Zeke and Ned (15 page)

Ned counted out twenty bullets and gave them to Jewel in a little pouch. He was pleased that she meant to practice, but he was in a hurry to leave. The trial was bound to be lively, and he was excited to be heading for town.

After he rode away, Jewel climbed up in the loft and cried herself out. Some crows settled in the big sycamore tree behind the house and set up a violent cawing, while she cried. Jewel's great-grandmother Sixkiller had told Jewel how the Cherokee people were all descended
from seven clans, and that her own people were part of the Bird clan. By the time Jewel was ten, she knew the names of all the birds in the Going Snake District, and could identify each one of them just by hearing their songs.

Today, though, Jewel was in such a low mood, she began to grow irritated with the cawing crows. She did not want to listen to their cawing all day, not when she was sad.

When Jewel was a little girl, she had been prone to bad dreams. Once, when she was not quite six, she woke from an awful nightmare. Her father tried to comfort her with a story about how the doves and the whippoorwills flew dreams from one place to another. Then he lit a candle, and put it on her windowsill, saying that the light would draw the birds close and bring her sweet dreams.

That night, before she went to bed, Jewel lit a candle and put it in her bedroom window.

M
ARSHAL
B
ILL
Y
OPPS WAS IN A SHOCKING STATE OF DISARRAY WHEN
the Beck brothers finally found him, though not much worse disarray than the muddy community of Stinking Water itself.

Two cows had died in the street of Stinking Water the month before, and nobody had bothered to remove them, unless one counted the four turkey buzzards, who were removing the cows piecemeal.

Marshal Yopps himself had been removed, in a sense. His woman, Belle Blue, a notorious whiskeyseller, had removed him from the shanty where she lived to the chickenhouse behind it. Belle Blue had a white mother and a Cherokee father, both of whom had come from the Carolinas up the Trail of Tears. She was Old Mandy Springston's major competitor for the whiskey market in the Going Snake District. Belle's main occupation was madam, and so it was in her best interests to serve decent whiskey to the men who came to call. It was a known fact that women made the best whiskey, in the Going Snake.

Marshal Yopps had been in a near perpetual state of drunkenness for several years. Belle Blue told the Becks frankly that she could not have Marshal Yopps any closer than the chickenhouse. He was too prone to making inroads on the corn whiskey she had to sell.

“Pouring whiskey into that man is like pouring water into a post-hole,” Belle informed the Becks. “He just soaks it right up.”

Belle herself was plump and uppity.

“T. Spade could marry
her”
Willy suggested, as they were walking toward the chickenhouse.

Frank Beck, who considered himself a good judge of women, was appalled by the suggestion—it showed how naive his brother Willy was, when it came to matters of the flesh.

“That woman would make short work of T. Spade,” Frank said. “She'd finish him before the wedding bells even stopped ringing.”

Sam Beck thought that one over, but was puzzled by the reference to wedding bells. So far as he knew, T. Spade owned no bell of any kind.

“Davie, now . . . Davie might hold his own with her,” Frank added.

Marshal Yopps was snoring when they found him. He had white chicken feathers in his brown beard, and the wound in his shoulder had leaked a dark rusty stain down one sleeve of his shirt.

“He looks played out to me, boys,” Willy said. T. Spade had lagged a bit behind, far enough that he had not heard the conversation about Belle Blue making short work of him.

“Wake up, Bill, we want to hire you to kill Zeke Proctor!” T. Spade announced in a loud voice, whereupon Marshal Yopps promptly woke up and looked around.

“Zeke? I'll kill him for thirty dollars,” he replied. “I don't like that rascal anyway.”

“Why not?” Frank wondered.

“He's got that snappy little dog, that's why not,” the Marshal said. “That dog's charged at me more than once.”

“You're free to kill the dog while you're at it,” Willy told him. He thought making the dog available for slaughter might prompt the Marshal to lower his price.

“You'll have to work quick,” T Spade warned. “The trial's tomorrow.”

Marshal Yopps did not like the sound of that. It was a sunny day in Stinking Water, a good day to lay around and drink. Perhaps the bright sunshine would cause Belle Blue to be a little cozy with him. In any case, he wanted to move slow until he was fully awake and had his wits about him. The process of collecting his wits often took half a day, and he could not start it properly until he had several swigs of whiskey. Now here were the Beck brothers, looming over him and trying
to hurry him. He did not appreciate it. He crawled out of the chickenhouse, and began to brush the feathers off his person.

“Why, I'd rather not hurry, T.,” he said. “I can kill him just as dead after the trial.”

“No, he might get acquitted, and we don't want that,” T. Spade informed him. “He's just sitting there in Tahlequah, and it's only a ten-mile ride. Go get him and bring him back to us. We'll soon give the scamp what he deserves.”

Marshal Yopps quickly foresaw complications with that plan.

“What if Charley Bobtail won't give him up?” he asked. “It's a dern sight harder to take a man out of a jail than it is just to ambush him while he's watering his horse or having a shit behind a bush.

“More expensive, too,” he added, after a pause.

Willy Beck got rubbed the wrong way by that information.

“Thirty dollars is enough to pay for a killing,” he said firmly. “It'll only cost you one bullet, if you shoot straight. That's profit enough, whether you take him out of jail or not.”

Bill Yopps looked disgusted. Amateurs were always quick to ignore the legal complications when they wanted some scoundrel killed. Zeke Proctor was Charley Bobtail's prisoner—Charley would have to be handled skillfully, else he might refuse to give him up.

“You could say you're from Judge Parker,” T Spade suggested.

The mere mention of Isaac Parker's name was enough to cause Bill Yopp's blood to boil. He kicked irritably at a speckled hen that was following him a little too closely, looking like she might be ready to peck him.

“That goddamn Judge Parker, he's too goddamn tight,” he said. “I won't hunt up prisoners for him.”

One reason he was sleeping in the chickenhouse behind Belle Blue's was because Judge Parker had dismissed him from the marshaling force over a quarrel concerning expenses—a fact he did not volunteer to the Becks. Bill Yopps had engaged a blacksmith to shoe his horse and had sent the bill to the court. The bill was for seventy-five cents, which Judge Parker considered profligate. He called Bill Yopps into his chambers, and looked him in the eye.

“Marshal Yopps, do you understand the procedures involved in horseshoeing?” the Judge had asked. He was not asking friendly, either. He had a raspish growl in his voice.

“Why, of course—do you take me for a child?” Bill Yopps replied, indignant. “I can shoe a horse.”

“That's what I expected,” the Judge said. “You look able bodied to me, although you smell of whiskey. Why would you put this court to the expense of a blacksmith, when you could have shod the animal yourself?”

“I was in a hurry,” Bill Yopps replied. In fact, he hated shoeing horses, and always engaged a blacksmith if one was sitting idle.

“Did you imbibe liquorous spirits while you were waiting for this work to be done?” the Judge inquired.

“I don't recall,” Marshal Yopps said, though in fact, he had drained the better part of a jug while the smithy was at his work.

“Dismissed then, for a poor memory,” the Judge had said. “I won't employ a marshal who can't remember what he's done.”

Bill Yopps was stunned. Marshaling was his only source of income. He had been planning to arrest a skillful whiskeyseller within the next few days, and earn a big reward in the process. Now the Judge was asking for his badge.

“What if I pay back the money?” Bill Yopps asked, a feeling of desperation coming over him. If the Judge made good the dismissal, he soon would not even be able to afford Belle Blue, who demanded the same fee as the blacksmith.

“Too late for that,” the Judge answered. “This is a poor court. I won't have able-bodied men hiring out work they can do themselves.”

The Judge had stood firm—so firm that Marshal Yopps soon pulled himself together and entered into serious negotiations with the Becks about the matter of Zeke Proctor. The plan was to wait until the trial was about to start and take Zeke as he was walking from the jail to the courthouse. The opinion of the Becks was that Marshal Yopps ought to engage a few deputies.

“Zeke's got friends,” T Spade reminded him. He made no mention of Ned Christie. Men with stiffer backbones than Bill Yopps might waver if they thought the task meant taking on the best marksman in the Going Snake District.

“He ain't the only one with friends,” Marshal Yopps said. He had interrupted negotiations long enough to persuade Belle Blue that he would soon be prosperous again.

“Thirty dollars, Belle,” he said. “Now think of that. We can do some horseshoeing when I get back from town.” Since discovering
that Belle Blue and the blacksmith cost the same money, he had started calling what he wanted to do with Belle horseshoeing. Belle was not won by the term or by the man, but she did like the sound of $30.

“Maybe we can, and maybe we can't,” she told him. “I'd prefer to save it till I'm paid, but you're still welcome to the chicken house.”

She also allowed him access to her whiskey. The Becks were tough negotiators. She knew if she allowed Bill Yopps to grease himself up a little, he might accept a lower wage.

Bill Yopps conceived a notion that was too good to share with anyone. Instead of killing Zeke while he was on his way to trial, he'd kidnap him and spirit him off to Fort Smith. It was well known that Judge Parker did not particularly approve of the Cherokee courts. If he and a few deputies could snatch an important prisoner such as Zeke Proctor and rush him to Fort Smith, Judge Parker might be inclined to restore him to marshal status.

The Becks were nervous. Despite his brushing, Bill Yopps still had a good many feathers stuck to his person. Also, the wound in his shoulder was leaking down his sleeve again. The sight disgusted Sam Beck to the point that he was sick at his stomach. Bill hardly looked like a man who could defeat much opposition.

Bill asked for an advance of $10 toward expenses, but Willy Beck was adamant: he was not to have a cent until the prisoner was delivered to the bar of justice—Beck justice—or else killed.

“What do you aim to do about deputies, Bill?” T Spade asked. He, too, lacked confidence in Bill Yopps, but time was running out, and he doubted they could find another man to attempt the job.

“I'll go up to the Cave,” Bill Yopps assured them. “There's always a few killers resting up by the Cave. I guess if I can deputize three or four, we can take your man.”

The Cave was a ledge of overhanging rock on the ridge of the Walk Back Mountain. It was a favourite resting place for outlaws and renegades—white and Indian alike—and a far piece from any sheriff's office. The way there was all uphill. Rattlesnakes liked it, too, because of the abundance of rocks on which they could sun themselves. One bearded outlaw named Rolly Dan had become fond of snake meat. He had strung a line between two trees to peel snakeskins on. There would usually be two or three peeled rattlers hanging from it. Rolly Dan would smoke them like hams.

Without further discussion, Marshal Yopps saddled up and headed toward the Cave. The Becks watched him go with skeptical faces.

“We ought to have started looking for a marshal sooner,” Willy observed. “If you wait till the last minute, you have to take draggy help.”

“I think we ought to go cart Zeke off ourselves,” T. Spade said. “If we all go in a bunch, I doubt Ned Christie could stand us off.”

The remark was greeted with silence. Neither Frank, nor Willy, nor Sam wanted to think about what Ned Christie might do.

“If it's fight Ned Christie or stay home, I plan to stay home,” Willy said, finally.

T. Spade took offense at the remark.

“A fine bunch of brothers
you
are,” he said.

“Why, we're fine,” Sam said. “I'm putting up four dollars toward the marshal, and it wasn't even my wife that got killed.”

“No, and it never will be, because no woman would be foolish enough to have you,” T Spade said bitingly.

Sam regretted that the discussion of wives had ever begun. His bachelorhood was a sore trial to him, and T Spade knew it. He longed for a woman and had proposed to several, but with bleak results. His brother's words were cruel, but true: no woman would have him.

“You oughtn't to be hard on Sam about women, T,” Willy admonished, when they got home. Sam was so depressed, he neglected to unsaddle his horse. He had wandered off toward the creek, to brood about his bachelorhood.

“Shut up, Willy, or I'll start in on you,” T Spade said.

O
N
Z
EKE'S LAST NIGHT IN JAIL, HE BEGAN TO MISS HIS FAMILY
.

Once the missing began, it soon got bad. The morrow—indeed, his whole future—was uncertain. The jury might find against him; or, the Becks might take advantage of the fact that Judge Sixkiller planned to disarm the crowd. They might storm the courthouse and finish him. Ned Christie, the one man he could count on to protect him, was late showing up. Zeke knew that Ned, his Keetoowah brother, would not flatly desert him, but Ned had a ways to travel, and accidents could always happen along the road.