Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  “Justa, I done told you I don’t want Ben nor Norris to know about this.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked kind of pained. Then he said softly, “Because . . . well, because there’s some parts to the business that might shame me in their eyes. And it could hurt them.”

  “But not me, huh?”

  He said slowly, “Yes, the same for you. But you’re different, Justa. You’re tougher, stronger.” He looked over at me. “Understand, I ain’t anxious for you to know this neither. But I’m betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea. This matter has got to be handled an’ there ain’t no one else. I’d do it if I was able. Comes to it, I might try. Me an’ Tom Butterfield.”

  “Well, if you want to try it that way it’s fine with me.”

  He looked over at me.

  I said, “But if you want me to do it, especially under them damn silly conditions you set out yesterday, then you are going to have to tell me a hell of a lot more. Last thing I heard out of you was that you stole the money. That has been pretty steady on my mind, as it would yours if I’d told you such a thing. I have one hell of a hard time seeing Howard Williams stealing the sweat off a maverick calf, much less another man’s money. You are going to have to tell me the straight of that, Howard. If it shames you, well, then so be it.”

  He looked out across the pasturage for a long time, no doubt seeing the herds of cattle in the distance, the herds that had slowly been upgraded from the native, all-bone, horse-killing, man-killing, wild-as-hell Longhorns to the manageable beef cattle we’d crossbred from whiteface and Hereford strains. He must have been looking back a lot of years to how it was when he’d come to this very range some forty years ago. Finally he turned and looked at me. “Is that the way of it?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Unless you want to forget the whole matter. I’m sure as hell willing.”

  But he shook his head. “No, no, I can’t do that. I was pretty down yesterday and I will be again. And one of these days I ain’t going to come back up like I done today. I’m just gonna keep on going down until I’m six foot under. And I don’t want that dirt to hit me in the face with this misdeed on my conscience.”

  “All right. I’m listening.”

  He squinted his eyes and looked far off again, like he was still going back, and not just in his mind. “Ya’ll never heard me speak much about Charlie Stevens, did you? About the early days, I mean.”

  “Never heard you speak about him at all. Mainly just about Buttercup. May have been one or two others you mentioned, but it seemed like it was just you and Buttercup got the start on the place.”

  “Well it was Tom Butterfield and me on the one start. But what I never told you boys was there was two starts made on this ranch. Tom helped me on the second one, but as a hired hand. Of course you know that’s why I keep him on around here as our cook. Even if he can’t cook. But he’s a proud man. Won’t take wages without doing a day’s work.”

  “We ain’t talking about Buttercup, we’re talking about this here Charlie Stevens.” I could see he was reluctant to come to his subject and had gone off on a false lead. “You said something about there was two starts on this place.”

  He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Me an’ Charlie grew up together in Georgia. Course I guess you knew our family started out in Georgia.”

  “I knew you did, but this is the first time I’ve heard you mention it with this Charlie Stevens.”

  “Well we did, him and me.” He said it kind of defiantly. “Was good friends, damn good friends. That’s how come it was us come West together looking for a new range, new opportunities. We’d heard all the stories about Texas and about the Oklahoma Territory and we figured that was the place to head for. I reckon that was in about 1851, ’52. We was both just young bucks, barely reached our majority. Couldn’t been more than twenty-one. I think Charlie might have been a year older’n me though not quite. Big good-lookin’ fella. Good in a fight, good with horses. Good man to partner up with. Had an even temper, laughed a lot. I remember him bein’ mighty popular with the young ladies back in Georgia. Easygoing feller. Didn’t care much for arguing, though he’d back his partner in a fight.”

  He spit tobacco juice again and this time cleared the rail. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyways, we set out and ended up in the Indian Territory to start with. That’s what they called Oklahoma then. Set out to catch on with some cattle outfit and learn the business and then set up on our own. Was plenty of land, though it wasn’t shucks to what we got around here. There was plenty of water, but the dirt was poor, wouldn’t grow grass like it did here. But anyways, we got in with some small outfit, can’t remember the brand. Mostly what they was doin’ was mavericking, and it didn’t take no scholar to see wasn’t much point on puttin’ another man’s brand on an ownerless calf when you could just as easy put your own on it. But we was drawin’ wages and the outfit was providing the horses, so we played it straight. Was a good bit of Injuns around. Cherokees. Hell, they’d been moved from Georgia their own self. Army moved ’em an’ put ’em on a reservation. They didn’t much care for it, but they was a good people, nothin’ like them murderin’ goddam Comanches we had down here. And they was a handsome people. Some of the women . . .”

  He stopped and didn’t say anything for a moment.

  I said, “What was you saying?”

  He cleared his throat. “This talkin’ is mighty hard work.”

  “And you figure a little drink would make it go easier?”

  “Well, it is going on for noon.”

  I got up. “Hell, Howard, it ain’t even eleven o’clock. But if it’ll speed you up I’ll bring you a short one. But it’ll be watered.”

  “Now, Justa,” he said, but I was already going in the house.

  I brought him back his drink. I’d been a little more generous with the whiskey than I’d meant to be, forgetting for a second who it was for, and he smiled his appreciation as he took a sip. I said, “You was talking about the Cherokee women.”

  I thought I saw a little flinch come over his face. But he said, “Just in passin’. They was a handsome people, and as civilized as some white folks and more so than others. But that ain’t got nothin’ to do with what I was talkin’ about. Where was I?”

  “You and Charlie Stevens was branding mavericks for some small outfit.”

  “Yeah. Well, we done that about a year and right quick seen we wasn’t getting nowhere. And I could see the country wasn’t going to amount to much neither. Like I said, there was plenty of free land, but it was poor. You couldn’t run one cow over at least twenty acres. ‘Bout that time we’d commenced to hear about this country in the Gulf Coast. This here country we’re settin’ in right now. We heard it was belly-deep to a tall cow in grass, and plenty of water and mustangs and wild Longhorns and land for the asking. So we drawed what wages we had coming, throwed in together, and bought us an outfit, then headed this way with four good horses and plenty of powder and shot and damn little money left over. But we figured we’d eat. We’d heard there was plenty of game and anything you stuck in the ground would grow. Heard there was miles and miles of open country with nary a soul to bother you. Well, we was damn fool kids or that would have told us something right there. If the country was so wonderful, how come it wasn’t full of people? We’d heard about the Comanches and that they was supposed to be powerful bad, but we’d been around the Cherokees and we didn’t figure the Comanches could be that much worse. We’d also heard a little about Mexican banditos, but we wasn’t scared of the devil himself, so what was a few outlaws?

  “So on we come. Full of piss and vinegar and already figuring out how we was going to spend all the money we was gonna make. Took us about a week to figure out we’d cut ourselves out a job of work. Took about a month to come to the conclusion we might have made a mistake. And that month was mostly spent building a dugout cabin. I can damn near see the little knoll we cut it into from here. Yonder, just beyond that far
windmill. Course there wasn’t no windmills in them days. But if you’d of seen that dugout—wasn’t no more than eight feet across in any direction—you’d of asked what we was doing the rest of the time because we couldn’t have spent no more than a day and a half building such a shelter. But a month was what it took. Nearest timber of any size was four miles away on Caney Creek, and that was just willow and cottonwood. Reason we couldn’t make it no bigger’n eight feet in any direction was we couldn’t get no saplings or small logs that was longer than that in a straight line. And of course, we’d dug it into the side of that hump so we could use the earth for most of the walls. Except the earth was so damn wet it just oozed. So after that we had to go six miles to find clay on upper Caney Creek, and haul that back and stick the clay to the walls over a patchwork of branches. Then we had to build a damn fire in the damn dugout and harden the clay. Well, anytime it takes you a month just to build a temporary camp, you can bet you ain’t getting no work done that would put a dime in your pocket.”

  “What about the cattle?”

  He cut his eyes around at me. “Cattle? More like wild animals you be talkin’ about. You remember—ten years ago, I guess, maybe more—when you started talking to me about bringing in some of them little gentle northern cattle to try and calm these Longhorns down and fatten ’em up? I remember you saying killing two horses to bring in one cow wasn’t good business. Well, them Longhorns you was talking about was as tame as kittens next to them brutes me and Charlie was tryin’ to gather. An’ we didn’t have but two horses apiece, an’ them worn to a frazzle a week after we started trying to gather cattle.”

  I was getting a little impatient. “All right, I’m real interested in this pioneer business, not like I ain’t heard it a dozen times before. But what has it got to do with what you want me to do and why?”

  “Wa’l, damnit, just have a little patience, can’t you? I’m tryin’ to make the point that Charlie had damn good reason to pull out. I didn’t think it at the time. I thought he was runnin’ out on me. An’ it was that attitude that caused me to think it was all right what I did. Of course lookin’ back, I can see that Charlie done the right thing, an’ that if I’d of had a lick of sense an’ hadn’t been as stubborn as a mule I’d a gone with him.”

  “But—”

  He waved his hand at me. “Damnit, you asked to hear it, now shut up your mouth an listen. A damn fool could see it wasn’t gonna work. Even if we could have gathered them cattle by the thousands, there wasn’t no market for ’em. They was payin’ four dollars a head delivered in Galveston, an’ there wasn’t no two men could have driven ten of them cattle, let alone fifty or a hundred, all the way to Galveston. Would of taken a drover for every head. Only thing left was the hide-and-tallow business, and I’ll give you some advice right now, son. Don’t ever go to work in the hide-and-tallow business. Prison is better wages, I hear, and the work ain’t as hard.”

  “You gonna tell me about Charlie Stevens or am I gonna get up and go on about my own work? I have heard this story before, only it was Buttercup in it. You still ain’t explained how that worked out.”

  He looked away. “One night Charlie told me right after evening grub that he was pulling out. He said he’d just take one horse, leave his other one, and leave me most of the powder and shot. He said he didn’t mind the work, said he didn’t mind living burrowed up in the mud like some animal, said he didn’t mind the good chance of getting killed by the Mexican banditos or the Comanches. Said he didn’t mind having to haul water and wood four miles. Said he didn’t even really much mind starving to death as we surely were. But he said what he couldn’t take no more was the loneliness.”

  Howard stopped talking and looked off in the distance again.

  I let him think on it a moment, and then I said, “Bad?”

  He just shook his head. “Sometimes we’d go weeks without seeing another human face. An’ then most likely it would be some Mexican with a herd of stolen horses heading for the border. Nearest neighbors was about a four-day ride away, and they was just a couple of ol’ sourdoughs like me an’ Charlie. Only time we ever saw anything in a skirt was when we took a load of hides and tallow into Galveston, an’ them was the ugliest, filthiest women you ever wanted to get away from. Whores they was. An’ they done a lively trade, which will tell you how bad things was. Course me an’ Charlie never had more than five cents left by the time we got through buying supplies. So even if we’d of wanted to associate with such, we didn’t have the coin for it.” He stopped and thought, seeming to be looking for a way to explain how it was. He said finally, “Son, it was just lonely. You and your partner have both told each other every story you know and then told them again and again. And ain’t nothin’ happening that’s current that’s worth talkin’ about. Finally you just ain’t got nothing left to say. You’re just by yourself without kith or kin for comfort. Stuck it out damn near nine years, Charlie and me.”

  “Pa, I never understood how come sodbusters didn’t settle the country? Land was clear, good soil. I’d of thought there’d have been a farmer every half mile.”

  He shook his head. “Land wouldn’t grow nothing on account of the soil was brackish. From the saltwater.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the gulf. “That old saltwater has been soaking its way into this soil for millions of years. It’ll grow grass and trash trees like mesquite and willow and huisache, but you couldn’t make a crop of potatoes or corn or wheat or such. An’ there ain’t no running water. Think how many creeks and rivers there are within fifty miles of here. Ain’t that many. We got windmills now, but there wasn’t no windmills then. Nobody had ever heard of boring for water. And no timber to build a proper cabin. Just wild animals and banditos an’ Comanches. Them kind of conditions don’t draw many settlers, ’specially the kind with womenfolk. Too hard a life. This country killed women and horses. Course it’s civilized now.”

  That wasn’t what Nora thought, but I didn’t want to get into that. “So Charlie Stevens pulled out on you.”

  “Yes. And I was plenty bitter about it. He tried to get me to come with him, but I wouldn’t have none of it. Said when I set in to do a thing I got it done. But Charlie went on back to the Indian Territory. Said at least there was people there. Said if he was gonna starve to death he was at least going to do it with a woman in bed next to him.”

  “Did you think hard of him?”

  “I did. Mighty hard. And I let him know it.”

  “Is that when you robbed him of the money?”

  “Five hundred dollars? We didn’t have five hundred anything between us. No, no, that come later. At least a year later, maybe more.”

  “Then tell me. And pretty soon too.”

  He looked off. “Let me see . . . Been so long. I remember sticking it out by myself for six months. Seven months, eight. Almost the best part of a year. Gawd, it was hard goin’. Before, it was just a miserable life. But without a partner, somebody to help you pull on the rope, well, it was near impossible.”

  “Wasn’t anyone else around to help?”

  He shook his head. “Months went by and I didn’t see a soul. Once got trapped by a Comanche hunting party near Caney Creek. Hid out in the weeds for three days. Didn’t have nary a bite to eat, and the only water I got was what dew I could lick off the morning grass. Them Injuns was camped right on top of me. Fortunately I’d left my horse well upstream and had been working my way down the creek looking for freshwater mussels when I run slam-dab into them Injuns. Wasn’t nothin’ to do but hop in the weeds and hide. I thought they was never gonna leave. At least they didn’t find my horse. He’d done a sight better’n me. I’d left him tethered so he could get to fresh water and grass.”

  “You going to get to Stevens pretty soon?”

  He spit again and looked at his empty tumbler and then at me. I just shook my head. He looked disappointed, but he said, “Wa’l, after that hard year things suddenly kind of took an upswing. There had come a pretty good influx of
people into Texas and Tennessee and Arkansas and such places, and all of a sudden there was a demand for beef. Them ornery Longhorns went to six dollars and then eight and then ten, and I could see a man could make a pretty good piece of change if he had some help. So I saddled my horse an’ set out for the Indian Territory. Didn’t have no real sure idea where Charlie would be, but we’d originally been set up near a little settlement called Anadarko. So I headed that way and damned if I didn’t find him! He’d gone into the sawn-lumber business and was doing pretty fair. The Ouchita River runs right near Anadarko, and Charlie had channeled off a piece of the stream and built him a raceway that would turn a saw blade, and he was settin’ there turning out sawmill lumber and selling it as fast as he could cut it. There was considerable pine trees around that part of the territory, and he had him a regular crew cutting timber and hauling it to his sawmill. Well, he was right pleased to see me. Had him a house built right there next to his sawmill. Nice house built out of his own lumber, three or four rooms. Had him a mighty pretty . . .”

  He stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Swallowed some tobacco juice. Went down the wrong way.” He made a big show out of coughing. There was something about it that struck me strange, like he was covering up something, though for the life of me I couldn’t guess what.

  I said, “He had him a mighty pretty what?”

  He cleared his throat. “What? Oh, I was just going to say he was mighty well set up. Good business, good house—made that dugout seem like the place you’d keep the hogs in. Anyway, we visited and I stayed the night and then the next day I put it up to him. I told him about what the cattle market had done and I begged him to come back with me. Of course he didn’t want to, as well fixed as he was. But I reminded him it was our chance to make the dream come true we’d left Georgia with. We could own the biggest ranch anybody had ever seen. All I needed was him and about ten cowhands and we could make a sweep through the country and arrive in Galveston with a thousand head. But he wouldn’t do it. I said I didn’t have the money to hire the hands. I could see he must have made some cash with his saw, and if he’d come in with me we’d clean up. Well, I stayed around a few more days, eating his grub and drinking his whiskey, but he wouldn’t budge. He finally said that what he’d do, me and him being old friends from when they laid the chunk, what he’d do was he’d loan me the money to hire the cowhands. Of course I didn’t want to do it, hadn’t come there for charity, but he piled five hundred dollars on his kitchen table in twenty-dollar gold pieces and it weakened me. Weakened me until I done it. I took the money and I went to San Antonio and I hired the cowhands. First one I hired was Tom Butterfield. And of course I’ve already told you the story of how Tom and I started the ranch, about that first big drive, that first payday. So there it is, son, there’s the real beginning to the Half-Moon ranch.”