Chapter 43

“Willis, you and your men get things wrapped up here and go back that way now. All of you go down to Perryman’s, I’ll go on ahead and have us a separate account set up for all our supplies. We’ll get you outfitted with boiler overalls, gloves, and slickers, then make sure he orders more. We can’t be talking about drilling for oil though, or we’ll have people all over the place out here,” Jon David told them.

“Willis, when you and all the men get your rain suits, slickers, rain hats, and gloves together, you need to get your personal things set up at your bunkhouses too. We have a cook hired to cook two meals a day, one at each shift change. There’ll be one crew coming in and one leaving shortly after that. You men need to get a small lard bucket or something you can bring your dinner to work in. You’ll be eating one meal on the job. We can’t have men coming to work hungry or going to bed hungry,” Eli told him.

“Eli, you done gave each of us more money than ever we knew was in the whole world, now you gonna cook for us and buy our clothes?” Willis asked with a big grin.

“Willis, you and your men hear me now, you’ll earn every dime you get from Crow Ridge Oil Drilling Company. In a month’s time, from what Albert and the others have told me, you’ll be so tired and wore out, you’ll wish you was back on them old cavalry horses riding the unassigned lands again.”

“Eli, you been right about everything you ever told us up to now ... but this time you’re wrong. We already have it better than since the day we were born. Each of us have ten times more money already than we ever had all put together in our lives. Jon David told me this morning that him and his wife has done wrote some letters to the Negro churches in Kansas City and Little Rock asking for some young women of child bearing age to write and send pictures if they wanted to come out here and see about marrying up with us.

“He said in less than two week’s time, we’d be getting letters with pictures of all the women back there that wanted a man like us. He was showing me one of them letters where he told all about us; I couldn’t read but a few words of it, but he read it to me twice...

“I never knew this bunch of old raggedy-ass, wooly looking black men looked as good as Jon David told in that letter we did,” Willis said and they all laughed as they walked back to the wagons and horses that were tied to the hitching rail two hundred feet away from the drilling rig.

“Maybe we’ll strike oil before Christmas like Little Eli was hoping for. You and your men would have time to meet a woman if they came here at that time.”

“How would they get here? I figured if a woman needed a man that bad, she wouldn’t have the money to travel either.”

“If you pick one out, we’ll send her the money by telegraph. It won’t cost but maybe ten to fifteen dollars one way. If she gets here and she don’t like you, send her back and tell her she has to pay her own way.”

“That’s what Jon David put in them letters too. I wonder if we’ll even hear from one woman, Eli, let alone twenty seven.”

“You mean he wrote letters for the six white boys too? I didn’t know that.”

“He told me they asked him to. Them boys are all young enough to make good husbands and daddies if they’re a mind to. All the rest of us are getting on up close to forty years old, Eli.”

“You got a lot of good years left, Willis. When you get a young wife, she’ll have you some young’uns and that alone will make you feel young again. Just think, Willis, they’ll all be waiting for you when you get home from work. There’s nothing like the feeling of a man playing with his own babies when he gets home. All of you will have some acres and a house over there near Pecan Ridge in a few years and just look at what you’ll have to offer a woman and a family then.”

“Eli, I swear. You sure can paint some pretty pictures in my head, listenin’ to all you say. I just hope me and the others live to see half of what you talk about. We’ll be even more happy than we are now and we already feel like we’re livin’ in the clouds, we’re so happy.

“I almost got tears in my old eyes just now, when you talked about me coming home to a wife and kids. I never thought I’d ever live to see the day.”

“Jon David, what on earth are y’all doing with all of them black hired hands over there? It’s too cold to be plantin’ cotton,” Mrs. Perryman said when Jon David went over to set up an account for their labor.

“We’ve bought some tractors and mules and we’re plowing up a lot of that old rolling hill land back there. We’re thinking about planting cotton on some of it in the spring and some wheat next fall. We can’t get anything over on you, Mrs. Perryman.”

“Son, that was just a wild guess I had. I never really thought you’d be doing that. We all heard y’all were building up another big herd to sell up in Kansas City like the last one y’all had. We heard y’all shipped off over three hundred cattle car loads of cows last spring. Seems like word gets out quick when there’s talk of what’s happening over on Crow Ridge.”

“We are building another herd here on this ranch and Dad bought another big piece of land from some of his friends in the Chickasaw and Cheyenne Tribes. We’re putting more and more cattle down there now.”

“Lordy be, Jon David, if that don’t beat all. Them young’uns come in the other day and sold us a wagonload of pecans and told us they come from down there. They said y’all sent forty boxcar loads at fifty thousand pounds a load, to New York City. I reckon Marshal Eli is gonna get out of the law business now that he’s into pecans and cattle, and already gettin’ into cotton farming like he is in a big way.”

“He and I have talked about that too. I’m not real sure he’s ready to give up his badge just yet though.”

“Jon David, if he’s talking about it, he’s thinking about it. With Tulsa growing like it is and new people coming here all the time, it won’t be long until we’ll have a town marshal and some sheriffs over here like in other places. Somebody said one day here in the store that we already have almost three hundred people living in this town now. We might not need all them marshals you got livin’ over yonder at your place then. He oughta think it over good, they might not even need him no more.”

“You may be right, Mrs. Perryman. But if I know my Dad, he’ll hang onto it a few more years anyway.”

“Just a few more years, huh? Well, I’d sure hate to see him not be a marshal anymore. He’s sure been a good one and hauled some bad folks away from this little river town in the past ten years or so, I’m here to tell you.”

A tall man in dirty overalls spoke up after listening to their conversation. “I’ll tell you some folks he best be hauling from around here. Marshal or no marshal, we don’t like niggers in Tulsa!”

“Mister, I don’t know who you are, but if you want to meet Marshal Crow personally, just keep up that sort of talk around here. These black men we’ve hired are his personal friends who just happened to have been in the United States Cavalry until about two months ago. They were Buffalo Soldiers, I know you’ve heard of them,” Jon David told the man.

“I don’t give a damn if they were ridin’ buffaloes and chasin’ soldiers, we don’t need none of ‘em around here. Next thing you know, they’ll be bringing in women and all of’em will have a house full of little black pickaninnies runnin all over the place like it was back down south where I come from...

...”What are you gonna do then, Mrs. Perryman? When you have a herd of them damn nigger pickaninnies come runnin’ in your store? You gonna wait on ‘em or tell’em to leave?”

“I’ve already waited on those Negro men just a while ago and they’re some nice men with a lot more manners than some folks I know around here. They told me they were working for Marshal Crow and his family. If you’re not careful, Marshal Crow will be lookin’ you up for tryin to get up in the middle of his business,” Mrs. Perryman told the man as she shook her finger at him – red in the face.

“I’m not scared of no God Damned Indian, no matter if he is a marshal.”

“This is his son you’re standing in front of, Turk, and we all know how Marshal Crow feels about his family. I suggest you leave now,” Mr. Perryman said as he walked over.

“I’ll leave, but I’ll tell everyone I know that you folks are sympathizers with them niggers that Marshal Crow’s done brung in here. You may just get a visit from some fellers wearin’ pillowcase hats if’n you’re not careful.”

“If you’re threatening us with the Ku Klux Klan, you can just leave this minute and never come back,” Perryman said, pointing to the door as the other men in the trading post looked over to where the loud conversation was taking place.

The six Young Bucks had walked into the trading post about the time talk got loud between Jon David and the tall man. The Bucks moved apart as the man turned to stomp out the door, mumbling something about all the fuckin’ niggers and Indians to himself as he left.

The Bucks turned and walked back out on the front porch, then walked over to sit on the edge of the porch as the man got on an old mule and rode south out of town.

“Do you know him?” Caleb turned his head and looked at Eli.

“Nope, never saw him before. Any of you know him?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he may be part of that family of older boys we ran out of town not long ago,” Micah said.

“Micah, you really think so?” Isaac asked.

“I’ve seen him talking to them before, like they were together. He sort of resembles the oldest one a lot, the one Eli whacked upside the head with that shovel handle.”

“He does kind of resemble that one. We may need to take a closer look at him,” Eli said. They looked toward the man one more time as he turned his mule west.

“I say we take a ride,” Ezra said, spitting on the ground between his feet, his eyes pulled down tight, not even looking at his brothers.

“We got an hour before we need to head back. I say we ride out of town a ways and look things over too. We haven’t been out that way in a long time,” Micah said as they all stood and stretched, before bending to step under the hitching rail and mount up.

“Where you Bucks headed?” Jon David asked as he walked out of the trading post behind them.

“We were just about to ride out of town and circle back over to see if Smitty’s back at his shop. We’ll be back home in an hour or so, in time for class,” Eli said.

“See you Bucks back at the house,” Jon David told them and left.

The six boys turned their horses between two buildings and headed west. As soon as they were behind the buildings, they turned back to the right and rode through the trees for over a quarter of a mile. They jumped to the ground, tying their horses up, running for over a hundred yards as hard as they could.

They were squatted down in a growth of young cedar trees near the wagon road when the man rode his mule up to the old dilapidated shack and got off. Four young men came around the run-down shack and met him at the porch.

They were the same ones who had been rude to the woman and her girls in front of Perryman’s. Micah pointed toward the men and the Bucks looked from one to the other and nodded in agreement.

“Where ya been, Pa? We been lookin for ya.” The oldest asked. He wore a wool knit cap pulled down over his ears, but the Bucks already knew he was the one who lost one ear to the hickory shovel handle.

“Been down to Perryman’s to see if I could find out if it was true about that damned Indian Marshal bringing them niggers in here. It’s true alright, I saw that lawyer son of his in there. He was makin’ it good with the Perryman’s for them black men to buy stuff there on his account.”

“We don’t like them niggers about as much as we don’t like them Indians, do we Pa?” The youngest said.

“Hell naw we don’t, and we aim to do something about it too. Ain’t none of them fools back there got sense enough to see what’s fixin’ to happen around here. If them damn sorry-ass niggers get set up here with these damn lazy-ass Indians, we’ll be saddled with all their sorry, lazy asses the rest of our lives.”

“You got anything in mind for handlin’ that bunch before they get settled in around here?”

“I reckon I got a few things in mind, I just don’t want to talk about ‘em right now. I’ll get with your uncle Soapy in the mornin’ and we’ll come up with somethin’ for sure.”

“He’s been laid up drunk for a week now, Pa. He may not even know you’re there.”

“That’s just like that sorry-ass brother of mine. Hell, he’s as bad as them lazy-ass niggers and Indians, if you ask me. Did you boys get that batch of corn liquor poured up in them stone jugs, like I told you?”

“We got some of it, Pa, but we forgot to cut it like you told us. We got to go back and cut them first six jugs in half, then we’ll pour the rest of that batch up.”

“Go get it done then and don’t be lettin’ Soapy have no more. Hell, he’s gonna kill his damn self if he keeps on drinkin’ that shit straight the way he does.”

John David caught up with Eli and the others at the barn and told them about the conversation with the Perryman’s and the man known as Turk. He wanted them to know, before the Buffalo Soldiers went back over there and became involved in something for no reason of their own.

“I don’t reckon I know of a man called Turk. What does he look like?” Eli said.

“Eli, he’s the one they all call Turkey ... you know him, we all do,” Duncan told him.

“Turkey said all that about the men we’ve hired to work here? Hell, he’s never worked a day since we started coming through here ten years ago, Duncan.”

“I know, Eli. Wonder why he’s so set on causin’ trouble for them men just ‘cause they’re black. Hell fire, the first job I ever had, I was nine years old and working for a black man and his wife on a little old spread back in Arkansas. They were the hardest working folks I ever saw too.”

“It’s just that some men look at the black man as if he’s still a slave and doesn’t deserve what the whites have, even if he works for it,” Jon David said.

“Jon David, I reckon that makes sense for the black man and the Indian too. You reckon that will ever change, or will we always have to fight that battle just to be free to make a living and work for a better life? The way I see it, if a man is willing to work and make something of himself, ain’t no one else got a say in it,” Eli said.

“Dad, I’d like to think it will change one day, but right now, it’s too fresh on people’s minds and some just want to be above others, no matter who they are.”

“I reckon you’re right. We run up on it all the time out here, and no matter how hard we try to overlook it, some just won’t let it rest.

“Moses, I know we’ve talked about this before and you being part black and part Indian too, you must’ve seen more of this than I have. I don’t know how you keep a cool head when you see this. I get so mad sometimes I have to make myself walk away to keep from killing a man.”

“Eli, most of my life it’s just been me when that stuff started and I knew I couldn’t whup the world. I didn’t want to die just yet, so I took a lot of it and went on. There was a few times I did let it get to me though and one time I got my butt whupped bad when three men jumped on me, after another one started cussin’ me and I waylaid him. I’ve had my good times though and whupped a few men ‘cause they cussed me and called me names. I reckon that was as good a feeling as I ever had, until I met you and Duncan. After I got to know the two of you, I knew that as long as we were together, no man would walk on us or cuss us again just because of who we are.”

“Jon David, for now just tell the men, and the white boys too, that we’ll have the Bucks go to the store for them and do their buying, since they’ll be too busy starting tomorrow anyway.”

“That may be best for now, Dad. Maybe when we become a state, more good people will come here and we’ll be able to put the hate and prejudice behind us.”

“We need to find that whiskey still and fix them good,” Little Eli whispered as they hunkered down near the old cabin and listened.

“We’ll have to come back one night after dark. Right now, we better get our butts across that river or we’ll be fixed good. We got classes in just a few minutes,” Ezra said.

“Let’s go Bucks, we’ll find that whiskey still later, then come back and make sure there’s nothing left of it,” Caleb told his brothers as they hurried back to their horses.

The six of them ran into the school room just as their sisters and the Cherokee girls and boys were sitting down. The Bucks were grinning and the sisters knew they had been up to something, or were planning something!

Tulsa, Indian Territory Crow Ridge Cattle Company Crow Ridge Oil Drilling Rig # 1 The Mary Connor Crow November 28, 1884

Eli had told the Barkley brothers to hitch up five teams this morning. The whole family was riding over to see the drilling of the first oil well start up. With Tin Yu’s help, Lee Yu and Lilly Beth had painted a big board sign to hang on the railing:

Crow Oil Drilling Rig # 1 The Mary Connor Crow Started Drilling 11-28-84 Struck Oil 12--84

They were going to fill in the date as soon as the well struck oil. The whole family knew this would happen. They just knew it would.

Before they reached the drilling site, they could look across the open range and see the lights of two dozen coal oil storm lanterns burning brightly in the dark.

“It looks like Christmas from here,” Lilly Beth said as they huddled in the wagons, wrapped in coats and blankets.