Chapter 32

Tulsa, Indian Territory Crow Ridge Cattle Company June 2, 1884

The big house on the hill was full of happy talk as they gathered in the kitchen to talk and catch up on the latest trip into the Territory.

Clarissa was typing on her typewriter as fast as she could to keep up with all that was said. She was getting faster at typing and this was the first time she didn’t make notes to type from later.

They let the ten youngest travelers talk first, each of them telling their version of the trip, from the time they left until they returned. There was laughter and tears, as they all told of the fun parts. Then the part where Lee Yu’s horse was shot and Eli had to kill it.

Once again, the Crow family and friends were reminded of just how wild and lawless Indian Territory still is.

Little Eli waited until last before he stood to talk. He wanted to tell the whole houseful of family and friends that he would soon have a new momma.

Rose and the others had already seen the change in Eli and knew there was something different about him. Now they knew what it was and the cheering and congratulations rang out when it was announced.

The women knew that Eli would be back to his old self, now that he had let go of Mary and was ready to move on and love again. It had been long enough and they were ready for him to laugh and be the happy man they all looked up to.

Howard sat alone over in the corner of the kitchen, looking at this family he’d grown to love and accept as friends and business partners. Lorene looked around and saw him sitting by himself, as he looked around the room while one or another would talk. She moved her straight back chair over to sit right next to him.

Jon David nudged Amanda and she nudged Sissy. Michi and Kia saw them and touched Lee Yu and Lilly Beth’s arms. The family was looking over to where the two sat, talking as if they were alone in the house.

“Howard and I are going for walk down by the river, we’ll be back before supper,” Lorene said as she pulled his hand until he stood beside her.

The six boys jumped up to walk with them, but Rose put a stop to that in a hurry.

“You boys need to get Jefferson to show you the new colt we have in the barn. He was born a week ago,” she told them and that was all it took to change their direction.

The ten young’uns were pulling on both of Jefferson’s hands as they made a run for the back door, hurrying to see the new colt.

“Eli, Smitty is back and his three friends are with him. They’ve been all over this place, walking and looking and talking. They came by here and talked for a long time with Doc, me, Jon David, and Jefferson,” Duncan said, when the room was quiet.

“What did they say? Did his friends think there was gonna be oil here?”

“They all agreed we’re sitting on a gold mine, all the way past our lands, onto the Barkley’s lands and even beyond that,” Duncan told him.

“What about Iron Hammer and his brothers, are they sitting on oil too?” Eli asked.

“From what they said, it looks like we’re all floating on oil,” Duncan said.

“Where are they now?”

“They’re staying in the other house. Smitty went back to his shack by the shop,” Corrine said quickly. Eli looked at her and she blushed.

“All of us need to meet with them tomorrow.

“Jon David, we’ll need to start an oil drilling company. I reckon we’ll need a company in our names where we sell the oil too,” Eli said as he looked over at him.

“Way ahead of you, Dad. I sent a package by mail two days ago, down to the law office in Fort Smith. I enclosed instructions as to how I wanted to set up the Crow Ridge Oil Corporation. I listed you as president, Duncan as vice president, and me as secretary, with all of us as members and stock holders of the company. Even the youngest are stockholders.

“I got the names of Smitty and his three friends and set up a corporation with you as president of Crow Ridge Drilling, at sixty percent owner, and the other four at ten percent each. I haven’t started one for the ranch down on the west central part of the territory. I wanted to get with you on that one. I know we’ll need an oil corporation separate from Crow Ridge. But you can use the same drilling company to drill on both ranches.”

“Let’s call that one Pecan Ridge Oil Company,” Eli told him and they all smiled at the name. It just fit.

“We need to call the ranch Pecan Ridge Cattle Company, Daddy,” Sissy suggested.

“Let’s do that, we never named that ranch. We’ve just been calling it Crow Lands Cattle Company, under the same company as Crow Ridge. Jon David, make that one a five way equal partnership, can you do that?”

“Sure we can, then we’ll let Crow Lands Cattle be the parent company. Who are the five owners in Pecan Ridge?”

“Don Cowden, J. P. Duncan, Moses Kidd, Joe Johnson and me,” Eli said and grinned when he used the J. P. in Duncan’s name.

“Eli, you don’t need to be making me a partner, I just now come in the family,” Joe said.

“You married my daughter and put her with a baby. I need to make sure she’s well looked after,” Eli joked. He felt good, talking about the new companies and planning to drill for oil on their own lands.

“We’ll have to get with Iron Hammer and his brothers. Smitty told me they wanted to have a company with him and his friends. We may have to hire lots of men and split up the drilling crews, Dad. Have you thought that big yet?” Jon David said.

“We got plenty of help coming here this fall, after pecan harvest that is,” Eli said as he grinned at Joe, Moses, and Sissy.

“Where did you hire more men, Eli?” Clarissa asked as she typed faster.

“We ran upon some of the cavalrymen known as Buffalo Soldiers. They’re all black men and they’ll get out of the cavalry before October. They’ll help us gather pecans, then come here to work on the oil drilling. I told them about the unassigned lands that are coming up for homestead in the next few years. We’ll all be down there and get a hundred and sixty acres in each of our names.”

“Why do they call them Buffalo Soldiers, Eli?” Clarissa asked as she typed fast to keep up.

“I reckon ‘cause they’re big, black and wooly lookin’,” Eli answered.

“That really is one story, Eli. It was told that the Comanche named them Buffalo Soldiers because they fought like bull buffaloes. Another story was, it was because the black man’s hair is like a buffalo’s mane. I never had any problem with it, when they called me a Buffalo Scout. I knew it was as good a name as it was bad, in my own mind,” Moses told them as Clarissa typed even faster.

“So we have twenty black soldiers who will work for us in the oil business? Will you pay them or give them part of the profits?” Jon David asked.

“Both. I want them to have land and have money to live on. Counting Sergeant Willis it’ll be twenty-one men. He told Moses and me that none of his men can read or write. I want to help them learn how. Miranda, we’ll make you earn your pay in this family, teaching us men, the Crow kids, the Cherokee, and the Buffalo Soldiers too.”

“Eli, just being married to you and living here with this big family will be enough pay for me. I’d love to be able to tell my grandmother that I’ll be teaching the black cavalrymen and Indians how to read and write too.”

“Then I’ll put you on my payroll and pay you out of my part of what I make, on the cattle and oil too.”

Miranda was standing behind Eli, her arm draped over his shoulder. He pulled her hand and turned her around to sit across his legs. They kept right on talking about drilling for oil, teaching the men and family to read and write and helping the Buffalo Soldiers learn too.

“Good, I know I can earn my pay working for you,” Miranda said and the women laughed with her.

“Just give me a son and another little girl and I’ll pay you twice what the women offered you to come here,” Eli joined in the fun.

“Will you let me name our son Shawn Michael Crow, for my father?” she asked as she turned in his lap and put her cheek to his.

“You have us a boy, Miranda. I like that name,” Eli said.

“I love that name too, Miranda. I hope you have Little Eli a brother soon. Then we want you to have him another sister,” Rose told her.

“Eli, now that you’re feeling better, all us women want babies,” Clarissa said and all of them turned to nod yes and smile at Eli and Miranda.

Clarissa was typing as fast as she could, putting down what was said, after what she said to Eli. She filled that sheet of paper and pulled it out, reaching to get another one. She wanted to write what she saw Eli and Miranda doing, as she sat on his lap.

The women took turns at the stove, stirring pots, making bread, baking a cake, making chicken and dumplings, and cooking a pork roast for the big homecoming supper.

Corinne looked out the kitchen window toward the river and saw Lorene and Howard sitting on the river bank side by side, leaning back on their arms.

“I think my sister may be enamored with Howard Claymore,” she said and laughed.

The others came to the window, looked out at them and smiled to each other.

“We need to get you a man now, Corrine,” Tin Yu said and they all agreed.

“I’m happy just the way I am. You already let me live here like I’m family. You let us have that diner car for free and now we get the rent off it since we’ve moved up here. I have all I need. Besides, I doubt I’ll ever meet a man who will make me feel the way my husband did,” she told them honestly.

“Corinne, have you met my friend Smitty?” Eli asked.

“Eli, I saw that big burly man the other day when he came over. Please don’t start on me about him. I doubt I could turn him down, no matter what he asked of me. He’s so tall and handsome and sort of bashful too,” she laughed and her face turned beet red as she put her hand over her mouth.

“Corrine, he’s a good, honest, hardworking man. Never been married, don’t cuss a whole lot and he’s always smilin’,” Eli said as he looked at her.

“Corinne, I doubt you could get him to stop talking about Eli long enough to court you anyway. That man thinks Eli is a mountain,” Rose said.

“Corinne, we all saw him cutting his eyes at you the other day when he was here. I bet he’ll ask Eli who you are, and are you married,” Eva said.

Juni, Catt, and Tin Yu all laughed. They knew she was right too, they saw him looking at Corrine.

“He’d make two of you, Corrine, you’d have to lay on top if you ever did anything with him,” Catt said and the women laughed again.

“I know what y’all are doing. I’ve seen all of you gang up on the younger girls when their young men were after them. I’ve already told you, I’m not interested,” she said, trying not to laugh.

“He sure would make you a fine man, Corrine,” Clarissa said, as she looked up from her typing.

“Eli, make them stop. They’ll make me blush when he comes over to see you,” Corrine said.

“Corrine, if he asks me anything about you, I’ll just tell him that you don’t like him and that will be the end of that,” Eli said, looking at her, not smiling.

“Eli, don’t hurt his feelings. Maybe he and I could be just friends, like Howard and Lorene.”

“Corinne, your sister Lorene will have that man in her bed in less than a week. I won’t be surprised if they’re married before Eli and Miranda,” Clarissa told her.

“That means I’ll have to find me another room, if she sleeps with him.”

“We’ll build more houses, starting this week. Carl, you and Donald need to go meet Williams at the lumber mill. We’ll need lots of houses up here for all the oil field men. Them soldiers are all wantin’ to find women, now that they’ll be out of the cavalry soon,” Eli told them.

“Eli, if I ask you something, will you tell me true?” Corrine asked, Smitty still on her mind.

“You know I will, Corinne. We like to have fun like this, but if you’re serious about not liking my friend Smitty, I’ll make sure he don’t even get close to you.”

“Eli, that wasn’t quite what I wanted to know. I wanted to know if you really thought he was a good man. I mean, well, I’m twenty nine years old and I want to have babies like all the other women. Smitty does look like a man who I could learn to like. I know I’m making a mess of what I wanted to say, but when he was here the other day, I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was looking at me and I was scared he just wanted a woman. I’m like Miranda said she was. I want to be married and have babies and I want a good man who will learn to love me,” Corinne said, tears on her face as she finally told the truth.

“Corinne, if I didn’t like Smitty as a man, I’d never even said what I did earlier. If I was gonna pick you a man, I’d pick that big blacksmith. He’s rough and raw, but he’s a good, honest, gentle man. When I told him about Mary, he had tears in his eyes for me, that I’d lost my wife.”

“Eli, will you talk to him and maybe ask him if he even saw me the other day?”

“Corinne, when Smitty comes over, I’ll ask him to take a walk with me, then ask you to go with us. Will you go if I do?”

“I’ll go, Eli. I’ll be shaking in my shoes, but I’ll walk with you and him. If he don’t like me, please don’t say anything about me wanting to know him and being scared of him at the same time.”

“Corinne, you smile up at that big man and he’ll be like a puppy in front of you. You’re a pretty woman. You’re still young and you’re so tall and thin. He’ll fall for you as soon as you smile at him, I just know he will,” Rose said.

“You really think so? I didn’t want to like him at first, then I kept looking at him and now I can’t wait until he comes back. I need to know if he likes me or not. I don’t know what I’d do if he did though, I’ve never been courted in my life. My Ma and Pa planned for me to wed the boy on the next farm back in Arkansas and I never met him until the day we got married. I liked him though and he was so kind and gentle. He was a little man, not much taller than Jefferson, but we learned to love each other. I missed him for a long time, after the bad men killed him and Lorene’s husband.”

“Corinne, we’ll all help you and you know Eli will never let any man hurt you or Lorene. You both are like sisters to us; beside that, you’ll look good with a baby in your belly,” Rose told her and they laughed at each other.

Corinne stood and walked over to the stove and cutting table, where the women were preparing the meal. They all hugged and gave her their blessings, pledging their support if she met and got to know Smitty.

“Doc, have you and Lettie been down to Tulsa to pick out a place for a clinic? Or do you want to build one on this side of the river?” Eli asked, as he and Doc finally got time to talk.

“We went down to the depot the other day to send a telegraph message and while we were there we looked at the empty piece of land by the trading post. I think that would be the best place we could build.”

“We need to see if that place is for sale and buy it if it is. Carl and Donald need to start building you a clinic already.”

“We asked the man in the trading post if it was for sale, he said it was his and he’d give us a deal on it, since we wanted to build a medical clinic.”

“We’ll go early tomorrow and buy it then. I need to get Jefferson to start his land buying business. He might want to start with helping you and Lettie buy that place.”

“I know he will, Eli. I’ll tell him about it when he comes back from the barn,” Doc said.

“Eli, let Doc Harrod and Lettie take a look at your bullet wound,” Miranda said and the whole room turned to look at her, then Eli. No one had spoken of him being shot.

“Eli Crow, did you get shot and not tell us when you came home? We’ll all gang up on you and make you hurt more than a bullet,” Rose scolded her brother.

“It wasn’t a bad wound. Miranda and Sissy doctored me with some tore up shirts until we got over to the ranch house. Then Don gave them some whiskey and they cleaned me up good and doctored me better.”

“Let me see where you were shot, Eli,” Doc said and Eli pulled his shirt up to show them the bandage on his side.

“I was just a passin’ shot, almost missed me,” he told them.

“Eli, you’re shot through and through!” Clarissa yelled at him when they all gathered around to look.

“He’s right though; it’s just a flesh wound and didn’t pass through the stomach cavity or any vitals. Eli, you heal faster than any human I’ve ever seen in all my days in the medical profession,” Doc told him.

“It’s my medicine chain Little Duck made for me from the big cats I killed. Only time I ever took it off was to let Duncan wear it when he was hurt.”

“Eli, I still want you to tell me that story sometime. What kind of cats were they?” Miranda said.

“Miranda, you need to let me read back all Duncan and Moses have told me about that incident. I can just think about it and I get chills and goose bumps. That’s when Kia, Michi, Lorene, Jon David, and Corrine all came back with them,” Clarissa told her.

“Let her read about all the rattlesnakes too. I read what you wrote when Jefferson told you about Sam and Belle Starr telling their version. It was as scary as the story about those black panthers, if you ask me,” Rose said.

“I don’t even like to read that one over again myself and I wrote it,” Clarissa laughed.

“All of you are making a big to do over nothing,” Eli said.

“Then show Miranda your arm where that black cat stayed locked on it after you cut the head off and Moses had to help you pry it off with his knife,” Clarissa said and shivered at the thought.

“Clarissa, one day I want to sit down and read some of your journal. All those stories sound amazing. You should put it all in a book and have it published,” Miranda told her.

“She’s already published some parts of it in newspapers in Fort Smith and even Little Rock,” Eva told Miranda.

“Clarissa, have you really? My father knows some people in the publishing business. He’s published some papers and two short stories himself,” Miranda said.

“I’d love to try and publish this journal, Miranda. I’d really like to wait until I write all about the oil drilling and the pecan harvest this fall. Then maybe I’ll start writing a second part, this one is getting so big.”

Eli, Duncan, Moses, and Joe walked out to the barn with Doc and the other men. Sure enough, one of the Walking Horse mares had dropped a colt. He was long legged and as frisky as a kid goat, playing in the barn. He had a big white spot on his right shoulder, down to his knee, and a big white spot on his left hind quarter, down to his hock. Joe knew his long legged Cheyenne Paint stud had made his mark on the Walking Horse mare’s colt.