they were. But no date or name. Just twenty white stones covered in blood.”
“Mon up, son,” Lavester said, lifting Efram by the armpits. “Lemme hep you. You not hurt bad, are you?”
“Huh? No, I’m not hurt,” Efram said, seeing the blood covering his shirt and britches. “Just a cut on the hand is all.”
“Well, let’s get you home. I done tied your horse to my wagon. He’ll follow along behind. Been a long day for everybody.” Efram rose and followed Lavester to his wagon, where two old mules raised their heads in welcome. One sniffed and snorted and the other stomped the ground at the sight of him.
While Lavester pulled away from New Hope Cemetery, a growing number of late-arriving relatives, out-of-towners, approached the gravesite. Climbing from wagons and sliding off horses, they moved without speaking to the fresh piles of dirt over the twenty graves. As on the burial day, they carried blankets and baskets of food and settled onto the grounds for a daylong grieving.
As the day settled to a close, the mourners trudged their way to the waiting wagons. In the hovering light of sunset, the stones glowed a soft farewell.
Chipisa lachi, they seemed to say. See you in the future.
Spiro Town
Amafo's Spiderweb Eye
Rose • April 1897
One early Saturday morning in April, two weeks before Easter, Amafo quietly slipped into our bedroom. He nudged me in the ribs and grabbed Jamey’s left foot, the one always hanging off the bed. Amafo was already dressed, but not in his usual clothes—a white shirt and worn-out blue coveralls. No, he was dressed in his reddish-brown Sunday-only suit.
“Get on up outta bed now,” Amafo said. My sleepy eyes stared at his green tie with the big white circles on it, too tight around his neck. I knew that Pokoni was part of the day’s design. Amafo never tied his own tie, but liked to fuss and squirm till Pokoni pinched his nose and made him stop.
“Don’t be laying around all day!” Amafo said. “Somebody come last night and did all the chores. Nothing fer us to do today but go to town. Figure we kin watch the trains come in at the depot.”
We were out of our beds like a house afire. We made our beds quick too, folding back the sheets and covers and fluffing up the pillows, just in case Momma thought about overruling Amafo on the chore-doing business. We put on our going-to-town clothes and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen.
Momma heated up last night’s cornbread and we dipped it in buttermilk for breakfast. Jamey and I didn’t say a word at breakfast, ’cept for when Jamey said, “Sure is good cornbread. Yes ma’am.”
I shot him a look to say, That’s enough, now. Don’t push our luck.
After breakfast I cleared the table and was just about to fetch pump water for washing, when Momma stopped me in my tracks.
“That’s all right, hon. You go on with Amafo. I can do the cleaning.”
“Yakoke,” I whispered, then gave her a good long thank you look, the one I knew she felt right through her skin.
Amafo already had Whiteface hitched up and pulled around front, ready to go. Jamey and I climbed onto the back bed of the wagon and off we went. We were so excited we lay on our backs and stared at the treetops, barely speaking all the way to Spiro.
The trains came in late evenings every night of the week, but they were mostly delivering goods and mail, with very few passengers. But on Saturday sometimes as many as five trains would unload passengers—passengers dressed up and coming from Little Rock or Memphis or even as far away as New Orleans.
It was just past nine when we arrived at the train station. Amafo nestled our wagon to a spot behind the depot. He stepped down and around to the tying rail to secure Whiteface, all the time stroking her neck and ears and talking that soft cooing talk that only Whiteface and Amafo understood.
I climbed down on my own and Amafo helped Jamey to the ground. We ambled along at Amafo’s pace. I did my best to walk slow and respectful, seeing as how our excitement grew at the noise of the oncoming train. It was bigger than I ever remembered, seeing it so close-up like we were.
The brakes screeched and the train came to a stop near enough for us to smell the grinding metal and feel the hot air rising from the steam engine. We stood and stared gap-mouthed at the train and the people waiting. We climbed the platform steps and Amafo found an empty outside table tucked up against the depot wall. He bought us a bag of roasted peanuts to share, so salty you had to lick your fingers after eating, and a tall glass of lemonade apiece.
Folks crowded to the edge of the tracks as passengers unloaded. A quarter hour passed and an easy calm settled in. Passengers waiting for a connecting train found tables inside the depot and a dozen or so men strolled up and down the platform, smoking pipes and mopping their brows.
Long after everyone else had come and gone, a tall gentleman dressed in a black suit appeared at the door to the final car. A Negro porter rushed to help him from the train. The gentleman was followed by two porters carrying his luggage—three large brown-leather suitcases.
“That’s the new Indian agent,” we heard someone whisper when he walked by. The agent seemed not to notice that everyone was staring at him. He pulled out his pocket watch and shook his head as he looked up and down the platform. He spoke to a porter and soon a wagon appeared. The agent climbed into the passenger seat as his luggage was loaded in the wagon bed and off they rode.
Less than five minutes after the agent left, the town marshal, Marshal Hardwicke, came driving a wagon pulled by two fidgety black horses, sleek and sweating. He leapt to the platform from his wagon, pushed open the depot doors, and strode to the ticket counter. After speaking to the ticket agent, he slammed his fist on the counter and stormed outside to the platform.
“Did anyone see the new Indian agent?” he said, turning his head from side to side as he spoke. “Was the train early?” Marshal Hardwicke shouted, but no one spoke to him. The marshal was a big man with powerful arms and a mustached face that grew more and more puffy-cheeked and red. Everyone on the platform moved to give him a path, but no one spoke.
A tall, thin lady in a shiny blue dress, the final passenger, stepped from the train. Her face was soft, but her eyes were outlined in black and her cheeks were pink circles of face powder. She craned her goose neck up and down the platform before turning and struggling to drag two large suitcases behind her.
“Hold on, ma’am,” a young porter called out, skip-stepping through the depot door. Judging from his size and bright, innocent eyes, he looked to be maybe sixteen years old. “I’m here fer ya.”
The porter gave a wide berth around the marshal, but not wide enough. Marshal Hardwicke grabbed his collar from behind and jerked the young man backwards and off his feet. He slammed him against the wall and slid his hand up the porter’s neck and under his chin.
“You, boy. You seen the new agent get offa this train?”
The porter nodded as best he could, being pinned up against the wall by his throat. The marshal relaxed his grip and the porter steadied himself, saying, “He left just a minute or two ago. Called hisself a wagon. Probly be at the hotel by now.”
Marshal Hardwicke staggered for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do next. That’s
