Chapter 10

It made me feel good to see the results of the surveying. It made me hope that the court system might save the Cherokee and other Indian people from the slaughter that was in their future.

I meant to save my children if I could save no one else. We stopped at Smith's on the way home and picked up a few staples, and bought some grain for the stock.

When we got home, the horses were all to be seen near the cabin. I called to them and put some grain out for them at the barn. They all came up and were eating and getting used to the two new horses.

The little ones were all about weaned by now. We had force weaned Blue, War Bonnet's little one, but she seemed to be growing fine. I had been making sure she had some extra grain, and would again for a while.

I asked that when anyone went riding anywhere that they would ride Brownie, Sis, War Bonnet, Toots, or Knothead to get them used to being ridden again. They all said they would.

Trey and Jack were buddies, where you saw one you saw the other. Little Cloud was nearly as bad, but too little to really follow around yet. My wives also loved Jack and petted him up a storm.

Everyone did the same thing to the baby horses. They were just big pets.

My brides had me working hard on putting in a garden spot. I cut logs and split them into rails, dug postholes and set the fence in place. I plowed up the ground and planted the garden seeds the girls wanted and basically minded what they told me.

We harvested the garden crops. We dried or otherwise stored the excess. I had no other calls for my law enforcement. I was glad the Cherokee were a civilized and law abiding people.

The end of the summer rolled around. I told my family that I needed to make a trip into Fort Smith to meet with Mr. Adkins, the lawyer, and Mr. Weiss.

They all started getting ready. We left the next morning. I drove the wagon, Swan and Sunshine both were riding. Swan was on the gelding, Joe, and Sunshine was on Fireball. Jack came along and either ran along or rode in the wagon depending on whether he was tired or not, I think.

My hunters had been taking Jack along with them for a month, and were very pleased with his abilities. He would point birds, and turkeys. He would tree squirrels and run rabbits and deer.

Between Swan, Sunshine and Jack, we had plenty of game on the trip. Jack was also a good watchdog.

We arrived in Fort Smith in 16 days, the trip went really smoothly. I went to see Mr. Adkins, and apologized for missing the last payment. We just didn't have anyone coming to town. He waved it off as nothing and I paid him the $5.00 we owed him. I told him that the council wanted to have the deed recorded once the survey was completed and I would like him to look into amending the treaty by securing United States citizenship status for the Cherokee. I told him I was particularly interested in getting Constitutional protections for these people.

He said he would work on it.

I stopped by to see Mr. Weiss. He was smiling when he saw me come into the shop. "I have received notification of acceptance of our patent on the revolver, he told me.

"Excellent," I replied. "How do you propose we get into production."

He wanted to start an assembly line process here in Fort Smith, so he could oversee the production.

"I was thinking that we might be better off to contract with a machine shop for the first production, and train our technicians to produce what we needed after the contract ran out. That would allow us to begin production in a timely manner." I told him.

He said he agreed and would pursue that avenue.

I asked him about the ammunition.

He suggested that we just contract with an ammunition producer for what we needed.

I agreed.

He had finished up the rifle prototypes. They were all nifty, lightweight rifles that pointed well. He had drawn up the designs, and sent them to the patent office.

He had made sights that I thought were really innovative. They were robust, large aperture sights for short range, with a notch type sight cut into the top of the sight for longer-range use.

He had made the guns beautifully proportional. This had caused the ammunition length to be a somewhat limited. Our calibers would be 32-30 with a 200 grain bullet for a light rifle, 38-45 with a 260 grain bullet for the medium rifle and 44-60 with a 360 grain bullet for the large bore. The rifles would weigh seven, eight and nine pounds respectively. I suggested a carbine length for the light rifle also be made available.

I asked Mr. Weiss what he thought about putting the factory for the guns on tribal lands and training the work force from Cherokee people.

He didn't see where that would be a problem if the logistics could be worked out.

I told him I would speak to the tribal council at the winter meeting and see what they thought about it. A factory near Smith's Trading post might be very workable. The freight wagons were already making the trip for Mr. Smith.

I told him that we loved Jack, and were very thankful for him.

He said that he had given away one other puppy, but kept the other two, since Callie was getting older now.

We said our good byes, and I went back to the camp. Sunshine had killed a turkey. We had a good supper and a good rest.

The next morning the girls wanted to shop, so we all went to the general store. They all decided that we needed a wood range for our house. We got a range with 6 eyes and an oven, and a container to keep water warm. I also got stovepipe to run out the rear of the range and up the chimney. I thought we could use the range for heat also, and quit using the fireplace. The storeowner also talked the girls into some more cook and bake ware. We bought a couple of sacks of flour, and some baking spices.

I told my family that we didn't have much money left from our rewards, but we did have some gold coins left from the Wombles. Swan and Sunshine both suggested that we get some more caps, powder, lead, packing, birdshot and buckshot. They all agreed that #0 buckshot and #6 birdshot would suit them fine. We bought 2 bags of buckshot and 2 bags of birdshot. I paid with our paper money, since I figured the gold would retain its value in any case.

We had a fine trip back to our ranch. One day, about half way home, Jack was off hunting by himself and started barking. I went to see what was happening. Jack had found a cow bogged up in a spring hole. I called the girls and had them bring the mules. Rock and Rowdy were gentle and came easily. I climbed in the hole with the cow and got my rope around her behind her front legs and the mules hauled her out.

There weren't any farms near here so we took the cow with us. She seemed none the worse for wear, so we tied her to the back of the wagon and after a few false starts she was following easily.

When we got to Smith's I talked to him about the possibility of putting a firearms factory near his trading post.

He thought it would be good for his business.

I asked about freight hauling.

He said the freighters had a regular run for him and he was sure they would be glad to haul whatever we needed on the same route.

I told him that if anyone came looking for a missing brown cow, that we had found her in a bog and she is at our ranch.

We picked up some salt and grain for the stock and headed home.

Pet, the cow, fit right in with the other stock and caused no trouble at all.

It was all the four of us could do to get the range set up in place. It was truly heavy. We got it sitting squarely on the floor and ran two pieces of pipe up the chimney. The girls had me build a box around the base of the stove about 18" out from the legs. They brought in clean sand and put it 3 inches deep under the stove and around it.

"We don't want the house on fire," Star said.

The stove worked great, but I had to cut the wood smaller for it than for the fireplace.

We went buffalo hunting since the weather was getting cooler. We found a fairly large herd and killed two young bulls from the fringe. Swan was still amazed at the range of the rifle.

We drove the wagon up to the carcasses and began to skin and bone out the meat. I asked Swan why she always took her shotgun with her.

"Husband, these are dangerous lands. I can't let my family go defenseless," she said with a smile.

We finished up with the meat and moved away from the remains. We camped by a small stream and washed up and slept under the wagon.

Jack waked us up barking in the night. I got up and went to see what was causing the problem. I saw a panther bowed up at Jack. Jack was wisely staying out of the way. I shot the panther and was turning when I heard another shot, and was knocked to the ground.

I was under the corpse of a second panther. Swan had shot it in mid leap. Swan had also shot me. One buckshot had hit me in the deltoid muscle and gone right through. The panther had eight holes in it, so the buckshot hit the lion and me.

Sunshine was very upset with Swan. "You have shot our husband," she yelled. Sunshine came over and was stripping off my shirt and talking sweet to me.

Swan was squalling, "Oh, Husband, I am so sorry for hurting you. I didn't see the other lion soon enough."

I was leaking a good bit, but the bleeding was soon stopped by Sunshine.

Star was so upset that all she could do was sit by the wagon, hold Trey and cry.

After I was bandaged, I went to Star and held her. "Burr," she said, "God is watching our family, or you would be dead from that lion. Swan didn't even see it until it was in the air to kill you."