Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  I finished my whiskey and got up. “Howard, I don’t want to talk about this no more right now. You think on it overnight and we’ll have a talk again tomorrow.”

  He said in a strong voice, “Justa, I know you think this is just the whim of a sick ol’ man. That ain’t the case. This is something that is mighty important to me. It’s important to you and your brothers too. Ain’t nobody in this family ever failed to pay off a debt. I ain’t going to be the first one.”

  “Something I don’t quite understand, Howard. You appear to be talking about some money you borrowed some twenty-five or thirty years ago. Is that right?”

  “Maybe even a little longer than that.”

  “Howard, who the hell did you know had that kind of money that many years ago? Hell, you could have bought nearly all of Texas for that sum in them days.”

  He fiddled with his glass and then drank the last of his whiskey. He said, clearing his throat first, “Wasn’t exactly twenty-five thousand. Was less. I’m kind of roughing in the interest.”

  “How much less was it? Still must have been a power of money. Interest is four percent right now, and I don’t reckon it was anywhere near that high back then.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Damnit, Justa, if I’d been lookin’ for an argument I’d of sent for Norris! Now why don’t you go on and do like I tell you and not jaw me to death about it!”

  I gave him a long look. “Who you trying to bully, old man? Now exactly how much was this original loan that you’ve ‘roughed’ in interest to bring it up to twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  He looked at me defiantly for a moment, and then he said, “Five hunnert dollars.”

  I laughed a little. “Now that is roughing in a little interest,” I said. “Five hundred to twenty-five thousand. How come you didn’t pay this back twenty years ago when five hundred dollars wasn’t more than a night of poker to you? And you and I both know you can’t turn five hundred into twenty-five thousand in thirty years no matter how hard you try. Just exactly what kind of loan was this?”

  He got slowly up out of his rocking chair, and then started shuffling the few steps toward his bedroom. At his door he turned and give me a hard look. “Wasn’t no loan a’tall. I stole the money from the man. Now put an interest figure on that!”

  I just stood there in amazement. Before I could speak he’d shut his door and disappeared from my view. “Hell!” I said. The idea of our daddy, Howard, stealing anything was just not a possibility I could reckon with. As far as I knew Howard had never owed anybody anything for any longer than it took to pay them back, and as for stealing, I’d known him to spend two days of his own time returning strayed cattle to his bitterest enemy. I could not conjure up a situation in which Howard would steal, and not only steal but let the crime go unredeemed for so long. Obviously he’d been a young man at the time, and he might have committed a breach of honesty as a callow youth, but there’d been plenty of years in between for him to have put the matter right rather than waiting until such a late date.

  The truth be told, I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Howard’s body might be failing him, but I’d never found cause to fault his mind. And yet they did say that when a man reached a certain age, his faculties seemed to go haywire and he got confused and went to making stuff up and forgetting everyday matters. But for the life of me, I just couldn’t see that happening to Howard. And yet I couldn’t believe he’d actually stolen $500 from a man and let it slide over all these years either.

  I was about to leave the office when the bedroom door opened and Howard stood there. He said, “I charge you on your honor not to mention this to either of your brothers.”

  “Hell, Howard, I ain’t going to mention it to nobody as far as that goes. But look here, let me ask you—”

  I got no further. He had closed the door. I had seen the hurt and the helplessness in his face just before the door had closed. It did not make me feel very good. Now I was sorry I had questioned him so closely. But never in my wildest dreams would I have figured to stir up such a hornet’s nest.

  I left the house with a good deal of trouble on my mind. The big clock in the hall said the time was just a little after four. I didn’t much feel like riding the four miles back out to where we’d been inspecting our herd of purebred Herefords when the summons from Howard had come, so I stepped out the front door and took a seat in one of the wicker chairs on the large roofed porch that ran around two sides of the house. I got out a cigarillo, lit it, and looked out over the land and the buildings, just kind of idling over in my mind what Howard had just said. Most of the outbuildings of the ranch were in front of me, headed west. We had two big barns, both made out of sawn lumber. They were out toward the edge of the headquarters area. In between was a bunch of corrals and holding pens, and then closer to the house was the bunkhouse where our regular hands slept and lived, and then another shack where we put up hired hands who we used seasonally. In between was a neat little frame house where our foreman, Tom Harley, lived with his wife. He’d been in Howard’s employ for as long as I could remember, and the foreman for at least twelve years. It had been me that had fired his predecessor and put him in the job. Harley was a good steady hand who did what you told him and never tried to use too much imagination. I’d explained all that to him when I’d put him in the job, saying that if any imagination was called for I’d handle it. And now I sat there envying him the luxury of not having to do too much thinking. I was doing way more than I wanted to and it was not a pleasure.

  Finally, I decided the hell with it and descended the steps of the porch, untied the big sorrel gelding I was riding that day, mounted up, and headed for my own house.

  I had been married for a little more than two years, and I’d had a house built for my bride and myself about a half mile away from the big house where Howard and Ben and Norris lived.

  Her name was Nora and she was six years younger than me. We now had a one-year-old son, but she’d led me on one hell of a merry chase before I’d ever got her roped and thrown. She had been a town girl, of religious parents, and she was some little concerned with the violence and the danger that simply living my kind of life involved. The country, even in that late year toward the turn of the century, was far from civilized, and she worried and fretted herself every time I had to tend to some ranch matter. She’d told me many times before we were married that she just wouldn’t consider me a serious suitor until I’d done what she considered “settling down.” Of course I’d many times tried to explain to her that it was rough country and that a man had to stick up for himself and his and protect what he owned or he’d get plowed under. But none of that had made any sense to her. Her daddy ran the general mercantile store in Blessing, and came home every noon for lunch and every evening for supper, and she’d wanted the same from me. To make it all worse she’d taught the little school in Blessing, and hadn’t thought so much of the way I spoke. She’d gotten so fed up with me and my ways that she’d once gone through the motions of running off with a Kansas City drummer who traveled in yard goods. But it had been a bluff. She’d gotten off the train in Texarkana and come home, and we’d taken right back up where we’d left off.

  But then, hell, I’d been a week late for my own wedding on account of me and Ben having to be down in Monterrey in Mexico getting Norris out of jail.

  But she’d married me anyway, week late or not. What that had mainly meant was that I’d had to learn to lie to her in a different way when I was about to go off and do something she considered dangerous or uncivilized. You have to lie to a woman you live with in a different way than one you don’t. Lying to your wife is a hell of a lot harder than lying to the girl you’re courting. Wives get to know you a whole lot better, and they get that way of looking at you that lets you know you ain’t fooling them for a second.

  My house was a low, rambling hacienda of eight rooms with thick concrete and adobe brick walls and a roof of red Mexican tiles. Out back was a barn and a small c
orral where I generally kept anywhere from two to three horses. Ben ran the remuda, the horse herd, with the help of Ray Hays and three Mexican vaqueros, and he instinctively knew more about horseflesh than any man I’d ever met, but I kind of liked to keep a few ponies around to get them used to me and my ways. I generally kept a young horse around getting him finished off to my way of thinking. Of course he was a broke horse, tame and ready for cattle work by the time I got him from Ben, but I liked to keep him working his way up to my standards. And then I’d keep a quick horse around, a horse that had a lot of early speed and could get you out of a tight place in a hurry. And also, I liked to have a horse around like the big sorrel, who was part quarterhorse, but had a lot of American Standardbred in him. He was a stayer, a horse with good speed, but with legs enough to take you there and bring you back.

  I turned the sorrel into the corral, unsaddled and unbridled him, and then turned him loose with the two other horses already there. Later I’d come out and give them some grain, but for the time being I just made sure they had plenty of hay and water.

  I went in the house through the kitchen. Nora’s maid, Juanita, was at the sink washing up some potatoes and onions and other truck. I just managed to squeeze by between her and the kitchen table. We might not have had the best maid around, but we damn sure had the fattest. She said that “Señora Viyliams” was in the parlor. I set my hat on the kitchen table, and walked on down the short hall and turned into the sitting room. Nora was on the divan doing some kind of needlepoint. She was wearing a little light blue gingham frock, and she looked up when I came in the room. She said, “Well, mister, what are you doing home so early?”

  Nora was just the exact amount of pretty. If she’d been any less pretty I wouldn’t have been the envy of every man in the county. If she’d been any prettier I’d of never got any work done. She had hair that was a little more yellow than the curing prairie grass and soft blue eyes and delicate features. She was prim and proper and faithful in her churchgoing, but I knew what was beneath that innocent-looking blue frock, and just the thought of it made my throat close up and my jeans get too tight.

  I didn’t answer her right away. Instead I stepped into my office, which was a little room just off the parlor, and poured myself out a good drink of whiskey. When I came back in I sat across from her in a big overstuffed morris chair. I said, “Where’s J.D.?”

  J.D. was our year-old son. He was a junior, named after me: Justa Danford Williams. I had not wanted to hang that unhandy moniker on him, but Nora had insisted. We called him J.D. to cut down on the confusion—though I complained to Nora that it made him sound like a banker and that was an awful load to put on one so young.

  My name had always given me trouble. My mother had named me, but she would never tell me where she’d come up with the Justa. The Danford was easy; that had been her maiden name, and it was the custom then to name the oldest son with his mother’s family name as his middle name. Sort of a way of honoring both families. But she’d never told me or anyone else that I could find why the Justa. My brothers used to kid me that I’d been named from the words in a hymn, my mother being a powerful churchgoing woman. They’d said it had come from the hymn “Just a closer walk with thee . . .” Justa.

  It had been a chore to carry around when I was growing up and every other boy had been named Joe or Bill or Tommy, and it had caused me a fair number of schoolyard fights, but then I’d gotten old enough and I hadn’t cared and folks had quit taking notice.

  Nora said, “He’s having his nap. And you had better not wake him up. I’ll be ever so glad when he quits teething. He’s been crankier than you all day long.”

  I took a sip of my drink and didn’t rise to the bait. My mind was on Howard and his startling statements. He had put me on my honor to not mention them to another soul, but I wasn’t sure that included Nora. I always told Nora nearly everything—at least I did sooner or later, even the truth behind the lies I’d told her before. A man had to have someone he could talk everything out with, and for me that person was Nora. You can be close to a friend or a parent or a brother, but I didn’t reckon there was any kind of bond to match that between a husband and wife who had made a truly good match.

  She could tell my mood. She said, “What’s the matter, honey?”

  I shook my head. “Aw, nothing. I guess.”

  “Are you not supposed to talk about it?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “I think it’d be for the best if I waited and let it round itself off.”

  “You’ll talk about it sooner or later. Why take it all on yourself right now?”

  I looked across at her. “Now damnit, Nora, don’t go to telling me my own mind.”

  “Don’t swear in the house, Justa. And I’m not telling you your own mind. I can see you want to discuss something that’s bothering you, and I wish you’d go ahead and do it without going clean to Houston and back before you get around to it.”

  “What’s the difference between swearing in the house and cussing outside? You are always telling me not to swear in the house, but you never say a word when I cuss outside. Is that because you don’t want to get a bunch of swear words trapped here in the house in case God opens the front door and they all come flooding out? You don’t reckon He hears the ones I say outside?”

  “Don’t be taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “I was not taking the Lord’s name in vain! I merely asked you a question, damnit!”

  Nora ignored it. “Are you in for the day or have you just stopped by to let me know something was worrying you so I could worry too?”

  “Aw, hell, Nora.” I got up and went in the office and picked up the bottle.

  She called after me. “Why don’t you have another drink? That will certainly help.”

  “Damnit!” I said, loud enough to be sure she heard me. I went clumping out through the hall and out the kitchen door. Behind me I heard a squall from J.D. Well, that was going to certainly make me popular around suppertime. I went in the barn and sat down on a barrel of salt blocks. I got out a cigarillo and lit it and sat there thinking. But after an hour I still didn’t have any more idea about what Howard was up to than I had before.

  Nora didn’t make me pay at supper. We had a nice quiet meal of steak and potatoes and gravy with a garden salad of tomatoes and lettuce and onions. Our climate was so mild you could grow garden truck nearly the whole year round. And Nora took advantage of that fact. I had never been much of a hand for vegetables, but Nora put them on your plate and you’d better damn well eat them all or you’d hear what for. For somebody who didn’t weigh much more than a hundred and ten pounds, she had a hell of a nice way of throwing her weight around.

  J.D. was back in what they chose to call the nursery getting his bottle from Juanita. Nora had weaned him about a month before and, as far as I was concerned, it was that and not cutting teeth that was making him cranky. Looking across at Nora’s breasts testing the thin fabric of the gingham frock, I couldn’t say that I much blamed him.

  I said, “Good steak. Juanita’s getting better.”

  “She’s coming along.”

  “I’d of given up on her a year ago.”

  Nora put her fork down. “Justa, what is bothering you.”

  “Howard wants me to take twenty-five thousand dollars in gold to a man up in Oklahoma. Says it’s in payment of an old debt.”

  “What’s so worrisome about that?”

  I looked down at my plate. “He says he stole the money. Thirty years ago or sometime. Says he wants to pay it back before he dies. Make it right.”

  She laughed, putting her hand over her mouth.

  That made me a little hot. “What the hell’s so damn funny?”

  “The idea of Howard stealing anything. If everybody was like Howard there wouldn’t be a lock in the world.”

  “Well, that’s what he said.”

  “What do Norris and Ben say about it?”

  I finished up my salad before I answe
red her. “I haven’t told them. I ain’t supposed to mention it to nobody, including you. But I especially ain’t supposed to tell Ben or Norris. Though how I’m going to explain taking twenty-five thousand dollars out of company funds without making up an awful good story for Norris is beyond me.”

  “Justa, you are saying ‘ain’t’ more and more. Your grammar is something awful. I do wish you’d be more careful, especially with J.D. growing up.”

  I glared at her. “You really figure this is the right time to correct my grammar? Ain’t I just told you Howard wants me to return some money he says he stole? Wasn’t you listening when I was telling you something I wasn’t supposed to mention to nobody else?”

  “Honey, don’t be silly. Howard is getting old. Sometimes he gets confused in his mind.”

  I said grimly, “He wouldn’t be so confused he wouldn’t know whether he stole some money or not. Man don’t ever get that confused.”

  “You’ll see, it’ll all come to nothing. A misunderstanding.”

  “Howard don’t make those kind of misunderstandings.”

  “Why don’t you talk to your brothers about it?”

  “I told you. He don’t want me to even hint at it to Ben or Norris. He got all upset at the very idea.”

  “You told me.”

  “Yes, and I shouldn’t have. But I had to talk to somebody about it, and you’ve generally been pretty good at helping me in the past. And keeping your mouth shut.”

  “It’s a whim of his,” she said. “Now finish your supper and go on over to the big house and get your business done and don’t be so late getting back. I’ll let J.D. stay up a little past eight if you get back in time.”

  I got up from the table. “I’ll still bet you that kid ain’t never going to forgive you for hanging my name on him. Wasn’t enough I had to wear it. Now he’s got it as a hand-me-down.”