Zeke and Ned (34 page)

In Fort Smith, preparing for the trip, Marshal Maples had formed
the impression that most of the Becks had been killed by Ned Christie. Though he knew it was his duty to arrest the man if he could find him, Dan's private view, expressed to no one, was that this Mr. Christie had done the court a considerable favor by killing off a number of the Becks. Rounding them up would be troublesome; trying them would be expensive. The fewer left loose, the better. He himself had caught one of the survivors, only to have the man escape while he was making funeral arrangements for Buck Massey

Marshal Maples ended up spending the night in the jail cell that should have been occupied by Willy Beck. During the night, bedbugs attacked him so fiercely that he arose in a foul temper, his entire body covered with red bites. The bites itched badly; the marshal's only recourse was to plaster himself with mud from a big mud puddle just back of the jail. He had so many bites that he was feverish. During the night, tossing, turning, and scratching, he had a dream in which his wife Wilma flew toward him and became a cawing crow in the course of her flight.

When Sheriff Bobtail showed up, bringing him a big mug of coffee, Dan Maples was still in his underwear, hoping the mud he had plastered on himself would cool the bites somewhat.

“If I can catch that Beck fellow again, all we'll need to do is stick him in this cell for a night or two,” Dan said. “The bedbugs will eat him alive, and spare Judge Parker the expense of a trial.

“You ought to burn that old shuck mattress,” the marshal added. “It's nothing but a bedbug nest. I'd rather sleep on nails and staples than to snooze on it again.”

Sheriff Bobtail had no intention of burning the jail's only mattress. He considered the white marshal uppity, finicky, and extravagant for suggesting such a thing.

“I believe I'll go after the Becks today,” the marshal said. “I understand Mr. Christie killed most of them off. How many should I look for, Sheriff?”

“No, Ned didn't kill no Becks,” Sheriff Bobtail informed him. “Bill Yopps killed Sam Beck with a shotgun, and that young bailiff from Fort Smith did for T Spade. So far as I know, the rest of them are still alive and fit.”

“What?” Dan Maples said, unpleasantly startled. “I was assured that several were dead.”

“Nope—just them two,” the Sheriff reiterated. “One of Polly's sisters got kilt, but she was just a Beck by marriage. All the rest of the boys are still up at the mill.”

“All the rest? How many is that?” Dan asked.

“Why, Willy, Frank, Little Ray, and Davie—that's four,” the Sheriff said. “Then there's White Sut. He keeps a bear.”

“He keeps a bear?” the marshal asked. “Who is this White Sut? I ain't never heard of him.”

“He's the grandpa of the Becks,” Charley Bobtail said. He was surprised to see that the marshal had covered himself with mud. The ways of white people were strange; he himself had never found the slightest use for mud.

“You mean there's five grown men up at that mill?” Dan Maples inquired. Though adept with his gun, he did not suppose himself capable of arresting five grown men without assistance. Thanks to Buck Massey's behaviour, he felt he would be forced to telegraph Fort Smith for reinforcements.

Upon reflection, Dan decided that Sheriff Bobtail was more than likely lying about the number of Becks left alive. Though the Becks were white men, perhaps they were his in-laws; or, perhaps they owed the Sheriff money, a sum sufficient that he did not want to see them arrested and hanged before he could be paid. On the other hand, the Becks were a contentious group. Sheriff Charley Bobtail might not care to be bothered with having the unruly bunch in his jail for the time it would take to arrange transport to Fort Smith.

After all, the marshal reflected, most people lied often, if not constantly—at least that had been his experience. His own wife, Wilma, he was convinced, had been selling hen's eggs for fifteen years and lying to him about it for the same length of time. If his own wife would lie about selling eggs, then Sheriff Bobtail might well lie about the Becks. Dan Maples decided to stroll around Tahlequah for a while, to see if other citizens believed there were as many as five Becks left alive.

The stroll did nothing to calm his sense of alarm, however. The blacksmith informed him that White Sut Beck's bear was so strong, it had killed the largest bull in the District with one whack of its paw. Then, two fellows at the hardware store assured him that Davie Beck was so skilled at mayhem that he had sawed an enemy's leg completely off without even dismounting from his horse.

“He's got this saw knife,” one of the fellows told Dan. “He rode
right up on Tuxie Miller and sawed one of his legs off before Tuxie could get shut of him.”

“I think I could manage to shoot a feller who was sawing off my leg,” Dan Maples conjectured. “At least I could shoot
at
him.”

“Tuxie didn't have no gun,” the marshal was told. “He's not one to go around armed.”

Before long, Dan Maples had collected a dozen or more stories about the Beck family, all of which stressed their extreme ferocity. Somebody remembered that they had a room in the mill filled with millions of weevils.

“Weevils? Why on earth would they want millions of weevils?” the marshal wondered.

Bunt Boree, the proprietor of the hardware store, saw that the white marshal was an unusually credulous man, a man who could not tell a yarn from a fact. He decided to keep yarning—it would give the young marshal something to think about.

“They tie folks up and throw 'em into the weevils,” Bunt said. “The weevils go in their ears, and fill up their brains.”

Bunt's friend, Stoke Brown, drew the same conclusion about Dan Maples, and decided to join in the fun.

“What the weevils don't eat, White Sut saves for his buzzard,” Stoke said.

“His buzzard?” Dan Maples said.

“Yep. That bird minds him, too—follows old White Sut wherever he goes,” Stoke added.

“I ain't never heard of nobody keeping a buzzard,” Dan Maples said. “What a dern old fool he must be!”

The more Dan Maples inquired, the more convinced he became that a lone strike against the Becks had little chance of success. He would have to telegraph for help, he now admitted. But when he located the telegraph office, in a shed behind the barber shop, it was unoccupied.

Retracing his steps to the hardware store, the marshal asked Bunt Boree where he might find the telegrapher.

“Oh, I ain't seen Ben this week,” Bunt said. “Ben likes to go off wandering for a few days now and then. He has relatives among the Choctaw.”

“I have no interest in his relatives, I need to find him promptly,” Dan Maples said.

“Well, he was in last week . . . he may be in next week,” Stoke Brown said, politely.

“Next week?! I can't wait till next week. I need men by tomorrow!” Dan said. He was beginning to feel desperate. He was facing a second night among the bedbugs, unless he slept outdoors, and sleeping outdoors in damp weather made his hip hurt. Mr. Boree and Mr. Brown were polite fellows, but the news they imparted with such casualness was shattering.

“The man that runs the telegraph can't just go wandering off,” Dan protested. “He needs to stay put. A community this size needs to keep the telegraph available at all times.”

Bunt Boree looked vague, and so did Stoke Brown. Neither of them seemed in the least disturbed by the inactivity at the telegraph office.

“I caught a gar yesterday, out of my creek,” Bunt said. “Ever caught a gar, Stoke?”

“I caught one, but I didn't eat it—too bony,” Stoke confessed.

Dan Maples grew impatient. He often grew impatient when dealing with Indians, no matter what the tribe. Indian time, an ephemeral concept—devoid of the necessity of timeliness or urgency—had always confounded Marshal Maples. It was impossible to keep Indians concentrated on the important things, such as the necessity of ready access to a working telegraph. They'd rather talk about fishing for gar, a fish of no importance whatsoever. It was vexing to a white man, particularly a white man with a mission.

“I need to send word to that man—what's his name?” Dan inquired.

“Ben's his name. I guess he's wandered off,” Bunt Boree speculated again. “He's got a shack about four miles west of here. He might be there, I don't know.”

“But I need to send word . . . he needs to get back to work,” Dan Maples insisted. His sense of desperation was coming back, stronger than ever.

“Well, I'd take it, but I don't live in that direction,” Stoke Brown volunteered, in the same friendly spirit. “I live in the other direction.”

“Who does live in that direction?” the marshal asked.

“Oh, quite a few people, I expect,” Bunt Boree said. “Ask the Sheriff—he might know where Ben went. The Sheriff's his cousin, I believe.”

“Just a second cousin,” Sheriff Bobtail corrected, when the young marshal rushed up in a lather, wanting to know the whereabouts of old Ben, who worked the telegraph—at least he worked it when he took a notion to, which seemed to be on an all too random schedule, to Dan Maples.

“The best thing to do is just write down your message and your name,” the Sheriff informed him. “There's a tablet in the shed there. People write down their messages and Ben will telegraph them off, once he shows up.”

“But I can't wait!” the marshal demanded. “I can't wait! I need to send this message to Fort Smith now!

“Now!” he added, a moment later. He spoke so loudly that it hurt Sheriff Bobtail's ears, causing the Sheriff to cringe slightly. The young white marshal's impatience was an irritant, like a clock that ticked too loud. It was hard to feel calm, either with a clock ticking too loud, or an impatient marshal. White people, in their way, might be smart about some things—but very few of them were good about taking things in their time. They seemed to think that time itself was like a sheep, or a cow—a thing they could own, and herd around at their whim.

Sheriff Bobtail knew better. Nobody could own time, or herd it around like cattle or sheep. He had tried, over the years, to discuss the matter with some of the more intelligent whites, so that they might be more relaxed and not use up their lives so quickly. But he did not try to go into the question of time with Marshal Maples, who was acting as if the world might end if he did not locate old Ben, the Sheriff's own second cousin, to get him to send a telegram so that he could get help in dealing with the wild Becks. He would need help with the wild Becks, of course, but that did not mean the young man could go herding up time like a milk-pen calf.

Dan Maples's desperation got worse, as a drizzly gloaming settled on the hills of the town. He did not think he could stand another night with the bedbugs, but neither did he relish a night out in the wet, for it was sure to seriously aggravate his hip pain. Dan got so desperate he felt like crying, or getting drunk. He even began to regret the death of the licentious Buck Massey. He missed his wife, Wilma. He longed for the saloons of Fort Smith. He would have liked a beefsteak. He felt beside himself with annoyance that the old telegrapher had wandered off so inconsiderately. Dan felt that if he knew he had
help on the way—a white man, one who understood the work of the white law—he could endure the wet, and even the bedbugs. But the knowledge that help was
not
on its way, that it might be days before the authorities in Fort Smith were aware of his dilemma, wore at his spirit—hacked it, like the saw knife Davie Beck was supposed to wield so savagely.

Finally, Dan Maples's mood sank so low he could not stand it. He knew there must be whiskey to be had in Tahlequah, and he wanted some, quick. As a lawman, he could not buy liquor directly from whiskeysellers; but then he remembered seeing several bottles and a jug or two sitting on a shelf in the jailhouse—liquor, no doubt, that Sheriff Bobtail had confiscated from drunken rowdies he had had in his jail.

Dan went back in the jail, and sniffed at the bottles. One bottle smelled a good deal like hair tonic, but the others smelled liquorous. He uncorked one of the jugs, and poured a little of its contents into a tin cup he found on a shelf. The liquor from the jug did not have much of an odor, or much of a taste, either—not unless you could say that fire had taste. By the second swallow, Dan Maples had lost all feeling in his legs. It was as if he had
no
legs. Sparks seemed to rise from his belly, as if someone had lit a pile of kindling inside him. Dan did not disdain the feeling; having sparks inside him was a good change from the desperation that had been churning there. He wandered outside with the jug, and thought he saw stars—odd, since it was drizzling rain.

He walked along a ways, tipping back the jug from time to time, enjoying the sparky feeling that rose from his belly. The sparky feeling brought his confidence back; perhaps he would not need help from Fort Smith, after all. There might be five Becks, but that did not necessarily mean they could all shoot accurately. The tales he had heard about saw knives and pet bears were probably exaggerations. Perhaps the best thing would be to find a dry shed to sleep in, a shed with hay, if possible. With a good night's sleep, he might feel like rounding up the Becks himself. Judge Parker would appreciate the economy of his plan, too.

While he was walking and tippling, Dan realized that the stars he had seen were lanterns. Two men were up on the roof of the Senate House, trying to nail a tarp over the new hole in the roof.

“Say, where can I get a beefsteak?” he asked the men up on the roof.

But the men were hammering and did not answer—or, if they did answer, Marshal Maples did not hear the reply. His legs, which he had lost all sense of, had carried him away from the building that had nearly burned up that very day. While it was burning, he had been so disgusted with Cherokees and their ways that he had not even walked outside the jail to watch the spectacle. If a building wanted to burn, then let it, was his view.