The Wandering Hill

A possibly enchanted hill in the modern world.

The Wandering Hill

Martin Mankiller was a full blood Cherokee-Delaware. He was so old that I used to imagine him living in a tipi before the white man came. He wasn't much of a talker. If you were fishing and you asked him if you were doing it right, and if you weren't, he would just say “No.” No explanation or advice. Just “No.”

Martin didn't have electricity on his farm. But he made a windmill out of a car's engine fan, and this turned a car generator, which charged a car battery. And he ran a radio out in his barn off the the car battery. When he finished this first task, he got the windmill bug and built windmills all over the farm out of junk auto parts.

My cousin thought him a bit of a wizard. He had taken in a cow that a neighbor had beaten and put out an eye. An obvious injury. But he had then applied an Indian poultice to the injury and the eye was restored. And he would put his chickens to sleep before snapping the heads off for Sunday dinner. He said their lot was to feed us, but not to suffer.

His farm was just outside Skiatook, Oklahoma, near the Osage Reservation. The government had reluctantly given the land to his wife back in 1933 when she was a child. They had offered the Indian kids a choice between going to Chicago to see the World's Fair or staying home to sign up for their land allotment. His wife, now deceased, had been the only one to stay home and sign up for the farm.

I would spend each summer with my cousin Jimmy and my grandmother at the Chilocco Indian School, just south of Arkansas City, Kansas. About once a month she would drive us out to Martin's farm and drop us off for the day, so that she could do her running around. I never knew exactly what the relationship was between Martin and my grandmother, but the two knew each other's families well.

Martin would entertain my cousin and I by taking us catfishing, something we both loved. He had two bamboo poles that we could use and we would bring along my grandmother's Zebco. My grandmother always kept the Zebco in her trunk in case she got the urge to stop and fish somewhere. Martin would take us to some deep, muddy part of the shady creek where he knew the catfish lurked. We would make little balls out of the stinky catfish bait and then put them on our hooks. We would then watch our bobbers intently, waiting for a bite. When we caught one, the catfish was deposited in a large, plastic bucket full of water.

Returning home, Martin would clean three catfish for my cousin, myself and my grandmother. And maybe clean one for himself as well. He would let us feed the catfish guts to the hound dogs. We would put them in the cleaning tray and swing it as hard as we could so that everything flew off into the air. The hound dogs would leap up and get it before it hit the ground. Martin would then pour the rest of the catfish from the plastic bucket into the small pond in his front yard. Any garbage the hound dogs didn't eat he threw into the pond for the catfish.

Behind the pond was a small hill--or what passed for a hill in that table top flat country. Gently sloping and maybe seventy-five feet high. My cousin and I ached to climb it and then roll down the side. Do that until we got dizzy and sick. Or maybe slide down on a piece of cardboard.

But Martin said no. He explained that this was the Wandering Hill, and that it had come the day his wife had been deeded the property. Martin watched over it and he explained that it was here because most land hereabouts was not owned by Indians. But this farm was, and the hill liked to be on Indian land. And the hill had to be respected and left in peace. And that meant not having little kids crawling all over it. We tried to argue, but to no avail. We never got to experience the joy of the hill.

I ceased spending my summers with my cousin and grandmother when I entered junior high. The beaches of Southern California were now more tempting than catfishing by the creek. I never saw Martin Mankiller again. My grandmother died when I was in college and I traveled back to Oklahoma to attend her funeral. On a whim, I took the rental car east to Skiatook to see Martin's farm. It took some doing, but I found it.

There were now two mobile homes in what I remembered as being an open field. A man came out and greeted me. I explained that I would come here as a child to stay with Martin Mankiller. The man, an Irish guy, explained that he had purchased the place when Martin Mankiller passed away. He took me back to the old house, located behind the trailers and now used for storage. It was much smaller than I remembered it. But there was still the catfish pond out front.

But looking at the pond, it seemed that the hill behind it was gone. But I couldn't be sure. Perhaps, like the house, it just wasn't as big as I remembered it. But I couldn't imagine sliding down the side of what I now saw on a piece of cardboard. There was nothing to slide on. There was no hill there as far as I could see. 

I guess the hill got up and left when Martin died.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Here is another finely-crafted and absorbing tale from your past. The name, "Mankiller" is one I've often heard, here near the Oklahoma border. I guess the world's fair was a dirty trick to keep Indians from acquiring what was rightfully theirs? Your memories are quite precious to you, I imagine. For the rest of us, it's just a pleasure to read about them.

[Miss Fedelm]

Thanks for reading and for the kind review.

[roarke]

Great story. Clearly written. The parable about the hill is the nucleus of the tale. Thanks for sharing.

[Miss Fedelm]

Thanks for reading.

[Vivian Fisk]

A most perfect tale! Gem-like and so very alive...

[Miss Fedelm]

Thank you.