Everybody was talking about the quarrel now. That is the time they left off talking about the old man’s troubles, and began talking about what Billy Brooks said to the Coyote’s brother-in-law in the canoe, and to Wóhkel Dave. It finally came out that the fellow who was steering the canoe, and who called Billy Brooks “Läs-son,” was out of the quarrel. His deceased relatives had been referred to, but, on the other hand, his father had only paid twenty-five dollars for his mother, so nobody cared much about him. He talked around but nobody paid any attention, so he decided that he had better keep still about it, and maybe people would forget that he had been insulted.
Wóhkel Dave, however, was a man of importance. His people were married into all the best houses up and down the river. Everybody was wondering what he and Brooks would do. Billy Brooks was kind of a mean man himself. He had a bad reputation. One time he even made a white man pay up for something he did. The white man took a woman from Brooks’ people to live with him. Brooks looked him up, and made him pay for her. Everybody was afraid of Brooks. Some people said, “Brooks won’t pay. He’s too mean. He’s not afraid. He’d rather fight it out.” Other people said, “That’s all right, as far as ordinary people are concerned. Wóhkel Dave, though, is not ordinary. His father paid a big price for his mother. She had one of the most stylish weddings along the river. Dave won’t let anybody get the best of him.” People used to argue that way. Some said one thing, and some said another. They used to almost quarrel about it.
Suddenly news came down the river that Billy Brooks was going to pay up for what he said. Some one came along and told us that Billy was going to pay. “He offered twenty-five dollars,” this fellow said. The next day we heard that Dave wouldn’t take it. He wanted forty dollars. They argued back and forth. It was February before they got it settled. Billy had to pay twenty dollars in money, a shot-gun made out of an army musket, bored out, and a string of shell money, not a very good one. The shells were pretty small, but the string was long—reaching from the chest bone to the end of the fingers.
The next thing that happened is what involved me and old Louisa. It came about because Billy didn’t have twenty dollars in cash. He had to get hold of the twenty dollars. About that time, certain Indians stole some horses. They were not people from our tribe. They were Chilula from Bald Hills, or people from over in that direction somewhere. Those people were awful poor. They couldn’t pay for a woman. They couldn’t pay for anything. They had to marry each other. In the springtime they got pretty wild. They were likely to do things. This time they took some horses from a white man. This white man complained to the agent at Húpa. So some soldiers from Húpa went out to chase these Indians. Billy Brooks was a great hunter. He has been all over everywhere, hunting and trapping. The soldiers needed a guide. They offered Billy twenty-five dollars to serve as a “scout” for the Government, to chase these Indians. So Billy, because he had to have twenty dollars, went as a scout, that time.
The soldiers went to Redwood Creek. Billy Brooks went along. There was a sergeant and six men, they say. Two of the men went to that Indian town six miles above the mouth of Redwood Creek, the name of which is Otlép. That town belongs to the Chilula. These two soldiers went there, looking for the men who stole the horses. There was trouble after a while at that place. The soldiers got into a quarrel with the Indians.
The trouble was about a woman. One of the soldiers wanted her, but the woman would not go with him. She did not feel like it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but the soldier insisted, and the woman insisted, and finally her relatives told the soldier that if the woman didn’t want to, she didn’t have to. There was a fight that time. There was a tussel about the soldier’s revolver. Somebody got hit over the head with it. The front sight was sharp. That soldier had filed down the sight on his revolver, to make it fine. That sight dug into a man’s face, and cut it open, from his jaw bone up to his eye.
There was big trouble there that time, they say. Everybody got to hollering. That woman had a bad temper. She hit a soldier with a rock. She broke his head open. The man whose face was cut open went for his gun. He couldn’t see very well. He didn’t get the percussion cap on properly. He tried to shoot the soldier, but the gun wouldn’t go off. The cap had dropped off the nipple. The soldier saw the Indian aiming the gun at him, so he fired at the Indian. There was blood in the soldier’s eyes, for the woman had cut his head open with a rock. So he missed the Indian who was aiming at him, but he hit old Louisa’s nephew, Jim Williams. The bullet went through his thigh. Two years passed before Jim Williams could walk straight after that.
Now that is the trouble between old Louisa and me. Her nephew was hurt, and she blames Billy Brooks, because Billy Brooks was with the soldiers, helping them, the time this happened. Billy would never “pay up” for this. One time it was reported that he was going to pay, but he never did.
Now Billy is a relative of mine by marriage. His sister married my father’s brother’s oldest boy. That old woman, whose nephew was shot, doesn’t like me, because I am a relative of Billy who guided the soldiers.
One time she played me a dirty trick. My nephew was fishing with a gill-net on the river here. The game warden made a complaint and had him arrested, for he had one end of his net fast to the bank. That old woman, that old Louisa, went to Eureka and told the judge there, that one end of the net was fast to the bank. They say she got money for doing that. Somebody said she got two dollars a day. My nephew was put in jail for sixty days. I am not saying anything to that old woman, but I am keeping a watch on her. If anybody talks to her, then I have nothing to do with them.