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The White-Red Man of Oklahoma
submitted by granddaughter- Trisha Davis
(originally submitted to True West as told by Ollie Stewart printed in the .
May-June 1965, Volume 12, No. 5 as told to Olevia E. Myers)
I remember a squaw who was having trouble before birthing a papoosie. She was all swelled
up like she'd bust from the pizen in her, and the squaws went out and gathered a great big bunch of mullen leaves.
They started a fire under the old iron washpot and started wilting them mullen leavens down and kept cramming in
more, punching and stirring as they wilted, and purty soon they had a whole potful of thick looking water from
the green mullen leaves. They wrapped the squaw in this gooey mess, wrapped her head and foot, in a dirty
old blankey with jest a little place cut out for her to breathe, and a couple of little slits for her to see through.
I saw that squaw, and I tell you true as I'm asetting here that after a while, you could see her going down.
By morning she had lost ever' licking bit of that pizen and that day she birthed a great big papoosie. This
squaw was the wife of a Creek named Squirrel and that night we had us a celebration to beat all celebrations.
It was the custom in them days to begin to fatten up a couple of young dogs to celebrate papoosie day, and when
it happened, them Injuns--just the bucks--gathered to celebrate. Pappy always took along a couple jugs of
redeye, and the Injuns butchered them fat dogs and as they roasted, turning slow like on a spit over the hot coals,
all the bucks would drink firewater. By the time the dogs was about half-done they'd start cutting favorite
pieces from them and it was a mess. I'm telling you. Ever'Injun getting drunker by the minute, and
urging me and Pappy to eat more--"Heap good. Eat more." As I recall, that dog was purty good
eating and I've et many a one!
By this time, two years had passed and I was gitting on to being almost a man, and I was helping Pappy git the
redeye acrost the river. Many the time I've waited on the Territory side while Pappy went to Fort Smith and
got his load. Pretty soon I was swimming that old river and fetching the stuff acrost myself while Pappy
went in for more.
Pappy decided it would be better if we'd build us a log house, so we went over about five or six miles from where
Sallisaw is now to a little place called Long, and here Pappy picked out a spot. You see, the Injuns would
let us live anywhere we wanted 'cause Pappy was good to 'em and treated 'em like people instead of dogs, like lots
of whites did. And then, too, he shore kept 'em in firewater for which he got all kinds of fur pelts that
he could sell in Fort Smith--or go there and ship 'em to St. Louise for a good price.
We went to work and but some big walnut logs, and Pappy took the old broadaxe, and hewed 'em good and square.
Then we give a log-raising. If you don't think an Injun will work, you should've been there at Long about
1872. Pappy passed the word that when the house was done, there'd be free firewater for all who helped and
we couldn't hardly do nothing ourselves for the Injuns putting up those logs. They swarmed all over the roof
helping to put on the boards we had "rived" from some good white oak that would split thin as a knife
blade, almost. When night come, that cabin was laid, roofed, chinked and daubed, and a stick and mud fireplace
had a good little fire burning in it. You see, you had to burn a slow fire in them stick and mud chimneys
for a while to sort of bake the mud slow-like 'til it got set good. That night we didn't have no roast dog,
but we did have a quarter of bear, and a whole venison roasting through the day while we worked. At sundown
it was just right. Talk babout a time, man, we et bear and deer meat till we was about to bust. Funny
thing about them bucks--they didn't seem to ever get enough. Time after time I;ve seen 'em eat till they'd
be sick and go off and vomit jest like a dog and then come right back and eat some more. That's what they
did on the night after the house-raising. They'd drink that firewater--an Injun don't take a swaller like
a white man does--he takes a drink, like a drink of water--and then he'd fill up on bear or deer, go ogg and puke
like a buzzard, and come back for more. Next morning ever' last one of them Injuns was sleeping around that
campfire, feet toward the fire and rolled up in a blanket. 'Bout daylight, you'd see 'em gitting up and silent
as death, they'd pick their own pony out of the bunch in the rope corral and ride away.
Well, it was a fine party, and a mighty fine log cabin. We lived in it about two or three years, me helping
Pappy all the time get the redeye acrost the river into the Nations and fitting to where I thought I was a pretty
smart cookie myself. In fact, it was about this time I begin to think Pappy couldn't tell me much of anything.
It was right after we had moved over to Long that I found out Pappy knowed a lot more about outlaws than I ever
suspected he did, for we had not been at this new place long before I found out Pappy's cabin was built right smack-dab
on the old Owl-Hoot Trail, as it was called. We lived on what was knowed as Hagger Mountain and then there
was a long valley all covered with thick timber and clear little mountain streams and a good spring sprinkled in
ever' so often. It was shore a purty place, but it was not peaceful I can tell you.
Strange men with big hog-legs on their hips kept coming to the house asking fer food and sometimes they'd jest
ride up, talk to Pappy for a minute, and ride on. Purty soon Pappy would be fixing a sack of grub and he'd
tell me to take it and hang it on a certain tree just off the Owl-Hoot Trail. Sometimes the men didn't even
come to the house if they was being trailed purty close; they'd jest hoot like an owl, or make some other kind
of noise. I'd take the vittles, and when I went back next day or two, there would be a sack hanging there
and it would have a few gold pieces in it or maybe some silver.
I was a great bit overgrowed boy by now an' it didn't take me long to figger ever'thing out. Purty soon I
knowed who the men was--at least the most of 'em. They guessed I knowed 'em and they would joke me, and call
me the up-and-coming young owl-hooter. This little place called Long where Pappy settled waren't no more'n
thirty miles from Younger Bend where Belle Starr had her hideout and many's the time I;ve hung grub on that tree
limb for the owl-hooters who was riding hard for Bell's camp.
Jim Red, Sam Starr, The Younger Brotheres, Jim French, Verdigiris Kid--I knowed 'em all. Best of all I remember
Frank and Jesse James. The was the best fellers you'd ever want to meet if you treated 'em right. First
time I ever seed Frand and Jesse, Pappy had sent me over to help a widder woman named Mary Hill to git her little
shirt-tail patch of corn worked out. In them days you never expected to be paid for helping a neighbor out.
At any rate, Pappy had sent me over there and me and Mrs. Hill and the oldest boy, 'bout eleven, I reckon, had
been working that corn patch and Mrs. Hill went in to fix a bite of dinner. When me and the kid went in,
two men was setting at the kitchen table while Mrs. Hill cooked. They was fine looking men and acted real
gentlemanly. All of a sudden, Mrs. Hill busted out crying and one of 'em--I later leart it was Jess-said,
"Ma;am, don't be 'fraid of us. We are not going to hurt you and we will pay you for the food.
We don't bother widder women." Mrs. Hill wiped her eyes on her apron and told 'em she was not crying
'bout them being there--she was crying 'cause she was going to be put out of her home and she didn't know what
in the world she was going to do--her with three little kids and all.
Jesse wanted to know all about it and while they et the meal Mrs. Hill had fixed, she told 'em how it was.
Mr. Hill had mortgaged ever'thing they had to a merchant over at Sallisaw, named Jess Waters, and he was going
to foreclose on her. He was coming out the next day, which was a Saturday, and, of course, she could not
pay the hundred dollars, so she'd have to just walk out. Jesse asked a might lot of questions and hima nd
Frank went outside after they finished eating, and purty soon Jesse came back in. He handed Mrs. Hill a little
sack and told here. "There's the old skin-flint's money. There's ahundred dollars there and I
want you to give it to old Waters when he comes out but don't let him leave here without giving you a receipt for
"Paid in Full.'" Mrs. Hill commenced crying all over again and a-trying to thank the James boys,
but they jest mounted up and rose off laughing at something.
We went on back to hoe corn and next morning I was back bright and early, fer I sure wanted to see the look on
old Waters' face when Mrs. Hill give himt hat money. Well sir, 'bout nine o'clock, Mrs. Waters come riding
up on a fine bay horse with a fancy silver-mounted saddle and bridle. He come in looking real pious and commenced
saying as he hated to do this, but he must have his money this very day. Mrs. Hill walked over to the
cupboard and reached up, took down an old pitcher and poured out that hundred dollars, all in gold. "There;s
your money, Mr. Waters, after you give me a receipt for it-all free and clear." Old Man Water's eyes
bugged out like he seed a ghost and he asked where she got all that money. Mrs. Hill told him, "It's
gold, ain't it?" He wrote her out a receipt that the mortgage was paid up, and rode off. Mrs.
Hill started laughing and crying all at the same time 'cause she had her home saved and 'cause Old Man Waters looked
so funny when she give him the hundred in gold.
Well sir, it waren't but a day or two till most ever'one on Hagger Mountain made i a p'int to come over to visit
the Widder Hill, and ever' last one of 'em was curious as a pet coon as to where she got the money. After
awhile she told 'em right out that Jesse and Frank James give it to her, but she didn't know 'em when she took
it. Old man Waters never made it home with that hundred dollars in gold. No, sir-ee. A couple
of men--according to his story--stopped him right where the Owl-Hoot Trail crosses Brushy Mountain and not only
took the hundred in gold but about a hundred that he was a-carrying besides.
on Wednesday of the followin week, Jesse and Frank showed up again at Mrs. Hill's and asked again for some grub.
When they started to leave, Jesse pulled out a little bag and laid it on the table, Mrs. Hill looked him right
in the eyes and said, "God bless you boys fer helping a helpless woman, but I don't want your money and I
don't want you to ever come here agin. I'm trying to raise my three children to be God-fearing folk and I
don't want 'em every to say I was not a good mother.
The boys look at her a second and both of them liftend their hats like they was in church and at the same time
they both said, "God bless you, Ma'am," and they rode away. Mrs. Hill said sh'd not have taken
the money even to save her home and ever'thing, if she had knowed it was clean money. They;d left the little
package on the table and it had almost two hundred dollars in it. Well, Old Man Waters never missed that
little bit and even if he could not prove where it come from, well, he had a purty good idea. Mrs. Hill sold
off her little shirt-tail of goods and went back to Kentucky to her folks.
By now, as I said, I knowed most of the Owl-Hooters and I often talked with 'em when Pappy sent me to tie the grub
in the tree for 'em. Many a time I've set under that old tree jest off the Owl-Hoot Trail a short distance
from Glass Holler where there was a good cave and where the outlaws often hid out. Cole Youngeer told me
one day, hot as hell it were, that he wished he-d never got started outside the law. "Once you're out, boy,
there's no way of gitting back in." He told me he had one brother, but I've forgot which one it was,
that wanted to be a farmer more'n anything. He said that he even carried books on farming in his saddle bags,
and would read 'em and talk about new ways of farming while the rest of 'em played cards or drank.
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