Zeke and Ned (61 page)

It wasn't just Jewel that I wanted to see—I had a serious hankering
to see Ned, while I was about my grieving. I wanted to see what his thinking was on his situation, now that he had turned back six posses. The Cherokee Senate was due to start its new session in a couple of weeks. I wanted to talk politics with Ned, and then see if there was any way the Cherokee Nation could muster its forces and help him in his fight.

I stopped in Tahlequah on the way, procured the loan of a stout mule, and loaded it up with every kind of provision I could think of, including a few ribbons and a bright swatch of cloth for Jewel. With Ned not leaving the Mountain, I figured they might be running low on thumbtacks and baking soda and such.

By good luck, Tuxie Miller happened to be in town, getting a tooth pulled. It must have been a pretty bad tooth—Tuxie's jaw was as black as if someone had hit him with a brick. He yelled a good healthy yell when the dentist yanked the tooth out, too. It wasn't until he yelled, that I knew he was in town.

“If that mule wasn't loaded to the gunwales, I'd pile on a barrel of molasses,” Tuxie said, when he walked up to me. “The younguns have been pestering me to bring home some sweetening, but I ain't got no way to carry a barrel of molasses.”

“I guess you could rent your own mule,” I suggested.

“Nope, Dale would never stand for the expense,” Tuxie said, and he was right about that. Dale was known to keep a close clutch on the family purse.

“I'm surprised she let you squander money on a dentist,” I told him. “She could have pulled that tooth by herself. All she would need is a good pair of pliers.”

Tuxie ignored that point. He was the sort of man who didn't allow much jesting at the expense of his wife. I remembered that the old fool who ran the store had some sugarcane stalks stuck in a barrel—I suppose they had come up the river from Louisiana. I went back and bought twelve of them, for the Miller young ones. Sugarcane stalks were a lot easier to fit on my mule than a barrel of molasses would have been.

“I guess I ought to buy a stalk for Dale,” Tuxie said.

“Why, no—buy her ribbon, Tuxie,” I said.

The thought just made him look doubtful.

“What would Dale do with a ribbon?” he asked.

I let the matter drop. Twelve children, and the man still didn't know that women like ribbons. I wanted to talk to him a bit about Ned's situation on the ride up the Mountain, but the dentist had neglected to pack the tooth hole adequately. Every time Tuxie tried to converse, blood poured out of his mouth. He spent most of the ride home spitting.

“Dern, Tuxie. If a stranger picked up our trail, he'd think somebody gored an ox, from all the blood you're spilling,” I told him.

“I wish I owned an ox. It would ease the plowing,” was Tuxie Miller's reply.

T
HE
M
ILLER YOUNG ONES GNAWED UP THAT SUGARCANE LIKE
beavers in a lumberyard. By the time we got home, Tuxie had bled all over himself, a sight that annoyed Dale.

“Get them overalls off, I've got to wash them or that blood will never come out,” she said. The tooth hole was still bleeding, but Dale soon stopped that by poking cotton in it with a knitting needle. The woman gave me but a scant hello. I believe she meant to hold Polly Beck against me until the end of my days. But she set me a place at the table, when suppertime came, and allowed me to share the meal, which was beefsteak and gravy. They had built themselves a log house this time, but hadn't quite finished chinking the logs. That was how Dale occupied herself after supper, while Tuxie and me smoked. The children were as bright eyed as little coons, and every single one of them took after their mother.

Dale finally softened a little, when I told her of my loss.

“That's hard, Zeke,” she said. “And just as you two were getting back to being married folks again.”

“Yep, just as we were,” I admitted. “I don't know if Jewel knows Becca died. Do you ever see her or Ned?”

Tuxie had nodded off by this time, tipped sideways in his rocking chair. I guess having that tooth pulled wore him out.

“They're living a hell, Ned and Jewel,” Dale told me. “If there's to be any heaven in it for them, it's not in the here and now.”

“I mean to petition the Senate to find some way to get the law to leave them alone,” I told her. I rarely discuss Senate business with anyone,
but the circumstances were desperate—and Dale Miller was forceful in her thoughts—more forceful than her husband, who was asleep anyway.

“You better see Ned about it first,” she told me.

“Why, I will, Dale, if he'll see me. That's one of the reasons I came,” I replied.

Dale didn't answer, nor did she explain her remark. She was still chinking logs when I finally stretched out by the fire and went to sleep.

T
HE
M
ILLER CHILDREN WERE MANNERLY
. D
ALE AND
T
UXIE HAD SEEN
to that. Every single one of them thanked me for the sugarcane, before I rode off the next morning.

Dale was dipping her chickens in a washtub. She had procured some solution that was supposed to rid them of mites. The chickens didn't appreciate her concern. The ones that had been dipped were running around squawking, and the ones that hadn't were doing their best to elude the children, whose chore it was to fetch them over to Dale.

“Many thanks for the supper, Dale,” I said, walking over to the washtub. Dale was dipping chickens two at a time. She had two hens in each hand, when I approached her, but she looked up at me as if she might have an opinion to convey.

“You ought to bring Jewel out with you, if you can,” Dale said.

I was startled by the comment. Dale Miller was all family, and it was a surprise to have her tell me I ought to persuade Jewel to come out. I remembered what Becca said when we had our quarrel. Jewel had chosen her path; it was her duty to cleave to her husband, as Dale had cleaved to Tuxie—twelve children's worth.

“It'll come to that anyway, Zeke,” Dale said. “There's talk that they're bringing a cannon, next time they come after Ned.”

“A cannon? Up here?” I asked. “Now it would take some fine mules, and not a few of them, to drag a cannon up this rocky old hill.”

“Mules ain't scarce in Arkansas, Zeke,” Dale said. She looked sad when she said it; I expect Dale had come to care for my Jewel.

“Why bring a cannon after one man?” I said. “It's a dern long way to drag a cannon. That would mean a passel of expense.”

Even as I said it, though, I remembered the War. The generals on either side—Lee, or Grant, or Sherman—took cannon where they wanted cannon. Terrain didn't daunt them.

The shock to me was that the white law would go to such trouble and such expense for one man: Ned Christie.

Tuxie ambled over, a little pale from his tooth removal, and I sounded him on the rumour.

“There's a marshal named L. P. Isabel who led that last posse,” Tuxie said. “They come by here on their way out, hoping Dale would help them take off their frostbit toes.”

“And did she?” I inquired.

“Why, yes. She took off twelve toes, mostly with the sheep shears,” Tuxie said. Dale was too busy dipping chickens to contribute to the discussion.

“Good Lord! Twelve?” I said.

“Yep—a dozen toes,” Tuxie told me. “Frostbit toes smell worse than putrid meat. But old Isabel was riled. He vowed to get Ned if it was the last thing he does. He said he was coming back, and aimed to bring a cannon.”

“Good Lord,” I said, again. It made me understand why Dale thought I ought to bring Jewel out. Cannonballs are no respecters. They'll smash women as well as men, if a woman happens to be in the vicinity when the cannonball hits.

“Do you think Ned's fort can withstand a cannon?” I asked Tuxie. In the War, Tuxie had been at Vicksburg, and I supposed he had ample experience of cannon from that siege.

“Well, one cannonball won't knock it down,” he said. “But if they bring a wagon full of cannonballs, I expect it's the end for Ned.”

“Maybe he'd best slip out,” I said. “Ned's a fine woodsman. An army couldn't find him if he went on the scout.”

Tuxie just shook his head.

“Ned ain't like he used to be, not since they shot out his eye and abused Jewel,” Tuxie said.

Tuxie choked up after he made that statement. I didn't know whether his tooth had bled into his throat, or whether some memory had caught him—maybe a memory of happier days, when he and Ned had hunted together and roamed the hills near their boyhood homes.

“Ned's all fight now. It's what he waits for,” Tuxie said. “He won't be leaving that fort, unless they blast him out.”

“I guess Dale's right, then,” I said. “If they're planning to bring a cannon up the ridge, I expect I ought to try and bring Jewel out, till this lets up.”

Tuxie shook his head, turned around, and walked over to pick up a jug that had once contained Dale's mite-killing liquid.

“It won't let up,” he said. “And Jewel won't come.”

“I'd better go see for myself, then,” I told him.

The Miller children were scattered all over the hill, trying to chase down the last dry chickens, when I rode away.

N
ED AND
J
EWEL WERE PLANTING THEIR GARDEN, WHEN
I
CAME INTO
the clearing. They had plowed a big circle around the fort, so they could get to cover quick, if a posse showed up while they were planting. What it meant, too, was that fresh food would be handy, just a few steps out of the fort, if they got besieged. They could always sneak out at night and gather beans and spuds, or pull a few ears of corn.

It was a smart arrangement, and yet, the sight of it chilled me. Tuxie had been right: Ned and Jewel were not likely to leave. They had water and food and a good strong fort; it would take a determined posse with time to spare—several months' time, probably—to flush them out.

My Jewel was pale, and had lost considerable more flesh since last I had seen her. The young curve of her cheek was gone; she reminded me so much of her mother that it gave me a start.

I guess Ned sniffed me or something, for he had his Winchester in his hand, waiting when I rode into the clearing. He was gaunt as a hawk, and his sightless eye had filmed over. Jewel's eyes lit a little when I rode up, but neither of them smiled. I guess they were through smiling, Jewel and Ned, which was a pity. Ned had such a fine, deep laugh, in his carousing days.

“I'm glad I ain't the one that will have to weed this garden,” I told them both, when I dismounted. “My back don't bend as easy as it used to, and a garden this big will require a passel of bending.”

Jewel hugged me, and Ned shook my hand. But after that, we just stood there, not knowing what to make of one another. Jewel was my own daughter, and Ned my oldest friend—and yet, we seemed all but strangers, the two of them were so changed.

I suppose it was living with just themselves that made Jewel and Ned awkward to visit with. They knew what to do with enemies, but had stood distant so long from family and friends that they could not enter back into the normal round of life: a life where goods were bought and sold, and horses raced, and babies made and born, and quilts patched by womenfolk and such.

I can josh most folks into some little kind of conversation, but I had hard going with Ned and Jewel. It was as if they were braced together in silence, like saints of the church. I remembered what Becca had said about Ned not wanting my help, and realized, now, that she had been right. Jewel did her best to be polite; she asked me if I wanted coffee. Ned gave me the Keetoowah greeting; then he propped his rifle against the wall of the fort and went back to planting spuds.

I accepted the coffee, mostly as a means of getting a private word with Jewel.

“Jewel, did you know about your ma?” I asked, when we were inside.

Jewel nodded, and looked down.

“Scot Mankiller told me,” she said.

“That's Ma gone, and Liza, too,” she said. “I expect I'll soon be seeing them in heaven, if those white men don't let Ned be.”

Jewel looked grave when she said it, but she didn't look scared.

I saw, then, that it wasn't going to be the kind of visit I had hoped for. Ned hadn't offered to unsaddle my horse; Jewel hadn't asked me if I planned to spend the night. It wasn't meanness in their attitude. It just seemed like it hadn't registered that they had a visitor.

I thought I ought to speak my piece, at least to my daughter, while I had her alone. Her eyes kept looking out the door, seeking Ned—she seemed anxious that something might happen if she let him out of her sight.

Riding along the ridge from the Millers' on the way to Ned's, I was full of words I meant to say to my Jewel, and I had another set of words I wanted to say to Ned.

But now that I was standing three feet from Jewel, looking her in the face, all the words I had been thinking of saying blew out of my thoughts like leaves in a dust devil. Jewel was a woman now, and she was doing exactly what her mother thought she ought to do, which was to cleave to her husband. News of the cannon that might come
with the next posse wasn't going to matter to her. She could hardly be at peace, unless she could locate Ned with her eyes.

I couldn't ask Jewel to leave with me. She would think I was daft. I felt like a fool for having come with such an expectation. It seemed like a reasonable hope when I was still in town, or at the Millers', or even at my place. But Ned and Jewel were at war now, and ways of living that normal people expected didn't mean a thing to them. I had been in the War, myself; when I was a fighting Bluecoat, I forgot the normal things, too, except for drinking whiskey. Stuck way off on some guard post in the fog, with one or two boys for company, I'd forget the horseracing, and the baby making, and the quilt patching, and the like. All I could think about at such times was the Rebs. Were they coming? And if they weren't when
would
they—and how many?