Sixkiller, U.S. Marshal Read online

  Like his father, John Henry got an education, first in the schools that were established in the Indian Territory. Then, with his enrollment arranged by his maternal grandfather, John Henry attended Washington University in St. Louis.

  He left college without graduating in 1861 when the War Between the States started. The Cherokee allied themselves with the Confederacy and Stand Watie, a Cherokee, became a brigadier general in command of the American Indian Cavalry. James Sixkiller was appointed to the rank of colonel in command of the Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles, and John Henry was a lieutenant in his father’s regiment.

  Part of John Henry’s task was to fill the ranks of his company by recruitment, and one of the men he tried to recruit was Hector Crow Dog.

  “You want me to be in your company and salute you, and say sir to you like a good soldier, do you?” Crow Dog asked.

  “That’s what an army is all about.”

  “Well, no thank you, no. I’ll fight against the Yankees, but I’ll find my own way to do it. I’ve got a cousin up in Missouri by the name of Bill Anderson and I aim to go join up with him. He’s riding with Quantrill.”

  “Quantrill isn’t a soldier,” John Henry said. “He’s nothing more than an outlaw. If you go with him, you are likely to wind up hanging from a tree.”

  “I don’t have to worry about anything like that,” Crow Dog said. “I gave Sam Blackhorse a dollar to read my fortune, and I asked him right out if I was ever goin’ to hang, and he told me I wasn’t.”

  “Ha,” John Henry said. “Blackhorse passes himself off as a medicine man, just so he can fleece the white men. I can’t believe you fell for it.”

  “Well, no matter. I ain’t joinin’ your army. I reckon I’ll just see you after this here war is over.”

  John Henry’s first military action took place at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. When the Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles came on the field, they were taken under fire by Union batteries. As soon as they arrived, they were met by a messenger from General Pike.

  “Colonel Sixkiller, the general’s regards, sir, and he asks that you position your men to receive a cavalry charge he expects shortly.”

  “John Henry, take ten men and reconnoiter to the east,” James ordered.

  John Henry nodded. Then selecting his men, he went on the scout to the east. Suddenly, his ten men were attacked by a company-strength unit of Colonel Nemett’s Union Cavalry. There was shouting, slashing, and shooting, during which mounted men from each side became so intermixed that command and control was impossible. The battle became a series of individual fights, and in one encounter, John Henry barely managed to avoid what would have been the killing thrust of a Yankee saber before taking his adversary down with one pistol shot. Upon hearing the shooting, James brought his regiment up quickly, and the Federal troops, now outnumbered, withdrew from the field.

  A few months later, the Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles came upon a grisly scene just outside Lamar, Missouri. Here, thirty bodies were lying out in the sun. All males, the youngest looked to be no older than thirteen and the oldest was clearly in his seventies. The odd thing about it was the makeup of the group. Not one of the bodies were of the age one would normally expect to find in an army unit.

  There were several men wandering through the bodies, clearly taking anything of value from them, in some cases, even their clothes. A mustachioed man came toward Colonel Sixkiller. He was the only one wearing a uniform of any kind, and it was gray and gold, with the collar insignia of a Confederate colonel. The colonel was stroking his mustache as he approached.

  “Are you the commanding officer of this unit?” the approaching colonel asked.

  “Yes. I am. This is the Second Cherokee Mounted Rifles, and I am Colonel James Sixkiller. And you, sir?”

  “I am Colonel William Clarke Quantrill, and these are my men. Oh, they aren’t wearing pretty uniforms, I’ll grant you that. But as for fighting spirit, sir, I will put them up against any unit in the entire Yankee army. Or any unit in the Confederate army, for that matter.”

  “Quantrill, are you responsible for this?” James Sixkiller asked.

  “Responsible? Responsible? That seems to me like an ill-chosen word, carrying with it the onus of foul deeds. I would prefer to say that we met these men on a field of battle, and we prevailed.”

  “They are nothing but old men and young boys,” James protested. “What field of battle are you talking about?”

  “They were Unionists, sir, and the battle takes place on the field of ideas,” Quantrill said. “Any Unionist killed is one less enemy.”

  John Henry walked away from the discussion his father was having with Quantrill. He was afraid that if he stayed there much longer, he would wind up saying, or doing something he would regret.

  “John Henry!” someone called, and looking in the direction of the shout, John Henry saw Hector Crow Dog. “Have you come to get a glance at the real fighting men?”

  “You were a party to this?” John Henry asked, the tone of his voice clearly showing his disgust with it.

  “I was, and I’m proud of it,” Crow Dog replied, as he took in the field of dead bodies with a broad sweep of his hand.

  John Henry shook his head in disgust, and walked away.

  “You go march with your tin soldiers, and leave the real fighting to us!” Crow Dog called after him with a loud and raucous laugh.

  “Lieutenant,” James called out to John Henry.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get the word out to the other officers. We are going to leave this”—James paused and looked back toward the body-strewn field, and the raggedly dressed men who composed Quantrill’s Raiders—“this—battlefield.” He set the word apart, twisting it on his tongue to show his distaste in referring to it in such a way.

  John Henry was a captain by the time the war ended, and he returned home scarred, body and soul. He, and the other veterans of the losing side of the war, licked their wounds and got on with their lives. Soon, the industriousness of John Henry and his father had the ranch productive once more.

  Then one day James and John Henry drove one hundred and fifty head of cattle to Coffeeville, Kansas to sell to Adam Bowser, a cattle broker. Although James could have gotten thirty-five dollars a head had he driven them all the way to Kansas City, he settled for thirty dollars a head, believing it was worth it to close the deal so close to home.

  “Forty-five hundred dollars, Mr. Sixkiller,” Bowser said. “That’s a lot of money to be carrying in cash. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have it in a bank draft?”

  “I prefer cash. Drafts are sometimes difficult to negotiate down in The Nations.”

  “I understand. Very well, cash it will be. Come on down to the bank with me and I’ll get the money.”

  “Edodah,” John Henry said, using the Cherokee word for father. “While you are doing that, I am going to the general store to get some things for etsi.”

  “All right, I’ll meet you at the shoe store. I’m going to get a new pair of boots.”

  Chapter Three

  Homer Tilghman was a very ugly man with an oversized nose and a pock-marked face. His looks weren’t helped any by his right eye, which had such a droop to it that it was almost closed. At the moment he was standing at the customer’s table in the bank, ostensibly writing out a deposit slip, but in reality, checking to see how difficult it would be to rob the bank.

  He paid little attention to the two customers, a white man and an Indian when they came in. But when he saw the white man withdraw a great deal of cash and give it to the Indian, he decided it would be easier to rob one man than the bank. He left the bank, then stepped around the corner. Pulling his gun he waited in the little narrow space between the two buildings until the man with the cash started to mount his horse. That was when Tilghman stepped out onto the boardwalk behind the man.

  The man had just started to put his foot in the stirrup when Tilghman shot him in the back. When he fell, Tilghman reached down into his in
side jacket pocket and took the money.

  “Well now,” Tilghman said, smiling down at him. “This is a day of luck, ain’t it? Good luck for me, bad luck for you. Oh, and I’ll be taking your horse, too. You ain’t goin’ to be needin’ it now.”

  Earl Cook’s barbershop was just across the street from the bank. He was cutting the hair of Loomis Depro, who was the stagecoach agent.

  “Damn, Loomis, did you see that? Homer Tilghman just shot that man down.”

  “Yeah, I saw it. It was Tilghman, all right. But who is the man that got shot?”

  “I’m not sure but I think he may be one of those two Indians who brought some cattle in to sell,” Cook said.

  Depro took the cover off, then stood up. “You can finish cutting my hair later, Earl. Right now I expect Sheriff Dobson will be wanting to talk to us.”

  John Henry was in the general store, buying things for his mother that weren’t always available in Sequoyah.

  “I’ll take three bars of that Pears Fragrance Soap,” John Henry said, pointing to the soap.

  “Oh, yes,” the store clerk said as he reached for it. “I’m sure you will love this soap.”

  “It is for my mother,” John Henry said, pointedly.

  “Yes, indeed, sir, and that is what I meant,” the clerk replied.

  A young man with a star pinned to his shirt came into the store.

  “Deputy Burns, I’ll be right with you,” the store clerk said.

  “You ain’t the one I come to see,” the deputy replied.

  “Oh?”

  “I come to see this feller. That is, if you are one of them two Injuns that come into town to sell some cows.”

  “I am,” John Henry replied. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  Deputy Burns squinted. “You sure you are one of them two Injuns? You sure don’t look Injun.”

  “I assure you, I am Indian. My father and I came into town and sold one hundred and fifty head of cattle. Now, what is this all about?”

  “Oh. That man was your pa, huh?”

  John took a quick breath as he felt a sense of dread come over him. “What do you mean, was?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mister, but your pa is dead. He was shot down and robbed by a man named Homer Tilghman.”

  “How do you know who did it? Is Tilghman in jail?”

  “No, he got away, but was seen and identified by at least five witnesses. So we are dead certain it was him.”

  “Where is my father now?”

  “He was lyin’ in the street in front of the livery, but Sheriff Dobson figured that wasn’t very respectful, so he’s got him over in the hardware store. That’s where our undertaker has his office.”

  When John Henry hurried over to the hardware store, he saw his father lying out on one of the tables. He wasn’t covered and several citizens of the town were just coming by to gawk.

  “They say he is Injun, and when you look close, why, you can see that he is. Only he sure don’t dress like an Injun.”

  “Well, how do you want him to dress?”

  “He can dress any way he wants, don’t mean nothin’ to me. I was just sayin’ he is dressed more like a white man than an Injun.”

  “Get out of here,” John Henry said to the two men who were arguing over his father’s body.

  “What? Look here, you can’t just throw me out of here,” one of the two men said.

  “Maybe he can’t, but I can,” Sheriff Dobson said.

  “You got no right to—”

  “Get out of here, now!” the sheriff said forcefully. “Or by damn I’ll throw the both of you in jail for trespassing!”

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” one of the men started, but the other grabbed his arm.

  “Come on, Dempster. I think the sheriff might actually do it.”

  The two men hurried out, then Sheriff Dobson turned toward John Henry. “Mr. Bowser said that father and son had come to sell him the cows. You must be the son.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I guess you heard, the man that did this is named Homer Tilghman, and he has left town.”

  “Which way?”

  “Those who saw him leave said he was going south. That figures. He’s half Indian, so more’n likely he figures if he can get into the Indian Territory, we can’t come after him,” Sheriff Dobson said. “I expect the best thing we can do now is get word down to the Indian police.”

  A small, very thin man with no hair and a pencil-thin mustache approached. “Excuse me, sir, but are you the next of kin?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am the son.”

  “What disposition will you want of his remains?”

  “I plan to take him back home.”

  “Very good, sir. I will get him ready for travel.”

  After receiving condolences from many, John Henry bought a buckboard, hitched his horse, Iron Heart, to it, then put his father, now lying in a pine coffin, in the back. What should have been a triumphal return, with the largest profit the ranch had ever earned was, instead, a somber ride back.

  John Henry comforted his mother as much as he could. Then, after his father’s funeral, he declared that he was going after Homer Tilghman.

  “John Henry, no,” Elizabeth pleaded. “Let the police do that.”

  “The police will do it,” John Henry declared.

  Tahlequah was the capital of the Cherokee Nation. It was here that the Cherokee National Council met, and it was here that the Lighthorse Company, as the Indian police called themselves, had their headquarters.

  “I remember you, John Henry,” Captain Charles LeFlores said. “You were in your father’s regiment. How is James doing?”

  “My father is dead, slain by a man named Homer Tilghman.”

  “Tilghman? Yes, I’ve heard that name. He’s been evading us now for nearly a year, darting back and forth between Indian Territory and Kansas.”

  “I will find him for you.”

  “You will find him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do what?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “John Henry, you can’t just take the law into your own hands, you know.”

  “I know. That’s why I want you to swear me in as a policeman.”

  It took less than a week for John Henry, who was now a member of the Cherokee Indian Police, to find his quarry. Tilghman was at a livery in the small settlement of Venita, arguing with the liveryman.

  “This here horse is better’n any swayback nag you’ve got,” Tilghman said. “I ain’t givin’ you no extra money. You should give me extra money for tradin’. But, I’m willin’ to trade you dead even.”

  “I don’t know, there’s something fishy about this,” the liveryman said. “If you think this horse is worth more’n anything I got, and if I’m bein’ honest with you, it prob’ly is, why in Sam Hill would you be willin’ to trade dead even?”

  “Because it isn’t his horse and he doesn’t want to be caught with it,” John Henry said. He had walked up on them quietly, and his words startled both of them. “He stole that horse.”

  John Henry had no difficulty in recognizing Tilghman, not only from the description he had been given, but also because he knew his father’s horse.

  “You’re crazy!” Tilghman said. “I’ve had this horse for more’n five years.”

  “Have you?”

  Tilghman rubbed the horse behind his ears. “I raised him from a colt.”

  “Mister, take the horse over there,” John Henry said to the liveryman. “We will let the horse decide.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” the liveryman said, leading the horse about twenty feet away.

  “Call him to you,” John Henry said.

  “Come here, horse. Come here,” Tilghman called.

  “You’ve had the horse since he was a colt, and you haven’t given him a name?” John Henry asked.

  “He doesn’t need a name. He’s just a horse,” Tilghman replied. “Come here, hor
se. Come here.”

  The horse didn’t move.

  “Come on, you dumb horse! I’m calling you!”

  “The horse isn’t moving,” the liveryman said.

  “I can see that the son of a bitch isn’t moving!” Tilghman said, angrily. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Ehena na Galegi,” John Henry said. Then he repeated it in English. “Come here, Blacksnake.”

  Blacksnake whickered, nodded his head, then trotted over to John Henry. He lowered his head so John Henry could pet him.

  “Mister, were you tryin’ to sell me a stoled horse?” the liveryman asked.

  “I didn’t steal it. I bought it. Only I just bought it, which is how come the horse wouldn’t come to me when I called it.”

  “I thought you said you raised him from a colt,” the liveryman said.

  “I just said that ’cause I didn’t know who this man was, or what he wanted.”

  John Henry showed Tilghman his badge. “I am a policeman. And you are under arrest for killing my father.”

  Tilghman looked over at John Henry with an expression of surprise and fear.

  “What? You’re crazy! I told you, I bought this horse.”

  “Did the man you bought the horse from also have one eye that droops like yours?”

  Tilghman stared directly at John Henry. It was obvious now that this man wasn’t going to just go away.

  “You aren’t going to go away, are you?”

  “Not without you, I’m not.”

  “If you were smart, you would turn around now, and leave me about my busi—” Then, midway through his sentence, and without any forewarning, Tilghman’s hand suddenly dipped toward his gun.

  “He’s going for his gun!” the liveryman shouted, but his warning wasn’t necessary. John Henry was ready for him, and his own pistol was out and booming before Tilghman could even bring his gun level. A stain of red spread across his chest, and he got a surprised look on his face, as if shocked that John Henry had beaten him, even though he had started his draw first.