Cherokee (21 page)

He said slowly, like a man who wants to get the words exactly right, “I can forgive Howard for my arm. And I can even forgive him for stealing Lucy from me. If he'd of gone on and treated her like a wife, married her as I was going to do, treated her like a lady, then I could have forgiven him. I loved Lucy and I wanted what was the best for her, even if it meant Howard got her instead of me.” He stopped and took a sip of his drink, and then stared off as if he was seeing ghosts from the past. “But the one thing I can never forgive Howard Williams for is the shabby way he treated Lucy. He didn't marry her. Hell, he did worse than that. He treated her like someone he was ashamed of. He found him a fine lady and hid Lucy away in a cabin that he would sneak off to visit like a plantation owner going to visit one of his bitch slaves. He treated her like shabby goods, he treated her like a half-breed. He treated her like a worthless Indian.” He looked up at me. “And he expects me to forgive him for that?” His voice was trembling. “I will never, under any circumstances, forgive Howard Williams for the way he treated the woman I loved. And I hope his conscience burns him the rest of his life like a red-hot poker. I hope he burns in Hell on earth.”

There wasn't much I could say to him about that. There wasn't much I could disagree with in what he said. Hell, I figured I would have felt the same way. I went back to my chair and sat down, and for a little while neither one of us said anything. The blood had rushed to Charlie Stevens's face with the emotion of his last remarks. Now his color was slowly returning to its normal light tan. I let some time pass and then I said, “You told me you remarried, Charlie.”

He nodded. He was his cheerful, benign self again. “Oh, yes, and I made a very fortunate find.” He smiled like someone remembering a fond memory. “I married a young lady the Tribal Council had brought out here to teach the Cherokee youngsters their ABC's. She was from Virginia. She looked upon it as a great adventure, coming out here to the Wild West to teach Indian children. Her name was Jane, Mary Jane Sheridan before I married her.” He picked up the long-dead cigar he'd been smoking out of the ashtray on the table by his chair and went through the motions of getting it relit. When it was drawing he said, “We had fourteen happy years together.”

“What happened?”

He shook out the match he was still holding. “The cholera took her. Oddly enough, she died about the same time that I had a letter from Howard telling me that your mother Alice had passed over.”

I noticed he was careful of my feelings, calling Alice my mother even though he knew damn good and well she wasn't.

“You have any children?”

He looked sad. “Just the one. A daughter. She didn't live very long.”

“I'm sorry.”

He shrugged. “Many a man has said this country is too rough for horses and women. And children.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering if he was talking about me and Ben and Norris. We'd been children once, back when all this was happening. It was a little too far back for me to have any recollection, but I had to reckon I'd been a child at some point, though I'd never much felt like it.

We were both quiet for a few moments. Then I kind of heaved a breath and said, “I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me the rest of it.”

He fiddled with his cigar. “There's not much more to tell. Howard wrote me when Ben was born. Of course Lucy died in childbirth.” He looked away for just a second. Then he said, “To tell you the truth, when I read it in Howard's letter, I was relieved. I envied Howard, him getting another son from her, but I was glad that she was out of it, through with playing second fiddle, through with being hidden away like damaged baggage.”

I said, “I'd of been four.”

Charlie glanced at me. “I expect so. Though I doubt if you'd of knowed much about how they got babies.”

I nodded. “I've got some dim memory of it. One day there was a tiny baby in the house. How'd they take care of it? My mother Alice . . .”

“I reckon they'd of got a wet nurse in. With as many Mexican women around, one wouldn't have been hard to find.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Was a hell of a lot going on I didn't know a damn thing about.” I took a quick pull on my drink. “And you figure Alice just took the baby in and acted like it was her own?”

Charlie said gently, “What else could she do? Don't you suppose she knew about Lucy? You can't hide that sort of thing in a little closed place like your daddy's ranch.”

“And she just put up with it?”

Charlie said, “She was already raising one son by Lucy. You. Where was she supposed to draw the line? From what little I've been able to gather about her, she was an extraordinary woman.”

“Then why wasn't Ben by her? She had Norris. What happened after that? Did Howard get tired of her?”

Charlie said, “I don't know.”

I said viciously, “What'd he do, alternate 'em? Like breeding cows? 'All right, Lucy, it's your turn now,' or, 'Alice, get in the stall.' Shit!”

“Makes you angry. I don't blame you.”

“You don't know anything about Norris?”

Charlie shook his head. “No, I really don't. Your daddy has been sparing with the ink. I suppose he thought I only wanted to know about the sons he had by Lucy. What's Norris like? What does he think about?”

I gave a thin smile. “Norris. He thinks about Norris.”

“You're not close with him?”

“It's funny coming here. It hasn't been pleasant to find out, but it at least explains how I've felt about Norris. I never quite felt the same way toward him as I have Ben. Ain't anything I can explain. It was just that he was so different. And not just in looks. Looks are the least of it. We just don't seem to pull in tandem. He looks at matters completely different than me and Ben. More than once I've had to remind myself that he was my brother when I've been on the point of taking his head off or punching him in the mouth. Now I know the reason why.”

“He's still your brother.”

“Half brother,” I said.

“He's Alice's son. You still consider her your mother.”

I looked off, seeing through the walls, seeing a long way off. “I think I would have liked the chance to get to know Lu . . . , my mother Lucy. And there was time. She was alive four years while I was on this earth. I might have knowed her just a little, but that's a sight more than what I got now.”

Charlie shrugged. “Was neither one of us there. We ain't in a good position to judge.”

“I wonder why Alice didn't have any more children after Norris? Hell, there was a good ten or eleven years in there for her to try. Surely she could have done better than Norris on a second try.”

Charlie half smiled. “That ain't the kind of talk you're going to want to remember tomorrow. Justa, you been stung. From what your daddy has wrote me about you you are a man who likes to hold the reins. Now you're finding out somebody else was directing the wagon. You don't like it. Right now you're angry. You know better than to talk when you're angry.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. I finished my drink and stood up. “I reckon I better go collect Ray Hays. We got to find us a hotel for the night. And I got to find out about southbound trains out of Chickasha. I didn't expect to find you so easy.”

Charlie got up. “Why, what do you want a hotel for? I got four big bedrooms upstairs ain't doing nothing but gathering dust. And my man Washington has been smoking a ham for the last week. Washington come down from Virginia as a young man with Jane. If there's anybody knows how to sweet-smoke a ham it is a Negra from Virginia.”

I said something about not wanting to put him out, but the truth was I wanted to stay. I felt a kind of kinship with Charlie, though there was no reason to. By rights he should have hated the sight of me, reminding him, as I must have, of his lost Lucy. But he'd been uncommonly hospitable and uncommonly charitable in doing Howard's dirty work for him. I said, “I figured the quicker I was out of your sight the better you'd like it.”

He shook his head. “That's a hell of a thing to think. I know you don't regard yourself as Lucy's son and I don't blame you. But I do. I see some of her in you, and it makes me feel good to know there's a little of her still here on the earth.”

I got out my watch. It was after six o'clock. I couldn't imagine where the time had gone. I said, “Well, we need to see to our horses. And I would like to get cleaned up a little.” I glanced down at my clothes. “I hadn't figured on doing no visiting at anybody's house.”

Charlie said, “Why don't you take a bath? We got hot and cold running water. Got a bathtub right off the kitchen.”

“You got hot running water?”

He laughed. “You don't reckon I'd let all that steam go to waste over at the mill. Long time ago I had a pipe run over here for Jane's sake. Now I've even got partial to it.”

I ran my hand over my face. “I would certainly admire getting cleaned up. We got time before supper?”

“We eat supper around here when we're ready, not by any clock.”

I went in the kitchen and found Hays in close conversation with Margaret, the cook and maid of all work. There was a tall, white-haired colored man washing his hands at the sink. I figured it was Washington. He turned around and nodded and bid me a good evening. I gave him the same, and then told Ray we'd be spending the night with Charlie Stevens and that we'd better see to the horses.

Washington said, “I done ar'ready seed to that, suh. With ya' permission.”

That kind of surprised me. I said, “When did that get decided?”

He said, “Mistuh Charlie thought wadn't no sense lettin' them fine animals stand out in de cold. So ah brung 'em in the barn and tuck off they saddles and undressed they moufs and give 'em a good rubdown 'n den give 'em some grain.”

I said, “Well, I'm much obliged. If you'll show me where they are, we need to get our saddlebags. I want to get me a bath and a shave and put on some clean clothes.”

He was drying his hands on a towel. He nodded with his head. “De be back there on de back poach. I kin fetch 'em.”

I said, “We'll get them. You just show us where the bath is and where we're gonna sleep, I'll be much obliged.”

He said, “Sho! You jest let ol' Washington git you a bath runnin'. You ain't used to it, they's mo' things 'n valves to turn than you ever seed. I'll git the water runnin' an' then show ya'll where ya'll gonna bed down. Plenty room.”

He had a Southern accent you could have put in a syrup bucket.

An hour later me and Hays walked into the living room, where Charlie Stevens was sitting, much improved by soap and water and a change of clothes. While we were going through our ablutions Hays had shown more than a passing interest in what Charlie and I had been talking about. He'd said, “Was he pretty well taken up about the gold?”

“Not so you'd notice,” I'd said.

That had fetched a startled look from him. He'd said, “Twenny-five thousand in gold an' he didn't do a buck-and-wing?”

“Not so you'd notice.”

“Now this is yore daddy's bidness, ain't it?”

“You could say that.”

“They go pretty fur back?”

“You could say that.”

Finally he'd seen the futility of his questions and had given up. But he had asked me when we'd be going back. I'd told him I wasn't certain. “I might want to stick around for a time. Place feels kind of homey to me.”

“Homey?” He'd given me a good stare. “Maybe you ain't noticed, but they ain't nothin' but a buncha damn Injins 'round here.”

I'd said, “The word is Indian. Don't forget it. They're Cherokee Indians. Understand?”

That had fetched another look. “Well, all right, but when did you take up the war hatchet?”

“Hays . . .”

“All right, all right. Indians. See, I can say it.”

Charlie poured us out a drink all around and we sat down. He said that dinner was ready anytime we were. Hays sat, shaved and washed, in clean clothes, looking around the room glowing in the lamplight. He patted himself on the chest and said, “Yessir, that bath and cleanup hit the spot. I feel nearly human.”

I said, “Just keep your mouth shut and nobody will know.”

We ate in the dining room at a big table that could have seated eight or ten people. The three of us just sat at one end with Mister Stevens at the head. Washington, in a white starched coat, waited table. I said something to Charlie Stevens about not going to so much trouble on our account. “We're just a couple of tramps that fell off a train. Hate to infringe on your hospitality.”

He shook his head. “We do this every evening, even if I'm by myself. This is the way it was when my wife was alive, and Washington won't have it any other way. Washington is a proud man, and if he didn't have this to do he'd have to quit, ain't that right, Washington.”

Washington was standing back, alert to see what someone needed on their plate. He said, “That sho' de troof, Mistuh Charlie.”

It made me think of Buttercup and his insistence on cooking. The only difference was that Washington knew how to wait table.

I said, “Washington, if you ever get out of a job I'd put you on steady just to sweet-smoke hams. I believe this is the best ham I ever ate.”

And it was. Folks in our part of the country generally just fried ham. So far as that went, it being cattle country, we didn't make all that good a usage out of any meat except beef.

We ate until I thought I was going to bust, eating the ham and candied yams and winter turnips and creamed potatoes and the best bread, outside of Nora's mother's, that I'd ever tasted.

Charlie said, “If it was summer we could have ice cream. I got an ice plant down at the mill.”

Washington brought in some blackberry pie and some cheese along with the coffee. Hays insisted on going on until he made a fool out of himself, or got sick, by tackling the pie and cheese. I just settled for coffee and a cigarillo.

Charlie said, “Justa, why don't ya'll settle down here for a few days? You just got off a hard trip, why rush back? Give Margaret somebody else to cook for besides me and my little dried-up appetite. Be doing me a favor. She fusses all the time about me keeping up with what she cooks.”

I said, “Charlie, that's a mighty kind offer. Tell you what I wouldn't mind doing. I wouldn't mind learning something about the sawmill business. Nearest sawmill to Blessing is thirty miles away. I ain't sure but what we ought to have one right there in town. Never thought about it before I saw yours.”

“How close is your nearest timber? Pine. Has to be pine. And I mean a lot of it.”