{"id":507,"date":"2019-12-15T00:35:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T00:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/?p=507"},"modified":"2019-12-22T02:18:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T02:18:43","slug":"life-in-the-territory-at-last-info-labels-more-by-nathaniel-wander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2019\/12\/15\/life-in-the-territory-at-last-info-labels-more-by-nathaniel-wander\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in the Territory at Last by Nathaniel Wander"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

We was camping in the Winding\nStairs, not too far from Talihina in what was left of the Indian Territory, me,\nBob Rennick, who shot Two-Gun Raynor out in El Paso, and little Davey\nRudabaugh, who everyone called Rutabaga<\/em>, only not to his not face \u2026 not\ntwice.  Rutabaga had got us into a scrape\ndown in Chihuahua: there was a card game, someone was cheating, someone said it\nwas Davey, Davey shot him.  Since we was\njointly and severally wanted in Texas\u2014we might have borrowed a horse or two or\nthe like\u2014it seemed like a good idea to keep heading north and disappear a while\ninto the Territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Territory held a lot of rough\ncountry and a lot of rough customers. \nCreated so Old Hickory<\/em> could kick the Cherokee, Choctaw,\nChickasaw, Creek and Seminoles out of the USofA, soon after the War of\nRebellion, the government concluded it could contract the Territory while cramming\nin other tribes, leaving a heap more land for white folks and a heap less\nIndians in general.  They packed in\nKiowas and Commanches, Cheyennes and Arapahos, Osages, Apaches, Pawnees and\nKansas, Senecas, Shawnees and Quapaws and even some Modocs from out in\nCalifornia.  Then they added Miamis and\nWyandotes, Sacs and Foxes, Kikapoos, Iowas, Pottawatomies, Wichitas, Caddos and\nDelawares and the last half dozen Texas Tonkas anyone could still find.  No two tribes could speak the lingo of any\nthird; it made for a high old time, you bet. \nThrow in the bad actors like Raynor and Rudabaugh\u2014and me if I\u2019m being\nhonest\u2014well, the Territory wasn\u2019t anywhere you\u2019d want to be if you could be\nanywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was just after sunset, which\ncome early in the mountains, and from the carcass of a lightening-shattered\nwhite oak, we had struck up a fire, more for company\u2019s sake than any\nother.  We seen a rider coming up the\ntrail, but he seen us too and helloed the fire before we could make him out\nreal good, so we waved him in and kept our hands near to our belts.  He weren\u2019t anybody I knowed\u2014a long, skinny\nfeller on an oversize gray horse, must have stood sixteen, seventeen hands\u2014but\nBob and Davey knowed him well enough.  He\nwas wearing a U.S. Marshal\u2019s tin, which seemed a little precarious considering\nwhere we\u2019d been and what we\u2019d been doing, but Rutabaga told him to set, share\nsome bacon and beans.  The Marshal had\nsome coffee, which we was sorely lacking, and since him and me was the only\nstrangers at this fandango, he shook my hand and introduced himself as Henry\nFinn.  He was out of Ft. Smith, Arkansas,\nso that was alright: he shouldn\u2019t have no call to be interested in Texas\nbusiness, not that any was ever brought up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while the conversation was\nalmighty thin, which was a regular feature of social life in the\nTerritory.  When the other fellow might\nhave helped hang your best friend the month before, on account of your best\nfriend shot his best friend the month before that, there wasn\u2019t much could be\nsafely talked of but the weather and digestive upsets.  When those had been pretty thoroughly\nexhausted, we did finally get down to some serious yarning.  We was talking about snakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour copperhead is vicious, that\nI\u2019ll allow,\u201d Bob Rennick says, \u201cand you don\u2019t want to let your baby sister too\nclose to a Louisiana cottonmouth.  The\neastern rattler\u2019s bite is a whole lot worse than his bark, but not one of them\ncould hold a candle to a little old Texas diamondback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody ever said Texas wanted for\nrattlesnakes, but did you know that every she-snake hatches out six thousand\npups in a year?  The only reason the\nwhole state ain\u2019t paved in rattlers\u2014though Austin has got more than its\nshare\u2014is because they are so mean, not one in a hundred makes it out of\nsnake-babyhood.  There\u2019s days you could\nride across the llanos and come upon a dead rattlesnake every hundred yards or\nso: that\u2019s right, not one of them dares get closer to the next than a hundred\nyards.  But, them rattlers is so<\/em>\nmean, for lack of any better, they just bite theirselves to death.  Some say it one way and some the other.  There\u2019s them who say Texas rattlesnakes are\nso natural blood mean, they haven\u2019t no choice: they just do it out of a kind of\nhabit.  Others will tell you they do it\nfor sheer spite, or just to show off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, there was one old\nrattlesnake so long-lived and so mean that the Commanch called him Kwasina-bo\nTuyatu-ki<\/em>, which freely come out as \u2018Mean old snake, just don\u2019t know when\nenough is enough.\u2019  More than a dozen\nbraves gone out after him\u2014and if there\u2019s anything meaner in Texas than a\nrattler, it\u2019s a Commanch\u2014and not one come back to tell the tale.  Finally they gone after him with a whole\nthundering war party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKwasina-bo Tuyatu-ki<\/em> stood\noff them Indians for three solid days, just a-humping and a-rattling and\na-spitting out poison.  Three of them\nwarriors died and one went stone blind. \n(Run into him up around Ft Bend, and danged if he could see worth a\ndamn.)  That snake killed fourteen\nponies, two dogs and a Gila monster just strayed into the fracas, minding his\nown business, not doing anybody the least bit of harm.  After Kwasina-bo Tuyatu-ki<\/em> run out of\npoison, he commenced to calling them Indians hard names and ended up insulting\ntheir mothers, so they just layed back a ways and spiked that mean old snake\nwith so many arrows, he looked like a field of alfalfa just before harvest come\naround.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou was a brave enemy Kwasina-bo\nTuyatu-ki<\/em>,\u201d the head man declares\u2014for them Indians will talk to\nanything\u2014\u201cand we will treat you like one.\u201d \nThen he pulls out his scalping knife and walks up to the critter,\npreparing to take a slice of hair, or skin, or scale, or whatever, which was\nthe Commanche way to make sure that mean old snake couldn\u2019t return from the\nspirit world to bother them no more and to bring honor to the warrior who done\nit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rennick paused to take us in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, be damned if, when the chief\ncome up on that snake, he didn\u2019t discover that old rattler had shaved himself\nbald, denying them his scalp (or scales, or whatever).  Now, if you knowed anything about Commanch,\nyou would have knowed that was the meanest<\/em> thing you could do to\nthem.  Even dead that rattler was meaner\nthan eighty-seven living snakes of any other breed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then little Davey pipes up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I heard of that Kwasina-bo\nTuyatu-ki<\/em>, and I reckon he was truly mean, but he wasn\u2019t half as mean as\nthis other rattler I heard tell of, though I never did catch his name, if he\nhad one.  This other snake, one day he\nbit a passing cowboy, name of Marvis Dolittle Jones.  (Not them Jones, nor them other Joneses\nneither.)  Through some oversight most\nlikely, Marvis Jones, he kind of neglected to die\u2014he was a neglectful man.  Took him eight years, six months and\ntwenty-three days to recover, but he got over that snakebite just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, when word come back to that\nrattlesnake that Marvis Jones was still answering to the dinner bell, he swore\nup, down, north and south to catch him up and finish him off.  For nine years, that snake trailed that\ncowboy from one end of Texas to the other, up into Kansas, back to Texas again,\nout the Chisom Trail to New Mexico and one summer even as far as Cheyenne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat snake was determined,\nwouldn\u2019t let nothing stand in his way. \nOnce, when he thought he had a-caught sight of Jones, he chawed his way\nthrough a herd of longhorns to get at him, only, when he clears his way through\nthe litter of bodies, wasn\u2019t no one there but an old biscuit-shooter.  Well, he bit hell out of the cookie, then\njust for spite, bit hell out of the chuck wagon too.  Not a body could eat a bit of grub off that\ncook-cart for a full ten years without breaking out in pustulations and a\nflaming fever so hot, you could light the campfire with it.  Wherever they parked that wagon, it like to\npoison an acre, acre and a half of grass, and one time when they drove it\nacross the Red River, it killed all the fish from Colbert clear to Texarkana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it begun to look like that\nsnake wouldn\u2019t catch that cowboy any too soon, it began to hunt down every\nsingle member of Marvis Dolittle Jones\u2019 family one by one.  It killed his Ma and it killed his Pa.  It killed his three growed sisters and their\nhusbands, and it killed his baby brother. \nIt went out of its way to hunt down aunts, uncles and cousins and once,\nout of plain dad-gummed meanness, it went even further out of its way to kill a\nthird cousin by marriage twice removed. \n(Nobody ain\u2019t that<\/em> mean, not even a carpetbagger, not even a\nscalawag.)   I tell you boys, that snake\nkilled Marvis Jones\u2019 favorite dog and then it killed Marvis Jones\u2019 favorite chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt had to happen and it did.  One day Marvis and that snake come to meet up\nin Tombstone, Arizona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Draw you yeller-livered bastard,\u2019\nthe snake calls out, \u2018for I mean to put you on Boot Hill.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, though Jones knowed he hadn\u2019t\nnot a prayer in this world, he drawed thinking, \u2018There\u2019s worse places to end up\nthan Boot Hill.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, that snake he leapt up\nforty-two foot straight into the air, come down on top of that old cowboy and\ndrove him halfway into the ground, a-biting and a-chawing the whole time and\nJones, he never even got off a single shot. \nThen the snake pulled off Jones\u2019 boots and drug them away into some\nbushes, so when the burying party come on Jones\u2019 body, naturally they couldn\u2019t\nplant him on Boot Hill.   Instead, they\nhad to take him to the other side of town where they had a little cemetery for\nthe women and the children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow,\u201d Rutabaga finished up, \u201cif\nthat ain\u2019t the meanest<\/em> thing a snake ever done, you tell me what was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was clearly amongst a class of\nliars head and shoulders above my own.  I\nmeant to keep shut up anyways, but then the Marshal put in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou was talking about Tombstone,\nand a right pretty place it is, though I never been there myself.  But I heard tell that out in Arizona, they\ngot their own kind of rattlesnakes, not as big as your Texas ones, true, but\npound for pound twice or four times as mean. \nThem Arizona rattlers, so they say, take especial pleasure in cutting\ndown a bride on her wedding day and you ain\u2019t nobody among them snakes until\nyou have bit a baby through its christening clothes, and not just one baby\nneither.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThem snakes are so mean, they say,\nthey will not even trifle to bite someone ain\u2019t naturally from Arizona, nor\nmost Indians, but they will bite an Apache or a Yaqui from time to time, if he\nis full in the prime of life.  One of\nthem snakes, he bit a mule once.  Mule\ndidn\u2019t die right off, but he went around for the rest of his life the sweetest,\nmost even-tempered beast till the day twenty years later he finally keeled over\nfrom that snake-bite.  Now, that is some mean<\/em>\nsnake, can gentle down a mule and kill him just the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThem Arizona snakes, people say,\nwas mighty fond of playing poker, which they learned from a Tucson dealer who\nthey allowed was nearly as mean as a rattlesnake himself.  Being mean and crooked sidewinders, they\nplayed kind of backwards, though.  That\nis, if they knowed you wasn\u2019t<\/em> cheating, your life would not be worth a\ndamn among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne day, five, six of them snakes was playing draw poker, every card marked in six or seven ways.\u00a0 One was using a quartz pebble for a shiner and another two had aces up their sleeves.\u00a0 Two others\u2014it was hot and maybe they was feeling some kind of lazy\u2014wasn\u2019t doing no worse than pawing through the discards and one dude of a snake didn\u2019t appear to be up to no mischief at all, yet he kept raking in one pot after another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf one of them other snakes had a\nfull house, aces over, he was holding four threes.  If someone filled an inside straight, he had\nthe full boat.  If he didn\u2019t have no more\nthan a pair of fours, he would win with those. \nThem other snakes was like to bust a gut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSurely you know a snake don\u2019t take\nany kinder to steady loosing than a man, especially not to some four-flushing\nstranger, and finally, one of them snakes couldn\u2019t help but speak up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Friend,\u2019 he says, from which you\nknow you ain\u2019t, \u2018you been taking our money for nine hours now and ain\u2019t lost a\nsingle hand.  What\u2019s worst, if you are\ncheating, none of us can\u2019t figure it out no how.  We think you ain\u2019t and we don\u2019t take kindly\nto your type around these parts, if you take my meaning.\u2019  Then he rolls his eyes and skins back his\nfangs and the others does likewise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Cheat you greenhorns!?!\u2019 that\nmean old snake hollers out.  \u2018Don\u2019t make\nme laugh.  You are the sorriest bunch of\npoker players I ever did meet.  Why, I\njust as soon propose marriage to a horny toad as ever play with you fellers\nagain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Cheat!?!\u2019 he howls again.  \u201cHere, go on, take your money back.\u2019 Then he\ngets up on his horse and rides off pretty as you please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, boys, ain\u2019t that<\/em> the\nmeanest thing a snake has ever done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I guess they didn\u2019t think so\nand Raynor and Rudabaugh commenced to hooting and beating on him with their\nhats and whatever else was to hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuck Finn, you son of a bitch, you<\/em>\nare the meanest snake between the Mississippi and the Colorado,\u201d Rutabaga sings\nout, then they all fall to whooping and laughing and pounding on each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the morning, when we woke, the Marshal was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author is a retired anthropologist, a would-be bird scientist, and a freshly self-discovered painter working on miniatures in acrylic. The submission is excerpted from a novel he has been working at for at least forty years, whose narrator began life in 1840 in Buffalo, NY and looks about to end it on a gallows in Buffalo, WY in 1897. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/xiang-gao-pb2-OQnS11Y-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1574&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}