Zeke and Ned

by Larry McMurtry

  “Now Jim, it’s just a shot-off jaw,” Zeke repeated. From the vague look in Jim’s eye, he thought the man might be suffering a spell of weakness himself. “I’ve done stopped bleeding, and Moses will too, after a while.”

  Jim Squirrel continued to squat by his brother, a faraway look in his eye. Though still annoyed at Moses, Zeke could muster no rancor toward Jim Squirrel. If it had not been for his great need to get to Becca, he might have tried to help the man put Moses on a horse.

  “If I see Rat, I’ll tell him to get on back here,” he assured Jim. “He was pretty scairt. He’s probably run on up the road by now.”

  “Well, if you see him, Zeke, tell him to get on back,” Jim said. “I need his help. Moses is going to be fractious once he comes to and notices he’s lost one of his jawbones.”

  Zeke was nearly to the trail when he noticed Rat Squirrel hiding behind a red haw bush. It was not much of a bush; Rat was in plain sight.

  “Rat, can you walk?” Zeke called out.

  “Yes, and I can run, too,” Rat informed him. “If you try shootin’ at me again, I mean to run faster than I run the first time.”

  “I wanted you to leave off trying to hang me, you fool!” Zeke told him. “If you can walk, get on back to that clearing and help your brother.”

  Rat, confused for a moment, looked at Zeke as if he could barely remember he had a brother.

  “Jim’s tending to Moses,” Zeke told him. “Your brother needs your help—now get on back. I have no more time for palaver.”

  Rat stood up without another word and trudged on back into the thicket. He had a bloody pants leg where the bullet had nicked his hip, but otherwise, he looked fit.

  Zeke put the bay gelding back into his long, easy lope and got along toward Missouri. Annoying as it was that the Squirrels thought they had the right to interfere with him on a public trail, it occurred to Zeke that being wounded slightly might not be a bad thing. It might help his case with Becca. After all, not every man would ride all the way to Missouri after being shot in the ribs. He even began to regret that the wound had stopped bleeding so soon. If he arrived drenched in blood, Becca could hardly turn him away. He thought he might stop a mile or two from the farm where she was staying and try to squeeze some fresh blood from the wound. Becca had always hated for him to be sick; the slightest ailment brought out the nurse in her. She would brew up teas and soups and other healthful concoctions, until his health improved. Zeke did not believe she could harden herself when faced with his injury, particularly if he could make it drip some just when he arrived at her door.

  It amused him to think what fools the Squirrel boys were. They set out to hang him, and ended up doing him a favour instead, besides which Moses Squirrel would be eating one-sided for the rest of his life. He could hardly wait to tell Ned Christie the story.

  Ned would laugh and laugh.

  4

  “HIS BREATH’S BARELY COMING, DALE,” NED SAID, LOOKING DOWN at the white, silent body of Tuxie Miller.

  All the children were outside crying. Jewel was there; Ned had brought her over to help Dale with the nursing. But Jewel was just staring, like her husband Ned. Tuxie’s fever had raged for five days, and they were all tired from fetching springwater in their attempts to keep Tuxie cool at night.

  Old Turtle Man had come personally, at Dale’s insistence. He was down at the barn by himself, making a poultice out of some weeds and thistles he had gathered on the Mountain. Ned’s view was that Dale and Old Turtle Man had got there too late. The wound had too much of a start, and now Tuxie Miller was dying as a result.

  “You best give up on him, Dale,” Ned said, gently. “I expect he’s lost the struggle.”

  Dale did not even look. She would sit for hours, not taking her eyes off Tuxie. She preferred it when the others left, so that there was no racket in the room—nothing that would keep her from hearing her husband’s faint breathing. As long as she could hear his breathing and Tuxie could hear hers, a sign that his wife was right there with him, she was convinced that Tuxie would not die.

  Old Turtle Man came and went frequently with fresh potions. Tuxie was so ill that Old Turtle Man was gone a day and a night, traveling to the next district in order to trade with another medicine man for more powerful concoctions. Dale’s job was to see that Tuxie kept on breathing until the potions gained on the infection.

  Dale meant to do it, too. Tuxie would not die, unless she allowed it, and she did not mean to allow it. Ned Christie could think what he liked.

  Ned drew Jewel aside, so he could whisper to her without arousing Dale.

  “I’m gonna go dig the grave,” he told Jewel. “It’ll save time.”

  “But he ain’t dead,” Jewel said, shocked by Ned’s decision.

  “He’s barely drawing his breath,” Ned whispered. “I expect he’ll go by nighttime. I’d rather do the grave digging in the daylight. That way, I can make a tidier grave.

  “Don’t tell Dale,” he added. “I’ll dig it ’round behind the barn, where she can’t see what I’m doing.”

  With that, Ned slipped out the door and walked off toward the barn. Jewel did not try to stop him, though she did not agree with what he was doing. Dale had not given up on her husband; Ned ought to let her fight her fight before he started digging graves.

  When Ned came racing home to get her, Jewel was so glad to see him that her heart fluttered in her breast, like it always did at the sight of her tall husband after his leave-taking. She was so excited that she was more talkative with him than usual. But sitting by Tuxie’s bedside watching him fight for his life was an experience that frightened Jewel so badly, she had barely spoken. She did her best to stir up mush now and then for the children’s meals, but all she could think about was how lost she would be if it were Ned who was sick and dying—and he could be sick and dying, what with all the fighting in Tahlequah. Jewel knew that she did not know as much as Dale; she might not be able to do the right thing to save Ned, under the same circumstances. Dale had ridden over the Mountain, on a dark night, and found Old Turtle Man; she had even persuaded the old man to follow her home and treat Tuxie personally. Without Dale, Tuxie would already be dead— Ned was right about that. Jewel knew she needed to learn as much as she could from Dale, in case she had to nurse her own husband back from a serious wound someday.

  She did not like Ned’s determination to get the grave digging started. To Jewel, it seemed like giving up. If someone tried to dig a grave for Ned while he was still breathing, she would resent it bitterly, even if the act was kindly intentioned.

  Jewel was with child now, a fact she had not revealed to her husband. Watching Ned stride down toward the Millers’ barn, Jewel felt hot tears well up in her. It was such a hard task, keeping men alive, what with all the fighting and wounds and sickness life could produce. Now she had a baby within her, a new life that she had to keep alive as well. She wanted to be as strong as Dale Miller, strong enough to keep a man alive who rightly ought to be dead—strong enough to carry nine children and keep them alive and healthy, too. But she knew she was not as strong as Dale, not yet. She was fearful when Ned was away from her, so fearful that she could scarcely sleep. She needed Ned as much as Dale needed Tuxie, yet all Dale’s skill and force was barely enough to keep Tuxie breathing. Thinking about it was so worrisome that it gave Jewel a shivering feeling, deep inside her. She wanted to be strong for Ned’s and the baby’s sakes, but with the shadow of death hanging over the Millers’ cabin, she could not feel strong. All she felt was the coldness of fear, deep inside.

  Dale sat by the bedside, holding one of Tuxie’s hands. Once in a while, she would press one of his fingers, and Tuxie would respond, pressing his finger against hers, just enough so that she could feel it. In Dale’s mind, the fact that Tuxie still pressed her finger was a signal that he did not want her to let him go. She knew death was near, and it might be that Tuxie would get so sick that he would have to leave her, but as long as he pressed her finger, Dale kne
w there was a chance that he would stay. Although Tuxie was so weak that his breath came only faintly, the wound itself looked a little better to her. Old Turtle Man had mixed up a few hard blackberries he had found on the Mountain with some squeezings from the glands of a toad. He had smeared the mash into the wound as deeply as he could get it, and it seemed to Dale that it had leeched some of the poison out of the ugly red gash. She knew she had to keep the closest watch she was capable of; her eyes went constantly to Tuxie’s face. She knew her husband was walking a thin fence rail between life and death, and she did not want to withdraw her attention for a second, lest he tip to the death side while she was looking off.

  Ned Christie had walked off somewhere; maybe he had left to go kill Davie Beck. Ned had told her several times that he meant to put Davie Beck in his grave for what he had done to Tuxie. He spoke of vengeance while they were considering taking off Tuxie’s leg. Dale had weighed carefully the matter of amputation and rejected it on instinct, but she had paid little attention to Ned’s talk of revenge. Ned could worry about vengeance if he wanted to—Dale had to devote her attention to keeping her husband alive. She had nine children, and she would not desert them or skimp on their raising. Tuxie was the man she had pledged herself to, and Dale knew she faced a long, bleak widowhood, if he died. Tuxie was a good man, and she needed him. She knew she would wither without Tuxie.

  She pressed Tuxie’s finger again, her heart in her throat, and waited for Tuxie to press back. For several long seconds, he did not. Then Dale felt the faint pressure of his finger against hers, and her heart lifted.

  Old Turtle Man arrived with a cup of bitter herbs he had been brewing in springwater. At first, Tuxie seemed too weak to swallow the black potion, but Dale got behind him and lifted his body. Finally, Old Turtle Man got a few drops in him. Dale saw Tuxie’s Adam’s apple move when he swallowed, and was grateful that the old healer had persisted.

  Then Old Turtle Man went out the door, and began chanting one of his healing songs, while Dale wiped Tuxie’s forehead with a cool rag.

  “Where did Ned go to?” Dale asked, when Jewel came timidly back to the bedside.

  “He went off,” Jewel replied. She did not want to blatantly lie, but neither did she want to reveal that Ned was behind the barn with a shovel and a pick, digging Tuxie’s grave.

  Dale liked Jewel, but a low feeling came to her when she looked at the girl, so young and timid and scared. She knew Jewel had no sense yet of the power that would be hers someday, as a grown woman—no girl could know much of that power, until it arrived. It was not the natural fact of her innocence and ignorance that troubled Dale when she looked at Jewel; it had more to do with things Dale did not really know herself, apprehensions that rose in her when she thought of Ned Christie. Ned and Tuxie had been friends from boyhood, and Dale knew there was no separating them. She knew, too, that Ned was as true and loyal a friend as Tuxie would ever have. Dale cared for Ned and might have married him herself, if he had been forthright enough to come to her with his need. But Ned had held back, pretending he was not needy of her. Tuxie had walked right past Ned and plunked his longing in her lap as if it were a bushel of snap beans. Before they had ever touched, Tuxie had made her feel that his need for her was so great that he might die if she refused him, so she let all thought of the handsome Ned go and opened herself to Tuxie. She had not regretted it, either, for all Ned’s handsomeness and dash. Tuxie was the more gentle man, a man she could be sure of.

  There was even more than that to Dale’s concern. Ned seemed to be making Jewel a decent husband; he might have made a decent husband to her as well. Dale’s disquiet was not about Ned Christie’s character—it was about his fate. She thought it unlikely that Ned and Jewel would ever know the kind of peace she felt with Tuxie and their children. Ned would not know peace, and now young Jewel would not, either. The killings in Tahlequah merely confirmed something Dale had always felt about Ned Christie: bloodshed was his fate— bloodshed and death. Now the blood had begun to flow in the Tahlequah courthouse. Ned had killed some of his enemies, but he had not killed them all, nor had the white law from over the Mountain been heard from just yet.

  There would be more battles, of that Dale felt certain. Young Jewel would have to grow into womanhood quick if she was to guard and protect her husband, and pull him out of conflict before it was too late.

  Dale was lost only for a moment in her apprehensive thoughts. While she was looking at Jewel, Tuxie suddenly squeezed her hand. It was such a surprise that Dale jumped. When she looked back at her husband, Tuxie’s eyes were open. Not only that, they had a faint light in them.

  “What’s the grub, Dale?” he asked. “My belly feels like it ain’t got nothing in it.”

  “It don’t have much, hon,” Dale said. “You’ve been too ill to eat.”

  Tuxie turned his head slightly, and looked out the window. The day was bright, and the sun was vivid in the afternoon sky.

  “I have never liked to be in bed in the daytime,” he said. “I’d try to cut some firewood if I didn’t feel so lank.”

  Then he noticed Jewel, and looked at her in surprise.

  “Why, Jewel,” he said. “When’d you come to visit?”

  Then, having said his little say, Tuxie sank back into deep sleep. His breathing came so regularly that Dale did not have to listen for it. She shook her head, and dripped tears of relief onto the quilt that covered Tuxie’s legs. It had been a hard struggle, harder even than childbirth, and related, she felt. As she sat through the five nights holding Tuxie back from departure with her will and the strength of her body and her love, it had been her children’s birthings that she thought most about. Getting a child to come—keeping a man from going— those were the poles of her struggle. It was a grim struggle, one that required her to reach into the deepest center of herself and find the strength to prevail against Tuxie’s illness. Listening to Tuxie’s calm breathing made Dale wish it was nighttime. She wanted to lay down with him and rest, from all the straining. Her insides had got so knotted up with worry that she felt a good night’s sleep beside her husband was what she needed to put her right.

  Dale looked out the window and saw that Old Turtle Man was gathering up his pouches and his materials, getting ready to leave.

  “Hurry, Jewel, go stop him,” Dale said. “I’ll be out in a minute. I need to thank him, and the children need to thank him, too. He come all this way and saved their pa.”

  Jewel went out quickly, but not quickly enough. The Turtle Man, so old that he was frail and bent with age, nonetheless had slipped away into the forest. When Jewel asked the children, now playing by the woodpile, where the old man was, they all looked blank. None of them had seen Old Turtle Man leave.

  Jewel hurried to the barn. She was apprehensive that Dale would somehow discover what Ned was doing. Sure enough, he stood waist deep in the grave he was digging, his blue shirt as wet with sweat as if he had been dipped in a creek.

  “Ned, stop—you don’t have to dig any deeper,” Jewel said.

  “I do, too,” Ned said. “I’ve only got it about three feet. A good grave needs to be six feet, at least. There’s varmints that can dig down three feet, if they’re hungry enough.”

  “No, that ain’t what I meant,” Jewel told him. She felt a little vexed with Ned for being so quick to disregard her advice. There were times when he just did not seem to hear what she had to say.

  “Tuxie ain’t going to die,” she told him. “He just opened his eyes, and he’s breathing better. Dale’s up there crying, she’s so glad.”

  Ned was stunned—and more than a little abashed. Jewel had tried to keep him from hasty digging, but he had not listened. Now he was standing three feet down in a half-dug grave, with no corpse to put in it.

  “Are you certain?” he asked, remembering the white, silent Tuxie he had left scarcely more than an hour before.

  “He opened his eyes,” Jewel repeated. “And he asked for grub.”

  “I guess h
e’s well, then,” Ned told her. “Food’s always the first thing on Tuxie’s mind.”

  “Come back with me, you’ll see,” Jewel said. “Old Turtle Man left. I guess he knew Tuxie was well.”

  “I can’t come back yet,” Ned said. “I’ve got to spade all this dern dirt back in this hole. I need to do it quick, too. If Dale finds out I jumped the gun on Tuxie’s grave, she’ll be at me about it for the rest of my life.”

  “Ned, you shouldn’t have given up so soon,” Jewel said.

  “Soon? It’s been five days since I brought him home,” Ned responded, annoyed that Jewel thought he was a man who quit too easily.

  “You shouldn’t have given up so soon!” Jewel repeated. They were the first words of criticism she had ever spoken to her husband, but she was too upset inside to keep herself from saying them and then repeating them. What if the child inside her got as sick as Tuxie had been? Was he going to give up on their baby and start digging a grave?

  Ned was surprised. Jewel had never spoken so sharply to him before. He was too shocked to respond.

  Jewel, suddenly afraid of how Ned might take her moment of anger, turned and hurried back to the house.

  5

  AS SOON AS CRACKY BOLEN SHOWED UP WITH THE NEWS THAT Judge Isaac Parker wanted to see him, Marshal Dan Maples got ready to go. He rolled his bedroll and cleaned his gun, his mood improving by the moment. There had been no marshaling to speak of for three months now, which meant there had been no cash money for three months, either. Wilma, his wife, had not even been able to buy seeds enough to plant an adequate garden, which meant victuals would most likely be scarce before the next winter was over.

  Dan was soon ready to go—Wilma had even packed him a little cold pork and a roasting ear to eat on his travels—but then had to delay his departure because Cracky Bolen settled down at the kitchen table and showed no signs of being eager to go on to his own farm, just five miles into the Blue Hills.