Zeke and Ned (41 page)

“I heard Mr. Jones is mean,” Chilly added.

“You heard right, then—he's mean,” the Judge said. “He's also expensive. But what's my choice? Dan Maples was my best man, and he's dead. I'd send Bass Reeves, but I've already sent him after the Starr brothers.”

Judge Parker was referring to the famous black deputy marshal who had few rivals in his ability to catch and bring in desperadoes anywhere in the Territory.

“Maybe Bass will catch the Starrs and get home quick,” Chilly opined.

“I doubt it. The Starrs had too good a lead. Bass will catch them; Bass always catches them. But it won't be quick enough for my purposes over in Tahlequah,” Judge Parker said.

“Get a move on, Chilly,” the Judge added. “The President wants results, and he wants them quick. Do you know Beezle?”

“Who?” Chilly asked.

“Beezle. He's Tailcoat's man,” Judge Parker said.

“I ain't acquainted with him, Judge,” Chilly said.

“You soon will be,” the Judge informed him. “I just saw him go in the saloon. He's a short stump with red hair, and he wears his pistol with the handle pointed forward. Go stop him and tell him I need to see his captain.”

Chilly was not eager to come within speaking distance of Tailcoat Jones, or his red-headed underling.

“Tailcoat Jones prefers to lay up with whores. He has his whiskey brought to him,” the Judge added. “I expect he sent Beezle to fetch him some, which is why Beezle's in the saloon. If you hurry, you might be able to catch the man in the street.”

Something was nagging at Chilly's mind. Despite his awe at having handled a telegram from the President of the United States, Chilly had remembered that he himself had a dislike of General Grant.

“Wasn't it President Grant that helped the Yankees beat us?” Chilly ventured. “I remember he was their best general.”

“One of the best, yes,” the Judge conceded. “He had a fair hand in the outcome, but that war's over, Chilly. General Grant is President now. You need to be letting all that war stuff drain out of your mind.”

“What if it won't drain?” Chilly said. “I knew there was something I didn't like about the President. He helped the Yankees win the War.”

The Judge sighed. Some days, it was hard to get the simplest request acted upon. Chilly, who should have been fifty yards down the street by then, was still standing in his office, upset about the Civil War.

“Chilly, I asked you to go do an errand,” the Judge reminded him. “I have to see Tailcoat Jones, and I have to see him now. I ain't got time to fight the Civil War all over again, just because you're aggrieved.”

Chilly saw the crease between Judge Isaac Parker's eyes deepen. He knew it was time to get a move on.

“I'm going, Judge, right this minute—didn't you say his man was red-headed?” Chilly asked, as he went out the door.

N
ED RODE MOST OF THE NIGHT GETTING HOME
.

All night, riding homeward, Jewel was the only thing on his mind. He wanted to slip in the door and slide under the covers with Jewel before she got out of bed. He could imagine how warm her body would feel, and how soft her skin. Her breath on his lips would be sweet, when he kissed her to let her know he was home.

That plan was spoiled, although Ned rode in well before dawn and quietly put his horse in the barn. Even before he got in the door, he heard coughing—it did not sound like Jewel's coughing, or Liza's, either.

When he stepped in the house, Jewel looked at him with worried eyes. He only caught a glimpse of a smile, in the light of the lantern. She was bending over Zeke Proctor, who lay on a pallet by the fireplace, coughing hard, clearly sick. Jewel was putting a mustard plaster against her father's chest.

“Hello, Zeke . . . I guess you're poorly,” Ned remarked. “At least you got a pretty nurse.”

Jewel raised up, hugged Ned, and let him kiss her. Then she made him feel her father's forehead.

“Zeke, you're hot with fever,” Ned said, concern in his voice. “You sound kind of wet in your lungs, too. Where have you been to get so poorly?”

“On the scout,” Zeke said, his voice weak. “I stayed too long in that dern drippy cave. If it ain't the pneumonia, I'll be better tomorrow.”

“I'll make you coffee, Ned,” Jewel said. She went off to the stove to heat the water, leaving Ned by her father's side.

“It scares me when you ride at night,” she whispered a little later, when Ned came over to get his coffee. He felt her belly, to see how much the baby had grown.

“I meant to get here in time to slip in with you,” Ned whispered back. “I didn't know Zeke was visiting.”

Jewel smiled when he said it. Earlier in the night, she had a dream in which Ned came home and slipped in with her. In the dream, she rolled over, and there he was, warm beside her. Then her father's coughing woke her, just when the dream was sweetest.

“What's the news from town, Ned?” Zeke asked, in a weak voice.

“Bad news,” Ned admitted. “Marshal Dan Maples got murdered— another marshal, too. They say Dan Maples killed the first marshal himself in an argument, but the white law may not believe that. All they'll believe is that two marshals are dead in an Indian town.”

He came and squatted by Zeke for a moment, to take a closer look at him. Zeke's chest was heaving with every breath—he was struggling mightily to get air in his lungs. Then, when he did manage to get a breath, he coughed, a cough from so deep inside him that it seemed to come out of his bowels. Ned had scarcely been home five minutes, yet Zeke already appeared sicker than he had seemed when Ned walked in. It was a worrisome situation, made more so by the knowledge that both of them might need to be seriously on the scout within a day or two.

“Who kilt him, the Becks?” Zeke asked.

“I don't know who killed him,” Ned replied. “I went to your place looking for you. Sully claims the Becks were in town the day the marshal was killed, but I never saw them.”

“Who's the suspect, then?” Zeke asked.

“Why, me, I guess, Zeke,” Ned said, with a quick glance at Jewel.

He knew his wife would be horrified by that revelation, but she was going to have to hear it sooner or later.

“Ned . . . you should have come right back home!” Jewel said.

Ned started to mention the fire in the Senate building, but decided against it. He had already been married to Jewel long enough to know that the more information he gave her, the more she would find to pick about.

“That's bad,” Zeke said. “Whoa . . . that's real bad. They won't chase you too hard for killing a Beck or a Squirrel, but they'll chase you to hell and back for killing a lawman.”

“I expect so,” Ned said quietly.

“Did you see the marshal?” Zeke asked. It occurred to him that maybe Ned
had
killed the man, but did not want to alarm Jewel by confessing.

“I never saw the man,” Ned assured him, glancing at his wife again when he said it. “I did see his horse, though, tied down by the jail-house.”

“Well, that's no crime,” Zeke said. Then before he could reflect on the matter further, he fell into a light sleep.

“Let's go upstairs while he's resting,” Ned whispered to Jewel. “It'll be sunup pretty soon.”

Now that he had Jewel close where he could touch her, he had a fever in him to equal Zeke's—only it was a different fever.

“I'll make Liza come down and watch Pa,” Jewel said. “She needs to change those mustard plasters every hour.”

Despite the sweet dream of a few hours earlier, Jewel could not stop being uneasy when she and Ned were under the covers. Outside it was pearly grey, mist hiding the treetops. The sun would be up soon, boring holes in the mist; but it was not the coming daylight that kept Jewel uneasy, even as she was in her husband's embrace. Fear had slipped up the stairs with them and gotten in between her and Ned. The fear made a coldness in her that would not leave, no matter how close her husband held her, or how hard she strained against him.

Jewel began to cry a little—she could not help herself. She wanted everything to be right for Ned, but the fear would not leave. Then Liza came back up the stairs, half asleep, and asked Jewel something about the mustard plasters. Ned was irritated. He thought Liza ought to have better manners than to interrupt them at such a time, although by then they were simply resting together in the quilts.

Then the sun bored through the mists, and they could hear Zeke coughing, from below.

“What if Pa's bad?” Jewel asked.

“I might have to find Old Turtle Man,” Ned said. “He ain't so bad but what the healer can cure him. He cured Tuxie, and Tuxie was so far gone I even started digging his grave—remember?”

Jewel looked at him with a flash of anger when he said it. Ned remembered a fact he had come to appreciate: women never stopped being mad about things they were really mad about. Every time the subject of Tuxie and the half-dug grave came up, Jewel gave him a hot look.

Jewel got up then, and went downstairs to help Liza with the mustard plasters. Ned barely had time to yawn and turn over before she was back, a scared look on her face.

“Pa's real bad,” she said.

Ned hurried downstairs. When he got a good look at Zeke, he realized immediately that Jewel had not been exaggerating. Zeke's eyes scarcely focused, and he had been seized by a deep chill. Ned built up the fire, and the girls piled blankets on their father, but Zeke still trembled with chill.

Ned accepted some coffee from Jewel, but he felt discouraged. Just when he needed Zeke's advice, the man had gotten too sick to give it. He had assumed, as he rode home, that the law would be the enemy he and Zeke would have to run from. But now, Zeke had been brought down by a more immediate enemy, an illness so severe that it looked as if it might kill him.

He felt a fool for having left home in the first place. He should have stayed home and enjoyed his wife; now, when he wanted nothing more than to stay home and do just that, he would have to be off in search of Old Turtle Man. If he could not manage to find the old healer quick, the white law would not need to send more of its marshals after Zeke Proctor—Zeke Proctor would be dead.

“I'll go get Turtle Man, Zeke,” he said. “You lay there and try to get warm.”

“No . . . no,” Zeke said, reaching up a weak hand. “I don't need Turtle Man.”

“Yes, you do—he can cure you,” Ned said. “He cured Tuxie, and he was worse off than you.”

“No, Ned . . . I need Becca,” Zeke said.

Both girls came and stood behind Ned, listening to their father. Liza began to cry when her mother was mentioned. With her father so ill, she realized that she missed her mother badly.

“Zeke, Becca's at your place,” Ned pointed out. “I just come from there. It's thirty-five miles. I could have Old Turtle Man here in three hours, if I catch up with him early.”

“No, Ned . . . I need Becca,” Zeke insisted. “I done Becca bad. I need to see her and make it right . . . if she'll let me.”

His feverish eyes fixed Ned with a look he could not ignore. It was the look of a man who might be dead before the day was out. The request that had been put to Ned was not one he could refuse.

“All right, then, Zeke . . . I'll go for Becca,” Ned said. “My horse is tired, though, I rode him all night.”

“Mine's lame, or you could take him,” Zeke said—then he took such a fit of coughing that he could not speak for several minutes. He coughed and coughed, rolling on the pallet. At one point, he coughed so hard Jewel had to stop him from rolling into the fireplace.

Ned went outside, stripped off, and poured a bucket of springwater over himself, to get himself better awake. Jewel came out while he was dripping wet. She brought him a clean shirt and pants, and helped him dry off. The thought of the seventy-mile ride to Zeke's place and back made Ned feel disheartened.

“I mean to stop off at Tuxie's and see if he'll go fetch her for us,” Ned told Jewel. “Tuxie might not mind making the trip, if Dale will let him go.”

“Then I could go look for the healer,” he added.

“Jewel, Pa's coughing bad,” Liza yelled from the doorway. Then she saw that Ned did not have his pants on yet, and ran back into the house.

When Ned rode away, Jewel stood watching her husband until he was out of sight. Though she was way down by the well, she could hear her father coughing. The sound made her afraid—and so did the sight of Ned leaving again. When Ned got home, the fear inside her left; but this time, the fear had stayed.

“Jewel . . . come inside, he's bad,” Liza yelled again from the doorway, in a panic.

Jewel turned, and hurried back toward her house, wondering if there would be a time in her life when she did not have to be afraid.

T
AILCOAT
J
ONES
WAS RESTING IN BED WITH TWO YOUNG WHORES, when Beezle knocked on the door.

Both whores were plump and cheap, which was the way Tailcoat liked his women. It irked him to pay cash money for the use of a skinny woman, and he rarely did so, unless desperate. Bony hips were a particular affront to him. Fortunately, the two young whores in bed with him, both stout girls from Alabama, had hips as wide as boats, amply covered with flesh. He could pleasure himself with them at length, and never get jabbed by a hip bone.

“I've a thirst, hurry on in with that whiskey,” Tailcoat said. “You took your goddamn time fetching, I'll say that.”

Beezle had knocked softly, and then—as a prudent move—had taken a few steps back down the hall. It was not wise to stand squarely in front of the door when delivering whiskey, or anything else, to Tailcoat Jones. Once, during the War, Tailcoat had been surprised while in bed by a contingent of Yankees, one of whom shot him in the collarbone before Tailcoat killed him and two of his comrades. The collarbone had never healed properly, and the fact of that surprise left Tailcoat with a nervous attitude about doors. Often as not, he would put a shot or two through the door when someone knocked, just to be on the safe side.