Zeke and Ned (19 page)

Ned thought the fact that T. Spade Beck had been flagrantly deserted by his brothers might cause the old man to give up. But in that assumption, Ned was wrong. Exasperated by the Winchester which had caused him to slaughter a harmless sister-in-law, T. Spade grabbed two of the pistols that had been handed in to him and began to fire in the direction of Zeke and Davie, who were still rolling around on the floor locked in mortal combat. T. Spade knew he might hit his brother, but thought the risk well worth it. He disliked Davie only slightly less than he disliked Zeke, though Davie was his own blood.

Ned started to shoot him, but the crowd was on its feet by this time, and even from the bench he could not fire without considerable risk to the spectators.

“Ned, I'm dyin', take the news to Dale if you get time,” Tuxie Miller requested.

Ned knew better. Tuxie was merely wounded in the leg, but Tuxie had gone ghost white and did need attention. While Ned hesitated, hoping for a clear angle that would allow him to put T Spade down before he killed more spectators, Chilly Stufflebean struggled to his feet. Just before he left Fort Smith, Judge Parker had lent Chilly a small pistol—a .32-caliber, with a three-inch barrel.

“I doubt you'll need this, Chilly,” Judge Parker told him, “but feel free to use it if you find yourself in a desperate situation.”

Chilly figured this was what the Judge had meant by a desperate situation.
T. Spade Beck stood not ten feet away, firing point-blank into a crowded courtroom. Any moment, he could swing the gun in Chilly's direction. But Chilly knew it was his duty as a bailiff to try and stop indiscriminate manslaughter, whether T. Spade pointed a gun at him or not. Judge Parker had never permitted slaughter in his courtroom.

“Put down your gun, Mr. Beck,” Chilly said. His voice could barely be heard over the din.

Chilly stood firm, knowing that Judge Parker would expect firmness. T. Spade shot twice and missed twice. Both bullets whizzed under Chilly's arm; one of them nicked his black coat, and then struck Lotte May Grimmet, Polly Beck's other sister. Lotte May and Thelma had both married Grimmets. Chilly heard Lotte May gasp and fall, but he could not afford to turn and look: T. Spade was moving toward him, cocking the pistol for a third shot. Chilly saw from T. Spade's red-veined, demented eyes that he was beyond reason. The man was not going to stop shooting until his gun was empty. He had missed so far, but he might not keep on missing.

Chilly lived a moment that seemed like a year—at least there was autumn in it, and winter—for he was going to have to take a life, or else lose his own.

“Mr. Beck . . . ,” Chilly said; then he broke out of the other end of the moment that had stretched on through the seasons, pulled the trigger, and shot T. Spade Beck just above the left eye. T. Spade died with a look of wild rage still on his face. He lurched back a step, and then fell right at Chilly Stufflebean's feet.

Chilly immediately stuck the .32 pistol back in his pocket. He had an overwhelming urge to have Judge Isaac Parker step into the courtroom and take charge. He was sure Judge Parker could stop the carnage and get the trial finished in an orderly fashion, if only he were there.

But it was a hopeless wish. Judge Parker could not be there, and Judge Sixkiller was either dead or dying. Chilly himself had just killed an old man he had never even properly met, an old man driven crazy by the death of his wife. Chilly had not intended to kill, when he rode over to Tahlequah at Judge Parker's request; in fact, the thought had never crossed his mind. Yet, now he
had
killed. He himself felt so relieved to be alive that he could hardly gulp air into his lungs fast
enough. He had not quite realized what a precious thing life was, until he saw people all around him losing it and felt T. Spade's bullets pass just beneath his arm.

Ned, across the room, thought the death of T. Spade would probably mark the end of hostilities. Several more men were down, injured, or killed in T. Spade's last burst of shooting. To his surprise, he saw Lotte May Grimmet, the woman he had bought his pig from the year before, get up, climb over T. Spade's body, and start to crawl out the window her two brothers-in-law had leaped through. One of her arms was dripping blood onto the floor. Ned liked Lotte—she raised fine shoats—and called out to her as she was halfway through the window.

“Hold up, Lotte, don't jump out that window,” he said. “You're dripping blood, you may be hurt bad.”

Lotte turned briefly.

“I oughtn't to have stood so close to the boys. Now Thelma's dead, and I'm shot,” she replied, before climbing on out the window. Though wounded, she dropped to the ground and walked the nine miles back to her farm. Ned was not to see her again until the next summer, when he bargained with Lotte for two more shoats.

The spectators, most of whom had been jumping up and then sitting back down throughout the shooting and attempting to stay at the safest elevation, got up silently and began to hurry out of the courtroom. Many of them had to hop over the struggling bodies of Zeke Proctor and Davie Beck in order to get out the door. Zeke held the advantage, due to the fact that he had his handcuff chain tight against Davie Beck's Adam's apple. Davie's face was purple, and his eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites were visible, from having his airflow choked off so long.

Ned quickly knelt by Tuxie Miller, and cut the pants off his bleeding leg. When he did, he saw that Davie Beck had not shot Tuxie; he must have attacked Tuxie with the saw blade. Tuxie's leg was sawed to the bone, just above the knee. Ned took his own bandanna and quickly made a tourniquet, twisting it with his pistol barrel.

“Zeke's about got Davie choked to death,” Tuxie observed. Even half fainted, Tuxie was amazed at the fury in Zeke's face as he tried to choke Davie, who, taken by surprise, had been unable to employ his saw blade in his own defense.

“Tuxie, I've got to get this bleeding stopped, or you'll be dead and

I'll have to answer to Dale,” Ned informed him. “This gunfight has been bad enough. I don't want to have to ride up there and tell Dale I let you bleed to death in order to stop Zeke Proctor from choking Davie Beck.”

Tuxie understood that. He was nervous himself about having to explain to Dale how he had ridden into an ambush and got one of his legs half sawed. Dale expected him to keep both legs healthy for the plowing, Tuxie was certain.

Chilly Stufflebean, looking dazed, walked over to Zeke, who was still astraddle Davie Beck, choking him hard.

“I think you've kilt him, Mr. Proctor. His eyes have turned up in his head,” Chilly observed.

“Unlock these handcuffs, I got a cramp up my arm,” Zeke said. As far as he was concerned, the ornery Beck clan was responsible for his worst problem, which was that his wife had left him. Becca was a good sixty miles away, if she was an inch. When Chilly got the handcuffs unlocked, Zeke bounced Davie's head off the floor a couple of times for good measure and started out of the courtroom, only to be met by an indignant Pete, who came charging in. Pete had managed to wiggle out a window in one of the cells and jumped at his master, expecting to be picked up and scratched. Pete was badly disappointed in this; his master did not even glance at him.

Most of the spectators had managed to get out of the courtroom by then. With the room almost empty, Zeke got his first good look at the scene of carnage. The moment he had seen Bill Yopps's face appear in the window and saw the shotgun in his hand, Zeke had hit the floor and begun to crawl in amid the crowd. It did not surprise him that the Becks had hired Marshal Yopps, or that they soon armed themselves and began to shoot. He had expected trouble to break out some time during the trial, and had decided in advance that his best bet was to stay low.

Now, looking around, he knew that he had been wise: bloody bodies lay everywhere. The only man left in the courtroom other than Ned and Tuxie was old Tom Alston, who had evidently had the end of his nose shot off. Old Tom sat quietly on a bench, still under the impression that he was merely suffering from a nosebleed.

“Zeke, go see about the Judge,” Ned requested. “He may be bad hurt, I think T Spade got him in the neck.”

“He's worse than bad hurt—he's dead,” Chilly said, squatting for a moment by Judge Sixkiller.

“The man's right. B.H. ain't drawin' his breath no more,” Zeke said. “Now the goddamn Becks have killed our judge.”

“I wish Dale was here . . . I wish Dale was here,” Tuxie said, with alarm. The sight of all the blood that had trickled out of him convinced him he was dying. He might never see his nine young-uns again, or watch Dale put on her heavy socks prior to getting in bed.

“You ain't dyin', Tuxie, you just need to be still till we can get you to a bed,” Ned told him. “Why'd you let Davie get close enough to saw on you?”

“He fell on me out of a tree,” Tuxie said. “I thought he meant to steal my horse, but then he started sawing my leg with that saw blade. If the horse hadn't reared and pitched him off, I guess I'd be one-legged now.

“I doubt Dale would put up with a one-legged husband,” he added, reflecting that it took him all day to get the chores done, even with two legs.

“Dale would stay with you even if you was blind and deaf and foolish,” Ned assured him. “Dale's your wife, and she plans to stick with you.”

Tuxie sighed heavily. He was not so sure.

N
ED WENT TO WHERE THE
J
UDGE LAY, AND PUT HIS EAR AGAINST THE
Judge's chest, hoping for a heartbeat. But Ned was disappointed: Judge B. H. Sixkiller, his own wife's great-grandfather, was stone dead.

Zeke was looking out the window.

“There's a pile of bodies under the window, Little Eli's on the bottom,” Zeke said. “He's movin' like he ain't quite kilt.”

“I didn't shoot Little Eli,” Ned said. “I imagine somebody fell on top of him. I shot Yopps, and I shot Slow John. If there's others dead, then I didn't kill 'em.”

“Dammit, here comes old White Sut,” Zeke said. “He's got his bowie knife between his teeth. We better get ready.”

Ned jumped to the window. Sure enough, White Sut Beck was charging back through Tahlequah on the big sorrel.

“I shot that horse, I would never have expected him to run at such a pace,” Ned said. “He run off with the old fool, but I guess White Sut finally got him turned.”

Chilly stood at the window, too. He had never seen such a wild sight as the one he faced at the moment: an old man with long, white hair and a flopping coat racing at them on a bloody horse, a huge knife between the old man's front teeth.

Watching the crazy old man race toward them on the wounded horse gave Chilly the sad sense that he was in the wrong place. Somehow, while trying to do his duty as a loanout bailiff, he had come to a place so wild that the law had no chance of prevailing. Dead bodies lay all around him. Now and then, he heard a groan from someone wounded, but not yet dead. He himself had killed a man, a man maddened by grief for his dead wife. Somewhere back in Little Boggy Creek, Judge Parker's favourite mule was slowly drowning. Chilly had intended to take Ned Christie's advice, borrow a winch, and go save the mule. But with so many dead to lay out, and then the wounded to attend to, he knew he would probably have to let the mule go. He longed deeply to be back in Fort Smith, and he wished the day he was living had not really happened. He wished he could be waking up on his bench in Judge Parker's courtroom, ready to carry the spittoons down to the Arkansas River and let the river water wash them all clean.

There were disputes in Fort Smith, to be sure—there were even gunfights—but they seemed mild things, compared to the bloodbath he had just witnessed and survived. Tahlequah was a place of wild men, wild like the old man who was racing toward them at the moment on the bloodstained horse.

Zeke Proctor had only met White Sut Beck once in his life. He had accidentally stumbled on the old man while he was brewing whiskey, and the old man had tried to set a sow bear on him. He had the sow bear chained to a tree, but White Sut unchained her and sicced her on him. Zeke had to put spurs to his mare and make a run for it. Even then, he might not have made it if he had not been to a horserace in Dog Town. He had happened to be astride his fastest filly, who had better wind than White Sut's sow bear.

Zeke had supposed the old man was dead, though occasionally he would hear tales of a wild old hermit who lived on Raw Rock Mountain
with a bear and a buzzard. He supposed the tales were hyperbole, a not-uncommon thing in the Going Snake District. Now he was forced to realize that not only was White Sut still alive, he was feisty and bent on mayhem and murder—his lifelong interests, so far as Zeke could discover.

“Shoot that dern horse, Ned, or we'll have to choke that old fool down like I choked Davie,” Zeke said. “He's killed eight or ten men with that big knife of his. I don't know how many he's killed with guns.

“He set his sow bear on me once, I don't want to mess with the old lunatic,” Zeke added, annoyed that Ned was merely watching the old man descend upon them. Ned ought to be shooting, Zeke thought.

Ned finally lifted his pistol and aimed at the big sorrel horse again. But before he could shoot, Davie Beck himself, clutching his mashed throat but clearly far from dead, staggered into the street and tried to wave White Sut down. While Zeke and Ned had been watching the spectacle of his old kinsman, a badly choked but still alive Davie Beck had managed to crawl out the courthouse door, unobserved. He was staggering and stumbling, sucking air for all he was worth. He still had his saw blade in one hand, and he was bent on escape.

“Why, dammit, I thought I had Davie choked all the way dead,” Zeke said, amazed to see a man he had just spent ten minutes strangling rise up and wander down the street.

“Davie must have learnt that trick of rolling his eyes up in his head,” Zeke reflected. “Usually when a man's eyes roll back like that, he's thoroughly kilt.”