Anumpa IkbiIn the Native American Choctaw language this means The Storyteller.

I was born in southern Oklahoma in the same town and the same year

that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans got married. Although I spent most of my

school years in Norman I always considered Ringling my hometown. I

guess mostly because I’m related to just about everyone there. I’ve always

joked that my parents moved to Norman so that my sister, Jennifer, and I

could legally date.

I chose Anumpa Ikbi as my writer’s logo primarily because of my

Choctaw ancestry but also because of my feelings of connection, sort of a

totem, with the coyote. There is no Choctaw word for coyote so I created

the idea of the storyteller coyote.

This connection really began from a story that my mother told. This

happened before I was old enough to remember so it’s totally from my

memory of her story.

Ringling and several other small towns nearby are known as the mud

creek community because of their proximity to Mud Creek, thus, the title to

this short story.

Mud Creek

“Where’s Mike?” Christine asked as Dewey came through the

squeaky back screen door alone.

“Don, don’t know,” Dewey stuttered and looked confused, hesitated

to get his thoughts connected to his next words, then finished, “not with

you?”

Dewey Eubanks had a problem with talking. After being hit with a

mortar at Iwo Jima almost as soon as his platoon had landed on the island,

he’d fallen getting back onto the ship and severely injured his head. His

right arm had been nearly severed by the mortar and he pretty much carried

it with his left hand on his long trip back to the shuttle boat and to the ship.

Walking with his good arm holding his wounded arm left him just enough

off balance that the blood and water slicked deck made keeping his footing

impossible. When he fell he was unable to protect his head at all. After

months in the VA hospital in Oklahoma City where his arm was reattached

reasonably well he transferred to the Naval Base south of Norman. He sent

for and married his hometown sweetheart Christine Folsom. For months

Christine lived in an apartment while Dewey was convalescing on base.

Then they finally moved to Ardmore, closer to home, where Dewey got a

good job as an Air Traffic Controller. They planned, and had, a beautiful

daughter, Jennifer, and even began building their dream house. Dewey and

Christine made a very handsome young couple. He was beneficiary to a

strong jaw and penetrating blue eyes from his English/Irish ancestors. He

wasn’t as tall as some of his brothers but his physical conditioning made him

just as appealing. Christine had somehow avoided the typical Choctaw

appearance that most of her siblings and parents displayed. Instead, her light

hair and blue eyes went well with her trim figure and 5’ 2” height. Jennifer

seemingly had inherited the best of both and the small family was definitely

a picture of envy in the Ardmore community of 1947. Then in 1948 they

added a son, Richard Michael, to their family.

In 1950 the old injuries created a new hurdle. Dewey suffered

massive brain hemorrhaging likely due to the head injury on the ship. After

months back in the VA hospital in Oklahoma City, a real strain had been

placed on the marriage and the relationship between Christine and Dewey’s

families in Ringling. But now he was finally home. The massive strokes

had injured his brain making the challenge to communicate very frustrating.

But Dewey was finally back with his family.

“He left with you Dewey.” Christine looked worried at first then her

expression turned to a combination of anger and panic. She was tired of all

the work, tired of all the worries, and tired of wearing dresses made from the

sacks the livestock feed came in. Her frustrations burst out. “He’s only two,

where is he?”

“No,” Dewey returned anger with anger, “not with me.”

Dewey knew that his wife had been cheated, just as he had. He knew

that if he hadn’t had the strokes that they’d be in that modern new home

they’d started building in Ardmore. He wished he had on the slacks, shirt

and tie that he’d worn to work at the control tower instead of the feedsack

shirt and overalls that he was now wearing.

“Well, we’ve got to find him.” Christine hurried through the old

screen door so quickly that the rusted hinges nearly broke. “I’ll look in the

trees up by the road and you look in the sheds.”

Christine headed up the long driveway that led from the old shack

towards the dirt road. She looked down at the ground as she stayed in the

rut. In southern Oklahoma you didn’t have pavement, gravel, or for that

matter even a graded level drive. Instead you had two sandy ruts between a

two or three foot wide area of grass that the tires of the cars, pickups, and

tractors made on the numerous trips to and from the house from the main

road.

She had that fast gait to her walk that was partly a need to hurry and

find the toddler and partly her way of controlling panic in a bad situation and

looking confident even if she wasn’t.

Christine hadn’t been raised in the same caring, confident, and

pioneering type of family that Dewey had. Dewey was the youngest brother

of twelve children. Christine was the oldest sister of seven children and had

been more of a mother to her siblings than their own mother had been. Her

mother just didn’t quite have the capacity to help out when her father

decided to abuse the kids. So that walk, that expression of false power and

confidence, that shoulders-back and head-high look that had bluffed her way

with her father so many times was now part of her personality.

“I can’t believe that it’s harder now than when he was in the hospital.”

Christine muttered out loud to herself as she turned off the narrow dirt

driveway and walked through the knee-high Johnson grass into the small

group of trees on the north side of their eighty acres. “I thought he’d be a

help, I thought I could count on him helping out with Mike. I just can’t

watch Mike all the time and take care of Jennifer and him too.”

“Mike didn’t leave with me,” Dewey thought to himself as he looked

in the outhouse. “An outhouse. We could be living in the house in Ardmore

right now. We could have all the modern conveniences that we’d planned.

We wouldn’t be in this place, this farm, living in this old shack.” The old

shack barely had a kitchen, much less a bathroom. No telling just how old

the house was. The water was from a well outside and the outhouse was

nothing more than an enclosure with a wooden seat over a hole in the

ground. “He was in his room playing.” Dewey gathered his thoughts and

tried again to say them out loud. “No…, not.” The frustration made his face

red and he thought to himself. “Why can’t I say what I’m thinking?”

“Did you find him?” Christine yelled across the hundred or so yards

to the shed that Dewey was coming out of.

“Na, no.” Was all that Dewey could get his vocal chords to

accomplish.

“You go check the ponds,” Christine directed Dewey as she

maintained her in-charge attitude, “I’ll check on Jennifer and meet you at the

ravines.

Dewey, practically running now, headed for the first of the two ponds

while Christine went back into the house.

“What’s wrong Momma?” Jennifer was standing in the kitchen

looking through the old screen door as Christine came in. “Is Mike hurt

again?”

Mike was a boy. And all boy at that. If a day went by that he didn’t

get into some kind of trouble or hurt it meant he was too sick to get out of

bed.

For three, Jennifer could talk like a much older child. Christine had

lots of time to work with her, and Mike too, with their learning. In 1950

there wasn’t anything like preschool but a good parent could do a lot more

than preschool could anyway.

“We don’t know honey,” Christine hugged Jennifer then continued,

“we just have to find him.” Christine thought a second, held Jennifer back

away from her and looked into her pretty little girl’s blue eyes and asked.

“Have you seen him?”

“No Momma, he left right after Daddy did.”

“Well, you stay right here in the house.” Christine gave Jennifer

another reassuring hug. “We won’t be long. He can’t be far.”

“Should I go in the water?” Dewey thought to himself and also again

wondered why in the world he couldn’t say things when he could think them

just as clearly as he could before the strokes. “It’s so red and muddy, Mike

could be inches under the water and I wouldn’t be able to see him.”

“Find him yet?” Christine spoke breathlessly due to her fast pace

from the old house to the pond.

“Nn, no.” Dewey stammered his disappointing answer.

“He must be in the washouts then.” Christine climbed back up over

the earthen dam that had created the farm pond as she spoke. “He’s got to

be in one of the ravines.”

The eighty acres that the couple had purchased wasn’t the best

farming land. But with their new financial situation it was the best they

could afford. It had a large portion in the middle that washed out every time

it rained and had created a small version of the grand canyons. As bad as it

was for farming, it was a little country boy’s delight.

“I’ve told him to stay out of these a thousand times.” Christine

muttered to Dewey as the two climbed down the six or so feet into the first

one. “There’re snakes and who knows what in these worthless ditches.”

Dewey simply followed his wife and listened to her continuous

comments. He understood her frustration with their situation too, and loved

her even though he’d like for her to stop talking at times.

“No,” Dewey managed to actually say loudly and clearly when he

thought he’d heard something, “no talking, hear something.” Dewey’s face

reddened as he gathered all his abilities to convert his thoughts into spoken

words then finished. “Listen.”

Christine stopped talking and the two of them stood frozen, and

actually felt like they were straining their ears for any sound.

“Puppy.”

It was barely audible but they heard it.

“Puppy.”

Again they heard it and this time they were able to ascertain what

direction it’d come from.

“Over there,” Christine pointed at about the same time that Dewey

had began to climb up out of the ravine they’d been standing in, “He’s in

one of the ravines over there.”

Relieved to hear the small voice that let them know Mike was OK the

two climbed down into the next ravine and again stood motionless and

listened.

“Oh puppy”

This time the voice was closer and they were able to tell that Mike

was happy by his tone of voice.

“Next,” Dewey began climbing again out of the ravine they were now

standing in and over to the next one, “here.”

Christine had a little more trouble getting up the side, which crumbled

away with each foothold so Dewey had stopped at the top and helped his

wife up. Then the two mostly slid down into the third ravine and stopped

again to listen. But this time it was so long before they heard anything that

they feared they’d gone the wrong way. Then just about the time they were

ready to climb out of this latest ravine and go back, they heard the little

whimpers that did sound like puppies.

“Over here,” Christine pointed at a little cave in the side of the ravine

they were in, “it’s coming from in there.” Christine got down on her knees

in the red sand and clay bottom of the ravine and peered into the fairly dark

small cave. “He’s here Dewey,” she paused with relief then finished. “I see

him.”

“Me.” Dewey grunted as he pulled Christine up and got down on his

knees in front of the small cave.

“Be careful,” Christine spoke quickly, “I think they’re coyote cubs in

there with him. The mother might be in there too.”

There were too many coyotes in Oklahoma in the early fifties. In fact

there was a substantial bounty for their elimination. You could drive along

the highways and see dozens and dozens hanging from the barbed wire

fencing as a show of the prowess and community service of the farm’s

owner. Coyotes were always considered a nuisance to farmers. It’s

intelligence and cunning nature gave it an almost unfair ability to forage on a

farm’s resources.

Dewey reached in and grabbed Mike by the leg of his little overalls

and started pulling him out. When Mike was far enough for the sunlight to

show him clearly Dewey noticed one of the coyote cubs still in Mike’s

hands. Dewey, in a combination of relief, frustration, and anger took the cub

out of Mike’s hands and practically threw it back into the cave. He then

yanked Mike the rest of the way out of the cave and started spanking him.

“That’s enough Dewey.” Christine was angry with Mike too but

knew that Dewey’s frustration and anger could be greatly exaggerated at

times because of his handicap. “Let’s make sure he’s not hurt.”

Mike was crying but when Christine took him from his father and

looked him over the only real thing wrong was the dirt. His overalls were

filthy from the red soil and even his nearly white blond hair looked red.

“Puppy,” Mike was still crying as he pointed to the little cave, “puppy

mine, want puppy.”

Christine tired of trying to hold the squirming, crying bundle had put

Mike down. Mike immediately started back in the direction of the small

den.

“No!” Dewey yelled sternly and clearly enough to get the little boy’s

undivided attention. “Home!”

Mike was still crying but turned to follow his parents out of the ravine

and back toward the house.

“Was the mother in with the cubs?” Christine asked as they walked.

“N, no,” Dewey stammered, paused, then finished, “think not.”

The three walked in near silence the rest of the five or so minutes it

took to get back to the house. When they got near the back door they could

see the Jennifer’s blond hair through the old screen door as she peered out to

see what was going on.

“Is Mike hurt?” Jennifer’s words were loud and clear for such a

young child. “Is he in trouble again?”

“No sweetie,” Christine smiled at her little girl as she pushed the

screen door open and watched Jennifer stepping back, “he’s not hurt this

time but he’s sure going to be in trouble if he wanders off again.”

Dewey came in behind Christine and Mike and went straight back to

the couple’s bedroom. In a few minutes he came back through the small

living room where Christine was sitting with Jennifer in her lap and Mike

was sitting on the floor looking out the front screen door staring at really

nothing.

“Where are you going now?” Christine saw the 22 caliber rifle in

Dewey’s hand.

“Coyote,” Dewey said fairly clearly as he walked past the family in

the living room, through the small kitchen, then out the back screen door

letting it slam behind him.

In about ten minutes Christine, Jennifer, and Mike heard the shrill

yelping coming from the ravines. Mike began to cry again but Christine and

Jennifer remained quiet in the old rocking chair.

About an hour of silence went by and the three in the old house hadn’t

moved or said a word. Then they heard the snap, and echoing of the small

caliber rifle being fired followed immediately by one loud yelp.

Mike again began to cry but Christine and Jennifer still remained

silent and unmoved. The looks on their faces indicated a combination of

emotions but it was as though they understood the situation better than a

two-year-old boy possibly could.