Zeke and Ned

by Larry McMurtry

  He angled off into the woods above the farm. Ned Christie, from what he had heard, was the most formidable of the five men he had been sent to arrest, which was why he had come after Ned first, before his force became depleted in battle. Now the depleting had already begun.

  Once Tailcoat’s men were well spread out among tree stumps and logs, Tailcoat himself settled down behind a thick oak stump and watched the house for a while. It soon proved to be a boresome tactic. Nothing stirred in the farmyard, except a bloody shoat, a few chickens, and the Miller boy’s colt. No one came out of the farmhouse. Somebody would usually be stirring around on a farm; chopping firewood, mending harness, plucking a chicken. Tailcoat had a spyglass, which he took out and trained on the windows of the farmhouse. He hoped to catch a glimpse of Ned Christie, or one of his women, but he saw nothing. If the house was inhabited, the inhabitants were being careful to stay away from the windows.

  An hour passed, and the situation did not change. Though bored, Tailcoat was patient. He had been a sharpshooter in the War, and spent many a day watching and waiting for an enemy to reveal himself. In this case, the only vexation was flies, which swarmed with a vengeance in the heavy woods. They had to be continually swatted away.

  Beezle had not been born with the gift of patience. He hated to spend a day sitting in the hot underbrush swatting clouds of flies away from his bloody, wounded mouth. He had already sucked in several, which irritated him so that he put aside caution and approached Tailcoat Jones.

  “I’ve swallowed so many flies I’ll soon have a bellyful,” he informed his captain.

  “Well, that’ll save grub,” Tailcoat said politely.

  “Why can’t we just go arrest the fellow, and not do all this waiting?” Beezle inquired. He wheezed a little when he talked, due to a swollen tongue.

  “Because he’s a competent rascal,” Tailcoat said. “He might resist.”

  “But there’s nine of us,” Beezle said. “I doubt he’ll try to whip nine of us, if he knows there’s that many of us.”

  “Oh, he knows—that is, he does if he’s home, and I suspect he’s home,” Tailcoat said.

  “One of the boys says he’s got a pretty wife,” Beezle said. “If he ain’t home, we could whop her till she tells us where he is.”

  Tailcoat had heard about the pretty wife from other sources himself. Before the posse left Fort Smith, Judge Parker had specifically warned him to go easy on the womenfolk over in the Going Snake District. The warning had been so sharp, in fact, as to verge on insult.

  “You’re to leave the women alone,” the Judge said pointedly, as he looked over the rough posse he was about to dispatch. “I just paid for three new hang ropes. If I hear of any raping, I’ll be ready to do some hanging.”

  “Why, Judge—is that a threat?” Tailcoat had asked.

  “Not a threat, sir—that’s a verdict,” the Judge answered, before turning and walking away.

  Now, through the sultry afternoon, as Tailcoat Jones lay behind the oak stump swatting black flies and watching the farmhouse below him, his thoughts began to dwell upon the pretty woman that was said to be married to Ned Christie. He had already let one woman off easy on this trip, the insolent wife of Tuxie Miller, who deserved a good horsewhipping for her treachery. If Ned Christie’s wife was as pretty as she was said to be, he might let the men have some sport with her— though not, of course, until her dangerous husband was thoroughly dead. It would be a way of showing the old judge how little he cared for his orders, or his verdicts.

  Jerry Ankle came over, as the afternoon was tending toward dusk. He, too, was much vexed by the flies.

  “I don’t think he’s there, Tail,” he said. “I expect that boy warned him, and he went on the scout.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you just go knock on the door, Marshal Ankle?” Tailcoat suggested, in a dry tone. “Knock polite, and ask if the master of the house is in.”

  “What?” Jerry said, puzzled. It was not the response he had expected.

  “You heard me—just go knock,” Tailcoat repeated. “You’ll find out soon enough who’s there and who ain’t. If you’re lucky, he’ll just crack you across the noggin a time or two, like I done—you can enjoy a few more stitches.”

  “You think he’s there, then?” Jerry Ankle asked.

  “Yep,” Tailcoat replied. “I think he’s there, and I would bet that his rifle’s loaded.”

  “It’s going to get dark pretty soon. It’s shadowy here in these hills,” Dick Sabine remarked. He had crept over to join the parley.

  Tailcoat Jones said nothing. He was bored with the company, but comfortable behind his stump. Waiting had never bothered him; in point of fact, he enjoyed it. Patience was a necessary quality in a sharpshooter. Sooner or later, most men got restless and showed themselves. Tailcoat did not get restless. His concern, though, was that his opponent, the squirrel hunter Ned Christie, did not appear to be the restless sort, either. Most of a long day had passed, with no movement from the house.

  Tailcoat watched closely. He had a sense that Ned Christie was watching back, perhaps just as closely.

  Jerry Ankle, after some deliberation, decided that he did not want to go knock on the Christie door. He was still seeing double, and felt that it would be foolish to risk another lick on the head.

  “What’s the plan, then, Tail?” Beezle wondered.

  “Spread our pallets, and wait till morning,” Tailcoat informed him.

  “You mean make camp?” Beezle asked.

  “No—no goddamn camp,” Tailcoat said, a little annoyed. “Just spread your pallets, and wait.”

  “You mean we ain’t to eat?” Jerry Ankle said. “No coffee, even?”

  “Not unless you can milk it out of your teat,” Tailcoat said. “I don’t want no fires or no lanterns, this time. No lights at all. I plan to forgo my smoke, and I expect the rest of you men to do the same.”

  “We ain’t even to smoke?” Beezle said, appalled at the dismal prospect that lay ahead. Tobacco smoke put the black flies off; without it, they could expect a night of terrible buzzing.

  “You can’t even smoke,” Tailcoat said. “Just rest, and think—if you can think.”

  “Then what?” Jerry asked. “What if the man sneaks off in the night?”

  “He won’t sneak off,” Tailcoat said. “I doubt he’d want to leave that pretty wife.”

  “What are we going to do?” Beezle asked, impatient. “Just sit here until the man decides to go milk his cow?”

  “Why, no, Beezle . . . no,” Tailcoat answered, calm. “I expect to spend a restful night, and I hope you do the same. Along about daylight, we’ll all whip up and go pay Mr. Ned Christie a visit in his home.”

  36

  NED WATCHED THE POSSE FILE INTO THE HILLS FROM A TINY CRAWL space he had constructed at the top of his house, just under the roof. He had removed the chinking from between two of the logs, to allow himself a nice peephole. He could shoot through it, if necessary, though nothing that drastic had ever been necessary. His father, Watt Christie, had urged him to leave the little space just under the roof. Watt Christie’s belief was that the Cherokee people could not be too careful. It was always better to have a space in your house where you could watch the trails without being watched yourself.

  The space was so small that Ned had to slide into it and out of it, flat on his stomach. He could not raise up or turn, but it was so cleverly hidden behind a beam that a person would have to know it was there to find it.

  “Be a good place to hide children in case there’s war,” his father had said, after taking a look at the crawl space. Watt Christie could only look; he had grown too bulky to fit into the space himself.

  What Ned saw as he watched the posse convinced him that he had been right not to leave the women. The men in long coats looked hard—every single one of them. And their leader, the tall man in the dusty long coat, looked the hardest of all.

  The men seemed well armed, too, which was worrisome. Ned s
aw the stocks of new Winchesters protruding from their rifle scabbards. Somebody—the government, probably—had put up the money to equip a force of professional killers, and the posse had not stinted on weaponry. Of course that did not mean all the men could shoot. Ned felt confident that he could outshoot most of them, for his own guns were excellent weapons, and well maintained. In his opinion, the low death count in local conflicts was mainly due to the fact that half the guns involved would not discharge with any regularity. He knew he could not count on that advantage with this posse.

  He stayed in his crawl space most of the morning, watching the posse position itself among the stumps and logs on the hill above his house. It surprised him a little that the men had not simply ridden up and demanded his surrender. After all, they were nine to one, and the tall man in the dusty coat had not looked like the fearful sort—why was he waiting?

  The nine men were hidden by foliage, but by careful watching, Ned was able to establish the position of most of them. He watched the birds, and saw the spots they avoided. Also, the men were restless— no doubt, the flies were a vexation. Now and then, one would stand up to swat or scratch, revealing a hat, or an arm. The only posseman Ned could not locate with some exactness was the leader. That man had ridden up the hill, and vanished. He did not stand up. If he scratched, he did it with a minimum of movement.

  In the afternoon, when the crawl space got so warm he was soaked with sweat, Ned slid out backwards and went down to Jewel and Liza. He had instructed them both to stay well away from the windows. He did not want so much as a shadow or a flicker of life to be visible to the men on the hill. Jewel and Liza were scrunched up by the fireplace with fearful looks on their faces. Lyle Miller, his stomach full of flapjacks, slept peacefully on the floor.

  During his time under the roof, Ned had noticed what looked like smoke far away to the west toward the Millers’ place. Of course, it could have been smoke from a lightning-struck tree; trees were often ablaze on the ridges of the hills in the time of summer storms. But it might be smoke from the Millers’ house itself—a somber thought. If the posse had burned the Millers out, it would explain why Dale had not showed up, wanting to make certain her boy was alive and safe.

  The fact was, the Millers themselves might not be alive. The man in the dusty coat had looked plenty capable of raw murder, and worse.

  He did not mention that possibility to the women. They were already frightened enough. Jewel wanted to stir up the fire and cook a meal for them, but Ned forbade it.

  “I don’t want that posse to see smoke coming out of the chimney,” Ned told her. “I expect they know we’re here, but let’s keep ’em guessing as long as we can. Let them think they’ve staked out an empty house.”

  “What about the milk cow?” Jewel asked. “Her bag’s going to swell, if we don’t milk her soon.”

  “One night won’t hurt her,” Ned assured her. “I expect this matter to be settled in the morning.”

  “I wish Ma and Pa hadn’t left,” Liza said. “They wouldn’t dare bother us if Pa was here.”

  The comment reminded Ned that he was vexed at Zeke. He thought Liza overrated her father’s reputation. The white law would not be likely to turn and ride off, just because Zeke Proctor was in the house. Very probably they had an arrest warrant for Zeke, too. But Liza was Zeke’s daughter, and it was natural for her to think her pa was the most fearsome man in the land.

  As soon as Lyle Miller woke up, he began to whine to go home. When Ned informed him that he could not go back just yet, a fit of homesickness took the boy—a fit so severe that he burst into tears.

  “But I miss Ma, and it’s getting night,” Lyle whimpered. “I’ve always slept where Ma’s at. I’m gonna be scared, sleeping away.”

  “One night won’t hurt you, Lyle,” Ned told the homesick youngster. “Maybe Jewel will make you some more flapjacks in the morning.”

  Jewel put her arms around Lyle and tried to comfort him, but the boy continued to sob, somewhat to Ned’s annoyance.

  “Dale’s tied that boy to her apron strings so tight he’s afraid to spend one night away from her,” Ned whispered to Jewel. “When I was his age, I was camping all over the Mountain by myself. If I kilt game, I’d be gone for a week at a time sleeping out.”

  “Everybody ain’t independent like you, Ned,” Jewel reminded him. “I never left my ma till I came here . . . Liza, neither.”

  They made a light supper on some potatoes and a little cold bacon left over from breakfast. Ned kept his rifle in his lap throughout the meal. Afterward, he took a jug of whiskey and went upstairs. When Jewel came up, he was sitting by the window, sipping from the jug.

  “Ned, don’t you be getting drunk, with those white men nearby,” Jewel said. She seldom quarreled with him about his drinking. But this was a serious situation—if he had to face the white law and possibly submit to arrest, she wanted him to be dignified and sober, as a Cherokee senator should be.

  Ned smiled at her. Mostly, he was tolerant of Jewel’s efforts to keep him on the straight and narrow. Trying to keep men on the straight and narrow was a woman’s task. But he was facing an army up on that hill. On this night, particularly, he wanted his liquor—it would put the lightning in him, if a fight came. Ned rarely thought of death, though he had seen a good deal of it. But he knew now that death lay around them. The men on the hill had lit no fires and had swung no lanterns. He had not seen even the flicker of a cigar. What that meant to him was that they were disciplined killers—or their leader was, at least. The whiskey he was sipping would not make him lax, it would make him ready.

  Now and then, from the meadow, the Millers’ colt whinnied. It was confused, like Lyle, who whimpered intermittently until he finally fell asleep again. Liza was too afraid to sleep by herself. She crept into Jewel and Ned’s bedroom, and made a pallet by their bed. It vexed Jewel a little; Liza knew Ned liked his privacy. He only wanted his wife in the bedroom.

  But on this night, Ned was so preoccupied with his watching that he hardly noticed Liza. The more he thought about the smoke to the west, the more convinced he was that the Millers had been burned out. He did not want someone sneaking off the hill and firing their house; they would be caught cold if they were driven out of their shelter. The possemen would kill him for sure, and the women would suffer hard handling.

  In the deepest hour of the night, Ned thought he heard movement on the hill. He could not identify the sound, but he was certain the possemen were stirring. The night birds had grown silent. He would usually hear foxes up on the Mountain, but no foxes yipped this night. Jewel and Liza had fallen into nervous sleep behind him. In the deep, silent darkness, Ned came close to losing his fighting spirit. Though he considered himself a decent fighter, he was not so self-impressed as to suppose himself a match for nine men—not if the men were led by an experienced leader, as these men were—a leader who could keep them sitting all night without even tobacco smoke to help them ward off the flies and mosquitoes.

  He wondered, for a time, about surrender. It might give the women a better chance. But he did not wonder long. If death was to be his lot, he wanted it to be a fighting death. He was not going to let the white men handcuff him, put a hood over his head, and drop him through a hole in the floor, so he could die at the end of a rope.

  He bent all his energy to staying alert. Once the women were asleep, he began to rove through the house, upstairs and down, checking all the windows. It was a large house, a better house than most brides were brought to by men his age. The matter of the preacher crossed his mind; he knew he had been neglectful in that regard. Now a violent situation had caught them, one they might not survive. Jewel and he were still not married, not by a preacher with a Bible in his hand. It was a lapse on his part, one he intended to make up to Jewel if only they got out of the present scrape alive.

  Back up on the second floor, he heard the sounds from the hill. They were faint, but he knew what they were: horses were being saddled; stirrups creaked;
men were mounting. The darkness was just beginning to grey, but it was still more dark than grey. Ned strained his eyes, but could not see the men who were making the sounds.

  He felt the same disquiet he had felt in the courtroom, when he had gone striding for his guns. Something was about to break out upon them, from up on the hill. He quickly shook Jewel and Liza awake, and rushed them downstairs. There was a small root cellar behind the kitchen, under a little porch where buckets and ropes and every sort of thing got stacked. Ned grabbed up Lyle, and got the two women and the boy into the root cellar. Lyle Miller started to whimper again, but Ned shook him gently and shushed him.

  “You got to be quiet now, all of you,” he said firmly. “Stay in the root cellar and don’t come out till I tell you.”

  Ned had scarcely gotten back from hiding the women and the boy, when a voice called out from the hill. Ned could not see the speaker in the darkness; no doubt the man was still protected by foliage. But he knew it belonged to the tall man in the long, dusty coat.

  “Come out and surrender, Christie—we’re offering you one chance!” the man yelled. “You come—or else we’ll come!”

  Ned felt fight rise up in him, at the man’s insulting tone. On impulse, he fired one quick shot at the sound. It was a thing he had practiced when he was a boy. If he heard a squirrel chatter, or a wild turkey gobble, he would flash a shot at the sound. Often as not, a branch or a cluster of leaves would deflect the shot, but not always. Usually, he walked home with a squirrel, a partridge, or a mallard. Once, in the rain, he had even killed a young deer on the run, by merely shooting at the sound.

  Immediately after the shot, there was silence up on the hill. The silence stretched on and on. Ned put a new shell in his rifle. He wanted a full magazine, in case the men came on. He had shot, and now the battle was joined. At least the possemen knew he would not be carted off to Fort Smith in order to be hung at the end of their hang rope.

  “My God—he’s hit Tail!” someone said, from the hill.