.

  It had ended there. And something else had ended unnoticed at the same time. For perhaps the Five Tribes Territory civilization came to an end with the fall of that last strong house of the Choctaw North.

  The smoke rises, but foully, and high above the roof hole. The talk is gone. The people are gone.

  The world is gone in the reek.

  4.

  Of another part, and in the latter days. Bull blare. Dead family come back to me. Is God silent is there no voice?

  Hannali did not know if he were in the same world or another, if he were alive or dead; but he did know that about three hours had gone by. His sense of time was something that even death couldn't distort.

  He was in his own strong room, and he had not got there by himself. He had been patched up and his bleeding stanched; but he was crawling with fever, and in great agony and stiffness from his wounds.

  He arose to see what could be done in the new desolate world into which he had just been born. It was Robert Pike who had brought him there. Hannali could sense a man three hours gone, in this world as well as in the previous one. But that waiting man had not waited to take farewell. He had, however, left a note on the table.

  “Papa Hannali, I have fixed you up as well as I might, and now is the time to make my break. They will be scouting back in sight of the house before dark. I am no longer afraid of them, nor of anything, but I do not wish to forfeit my life. I believe you will not die.

  “I will be back again, from the North. Their attack breaks my parole. They think they are raiders! Those Devil Cherokees have never seen raiders till I come back.

  “I scouted for an hour. I can't find any of the family alive. Helen Miller is in the little canyon a half mile behind the house. You call it Choke-Cherry Canyon. She took some of the children there, but they killed her and them. Marie is behind the horse lot. She tried to hide the smallest ones in the feed lot; they found them. I know you have seen Marie DuShane dead. The first bunch caught Martha Louisiana outside. They hooted that they would sell her for black in Oklafalaya. Natchez took others of the children somewhere, I cannot find them or her, tomorrow you will find them dead in some draw.

  “I was member of your family, the most odd family ever. I will repay what you have done for me, and revenge what has been done to you. I know the big men of the raiders, their names and their faces. I count me twenty houses of them that will be fired by me before I am finished with it.

  “Robert Pike, Sergeant.”

  Hannali moved out of the room with terrible stiffness. He called aloud, but he could not be sure that his voice made any sound. It was a feeble thing that was like a joke of his old voice. He went out of the house.

  The house was still burning in several parts. It would continue to smolder and smoke for several days, but it had already divided itself. The good stone parts had been burned clear of their attachments and stood firm. They would need only beams and rafters and roofs and refitting — if ever a man should decide to live again.

  Hannali made a bugle with his hands and gave a loud mournful call. It was a sick cow call. Had two bullets, smaller than the end of a finger, turned Hannali into a cow? No. Now he put the bull into his blare and sounded powerfully. There were none of them alive to answer him. Very well. Then he would call them up dead. He sounded a final great blast. “Dead family, come back to me!” was the burden of it.

  A dead grandson appeared. It was Famous-George — a son of Famous Innominee and Helen Miller. “Is it safe we come back, Papa Hannali?” the grandson asked fearfully. Hannali nodded, for he couldn't speak. Then he sat down suddenly and heavily, bear-fashion on the ground, to wait what other apparitions might be. He was confused for almost the only time in his life, and hope came to him but gradually. Some of his people were still alive. Famous-George had gone to bring others from whatever limbo they were hidden in.

  The daughter Hazel came with Peter-Barua (of Travis Innominee and Rachel Perry) and with Martha-Child (of Forbis Agent and Luvinia Innominee).

  “Are there no more my daughter,” Hannali asked her with faint voice.

  “We will see. Natchez and her clutch, I think. Can you get up?”

  “Always I can get up once more after I am dead where do we look.”

  Natchez was down in a pit that had been used variously for a cistern and an underground silo. It was covered over with brush which Hazel removed. Natchez had not ans
wered the bugling of Hannali, and would not have answered any call by anyone. She had been told to remain completely silent until the brush had been pulled back and she was able to see the faces of those who came for her. And she had kept the children quiet through it all.

  Natchez handed up the four children she had with her: Helena, the small daughter of Alinton Innominee and Marie Calles; and the three infants, Thomas-Academy (of Forbis Agent and Luvinia Innominee), Charles-Chitoh (of Travis Innominee and Rachel Perry), Anna-Hata, the blue-eyed daughter of Jemmy Buster and Hazel Innominee.

  “Are there no more my daughters,” Hannali asked again.

  “Not unless Martha Louisiana is still alive with them,” said Hazel.

  “I have to be sure,” said Hannali, “have they taken all the ponies.”

  “They are not take any of them,” said Famous-George. “I was let all the ponies loose and tell them to stay clear of those men the men was not able to catch or find our ponies.”

  Hannali again made a bugle with his hands, and gave out with a weird pony call that nobody had ever heard before.

  “One of them will come,” he said then; and a heavy pony did come with a scurry of broad hoofs.

  “It's on to dark, Papa Hannali,” Hazel told him. “They'll kill you on the way, and we will all die without you.”

  “Nobody will kill me daughter I owe death too much grudge this day he will be afraid of me for what he has done he will hide his face and slink away.”

  Hannali found Martha Louisiana about three miles down country. Apparently she had become too battlesome and they had killed her. Hannali brought her back slung across the pony. He walked painfully, and the animal followed. No pony could have carried the two of them.

  Nine were still alive: Natchez, Hazel, Famous-George, Peter-Barua, Charles-Chitoh, Martha-Child, Thomas-Academy, Anna-Hata.

  Twenty-three were killed by the raiders: Marie DuShane, Martha Louisiana, Luvinia, Helen Miller, Marie Calles, James, Marie-Therese, Henry-Pushmataha, Philip-Nitakechi, John-Durham, Francis-Mingo, Strange-Joseph, Nicholas-Nakni, Louis-Hannali, Jude, Matthew-Moshulatubbee, Mary-Luvinia, Gregory-Pitchlynn, Anne-Chapponia, Charles-Mexico, Pablo-Nieto, Forbis Agent, Bartholome.

  One had escaped — Robert Pike.

  Salina had been killed by Whiteman Falaya to bait Hannali away from the house. Twenty-four of them dead in one day!

  “My son Famous may yet return,” said Hannali. “If he do then he must become head of the family.”

  “No. My father will not ever come back,” said Famous-George.

  “Are you Alikchi-man that you know this?” Natchez asked.

  “Yes. I know about my father that way,” he said. Famous-George was ten years old.

  “Is my son Famous dead,” Hannali asked him.

  “My father is another man now,” said Famous-George. “He will die soon as that other man.”

  Famous Innominee did not come back. They would receive a writing in his hand saying that he became dead for his own reasons, that they might possibly hear of a man who reminded them of him, that perhaps he could turn again and come alive to them after it was all over with.

  We have our own theory about the man that Famous became — one of the sudden new Union captains, a man of shocking force. He had a short and incandescent career, and died under a name that was not Famous Innominee.

  Hannali sawed boards in the morning. Famous-George and Peter-Barua sawed and hammered them to make twenty-four coffins. Hannali picked a soft-bottomed meadow for the burial plot. He would dig till he bled too badly. Then he would rest till stanched, and dig again. Natchez and Hazel dug tirelessly. They buried their dead.

  “Who will know the Latin to say now that Marie DuShane is gone,” Hannali worried.

  “Who was you think would know the Latin,” said Famous-George, “who have inherit the brains of this family anyhow?”

  Famous-George read it out of the book from the Subvenite sancti down to the last lux perpetua.

  Everything that follows is epilogue. Yet the contingent latter life does have advantages. A man already dead is spared many worries. He sees things in a truer aspect, and he will soon be able to develop a pleasure in it all.

  “Our faith constrains us to believe that Death is only an incident,” said Hannali, “a good man will not fear it and a busy man will hardly notice that it has come and gone it is the same with my foredeath here I doubt that it is extraordinary to me it must come to many men.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  1.

  From Cowskin Prairie to Edward's Post. A tired horse and a dry cigar. It ended on July 14.

  In all those years, the warfare in the Territory seemed random, but it followed a certain pattern. The intent of the South was to use the confused Territory as a screen against northern attack on Texas, and to employ in this Indian troops only, and the veriest sweepings of misfit white Texas units. It was by accident that some very good Texas soldiers were swept into the Territory action; had they been correctly classified as first-rate they would have been used elsewhere. The South was generally successful in this tactic. Texas became a great reservoir of soldiers for use in the conflict in the states, and Texas herself was defended by the hodgepodge.

  At the same time, the South disguised this holding action by a series of really showy raids. They were not intended to result in the permanent occupation of northern Territory, so they could be shallow and swift. From the southern viewpoint, it did not matter whether the raids succeeded or failed. They were intended as a diversion; they would punish the Kansas and Missouri regions and keep them in a turmoil; and the raiders killed would be mostly Indians.

  The object of the North was to prevent any dangerous build-up of Confederate forces in the Territory — anything that could be used as a serious flank threat. The North could have conquered the Territory, but to hold it they would have to borrow manpower badly needed elsewhere. Five times the Unionists came down into the Territory in superior force, scattered the opposition, occupied most of the area, and then withdrew again. And five times the Confederates reoccupied and destroyed. These ten total sweepings of the Territory were very bloody affairs, but most of the blood spilled on both sides was Indian.

  The name men among the Confederate raiders were the splendid Jo Shelby who used regular troops; the devil Charles Quantrill who had been on both sides and who now had a new Confederate license to murder — with such men as Frank James and Jesse in his following, and others who were killers from the cradle; and the double-devil Stand Watie and his killer Cherokees.

  And whenever the raiders had ruled for a few months, the Unionists would come down and break up their nests. Five times they did it with expeditions that were total war, but the Confederate resistance was always a stubborn thing. Stand Watie was a real military genius, whatever else he was. Tandy Walker of the Choctaws was another. He had been chief of all the Choctaws in 1858 and 1859, or at least the chief of the Skullyville Convention party. He was a boy-faced beardless man whose Choctaw and Chickasaw troops stood up to white troops, all sorts of Indian troops, and inextricably mixed white, Negro, and Indian troops; and in one sense they were never beaten. He fought twenty battles, and he was never driven from a field. It is true that his men usually disappeared from the field in the night following the battle, but that was his strategy: to inflict terrible losses, and then to melt away. He hadn't the means to fight two- and three-day battles.

  Tandy Walker commanded the Second Confederate Indian Brigade which was made up of the First Chickasaw Battalion, the First Choctaw Battalion, the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Battalion (Alinton Innominee rode with this group), the Second Choctaw Battalion, and the Reserve Squadron which was led by Captain George Washington — the Caddo Indian chief who was friend of Hannali.

  They would be fighting yet, if the Unionists had not ceased to come down into that country, and if the Confederates had not weakened and surrendered elsewhere and called on them no more.

  At first th
ere had been the universal assumption that the South would win. There had then been a year of doubt, followed by the years when it was clear to any man of any hue that the North would prevail. But nobody in the Territory switched sides when fortune turned. All were as stubborn in their allegiance on the last day as on the first.

  When did the main Civil War end anyhow? Do not be insulted, but it is possible that you are mistaken in your answer.

  Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, but that was not the end. There were numerous leaders left who swore that they would never surrender; and yet, one by one, they did so.

  On April 26, Joe E. Johnson surrendered the Army of Georgia.

  On May 10, President Jefferson Davis was captured by the Unionists.

  On May 24, General Kirby-Smith, the last of the die-hard Confederate generals in the southern states, surrendered. This date is usually given as the end of the Civil War; but there was still fighting in the Territory, and the Confederate Indian armies were intact.

  Peter Pitchlynn broke the first deadlock. As new chief, he took over from the military leaders and announced that it was finished as far as the Choctaws were concerned. He surrendered, not to an army force, but to a federal commission.

  What would the mad-man raider of the Cherokees do? Stand Watie was a full Confederate general. He was an end-of-the-line man, but he knew when the party was over. He surrendered on June 23, the last Confederate general to surrender.

  But it wasn't over with yet. The Chickasaws were still in the field, unbroken and expert. They were howling for somebody to come down and fight them. They had been the magnificent fighters all through the fray.

  As Peter Pitchlynn had done with the Choctaws, Winchester Colbert now dealt with his Chickasaws. Chief (Governor) Colbert dismissed the military leaders, and he told his men that the wars were over. The Chickasaw army began to melt away, most of the men riding off to find what was left of their homes. Governor Colbert barely held enough of them to have a token force left to surrender — about a hundred men.