Cimarron

little Isaiah; rather, he slept there, like a faithful dog, for all day long he was about the house and the printing office, tireless, willing, invaluable. He belonged to Sabra, body and soul, as completely as though the Civil War had never been. A little servant of twelve, born to labor, he became as dear to Sabra, as accustomed, as one of her own children, despite her Southern training and his black skin. He dried the dishes, a towel tied around his neck; he laid the table; he was playmate and nursemaid for Cim; he ran errands, a swift and splayfooted Mercury; he was a born reporter, and in the course of his day’s scurrying about the town on this errand or that brought into Sabra’s kitchen more items of news and gossip (which were later transferred to the newspaper office) than a whole staff of trained newspaper men could have done. He was so little, so black, so lithe, so harmless looking, that his presence was, more often than not, completely overlooked. The saloon loungers, cowboys, rangers, and homesteaders in and about the town alternately spoiled and plagued him. One minute they were throwing him dimes in the dust for his rendition of his favorite song:

“King Jesus come a-ridin’ on a milk-white steed,
Wid a rainbow on his shoulder.”

The next moment they were making his splayfeet dance frenziedly as the bullets from their six-shooters plopped playfully all about him and his kinky hair seemed to grow straight and dank with terror.

Sabra, in time, taught him to read, write, and figure. He was quick to learn, industrious, lovable. He thought he actually belonged to her. Cim was beginning to learn the alphabet, and as Sabra bent over the child, Isaiah, too, would bring his little stool out of its corner. Perched on it like an intelligent monkey he mastered the curlicues in their proper sequence. He cleared the unsightly back yard of its litter of tin cans and refuse. Together he and Sabra even tried to plant a little garden in this barren sanguine clay. More than anything else, Sabra missed the trees and flowers. In the whole town of almost ten thousand inhabitants there were two trees: stunted jack oaks. Sometimes she dreamed of lilies of the valley⁠—the translucent, almost liquid green of their stems and leaves, the perfumed purity of their white bells.

All this, however, came later. These first few days were filled to overflowing with the labor of making the house habitable and the office and plant fit for Yancey’s professional pursuits. Already his talents as a silver-tongue were being sought in defense of murderers, horse thieves, land grabbers, and more civil offenders in all the surrounding towns and counties. It was known that the average jury was wax in his hands. Once started on his plea it was as though he were painting the emotions that succeeded each other across the faces of the twelve (or less, depending on the number available in the community) good men (or good enough) and true. A tremolo tone⁠—their eyes began to moisten, their mouth muscles to sag with sympathy; a wave of the hand, a lilt of the golden voice⁠—they guffawed with mirth. Even a horse thief, that blackest of criminals in this country, was said to have a bare chance for his life if Yancey Cravat could be induced to plead for him⁠—and provided always, of course, that the posse had not dealt with the offender first.

Yancey, from the time he rose in the morning until he went to bed late at night, was always a little overstimulated by the whisky he drank. This, together with a natural fearlessness, an enormous vitality, and a devouring interest in everybody and everything in this fantastic Oklahoma country, gained him friends and enemies in almost equal proportion.

In the ten days following their arrival in Osage, his one interest seemed to be the tracing of the Pegler murder⁠—for he scoffed at the idea that his predecessor’s death was due to any other cause.

He asked his question everywhere, even in the most foolhardy circumstances, and watched the effect of his question. Pegler had been a Denver newspaper man; known, respected, decent. Yancey had sworn to bring his murderers to justice.

Sabra argued with him, almost hysterically, but in vain. “You didn’t do anything about helping them catch the Kid, out there on the prairie, when they were looking for him, and you knew where he was⁠—or just about⁠—and he had killed a man, too, and robbed a bank, and I don’t know what all.”

“That was different. The Kid’s different,” Yancey answered, unreasonably and infuriatingly.

“Different! How different? What’s this Pegler to you! They’ll kill you, too⁠—they’ll shoot you down⁠—and then what shall I do?⁠—Cim⁠—Cim⁠—and I here, alone⁠—Yancey, darling⁠—I love you so⁠—if anything should happen to you⁠—” She waxed incoherent.

“Listen, honey. Hush your crying and listen. Try to understand. The Kid’s a terror. He’s a bad one. But it isn’t his fault. The government at Washington made him an outlaw.”

“Why, Yancey Cravat, what are you talking about? Don’t you ever say a thing like that before Cim.”

“The Kid’s father rode the range before there were fences or railroads in Kansas, and when this part of the country was running wild with longhorn cattle that had descended straight from the animals that the Spaniards had brought over four centuries ago. The railroads began coming in. The settlers came with it, from the Gulf Coast, up across Texas, through the Indian Territory to the end of steel at Abilene, Kansas. The Kid was brought up to all that. Freighters, bull whackers, mule skinners, hunters, and cowboys⁠—that’s all he knew. Into Dodge City, with perhaps nine months’ pay jingling in his pocket. I’ll bet neither the Kid nor his father before him ever saw a nickel or a dime. They wouldn’t have bothered with such chicken feed. Silver dollars were the smallest coin they knew. They worked for it, too. I’ve seen seventy-five thousand cattle at a time