Betsy and Jason helped pack the Squire’s saddlebags, and watched him ride off with Major Westall.
Now the summer deepened upon Moshawnee and the Alabama woods and fields. Farmers worked their crops in the hot sun, and on Asper Enderby’s vast acreage gangs of sleek black field hands wielded hoes and pushed plows. Almost no law business came to Squire Colquitt’s office with the proprietor gone, and Jason applied himself, between household chores, to the study of his books. Again he attacked the great work of Blackstone. Remembering that Andrew Jackson’s early legal studies had included the precepts of Bacon, he read much of that authority also. When he had studied until he felt his eyes roll in their sockets like tired, heavy marbles, he went out and walked through the town in search of diversion.
Many citizens of Moshawnee considered him a friend, and hailed him gladly. With Snipe Witherspoon he went one day to trace wild bees. They paused at a quiet pool along the townside stream, watched a bee drink, and as it sped off into the trees they walked in the direction it had pointed out for them. Later they stopped and waited until another bee made its line past them, and that brought them to a great hollow tree that hummed inside.
Jason took an axe to help cut the tree down, and he and Snipe came back to Moshawnee, each with two or three mud-daubed stings, but bearing a great wooden washtub filled with honey. Mrs. Witherspoon fried pancakes on the spot, and Jason ate his fill of the cakes swimming in honey, then Snipe presented him
with a stack of succulently dripping combs for his share of the venture.
Days later, he helped Darby Baugh harvest green corn, and carried home a great armful of choice roasting ears for Purney to cook for supper.
Alexander Kift, too, had become Jason’s friend. The Moshawnee Sentinel had thrived from the first as the county’s paper, and Kift delighted in including Jason’s name in his columns of local gossip:
Mr. Jason Morgan got the head mark at the spelling school last Thursday, as the only contestant who could deal properly with SAPROPHYTIC. The editor himself failed miserably at spelling the word that evening, and may have done so again just now. If so, Mr. Morgan can set us right in our next issue, and perhaps may define the term as well. . .
The Foresby Fencibles held their muster and drill on Saturday afternoon. In the absence of Major Westall, manual of arms and skirmish drill were ably conducted by Captain Lycurgus Barwell. The gallant captain announces the promotion of Mr. Jason Morgan, who henceforth will rank as orderly sergeant of the Fencibles. . . .
Eloquence and logic signalized the monthly meeting of the newly organized Moshawnee Adelphi Oratorical and Debating Society. The bonne bouche of the program was a spirited debate upon the subject: “Resolved, that the United States should extend to females the franchise to vote.” Decision of the judges was announced as favoring Mr. Jason Morgan, who brilliantly upheld the affirmative against the capable and popular Squire Milo Kinstrey. . . .
Betsy Colquitt, in her uncle’s absence, took over some of Jason’s instruction. She held the books and asked questions concerning the law, while Jason did his best to answer them, as some day he must answer to examiners. Betsy’s questions were notably sensible, and showed a considerable grasp of legal matters.
“I vow, Betsy, you ought to be a squire yourself,” pronounced Jason after one such evening of questions and answers. “You’d be a right good one.”
“And a squire I’d have been, had I been born a boy instead of a girl,” was Betsy’s instant reply. “Perhaps I could have been Uncle Henry’s partner.”
“I didn’t know the Squire wanted a partner,” said Jason.
“Nor does he. Often and often another lawyer has approached him with a suggestion of putting their names together on the same sign over the same office. He’s always declined, with thanks.”
Jason digested this bit of information. “Who’s asked to be his partner?”
“Milo Kinstrey presumed to offer the idea once. More than once.”
“Milo Kinstrey presumes a considerable lot, it seems to me,” Jason commented. “Does he truly want to be your uncle’s partner at the law?”
“Yes, he does, and mighty strongly,” replied Betsy. “Why else do you suppose he tries to dazzle me with his bowing and smiling ? He’s trying to get me on his side—”
“Oh, wait,” broke in Jason, and he was smiling himself. “You don’t do yourself justice. Perhaps it’s honest admiration on Squire Kinstrey’s part.”
“I doubt it,” insisted Betsy, refusing to joke. “There’s not an honest ounce in him, in his admiration or anything else.”
“And is that why you won’t be his dancing partner and friend?”
“I wouldn’t be his friend, not even if he wasn’t trying to get at Uncle Henry through me. Milo Kinstrey’s smart, of course— I wouldn’t take that away from him.”
“You couldn’t,” agreed Jason, remembering what he had seen of Kinstrey’s courtroom manner and methods.
“But it’s Uncle Henry the people want for a lawyer. They can trust him, which isn’t always the case with Milo Kinstrey. That’s why it could mean a vast deal to him to set up in partnership with Uncle Henry.”
Betsy closed the book. “That’s all for tonight, Jason. I think you’re doing splendidly well with your studies, and I envy you being a lawyer some day. I wish I were a man.”
She spoke with such vivid earnestness, her blue eyes bright, that Jason put out his hand to touch hers.
“But I’m glad you’re not a man, Betsy,” he assured her candidly.
The blue eyes widened a trifle, then were lowered to look at the cover of the book, and at last Betsy smiled.
August came to Alabama. It was extremely hot some days, but the corn and the cotton grew high and strong. Still Jason sought for word of Cut Nose, and found none. Not even rangers of the woods like Snipe Witherspoon and Darby Baugh knew where Cut Nose might be camping, or which way his wanderings might take him.
The month wore to its midpoint. Soon Colquitt would return from his errand to Montgomery, and the fall term of circuit court would begin—six weeks of court trials, civil and criminal, in six different county seats. And Moshawnee would hold its court week last of all, at the very end of September.
Jason sat up late on the night of August 14, poring over the state statutes of Alabama by the glimmer of a tallow candle. It was almost midnight when he shut the big book and set it aside, snuffed out the little tag of flame. Then he rose to seek his cell-like sleeping quarters. Halfway across the floor, he paused and listened.
There came the sound again, a stealthy scratching on wood. Jason walked to the door, took hold of the knob, and opened it a narrow crack. In the light of the waning moon stood a broad, dark silhouette.
“Me,” said the voice of Cut Nose.
Jason stepped across the threshold log. “Were you looking for me?” he asked.
“You look for me. I hear talk.”
“That’s right, Cut Nose. Well, what kind of hunt did you have?”
“Some good hunting, some bad.” A pause. “Somebody try to hunt me.”
“Hunt you, Cut Nose ?”
“Two men try to kill me. Up north.” Cut Nose gestured with his raised palm. “Shot at me. Miss. I get away easy.”
“Two men,” repeated Jason. “Who?”
“Two white men. I see them some other time—don’t know names. One of them is big man—fat, short.” Cut Nose held his arms apart to show how big a pudgy torso could be. “One man was thin. Move quick. Got whiskers here, sharp like knife.”
Cut Nose touched his big chin.
“A heavy man and a thin one with chin whiskers!” exclaimed Jason.
“Talk soft. Maybe somebody listen here, know what we say.”
“Cut Nose,” and Jason caught the Indian by his powerful arm, “I remember two men who looked something like that. They tried to kill Squire Colquitt last spring.”
“True?” grunted Cut Nose, interested. “Maybe same men. Maybe want to kill for same
reason.”
“What reason?”
“I don’t say name,” said Cut Nose; but he turned and looked searchingly toward the town square.
“Cut Nose, maybe that’s it!” Jason shook the Indian’s arm urgently. “You know something or other about Sun Chief’s grave. And Squire Colquitt is at the law about that grave—” “Yes, true. I hear about it.”
“If it’s true, we want to find out why.”
And Jason, too, gazed in the direction of the square.
“I simply don’t understand,” he confessed. “If Sun Chief is buried yonder—”
“No,” said Cut Nose.
“What do you mean ? You told me he was buried there.”
“I say that, yes. Once, far back, Indians bury him there. But they take him away again.”
Jason stared at his friend in the darkness, trying to grasp what he had just heard.
“Is that true ?” he cried at last.
“Talk soft, Jason. Yes, it is true. I tell you no lie.”
“Sun Chief’s body was taken away ? But who did that?” “Some other Indians, my people. They go away to new country.” Cut Nose pointed west. “Take with them.”
“I want to understand this. They dug up the body.”
“White men dig up. Wrap all up, in buckskin robe. Give to Indians.”
“I see,” said Jason.
And suddenly he did see. That was the Indian way, too. The tribe, seeking a new home in lands to the west, had carried along the remains of the leader they once had loved and followed, to rest where they could see his grave.
“But the place they buried him in the square—” began Jason again.
“Still there,” Cut Nose told him.
“But you say Sun Chiefs not in it now ?”
“No.” Cut Nose was looking into Jason’s face in the gloom. “No, not there. I go before sun is up tomorrow. But tonight— you want to make sure? Good. I help you look in grave, Jason.”
Jason felt a tingle of exultation, tinged perhaps with apprehension.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll look in that grave. Wait here, Cut Nose. I want to get some tools.”
Jason walked quickly around the house, and from the shed behind fetched a spade and a mattock. Returning, he handed the mattock to his friend.
“We’ll need some kind of light,” he suggested.
“Here.”
That was Betsy, standing in the open door, a dark cloak pulled around her. She held something out to him. It looked like a small pail.
“It’s a dark lantern, Jason,” she said. “Keep the slide pushed shut when you don’t want to show the light.”
“Betsy, were you listening?” demanded Jason accusingly.
“Yes. I heard you two talking, and came to find out what the matter was. Now I want to help.”
“White girl all right?” Cut Nose asked Jason.
Jason took the lantern from Betsy, and above it he gazed at her. The sight of her, resolute and eager, comforted him.
“Yes, she’s all right,” he replied happily. “You can trust her, Cut Nose, the way you trust me. Now tell us, why do you want to help me open the grave?”
“You are my friend,” said Cut Nose, as though patiently explaining an obvious point. “Maybe you can be big man in white men’s council. Like warrior—like chief.”
“They call such men lawyers, Cut Nose,” supplied Betsy.
Cut Nose hunched his shoulders. He did not understand the word.
“Jason no liar,” he said bleakly.
“I didn’t say ‘liar,’ I said ‘lawyer,’ ” Betsy tried to explain.
“Lots of other white men tell big lie. I don’t care. White men make fight with each other, Indian look somewhere else. But—” Cut Nose tapped Jason’s shoulder. “This white man is my friend. Come on. We all go, look in grave.”
“I’m coming, too,” spoke up Betsy. She came outside.
“Better stay at home, Betsy,” advised Jason.
“No,” said Cut Nose suddenly. “No, let white girl come. I hear her talk. She got a strong heart.”
Jason looked from Cut Nose to Betsy, and back again.
“All right,” he agreed. “Her word will be needed, I guess. She will be what white men call a witness, Cut Nose. She can speak at the white men’s council.”
“Good,” approved Cut Nose bleakly. “Come, you two.”
He shouldered the mattock and led the way.
Clouds strung across the scrap of moon as they came to the square. They paused silently, looking this way and that. But not a movement stirred the streets of Moshawnee, and not a single window showed a light, except for the tavern opposite. A dull rosy glow there rose from coals on the hearth.
Jason groped his way to the little knoll in the grass once pointed out to him by Enderby. He set his spade to the earth. But Cut Nose quickly seized him by the wrist, pushed his big face close, and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Don’t want white men to know we dig.”
He squatted on his moccasin heels, drew a knife from his belt, and carefully sliced into the sod. He lifted out a lump, set it well aside, and repeated with another and another. Jason understood, knelt beside him and with his own knife cut away other lumps. These he stacked behind him. Within minutes they had cleared the top of the mound.
“Now we dig,” granted Cut Nose. “Here. Dirt go on this.”
From his pack he unslung a rolled buckskin and spread it out.
“That’s right, Jason, keep the dirt out of the grass,” seconded Betsy. “I’ll put down my cloak to hold more.”
“We’ll ruin the cloak,” objected Jason.
“We’ll ruin Enderby and Kinstrey,” the girl replied. “Start digging.”
Cut Nose plied the mattock. With the spade, Jason lifted clods of earth and piled them on the buckskin and the cloak. In utter silence they toiled, half an hour, an hour. The hole sank three feet and beyond. Then:
“Hold that mattock,” Jason warned Cut Nose. “We’ve struck something.”
He stopped and groped in the loose soil with his hands.
“Bone,” he reported.
“Wh-what?” quavered Betsy.
“Bring that dark lantern over,” Jason told her. “Come close to me on each side, you two. I’m going to shine the light here.”
He moved the slide of the lantern. A beam stabbed into the hole.
“It’s a rib,” said Jason, “but it’s not a rib from a human skeleton.”
He brought it out. Cut Nose took it from his hand.
“Not man’s bone,” seconded the Indian. “Look like pig’s bone, maybe.”
“Pig’s bone?” repeated Jason. “Yes. Let’s see what else is in there.”
He slid the lantern shut and burrowed again with his hands. He touched and grasped something else, larger than the rib. A strong tug, and he dragged it free.
“This is a jawbone,” he said, “and it’s long and narrow. Big sharp teeth, too. The lower jaw of a pig.”
“You see,” said Cut Nose, quietly triumphant. “I say true words.”
“I believed you, Cut Nose,” Jason assured him. “Now others will believe that Sun Chief isn’t buried here. But just how did it happen ? You say white men dug up the grave—”
“Listen,” said Cut Nose. “You want me to talk to your friend ? Tell everything.”
“To Squire Colquitt, yes.”
“I talk when he come back, then. No time now. We get away from here, quick.”
“And let’s keep the bones for evidence,” said Betsy.
“But first fill in the grave,” added Jason.
Swiftly he and Cut Nose returned the loose earth from where they had heaped it on the cloak and the buckskin. They stamped it down carefully and then, painstakingly as workmen setting a mosaic floor, they replaced the pieces of sod. As they finished, a drop of rain fell on Jason’s face from the gathering clouds.
“Good,” he said. “That will help hide what we’ve done—a littl
e rain on the town square. Come on, let’s go home.”
In complete silence the three headed back toward the Colquitt home. Cut Nose lingered a moment outside the door.
“I go again,” he said. “Go back and hunt. Nobody know I come to this place but you, Jason—you, white girl. We keep quiet. I talk to your friend, Jason, when he is here. But you know now. Grave is empty.”
He shook Jason’s hand, glanced at Betsy, and nodded to her.
“I go,” he said again.
Betsy and Jason watched from the doorway as Cut Nose vanished soundlessly in the engulfing night.
“Don’t you suppose he was afraid, there at the grave?” Betsy whispered.
“I can’t say for sure about Cut Nose’s feelings,” said Jason. “He probably believes in ghosts, but whether he’s afraid of them is another thing.”
“Were you afraid, Jason?” she asked.
“Me? Nervous, maybe, but not afraid. I was glad you were there to back me up.”
“And I was glad you were there,” said Betsy. “Good night.”
11 Circuit Court
A GENTLE, SOAKING RAIN FELL THAT NIGHT. WALKING OUT NEXT day, Jason ventured to look at the town square. Only a close and searching examination would show that anybody had delved into the mound which Enderby had called the grave of Sun Chief.
On that same afternoon, Squire Colquitt and Major Westall returned from Montgomery. At once Jason and Betsy told the Squire of their midnight expedition and the discovery of the bones.
“Hog bones, all right,” Colquitt confirmed Jason’s judgment, handling the rib and the jaw. “And you swear, both of you, that they came from the very spot where Enderby says Sun Chief was buried ?”
“We’ll swear it before any jury,” promised Betsy.
“But do not speak of it until I put you before a jury,” her uncle warned her. “Where’s the inkstand ? I want both of you to mark your initials on these bones. Then we’ll lock them up in the bottom drawer of my desk. And, when we go to trial on that courthouse matter, we’ll have something of a surprise for Mr. Asper Enderby.”
“Cut Nose says he will talk to you,” said Jason, “about how the body of Sun Chief was taken west by his tribe.”
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1956 Page 8
