Cherokee America, page 11
“Yeah. It’s a crying shame,” the other Indian said.
“What are ya talking about?” Coop said again, in a louder voice.
One of the Indians raised his hand to his temple, held his trigger finger to his head, said in English, “Bang.”
“What’d ya mean he shot the horse? Why would he do that?” Coop yelled. The man who’d been resting against the tree got up, threw a look of disgust, and headed off to behind the inn.
The second pebble-throwing Indian said, “Leg broke.” He shook his head and hung it.
The noise Coop made started low in his belly. It worked its way up, not quite a human sound. By the time it came out of his mouth, it resembled the cry of a wolf. His face contorted.
One of the Indians gripped his shoulder. “Hold on to yourself.”
Coop wailed and dropped to the ground. He squatted and held his head in his hands. “My whole life is burnt wood.” He rocked back and forth.
The two Indians looked down at Coop’s crown and giggled. The woman nursing the baby laughed out loud. Coop stopped rocking and looked up. His eyes narrowed. But then, coming from behind the inn, he saw, all in a clump, the disgusted-looking Indian, The Bay, and George riding him.
“ᎣᏏᏲ!” George yelled. Then he said something that had to do with sitting in the dust like a toad. The Bay pranced a little. George threw his chest out like a warrior. The formerly disgusted-looking Indian bent over laughing.
Coop moved like a blacksnake. He grabbed for the reins. George pulled The Bay to the right. Coop fell in the dirt on his stomach. He scrambled up. Lunged again. George danced the horse around in a circle. The other Indians kept laughing. After the third skid on his belly, Coop quit trying. And he was dusting off his pants when a double-holstered white man came out of the inn onto the porch. Coop recognized the stagecoach driver. He switched to English and yelled, “Horse thief!” Employed a white gesture by pointing to George.
Stealing a horse was a serious crime in the Nation. People who killed horse thieves were commended for public service rather than jailed. So when the stagecoach driver pulled his gun, George hopped off The Bay, ran to Coop, and slung his arm around his shoulders. He shouted in English, “He’s my little brother!”
The stagecoach driver scratched his chin, scrunched his face, and holstered his weapon. Coop and George started pushing and shoving each other. Their insults were so loud Granny came out on the porch. She wiped her hands on her apron, placed both palms on a rail, and cocked an eyebrow. That sparked some rapid-fire Cherokee from the woman with the baby. The two parties to the argument stopped in midfight. Stood stock-still. Looked at the ground.
Granny didn’t move for over a minute. Then she rolled her tongue around in her cheek, patted the gun in her apron, and went back inside. Coop spat in the dirt. George turned his back, hunkered down on his heels, and propped his elbows on his knees. The formerly disgusted-looking Indian walked off behind the inn again. Coop walked over to The Bay. Inspected him for signs of wear. The Indian returned with a gourd of water. He said, “ᏣᏚᎵᎨ ᎠᎹ,” and stuck it under George’s nose first. George drank his fill and handed it back. The Indian stuck it under Coop’s chin. He told him to drink, to cool himself off. Coop did. Shortly after, he mounted The Bay. He hadn’t even looked at George sideways. And George was beginning to feel deep remorse. Coop was turning The Bay towards Tomahawk’s when George said, “Hey, Coop, I know where yer darkie is.”
Where Puny’s Been
After leaving Nannie and Coop, Puny had walked fast and hard along the sandbar of the Arkansas River, puffing and panting with effort and fear. The exertion calmed him a little. He’d told Ezell he was spending the night at the ferry, so he headed in that direction. Close to the water, the sand was packed, easy to tread, but the roar of the river was loud. Puny began to worry that something he couldn’t hear would sneak up on him. He recalled Sanders’ story of his aunt back in Georgia. She was in the woods, carrying her baby, when a wildcat jumped from a tree onto her back, grabbing her neck in its jaw. She hit the ground. Her baby flew from her blanket. The animal went for the child. But the aunt scrambled up and threw the blanket over the cat’s head. Jerked it off the baby, and kept its eyes blinded by cloth. They struggled. It clawed her bloody, both her arms and her body. But she managed to loosen her apron from her waist. And she choked the cat to death with its strings. Sanders said his aunt showed off her scars for the rest of her life. People came from far and wide to see them and to hear her tale.
Puny didn’t have a blanket and apron. And he knew wildcats, wolves, and bears came to the river at night. His cane couldn’t slow a big cat in its tracks, couldn’t stop a bear or a wolf pack on the attack. So by the time he got to the rocks at the river’s bend, he was full of fear again. And clouds were covering the moon; he didn’t think he could make it through the rocks to the ferry without breaking an ankle. So he picked the largest and highest stone he could see. He lay down on it. Still, he was so worried about being attacked that he didn’t sleep until the first gray of day. Then he pulled his hat over his eyes and was out for most of the morning.
When he woke, he started towards the ferry, but not around the bend, which would get him there sooner. He took a wandering path through the woods and cane, a slow course that gave him time to think. He was still muddling on what to say and do next when he saw Hugh astride his horse at the edge of the potatoes. He seemed to be studying the ground. Puny yelled to him.
Hugh waved him over, took his hat off, and pointed it towards an irrigation ditch. He said, “Lookee there.”
A wild boar was in the ditch. Legs stiff, belly busted open, body covered with flies. Puny took a single glance. Turned his eyes away. Hugh said, “What d’ya think happened to him?”
Puny winced. “I’d say it’s a her. Got tits.”
“Her, then.”
Puny scratched his head. He said, “Could be anything.” But his mind flashed on Sanders’ aunt and the wildcat. A shiver shimmied up his back. He said, “Ya wanta leave her there? Or do we have ta get her outta the ditch?”
Hugh slumped in his saddle and rested his hands on the horn. “Getting her out seems a little like work to me. Maybe we’ll just leave her in. What’re ya doing out here, anyway?”
Puny shook his head. Squinted towards the sun. “Woman trouble.”
Hugh dismounted. They sat on a log away from the hog. First Puny spilled the story. Then they sorted his options. They couldn’t think of anything convincing to say to Ezell. And Puny couldn’t go back into town and face Lizzie without taking the baby. But he couldn’t find the child under Ezell’s suspicious eye. He needed to find Sanders. He apparently was on Braggs Mountain with his other Nancy. But Puny couldn’t make that trip without a gun. So Hugh offered to lift Connell’s spare one.
Hugh left Puny and went to the house for the noon dinner. After he ate, he walked up to his and Connell’s room, took his own gun out of his holster, and slipped it in his dresser. Then he opened Connell’s top drawer, lifted his extra gun, and holstered it. He jerked the pillowcase off his pillow, went back downstairs to the dining room, and stuffed the leftover food in it. He hid the pillowcase behind the bathtub in the winter kitchen and went to the summer kitchen. Not finding Ezell there, he breathed some relief and quickly jammed jerky, biscuits, and coffee grounds into an old sugar sack. He took that back to the house and set it next to the pillowcase. He waited until his mother was at a backyard rainwater barrel, then slipped out the front door. He took the food and the gun to Puny in the woods.
After that, Hugh went to the field and led Puny’s horse to the stable. He distracted a hand with an errand, saddled the horse alone, and rode it to the woods. He and Puny sat again on the log and plotted. By that time, it was late afternoon. They decided Puny had better hide a while longer; avoid anyone coming to the river to fish for their evening meal. When they parted, Hugh told Puny to be careful, and pledged his silence. He was glad to help. Was returning favors. Puny helped him with Willow Starr Watson, his woman on a farm north of town. Lied for him regularly. Also kept an eye on the barbershop, in case Willow’s husband, the owner, suddenly hankered for a noon meal at home. Puny could outride the barber easily, and had.
So according to plan, Puny waited until twilight descended. Then he left the woods and rode east on the sandbar. Braggs Mountain sat on the horizon, clearly in sight. But Puny’d been in the Nation for only five years. He rarely rode alone. Didn’t know his way entirely. He slowed to get better bearings. An early moon cut a path on the river. He turned away from the water to avoid the threads of quicksand that jutted into the bar. Crossed the point on the sand where the roar of the water abruptly disappeared. Heard other sounds—bird calls he didn’t recognize, a cow mooing in the distance, something crashing through a thicket.
After a ride of a comfortable length, Puny crossed a stream of the bayou and heard human voices. But he couldn’t hear them well. He got off his horse, tethered him to a scrub, and climbed the side of a sand dune. He peeked over its top. A huge flatboat was tied at the bayou dock. Both the boat and the landing were lit with lanterns. Men were unloading barrels. Puny assumed they contained whiskey. The Nation was dry. With liquor so dangerous to Indians, it had to be run up the river illegally.
Puny slid down and leaned back against the sand to think through his choices. Inland, beyond the bayou’s mouth, was a bawdy house where white men and Indians with money bought fun. He and Connell had once gone there together to gather Hugh home. But Puny couldn’t go up to the house without an Indian protector. And the bayou spread out at the river. Crossing it at night would be dangerous, unless he went inland as far as the house. He thought through that again. Everybody there would be white or Indian and drunk and armed.
So Puny made camp next to the dune. He figured Indians would bathe in the river come morning. He could ask them the best route to the mountain. He ate biscuits and jerky. Then gathered driftwood by the light of the moon. He laid out the wood in a square to guard against snakes while sleeping. He hoped his horse would neigh if anything bigger came creeping. He was exhausted. Slept better than he thought he would.
At dawn, he was awakened by the sound of children laughing. He sat up, wiggled the stiffness from his muscles, and peered over the bank of sand. Five Indian children stopped short of the river. The two oldest ones were wearing clothes. They slipped them off. All waited beside the water until an Indian woman joined them. She said something in Cherokee. The children headed towards a pool cut off from the current by the shifting of sand. The woman pulled her dress off over her head. Puny slid down behind the dune and turned his back to the scene. He was in enough woman trouble already.
But, suddenly, he heard shrill, childish voices talking Cherokee. The voices got nearer, closer to his horse. Puny couldn’t understand what was being said. He muttered under his breath about being so unlucky as to live in an English-speaking country where people spoke something else. He pushed up, popped his head over the top of the dune, and smiled. One of the children saw him, and said something to the others. They all turned to look at Puny. Then they ran off screaming towards the woman. She ran for her clothes and held them to her breasts. They all fled.
So Puny’s day started off on the wrong foot. And by the time the sun was full up, he realized he’d made a mistake. After two nights away, Ezell would know for sure he was up to trouble. Miz Singer and Connell would worry where he was. And if he was going after his baby, he should’ve brought Lizzie. He didn’t know anything about babies. But after eating a couple of biscuits and drinking bayou-water coffee, he realized he couldn’t be carrying one back in his arms on a horse.
So he broke camp, turned up the bayou, and rode until it narrowed. He crossed there and rode on until he spied the bawdy house. He splashed through a stream near it. Dismounted, walked over to a stump, and sat down out in the open. He put his hat on the ground. After a while, an Indian came out of the house into the dogtrot and walked around on the porch. The Indian moved to two or three different positions, looking mostly towards a big tree. But Puny knew the Indian was watching him; he’d learned that when Miz Singer’s mother had come visiting to Tennessee.
Eventually, the Indian went inside. He came back out carrying a tin cup. He then walked directly towards Puny and stopped at a distance of about seven feet. He held the cup down to show it was empty. Puny smiled, pulled a coin out of his pocket, and held it up. The Indian smiled back. Puny figured if he was going to lay out, he might as well have a little fun.
The Indian who supplied him with his first cup supplied him all morning. After bringing the second cup, he squatted about six feet from the stump. Puny drank more. The Indian brought over three friends to squat with him. In his cups, Puny felt friendlier and friendlier towards the Natives hunkered around. They’d had hard times, been moved from pillar to post, robbed, and marched across the country by white people who’d cheated them every way to and from kingdom come. Puny felt sorry for them. And he had a big heart. He got to sharing his liquor. And his new friends got to enjoying his generosity. By midday, the four Indians were drunk, and Puny was still sitting on the stump. He was singing a hymn his mama was particularly fond of.
About the third time Puny sang the chorus, a white man came out of the bawdy house and stood on the porch with his fists on his hips. He yelled, “Come here, nigger.”
Puny’s eyebrows condensed into a V over his nose. He forced his eyes to focus. The man was dressed in a long-sleeved underwear shirt. His pants were held by suspenders. A kerchief was knotted around his neck, a holster slung low on his trousers. Puny didn’t want to be on the business end of that gun. He got up from the stump and put his cup down on his seat. He picked up his hat, but didn’t put it on his head. He walked across the yard saying, “Yassir, yassir.” He stopped about fifteen feet from the porch.
The man said, “Ya got my goddamn Injuns drunk, ya son of a bitch.”
“Yassir. I didn’t reckon it’d be so easy.” Puny hung his head like he felt some remorse.
The man said, “I need help. Come in here. I’m trying to move a broke table.” He turned into the dogtrot.
Puny climbed the steps and followed the man into the room on the left. In it were several barrels, some turned on end and some on their sides. Three tables with chairs stood around, but in front of the fireplace, a table with broken legs was split in two. An ax was sticking out of it.
Puny said, “That table oak?”
“Shore is. Busted up like it twer pine.”
“Goddamn. What happened?”
“Crow Colbert done busted her last night. Or maybe sometime this morning. I can’t quite recollect.”
“How come?”
“Drunk. And mad that another customer were with the entertainment.” He tilted his chin towards the ladder to the loft. “Help me git the table out the back. We’ll turn it into firewood. Can ya swing an ax, or are ya a house nigger?”
Puny scratched the back of his head. “I’m a house nigger. But I’m a little short on the house part. Give me a place to sleep and I’ll bust her up fer ya.”
The man said, “That’s a deal. We’re the only sober ones here.”
The Boys Scout Out
When Coop and George returned from the inn, they told Sanders a big Negro was at the bawdy house and that he was probably Puny. Sanders said, “It’s his own bizness if it is.” So the boys told everybody they were going fishing. They mounted The Bay, carrying their poles and a bucket with them. Trotted off talking about where to find grubs for bait and trying to look innocent. But when they got to a spot not far from the bawdy house, they dismounted, tied the horse to a tree, set the bucket by its trunk, and stuck the poles in it. Coop was still licking his wound from George tricking him, and wanted to glimpse the Negro to be sure he was Puny before they barged in. Sanders had also said, “That bawdy house ain’t no place fer young’uns.” So Coop was disobeying his father and wary about his mission.
The boys entered a thicket, bent over low, and skirted along silently. When they saw the bawdy house, they moved closer in and stopped at a spot near the back. They squatted among saplings, broke off twigs, sharpened them, and applied them to their teeth. To help pass time, Coop concentrated on a line of ants. George kept an eye on birds that flitted between branches. Their breaths evened out. They waited.
Eventually, the white man in the long-sleeved undershirt came out into the trot, pulled out his pecker, and took a piss off the edge. Coop and George exchanged glances. Coop held up his thumb and trigger finger spread out about an inch. The man went back in. Nothing happened for a while after that. The sun sank below the roof of the house. Still nothing happened. The boys changed their positions to relieve their haunches. Darkness descended. Then the sound of horses arose in the distance. The hooves got nearer and stopped. Voices carried. But not well enough for them to hear what was said. Coop poked George’s arm with a stick. He brought his hand to his face and tapped his teeth together. George undid his belt and pulled a bull’s balls pouch off it. He pinched dried meat from the pouch, cut it in two with his knife, and handed a piece to Coop. They chewed in silence. Darkness grew thicker. More horse noises and voices floated over.
Finally, George said, “This might not be the best plan.”
Coop said, “You got a better?”
“I could go in and try to bring him out. But it’s so dark you couldn’t see him if I do.”
Coop looked towards the bawdy house. It was swallowed by night. An owl hooted. The boys shivered and stood.
Meanwhile, Back at the Farm
Check was stretched out on her cot in the sickroom, listening to Andrew’s breathing. She tried to erase how shallow it seemed by rolling over onto her side and facing the wall. For a moment, she considered praying. That petered out before she could figure who to. Her mind floated to her boys. It being a Saturday night, she hadn’t had her usual conferences with the oldest two. Connell was in town at the Taylors’ home, sparking Florence. Check pictured them on the front porch swing. Nash’s house was the finest anywhere around. Its double porches floated across Check’s mind, followed by its French doors, high ceilings, and circular staircase. Then Florence’s mother, Suzanne, floated in. Check’s forehead crinkled. She moved back to musing on the stairs. Pictured Connell and Florence at their foot, posing for pictures.
