CHAPTER

55

 

Tolman and Journey drove to downtown Carpenter Center, to Texoma Plaza with its memorial park in the center of the square and ring of small businesses surrounding it. They parked in front of Colbert’s Fine Jewelers, and Journey raced inside. The little silver bell over the doorway tinkled.

Just like the first time he’d been here, the young man with the mixed-blood features was behind the counter. “Help you?” he said.

“Is Marvin here today?”

“Uncle!” the boy yelled, and disappeared into the back of the store.

In a moment, Marvin Colbert came into the showroom. “You’re back,” he said.

“Yes,” Journey said.

“I wondered when you’d come back,” Colbert said. “Where’s your boy?”

“He’s in school.”

“He like that little ball I gave him?”

Journey remembered the rush of air on Andrew’s face. “He loves it.” He leaned on the counter, Tolman standing just behind him. “You know what G.W. is on those pins I asked you about?”

Colbert sat heavily onto a stool. “No, sir, I don’t.”

“When I sat them in front of you, you got this look on your face like you recognized them. I couldn’t quite place it, couldn’t remember what was bothering me about that day, and then I figured it out. You know about G.W.”

“I know about G.W. I don’t know what the letters stand for.”

Journey spread his hands apart. “Why didn’t you say something that day?”

Colbert’s face was stone. “You didn’t ask.”

Journey felt anger rising; then he realized the old man wasn’t being sarcastic. “But what—?”

“I never answer questions that aren’t asked,” Colbert said. “There’s only trouble when you give the answer before the question. Learned that the hard way a few times.”

“G.W,” Journey said. “It’s at Fort Washita, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But you’ve never known what the letters mean?”

“No.”

“Where is it?”

“In the Chickasaw section, on the west side by the wall.”

Journey tried to envision the place. Before the discovery of the guns and the document, he’d been to Fort Washita only twice since moving to Oklahoma. It was a state historic site, but overall it didn’t have much relevance to his work. He’d gone once for his own curiosity, and once to take Andrew.

U.S. soldiers who had been posted to Fort Washita, and who had died there—usually from disease or injury, since there was no real fighting near the fort—were buried in the post cemetery, but later reinterred at the Fort Gibson National Cemetery, several hours’ drive northeast. Segregated even in death, there was a Confederate cemetery with two hundred unmarked graves at the far west end of the fort. What remained in the post cemetery were a few scattered civilians from the area. Journey closed his eyes.

He snapped them open. “The Colbert family plot. You have a section out there.”

“Those are all more recent graves,” Colbert said. “You want the old Chickasaw burial ground, outside the Colbert plot.”

“But I don’t—” He remembered walking over the site the day the guns were discovered. A white picket fence surrounded the cemetery. He’d looked at a few of the old markers, some with splotches of yellow across them. Many children from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were buried there. The epitaph on one of them had struck him: A LITTLE FLOWER OF LOVE THAT BLOSSOMED BUT TO DIE.

Outside the white picket fence of the main cemetery was a low rock wall with a small opening that led into it, and a gray granite marker:

CHICKASAW INDIAN BURIAL GROUND—“KNOWN BUT TO GOD.”

“But there were no markers,” Journey said.

“The old Chickasaw didn’t believe in grave markers,” Colbert said. “Most of them were buried under their houses. But for the ones who did get buried in a common ground, they weren’t marked until way up in the twentieth century.”

Journey strained for the memory. It was just a small rectangular section of ground, covered in grass. It was unbroken by …

“Right along the wall,” he said. “A little stone slab.”

Colbert nodded.

“Do you know who he was?” Journey said. His heart was hammering. “Did your family know him?”

“He must have been a white man, since they gave him a marker. But whoever buried him there, they let him lie with the Chickasaw people. Other than that, I don’t know. Maybe some of the elders did, but they never told me.”

“I know who it is,” Journey said.

Colbert nodded, waiting.

“Who owns that part of the land now?” Journey said. “It’s within the fort, so—”

“Historical Society.”

Journey was nodding. “Yes. Yes, that’s it.” He looked at Tolman. “It’s time for you to use a little of that federal government influence.” He looked back to Colbert. “We need to do some digging out there.”

Colbert folded his arms.

“People have died because of this,” Journey said.

“Because of those pins,” Colbert said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes. And I think a lot more people could die if we don’t do something.”

Colbert was silent for another long, long moment. “We’ll keep it in the family,” he finally said. “One of my great-nephews can help you. I’ll give you his number. Just one thing…” Journey looked at him. “Leave the Chickasaw alone. Do what you have to do, but don’t disturb anything outside that one little corner.”

“I won’t. His name—the man’s name was Samuel Benjamin Williams.”

“Then why G.W.?” Colbert said.

“He was the first Glory Warrior,” Journey said, and ran out of the jewelry store, Colbert staring after him.

On the sidewalk, Tolman said, “Williams is buried here?”

“Think about it,” Journey said. “This is the last place we know for sure he was alive. He was in Appomattox on April ninth, 1865. He rode to Louisville and hid the page in his bank vault. Then he came here to do the same with the front page.”

“What if he came here first and then Louisville?”

“That wouldn’t make sense,” Journey said. “He moved steadily west. Virginia to Kentucky to Indian Territory. In fact, I was thinking today that the route we took from Louisville, down across Arkansas and into Oklahoma, is probably pretty close to what Williams did. This is where the trail ended. We didn’t know what happened to him.”

“We still don’t,” Tolman pointed out.

“No, but he died here,” Journey said, “and I’m willing to bet it wasn’t from old age.”

“And one of the Chickasaw buried him. But why—?”

“I think we’re going to find out in a few hours.” Journey pointed at her. “Call and make sure it’s legal for us to dig. Colbert’s nephew will do the work for us.”

“Dig? Whoa, what … you want to dig up Williams’s body?”

“We have to.”

“Jesus, Journey … wait a minute. You think the signature page is buried with Williams? Holy shit, he kept it with him the whole time?”

Journey pointed at Tolman’s cell phone. “Start calling.”

“What are you going to do?”

He was already on his own phone. In a moment, a voice answered, “Marshall County Sheriff’s Office.”

“This is Nick Journey,” he said. “I’d like to speak to Deputy Parsons.”

“Which one?” the voice drawled. “We’ve got two of them.”

“Whichever one is available.”

“This is Ricky Parsons,” a voice said a few seconds later.

“Deputy Parsons, it’s Nick Journey. Do you remember me?”

“Of course I do, Professor. My little brother got killed trying to protect you.”

Journey flinched. “In a few hours, you can have the rest of the people responsible for his death.”

There was a long pause; then Ricky Parsons said, “I’m listening.”