Chapter 21

True to their word to each other, and to Sissy’s momma, they didn’t touch. Except when Joe washed her naked back and she washed his. She explained to him how to braid her hair and he did a good job, when she told him it was just like plaiting a rope.

They slept upstairs in the same bedroll, with the front door locked and both of their guns next to them. She held Joe’s hand as he held her and they slept until just before dawn when Joe jumped awake, thinking they’d overslept.

Kneeling in the floor side by side, they rolled their bedrolls and she leaned over to kiss his cheek. They grinned at each other, and she had to make herself look away. She didn’t trust herself when he grinned that grin of his that makes her want him more each time she sees it.

When they had their horses saddled, the young Paints were eager to get out of the corral and run.

They were at the railroad on the west side of the river town by good daylight and Joe saw the wagons headed toward them in the distance. Sissy went to pee before they got there and they were sitting in the saddle eating cold biscuits and salt meat when Frank drove up on the first wagon.

“Head on out, Joe, we won’t even stop until we get to a creek to water the mules. They’re gonna be slow, walking all the way, but we’d tear the wagons up if we tried to go faster.”

“We’re OK with that, Frank. I’d druther get there loaded, than dragging boards behind us on a broke wagon.”

Joe and Sissy were the only riders, the rest of the men were either riding on the wagons or driving them. Frank told all the freighters he hired that the girl was United States Marshal Eli Crow’s daughter. The ones that knew of him, knew not to even look at the girl. The ones who didn’t know of Eli Crow, were told if they wanted to live, they best not even look her way or he’d hunt them down, scalp them and throw their hair in the river.

The first day out on the trail, they made good time, with the mules and horses being fresh and the road dry and solid. They’d stopped at two different creeks to rest the mules and let them drink.

Less than an hour before sundown, they came to a small river with a low-water crossing filled in with rocks. When they’d eased the wagons across slowly to keep from busting a wheel, they pulled over on a wide spot where others had stopped for the night.

“Come on Sissy, while they get a campfire going, we’ll scout the place out good,” Joe said as they rode west on the trail a ways, then cut back north, through the short brush. They rode a complete circle around their camp then back to step from the saddle.

“Joe, we got hot beans and some stew meat cooked up in a big pot, y’all get a plate and have some,” Frank told them.

“Sounds good to me,” Joe said and grabbed a tin plate. Sissy got her a plate full too, she was hungry.

Not wanting to be disrespectful, they sat down on a wagon tongue and ate with the men in the light of the fire. They all washed their plates in the creek, then Joe and Sissy went back out to the edge of the firelight.

“Let’s walk a short circle Sissy, just to be sure.”

“Can you see out here, Joe?”

“Yes, just hold my hand, your eyes will settle in to the dark as you walk.”

“My eyes aren’t settling to the dark, Joe Johnson, you better hold my hand tight.”

“I’m never letting you go. You’ll have to be buried with me holding onto you.”

“I like that. Let’s pee again before we get back.”

“Stop here then, we’re almost back to the railroad now.”

When they had relieved themselves, they hadn’t taken ten steps until they came to the railroad then walked out into the faint glow of the campfire.

The men were already in their bedrolls and Joe and Sissy walked their horses out a ways and made their bed for the night. Sissy slept good with Joe holding her tight to him. Joe had tied both their horses close to the bedroll and slept very little as he kept hearing the horses.

They both woke before daylight and as they saddled up and rolled their bedrolls, they smelled coffee. Joe and Sissy walked their horses over to tie them to a wagon and got a cup as the men were rousing from their bedrolls.

“Joe, how far you reckon we got yesterday?” Frank asked.

“I figure we made close to twenty miles.”

“I figure we did too, you must have traveled a lot with wagons,” one of the men spoke up.

“I just had a few lessons from a man that knows just about everything,” Joe laughed when he told the man that.

He and Sissy kept a watchful eye out for anything that even looked like trouble, but for four days, they rode with no one even looking suspicious to them.

On the fifth day, Joe looked north to see Fort Reno way in the distance. He had to smile, they’d rode right to this place. They only lacked less than ten miles being to the far corner, if he was right.

“Sissy, see all them pecan trees over there?”

“Yes, there must be thousands. Are we close to our land?”

“We’re on it now, Sissy. We’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“All these big pecan trees are ours?”

“Yep, that’s what Moses, Duncan, and Eli was talking about, there’s got to be thousands of pounds of pecans out here in the fall.”

“Just wait til Momma and the others come over here next fall. We’ll be here a month or more picking up pecans won’t we?”

“Yep and we’ll have to have heavy freight wagons to haul them back too.

“Look coming here, Sissy. That’s Don Cowden, your daddy’s partner in this ranch over here.”

“Joe, I never knew you were going to bring the lumber back this soon. You must have brought the whole sawmill the way it looks,” Don said as he rode up.

“Don, this is Sissy Crow, she’s Eli’s daughter and she rode over with me. Eli wanted to get the lumber over here so they could get the house and barns built before winter.”

“Sissy, good to meet you. I sure do think highly of your daddy.”

“Thanks, we all do, Mr. Cowden.”

“Call me Don, Sissy.

“Joe, how many men did you bring?” Don asked as he saw all the men.

“Well, there’s all the freighters and then here comes Frank. He’s the house-builder, he’s got five men with him that’re gonna stay and build the house and barns.

“How many houses and barns are they gonna build? That’s more lumber here than there is over in the whole town of Little Tree, Texas.”

“Frank, meet Don Cowden, he’s Eli’s partner in this ranch. Don, meet Frank,” Joe said as the two men shook and spoke.

“You’ll have a really big house and two really big barns, Don. We loaded four windmills on too but we’ll have to build the towers,” Frank told him.

“We’ll have a town out here by the time we get all these boards nailed together,” Don laughed.

“It’ll take them a month to get all that lumber stacked off won’t it?” Sissy asked.

“Not these wagons, the wagon beds are special built for hauling lumber, they’ll pull a pin in front and tie some mules to the stacks of lumber from behind and when the load shifts, the bed will flip up backwards and the lumber will slide off,” Frank told her.

Joe and Sissy watched as the men laid 4X4 dunnage on the ground to keep the lumber from being against the ground when it came off the wagons. They slid the loads off four of the wagons in just a little while.

“Frank, Don, we’re gonna head on out, do you need anything from us before we leave?” Joe asked.

“No, I reckon we got all we need, Joe. Thanks for your help. Sissy, you tell Eli I said hey, when you see him,” Don said.

They’d ridden east, past Fort Reno, way in the distance to the north, following the wagon tracks they’d made earlier, with all the heavy freight wagons.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by a cavalry patrol.

Joe pulled his Colt as soon as the men rode upon them in a hurry. Sissy pulled her Colt when she saw Joe pull his. Both had their hammers backed, fingers on the triggers.

“Stand down from them horses and drop them pistols, you two ... U.S. Cavalry here. We’re about to take you into custody for trespassing on government lands.”

“Mister, we’re just passin’ through here on our way back to Fort Smith. We’re not even on government lands, we’re on Chickasaw lands. If you’ll lower them army pistols, we’ll just ride on out, with nobody gettin’ hurt. We’re way south of them unassigned lands, and you know it,” Joe said.

“You ain’t going nowhere but back to Fort Reno. We caught you ridin’ on government property, now drop them firearms before we shoot your asses.”

“Mister, you’re in the wrong here, we’re not trespassin’ on your lands. We’re just headed home to Fort Smith,” Joe tried to reason with the young man.

A young soldier circled the two riders on his horse and saw both of them with their Colts pulled. He jerked his weapon up and backed the hammer, pointing the gun right at Sissy’s head, he was grinning when Joe looked at him.

Joe shot the boy right in his face, then he and Sissy turned their pistols on the corporal in charge.

“You’re going to the fort for sure now. You just killed a U. S. Cavalryman, Mister. Now drop them pistols,” the young corporal yelled.

“Soldier, you’re in the wrong here. You best load that boy up and y’all ride on out of here, before we kill every last one of you,” Joe told him as the two of them faced off with pistols pointed at each other.

“There’s one behind you, Joe,” Sissy yelled as she twisted in her saddle to fire.

The corporal facing Joe aimed his army revolver at Joe’s head and Joe shot him in his chest just as Sissy shot the one behind them, hitting him in his neck. He fell from his horse, over a small, twisted buck brush bush, breaking the limbs down, blood covering the broken limbs and running to the ground on the stalks.

The other five in the patrol sat with their guns drawn, looking down at the three men who lay dead and bleeding in the dirt.

“Hold up there. What’s going on out here?” a big sergeant yelled as he rode into the clearing of the trail.

“Mister, these men of yours was gonna shoot both of us. You best tell ‘em to put them pistols down before we shoot the whole damned lot of you,” Joe said, his Colt laying across his thigh, the hammer back, pointed right at the sergeant.

“Who started this mess,” the sergeant yelled at his men.

“We saw them coming through here and was just gonna stop them and take them to the fort when Jake pointed his gun on the girl and that man shot him,” one of the young men explained.

“You two are in a lot of trouble, killing cavalrymen of the U. S. Army like this. What’s your names?”

“My name is Joe Johnson out of Fort Smith, Arkansas. This is Sissy Crow, out of Fort Smith; she’s the daughter of Eli Crow, United States Marshal.”

“OH HELL, we got a mess of trouble on our hands now. You men get these dead soldiers on their horses. Mr. Johnson, Miss Crow, would you two kindly lower them Colts and ride over to the fort with me so we can get this cleaned up?”

“Mister, I reckon we’ll be headin’ back to Fort Smith. We ain’t done nothin wrong and if you’re fixin to stop us, you just take your best shot now, cause you’ll be the next one I drop. We’re south of them unassigned lands and you know it. Your men were wrong to stop us in the first place. I told Eli Crow I’d protect his daughter with my life and I’ll kill every damned last one of you if you try and take her from here,” Joe said, nudging his horse to face the sergeant.

“Hold on boy, we already got a mess here, don’t go making it worse.”

“I ain’t making nothin worse, Mister. We’re fixin’ to ride on out of here; if you want to talk to us, you come to Fort Smith and talk to Eli Crow, he’s who I ride for.”

“Are you a deputy marshal too?”

“No, but I’m fixin to be soon as I can. Now you either turn and ride on out or make a play for your pistol, cause we’re ridin on.”

“Mr. Johnson, you sound just like the man you ride for. I don’t doubt for a minute you’d shoot me. I’m gonna put my pistol away and we’re gonna ride back to the fort to try and get this mess sorted out. You may hear from the Department of the Army about this.”

“You may get a visit from Marshal Eli Crow about this too, Mister. He don’t take to no one threatening his daughter and he’ll hunt you and your men down like animals and kill every damn last one of you. He told me the other day he would, if anyone let his girl get hurt out here.”

“Just ride on, Mr. Johnson. Miss Crow, I hope you can stop your daddy from causing more trouble than we already have here. He’ll just make it worse.”

“Mister, my daddy works for Judge Isaac Parker and the judge thinks highly of my daddy. If you got a problem with us or my daddy, come to Fort Smith and file charges in the court, if not, then get the hell out of my sight. Don’t you or any of your men ever threaten me, the people I care for, or anyone in my family again, or I’ll personally come hunt you down myself and shoot you like a mad-dog,” Sissy told him.

“I don’t even know what’s gonna happen about all this, now I’ve got everyone in Fort Smith mad at me. I don’t know how to start tellin’ the lieutenant about all this either. I wish I’d never heard the name Eli Crow before in my life.” The sergeant was talking to himself as he turned his horse and rode with his men back toward the fort in the distance, leading the horses with the three dead soldiers tied across them.

“Sissy, load that pistol up again, then get that spare Colt out and stuff it down in your britches. Let’s ride before they change their minds and we have to kill every last one of them,” Joe said.

They popped the heels of their moccasins in the flanks of the long legged Indian horses, and the Paints kicked the dirt up behind them as they rode across the wide flat prairie for an hour before slowing to a lope.

Late that day, they were miles from where the incident happened and still rode on into the night. Joe was not going to take any chances of the men coming after them.

“Joe, you ever killed a man before today?”

“No and it didn’t bother me none in the least to kill that crazy sumbitch that was about to shoot you, Sissy. I’d have killed the rest of them, then went to that fort and killed all of them over there too, had he shot you.”

“I felt the same way, Joe. When that other one tried to sneak up on us from behind, his gun was pointed right at your back, and his hand was shaking. I didn’t even think about it, I just killed him like I was shooting a target. When I shot him, I turned right around and picked out my next one to kill. I wasn’t about to let you get shot.”

“Sissy, you reckon they’ll come to Fort Smith and file charges on us?”

“If they do, we’ll get to see just how good of a lawyer my brother really is,” Sissy told him.

They stopped during the night to let the horses get a drink and rest, after riding a big circle back on the trail, they off to the north a long ways. They didn’t build a fire, they just slept with their horses saddled, their horses tied next to them. They both slept good.

The next morning early, after they’d each stood watch while the other relieved themselves, they rolled their bedrolls and tied them down. After riding hard all day, resting their horses every few hours, they camped on the banks of the Canadian River south of Muskogee. Feeling a lot better about not being followed, they built a fire and warmed their stale, hard biscuits. With the sun setting in the west, Sissy took a clean set of buckskins from her bedroll and walked to the river. The water wasn’t clear, but it wasn’t all that muddy either and she needed a bath.

“Joe, I know you’re going to see me, just make sure no one comes upon us while I’m in the water and I can’t protect you,” she said as she stripped naked and dove in the river.

Before he realized what she was about to do, she was naked in front of him. With his eyes and his mouth stuck wide open, he watched as she dove in and swam out away from the bank. He turned his back on her, watching the brush and river banks, keeping a watchful eye on the horses for any sign of them being nervous. Sissy washed the best she could and dried on the buckskins she’d been wearing. When she was dressed again, she shook her long yellow hair out and walked over to Joe.

“Joe Johnson, do you want to be my man?” she asked, as she looked him in the eye.

“Yes I do, Sissy. Whatever I have to do, just tell me. I never knew I’d ever meet a pretty woman like you that’d ask me that, but I’ve killed for you and I’d die for you right here, right now.”

“I know you would, Joe. I love you for what you did back there yesterday. You weren’t even scared, you just stepped in and put that whole cavalry patrol back on their asses.”

“I wasn’t scared for me, Sissy. I was scared I’d done let you get in a place to be hurt.”

When they rode into Fort Smith, they skirted around the Crow property and rode straight to Jon David’s law office. It was late in the day, but he and Amanda were still there working on a case.

“Sissy, come in here, how are you?” Amanda greeted her as she opened the door. She saw the tall lanky young man with her and it didn’t take but one glance to know who he was. This was Joe Johnson. The family had told her and Jon David about him.

“Hi Amanda, this is Joe Johnson. We need to talk to Jon David and you about some trouble we may be in.”

“Sissy, what kind of trouble – what has happened?”

“Joe, good to meet you, we heard all about you already. I hope you’ve not let my sister get you into too much trouble,” Jon David said as he shook Joe’s hand.

“Well, I guess you know about Joe and me taking the building materials all the way over to the west part of Indian Territory,” Sissy started.

“Yes, we heard all about that and how you wanted to go with him. But what has happened?” Jon David asked.

“We guided the wagons over there to the Chickasaw lands where Daddy bought his other lands, then Joe and I started back. There’s some government lands there that doesn’t belong to the Indians and they call it unassigned lands. Well Joe and I hadn’t been on our way back very long, when we were jumped by a cavalry patrol of all very young men, with their guns drawn.

“Joe was trying to tell them we weren’t on government lands, but they kept on and one pointed a gun at my head and Joe killed him.”

“OH MY LORD, Sissy! What happened then?” Amanda said.

“Well, I looked back and there was another one riding slowly up behind Joe with his gun pointing at his back and I turned and shot him. The one facing Joe pointed his gun at Joe, and Joe shot him.”

“Joe, are you positive you weren’t on government lands?”

“I know we wasn’t, Jon David. I rode back from over there with Eli, Moses, and Duncan when we brought all them prisoners back. They was telling me all about that part of Indian Territory and showed me where Fort Reno was in the distance when we rode by it. I know we were way south of the government lands they called unassigned lands, we could barely see the fort way in the distance.”

“What happened after that?”

“Well there was a big sergeant came riding in and he hollered at the young men in the patrol. He was mad that we had killed three of his men, but he wanted us to go to the fort and get it straightened out, he said. I knew I couldn’t let them take Sissy over there and maybe lock her up. I pulled my gun on him and told him that his men were in the wrong and that we were gonna ride on out and head back to Fort Smith. He knew of Eli, cause he was afraid when I told him Sissy was Eli’s Crow’s daughter and I was protecting her.”

“Was there anymore gun shots, did he let you leave without a fight?”

“He sure did, Jon David. Joe backed the whole patrol down and they were afraid they were all going to die,” Sissy told him.

“Do you think this was a young patrol out on training maneuvers that may have been south of government lands?”

“I don’t know, but I know they were all really young, younger than me and Sissy.”

“Amanda, will you get the book on the Indian Territory? We can see which tribes own what lands and what these government lands are doing in the middle of Indian Territory.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said and hurried to the other office.

“I found it, Jon David, it says here that there’s two thousand, nine hundred and forty nine square miles of land that was once owned by the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole Indians. After the war, the government took back those lands because the Creek and Seminole sided with the south during the war. There’s one million eight hundred and eighty seven thousand, seven hundred forty nine and one half acres total, that the U. S. Government owns in the middle of Indian Territory.“

“The U. S. Government owns it? That means we the people own it. I remember Mr. Walter working on a case involving the cavalry taking civilians into custody and Judge Parker releasing them because the U. S. Cavalry and the U. S. Army have no jurisdiction over civilians. Let me see that book, it may be in there. If not, it will be in the book of laws pertaining to Indian Territory. Will you get it while I look?”

“Does that mean that even if we were on the government lands, they had no right to stop us?” Sissy asked.

“Exactly, they do have jurisdiction in Indian lands, but only if the Indians have broken their treaty or left the reservation. They’re not supposed to stop travelers, or harass civilians.”

“I bet that’s the reason that sergeant said he had already had a run-in with Eli,” Joe said.

“I can just see him and a patrol stopping Marshal Eli Crow – government lands or not,” Jon David said, and laughed.

“Here it is, Jon David, it’s called the Posse Comitatus Act. It means power of the county. The law was enacted at the end of the war and the Union Troops were sent back north during reconstruction of the south. No Federal Troops can have jurisdiction over civilians. In other words, the law of the lands would be in the hands of the U. S. Marshals, since there is no local law available in Indian Territory.“

“Sissy, you and Joe just go on home and when Eli comes in from his chase in the Territory, tell him I need to see him. Go ahead and tell him your story, just tell him and the family to keep it quiet. At least until we see if the cavalry will try to prosecute you two for killing the cavalrymen. Joe, I want to tell you that I’m thankful for what you did for my sister. I’ll be seeing you over at the house. Here Sissy, I got this for our Daddy. I want him to start learning words and the spelling of them, he’ll need this more in the coming years,” Jon David said as he handed Sissy a brand new copy of the 1860 edition of Merriam’s – The American Dictionary of the English Language.

“Thanks, Jon David, I know Daddy will like having this when he has to do his paper work. I’m glad you like Joe too. I hope you and Amanda will come over soon, I miss you being there,” Sissy told her brother.

“Amanda, I’m gonna marry that tall Texas boy over there. I hope Daddy can get him on as a Deputy U. S. Marshal. He’d make a good one,” Sissy said, grinning at Joe as he grinned that crooked grin.

She hugged her brother and Amanda, then Joe shook hands with both of them, thanking them for their help.

They felt better, after talking to Jon David and Amanda. They both wished there was some way to prove the incident had occurred in Indian Territory and not on government lands. Even though the cavalry has no jurisdiction over civilians on either, they wanted to be sure.

CHEROKEE OUTLET/CHEROKEE STRIP:

The Cherokee Outlet was a strip of land fifty eight miles wide and two hundred and twenty six miles long, set aside by treaty, for a perpetual outlet for the Cherokee to travel west from their reservation, into Colorado, and on to the Rockies, to hunt for food. It consisted of over eight million acres of prime grasslands.