Maybe so, but 25 killings — or even 21 — seems a gross exaggeration. The pre-Civil War records of the federal court in Van Buren, Ark., were destroyed in a fire. Nevertheless, there is said to be no record of any murder prosecution of Zeke Proctor in either the Fort Smith district court or in the Cherokee tribal courts. Men also said that Zeke harbored at his farm an assortment of outlaws — including Belle Starr — but with all that he still managed to become a farmer of some substance. By 1890 he owned three farms, 10 structures of various kinds, a large stock of produce and a sizable collection of domestic animals. In addition to his thriving farms, he seems to have maintained more than one wife, but in those days polygamy was neither unusual nor unlawful in the Cherokee Nation.

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Proctor’s granddaughter later said that Zeke had been ‘on the scout’ for most of his life, starting with the Jaybird killings. Certainly Proctor was a fine woodsman and an excellent shot, with a well-developed instinct for danger. He was always heavily armed with a pair of revolvers; in later years, these were reportedly pearl-handled .45s. He also carried, according to his son, a seven-shot Spencer rifle. And, as one witness said, he ‘could both see and hear to a superlative degree as almost his entire life was lived dodging real or imaginary enemies.’ Proctor never sat with his back to a door, and he would sidle along a town street so that his back was turned toward the buildings. Whatever way he used when he came to town, he left by another route.

The clash between Proctors and Becks, between Keetoowah beliefs and white man’s law, was further aggravated by a jurisdictional dispute between Indian and U.S. courts. Zeke Proctor was unquestionably Cherokee. Although his father, William, had been a white man, his mother was a full blood, and Zeke followed the Keetowah ways. Kesterson was white, but Aunt Polly Beck had been half Cherokee, and so Kesterson, as her husband, was considered an adopted Cherokee. At first blush, it appeared to be a clear case for tribal jurisdiction. After all, the United States-Cherokee treaty seemed pretty specific: ‘…the judicial tribunals of the [Cherokee] nation shall be allowed to retain exclusive jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases, arising within their country, in which members of the nation, by nativity or adoption, shall be the only parties, or where the cause of action shall arise in the Cherokee Nation except as otherwise provided in this treaty.’ The Cherokee court accordingly took jurisdiction, although the Becks, afraid of the Keetoowah Society’s influence, wanted the federal court in Fort Smith to intervene on grounds that Kesterson was white.

There were some vexing complications right from the beginning. For one thing, Zeke was related to just about everybody, including Lewis Downing, the tribal chief. Zeke’s mother had been a Downing.

It was very hard to find a prosecutor who was unrelated to the Proctors. The regular judge, Jim Walker, also turned out to be related to the Proctors — to both sides, for that matter — and was duly disqualified. So was Judge T.B. Wolfe, and for the same reasons. At last Chief Downing appointed Blackhaw Sixkiller as judge, and Sixkiller quickly set about getting the murder case to trial, naming a date in March 1872.

The first short session ended in recess when Beck’s lawyer, J.A. Scales, asked the chief to remove Sixkiller on an assortment of charges. Chief Downing temporarily suspended Sixkiller, then called an emergency meeting of the tribal council. The council quickly decided that the charges against Sixkiller were without merit — ‘trumped up,’ they said — and the trial was back on, this time set for April 15.

Everybody was expecting trouble, so the case was set to be heard in the Whitmire schoolhouse, rather than Going Snake Courthouse. The school building, near what is now Christie, Okla., was farther away from Beck country than the court was. Besides, the school was built of logs, had only one door — on its west side — and had fewer windows than the courthouse did. It was therefore easier to defend in case of trouble. And trouble there would be.

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