Caleb Coy, author of “Cherokee Knives”, holds a Masters in English from Virginia Tech and lives with his family in southwest Virginia. His work has appeared in Mystery Magazine, Flyway, Hippocampus, Coachella Review, and The Common.
When you’re lying on the floor watching your own blood spill out of you, I guess you have occasion to think about the contents of that blood. By that I mean the person it’s spilling out of. If you don’t have a lot of things in life you’re really proud of, sweet memories and all that, you might think about what kind of man you are, and what you came from. I may not look it, but I’m one eighth Cherokee Indian.
Every man’s got to have a hobby. I collect two things in particular: antique knives and Indian stuff. I’ve got a basement full of both, got about a thousand knives. Some of them are worthless, others are real genuine. Been meaning to sell some of them. I got a few of those dream catchers, got them all hanging all around the walls. Not to catch bad dreams or spirits or anything like that. They just hang real nice. Got one outside my door too. Just in case. Got an Indian headdress, and I’m pretty sure it’s real. Got a bunch of paintings, mighty buffalo storming across a prairie and an Apache Warrior Chieftain on a horse poised with a feathered arrow—that kind of stuff. I’m not in to peace pipes but I got a few of those too. One is really just a pipe my pa had, but I tied a feather on it. He was in the first World War, my pop.
Every man’s got to have a hobby. I collect two things in particular: antique knives and Indian stuff.
I’ve been after this one set of knives for quite some time. They’re authentic Cherokee, you see. All five of them. And there’s a story to them. The best collectibles have a story to them. Each one of these Cherokee knives was made by this one guy they call Bear Paw. I never met him, but he’s a full-blooded Cherokee. Spent most all his life in a reservation. And word went around that he had made these signature knives years ago, five of them in all.
The rundown goes like this: All five of these knives were made from the antlers of a single deer, a ten-point buck old Bear Paw killed with a hand-made bow. That I believe. Each handle is a curved, polished up antler piece from that one buck. Then he took these obsidian stones and set them in the antlers. Sharpened them until they could cut paper. There’a red one, a black one, a blue one—those are made from obsidian—and a white agate one and a goldstone one—it has kind of a brownish color.
But he didn’t stop there. See, according to the legend, Bear Paw went off and meditated in the wilderness and the spirit world told him to go and fashion these sheaths out of beads for the knives and put a pattern into them. And whatever the pattern was he’d have to go and kill that animal. That’s what they say. It’s like his way of baptizing the knives in blood, capturing the spirit of an animal in it. A ceremony the white man wouldn’t understand, but would respect if he had any heart after the untamed wild. And what else they say I don’t know if I can believe. Supposedly he went out and killed him a wolf, a fish, a bird of some sort, and a deer. I know that accounts for four; I’m getting there. It’s the fifth one that really gets me. The fifth spirit he saw was a man.
No, Bear Paw didn’t go kill him a man. At least, they say he didn’t. No, he saw the spirit was him. The red knife had a red sheath, and it stood for the red man. It also stood for blood. And though Bear Paw was a man, he had the spirit of a bear in him. So he went and killed him a bear with that red knife. It was his namesake. Then he took out that red knife and slit his own paw open over that bear. They were kindred spirits, you see. In each of those knives was an animal spirit. That’s what made them so unique.
And valuable.
I don’t believe the story of it one bit. I just think it’s something worth telling. That and I would have liked to get my hands on those knives. I wanted to tell that story for real, with the genuine artifacts right there in my hands, for any onlooker to behold if I so chose to show them. Maybe I could even make some money off them after I held them all. But supposedly Bear Paw died and his knives got split up and sold off and they’re not all accounted for. At least, it had been that way for so long.
My neighbor, Jim Ratner, knows I’m all about collecting this stuff, so he told me he’d keep an eye out for those knives I would always tell him about. I didn’t figure he would find out about them before I would, so I didn’t hold him up to it. He was completely out of the loop. Really we both were. We both liked everything the old-fashioned way: antique road shows, yard sales, public auctions, craft stores, fairs. We both always felt that a hunt isn’t a hunt if you can just press a few buttons and everything comes right to your door. You got to sniff your prey out. You got to be patient and clever. Well, I learned how to be clever.
Ratner’s kind of like me, only he’s real big into bird hunting. I tried it one time, but I just don’t have the dexterity. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would hurt a fly, so if you were the kind of man who doesn’t understand hunting you’d think that Ratner wasn’t the kind of man who’d go out and kill a bird. But you also wouldn’t have been able to tell that he had done a tour in Nam. He didn’t seem to come back with it like a bunch of other boys did. But he lost some boys over there and I always told him that since he risked his life for my freedom that I’d die for him any day. But no, you wouldn’t figure he was in Nam and that even after all that he was fine with going out and firing a gun. Maybe it was his release, his way of keeping that routine.
Besides, you also wouldn’t figure I was one eighth Cherokee, because you don’t always figure the obvious things. A man can be the most reliable friend you know and love dogs and women and all God’s other creatures, but just go out and kill a bird and it doesn’t bother him. I understand that. Some people don’t. But I can also have Cherokee blood in me and not really be into that stuff either. Things don’t have to match up like that. I mean, the real Indians would call their animal friends their brothers, and they’d go out and kill everything on their own. It doesn’t all have to make sense to me. I just figure people are into what they’re into and we make money off of each other for being into it and that’s how the world works. Me, I like to collect stuff from people, and I always look for a good steal.
I went to a gun show the next county over just to check things out even though I’m not as in to guns these days. Sometimes it’s worth it just to meet the characters. I met this one guy who was a descendant of Stonewall Jackson, and proud of it too. He was there showing off one of Jackson’s pistols, the real thing. He told me he his brother was into old knives and that I’d might like to talk with him. He gave me his number. His brother lived in Atlanta and owned an antique warehouse store. I made quite a few purchases from him and was glad to find out where his place was.
We got to talking about one thing or another, civil war blades and homemade pocketknives and such, when he mentioned that he had this real interesting specimen he thought I’d like to take a look at. In a little cardboard box he’d been keeping this one knife, said it’d been made from an elephant’s tusk. It was quite a fine specimen. I noticed he had other knives made from animal bone and deer’s antlers, and one in particular caught my eye. The antler was roughly polished, and the blade was a solid brownish color, made from stone. I took a closer look because I was pretty sure that this might be the Goldstone Bear Paw knife, and there it was, just sitting right there.
I knew this knife was a prize. So I asked this Jackson boy how he came by it. He told me he couldn’t remember it at all, and asked me what it was I liked about it. Withholding the backstory, I told him I thought it had a nice sparkle to it, and I always liked knives made out of stone. I told him if he wanted to get rid of it he could give it to me for twenty bucks. It was a deal.
I took that knife home and studied it carefully. It had excellent craftsmanship, just the way the stone blade fit into the handle and all that. It was exactly eight and a half inches. It even had the bead sheath to go with it, orange beads with the little image of a deer set in to it. I mean, how likely was it that this could have been just a look-alike or a copy? I could now say that I had myself one of those Bear Paw knives. Got it cheap, too. For an antique dealer that Jackson boy sure didn’t know what he had. Served him right, I say.
I was proud of that knife, and even laid it out in a glass case in my basement, but it started looking pretty lonesome. It had four brothers. They were out there, somewhere, in some fool’s closet, collecting dust and not knowing how much they were worth. I figured that if that Goldstone knife came about sitting in some boy’s shop all by itself that the rest of them were probably separated too, and nobody on their own really knew quite what they had or they would have gotten around to finding the brother knives by now. Not many people knew about Bear Paw’s story and most of them just gave up searching quite a long time ago. If I had been lucky enough to get my hands on that one knife, it might just give me enough luck to find all his brothers.
I was at this police auction one day and met this nice old man, looked young for his age, but he got to talking about how it’s a shame everything’s auctioned off on computers these days and he just can’t catch up with it all. He said it was like they took all the fun out of going to an auction, because you used to have to wait around and see what turned up. Now you just get on the computer and everything is there all at once, you see the numbers go up, and the item is gone. He said he was collecting those new state coins they were putting out one by one.
He could just go to the bank and ask for them, but that would be cheating. I figured he was a poor old fool, but then I thought myself a poor fool too. If I were him I’d march right in to that bank and grab all those quarters and have myself a nice collection. But I’m not that much into coins. I’m more into dollars, if you know what I mean. That and I’m into knives too. So I figured if I felt this old man was sorry because he didn’t know how to bid on a computer I should try doing it for myself and see what I find. I’m all thumbs when it comes to technology. It took a while fooling around on my computer, but I found out how to get on one of those websites where they auction stuff.
I thought about telling Ratner about my find, but I had second thoughts. For one thing, I didn’t want him to know that I’d gone and set up a computer to find them. And I also thought it would be more worth it to hold off and wait and tell him when I found all the knives, if I ever did. As luck would have it, I was able to locate every single one of those other knives, each being sold separately. Those fools didn’t know the price of those things. But they sure loved to tell the backstory. If I got to talking with them, I found that no matter how technologically savvy they were, they’d resort to the same storytelling tactics as the old-timers to bump up the price. I would write back pretending to show no interest, and they would lower the price in a jiffy. It seemed that anybody looking for those Bear Paw knives was, like me, too old to go looking on eBay; and anybody who knew the ins and outs of the world wide web was unaware of the legend of Bear Paw. The old world had found its way to the new, and I was the lucky fool on his way to striking gold.
The most expensive knife was the fish knife, the blue blade with a green sheath to go with it. There was some guy who’s business had gone sour and was looking to make some quick money off a lifetime of miscellany. He was selling the fish blade for only fifty dollars. I figured each of these knives had to be at least worth a hundred. I bought it before he would change his mind.
The second knife I found was the bird knife, the white blade with a blue sheath. Some bird enthusiast had bought it but didn’t want it any more. I snagged it for thirty dollars.
The third knife I found was the wolf knife, black with a purple sheath. Some punk kid with a penchant for all that gothic stuff had bought it and then went for some other punk kid phase. Bought that one for forty bucks.
In a week I had four of those five knives, all of them but the most famous one. That singular item I knew I would have a problem with. But when I found it I discovered that the seller was willing to give it away for free. That struck me funny, but then I saw the catch. The guy wanted me to drive out to his house so he could meet me before he gave it to me. Maybe he just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be the kind of guy who would go and lose it or break it or something like that. I didn’t fuss about it. He lived in Georgia, so I drove out there to see him.
It turned out this guy was an Indian himself. He had a fire going out back when I drove up to his place, and the flames were spitting amber-colored sparks up into a cloudy sky. Nearby was a dome-shaped little tent he called a sweat lodge. I thought maybe we were going to have a pow-wow or something like that. I wasn’t dressed for the occasion. I figured that maybe he had some personal connection to Bear Paw and could tell me about the story.
I told him I was one eighth Cherokee, but he didn’t seem to impressed about it. He didn’t seem to know anything about Bear Paw either, or at least he didn’t want to say much about him. I kept thinking the whole time that maybe he was really related to Bear Paw, that he would open up that tent and Bear Paw himself would come out and congratulate me for hunting down all the knives. Would he try to buy them back from me? No, he would take me on a wild hunt or something. Well, I didn’t bring the other knives with me, so he’d be disappointed.
But Bear Paw was not there, and may have only been a legend. This young guy in braided hair just kept building up the fire and not saying much at all. I figured maybe he was real lonely, or maybe he was just putting on a show for kicks. But then I saw him lift a bunch of rocks out of that fire with a pitchfork and heave them into that wigwam. We were going inside. I saw puffs of steam coming from the entrance and thought I was in over my head.
This guy—his name was Jared, by the way, which didn’t sound like an Indian name to me—told me that before I got a hold of that knife I had to climb into this sweat lodge and face the spirit world. Told me if I open my soul I can see the animal spirit I was born with and I’d know if I was worthy to have that knife. I wasn’t too keen on passing the peace pipe with this boy but then I thought of how close I was to getting that whole set of knives in my hands. I’d be the first man since Bear Paw himself to possess them all. Wearing nothing but my skivvies, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in that wigwam like a dog. I’d come all this way anyhow.
Once inside I felt myself sweat more than I’d ever felt in my whole life. If I’d known this was going to happen I would have brought a gallon of water. Jared sat down across from me and eventually I couldn’t even see his face. He started chanting some nonsense in an Indian tongue and I felt like I was going to pass out from the heat. I couldn’t see a single thing except for a cloud of white and a red blur in front of me.
The whole thing was over before I knew it, and we stepped out into what felt like stark winter compared to that tent, steam coming off our near-naked bodies. It actually felt pretty good. Then Jared sat me down by the fire and asked me what kind of spirit I saw. Now, I didn’t know if I was supposed to try to see one or anything, but nothing caught my eye. I might’ve even dozed off a little. I wasn’t sure what kind of test this was, or if it was really just his way of taking advantage of some old fool. Trying to spook me. I remembered that those heated rocks in the tent glowed in the dark haze and almost looked like two snake eyes, so I told him I saw a snake. He didn’t say anything in response to it; he just nodded his head.
We cooled off by the fire and then he went inside his house and brought me the knife. Was as simple as that. He said that a man’s spirit spoke everything about him and some other nonsense. I was just happy get a hold of that knife. I even offered to pay him for it just to make sure he didn’t think I was some greedy fool, but he didn’t take anything for it.
I asked the Indian—not because I believed it, but because I thought maybe he believed it—if he thought the knife was cursed. Why else go through all that ceremony and not even charge me money?
“Ain’t no curses,” he said. “If you ask me, the white man is a curse.”
“We sure know how to bring them on,” I said, and I thanked him.
When I got back home the first thing I thought of doing was telling Jim about the knives I found. He’d be pretty happy for me. And he would be glad that he wouldn’t have to go and buy the knives for me, which he would have done out of his good nature if he’d ever found them. I went over to his place and before I could tell him the good news he told me he had something to tell me. While I was gone he went and got himself an eBay account too, something I thought he’d never do. But then again, I always thought he would do it before me anyway. Then he told me that if he ever found any of those knives up for auction that he would get them for me. I thought that was the most opportune time to tell him about my find, but then a clever thought hit me. If I never told him about the knives he’d still be looking for them, and if he found them, he just might have the inkling to buy them. But I wanted to keep them, now that I had them. So I thought myself up a plan.
What I had realized about the internet was that you could get on there and be anybody you wanted. Hide yourself altogether, be a shadow in the woods. I had spent less than a hundred dollars on getting those knives (not counting the gas money I spent), which was a steal compared to what the whole set would have cost me put together. I set up a fake eBay account and put my Bear Paw knife set up on display. Just to make sure, I advertised that this deal would make a great gift for any avid knife collector.
Now, Jim didn’t owe me any favors or anything, but he was a man of his word. And the only reason he had ever promised that he would get those knives for me one day was because he always knew that neither of us would never find them, and that a man of his word could easily make a promise he would never have to keep. And I really couldn’t help myself. I set the price for that set of knives at six hundred dollars.
I didn’t think Jim would go for the bait, but he did, and he was keeping it a secret for me. In just a few days he inquired about the set. He tried to haggle over the price, and because I felt lucky, I told him it was all or nothing, asking price or no go. The set had a legend, after all, and if he was a serious collector he would know their true worth. Jim was a man of his word.
A week later Jim showed up to my place and told me he’s got a surprise. I tried to fake my incredulity when I saw all five of the knives in a glass case—he had even bought me a case!—just as they had been sitting in my basement not but a couple weeks earlier. They were all lined up with their beaded sheaths set beside them, and the red man’s knife was sitting in the middle, raised above the others. I had the knives, and all besides I had also gotten back their full worth and then some. Some might call it cheap, but I call it clever. There was no harm to my neighbor. His benefit was in being a giver and a man of his word.
Jim went with me down to the basement and we decided to hang that knife collection up on my wall. I wasn’t sure what I would do now that I had found the one set of knives I always wanted, but it felt good to place them on the wall. I held the glass case up and asked Jim to see if it was level. Then I asked him to grab the box of nails and hand me a couple and a hammer so I could double hang the case so that it wouldn’t fall. I hammered the nails in and when I stepped down from the latter and looked up at them they looked like a wild and royal arsenal made right out of mother nature. I went upstairs to get my camera so we could get a picture of me standing next to the set of knives, but when I came back down I saw that Jim was gone. I called out his name but I didn’t get an answer. Then I turned around and that’s when he stabbed me.
There was a look on Jim’s face like one I’d never seen before, like a man looks when he is sleepwalking, like it wasn’t Jim but just somebody or something else wearing Jim’s skin. He didn’t say a word but just shoved that knife deep in to me and then slowly walked away. I clutched my stomach and felt liquid on my hands and the pressure leave my cold body. I staggered back on a stool and fell. Jim just walked right on up the basement steps like nothing happened. Maybe that’s what it’s like for a man to snap after he’d been in war. I’d always thought it would be a lot louder than that, that he’d make more of a mess. I don’t know. I hadn’t even cheated him by that much.
I thought about reaching for the phone to call an ambulance but instead I stumbled over to the case of knives to see if Jim had taken them. They were all there except for the red knife, a large gap in the middle where it had been. I got so weak I sank down to the floor and I wondered if maybe he had used the red knife to stab me and that was why it wasn’t there. I looked down for the first time because the pain was starting to disappear and I just felt chilly, tired, and numb like I wasn’t in my body any more.
I was really hoping that he’d stabbed me with that red knife, my favorite knife, so I could say that the spirit of Bear Paw was what got me in the end. We would face one another like two spirits in the wood. But it turned out that Jim must have just taken that knife with him and left me to die with the rest of them in my basement, because that cold steel inside me wasn’t a stone blade, and as my vision started growing fuzzy I couldn’t help but noticing that among the tools on my workbench wall one of my screwdrivers was missing.
Oh well. I guess that’s fair enough, that I didn’t even deserve to be stabbed with one of those fine knives. I suppose I should get what’s coming to me. Would have been nice, though. Dying with one of those authentic Cherokee knives in me. Imagine telling that one to your neighbor. Sure is cold now. That’s quite a lot of blood I’ve lost already. That’s one eighth Cherokee blood, by the way.
*****
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