Read Online Cherokee by Giles Tippette - Free Book Online

looked away.
    â€œOn account of his arm?”
    He didn’t answer me.
    I went halfway down the steps. I stopped and turned back to him. “Well, I reckon I’ll do it. Though I hope you know what you’re asking with a herd to cut and this trouble with the Jordans.”
    â€œI know,” he said.
    â€œAnd I don’t know if I’m doing it because you asked me and you’re my pa, or because you got my curiosity up about what I might find out from this Charlie Stevens. That is, if I can find him.”
    â€œYou’ll find him,” he said.
    â€œHow do you know? How do you know he ain’t dead?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t. I just got a feeling. But either way, I need you to try.”
    â€œShit!” I said. I gathered up my horse’s reins and swung aboard. “Howard Williams, you have got a nerve, I’ll say that for you. You want to come help me explain to Nora why I got to be gone for all the time this trip will take?”
    He shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think I’d care to do that.”
    Neither did I. But I turned my horse and started for my home. Lunch would be just about ready. Maybe I’d have time for a couple of drinks before I set to work on Nora.

CHAPTER 3
    â€œWhen are you going?” We were laying in bed. I hadn’t told her all about it until after supper and after J.D. was in bed asleep. She’d agreed with me that it was a strange request and a strange errand, but she’d found it perfectly understandable that Howard had considered he’d stolen the money. I’d said, “How the hell can you figure that? It was a loan. Just because Howard has let hell’s own kind of time pass before paying it back don’t mean he stole it. He made it sound like he’d either robbed it out of the man’s strongbox or thrown down on him with a gun and took it off of him.”
    Nora had said, “It was an honorable debt and Howard would think he had not treated it in an honorable fashion.”
    I’d said, “Well, I wish to hell he had. I guarantee you I ain’t looking for no long trip to Oklahoma. I’m about halfway tempted to take the train.”
    She’d said, “But you promised him you’d take it on horseback. I think it’s important to him that it be done in a certain manner.”
    I’d said, “Well, I wish the damn gold had come down on the train. No, I can’t take the damn train because I’d get back too soon. I could do the whole deal in four or five days on the train. And if we done it sensible it could be done in half a day by wiring a bank draft.”
    Now she said, “How are you going to find this Charlie Stevens?”
    There was a good moon out and the room was kind of half glowing. I shook my head against the pillow. “Beats the hell out of me. Go up to that town, Anadarko, and go to asking around. Bet you doughnuts to dollars I’m going to spend a week and come up with nothing. I’ll bet this Charlie Stevens is either dead or disappeared and left no forwarding address.”
    â€œYou haven’t said when you’re going.”
    I said grumpily, “Not any sooner than I have to. Damn, Nora, there’s a hundred matters need tending to around here. And I don’t want to go off and sleep by myself for three weeks.”
    She was laying right beside me, wearing a small light cotton sleeping gown. She moved her hip harder against mine. I had my left arm around her with her head kind of tucked into my neck.
    She said, “Justa, you’ve got to do it. You promised.”
    I turned my head a little in her direction. It didn’t allow me to look into her eyes, but she got the idea. I said, “What is this? Near as I can recall, this is the first time you’ve ever wanted me to go off on a trip. Always before you had about ten different reasons I couldn’t go. How come the big switch? You got you another