Chapter 10

As Duncan and Moses walked out into the daylight with a baby each, Eli picked up two coal oil lamps and dashed them against opposite walls. He took a smoldering stick from the stove and lit both walls, before backing out slowly, watching as the flames began to engulf the dried interior walls. The dirt floor was afire where the coal oil had splashed from the lamps and the flames were leaping higher and higher.

The three of them were looking back into the doorway, standing back a few feet as the heat of the fire began to reach them.

Suddenly, the dirt floor heaved up just inside the doorway and they all jumped back, startled at what was happening inside the burning hut.

A big, naked, hairy man, even bigger than the one Eli had killed, came up out of the dirt floor.

He threw back the boards, hides and dirt, as he sprang from the hole beneath the hut.

His hair was afire all over his body as he staggered toward the doorway.

They saw an old woman jump from the hole in the floor and she too was engulfed in flames as they both screamed and squalled from inside the filthy, fiery hell hole.

“Eli, would you just look at that? They must have been down in that hidey-hole so they could jump out at us as we left. Eli, are you gonna just let them burn to death?” Duncan asked.

They watched the fire finally take the man and woman down as they stumbled backwards into the hole.

“I hope that damned hole reaches plumb to hell and they burn all the way to the bottom of that pit,” Eli said.

Moses looked at Duncan, and the two shared a look of disbelief at what they’d just witnessed.

“Let’s get away from this place, I’m about sick of smelling the stench of burning hair,” Eli said as he turned and walked down the slope toward the horses.

The trip down the mountain was some faster, even carrying the two baby girls, as they rode down the slope all the way, not following the creek bed full of rocks and boulders.

Back at the campsite from the night before, Eli hitched the horses to the wagon while Moses and Duncan held the screaming, crying babies.

They tied their horses behind the wagon and climbed aboard as Eli held the two babies for them.

He handed the babies back to them and walked his horse over to the big grave where they’d buried the three family members the day before.

“We got your babies for you. They’ll have a good warm home in a week or so. Rest in peace, knowing your babies are safe once more,” Eli whispered softly over the grave, before mounting up.

The three lawmen rode on south the rest of the day. The baby girls were still kicking and crying, and the men knew they had to find food for them soon. They came to a cleared out valley late in the day. There was a house, a barn and some corrals. Eli saw a cow with a young calf; he knew there was milk to be had here.

“Hello the house,” he yelled, and they all ducked back as they heard the blast from a scattergun.

“Hold your fire, we’re U.S. Marshals and we need some help,” he hollered and another round of double-aught buckshot came screaming across the open yard.

“Get them horses and babies back some more. I ain’t about to put up with any more of this God Damned hell raisin’ today,” Eli said as he dropped to the ground, spanked his horses rump and ran straight toward the house.

“Oh Lordy, there he goes again, Moses,” Duncan said as they watched Eli run right through the front door, knocking it from its hinges in one piece as the scattergun blasted again.

There was quiet for a while, then terrible screaming from around behind the house.

“I betcha he just scalped another man alive. I heard that sound before, and I’ll never forget it either,” Duncan told Moses.

“I won’t either, now,” Moses said as they waited to see what happened next.

Eli stepped to the front door and yelled at them to come on in. Moses went through the doorway first, stepping across the heavy door lying on the floor as he held a baby girl.

Duncan stuck his head through, holding the other baby girl back, looking all around the room before going all the way inside.

“Eli, who was doin all that shootin’ and who was it doin all that awful hollering back there?” Duncan asked, when he saw no one in the room.

“He’s layin’ out back. He’s another one of the heathen bastards that lived up on the mountain. I got it out of him that he’d come here to take what he could. The family that lived here was the ones we buried back yonder a ways, the momma and daddy of the baby girls.”

“Lordy, it just keeps on getting worser, don’t it?” Duncan said, shaking his head.

One of the babies started crying again and when one started they both tuned up, screaming and crying as loud as they could as they kicked against their blankets.

“There’s some baby clothes in that back room over there. You two bathe them and get them in some dry clothes. I’m going to milk that cow out there and we’re going to try and hush these crying little girls,” Eli said as he grabbed a pail from the table and walked out the back door.

Moses and Duncan looked at one another, not knowing the least thing about taking care of babies. They watched Eli as he walked out across the back yard, right by the hairy, naked fat man with no scalp.

They turned and walked into the back room and found the clothes Eli spoke of. They saw a tin wash basin and poured some water in it from a water bucket.

Laying one screaming baby on the bed, Moses held the other one and turned her all around while Duncan washed her from end to end.

Both babies had dried shit crusted all over their little butts and were red and chapped raw from being neglected.

Just as they were drying the second baby, Eli came through the door with a half bucket of warm milk.

He handed Duncan a stone mug full of butter he’d found on the table.

“What do I use this butter for, Eli?”

“Rub that on their little red butts, then we’ll find a way to get this milk down ‘em.”

The baby girls weren’t near as loud, now that they had their butts cleaned and some soothing salve smeared all over them.

Eli brought two spoons from the other room and poured some milk in a tin cup.

He took one baby and sat her up in the crook of his arm, feeding a small amount at a time until the baby started gulping it down faster.

Duncan looked at Eli, then at Moses and grinned. He sat on the bed and started feeding the other baby the same way. Between the two of them, the babies drank all of three cups of milk before they stopped gulping it down as fast.

Their little bellies were pooched out from all the milk, and both pissed at the same time. Eli and Duncan both got wet, laughing at each other as they tried to hold the babies out away from themselves.

They found a drawer full of baby diapers and some spring pins to fasten them. Eli showed them how to put a diaper on a baby and pin it without sticking her, then they wrapped them up in some clean, softer and warmer blankets.

“Eli, how did you know how to take care of a baby like that?” Duncan asked when the babies were asleep on the bed.

“When I was just a kid, my ma took in a sick woman with a baby. She stayed with us until her husband came back and got her. I learned all about it as I watched ma and Rose tend the baby.”

“I’m glad you knew what to do. I never been around babies before, have you, Moses?” Duncan said.

“No, but I hope I have a houseful one day, that is if I find a woman who’ll have a man like me.”

“Moses, you’re just as good a man as Duncan and me, you’ll find you a good woman. It wouldn’t be of no surprise to me, if Suh Youngbird latched onto you when we get back” Eli told him.

“She sure was took with you in just a day,” Duncan agreed.

“Duncan, you really reckon she was? I mean I sure like looking at her and she makes me feel real good too, when I look at her.

“I’d be as happy as you and Juni, if I found a woman like Suh to like me that much. I was meaning to ask you about her. I kinda wanted to talk with Eli ‘n Rose about it. I know she’s a young’un, but she’s my kind and I could see some like in her eyes when she looked at me.”

“Just wait until we all get back, Moses. That little Cherokee girl will jump on your back just like she did Duncan and me. I’m beginning to gain some knowledge of women and I’d like to see the two of you hook up.”

“Thanks Eli, you’re a good friend to me and Duncan.”

“You’re both a good friend to me too. Now let’s put all this talk away for a while, and get these little girls in that wagon out there. We need to get all the clean diapers, quilts, and blankets we can find and anything else a baby will need.”

“Eli, are we gonna take that old cow with us, to feed the babies?” Duncan asked.

“No, I saw two nanny goats and two small kid goats, out there in a pen. We’ll take both them nannies and the kids can follow along too. We’ll be able to put the goats in the wagon and make better time than we can leading a cow.”

“I’m sure glad you found them goats. I knew that old slow ass milkcow out there would take forever to walk all the way down to where we’re going,” Duncan told him.

“Eli, I know you’re a smart man and you know all about people and animals, and lots of other stuff like that, but how are we gonna get them goats in the wagon and make them stay?” Moses asked.

“We’ll load up a bunch of that feed out there and some of that good hay. There’s enough to feed a herd, if a man was a mind to. We’ll stop on the way back and load up again.”

“We’re sure gonna have our hands full on the way back, what with the babies and goats and them outlaws too,” Duncan said as they took the babies out to the wagon.

They laid the two babies under the wagon seat on the mattress they’d taken from a bed, and Moses drove the wagon around to the barn. It took them over an hour to load the bags of feed up front and stack plenty of hay behind it.

They watched as Eli led the first nanny by a short rope, her little pure white kid goat running and kicking and playing as they made it out to the back of the wagon.

Duncan and Moses looked at each other and grinned.

Both of them just knew this wasn’t gonna work as good as Eli planned. Goats are about as hard headed as some people are at times.

Eli leaned a wide board from the wagon to the ground and held a bucket of feed out to let the nanny goat smell. She walked right up the board to the wagon bed, followed by her kid, as Eli held the bucket down for her. He took the rope and tied her to the wagon seat, as she ate from the bucket of feed.

He was back in no time with the other nanny and she even walked up the board before he got another feed bucket for her. He had them both tied off and both kids in the wagon.

“Let’s ride as far as we can today. We’re losing time faster than we can count,” Eli told them after Moses had tied his and Duncan’s horses in back of the wagon.

They had loaded all the blankets and quilts they could find in the house on top of the feather mattress and placed them all under the bench seat. With both babies asleep in the rocking, jostling wagon, they made good miles before dark.

The pine trees were even taller and thicker the further south they traveled. The logging road was well packed, though wet and rutted from use during the winter. By nightfall, the babies were beginning to fuss and cry again. The kid goats jumped over the hay and feed sacks to see where the crying was coming from. Eli made camp, building a fire from a few dry sticks he’d found, then piling on more broken limbs that had been wetted by the rains earlier. Duncan and Moses changed the diapers and cleaned the babies as the two kid goats stood watching from atop the wagon seat.

“Eli, how we gonna feed these babies? We forgot to get the tin cups and spoons,” Duncan said as they rummaged through all the things they’d brought to care for the babies.

“Bring the nanny goats over here, we’ll have to let them feed straight from the goat’s teat.”

“Eli, you don’t mean that – do you?” Duncan said as he looked at Moses, then back to see if Eli was funnin’ them.

“They need milk, the goats have the milk, and it’s the only way I know of to make it work.”

With the fire burning warm on the cool damp night, they huddled the goats and the babies close to the fire. They put a feed pail in front of the goats and let them have their fill.

The babies were crying more, and louder. Eli petted one kid and pulled it over to suck from its momma’s teat. He took one baby girl and sat her on the blanket under the nanny goat’s belly, then pulled a swollen teat over to the baby girl’s mouth. She reached out her hand and grabbed hold of the goat teat and started sucking, while the kid goat sucked from the other side.

“If this don’t beat all I ever seen in all my life. If a man had told me about this, I would’ve called him a liar to his face,” Duncan said as he and Moses sat the other baby girl on the ground under the other nanny goat and shoved a teat in her wide open, screaming little mouth.

“Would you just look at them little girls go at it? They’re sucking right along with them two kid goats, gettin’ a belly full like they were kids too,” Duncan smiled proudly and looked at Moses and Eli in the light of the fire.

When the babies were fed, they piled bed clothes close to the glowing bed of coals and covered the two little girls. In no time, they were asleep next to each other, with the two nannies and the two kids lying near the babies on the edge of the bed clothes.

The lawmen slept on the outside of the goats and babies, to make sure no harm came to them during the night. Duncan and Moses woke to the smell of boiling coffee and looked to see Eli bent over, stoking the fire.

The babies were still asleep, cuddled up together. The two kid goats were asleep on either side of the two little girls.

Duncan poked Moses on his arm as he leaned over to get some coffee. He pointed to the kids and babies asleep, all cuddled up together. They both smiled as they looked down at the four of them.

The three men gulped the scalding coffee down, warming their bellies as they chewed some more of the sweet tasting jerky from the Poteau River Trading Post. Eli poured each of them another cup of coffee, before emptying the last of it on the fire and rinsing the pot.

It took close to an hour to get the babies up, get them fed from the nanny’s teats, then cleaned and wrapped again for a day’s ride. The nannies and the kids walked up the plank as soon as Moses leaned it against the back of the wagon. Duncan tied them to the wagon seat once more and they were off.

“I’m gonna scout out the trail ahead a ways. You two just keep a steady walk and I’ll be back to meet you soon,” Eli told them.

“Eli, near as I can remember, it’s not but about ten miles or so on down to Fort Towson,” Moses told him.

“Then I may just make a fast run on down to scout it out before I head back. Be watchful of the trail behind you and along the tree lines too. These trees are closing in on the wagon road through here.”

“We’ll be watchful, Eli, you best be careful too out there without us,” Duncan told him.

Eli dug the heels of his moccasins in his big horse’s flanks and they took off, slinging mud and dirt in all directions as he rode hard to the south. He’d lost his good hat back at that stinking log hut and his braids had long since come loose.

As he let his big horse stretch out and loosen his muscles, he looked more like a wild renegade Indian than he did a U.S. Marshal, and a sworn member of the Indian Police.

He rode hard for almost an hour and knew he had to be getting close to the old fort. He slowed his horse to an easy lope and just happened to glance to his right when he saw the glint of a shiny object at the edge of the tree line.

He nudged his horse slightly and rode on as if he’d not seen a thing. The wagon road dropped sharply off a small hill and as soon as he was at the bottom, he swung his horse to the right, through some brush and between two tall pines.

When he pulled back on his reins, his horse slid to a stop in the wet pine needles covering the soft dirt. Eli pulled his Winchester from his rifle boot and dropped to the ground.

He never missed a step as he ran hard, ducking and dodging back through the pines and up the small grade he’d just ridden down. He was hunkered down in the low brush along the side of the muddy road, when he saw the two riders riding hard the way he’d just traveled. Just as they neared where he squatted, he stepped out and raised his rifle.

“Pull them horses back or die in the saddle. Eli Crow here, United States Marshal.”

The riders and their horses were spooked when Eli jumped out with his rifle raised. They pulled back on their reins and slid their horses to a stop in the muddy wagon ruts.

“Step to the ground real easy on this side of your horse. Either of you make one little move and you’ll both die in all that mud.”

“You ain’t no marshal, you’re just a fuckin Injun. Drop that rifle or we’ll take it away from you and beat your stinkin ass with the butt of it,” the younger of the two men said as they faced Eli.

They were almost boot deep in a wagon rut and trying to pull their feet free of the sticky mud as Eli walked to the edge of the dead grass and brush alongside the muddy road.

“Mister, there’s been men die for less than what you just said. Now drop them handguns in that mudhole, and get your asses over here. Be real easy with your hands too. You’re coming damn close to gettin’ on my bad side with your mouthing.”

The two men were no older than Eli and didn’t take to being ordered around by an Injun, no matter if he did wear a badge. They figured he’d taken it from a dead marshal anyway.

“Lay down in this grass on your bellies and be as still as you know how, your life will depend on it.”

“Injun, you don’t have a right to make us lay here on this wet ground like this, we’ve done nothing against the law.” One spoke as they both laid down. They’d already winked and nodded, one to the other, to be ready to catch the Injun off guard.

“What’s your names and you better be quick to say them true. I expect to meet some folks from down here soon and they’ll know if you’re lying.”

“We’re not from around here, Marshal,” one said and grinned at the other.

“Turn your head away from your friend. I done told you once, you’re about to rub me the wrong way. I been looking for two more scalps about like yours, to make my medicine bag full. Now I’m asking again, and this time we’ll do it another way. What’s your partner’s name?” Eli asked as he pulled his knife and raked it across the man’s forehead as he put his knee in his back.

“He’s L.W. Ward. Damn Injun, let off that knife. I feel blood runnin down in my eyes.”

“What’s your name now? Since you feel more like talking.”

“Clyde Pickens, they call me Cotton.”

“Well Mr. L.W. Ward and Mr. Cotton Pickens, you both just lay real still while I get my hand irons brought up. I got a warrant for the arrest of you both,” Eli said as he stood.

The man lying nearest him turned his head quickly and raised his arm, thinking Eli had stepped back away from him. Eli shot the ground just inches from the man’s right eye, spraying dirt, trash, and pine needles, filling his eye and making it bleed with the blast.

“GOD DAMN, Injun. You shot my eye out, you sumbitch,” he yelled.

“You call me names again and I’ll shoot the back of your head out, after I take your hair. Now you best shut your mouth and be as still as if you were already dead. You’re gettin’ close to bein’ there as it is.”

Eli stood straight and whistled shrilly through his teeth. His big black stud came through the brush and slid to a stop right in front of him.

“Now I’m fixin to take these chains loose from my saddle. If either of you make another move, this big ass black horse will stomp your asses all the way to hell before I can get him stopped. If you don’t think he will, just wiggle one damn finger, and die.”

Eli slid the rifle back in his boot and untied his hand irons from behind his saddle.

He put his knee in the first man’s back and pulled his hands behind him to shackle him.

Without standing, he knelt over the other young man, and with his knee in the middle of his back, Eli shackled his hands behind him.

“You two are doing better. If you keep on being this good, you both may make it back to Fort Smith alive,” Eli told them.

Eli took two sets of leg irons from the back of his saddle and threw them at a big, tall pine tree.

He grabbed one man by his feet and dragged him on his belly to the tree, throwing one leg on one side, the other leg on the other side.

He walked back to get the other man and dragged him to the opposite side of the tree, throwing one foot across the other man’s leg and his other foot across the other leg.

When he was through, they were lying on their bellies, hands shackled behind their backs, their legs pulled around the butt of a huge pine tree and shackled together.

Eli mounted his horse and rode out to lead their two horses over inside the treeline to tie them off.

“You men just lay here real quiet like, I’m going over to the other side of this muddy road and hunker down. If I hear one squeak from either of you, I’ll come back and take the hair from that man and stuff it in the mouth of the other one. Did you hear what I said?” Eli said, kicking each of them, making them answer.

“Injun, there’s rattlesnakes in these pine thickets, like fleas on a dog. Don’t leave us chained out here,” one begged.

“Then just be real still and real quiet and maybe you won’t get bit.”

He mounted and rode slowly south for a few hundred yards before he popped his heels in his horse’s flanks again.

Eli rode hard toward the south on the muddy wagon road. He knew from what Moses had said, he couldn’t be far from the old fort. He looked ahead and saw a tall plume of smoke in the still damp air.

He slowed his horse and rode on a little further, then cut off into the pine thickets once more. He rode out about fifty yards and tied his horse on a stout limb. Taking his rifle, he left in a fast run; he knew the smoke was coming from the other side of the second hill from where he’d stopped. When he came to the hill he eased up to the top, watchful all around for anyone that may be posted up on the outer circle.

He lay in the soft wet pine needles and strained his eyes to see through the thick growth. He moved to his right and found a place he could make out the campsite. He saw six horses with saddles, tied on a longline and four horses with harnesses, tied next to a wagon. There was another wagon off to the side and he could see six men in the wagon, with the tarp thrown back, going through whatever was under the tarpaulins.

Eli looked all around the camp and saw two women and a young boy sitting by the smoldering fire. He knew if there had been men with the wagons, they were probably dead by now. There was no way he could get down there in the daylight and get the women and boy out without one or all getting killed in the shooting.

He turned and sat on the wet pine needles and tried to think. He hated to leave the women and boy. He thought of his sister Rose and what she went through. He had to do something.

He jumped up and ran back to his horse.

When he’d gotten back out of the pine thicket, he popped his heels into the horse’s flanks and the big horse responded. Mud was flying all over and Eli had to lean down close to his horse’s neck to try and keep it out of his face.

He passed the place where he’d left the two men shackled around the butt of a tree and saw their horses. He never stopped, just slowed to see the horses and rode harder to the north.

Duncan was driving the wagon team as Moses took his turn getting the babies some milk from the nanny goats, while the wagon jerked and jostled in the wet ruts.

He kept a wary eye on the big billy goat that had come running down the muddy road behind them and jumped right in the wagon with the two nannies and kids, he’d just started chewing on the hay as if they were in the goat pen.

“Here comes Eli and he’s got that big horse strung out, Moses. He must’ve found out something bad the way he’s ridin’,” Duncan said.

Moses climbed back into the wagon seat when he got the second baby laid back in the quilts and blankets, snuggled up next to the kid goats.

“What did you find, Eli?” Duncan asked as Eli slid to a stop next to the wagon.

“There’s six men down there just a few miles south. They’re camped out and it looks like they’ve already jumped two wagons. There’s two women and a young boy there too. We’ll have to figure a way to take them without the women and boy being harmed.

“I left two men shackled around a tree about a mile north of the camp, but they’ll be safe until we can get back to them.”

“Damn Eli, you reckon they might be part of the bunch we’re after?” Duncan asked.

“The two I caught are both on the list. This means we have two more and maybe four more extra on top of that.”

They were headed south once more, talking and trying to figure a way to get in the camp without the women and boy being hurt. They had the baby girls to worry about too. When they came to the place where Eli had the two men shackled around the big pine tree, they stopped the wagon over in the grass beside the muddy road.

They’d decided that Duncan would stop here with the babies and the goats. Eli and Moses were gonna wrap up in some blankets with them pulled over their heads like women. They were going to ride right into that camp like they were lost. Eli took Duncan’s scattergun and extra shells. They had piled off enough feed and bedding to keep the goats fed and the babies warm in the cool damp air. When Eli and Moses started the wagon south, the two nannies and the billy goat ran to jump in the wagon.

“We ain’t got time to go back and tie them up, Moses. They’ll have to ride with us and I sure hope they don’t get killed. There’s sure to be some shootin when we get there,” Eli told him.

“You reckon I ought to get under some of this hay piled back there? I could be ready to jump out with my scattergun when you give me the word.”

“That may work better, Moses. It’ll look like there’s just one woman who’s lost and wandered into their camp.”

With this plan made up, they rode on a little faster, but not running the horses.

“Moses, it’s just over this next little hill. I’ll tell you when I’m cutting the horses over to the camp. You be ready to come out of that hay pile with your guns blazing when I say your name.”

“Just tell me when, Eli. You been having all the fun killing bad men. I’ll get my share if they pull guns on us.”

“Moses, I’m pulling into the logging road where the camp is. They’re just standing looking at me like I’m crazy. I hope I’m not.”

“Tell me when to get up, Eli.”

Eli drove the wagon right up to the six men, three were on one side and two on the other as one man took hold of the team’s short lead rope.

“Where you going old woman, you lost or something? Hell, we’re glad to see you, we can cook up some roasted goats now instead of eatin beans all the time.” One man laughed.

“I’m looking for Moses, you seen him?” Eli said in his softest voice.

Moses came out of the hay pile, his scattergun aimed right at the three men on his side.

Eli threw the blanket off his shoulders and stood with Duncan’s scattergun leveled at the two men next to the front wheel.

“Throw your guns down men and be real easy when you do. I got an itch to kill every one of you heathen sons-a-bitches, all you gotta do is let me know which one wants to be first.”

“That ain’t no woman, that Injun’s wearing a marshal’s badge,” the man with his hand on the horses bridle yelled and went for his hand gun.

Eli drew his Colt and shot him in his face, then whirled and swung the double barreled scattergun back to the other two.

“Eli Crow, United States Marshal. Drop them weapons or die in this mud where you stand,” Eli said as he looked down at them.

“You heard him, now get them guns out real easy and be careful you don’t get killed doing it,” Moses said to the other three on his side.

The two men on Eli’s side dropped their handguns and raised their hands as Eli jumped to the ground beside them.

“Back away from them shooters and lay face down in the mud. If you even look like you’re thinking about jumping me, I’ll kill the whole damned bunch of you.

“NOW GET DOWN IN THAT MUD!” Eli yelled and they jumped, then fell forward, face first in the sloppy mud.

“Moses, you alright over there?” Eli asked.

“Yup, I sure was hoping I’d get at least one that wanted to die here. I guess we’ll just have to kill one or two on the way back to Fort Smith,” Moses said as he stepped on all three handguns, mashing them into the mud.

The two women and the young boy were standing by the campfire, looking at what had just happened as if they couldn’t believe their own eyes.