Zeke and Ned by McMurtry Larry & Ossana Diana

Author:McMurtry, Larry & Ossana, Diana [McMurtry, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

15

NED SAW SMOKE RISING ABOVE THE TREETOPS WHEN HE WAS STILL two miles from Tahlequah. Not long after he saw it, he smelled it. Something was burning in town, and from the size of the smoke cloud, he judged it to be something big.

He urged his horse down the twisty trail off the Mountain as fast as he thought prudent. The old trail was not much used now, and vines and dense underbrush had grown across parts of it, necessitating frequent detours. Ned proceeded rapidly but cautiously, for he did not want to risk crippling his best horse—not with the white marshals on the roads. Whatever it was that burned in Tahlequah would probably be pretty well burned up by the time he got to town.

The largest frame building in Tahlequah was the building where the Senate met. Ned had the fear that some rascal who did not like the way a vote had gone might have set fire to the structure as an act of spite. But when he raced into town, he discovered that the explanation was simpler. It was the Senate building that had caught on fire, but the cause of the fire was a whirly little dust devil which had somehow whirled up sparks from the blacksmith’s forge and dropped them on the shingled roof of the Senate House, igniting a couple of the old, dry shingles. Fortunately, a bucket brigade had formed quickly; even more fortunate was the fact that a good well stood not twenty feet from the back door of the building. By the time Ned raced up and dismounted, the fire was mostly out, although several men were still passing oak buckets of water up a ladder to the men on the roof, who doused the water on the smouldering spots.

Ned jumped down and ran inside the building. As one of the senators, he felt he should do his best to make a thorough inspection. He knew there would have to be a Senate session called soon to assess the damage and make arrangements for the speedy repair of the roof.

Quick as Ned was, Chief Luke Bushyhead, President of the Senate, was quicker. The Chief was kneeling down under one of the holes in the roof, a yardstick in his hand. He was already measuring the areas where he could see open sky, though some of the shingles around the open patches were still smouldering.

To Ned, the damage did not look too bad. A patch of roof not more than six feet by ten feet seemed to have burned away. A good, stout tarp would stretch over a hole that size. The senators might have to scrunch together a little, if the Senate convened on a rainy day, but to Ned, who had been afraid the whole building had burned to the ground, the damage seemed modest.

Chief Bushyhead thought otherwise. He was annoyed with the elements. The blacksmith’s shop had been just down the street from the Senate House for more than twenty years without anything irregular happening.

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