Chapter 17

As the three rode back to the courthouse, they felt good about the girls going to learn about nursing. They felt good about getting to ride out together again too.

Jefferson had their warrants, since Judge Parker was already in court for the day.

“Eli, this big horse wants to run some, let’s get stretched out and make some miles. It sure does feel good to be out here again,” Duncan said.

They poked their horses up to a good hard gallop and let them run for miles before they pulled them back at the first creek they came to.

They followed the Arkansas, passing on by Fort Gibson in the distance, then spending the night near the river in a grassy plain where the horses could eat.

Late the next day, they came to the K-T railroad and while stopped on top of the roadbed, they looked both ways at the miles of endless rails that ran off into the distance as far as they could see.

“When we get up to Tulsey Town, show me the land you bought for our partner company, Eli,” Moses said.

“I wanted to ride out that way too; we’ll get us some hot food, then ride on. I know Iron Hammer will be proud to meet you.”

“I want to see that big house being built, that Duncan was talking about.”

“You need to pick a place for you ‘n Suh a house, Moses. We’ll all be up here one day, when we get this crazy, wild Territory cleaned up some.”

“I didn’t know you were gonna build me and Suh a house too, Eli. Won’t that cost too much?”

“Not that much, we’ll all live up here and raise herds of cows and herds of young’uns one day,” Eli laughed as they rode on north.

Their first stop in Tulsey was at the lumber mill near the river.

“Marshal Eli, you made it back,” Williams, the yard boss said as he walked into the small office near the entrance of the lumber yard.

“Yup, had a lot going on lately and took a while to get back. How’s my man doin over there across the river?”

“He’s coming right along, they’ve been hauling lumber over there by the wagon loads every day.”

“We still good after that first payment I made?”

“Still good, Marshal.”

“These are my friends, Deputy Moses Kidd and Marshal Duncan. We’ll be buildin’ them both a house out there later, when we get the other stuff built.

“Moses, you and Duncan just pick out what you want built and tell your main man, we’ll be sure he gets the lumber to do it with.”

After stopping to eat some cooked food, they crossed the Arkansas and rode to the break of the ridge to see the buildings going up faster than Eli had ever thought they would. They rode across the land for a long ways, but never saw Iron Hammer or his brothers.

“Moses, you can see some of our cows over there on that hill. I reckon the others are scattered back over the top of that ridge. You can see the house being built too; see that tall roof already framed up over there?” Eli pointed to the other side of the ridge where the house and two barns were already framed.

“Eli, this is some fine looking land you got here, sure is gonna be good to know we’ll have a place to set down one day.”

“Moses, this is our land, and you and Duncan will have a house here too,” Eli told him again.

“Eli, it’s just hard for me to get that part right, I never had anything I could call my own. Now I got a wife with a baby on the way and I’m a deputy U.S. Marshal and a partner in a cow ranch.”

“Moses, I know what you’re talkin’ about. I feel the same way but Eli says we’re all in it together,” Duncan told him.

From the top of the ridge, they looked toward the east and saw the long black trail of smoke huffing and puffing from the smoke stack of a southbound K-T locomotive.

“You fellers see that railroad track over there?” Eli asked as they all looked toward the fast moving train.

“Yeah Eli, what do you reckon they haul on them trains way down here?” Duncan asked as the train kept rumbling southward, finally breaking over the ridge and heading down the south slope even faster, with the whistle blowing loud as it neared the long railroad trestle across the Arkansas.

“I reckon they haul supplies from up in Missouri and Kansas down to all the towns. I bet they haul a lot of stuff for the army down for the forts too.

“That railroad marks our boundary on that side and it goes northeast at that same direction along the railroad for another five or six miles. I got in mind that one day we’ll build us a cow loading place over there next to that railroad. We’ll be shipping cows up to Kansas City to the slaughter houses from here.”

“Eli, you sure got some big plans. You reckon we’ll ever have enough cows to do all that?” Duncan asked.

“With Iron Hammer letting us graze on his lands and them cows eating grass from our land, we’ll have some fine cows in a year to three. Did you see all them bulls back there, there must have been at least ten or fifteen of them humping them cows. As fast as they could get off one, they were humping another one.”

“How long does it take a cow to have a calf, Eli?”

“When I was a kid, we had our old milk cow bred to the neighbor’s bull and it took nine months, or there about. Kinda like a woman.”

Duncan went to counting on his fingers.

“So you’re saying, we’ll start having a bunch of little cows running around out here by the first of August next year?”

“Yep, maybe the middle of August for sure. Then after a few years, we’ll sell off all these and have some more coming along.”

“Eli, you ever raised cows before? I mean more than an old milk cow?” Duncan asked wondering how he knew all about this cow business.

“No, but for a while I worked for a man that did and I watched him and how he did it. I overheard a man talkin about cows in Kansas City that time Rose and me come through there, and cows was selling for twenty cents a pound on the hoof. I figure the cows we been buyin’ are over five hundred pounds. That’s at least a hundred and ten dollars a cow,” Eli was talking and figuring in his head.

“Eli, sometimes you figure faster than I can think. If we sold a cow for a hundred and ten dollars and we had a thousand of them, we’d have a hundred and ten thousand dollars, ain’t that right?” Duncan asked.

“Yep, and they just keep right on making little cows too.”

“Eli, I never knew there was that much money in the world, and here we are talking about growing cows and making that in a few years,” Duncan said.

“We’re gonna make it too. All of us and Jefferson will live over here in a few years and stop all this lawman stuff. We’ll have us a bunch of kids and a bunch of land and a bunch of cows. We’ll sit up here on top of this hill and look down on the Arkansas and watch our cows get fat.”

“Eli, you sure can see a lot of big things when you look off across the land like you do. I never can see myself doing things like that. I sure am proud you let me be a friend. You just keep on seeing big things like that, and me and Duncan will watch your back while you make it all work out,” Moses spoke up.

Moses had been listening to Eli and Duncan talk and just wondered at all the stuff Eli was talking about. How did a man see all that, just by looking way off over yonder like he was, with his head cocked to one side?

As they rode back down the slope toward the river, they spotted Iron Hammer riding along the river, just as he looked up and saw them riding toward him.

“Iron Hammer, good to see you,” Eli spoke as they stopped their horses near one another.

“Always good to see Eli Crow. You come to look at house and barns?”

“Yes, we were close by and wanted to look again at the good grass and the many cows. Iron Hammer, I want you to meet Moses Kidd, part Cherokee and part black man. He is my friend, same as Duncan is.”

“Moses Kidd, good to meet a friend of Eli Crow. Duncan, you look some better than last time you came here with your head wrapped.”

“I feel some better too, Iron Hammer.”

“My brothers and I have moved most of the cows back north to the go-i pool. We saw buffalo wade in the black waters and soon the gu-ga-i die and stop sucking blood.”

“Iron Hammer, I figure the cows got them up there in the brush country. Do you reckon the black water will kill all of them?”

“Eli, we have seen some buffalo covered in gu-ga-i now have none. When we see this, we drove all the cows in the pools with black waters.”

“What is a gu-ga-i, Iron Hammer? I don’t reckon I know any Cherokee words.” Duncan wanted to know what they were talking about.

“The cows had lots of ticks on them, Duncan, they drove them into the go-i ponds where the slick black water comes from the ground,” Eli explained.

“I never heard of a pond where slick black water comes from the ground, you don’t reckon it’ll hurt them cows do you, Iron Hammer?” Duncan asked.

“Not hurt cow, we have seen buffalo wallow in the go-i ponds and have no more gu-ga-i.”

“Are there many of these ponds, Iron Hammer, or is there just one?” Eli asked.

“There are many on Eli’s land. There are many more on my people’s lands where the land has sunk down to make the ponds.”

“Good, then we will have cattle that are tick free; we’ll get more for them. I heard two men dickering about money when one man saw ticks on the cows he was buying,” Eli told them.

When they had parted and crossed the river, Duncan was still thinking about the ponds with black water on top of them.

“Eli, what is that stuff Iron Hammer called go-i anyway?”

“It’s like axle grease, only not as thick, and it floats on water and it’s black as coal.”

“I remember seeing two of them pools like that. They were over west of here, maybe a little south of where we crossed on our way to Omega that time last year. One of’em was bubbling like it was cookin on a stove.”

“Duncan, is that over where the unassigned lands are that Jefferson was talking about?”

“It sure is, Eli. You reckon we need to see about getting some of that land for raising cows, so we’ll have a way to kill off the ticks before we sell the cows?”

“I was thinking that same way, Duncan. We’ll need some of these ponds when we buy more lands for raising our cow herds.”

“I saw some of them ponds before too, Eli, when I was with the cavalry. We even greased the horses’ legs to kill off any ticks,” Moses said.

“Eli, I never did hear the names of the outlaws we’re coming up here to get. Who was it and what all did this bunch of wild ass folks do?” Moses asked, after they’d ridden for another mile or so.

“I looked once, but let’s stop over here and take a good look at what we got.”

They stopped to relieve themselves and let the horses drink from a small stream. Eli pulled the three warrants from his saddlebags and opened them up.

“Looks like we got three men this time, one is Ed Burgoyne. Says he’s making whiskey and selling to the Indians. Another one is J.B. Hagar, says here he’s wanted for robbery, rape, killing a rancher, and horse thieving. The other man is Darnell Hutchins. Says here he’s wanted in Kansas and Arkansas too, for burning down barns and houses with people in them, after he’s robbed them.

“Says down here at the bottom that all three are suspected as stage coach and train robbers up in Kansas too.”

“It sure is some awful folks living out here. I’ll be glad when we get them all rounded up and took back to stand before Judge Parker. He’ll either send them straight to prison or hang them dead,” Duncan said.

“I reckon until we get this place made into a real state and have towns with lawmen in them, we’ll always have the outlaws, crooks, and rapers hiding down here in the Territory.”

“I suppose you’re right, Eli, some folks just ain’t gonna do right, no matter what we do out here. We’ll just have to kill some of’em off to get shed of them,” Moses agreed.

“Duncan, looks like on my map, we’ll be headed up just south of Arkansas City, where me and you first hooked up a few years ago. The three men were said to be holed up out near the Ponca Indian lands.”

“Eli, we’re just making all kinds of tracks back and forth across this Territory, ain’t we?”

“We sure are. Looks like we’ll be another day and a half getting over there, we might as well make camp up here by this creek where it cuts back away from the Arkansas.”

The Territory was becoming rougher, with deeper gullies and higher hills. Some places were barely passable as they searched for ways up and down some of the steep, brush and tree covered hills. They camped by a small creek, where it fed into the Arkansas, building a fire for one of the rare times.

They still had some of the food the women had packed for them on this trip and Duncan had put a pan in his bedroll to boil coffee in. He dipped some of the cool clear water from the fast moving creek and placed it over the fire as they unpacked their chicken and biscuits.

“Eli, I was thinking about you and Jefferson telling me about that eatin’ place there in Little Rock. Did you and him ever do any more about that?”

“He told me he’d found a diner car that was in fair condition. Said it had been in a derailment a few years back and messed up the wheels under it. He’s seeing how much we can buy it for and if we can get it moved from the train yards over to near the courthouse.”

“If that don’t beat all. Who’ll you get to run it, if you can get that thing moved and set back up?”

“I thought of Lorene and Corrine running it. I even thought of Jon David being the waiter boy, like that one in Little Rock I saw. He’d make a good one, the way he likes to talk to strangers and friends alike. That boy don’t ever meet a man that he can’t find something to talk to him about.”

“I heard you there. He’s sure a good kid too. How old is that boy now?”

“I think he’s about twelve, don’t know that I ever heard them say for sure,” Eli said.

“His momma sure done a good job teaching him manners,” Moses said.

“She sure did, he can read as good as Jefferson too. I heard him reading to the older girls the other day and he was even teaching them words when he let them read,” Duncan told them.

“I learned to read and write a little bit, but that was about all the learning I ever had. I kinda wish sometimes I knew more, but I reckon as long as I can make an honest livin’ and sign my name, I’m better off than some,” Moses told them.

“All three of us are like that, Moses. I don’t know that the women would love us more if we were schooled as well as Jefferson and Judge Parker. I mean, we can do good enough to buy horses and land and build more houses and buy cow herds. What more would a man be able to do, other than talk fancy. Then folks would look at us kinda funny if we was out here in the territory, talking all fancy when we was about to whup a man’s ass or about to arrest him, one or the other,” Eli stated.

“Eli, you may not be as well educated as men in high places, but you’re about the smartest man I ever seen at figuring things out and making things work so we can all have the best,” Duncan said.

“I got that from my Pa, I reckon. We never had anything, but it felt like we had everything, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I reckon. But I never even had that much. I always thought that was the way it was supposed to be for pore folks. I’m kinda like you said, Eli, I feel like I got about all I need, ‘specially now, since we’ve all hooked up together and making it together like we are,” Duncan told them.

They stopped talking and ate their warmed up chicken and biscuits and drank all of the boiled coffee, always careful not to pour it in their cups too fast, so they didn’t get a bunch of dregs. Duncan boiled another pan full and they drank another cup apiece before they stretched out in their bedrolls.

“I gotta tell you both now, this is what I was meant to be doin’ and I’m just as happy out here as I can be. I mean, I love that little Juni Mae more’n I ever thought I could love a girl, and that little old boy of mine just makes me feel so good when I look at him. But being out here, and gettin’ paid to do this, is about as good as it can get for a man,” Duncan said as he stretched out and lay back on his saddle.

“I reckon you’re right, Duncan. Marshal Dal Hopkins over in Boones Crossing, Kansas, told me I ought to be a U.S. Marshal one day. He saw me bein’ one before I did, and I took him at his word. I don’t know what else I’d be fit for, if I wasn’t a U.S. Marshal,” Eli confessed to his friends.

“I never even thought of bein’ anything like this, until you two walked into that little old mud and stick hut they had me livin in over at Fort Supply. Eli, when I saw you standing there; tall, part Cherokee, wearing that badge, I wanted to be just like you. Then we got to talking and the next thing I knew, you’d paid my due bill and had me believing I could be like you.

“I wake up every day now, thinking how lucky can a man get to have a house full of friends like I got now,” Moses said, as he too stretched out, his head on his saddle, smiling up at the sky about how things had all of a sudden turned out in his life.

He thought of that little Indian girl, Suh, and how she seemed to be as happy as any woman in that house. He knew when his and her baby was born, he’d be just like Eli and Duncan, grinning all the time when they looked at the little ones.

The three fell asleep with their bellies full, smiles on their faces and thoughts of even better things ahead for all of them.

They were up early, anxious to get on over to the Ponca Indian Reservation. They had a job to do and they were proud to be serving Judge Parker, the Territory, and this big, wide open country as United States Marshals.

“Eli, does it say all these outlaws are hooked up together, or are we gonna have to chase them down separate?” Moses asked as they rode.

“Says here they’d been reported as being together, tradin whiskey to the Indians for women and making trips up to Kansas to rob and kill. Like I said, they’re wanted for stage coach robbing and even train robbing.”

There was no way to know when they had crossed from one reservation onto the next. They had stopped to relieve themselves and water their horses when they looked up to see three mounted Indians looking down on them from a tall rise above the river.

Eli waved, hoping to make friends with them, though he didn’t know which tribe they were from. When they all waved back, the marshals rode up the steep embankment to meet them and hopefully find out where they were exactly.

“I am Marshal Eli Crow, out of Fort Smith, Arkansas. This is my fellow marshals, Moses Kidd and Duncan. We’re looking for the land of the Poncas.”

“I am Little Buck, this is my two sons. You are now on Osage lands, you will ride to the west and north to find Ponca lands,” the elder man spoke, as he pointed, his arm outstretched, with a long weathered finger aiming to the northwest.

“Thank you, Little Buck. We were sent here by Judge Parker in Fort Smith to find three white men accused of making whiskey and taking women from the Indians, do you know of these men?”

“I know of Hagar and the man called Hutch. The other man I don’t know the name. They are maybe twenty of your miles that way, no more.”

The two young boys were talking to their father, then turned to look at Eli.

“They live in a house by the river. When the river turns back west for a few miles at the big bend, you will stray away from the river to the west and north. You will then come to the river again at short bend. There you will come upon them,” one of the young boys spoke.

“You will smell the fires cooking the corn, then you will know you are close,” the other youth spoke.

“We thank you for this, what can we give you in return?”

“Do you have coffee?” Little Buck asked and smiled.

“We sure do, you can have all we got,” Duncan said and rode up next to him and pulled his bag of ground coffee out and handed it to him.

“Marshal’s Crow, Duncan, and Kidd, you are welcome on Osage lands any time you come our way.”

“Thank you, Little Buck, if we ever come back this way, we’ll bring you more coffee,” Duncan told him and they all parted with a nod to each other.

“Eli, do you see all them bends of the river they were talking about?”

“I see them, the river makes a big loop back to the southwest, then cuts back hard to the northeast toward that short bend,” Eli said as he looked his maps over.

“How far you think we are from there? Little Buck said twenty miles.”

“I would say he’s about right, by looking at my maps.”

They made good time the rest of the day and camped east of the river, near the short bend of the river. They didn’t build a fire and they didn’t talk. The three young men slept, but it was a fitful sleep, knowing what the morning would bring.

They were all awake before daylight, their horses saddled. They wanted to be at the sod hut early, to try and catch the men still asleep.

When sunup came, they were sitting at the front door of the stinking sod hut. Moses had cut all their trip lines around the perimeter and killed their dog before the light of day. There was a chimney pipe on the back side; a smoke plume was drifting lazily up into the still, damp, morning air.

They looked toward the big trees behind the hut and saw the whiskey still. It was a big one, and it was cooking as if someone had stoked the fire during the night.

The smell of green wood burning filled the air, along with the sweet, tangy smell of fermenting corn being cooked to a mash. There were more than a dozen wooden barrels close by. There were four mules and two wagons back against the tree line, away from the still and mud hut.

There must have been three wagon loads of green wood stacked near the two cookers. The wood was cut from small trees, into three foot lengths. There were no smaller trees left even close to the camp, they’d all been harvested to cook whiskey, since green wood burns slower and keeps an even heat.

They weren’t sure how many were in the small, low sod hut, built with limbs, grass and sod on top for a slanted roof. There was only one doorway in front and one in back. Neither one had a door in it, just old army blankets hanging inside, covering the doorways.

They crouched and watched for another few minutes, then Eli motioned both of them to watch the doors as he ran quickly and quietly out to where the still was.

Taking a long green pole, he lifted the leg on one side of a big cooker and kicked a stone out from under it. When he let the pole fall to the ground, the cooker tilted over on its side, loosening the copper top and spilling all the steaming, stinking, fermented sour mash all over the ground. There must have been fifty gallons of the mixture, already smelling of grain alcohol.

There was another pot, even larger than the cooker, connected to the top of the first pot with copper pipes. It too was resting on three large flat stones, one placed under each of the three legs. Eli had seen stills before, back home in southern Missouri. He knew the workings of them; this was the one that contained the pure grain alcohol that would be cut with water and sold to the Indians.

Taking the same long green pole, he lifted the pot and kicked the stone from under a leg. He slowly lowered the pole and watched as the strong, clear, foul smelling liquid ran across the slope, toward the mud hut. He put his hands on the top of one of the wooden barrels and pushed, it was full. Eli tested three more barrels and they were all full.

With his knife, he pried the wooden plug from the hole in the top of one barrel and put his nose to the open hole. The strong alcohol smell was enough to make him stagger backwards. With the hole on the downhill side, toward the mud hut, Eli pushed the barrel over slowly until it came to rest on a small, raised side of the platform where the barrels rested.

The strong, pungent grain alcohol was glugging from the hole, running across the dry slope toward the door of the mud hut, making another wet trail beside the one from the cooking pot. Suddenly, there was a whoosh from inside the hut and the blanket was blown from the doorway, and was laying on the ground, burning.

Eli ran as fast as he could toward the side where Moses knelt, watching. He was halfway to Moses when the fire raced across the ground, following the trail of alcohol until it came to the barrel he’d opened. There was no explosion, just a spray of fire into the air, when the barrels burned through and more alcohol came out.

The second barrel burst into flames, igniting the platform, and the other barrels. Grain alcohol was running all under the platform. The whole whiskey still was afire.

Eli stood with Moses as they watched the fire grow higher and hotter. The alcohol was pouring into the mud hut and there was fire coming from both doorways. They heard screaming and yelling as the whole roof caught fire and burned, falling through in minutes. The screaming and yelling stopped and Duncan walked over to where they were as they stood watching the place burn down to a smoldering, stinking pile of sod blocks and ashes.

Moses brought their horses up and tied them off to the side, away from the fire and the alcohol that was still running from the barrels as they burned through and spilled the contents on the ground.

“Ooooeee, Eli, did you know all that was gonna happen when you started turning them big pots over?” Duncan asked.

“No, I never even thought it was gonna run all the way down to the cabin. I kinda wanted to take them outlaws back to Fort Smith with us.”

“I don’t think Judge Parker would want us to bring them back now, do you?” Moses asked as they walked over to see some burned skeletons in the smoking stench of the ashes.

“I reckon not, Moses. We’ll need to bury them when the fire dies out enough to dig them out. I kinda hate to think of a human bone laying here to get gnawed on by an animal. Even if they was thievin’, rapin’ outlaws selling whiskey to the Indians.”

“Do you reckon they were all in there, Eli?”

“I just don’t know, Duncan. I really wanted to have a talk with them, but it just didn’t come out that way.”

When the fires had burned to a smoldering pile of ashes, they took their blankets from their bedrolls and cut off a corner big enough to tie over their faces and cover their noses.

With a long green pole each, they began poking and prodding their way through the ashes. When they had figured out how the beds were laying on the floor, they found the remains of three bodies. The stench of burning, blackened flesh was enough to gag them, but they kept at it, walking out to the water’s edge now and then to get a deep breath of fresh river air.

They took some shovels they’d found in back of the still and dug a deep hole to pile all the bones in. They wrapped their hands in parts of their blankets to handle the bones, satisfied they had them all in the grave. While Duncan and Moses covered the pile of bones, Eli took his pole and poked and prodded the floor of the hut, looking for a stash like he’d always found in these places.

Duncan and Moses were through and Eli was still looking for their hidey hole. He knew they had to have one and they’d want it close by when they slept.

Moses picked up a pole and walked over to help Eli. As soon as he stepped where the back corner of the hut had been, he went knee deep through a hole in the ground.

“Hot Damn Moses, you found it,” Duncan said as he walked over to help him.

“Help me outta this place, I can’t even touch bottom,” Moses said as he held his arm up. His left leg was still in the hole as he held himself up with the pole in his hands.

They pulled him out of the hole and raked all the ashes, burned grass, and sod back out of the way. The hole was big enough for a man to go down into when they opened it by pulling all the boards and mats of hides and blankets back.

When they had the hole cleaned out enough to see what all was down there, they saw three heavy made wooden crates stacked one on top of the other. Gripping the heavy rope handles on each end, Moses and Eli lifted the top one up and out of the hole. They carried it out away from the burnt ashes and the strongest stench before setting it on the ground.

It was nailed shut and Duncan took the shovel blade and jammed it under the lid. When he pried it open, they saw stacks and stacks of crisp new hundred dollar bills inside.

The three of them stood, looking down at the contents, then up at each other.

“HOT DAMN, would you just look at all that money? Do you reckon them other boxes are filled with money too, Eli?” Duncan said.

“We’ll soon find out I reckon,” he said as he and Moses walked back to the hole.

Duncan wiped the sides of the wooden crate off; he saw some writing burned into the wood.

“ATSF RAILROAD” it read in big letters.

When they had all three wooden crates pulled out of the hole and placed side by side, Duncan opened the other two. One had been opened and some money was gone, but it still had two full layers and over half of another layer, neatly stacked inside. The other one was still nailed shut. They opened it just to see that it was full, then hammered the lids back down with the back of the shovel blade.