Cherokee Page 5

  I looked at him, confused. “But you said you stole the money.”

  “I did.”

  “He loaned it to you.”

  “I never paid him back. That makes it the same.”

  I sat back and looked at him. Either he was pulling my leg or he wasn’t telling me all of it. I said, “And this is what is weighing on your conscience, owing some man five hundred dollars for thirty years or whatever it is? This is what you want me to go through all this silly rigamarole for? Carry up not five hundred dollars, but twenty-five thousand dollars in gold? On horseback? And deliver it as your substitute because I’m your eldest son?” I leaned toward him. “Howard, have you reckoned you’ve raised a fool?”

  He looked uncomfortable again. “Justa, I’d just as soon not tell you the rest.”

  “And I’d just as soon not make that damn fool trip. Especially by horseback.”

  He seemed to kind of collect himself. “Charlie came after me not long after I got back. We were right in the middle of the cattle roundup and he showed up one day.”

  “What for?”

  Howard looked at that far-off object he’d been studying through most of the conversation. “Come to get what belonged to him.”

  “He came for his money that soon?”

  His voice got an angry note in it. “How the hell do I know, damnit! He came, that’s all. And there was a showdown between me and him.” He flipped out his hand. “Right out yonder, about where that far barn stands. That was close to where my dugout was. I was still living in it.”

  “And he came for the money he’d loaned you before you even made your drive to Galveston? That don’t make a bit of sense. He was a cattleman. He would of knowed you didn’t have his money then, that you would have paid some of it out for supplies and to your hired hands. Tell me the truth, Howard. What the hell happened?”

  “I told you, there was a showdown ’tween him and me.”

  “Over the money?”

  “No. I said it weren’t over the money.”

  “Then what the hell did he come all this way for?”

  “Something that belonged to him, that’s what for.”

  “And he thought you had it?”

  “I reckon.”

  “But it wasn’t the money?”

  “Hell, Justa, he had just loaned me the money. He’d of knowed I couldn’t pay it back that soon.”

  “That’s what I just said. What I want to find out is what he came all the way from Oklahoma for?”

  He got that far-off look in his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was seeing the prairie out in front of him or the years in the past. He said softly, “Charlie was a gentle man. Wasn’t no fighter. Would rather laugh than argue. Go ten miles out of his way to avoid a fight. But he was a firm man where something counted with him.”

  It was worse than pulling teeth. I said, “What the hell happened?”

  He shook his head sadly. “The whole thing was a mistake, a misunderstanding on Tom Butterfield’s part.”

  “What the hell has Buttercup got to do with it.”

  “Me and Charlie was faced off about ten paces apart, arguing. Not really raising our voices, but an observer could have told we was arguing. Tom Butterfield was holding some cattle about two hundred yards away, maybe a little further, maybe three hundred. Course you know what kind of shot Tom is with a rifle . . .”

  Of course I did. Even with him as old as Howard, he could still take his old Hawken buffalo rifle and outshoot any of us. I said, “Yeah.”

  Howard said awkwardly, “Charlie went to take his revolver out of his holster. Was an old cap-and-ball percussion. One of the first. He said he was going to lay his gun down on the ground so there couldn’t be no mistaking he’d come in peace. Well, Tom had been watching. Hell, Charlie hadn’t been here thirty minutes, half an hour. I hadn’t even offered the man a cup of coffee or a drink of whiskey. Tom seen Charlie pull his pistol and he acted. Too sudden, but it was too late for me to stop him.”

  “What happened?”

  Howard swallowed and looked pained. “He fired from that distance. I reckon he was trying to kill Charlie, but he didn’t have the quality of a gun like he does now. So the ball hit Charlie in the right arm. The upper part. Broke the bone. Hell, it shattered the bone all to smithereens.” He took the chaw out of his mouth and threw it over the railing. “Course there wasn’t no doctors here then. It’s a wonder Charlie didn’t die. We had to cut off his arm. Cauterized it with a running iron. Took four men to hold him down. After that we took care of him as best we could. Took about two weeks, but finally he was able to get on his horse and left. Went back to Oklahoma.” He looked around at me. “I ain’t never seen the man since.”

  “And you owe him five hundred dollars plus interest, plus one right arm.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  I said evenly, “What else you owe him, Howard?”

  “Nothing.” But his voice was weak.

  “What did he come to get back from you? What of his did you have?”

  He wouldn’t answer me, just looked away.

  “Howard, what did you really steal off the man that you’re trying to repay with twenty-five thousand dollars? You know it ain’t the five hundred, no matter what kind of interest you want to add. Or the arm; that was Buttercup’s doing. What is it you stole that you don’t even feel twenty-five thousand dollars covers?”

  He suddenly turned around and faced me. “I’m not going to tell you. He probably will and I think you got a right to know. I ain’t got the nerve to tell you. That’s why I want you to find Charlie Stevens. It’s as much for your sake and the sake of your brothers as it is for me.”

  Well, that made me blink. I said slowly, “I don’t exactly know how to take that.”

  “Take it for the gospel. It’s been eatin’ away at me for better than thirty years. I’d like the truth to get out, but I ain’t going to say it. I ain’t got the stomach for it. And I ain’t right sure I’m doing the right thing. I couldn’t be sure if I told you. This matter has got me all balled up. I finally decided I’d just leave it to Providence and the Good Lord. If you go and if you find Charlie and if he tells you, why then, I’ll figure you was supposed to find out. That’s said and I’m not gonna open my mouth about the subject again. You can go or not go. Please yourself.”

  I thought about it for a long couple of moments. Then I said, “And you want me to ride horseback all the way to Oklahoma.”

  “Yep.”

  “You know how far it is to Oklahoma horseback?”

  “Ought to. I done it twice. I don’t reckon it’s got no further away in thirty years.”

  “With trains running up there every day you want me to load a horse with twenty-five thousand dollars in gold and waste all that time on a damn fool trip?”

  He gave me a look. “You may not think it was a damn fool trip when you get back.”

  “But how come it has to be in gold and how come I got to go horseback?”

  “It’s a thing I can’t explain. It’s just fitten, that’s all. Fitten. I can’t explain it no other way. I brung Charlie’s gold down here on horseback, gold that was the making of this place. Without that gold there wouldn’t be no Half-Moon ranch. And Charlie come down here on horseback. And went back on horseback, left his arm here. Most of it.”

  “Got to be gold? Bank draft won’t do?”

  He shook his head. “I told you, no. Now if you don’t want to do it, why, I’ll find some other way.”

  “If I go I’m taking Ben with me. That much gold is just too much temptation. All the road agents ain’t in jail.”

  Well, a look of plumb horror came over his face. “No! Not Ben! My Lord, no! You can’t take Ben.”

  It perplexed the hell out of me, him taking on like that. “Hell, Howard, keep your hat on. I only said I wanted to take Ben because I want a good gun with me and Ben’s the best.”

  He was shaking his head vigorously. “No. Not Ben. And not Norris.”
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  I laughed. “I said I wanted help, not hindrance. I guess I’ll take Ray Hays.”

  “Ray is fine.” he said. He nodded. “Just no family.”

  Ray Hays was a kind of special case. Several years back he’d pretty well saved my life by helping me get out of some trouble I was in up in the hill country of Texas around the town of Bandera. In gratitude I’d brought him back to the ranch and put him to work. Supposedly he was assistant to Ben in managing the horse herd, but he and Ben had got to be close friends and there was some question as to just how much work he actually got done. He drew wages, but he pretty much considered himself a member of the family. But for all of that, he was worth having around because he was a mighty good man to have on your side in a fight. Next to Ben I calculated him to be about the best gun in the county. He was also good company. He had a nice, easy way about him and was generally good for a laugh. You could josh him until you ran out of things to say and he never took offense.

  So I sat there thinking about the trip as the time ran on toward noon. And noon meant lunch and lunch meant Nora, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to go about telling her the details of such a damn fool trip, a trip that would take me away from home for at least two or three weeks. Hell, if it didn’t make sense to me how was I going to explain it to Nora?

  I got up. “Dad, I got work to do. I got to see Harley about cutting the herd, shipping some cows.”

  He said anxiously, “But you’ll do it?”

  “Howard, how come you didn’t pay the man back thirty years ago? How come you waited all this time, and for me to do it?”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “There were reasons.”

  “Like what? Didn’t want to ride all that way to Oklahoma?”

  “I said there were reasons. I was ashamed to face the man again.” He looked away.

  “On account of his arm?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  I went halfway down the steps. I stopped and turned back to him. “Well, I reckon I’ll do it. Though I hope you know what you’re asking with a herd to cut and this trouble with the Jordans.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “And I don’t know if I’m doing it because you asked me and you’re my pa, or because you got my curiosity up about what I might find out from this Charlie Stevens. That is, if I can find him.”

  “You’ll find him,” he said.

  “How do you know? How do you know he ain’t dead?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t. I just got a feeling. But either way, I need you to try.”

  “Shit!” I said. I gathered up my horse’s reins and swung aboard. “Howard Williams, you have got a nerve, I’ll say that for you. You want to come help me explain to Nora why I got to be gone for all the time this trip will take?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think I’d care to do that.”

  Neither did I. But I turned my horse and started for my home. Lunch would be just about ready. Maybe I’d have time for a couple of drinks before I set to work on Nora.

  CHAPTER 3

  “When are you going?” We were laying in bed. I hadn’t told her all about it until after supper and after J.D. was in bed asleep. She’d agreed with me that it was a strange request and a strange errand, but she’d found it perfectly understandable that Howard had considered he’d stolen the money. I’d said, “How the hell can you figure that? It was a loan. Just because Howard has let hell’s own kind of time pass before paying it back don’t mean he stole it. He made it sound like he’d either robbed it out of the man’s strongbox or thrown down on him with a gun and took it off of him.”

  Nora had said, “It was an honorable debt and Howard would think he had not treated it in an honorable fashion.”

  I’d said, “Well, I wish to hell he had. I guarantee you I ain’t looking for no long trip to Oklahoma. I’m about halfway tempted to take the train.”

  She’d said, “But you promised him you’d take it on horseback. I think it’s important to him that it be done in a certain manner.”

  I’d said, “Well, I wish the damn gold had come down on the train. No, I can’t take the damn train because I’d get back too soon. I could do the whole deal in four or five days on the train. And if we done it sensible it could be done in half a day by wiring a bank draft.”

  Now she said, “How are you going to find this Charlie Stevens?”

  There was a good moon out and the room was kind of half glowing. I shook my head against the pillow. “Beats the hell out of me. Go up to that town, Anadarko, and go to asking around. Bet you doughnuts to dollars I’m going to spend a week and come up with nothing. I’ll bet this Charlie Stevens is either dead or disappeared and left no forwarding address.”

  “You haven’t said when you’re going.”

  I said grumpily, “Not any sooner than I have to. Damn, Nora, there’s a hundred matters need tending to around here. And I don’t want to go off and sleep by myself for three weeks.”

  She was laying right beside me, wearing a small light cotton sleeping gown. She moved her hip harder against mine. I had my left arm around her with her head kind of tucked into my neck.

  She said, “Justa, you’ve got to do it. You promised.”

  I turned my head a little in her direction. It didn’t allow me to look into her eyes, but she got the idea. I said, “What is this? Near as I can recall, this is the first time you’ve ever wanted me to go off on a trip. Always before you had about ten different reasons I couldn’t go. How come the big switch? You got you another Kansas City drummer waiting at the hotel in Blessing?”

  She gave me a punch in the ribs. I said, “Owww.”

  She said, “Justa, this trip is a little different, don’t you think? I objected, and still object to those trips you took where there was every chance you’d be coming home with a bullet in you. Now all you’re doing is running an errand for your daddy.”

  I gave a dry little laugh. “Darling girl, a saddlebag with twenty-five thousand dollars can draw more attention than a hundred-dollar bill in a whorehouse. And if you think this part of the country ain’t civilized, you ought to see Oklahoma.”

  “Nobody will know you have it if you don’t go to flashing it around. That seems like a simple enough thing to do.”

  “You know how much that much gold weighs? Right around sixty pounds. How are you suppose to lug it around? Put it in a sack and tell folks it’s hymnals?”

  She ignored that. “What do you suppose Howard means about what Charlie Stevens can tell you that he won’t?”

  “That’s got my curiosity up also.” I turned toward her. “Probably the main reason I’m going.”

  “Well, I suppose if you have to ... Justa, what are you doing?”

  “You don’t know by now?”

  “Mister, you certainly have your nerve going around . . . Ooooooh!”

  I went into town the next morning, going straight over to the bank. Bill Simms was the president. I eased into his office and as soon as we got the necessary remarks out of the way I told him what I wanted. It kind of took him by surprise. He took off his glasses and wiped them and said, “Mister Williams, let me get this straight. You want twenty-five thousand dollars in gold coins or bullion by day after tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Bill. And I want you to do it yourself. I’ll pick it up after the bank closes. What I’m trying to say is that the fewer people know about this the better.”

  He put his glasses back on. He was a small fussy man in his early forties who’d been running the bank for at least ten years. “Mister Williams, I’m not even sure we’ve got that much in gold coins. We don’t have any bullion. You couldn’t take part of it in paper money?”

  I shook my head. “Bill, I know you feel like you ought to get an explanation and I’d like to give you one. But I can’t. The business I’m going to be doing has got to be done in gold. Let’s just say the parties don’t trust paper money.”

  He looked perplexed. “Who
wouldn’t take U.S. government currency? It’s recognized all over the world. I—”

  “Bill,” I said, “don’t worry your mind about it. Just get it. Today is Wednesday. I’ll come in after three o’clock on Friday and pick the money up. I’ll bring my own containers.”

  He looked as disapproving as a banker could. “You plan to go riding around with that amount of money? In gold?”

  I looked at him.

  “Well, of course, Mister Williams. It is your money. Far as that goes, it’s your bank. What, ah, what account do you want it debited against?”

  I hadn’t thought about that part of it. By rights I should have talked to Norris first, but I hadn’t. I gave it a moment’s consideration. Ben wanted some blooded Thoroughbred stock. Animals like that ran high. I said, “Charge it to the horse herd account. If there’s not enough in it, bleed off the rest out of the general funds account.”

  He said, “Yes, sir.” I got up and went up to the second floor to Norris’s office.