Cherokee

Cherokee by Giles Tippette Read Free Book Online

Book: Cherokee by Giles Tippette Read Free Book Online
Authors: Giles Tippette
this way with four good horses and plenty of powder and shot and damn little money left over. But we figured we’d eat. We’d heard there was plenty of game and anything you stuck in the ground would grow. Heard there was miles and miles of open country with nary a soul to bother you. Well, we was damn fool kids or that would have told us something right there. If the country was so wonderful, how come it wasn’t full of people? We’d heard about the Comanches and that they was supposed to be powerful bad, but we’d been around the Cherokees and we didn’t figure the Comanches could be that much worse. We’d also heard a little about Mexican banditos, but we wasn’t scared of the devil himself, so what was a few outlaws?
    â€œSo on we come. Full of piss and vinegar and already figuring out how we was going to spend all the money we was gonna make. Took us about a week to figure out we’d cut ourselves out a job of work. Took about a month to come to the conclusion we might have made a mistake. And that month was mostly spent building a dugout cabin. I can damn near see the little knoll we cut it into from here. Yonder, just beyond that far windmill. Course there wasn’t no windmills in them days. But if you’d of seen that dugout—wasn’t no more than eight feet across in any direction—you’d of asked what we was doing the rest of the time because we couldn’t have spent no more than a day and a half building such a shelter. But a month was what it took. Nearest timber of any size was four miles away on Caney Creek, and that was just willow and cottonwood. Reason we couldn’t make it no bigger’n eight feet in any direction was we couldn’t get no saplings or small logs that was longer than that in a straight line. And of course, we’d dug it into the side of that hump so we could use the earth for most of the walls. Except the earth was so damn wet it just oozed. So after that we had to go six miles to find clay on upper Caney Creek, and haul that back and stick the clay to the walls over a patchwork of branches. Then we had to build a damn fire in the damn dugout and harden the clay. Well, anytime it takes you a month just to build a temporary camp, you can bet you ain’t getting no work done that would put a dime in your pocket.”
    â€œWhat about the cattle?”
    He cut his eyes around at me. “Cattle? More like wild animals you be talkin’ about. You remember—ten years ago, I guess, maybe more—when you started talking to me about bringing in some of them little gentle northern cattle to try and calm these Longhorns down and fatten ’em up? I remember you saying killing two horses to bring in one cow wasn’t good business. Well, them Longhorns you was talking about was as tame as kittens next to them brutes me and Charlie was tryin’ to gather. An’ we didn’t have but two horses apiece, an’ them worn to a frazzle a week after we started trying to gather cattle.”
    I was getting a little impatient. “All right, I’m real interested in this pioneer business, not like I ain’t heard it a dozen times before. But what has it got to do with what you want me to do and why?”
    â€œWa’l, damnit, just have a little patience, can’t you? I’m tryin’ to make the point that Charlie had damn good reason to pull out. I didn’t think it at the time. I thought he was runnin’ out on me. An’ it was that attitude that caused me to think it was all right what I did. Of course lookin’ back, I can see that Charlie done the right thing, an’ that if I’d of had a lick of sense an’ hadn’t been as stubborn as a mule I’d a gone with him.”
    â€œBut—”
    He waved his hand at me. “Damnit, you asked to hear it, now shut up your mouth an listen. A damn fool could see it wasn’t gonna work. Even if we could have

Similar Books

Buffalo Bill Wanted!

Alex Simmons

Harbinger

Philippa Ballantine

Run with the Moon

Bailey Bradford

Saint Peter’s Wolf

Michael Cadnum

The Running Dream

Wendelin Van Draanen

The Luminaries

Eleanor Catton