“You’ve never been there,” Tilghman observed. “They have towns and schools, and laws and courts. Their system of government’s even patterned on ours.”
“Maybe so, but they’ve had that land for fifty years. What’ve they done with it?”
Zoe called them to supper. At the table, the conversation resumed with the give and take of a friendly debate. Tilghman’s view of the Nations, a subject they’d never discussed, was a pleasant surprise for Zoe. She found herself nodding with his defense of the Five Civilized Tribes.
The power brokers, Tilghman commented, had decided that Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory should be joined as one state. Indian leaders, on the other hand, had lodged fiery protests against single statehood. They feared, and rightly so, that Oklahomans would monopolize government and politics, and the rule of law. As the Plains Tribes had been dispossessed of their lands, it now appeared that similar tactics were to be used against the Five Civilized Tribes. There was an odor of conspiracy involving white money barons and the federal government.
The Indians, Tilghman went on, were right in their suspicions. Joint statehood would be impossible until all Indian lands had been allotted in severalty and the tribal governments abolished. Quick to respond to pressure from Congress, the president had appointed a commission and ordered that negotiations commence with the Five Civilized Tribes. The purpose was to extinguish tribal title to their lands, and Indian leaders were aligned in their determination to resist. The last battle was about to be joined.
“I don’t get it,” Stratton said, puzzled. “Everybody in the Nations sides with outlaws and works against federal marshals. Why would you take up for them?”
Tilghman helped himself to a second serving of beef stew. “Question of what’s right,” he said. “Fifty years ago we took their homelands in the South and forced them to move out here. Not right to rob them again.”
“The same could be said of the Plains Tribes. We took their land.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference. The Plains Tribes were nomads, lived off the buffalo. The people in the Nations operate businesses and run farms. They adopted our way of life.”
Stratton sopped stew gravy with a hunk of bread. He chewed thoughtfully a moment. “No offense, Bill,” he said finally. “But you and me wouldn’t have land except for broken treaties. What changed your mind about the Nations?”
“Hard to say,” Tilghman admitted. “What seemed fair yesterday doesn’t seem so fair today. Maybe we ought to stop breaking treaties.”
“Sounds like wishful thinkin’ to me. Would you return your land to the Sac and Fox?”
“Too late now to turn back the clock. But we’ve got a chance to do the right thing in the Nations. We owe those people more than a hundred sixty acres.”
Congress had directed that a roll be taken of every man, woman, and child in Indian Territory. Clearly, this was a preparatory step to allotment of lands in severalty, one hundred sixty acres to a family. Yet the rolls being taken were also a death knell for a way of life. It was the first step in the dissolution of the Five Civilized Tribes.
Amos Stratton saw it as progress. To his way of thinking, at least ten million acres would be opened to white settlement in Indian Territory. But for Tilghman it had slowly become a symbol of all that was wrong between the white man and the red man. He had pioneered the opening of Oklahoma Territory, and he was proud of what had been achieved. Still, in retrospect, he saw that it could have been handled in a more equitable manner. He thought the Five Civilized Tribes deserved better.
After supper, Zoe shooed her father back into the parlor. Then, once the table was cleared, she and Tilghman walked down to the creek. The summer sky was ablaze with stars, and they paused beneath the dappled shadows of a tree. She took his face in her hands, kissed him softly on the mouth. Her eyes shone in the starlight.
“You’re a good man,” she said in a dreamy voice. “I’m so proud of you.”
Tilghman was taken aback. “What makes you say that?”
“Because I saw a different side of you tonight. You believe right is right—even for Indians.”
“Took a while,” Tilghman confessed. “Working over in the Nations opened my eyes. They’ve got reason not to trust whites. We don’t keep our word.”
“That’s why it bothers you,” she said, staring at him. “You do keep your word.”
“Watch out,” Tilghman said with a roguish smile. “You’re liable to give me a swelled head.”
“No fear of that.”
“You think not, huh?”
Her voice was husky. “Hold me, Bill. Hold me tight.”
Tilghman enfolded her in his arms. She stood quietly in his embrace a moment, and then looked up, her mouth moist and inviting. He kissed her beneath the dappled starlight.
The katydids along the creek went silent.
CHAPTER 22
Tilghman and Neal Brown rode north the following night. The plains glimmered beneath bright starlight and a cloudless sky. A soft breeze whispered through the rolling sea of grass.
By now, the trail was a familiar one to Tilghman. His previous scouts to Ingalls and the Dunn ranch had left a map of the landscape imprinted in his mind. He timed their departure to put them on Council Creek shortly before dawn. He planned to be in position by sunrise.
Brown was in a grumpy mood. He’d arranged for the Sac and Fox workhands to look after the stock while they were gone. One day would suffice for the trip, and he had told them he would return by the next evening. But that was based on the assumption that he and Tilghman would encounter no problems. His sour mood indicated that he wasn’t sold on the argument. To him, outlaws were always a problem.
“No end to it,” he muttered as they rode along. “Doolin or somebody else, there’s gonna be robbers and such till hell freezes over. You’ll never catch ’em all.”
Tilghman nodded agreeably. “Never said I would, Neal. Doolin’s the one
