Cherokee by Giles Tippette Page B

Providence and the Good Lord. If you go and if you find Charlie and if he tells you, why then, I’ll figure you was supposed to find out. That’s said and I’m not gonna open my mouth about the subject again. You can go or not go. Please yourself.”
    I thought about it for a long couple of moments. Then I said, “And you want me to ride horseback all the way to Oklahoma.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œYou know how far it is to Oklahoma horseback?”
    â€œOught to. I done it twice. I don’t reckon it’s got no further away in thirty years.”
    â€œWith trains running up there every day you want me to load a horse with twenty-five thousand dollars in gold and waste all that time on a damn fool trip?”
    He gave me a look. “You may not think it was a damn fool trip when you get back.”
    â€œBut how come it has to be in gold and how come I got to go horseback?”
    â€œIt’s a thing I can’t explain. It’s just fitten, that’s all. Fitten. I can’t explain it no other way. I brung Charlie’s gold down here on horseback, gold that was the making of this place. Without that gold there wouldn’t be no Half-Moon ranch. And Charlie come down here on horseback. And went back on horseback, left his arm here. Most of it.”
    â€œGot to be gold? Bank draft won’t do?”
    He shook his head. “I told you, no. Now if you don’t want to do it, why, I’ll find some other way.”
    â€œIf I go I’m taking Ben with me. That much gold is just too much temptation. All the road agents ain’t in jail.”
    Well, a look of plumb horror came over his face. “No! Not Ben! My Lord, no! You can’t take Ben.”
    It perplexed the hell out of me, him taking on like that. “Hell, Howard, keep your hat on. I only said I wanted to take Ben because I want a good gun with me and Ben’s the best.”
    He was shaking his head vigorously. “No. Not Ben. And not Norris.”
    I laughed. “I said I wanted help, not hindrance. I guess I’ll take Ray Hays.”
    â€œRay is fine.” he said. He nodded. “Just no family.”
    Ray Hays was a kind of special case. Several years back he’d pretty well saved my life by helping me get out of some trouble I was in up in the hill country of Texas around the town of Bandera. In gratitude I’d brought him back to the ranch and put him to work. Supposedly he was assistant to Ben in managing the horse herd, but he and Ben had got to be close friends and there was some question as to just how much work he actually got done. He drew wages, but he pretty much considered himself a member of the family. But for all of that, he was worth having around because he was a mighty good man to have on your side in a fight. Next to Ben I calculated him to be about the best gun in the county. He was also good company. He had a nice, easy way about him and was generally good for a laugh. You could josh him until you ran out of things to say and he never took offense.
    So I sat there thinking about the trip as the time ran on toward noon. And noon meant lunch and lunch meant Nora, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to go about telling her the details of such a damn fool trip, a trip that would take me away from home for at least two or three weeks. Hell, if it didn’t make sense to me how was I going to explain it to Nora?
    I got up. “Dad, I got work to do. I got to see Harley about cutting the herd, shipping some cows.”
    He said anxiously, “But you’ll do it?”
    â€œHoward, how come you didn’t pay the man back thirty years ago? How come you waited all this time, and for me to do it?”
    He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “There were reasons.”
    â€œLike what? Didn’t want to ride all that way to Oklahoma?”
    â€œI said there were reasons. I was ashamed to face the man again.” He