Chapter 40

Eli waved for Willis to join them again, after he saw his men line the young cavalrymen up and sit them down by the wagons. Willis walked over just in time to hear Jon David talking...

“Don has told me all about that land deal, Jon David. Eli spoke of it the first time we met when he told me and my men to meet him here this fall. My men would turn around and fight off the whole United States Cavalry for a chance to own some of this land and have a family out here one day. I feel like I’m still dreaming of this, then I look at all of y’all and I know it’s coming true and already happening each day we live,” Willis told them as they stood around talking.

“Sergeant Willis, just wait until you and your men get back over to Tulsa and see how that country is changing. Folks are moving west and settling more of this wild country every day. When these unassigned lands open up, it won’t be many years until we’ll have a new state here, called Oklahoma,” Jon David told him.

“Y’all just call me Willis from now on. I wake up out here each day and there’s no bugle blowing in my ear and no call to mess and nobody hollerin’ in my face every time I turn around. I know me and my men have been blessed by the Man up yonder more’n any of us deserve. I’ll never be able to tell all of y’all what this means to me, let alone my men. I barely can write my name and don’t even know enough written words to read what papers I signed to get out of the cavalry.

“I got twenty men over there that were just poor, broke, down on their luck skinny-ass black-boys when they joined up to come out here. There’s not a one of them who can write his own name nor read it if another man writes it for them. But I got faith in my friend, Marshal Crow. I trust him with my life, just as my men do and I know all of y’all must feel the same way,” Willis told them.

“Willis, you and your men will live on the ranch at Crow Ridge and our women and kids will help teach each and every one of you to read and write. We’ll help you find wives and we’ll help you with the legal papers to have your names on a hundred and sixty acres of this land. Eli Crow saved me, my mother, and my aunt from sure death and even worse when I was about the age of those boys and girls over there. He adopted me and gave me his name. Like you and your men, I’d fight the devil bare handed for him, if I had to,” Jon David told them.

He continued... “You and your men will be a part of what we have and you’ll earn your way just like all of us have. I’ll be the first to tell you, we’re just about to drill for oil back there. All of you will be working on oil drilling rigs before winter and we hope to have the first well pumping oil from the ground by Christmas of this year.”

“Is there a lot of that oil back there in the ground? Does it earn a man lots of money?”

“There’s more than a lot of oil back there, Willis. Dad has also told me there’s just as much if not more over here where all of you will own land soon. We’ll not only be drilling for oil, we’ll all be oilmen one day.”

“Lord Have Mercy, Jon David. Let me get away from y’all. I can’t even think of all this at one time.” Willis laughed and walked away shaking his head as he went to gather up his men.

“I reckon it does sound big, coming at him all at once like that. But we’re all just like him, we’ve just seen it come at us slow and a little at a time. Now I know what it looks like to Eli when he looks off over yonder with his head cocked,” Moses said.

The Young Bucks and the girls were through with their assigned chores after they arrived and the first thing they did was go find Cookie. He had his cook wagon stocked and his utensils stored inside, ready for what he told them was to be the biggest pee-can roundup the west has ever seen.

They laughed, and he slapped his leg and laughed with them.

“I see all you Crow kids have added two little red headed sisters since you was here last. There will never be too many women in this big ol’ world out here. I reckon I can tell who they’re sweet on too, the way Eli and Isaac are stuck to them so tight.”

“Cookie, meet Kit and Ruby Halloran. They and their Gramps came to live with us a while back. He can’t see or he’d be here with us. Kit, you’n Ruby say hey to Cookie. He makes some fine cornbread fritters right off the back of his wagon,” Little Eli said as he introduced them.

“We’re proud to meet you Cookie, we’ve already heard a lot about you and your cook wagon on the Little Tree cattle drive,” Kit said.

“Are you gonna drive your cook wagon out there and be there when we round up the pee-cans?” Ruby asked, laughing as she did.

“Yep, I reckon it’ll be better if I did, that way you working folks can get more done in a day. These are some of the biggest pee-cans we ever saw that wasn’t grown in Texas.”

“Have you ever rounded up pee-cans before, Cookie?” Lee Yu asked as she took his wooden spoon and stirred the bowl he had been stirring.

“Lee Yu, I have been on pee-can roundups like you wouldn’t believe. Back there in Texas where we come from, we growed pee-cans as big as watermelons. It took two men to pick one up and we had to crack them with blacksmith hammers. One pee-can would make a pee-can pie as big as that iron cooking pot over there.”

“Pee-can pie? I never heard of one.” Lilly Beth joined the fun.

“Lilly Beth, you just wait. I got enough pie dough already made up to make all ten of my big pie pans full of pee-can pie. I’ll make them up and cook them tonight for y’all to have for dinner tomorrow. I’ll even give you the secret recipes so you can make pee-can pies when you go back home.”

“Cookie, are you telling us the truth?” Lee Yu asked as she grinned and looked at the other girls.

“Lee Yu, I’d never tell a tall tale about my pies to any of you Crow young’uns. Just you wait and see, you’ll be wantin’ a pee-can pie every day of the week when you get a taste of Cookie’s secret pee-can pie recipe.”

“Do you want us to shell some of these pee-cans for your pies? Momma showed us how when we camped last night,” Lee Yu told him.

“That would sure be a big help. I got a bucket full over there that needs to be cracked and picked out. Be sure to get all the little pieces of hulls and the cobs picked out of ‘em.”

“Pee-cans don’t have cobs, Cookie. Corn has cobs,” Lilly Beth said, laughing as the others did too.

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Well, pee-cans have that brown bitter stuff inside that you have to pick out or they’ll taste bad.”

“We’ll get them cracked and picked out for you. Do you really want all these pecans in this big water bucket cracked and picked out?”

“I sure do, it’ll take lots of big pee-cans to make all the pee-can pies I got pie pans for.”

The boys went to the tool box on the side of the lead wagon and took out six claw hammers. They started cracking pecans by placing them on one of the wide flat stones Cookie had around his outdoor fireplace. While holding the ends with thumb and forefinger, they hit the pecan lightly, then rolled it and hit it again on the other side.

As soon as the boys cracked the pecans, they raked them to the side, where the girls gathered around to pick the pecan halves and pieces out to put into a large wooden bowl.

Eli and the other men gathered around where Willis was talking to the young cavalrymen. Some wanted to return to Ft. Reno while others wanted to stay with Sergeant Willis and his men.

“I can’t tell you men what to do or not to do. All of you know that if you don’t go back, you’ll be a deserter and they’ll hunt you down. If you’ll go back and report to Lieutenant McClanahan, he’ll more’n likely listen to your story, that is if you still want out. If you have your years in and haven’t re-enlisted, you can get out in a month or so. If not, you’ll have to serve your time just like any other man.”

Eli told them, “Any of you young men who want to get out, and can, if you’ll go back and do it right, I’ll hire you over at Tulsa to work for us. I already got enough trouble with the cavalry without helping you desert,” as they sat listening to Sergeant Willis.

“You heard the marshal, he’s a fair man and if he tells you that you’ve got a job waiting on you, you can get out knowing you’ll have wages to earn and a better life to live,” Sergeant Willis told them.

“Marshal, I got less than a year, will you have a job for me then?” A young man asked.

“You come see me in Tulsa when you get out. We’ll have plenty of jobs and we’ll need men who’ll work hard for their wages too.”

“Marshal, my time’s already up and they’ve been after me to re-enlist. I never did ‘cause I wanted out. Do I have to go back now?” The young man named Carter asked.

“You’ll need to go back and do it right, like Sergeant Willis told you. They’ll hunt you down and take you back in irons and you’ll have to serve time in prison if they do.”

“Marshal, my name is Otis. I’m the sentry who told you that you could leave me and not tie me up and I’d be there when you got back. My time is up too, like Carter’s. Would you want to take a chance on me, even though I’ve been in the patrols that had skirmishes with you and even with your daughter and her man?”

“Otis, did you pull a gun on my daughter or her man?”

“No Sir, Marshal Eli. I was afraid I’d be killed the way them two was shootin.”

“Then you go back with the others. Any of you who want to, can have a job with me, but you’ll have to bring your papers with you. I’ll not be hiring men who’ve deserted the army, though I despise some of your officers.”

“Marshal, me and my brother’s time is up too, we want to come with Otis and Carter,” another young boy spoke up.

“You go back and do it right, then come see me ready to work.”

“Sergeant, what do we tell Lieutenant McClanahan when he asks us what happened out here?” Another one asked.

“You tell him the truth, that you were south of unassigned lands on private property owned by Marshal Eli Crow, when you were jumped by Marshal Crow and his friends. Tell it just like it was, not leaving out anything.”

“Marshal, how long are you and your family gonna be down here?” Carter asked.

“We’ll be here at least three weeks, if not a month. If you men get out by then and want to pick up pecans, we’ll pay you wages and you’ll have a job when we get back to Tulsa too.”

“Marshal, I got a question.” A young man spoke up in back of the others.

“Go ahead.”

“What if they want us to lead another patrol out here to look you up?”

“I reckon you’ll have to do what you’re ordered to do, mister. Just be reminded that you’ll all die if you come back out here against me and my family. You can tell your Lieutenant that too. I’ve had enough of this and I’ll kill the next man who comes against my family, whether he’s on my land or not.”

“Then they’ll just have to throw me in the stockade. I ain’t coming back and be killed, knowing I’m wrong in what I’m doing.”

When the cavalrymen had saddled up and mounted, Willis stopped them.

“You men go out and pick up the others. If you can’t get Lieutenant DeBona down, just tell Lieutenant McClanahan where he is,” he told them.

“Willis, what do you think will happen when they get back?” Eli asked as they stood watching the men ride off.

“I figure Lieutenant McClanahan will ride out here to see you, Marshal.”

“You think he’ll come with his mind set on taking me prisoner or trying to kill me?”

“No, Marshal. He’ll more’n likely come to talk to you and try to put a stop to this. He’s a sensible man.”

“I hope you’re right, Willis, but I reckon I need to know where you’d stand if he pulled a gun.”

“Marshal, I’m with you until I’m done on this earth. I never met a man like you before in my life. I aim to see just what it is that you tell me and my men will make us rich one day.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Willis. I’d hate to kill you... I’ve come to like you a lot already.”

“I’ve come to like you a lot already too, Marshal. You done hired us and you treat us like white men; we’ll stand with you no matter who comes against you or your family now.”

While Cookie was mixing and rolling out more pie dough for his pecan pies, the women joined Clara in the ranch house and prepared supper, with enough food for the next day.

When supper was ready, the men and the twelve young’uns filed through, filling their plates, then headed back out to eat. The women sat at the table eating, and when they heard Bill and Jack Robertson start playing their music, they walked out to join them. They sat around the open fireplace where Cookie was baking his pecan pies, drinking coffee and singing songs in the cool fall night.

The next morning early they were all up, drinking coffee and making plans for the big pecan harvest to start. The fall air was cool and crisp, but not as cold as it had been when the frosts came earlier.

“Willis, you and your men ever thrashed pecan trees before?” Eli asked.

“We have Marshal, but never as many big trees as you got here on this land. We used some big hammers and climbed up in the tops of the trees to hit the upper limbs. If them pecans are loose in the hulls, they’ll come down like hail in a hail storm.”

“Moses brought a load of big hammers, I reckon he’s thrashed a few trees too,” Eli told them.

“I brought some plow line too so we can tie a rope up high and two men stand on the ground and shake the limbs. We used to thrash the smaller tees that way and use the big hammers on the tall trees,” Moses said.

“Eli, we have a lot of leaves on the ground after the frosts. My men and Spotted Owl’s men have been raking them back where we could, but we’ll still have to scratch around to find the pecans,” Don told him.

“We’ll find them, Don. Once we get the pecans on the ground and start picking them up, we’ll need some sacks or baskets to put them in, then lift them into the wagons,” Jon David said.

“We brought a few big baskets from Little Tree, the last time we went. I think we got maybe a dozen or so. We can get some more the first trip we make. What we did bring back was fifty wool army blankets. We can lay them under the trees before we thrash them. That way, we’ll gather up a lot more pecans faster,” Don told them.

“Don, that’s a fine plan, we’ll let the Young Bucks, Howard, Jefferson, and Jon David drive the first wagons over to Little Tree while we thrash more trees,” Eli said, looking at his sons when they heard him.

With their plans set, they moved out into the pecan groves to spread their blankets and start picking up pecans. The former men of the Buffalo Soldiers were already climbing trees with big hammers tied to their belts and long ropes over their shoulders. As soon as they were up in the higher limbs, they started hammering. Pecans began to fall like rain and they hit the ground by the hundreds.

Some of the men had climbed nearby trees and tied ropes on the higher, outer limbs. As they dropped the loose end of the ropes, then men on the ground began pulling and jerking on the ropes, making the limbs whip back and forth, causing pecans to hit the blankets so thick they were scooped up by the handfuls and dropped into the baskets.

The women and children were on their knees gathering pecans when they looked up to see Spotted Owl and his men and women picking up pecans under nearby trees. They even had men and boys in the trees thrashing them by climbing out on the limbs and shaking them.

Howard had his cattle scales set up under a large tree limb, near a huge pile of pecans. They loaded the first three wagons, weighing all the pecans before dumping them into the wagons. They planned to weigh one wagon load each day, just to have an average of the pecans they sent to market.

Don’s ranch hands hitched the teams to the tall-sided wagons and drove them out to where the pecan harvest had started. Within minutes, they were dumping baskets loaded with pecans into the first wagon as Howard and Moses weighed them.

Some men had grain scoops and used them to toss the pecans from piles on the ground into other wagons when there were no baskets. They gathered up the corners of the heavy blankets and pulled them up to dump pecans into the wagons too.

By mid-afternoon, they had ten wagons loaded with an average of forty-six hundred pounds of pecans each. The men decided they would send them to on Little Tree, while the others loaded the remaining wagons.

Duncan went with them, driving one wagon as the six Young Bucks, Howard, Jefferson, and Jon David drove the others. They knew it would take them a day and a half to get there and another day and a half to return. In the meantime, the pecan harvest would continue, piling pecans in huge piles until the wagons returned.

Early the third morning, Eli sent Willis and seven of his men toward Little Tree with sixteen more wagons loaded with pecans. They tied a team of mules and wagon behind the wagons they drove, just as they had on the long trip down from Tulsa.

The next day, four more of the Buffalo Soldiers headed out to little Tree with the last eight wagons loaded. Though they had counted on a day and a half each way they knew they’d make a little better time on the way back empty.

As soon as the empty wagons returned, they were quickly reloaded, with the help of the others who stopped picking up pecans long enough to load the wagons and send them on their way back to Little Tree. The returning drivers, except for the Young Bucks swapped off with the other men, keeping the wagons moving day and night except to feed and water the mules. The six young bucks started tying teams and loaded wagons behind their wagons like the others did and never missed a trip the whole time.