Chapter 4

Olive Augusta Peele, 1909

Mr. Whiteman, evidently, fearing to lose his grip on his ward, demanded the child, and Ledice Stechi, child of much abuse, was returned to custody of her legal guardian.

—Gertrude Bonnin, 1924, research agent, Indian Welfare Committee, General Federation of Women's Clubs.

Before me and Nessa can see anybody coming, we hear horse hooves on the road Mr. Lockridge had gravel paved, so he could drive his new Buick roadster all the way to our little timber town. The last time Hazel and me helped the kitchen women serve a fancy supper at the big house, Mr. Lockridge promised his businessmen friends he'd soon put roads everywhere. Too long the Choctaws had been wasting these fine lands, he said. With Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory now married together into the forty-sixth state of the nation, it was time to fit the area for modern industry and folks of a higher type.

That same evening, while the men ate ice cream on the porch, Mr. Lockridge had surprised Sheriff Gowdy with a fine blood bay gelding and saddle. It was a reward for putting down some rumbling by the Snake Band, which were Choctaws mad at the Dawes Commission for breaking up the tribe's land and making each Choctaw have his own separate parcel. Gowdy had arrested two troublemakers and let everybody know there'd be no cattle killings, barn burnings, prying up the train rails, or lighting fire to timber piles in Pushmataha County, from here on out.

That new saddle was so stiff you could hear the leather squeaking all the way from the horse barn, plus the horse had a loose shoe that popped every fourth step. That's how I know who's coming up on us from behind. Two girls and a spotted pack pony can't hide, so I start thinking fast.

"Nessa, don't say a word, except the same thing as I say, you hear?"

Her hand quivers when I grab it to move us aside, hoping Sheriff Gowdy will pass on by. I start singing, so we won't spook that flighty horse when it rounds the corner.

Did you ever see a lassie,

A lassie, a lassie?

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

Go this way and that way,

Go this way and that way.

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

Nessa squints up at me as I try to smooth out the shaking in my voice and the knots in my chest. "Did you ever see a laddie, a laddie, a laddie…"

That big gelding has the snorts before he even gets close. He fights the bit when old Gowdy pulls up the reins. "Is it Saturday?"

"No, sir, it sure ain't."

"You truant from school? Because you know, with that new compulsory education order from the statehouse, it's the law now." Old Gowdy is red-faced and sweaty, spoiling toward a fight. "Tesco lettin' you two go truant, is he? Because that'd be a legal matter." Gowdy doesn't care about school or the law, but he'd love to get a charge on Tesco. Gowdy wants his own no-account son to have the foreman job at Mr. Lockridge's place.

Nessie sidles behind my skirts. I squeeze her hand harder till she stops that. "We ain't truant…sir. We're off on a project for Teacher."

"Teacher." He spits the word and a chaw of tobacco all together. "What kind of schoolwork you be doin' out here, needing that lil' rat of a Texas pony in tow?"

My mind scrabbles like a chicken after a cricket. "A leaf collection." In our log schoolhouse building, Teacher presses the leaves flat, then pins them up with a paper tag telling the name from a book of the sciences. "And butterflies, too."

"You need a pony for that?"

"Oh no, sir. But we're collecting rocks, also. Interesting ones. When we're done, we'll send it for a statehood display at the World's Fair."

Gowdy's eyes go to slits, and I know my story just grew too big. "What say we go on and…"

The rest gets swallowed up by the timber train whistle. The noise and the rumbling sends Gowdy's new gelding dancing sideways into the brush. A dead branch catches on its leg, and that horse goes to crow hopping back toward the road and plows right into my calico pony. Skedee scrambles over the top of Nessa and me, the lead rope rips from my fingers, and we hit the gravel hard. Next thing I know, my calico pony is off at a gallop, the pack saddle's panniers slapping his sides and his white tail flagged in the air.

Our rucksack lays busted open. I hurry and scoop stuff back in, and Nessa snatches up a handful of mud and spilled matches.

"We gotta get after the pony!" I yell while Gowdy's still fighting his horse, then I grab Nessa by the arm and tell her, "Run!"

I don't even look back. I take to running and hope Gowdy gets dumped clean off that new saddle. Behind me, I hear Nessa pounding along the gravel on her short, stout legs. The sound gets farther and farther away as I jump over puddles and dodge wagon ruts. I'm fast, even carrying the rucksack. Finally, there's only wind in my ears, and all I want to do is keep going and never stop. I could, too. Mama used to say I could run forever. She liked that about me before she took to the drinking and powders. When I run, I can go anyplace, leave behind anything, keep anybody from catching me.

Nessa calls my name, and at first I think I'll just keep running. But Nessa's voice is all begging and tears and snot and pain. I figure Gowdy's got her by the scruff, so I skid to a stop and double back. But when I get to her, she's laid out where she tripped and fell, and she's trying to tell me something, except she can't catch her breath.

I hear the roar and sputter coming up the valley and that lets me know what she's saying: motorcar. Big cities have lots of them, but there's not many around here. Two are Mr. Lockridge's.

"Come on!" I yank Nessa to her feet, but her ankle gives out, and she screams. Pulling her up again, I drag her to a cedar patch, and we crawl to the thickest part, afraid to breathe while that motorcar blows and coughs and spits like a tired old bear trying to climb the hill.

It's past us a bit when it lets out one loud bang, a big ol' sigh, and a long, high squeal…and that's all it'll go.

Lifting my head, I peek through the branches. It's not Mr. Lockridge's roadster, at least. This one's the older kind that looks like a horse carriage, but with no horses to pull it. The driver sits up high on the seat, wearing a tall, round-topped Stetson hat. Smoke circles him in a cloud, and he goes to hollering over the engine's hiss. At first I can't untangle the words, but then I know he's talking in Choctaw and must be one of their number that's made out good on timber and oil money. Lots of the Choctaws around us just have plain little cabins with some garden fields, but others own stores and ranches and timber mills. Tesco hates both kinds of Choctaws, but he hates the rich ones most.

A boy about my size jumps down from the seat to try the engine crank. When that won't work, he and the man get behind the car to try pushing it up the rest of the hill. If they can get it to the other side, they'll let it roll down, gain some speed, and then start the engine. I've seen it done.

That motor carriage could carry us out of here quick,I think to myself. And we need to get gone, bad. Now that Skedee is free, he'll head cross-country toward the home barn. Whenever Tesco finds him there with the halter and pack saddle on, it'll be clear enough what we're up to. Tesco will come after us, and it'll be the devil to pay.

Cupping my hands to Nessa's ear, I say, "Let's ask, can we help push that car, and…" The sound of new saddle leather and a horse with a loose shoe stops me short. Gowdy's back on our tail.

"Ssshhh," I whisper, and bend my body around Nessa's.

Gowdy passes by, then goes to ask the man and the boy if they saw two girls and a bay-and-white pony. The man shakes his head, and Gowdy and him talk in English some more. Pretty soon, Gowdy ties that motor carriage to his horse with a lariat rope and starts dragging it like a big ol' black bull, up the hill, while the man and the boy push. At the top, the men shake hands. The only reason the sheriff would be that neighborly is because that man does business with Mr. Lockridge.

I know right then it's a lucky thing we didn't ask for a ride.

Our luck's bound to run dry, though, because Gowdy's on his horse again and headed toward town at a high lope. When he doesn't see us farther up the road, he'll go to the school and check with the teacher. Then he'll track down Tesco and be right pleasured to say we're truant.

We've got to be far from here before that happens, go deeper into the woods. But without the pony, I don't know how we'll get by. Every single thing that's in Skedee's packs, we need for the journey.

"You stay right here and rub on your ankle," I tell Nessa when we scrabble out of the cedars and uphill into the trees. "Maybe Skedee stopped for grass someplace near. Maybe I can find him."

Latching on to my arm, she shakes her head with big, scared eyes.

"I'll come back. Stay right here," I tell her, but I have to pry her hands loose.

Hugging her knees, she buries her face in her skirts. That's the last I see of her as I make my way quiet and careful through the trees till I find where Skedee left the road. His hoofprints don't turn toward the home barn like I thought they would. He follows a game trail past a spring creek, up a slope, then he heads back down through a shallow valley. I finally end up almost right back where I left Nessa.

Except she's not there.

A hitch knot yanks in my belly.

"Nessa?" I whisper.

The wind breathes through the trees like a mama shushing her baby, like a voice. I hear someone, and I turn, then turn again, then again, but there's nothing except pine straw, mossy gray rocks that rise like tombstones, and branches making long shadows that trick my eyes.

I see somebody, then turn quick. There's nothing.

"Nessa? Nessa, it's me. Come out."

A rustle stirs the branches. I whirl around, feel eyes on me, but if they were Nessa's, she'd answer.

Ollie,they're gonna git us in the woods, her voice whispers in my mind. The elves.

My head fills with the stories Tesco tells about boo hags, and haints, and the elves with shiny black stones for eyes. They come to your house looking like ragged children, beg for food and a warm place to rest. But if you ask them in, they'll kill your goats and chickens, drink the blood, and carry your children off in the night. Tesco loves that tale, says he's seen those elves for hisself.

"Nessa…" I press my back against a tree. "Nessa?"

The smallest scrap of color flutters against the brown of last year's leaves. Rose pink. Nessa's dress. I circle toward it, careful and quiet, till I spot her curled in the washed-out roots of an elm tree with her face hid in her skirt.

For the tick of a minute, I think, What if this ain't her at all? What if the elf children already got her, and this one's wearin' her dress?

She stretches one arm toward me with the fist closed. Something red drips between her fingers and down her arm. I stop where I am.

"N-Nessa?"

Her fingers open. The palm of her hand has mushed dewberries, at least a half dozen.

"Nessa Bessie, you look at me." I need to make sure her eyes are people eyes, not all black and shiny as glass. The breath hangs in my chest till I see them come up regular, just red and weepy. "Can you walk?"

She nods, and I get her on her feet. The ankle troubles her some, but she wobbles along after me, and we pick up the game trail, where pony tracks lie right over the top of deer tracks and bobcat tracks and coyote tracks and a pile of bear scat that gives me shivers.

But at least Skedee is headed away from Tesco's place, and so we follow, keeping our eyes peeled and listening out for anybody…or anything…coming after us. Skedee goes right around town, and on to the north and west. I don't figure out why till after he leaves the game trail for a ox road made by the timber haulers. We've walked it a long while and hid from a man passing on a horse before we come to a fork where signs nailed crooked on a tree point to Stanley one way, and Clayton the other. Skedee's prints turn north toward Clayton, and it's then I know that Daddy's old calico pony is bound for the stable all right, but not the one at Tesco's house. Skedee means to get to the Old Military Road and follow it to the Winding Stairs, just the same as he did when some terrible difficulty fell on my daddy, and that calico pony came back home alone.

"The river can't be very far." I try to prod Nessa, but she's been limping along for hours now, and she's wore out. "I bet Skedee will stop for some fresh spring grass by the water. Then we can catch him, and, come suppertime, we'll have more than just the half a fry cake that's in my rucksack. How's that sound?" I'm so hungry my head hurts.

"Uh-huh."

"We gotta keep movin', Nessa, or Tesco will find us."

"I know."

"The river's close. I bet we can catch a fish for our supper. Big ol' fat perch, or a mudcat, or a mooneye, or a shiner, or a bullhead, or…" I go right on naming off every kind of fish I can think of, to keep Nessa hopeful.

I've long since run out of anything to say before the shadows go deep and the day turns toward waning. The air's cool and the night bugs sing in the trees and the ox trail starts downhill toward the sound of running water. Coming through the brush, we land on the banks of the winding Kiamichi, its waters as pink-painted as the spreading sky.

In the sand down below, I can see where Daddy's old pony walked up and down, looking to cross, but it's too deep and fast here. His trail wanders back up the bank and disappears into the cedar brush and redbud trees. "Bet Skedee's found us a camp place already. He likes a good river camp, just the way my daddy did when he was prospecting for gold. I like a good river camp, don't you, Nessa?"

"Uh-huh." Nessa never argues with anybody. Tesco's made her too scared to.

I hunt up a long stick to scare the snakes, and we push our way through the brush till finally the dark hides Skedee's trail, and there's no choice except stopping. The rotted bones of a canoe half buried in leaves and moss give us a camp place for the night. There, we open the rucksack and drink from Daddy's canteen and eat the last of the fry cake Tesco left by the stove at breakfast. I don't even tear off the place where Tesco bit into it while he was cooking. I'm too hungry to care about Tesco's spit. The wind dies down, and the air carries the smell of woodsmoke and sound of men laughing and yelling. There's a town or a timber camp not far off.

"Ssshhh," I whisper to Nessa. "We can't let them find us."

When Daddy and me had a river camp once, three woodcutters came to our fire to share food and wildcat whiskey. They laughed and told tales a long time instead of bedding down. Before first light, they tried to gather me up in my sleeping blanket and carry me off, but Daddy stabbed a man and they ran away.

I lay that same knife near my head before I cover us up with Daddy's old wool army blanket. It still carries the smells of leather and hay and Daddy's oilskin slicker. We pull the blanket all the way over our heads, and I feel for the sewn-on patch that has the words Radley, Spanish-American War, 1898.

The year I was born.

Sleep takes me while I think on his stories about fighting with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.

In the morning, I waken to Nessa shivering and the sound of Tesco calling my name. Sitting up, I clamp my hand over Nessa's mouth, whisper, "Ssshhh."

He's close by. Other men, too.

Nessa's eyes go wide, but she doesn't make a sound while we both listen and try to figure out which direction the voices are coming from. She points, and I nod. Then I slip the pack and the blanket over my shoulders, and we start crawling through the thicket. Cold dewdrops fall over us, so I know we're rustling the branches. Tesco will hear when he stops yelling.

We have to go faster, but if we stand up and run, they'll be on us in no time.

A crashing in the trees stops me short. I grab Nessa, push her into a willow bush, but it's not enough to hide us. He's coming. He's right beside us. I fold myself over Nessa, and Daddy's blanket falls over both of us.

Something brown busts from cover not three foot away. A doe. Just a yearling. She jumps sideways when she sees us, then turns in one quick move, burrows under a stand of buttonbush, and slides down the riverbank toward the water.

"Over that way!" one of the men yells.

Nessa and me go belly-first after the doe, through the buttonbush and down the riverbank till we hit a gravel bar at the bottom. The yearling snorts at us and bolts back up the bank into the thickets to escape.

Voices scatter all around, come from everywhere.

"We've gotta cross the river," I whisper into Nessa's ear. "We have to now."

Ahead of us, the Kiamichi lays fingered with rocks and gravel bars. The channels at the edge are shallow, but the ones farther in could be deep and fast. Down past the riffles, the water is wide and sits full of fresh-cut trees. Muddy slides run like slug trails along the bank, where timber cutters push their logs in to float to a sawmill someplace. If we get washed into that log run, the loose timber will smash us to pieces.

But we can't stay here.

"Get your boots and stockings off and tuck your skirt up high," I whisper to Nessa.

My fingers shake so bad I can hardly undo my laces, then tie our boots and stockings tight to our bodies. Finally, I undo the sash bow on my dress and knot the tails round Nessa's wrist. "Keep your legs under you. But if you go down, hang on to this and kick hard. You're a good swimmer. I'll help tow you across."

Nessa nods, and I grab a long piece of driftwood with some roots on the bottom, to steady us against the current. I hope I can do it, but the truth is, what happens now is up to the river.

The water is cold as walking bare naked through snow, but we make it to the first gravel bar easy. The next channel is deeper, lined on the bottom with big rocks, slippery and sharp. I feel ahead with the stick, pull Nessa with me. Poke, step, pull. Poke, step, pull. I think small thoughts. Cold ones. I want to look back for Tesco, but I don't.

My whole body's shaking when I climb onto the next bar, dragging Nessa up by the strings. We balance together on an island just big enough for us two. Water runs on all sides, so loud the whole world is a river. I stop worrying about what's chasing us and start worrying about what's ahead.

The blue-black water means the next part is deep, moving fast. I poke the stick in, and it goes all the way to my hand without the roots touching anything. Just off the island, the channel's eddied up against a big, flat rock that's a few inches under the surface. If I can jump to it, I might could pull Nessa across.

If I miss, I'll go down the river and take her with me.

My heart pounds while I untie the sash from her wrist and put it in her hands, lean near her ear, and tell her, "You hang on, but if the river sucks me up, you let go. Fast. You hear? You let go."

She nods, but her eyes tell me how scared she is.

Please, please, please,I think, and lay down my drift stick, run two steps, and try to fly over the water. The jumping's easy, but landing's bad. I slide down, my feet kicking in the current while it pulls at the rucksack and rips Daddy's blanket from my shoulders. The blanket skims over my legs, and my fingernails bend backward, scratching across moss and rock. Finally, I catch hold, claw my way up till I can get my knees under me and look back for Nessa.

Sash tails float loose in the water between us like long blue ribbons. I've got no way to pull her to me, and I can't get back to her from where I am now. She's too little to make the jump.

I've left her all alone in the middle of the river.

She grabs my drift stick like she means to walk across, but then she stops at the island's edge, holds the roots, and tips the other end toward me, so that it topples like a tree. I reach up to catch it, and it lands in my hands, making a bridge between us. All she's got to do now is hold on tight while I pull her toward me. Sitting down on my rock, I brace my feet to make ready.

A sound like thunder cracks above the noise of the water, then echoes down, and down, and down the river. Back the way we came, there's smoke in the air and Tesco's wading from the shore with a pistol held above his head.

Nessa takes one glance over her shoulder and catches sight of him. Next thing I know, she jumps, but I'm not ready, and the weight of her pulls me loose from my rock. The world turns into water and sky, clinging to that stick and trying for air. I kick and fight and yell to Nessa to hold on, but she can't hear. I see trees, water, rocks rushing by, and Tesco. Then he's gone, and we're tumbling sideways into the log trap. The eddy at the bottom catches us and spins us round, then spits us out.

We spin, and spin again, and hit backward against floating timber. The breath goes out of me. Everything's black. Water closes over my face, but it's quiet under there. Something pulls my feet, and I think of the Choctaw stories old Isom Mungo told when I helped him at the Lockridges' horse barn. The okwo naholo, the white-people-of-the-water, take children and make them into water spirits you can see right through. Little children need'a be mindful round water, he said. You remember that, Ollie.

I'll let the water people have me. It's better than Tesco.

The air trapped in Daddy's rucksack tugs me toward the surface like a float, and I come up beside Nessa. She catches my hand and pulls it to the drift stick, and I clamp on again. The logs close in all around, ramming against each other. I try to grab on to one, but it rolls and starts to suck me under. I push away from it. Another log bumps it, and it comes back, and we're stuck between two cut tree trunks, the roots of that piece of driftwood the only thing keeping us from getting smashed to bits or pinned underneath the log raft.

I wrap my fingers over Nessa's, look into her face, think, Don't let go. Don't you dare let go. Water floods in my mouth. Nessa's head bobs under and comes up again. Timber presses the rucksack to my back and pins my chest till I can't get air. The river loosens its fist, tightens it again. Nessa goes under, fights her way up. My feet touch bottom, drag over a rock, then it's gone.

The river runs down, and down, and down, and we run with it. The world goes bright, dim, bright. The logs push in, let up, push in, finally the logs spread out and the current slows. A red-tailed hawk flies over, circles lower, then lower. He dives, disappearing into the log run till he comes up again with a fish.

Under,I think. The red-tailed hawk is a messenger bird, a protector. Here, where the river is slow and wide, swim under, that's what the bird came to tell me. You might not get another chance.

Around us, tree shadows dot the water, which means we're by the shore. Pulling close to Nessa, I tell her what we have to do, and I point toward the branches. Her eyes say how scared she is to try it, but she nods, and I grab the back of her dress. One big breath and we dive under the logs, swim for all we're worth. My lungs are burning before we touch sand and the river coughs us up in the roots of a hornbeam tree. All I want to do is stay there and feel the ground under me and grab air, but I know we can't.

"We have to keep moving." I spit words and water all together. "Away from the river."

"T-Tesco," Nessa coughs out, shivering.

We put on our wet shoes and stockings, stumble through trees, and meadows, and more trees. I keep the morning sun at our backs till the train whistle sounds in the distance, telling me we're close to the Old Military Road that follows the Frisco tracks toward Talihina. With any luck, Tesco gave us up for dead at the river. But we don't dare walk on the road, so we follow along it, staying in the cover of the trees. Now and again, the train whistle, or a wagon jangling, or a horse's whinny lets us know we're not alone.

We walk, and stop, and hide to rest, and walk again, following the road. My teeth quit chattering when our clothes finally dry and the day warms, but my head hurts from hungry. All we find to eat are a few dewberries and a handful of the fairy potato roots under tiny pink spring beauty flowers.

By the end of the day, I can't feel my feet, and Nessa limps along so slow we're hardly going anywhere, but there's been no more sign of Tesco Peele. Might be he's still looking for dead bodies at the river. Might be he's gone on home.

Before the light gives out, we stumble onto a dirt cave under a rotten log, where some charcoal shows that a hunter or traveler has camped before. With our matches ruined, all I can do is bust up the charcoal and spread it all around, so if a bear wanders by, it might smell that and not us.

The evening's chill gets us to shivering again, but the river took Daddy's blanket, so we cover ourselves with leaves and pine straw.

Nessa's so tired she's asleep right off.

I hold the big hunting knife in my fingers, listen at the sound of coyotes howling someplace far off. A barred owl calls out, Who, who cooks for you? Whoooo…

The air smells of stone and water, like the caves Daddy used to take me in, where he'd strap a candle lamp on my head and his, then light the hand torches and say, "Just like miners. Don't be scared now, Ollie Auggie. There's boys young as you that go down in the mines round here. Breaker boys that pick the slate out of the coal on the conveyors, and trapper boys that sit down in the dark all alone, to open and close the air doors. They ain't scared, and so you ain't scared, either. A Radley girl is least as tough as a miner boy, right? Hold that torch for me now."

I close my eyes, and I'm a trapper boy way down in a mine. I open a door and fall right through.

A noise rouses me sometime in the night, and I feel for the knife, pull it closer while coyotes yip and howl and run right over our hiding place.

Once it's quiet, I drift away again. I'm not a trapper boy this time. I'm a sunfish, shiny and slick. All the colors in a rainbow. Then I'm a girl, but I'm a girl who can fly. I sail over the whole countryside, and everywhere my wings touch down, mountains rise from the ground. Trees grow on the mountains. Birds and animals fill up the trees, and finally I fold my wings and settle in the branches to rest, but the dark won't stay quiet.

I dream about bears, and Hazel, and Tesco, and elf children with all-black eyes under their hooded cloaks.

When I waken beside Nessa, I see three of them watching us.