Chapter 13

Eli and Duncan headed out of town with their wagon load of prisoners. Bud Parkins drove the wagon, Duncan and Eli rode their horses.

“Eli, I already like this horse pretty good. He’s as tall and long legged as that big stud you got.”

“Yep, you got a good’un, Duncan.”

They turned south at the creek crossing, and rode right by Noonan’s ranch.

“You could at least let me see my wife before you take me back,” Noonan said.

“I’ll go see if she wants to see you...

“Duncan, you keep them headed south. If they make a move, kill every last one of them and we’ll say they jumped us.”

“It’d pleasure me to do just that, Eli. I kinda hope that one called Bud makes a move. He’s the only one with his hands not chained, though his feet are chained to the wagon seat. I’ll kill him first, then I’ll kill that one with his ears near ‘bout tore off his head...

“That worthless, horse killin’ son-of-a-bitch.”

Eli rode up to the big white house and knocked on the front door. There was no answer so he went around back. Alma Noonan was tying what looked to be a bundle of clothes behind the saddle on a horse. She was wearing a pair of man’s britches and some boots.

“Ma’am, you want to say something to your husband before we take him to Fort Smith to stand before Judge Parker?”

“Hell no I don’t. I hope his old sorry-ass rots in jail. I’m going to Kansas City and I hope I never see him again, or my own sorry-ass daddy either, for that matter. He was the one who talked me into this shithouse of hell in the first place”.

“Well, I reckon that’s up to you,” Eli said.

“Tell my brothers they got what they deserved for listening to both them dumb shits.”

She threw two white sacks, that she had tied together, across her horse’s neck in front of her saddle. They were stuffed full, but didn’t look to be heavy. She mounted up and without another word, rode off to the north at a gallop.

Eli remembered all the keys he took off Hamp and pulled them out of his pouch. He walked into the house, Alma Noonan hadn’t even closed the door, leaving it wide open.

Eli had never seen such fineries in all his life, not even at the fine hotel he and Rose stayed at that one night in Kansas City. He walked through the house and came to what he knew was Hamp’s office.

It was even more fancy than Judge Parker’s.

He found a few hundred dollars in a desk drawer that had been pried open with a hammer and crowbar. He put the loose money in a white sack that was lying in the floor. There were some scattered bills on the floor and he gathered them up even though there wasn’t that much money.

He looked through the other desk drawers, after unlocking each of them, then kept looking until he found a large iron box that was locked and fastened to the floor. It was under a table near the fireplace.

He found the key that fit the lock and there were bundles and bundles of money stacked in there. He dumped all of it in his sack.

Eli looked and touched and turned and picked up just about everything in the room, before he looked up at the fancy engraved rifle over the fireplace.

He thought of Moses, and took the rifle down. When his hand touched the mantel, it moved down and swung back away from the fireplace to expose another, even bigger metal box with two padlocks on it.

Eli unlocked the door on the box and let it fall open. He stood looking at all the money inside. Eli found five more of the of the white sacks and filled them all with money. He took the fine, fancy rifle and all the bags of money out to the barn.

He caught a horse from the corral and threw a pack saddle across it, then tied all the sacks of money to the wooden frame of the pack, covering it in the oilcloth tarpaulin, keeping out fifteen hundred of the money and stuffing it in his pouch.

After opening the gates to all the corrals, barns, and pens, Eli led the packhorse back to the house and went to the kitchen. He took some more sacks and stuffed them full of hams and salt pork, then he took some loaves of bread from the warming oven above the stove. He stood back and looked that cookstove over. It sure was a fine, fancy one, in the same manner of the other fixin’s in the house, and the rifle he took.

With the food and money secured to the packsaddle, he led the pack horse back around to his horse and left the place. There was no one around the whole headquarters when he left.

He rode past the place where the men were still building the other house, then turned around and rode back to talk to them.

“Eli Crow, United States Marshal, here. I need to talk with you men for a bit.”

“What’s up, Marshal? We saw the Parkins bunch and Hamp Noonan all chained up in that wagon that just went by here.”

“This place is in Indian Territory – you men are breaking the law by being here. When I get to Fort Smith, I’ll tell Judge Parker about you men building these two houses here in The Territory and he’ll more’n likely give me a handful of warrants for all of you. If I was a man working here, I’d hook up with a fast horse and ride away from here to the north.”

“Thanks marshal, we’re gone.” One man said and they all went to picking up tools and loading them in the wagons.

“Any of you men ever drove cows?” He asked as a thought come to him.

“I have, Marshal ... Why?” Another man spoke.

“I just bought Hamp Noonan’s herd of over six hundred head. I need them drove down to Tulsey Town. I’ll pay you and the others a dollar a head to split amongst you, to drive them down for me.”

“We’ll put our tools in the wagon and become cow drovers, Marshal. You headed that way now?”

“I am. I’ll catch the wagon with the prisoners and we’ll stop by that fork where this creek comes into the Arkansas. Can you men have them there by tomorrow morning?”

“I reckon we can, Marshal, if not, we’ll be right behind you.”

“Good, we won’t be making good time with that wagon anyway. You just drive them slow and steady.”

“Marshal, you selling these cows to the Indians there?”

“No, I bought some land from my brothers of the Cherokee there. I want these cows on my land.”

“You wouldn’t be wanting a house and some barns on that land would you, Marshal?” Another man looked at Eli and grinned.

“Can you build a big one just like this one, with barns and corrals?”

“Just like it, Marshal.”

“Be sure to bring that tool wagon with the herd then. You men just hired on to build me a spread. Take that wagon by Noonan’s house first and load that fancy cookstove too. I’ll pay him for it. He sure won’t need it where he’s going, and his wife’s done rode off, like hell was clawing at her heels.”

“We’ll see you in a day or two, Marshal. It’ll take us most of today to round them cows up and get them headed that way. We’ll make about ten to fifteen miles a day after that.”

“If you don’t catch us, I’ll wait for you north of Tulsey Town, on this side of the river. Just remember, for every one of them cows and calves you leave in the bushes, you throwed a dollar away.”

Eli was pleased with the way things had turned out up here. He sure was glad Duncan was gonna be alright too. Duncan was gonna be surprised that they now owned some land and some cows to start a herd.

He knew Iron Hammer would welcome the cows on the land too. He’d make a deal with him, some cows each month for more land.

Eli rode as fast as the pack horse would run. He was about to take this fat, lazy-ass horse back and swap for another one, but it finally turned loose and kept up without being pulled.

He caught sight of Duncan and the wagonload of prisoners, after two hours on the trail. Duncan turned to look back and saw Eli riding toward him with a pack horse. He pulled up to wait and let the slow moving wagon go on ahead as Eli came up to him.

“Eli, what’re you doing with that packhorse, you buy something else back there?’ Duncan asked, grinning. He knew his friend Eli.

“I did for a fact, Duncan. How are you doing? You feeling alright?”

“Feels good just to be ridin back to Fort Smith, Eli. I like my new horse, but I sure hate my other one got killed for no reason at all. I had done got attached to that horse.”

“Yep, don’t say much for a man who’ll just shoot a horse that’s not already crippled or down...

“Duncan, when I was in Tulsey after we split up, I met with Iron Hammer and his brothers about that land I been looking at.”

“Did you, Eli? Was they willing to make a deal?”

“Yep, we own about ten thousand acres, more or less. All measured and marked by Mr. Bredamon and paid for, to Iron Hammer and his brothers.”

“Did you get that piece of land that sets by the river that you wanted?”

“Sure did and I made a deal with the men that was building that second house back there, to round up the cows we bought from Hamp Noonan and drive them down here for us.”

“Eli, you sure are making some fine deals, but who’ll look after that five hundred head of cows while we’re still marshaling?”

“I figure Iron Hammer and his brothers will see to it no one messes with them. We’ll offer them a few cows a month for that and some more land too.”

“Eli, you’re gonna keep on thinking big like that and your head will be hurtin worse’n mine,” Duncan said and they shared a laugh as they caught up with the wagon.

They stopped early for the first night. Eli wanted to allow the herd time to get closer.

He paid Hamp Noonan the money he owed him in cash. It never bothered Eli in the least that he paid the man for his herd of cows, with his own money. He figured it would all be gone by the time Hamp got back to it anyway. Eli figured he and his own family may as well have it as the next man.

“Hamp, your wife said she didn’t want to see you – said that she hoped your old sorry-ass rotted in jail, her pa’s ass too for what he got her into.”

“She’ll be over all that bitterness by the time I get back. I’ll buy my way back in good with her, if need be. That little heifer loves money as much as I do.”

“Well, she took off headed toward Dodge City with two sacks of money, or least ways, it looked like them sacks were full of money,” Eli lied. He sure didn’t want to tell on her for heading to Kansas City.

By pushing the herd toward Tulsa, right down beside the Arkansas, the carpenters -turned drovers- were able to keep the herd moving at a fast walk. They stopped them late in the day and let them drink and graze, then pushed them hard all the next day.

Eli rode back to meet the herd before they reached the big bend in the Arkansas, where his land started on the other side.

He gave them directions where to cross and told them his brothers of the Cherokee would meet them there.

He took one man with him back to the slow moving wagon and told Duncan of his plans.

The next morning, they rode into Tulsa and stopped at the blacksmith shop. Smitty was glad to see his two marshal friends and wanted to know all about Duncan’s troubles up there.

While they took a rest and Duncan talked with Smitty, Eli and his main carpenter rode on to the lumber mill to make arrangements for lumber, materials, and supplies.

The carpenter gave the manager of the lumber mill the measurements of the two-story house Eli wanted built. The man was grinning as he made note of all the materials needed to build this big house.

“How many dollars for what we have now?” Eli asked as the man totaled the order.