Zeke and Ned

by Larry McMurtry

  “No, it’s the whiskey. I slipped off the logs,” he said, allowing the men to help him out of the creek. Then he coughed, and felt a tearing pain. A second later, he began to cough mouthfuls of blood. Not until then did Dan Maples realize he was shot. The Becks had laid a clever ambush, if it was the Becks.

  While carrying Dan Maples to the jailhouse, the two had to stop several times in their carry, to let him spew blood. They put him on the bunk with the bedbugs. He felt the wounds with his fingers, and discovered that all three bullets were in his lungs. Dan Maples knew he would not have to worry about bedbugs that night, because he would be dead.

  By the time Sheriff Charley Bobtail got there, the young marshal, Dan Maples, had emptied out most of his lifeblood into a bucket. The Parsley brothers, Tim and Ted, had brought him in. They sat on stools in the jail, spitting tobacco juice into an old can. The Parsleys worked at the sawmill, and were rarely heard to speak.

  “Who shot him?” the Sheriff asked.

  Ted Parsley did not move. Tim just shook his head.

  “’Tweren’t us,” he said. “It was near dark, and he was way up by the creek. I was hammering. It was Tim heard the shots.”

  The Sheriff looked over at Tim Parsley, hoping for more information, but none came. Tim just sat there, looking back at the Sheriff with a simple expression on his face.

  Then Charley Bobtail looked at Dan Maples, who lay on the bunk, pale as a sheet. Every time he drew breath, he blew red, frothy bubbles out of his mouth. Though the Sheriff had not really liked the young marshal very much—a man who thought, in his impatience, that he could pen up time like a heifer—he did feel sadness for him. His body was still plastered with the mud he had stuck on himself. Of course, the mud had dried, in the course of the day; some of it washed away like sand in the rivulets of blood that trickled out of the young marshal’s wounds. Time—that elusive element which Marshal Maples had foolishly expected to control—was slipping away from him, as was his life spirit. But time would still be around, like the hills and the air, after the young marshal was gone; after he, Charley Bobtail, was gone; after the Parsley brothers were gone.

  “I’ll send for the doc, Marshal,” he told the dying man. Sheriff Bobtail had an impulse to offer the man hope, although he knew there was none.

  Dan Maples shook his head. He had a sense that he had been inconsiderate, and had probably caused the Sheriff considerable anxiety in the matter of the telegraph.

  “No, I’d rather you didn’t trouble him,” he replied. “It would be a wasted trip.”

  “All right,” the Sheriff said. Tim Parsley made a move to leave, but the Sheriff shook his head at him. Let the man have a little company as he died, the Sheriff thought.

  Dan Maples’s breath grew weaker; he was not blowing the frothy bubbles anymore.

  Then the young marshal touched Sheriff Bobtail’s hand.

  “Sheriff, I’d be obliged to you if you’d take a message to my wife,” Dan asked.

  “Why, yes sir, what’s the message?” Sheriff Bobtail wondered.

  “Tell her she was right about that crow,” Dan Maples said.

  Then the air got heavy; he was about to sleep, when he thought of Wilma again.

  “Sheriff, it’s one more thought for Wilma,” he said, in a whisper.

  “Yes sir?” the Sheriff asked, bending close.

  “Tell her not to mind about them eggs,” Dan Maples said, a moment before he died.

  17

  NED SECURED A FULL BOTTLE OF WHISKEY FROM OLD MANDY, EVEN consenting to pay her for the bottles Tuxie Miller had stolen out of her henhouse a few months back. Old Mandy was toothless, but talkative. She had been a whiskey seller for many years and did not let the presence of white law, in the person of Marshal Maples, dampen her enthusiasm for her chosen trade. She kept three copperhead snakes in a box on her back porch, a fact she never ceased to remind Ned of, though he could not see what bearing the possession of three copperheads had on any question under discussion.

  “I’ve got them serpents,” she told Ned every time. “Them are venomous serpents.”

  “Oh, the copperheads,” Ned said. He did not know what other comment to make.

  “I don’t fear the law as long as I’ve got my serpents,” Old Mandy told him. Bill Pigeon was laying on the back porch dead drunk, when Ned slipped up to the door to purchase his whiskey. Ned had to step over him to get into the house, and step over him again in order to get out with the whiskey.

  As he was going out with the whiskey bottle stuck in his pocket, Bill Pigeon, heavyset and dirty, sat up abruptly and tried to bite Ned’s leg. Ned had his Winchester with him, and quickly whacked Bill Pigeon with the barrel. He whacked him hard—hard enough that Bill Pigeon went back to sleep. Ever since the day when Davie Beck had sunk his teeth into his leg, Ned had been particularly disturbed by human biting. He did not allow dogs to walk up and bite him; why should he tolerate it in human beings?

  “You ought to tell that damn Bill Pigeon to sleep somewhere else,” Ned advised Old Mandy. “Who would want to pay good money for a bottle of whiskey with a fool like Bill laying there ready to bite you?” he said.

  “It’s just Bill, he don’t mean no harm,” Old Mandy said. She could never be harsh with Bill Pigeon; he had been her last boyfriend, only fifteen at the time, fat and sweet. Mandy would make him scour the woods for persimmons, for she loved persimmons and clabber milk. Bill had grown up and gone on to be unfaithful to her with a number of smelly sluts, but she retained her soft spot for him and let him bunk on her porch when it was rainy. She did not like the fact that Ned had whacked him with a rifle barrel, but then Bill was rather in the way, and he had tried to take a chunk out of Ned’s leg. She meant to make a vinegar poultice and put it on Bill’s lump, as soon as Ned was out of sight.

  Ned took the whiskey, crossed the creek, and crept into a thick bunch of bushes to do his tippling. He would rather have been in some saloon with a few boys to talk to, but under the circumstances he did not dare use a saloon. If he went in a saloon, Chief Bushyhead would hear about it and be displeased. The whole point of the trip had been to drink a little and yarn a little with the town boys, but that plan was spoiled. He would have to do his drinking alone and in a thicket. His trip to town was turning out to be not much fun. People in Tahlequah were nosey, and they also had good eyes. Ned knew he better content himself with drinking the whiskey in a thicket. If Chief Bushyhead got wind that he was still in town in defiance of his advice, the Chief might go so far as to ask for a vote to throw him out of the Senate, a thing that Ned did not want to happen.

  Ned enjoyed whiskey as much as the next man, or so he considered; but he knew perfectly well he could not imbibe it in the quantities that were common around the District. Tuxie Miller was permitted whiskey only on rare occasions, those occasions being when Dale was absent on some family errand. But if permitted, Tuxie could drink for three days, the only noticeable effect being that he would sometimes jump to his feet and utter a good oath.

  Tuxie could drink a large amount of whiskey with little visible effect, and so could many men of Ned’s acquaintance. Ned himself could not do it. Drinking three swallows of whiskey made him feel light headed; drinking half a bottle made him feel happy and talky and warm, or at least it did if the whiskey was good; and drinking much more than half a bottle invariably put him to sleep. Sometimes it was a comfortable sleep, but always, after drinking for a while, Ned slept.

  So it was the evening after the roof of the Senate building caught fire. Ned hid himself so well that no friend of Chief Bushyhead’s could see him, even if the man could see in the dark; uncorked the whiskey bottle; and drank.

  He was thinking over some points he meant to raise with the Senate when they met to consider the matter of a new roof, when he felt his head go vague. He soon lost track of those points, as it began to drizzle in his head—a soft, warm drizzle to match the weather outside. Ned had some feisty thoughts of Jewel, and began to think of things they c
ould do together when he got home. Coming to town had been a disappointment, mainly because the presence of the white marshal had prevented him from seeking jolly companionship, the thing he liked most about town life.

  Ned kept drinking, sampling the whiskey a swallow or two at a time. After the warm drizzle, thoughts began to buzz around in his head like a swarm of bees. He wished he could just have a talk with Marshal Maples and settle things openly; he wished Chief Bushyhead had not been so adamant about sending him home. By the time the bottle was half empty, the buzzing slowed in his head, and the swarm of thoughts began to settle down. Far away, he heard a hammering, muffled by the rain. Probably the Chief had assigned some carpenters to cover the hole in the roof as best they could until permanent repairs could be made. He could barely hear the hammering, for the drip of the raindrops from the leaves and the bushes around him was lulling him to sleep. Once he started to lift the bottle to his lips, dozed for a moment, sat the bottle down, and had to start all over trying to get it back to his mouth. He yawned, and then arranged his hat brim so that the raindrops would not drip down into his shirt. Then he carefully corked the bottle of whiskey and put it in his pocket. A time before, he had spilled most of a bottle of whiskey through a failure to cork it properly before he drifted off to sleep. So he took one more drink before corking the bottle. The warmth in his belly would make for a cozy snooze, despite the drippy weather.

  Ned dreamed of a child in a pigpen, wailing. It seemed that a little boy had crawled through the railing into the pigpen and then bogged himself in the deep muck in which the pigs liked to roll. The little boy was wailing, fearful of the pigs. Then a white goose came floating down from the barn; but then the white goose turned into Jewel, and pulled the squalling little boy out of the muck. There was a mule braying from a distance; Jewel got her legs muddy past the knees wading out of the pig muck with the little boy.

  When Ned awoke, it was near morning and the rain had stopped. The dream was still vivid in his mind. He remembered Jewel’s muddy legs, and the mule braying, and the little boy’s wailing—he wondered, yawning, if it could be their own little boy, due to be born in a few months, that he had dreamed about. Although the child had been in no danger, even in the dream, it occurred to him that he ought to build a better fence around the pigpen, one with rails close enough together that a child would not be able to crawl through and bog itself.

  The stars were clear above the hills in the distance. To the east, it was just beginning to be light. Ned had eaten nothing the day before, and he was hungry. He knew the Sheriff was an early riser, and Eula Bobtail, his wife, happened to be an excellent cook, for Eula had fed him tasty meals on many occasions. He thought he might stroll over to Sheriff Bobtail’s house, and if there was a light in the window, planned to knock and petition breakfast.

  As he walked off the hill, Ned felt a little stiff in the joints. He reached in his pocket for the whiskey bottle, meaning to take a small swig to loosen him up, but to his dismay, all he came out with was the top of the whiskey bottle. His pocket was wet, and it was full of broken glass—somehow, the whiskey bottle had broken, in the night. Ned took off his coat and carefully picked the shards of broken bottle out of his pocket. While he was about it, he noticed a hole that had not been in his pocket when he left home. Jewel kept his clothes in fine repair; if a hole had appeared in his pocket, or anywhere else in his coat, Jewel would have immediately sewn it up.

  Meanwhile, the bottle was thoroughly broken, and half a bottle of whiskey lost for good. It vexed Ned, that he had gotten only half value for his money and would have to go home with a hole in his coat besides. Unless he was lucky, Jewel would smell the whiskey on the coat and conclude that he had gone after liquor rather than a preacher. It was sure to make her mad as spit.

  All in all, it added up to a disappointing trip, rather than the jolly time he had been hoping for. He still meant to salvage breakfast if he could, and went tromping through the weeds and wet grass to the Sheriff’s house.

  Then he noticed a buggy at the jail—Chief Bushyhead’s buggy, with his grey mare hitched to it. That struck Ned as odd, for it was not even all the way light. What was the Chief doing at the jailhouse so early? When Zeke Proctor had been locked up, it was uncommon for anybody to be at the jailhouse this early. Sheriff Bobtail usually fished a little, or shot a squirrel, or paid some attention to his pigs and chickens, before showing up at the jail.

  Seeing Chief Bushyhead’s buggy in town so early made Ned apprehensive. Something bad must have happened; Ned wondered if it had anything to do with Zeke. Ever since he had watched Zeke ride off after the big shootout, Ned had been worried about him. He was afraid the shock of the massacre might have caused Zeke to lose his fire. Zeke had always been stout in his own defense, and cautious to a fault. He had even trained his dog, Pete, to walk sideways with his back to the buildings, just as Zeke did, in order to keep a sharp lookout for enemies.

  But if Zeke had lost his fire, he might have stopped being alert in his own defense. Maybe the Becks had ambushed him and killed him; or, if not the Becks, then the Squirrels. Zeke had far too many enemies to be wandering around in a low state. Zeke needed to sidle through life for a while, with his hackles up, ready for trouble. Otherwise, some wild fiend like Davie Beck would get the best of him, and cut his head off.

  Ned considered slipping away from the jailhouse, back into the woods, before anyone spotted him. Chief Bushyhead had ordered him out of town and would not be pleased to find that his order had been disobeyed. Besides—slipping away was the smart thing to do in most cases. The news, whatever it was, would not take long to climb the Mountain. If it was bad, he would have the safety of the woods. He could take his wife and vanish, if need be.

  But this morning, with the sun just burning off the mists in the valleys to the east, Ned did not feel like slipping away. He was a member of the Cherokee Senate, and a Keetoowah brother—if the Chief was out this early, the matter at hand might be one that would affect the whole community. He did not want to sulk off like a coyote, when important business was being conducted or important councils held. He was not a coward, and besides that, he was a free citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Despite his considerable respect for Chief Bushy-head, it had annoyed him to be ordered to leave, when he had just got into town. He had stayed, and that was that. If the Chief did not like it, he would just have to put up with it.

  Ned knocked, and boldly went into the jail. He had to stoop to get through the low door. Twice, while waiting with Zeke, he had neglected to stoop and had bumped his head.

  Chief Bushyhead and Sheriff Bobtail stood by the bunk in the one little cell, looking at a body covered by a sheet. Sheriff Bobtail looked startled when Ned appeared; Chief Bushyhead just looked annoyed.

  “Who’s that?” Ned asked, nodding toward the body under the sheet.

  “Dan Maples—he was the marshal that was looking for you,” the Chief said. “Did you kill him?”

  Ned thought he must have misheard.

  “Did I what?” he asked.

  “Kill him. I’m asking you,” the Chief repeated. He pulled back the sheet a little. The dead man had no shirt on. There were three bullet holes in his chest.

  “No, Chief, I didn’t kill him,” Ned said quickly. “I never laid eyes on the man, until this very minute.”

  “I believe him,” Sheriff Bobtail said. “Ned ain’t a killer. I expect it was the Becks.”

  The Chief was silent for a moment. It aggravated him deeply that young Edward Christie had ignored his order to leave town. He was not in the habit of simply ordering people out of town on a whim. Edward Christie, and for that matter, everyone with any sense in the District, knew how touchy things were with the white law. Avoiding contact with a marshal who was bent on arresting him only made sense, and Edward Christie was certainly intelligent enough and old enough to grasp a simple point of that sort.

  And yet, here he stood, still in town, and the marshal who had come looking for him was dead
of three bullets well placed in his chest cavity. It was a bad luck day for everyone concerned. Now the white marshals assuredly would come again—and this time, they would come like an army.

  It all could have been avoided, the Chief knew, and yet it had not been avoided. He wondered what it was in people—what stubbornness or contrariness—that prevented them, time and again, from doing the plain, the intelligent, the practical thing.

  He did not know, and the judges did not know, and the wise men and the healers and the preachers did not know; yet, it was there. Over and over again, sensible and responsible people who knew clearly what the right thing was went stubbornly ahead and did the wrong thing.

  “Are you sure you didn’t shoot this man?” he asked Ned Christie again.

  “No, I did not shoot him, Chief,” Ned repeated. He had begun to realize that he had made a big mistake in not obeying the Chief’s order to leave. The Chief, who had known him since his birth, had just asked him twice if he had killed the white marshal. If Chief Bushyhead thought it possible that Ned had killed the man, then what would the white men think? He had quickly landed himself in the thick of trouble, and had not a bit of fun in the process. All he had done was drink a half bottle of whiskey under a bush in the rain.

  “Somebody shot him—that’s plain,” the Chief said.

  “I figure it was the Becks,” Sheriff Bobtail repeated.

  The Chief looked at him sternly.

  “Why do you figure that, Sheriff?” he asked.

  “Well, he was looking for them, too,” Sheriff Bobtail reminded the Chief. He was wishing he had kept quiet. Conclusions that seemed sensible enough when he uttered them had a way of seeming absurd, once the Chief inspected them in his stern manner.

  “I’ve had no reports that the Becks were in town yesterday,” the Chief said. “Have you had reports of their whereabouts, Sheriff?”

  “No, but they’re sneaky. They could have slipped up on the marshal while he was looking for old Ben.”