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Ollie
Stewart
April
26, 1859-October 6, 1967
The
White-Red
Man of
Oklahoma
submitted
by
granddaughter-
Trisha
Davis
(originally submitted
to True
West as told
by Ollie Stewart printed in this
May-June
1965,
Volume 12, No. 5 as told to
Olevia E.
Myers)
Ollie Stewart's faded blue eyes grow brighter and his
quivery old voise seems to grow stronger as he
peers back --far
back--through the
swirling
mists of over a hundred years.
Ollie
came to Indian
Territory when he was eleven years ole, in
1870. He now lives
quietly with his
memories in a little
two-room home in West
Tulsa, and does his own
cooking and
housework. He saw
the Old West as it
really was. He
lived it and helped build
it.
The Owl-Hoot Trail on which all the
bad ones rode, Frank and Jesse James,
the
Younger brothers, Jim
French, Verdigris Kid,
Blue Duck, Belle Starr,
Cherokee Bill, has no
nook or cranny
that
Ollie Stewart does not
know. I sat with
him on his 104th
birthday and listened to
his almost incredible
tale
of the old days, and I have tried hard to
capture the colorful
language in which he
relates his
experiences.
"Twas in the
late
fall of 1870 when
Pappy at last pulled up
the ox team and
hollered, "Whoa, Whoa!"
We were on a purty, slow-sweeping hill
in
Injun country near
where the town of Sallisaw, Oklahoma now
stands. There was
a few old Injun huts
there, but no
town-nothing even
looking like a
town. It was coming on
night
when we
pulled up
and
Pappy looked around and lowed as hoow
"this
was the
place." We had come all the way
from
Indiana in this
old
wagon with all the
housekeeping stuff and all
Pappy's plunder in
it,
along with me
and my brother. We had
Mammy with us part of
the way, but it was a
long hard trip, and
Mammy never had been
strong--I think she
had
lung fever--anyway,
she died summers along
with way. Me and
Pappy dug a grave and
buried her. My
brother was poorely
like
Mammy was, and so he
didn't help dig the
grave, but he got some
wild flowers and put at
her head and her feet
and we give her a
Christian a burial as we was
able to.
Then
we went on.
It was
coming on night when we stopped, and Pappy
said to get some
firewood together so's
Brother could fix some
supper while we fixed a
shelter. Soon as
we had unhitched the
oxen, Buck and Jude
as
we called 'em, we took
the chopping ax and
starting cutting purty
good sized young trees
for the corner posts
of
our shelter. We
got the corner posts cut that night and
then
slept in the wagon,
after eating a good
supper
of sow belly and
biscuits cooked in the
old Dutch oven by the campfire.
Sometime
that night I
waked up to the God-awfullest screeching and
hollering you ever heerd
and the wagon was
plumb surrounded by
Injuns. They was
all
on horseback and nary a one of 'em had a
saddle--just a sort of
bellyband around the
horse's middle and a
kind of stirrup fastened
on to the bellyband. I was skeered to
death almost, but
Pappy--Pappy waren't afeared
of nothing, for
he'd
gone through the War
without a scratch and had been a prisioner for
awhile, so he was hard as nails and
dangerous
as a rattler if you
crossed him.
Pappy got out of the
wagon pulling his
galluses up over his
shoulders and making
friendly motions toward
the Injuns who was all
'round the wagon.
He pointed to the
coffee pot near the
fire
and said, "Git
down--we'll make
coffee." The injuns
just stared at Pappy and then an old buck
with
long greasy hair
and feathers all braided into it, said
"Goody." Pappy
didn't know what in the
world he meant, and
shook his head in
puzzlement to show he
did not
understand. By
now I had the old shotgun
in my hands and had
'er
eared back--she
was double barreled, 12
gauge, and loaded with
buckshot. I
would
have let go sure
as
shooting if they had made a move, but I
was
skeered--God, I was
skeered!
The old
greasy-haired buck made a motion as though he
was drinking, and now
and then he'd let out a
war-whoope. "Goody, Goody!" he
demanded.
All of 'em was gitting restless now--there was 'bout
seven as I recollect--and finally Pappy said,
"Whiskey?"
"Goody, Goody!" the Injuns
all yelled and Pappy turned to the
endgate of
the wagon and reached in, pulled out a gallon jug of
redeye we'd hauled with us, and when them
redskins saw that jug,
they kept hollering,
"Goody, Goody!" and ever'last one of ;em jumped
off their ponies and gathered around the
campfire. The jug
went round and
round. Each Injun would take a big swaller and
then gobble like a wild turkey,. They'd
pass the jug to Pappy
each time it went round,
and he'd take a little swig jest to be
friendly. After a while, the jug was
empty and the Injuns made
motions to Pappy
that they wanted himt o go with 'em. Pappy
didn't know jest what to do, but he stuck his
head in the wagon and
told us that he thought
he'd better go 'long as he thought they was
friendly. Pappy told us to git some
sleep, that he knowed what
he was doing and
there was a hard day's work ahead tomorrow, because
didn't none of us figger to sleep in that
wagon another night.
So there in the
middle of nowhere with prairie grass plumb up to the
top of my head, we was setting along, Brother
and me.
When I
waked up pretty early
next morning, Pappy was back and already
drinking coffee by the chunk-up
campfire. Pappy told us the
Injuns had
taken him home with 'em and had built up a fire outside a
shelter where the old Injun lived and then had
called the squaws out
of bed to cook for
'em. Then they rosted a fat dog for
Pappy! You see-the fat dog was their way
of being nice, jest
like we will cook up a
mess of stead or the best we've got for
company.
Well, Pappy had never eat dog,
but he said he
figgered that iffen we was
gonna git along with these folks we'd
have to
eat what they put before us jest the same as we'd expect 'em
to do when they come to our house. Soon
as it was good daylig,
we started on that
shelter for us to live in, and know what we
done? We took the corner posts we'd cut
the day before--they
all had forks at the
top--and we set 'em good and deep in the
ground, then we took smaller poles and laid in
the forks, then took
still smaller poles and
lad 'em across these poles and kivered the
whole she-bang with grass and lims and we had
a purty good shelter
after we'd leaned some
poles up to three sides and kivered them the
same way.
We lived there for two
years. Always in the
winter we kept a
big fire going on the side that was open and it was
plenty warm all the time, but I tell you we
used a help of wood to
keep that fire
going. Course there was always plenty of red
coals to use in cooking the wild game we
killed, and many a good pot
of deer, bear,
squirrel, rabbit, turkey--Good Loved, at the wild
turkeys!--and then there was the pigeon roosts
along the river
banks. You can't ever
imagine the swarms of pigeons roosting
on the
limbs of trees. I've seed big limbs broke off by the
roosting pigeons. Know how we killed
'em? Well, we'd
take a big
stick--usually we whittled a hand-hold on a good hickory
limb-and then we'd jest go down to the pigeon
roosts, taking a good
rich pine torch which
seems to sort of blind 'em and start knocking
'em off the limbs. You could swing that
club and a down would
fall. After we'd
killed what we thought we'd want for the
winter (we salted 'em down inbarrels), we'd
gather 'em up into the
wagon and haul 'em
home. Took a whole day to clean 'em, too,
but we'd all pitch in and they was shore good
eating when the winter
was on. All the
time while we lived in the shelter, Pappy was
working up a good trade in Whiskey. He
had a good
scheme. He'd go acrost the
river to Fort Smith or Van Buren
and go 'round
gitting a few gallons here and there--a gallon or two
at a time--and hide it in the river
bottom. Then after night
he would go to
the Arkansas Rive to a place where he always
forded--away from the regular ford, and he
would swim acrost with a
load on his horse's
back, then go right back acrost the river to
where he had his hid whiskey in the thick
bottoms, and get another
load. Sometimes
he'd work all night gitting his load to redeye
acrost into the Territory. Then he would
load it up in the
wagon and bring it on
home.
The Injuns all knowed him
by now, and not a one of 'em but would've died
before he'd betray
him. Funny how an
Injun would never go back on his work.
They would all watch for the U.S. Marshals and
warn Pappy if one was
in the Nations and Pappy
could have all that whiskey hid in no time
a'tall. We was real friendly with all
the tribes. You
see, this was Cherokee
country, but there was a awful lot of both
Creeks and Osages lived here too, and ever'one
got along
fine.
There was no doctors,
but the Injuns didn't didn't need a doctor-they knowed about
remedies for ever'thing. and they wored, too-most of the time.
I remember when Pappy got a big running sore on his shin, a set-fast
we called it, and he had rode to Fort Smith several times trying to
git it cured. Then this old Injun named Walking Stick come
along, looked at Pappy's leg, shook his head and muttered, "Me cure.
You want 'em me cure?" "I shore do, Walking Stick," Pappy
replied. Walking Stick walked out into the woods, me trailing
along, and found a dried cow chip-got a handful of that--and walked
on to where a big old cottonwood tree stood and picked up a handful
of the dead white bark that is always on the ground under a
cottonwood tree. He then took the cow-chip and cottwood bark
and, finding a smooth rock, he spread this stuff out. Taking a
smaller rock, he pounded and pounded, and he'd sift it 'round and
pound some more 'til it was just like flour. Then he took some
bear grease and mixed into it 'til he had a thick salve. He
told Pappy to not let his pants leg touch him for three days.
He then took great gobs of this stuff and made a real thick blanket
of it all 'round Pappy's leg. Three days later he come back,
removed real careful the stuff that had hardened lake plaster
almost. He wet it with warm water, peeled it off, and we could
see the leg was healing. Walking Stick went throught the same
process again, he sait it had to be fresh made--and three days later
when he come back, the leg was healing a lot more and was all pink
'round the sore instead of grey runny matter like it had been for so
long. He told Pappy to let it air for three days, then again
he applied the stuff and that was it. Pappy never had no more
trouble with that set-fast.
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