Chapter 7

It was time for a buffalo hunt when all the crops had been planted. The beef we were raising didn’t grow as fast as we needed more meat. Tia liked for me to bring deer home because she wanted the hides. I needed to hunt some hogs so that we could be smoking the meat.

First was to bring a couple of buffalo home, so I made up our hunting party with my brother, Bob, and Paul’s son. We assembled strong poles for two travois, but Tia suggested using our Conestoga like wagon to haul a couple of buffalo. She said that we might even be able to bring three younger ones using the wagon.

I made sure the wheels were in good shape, with the axles solid and the bearings in the wheel hubs well-greased with tar from the pits. I used two teams of mules, and with the two boys, who were now becoming young men, made the trip across the Canadian River, and rolled out into the plain. There was no buffalo in sight but they had recently moved off as a lot of their droppings were still moist. We followed their trail and came onto them in a valley between high hills. We were surprised at how many calves there were this year.

The buffalo weren’t all that concerned with us, as usual. We could get within less than a hundred yards or so from them before they acted nervous. The younger bulls were being playful this time of year, and having horn battles to begin showing who was going to be boss and do the most breeding.

Both of the two boys had a Henry to shoot, and we were going to try to shoot three animals at the same time so we would still be able to get what we came for if we spooked the herd. We waited until several of the first year bulls were tired of playing and were grazing. I told the boys to shoot the bulls in the eye if they could. That would be a quick kill and keep us from having to chase down a wounded buffalo.

We crawled to within thirty yards of the young bulls and discussed who was going to shoot which bull. I gave the word when we were lying there ready, and our guns went off as one. We all immediately reloaded to fire a second shot if necessary, but all our kills dropped to their knees and fell over. The other buffalo moved off from the dead.

Bob brought the wagon to the kills and I began field dressing the big animals. The huge effort it took to get these animals into the wagon was the same as getting them on a travois. It was good that we brought the Conestoga wagon as our little farm wagon probably wouldn’t have been big enough. The four mules struggled to get the wagon back across the river, but they made it with the three of us pulling with ropes tied to our saddles. I might use three teams next time.

I hung the three carcasses from the big skinning trestle as soon as we were home. It was strong enough to hold the massive weight. It took Tia and me a day to skin the three buffalo and cut the meat into manageable chunks. I was able to split the smallest of the buffalo so that there were only two sides plus all the leg meat. We filled a large wooden box full of leg and neck meat and took it to the Indian Village. That was a big deal that required a feast.

We already had some early spring vegetables that we cooked with some fresh buffalo meat before it had aged. The meat had to be cooked a little longer, but it was still good in a stew.

We didn’t pack the smoke house full, so the two boys and I went after hogs the next week. Their location was reported and not hard to get at. We brought two hogs down, and had them dressed and hanging up at home in only about three hours. I hate skinning hogs and prepping the skins for Tia to use.

She was the perfect mother and wife, and she had Andy dressed in buckskins almost all the time. She would add skins to the legs or sleeves to keep up with his growth. She had a difficult time keeping moccasins on him as he grew. He always wanted to be barefoot.

Paul’s girls still wanted to go to college in St. Louis. One wanted to become a doctor and, after a year or so of preliminary education in St. Louis would have to go to a medical school in Philadelphia or Boston which would accept women. The other wanted to be a schoolteacher, and by attending a two year course at the college could get a certificate to teach any level from six year olds to high school. I thought that my sister would want to do this too, but she said she was interested in being a wife and mother. A young man who worked as a carpenter had been courting her, and she was ready for her next step in life.

We sent Paul’s girls off to the Christian Female College in St. Louis and heard from them when they wrote letters a couple of times a month. Their mom, Patty, wrote to them to talk about how we were, too. Eunice’s two girls were aging out of school and didn’t know what they wanted to do. One was a little sweet on Grant Parker’s son and thought she might just take over the General Store if she married him, but wasn’t sure. The other was like Rebecca, and more interested in a young man from a neighboring farm. He seemed to be a good man and the couple had met in church, so they were beginning in the right direction.

Tia gave birth to our second son in late August. She said this one was easier than Andy because she knew what was happening all through the birth. We named our son Wayne Jefferson Davis after a week. I didn’t know where Wayne came from, so Tia showed me a book written by a man with a first name of Wayne. She said that she enjoyed reading that book because it was the first big book she completely read and liked the name.

Paul finished his sedan and his second small buggy, discovering a business that he could have getting income for his family. Tia spent a lot of time teaching Patty how to sew leather so that she could help Paul with his buggy making. Tia was wise to teach her while making buckskin shirts and pants for both Andy and Joe, Paul’s son. Bob and Joe, the two young men, were becoming good hunters as well as hard workers on the farm. They both continued school and knew that it was important to learn as much as they could.

Eunice’s two girls decided that they wanted to begin teaching the Indian children how to read and write. I decided to spend some of the money that I had recovered from the men who originally attacked the Grotowski family. I spoke to the area carpenter to build a one room school house in the Indian village. The idea was to teach the young so that they could begin teaching their parents. It was planned by Eunice’s two girls to have the most literate Cherokee village in Oklahoma.