The next morning, Ned Christie awoke near Spring Branch, where he had passed out during his drinking spree the night before. Much to his surprise, he learned he was a suspect in the murder of Deputy Marshal Maples. Senator Grease advised him to leave town until things settled down. Killing a white man was punishable by death. Christie refused to leave. Claiming his innocence, he said he hadn’t even had his gun with him the night before.

When the National Council opened the next day, Ned Christie attended as usual. But after learning the U.S. deputy marshals had a warrant for his arrest, he decided to take his father’s and Senator Grease’s advice and leave town. He hid out near his home in Rabbit Trap.

Christie sent a message to Hanging Judge Isaac Parker in Fort Smith, offering to give himself up if Judge Parker would grant him bail so he could prove his innocence. Parker refused. Christie felt he would not receive justice in a white man’s court. He vowed he would rather die at home fighting than go to Parker’s court to be hanged. He then sent for Sud Wilson, a medicine man. They spent three weeks in a secret place in the woods, going through various ceremonies. Afterward, Christie returned home, confident the deputy marshals could not catch him now.

His family and friends in the Keetoowah Society (a 200-year-old Cherokee organization) set up a system of signals in the hills and warned him when one of the deputies was near. If a deputy did get close, Christie would utter his defiant Cherokee gobble and fire a warning shot to scare him off. One too-persistent deputy was shot in the heel, another in the neck.

In August 1887, the Executive Council declared that Ned’s position as executive councilor was vacant because he was evidently unable or disabled from serving. Also that month, in the general election, his father, Watt Christie, lost his position in the National Council, and the movement for individual allotments was gaining support. Ned Christie became bitter and began drinking heavily. Reportedly, he started bootlegging whiskey to support his family.

Meanwhile, in Fort Smith, John Parris and Charley Bobtail, another drinking partner of Christie’s that fateful May night on Spring Branch, were confined in jail beneath the Federal Court. They had been charged in the murder of Maples along with Christie and Bub Trainor. But Trainor said he could prove he had been at Nancy Shell’s eating supper at the time and some time before the killing, and he was released on bail. He continued to raise hell, and in 1888 he appeared in court periodically to respond to various other charges against him. Judge Parker said the Maples case could not go on trial without Christie’s arrest, but Christie remained elusive. It seemed most every crime in Indian Territory was blamed on him.

On May 18, 1889, in Fort Smith, Jacob Yoes replaced John Carroll as marshal. A man of strong will, Marshal Yoes set about cleaning up the backlog of business. Of particular concern to him was the long-pending case of the murder of Deputy Marshal Dan Maples. It was unthinkable to Yoes that such a crime could go unpunished. He called in his most able lawman, U.S. Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas, and handed him a writ for Christie, reminding him there was a $500 reward for the outlaw’s capture.

Deputy Thomas had joined the marshal’s force in Fort Smith in late 1885, and he quickly became one of the most active officers in the court (see the December 1999 Wild West). He consistently brought in more prisoners than anyone else. On November 21, 1887, he had set a record for a single trip by bringing in 41 prisoners.

With Deputy Marshal L.P. Isbell of Vinita, a skilled tracker, Thomas set off on his usual circuit through Indian Territory, handing out subpoenas and making arrests. At Muskogee, they left 13 prisoners under guard and met Bub Trainor. Trainor knew Ned Christie and his habits well and wanted him captured — or, better yet, killed — to clear his own name in the murder of Deputy Maples.

In late September 1889, Heck Thomas and his posse located Christie at his home in Rabbit Trap. At the first light of dawn on the 26th, the deputy marshals crept toward Christie’s home. The dogs in the yard barked, warning Christie. Thomas ordered the deputies to rush the cabin. They could hear Christie crawling into the loft.

Thomas shouted, United States marshals! and ordered Christie to surrender. Instead, the outlaw knocked a plank off the gabled end of his cabin, gobbled at the deputies and opened fire with his Winchester. Thomas told him if he was going to fight to first send out his women and children. Christie kept firing. The deputies then set fire to a small outbuilding, hoping to smoke Christie out. Nancy Christie ran out of the house, and the lawmen held their fire. Young James remained inside, scrambling into the loft to load his father’s weapons.

Smoke swirled around the cabin as Nancy disappeared into the woods. Deputy Marshal Isbell, trying to use a tree for cover, took a Winchester ball in the left shoulder. Flames from the outbuilding now took hold of the log cabin, and the deputies waited for Christie to run out. But unknown to them, in the heat of battle, a bullet had smashed Christie’s nose, struck his left eye, ranged around the side of his head, and lodged in the back just beneath the skin. Blinded, he fell on his back, unable to move or speak. James grabbed his father’s Winchester and kept firing for a time at the deputies to make them believe Christie was still alive and dangerous. The fire crackled below. James could not move his father, so he decided to leave the house alone. Outside, as he tried to climb the fence, the deputies shot him in the back. He managed to get over the fence and stumble off into the woods.

The deputies decided Ned Christie was probably dead. Isbell was bleeding badly, and the woman who had fled the house was certain to bring help. The deputies departed. Shortly after, Nancy returned and ran inside the burning cabin. In the loft, Christie’s eyesight had returned but he still could not move or speak. He heard his name being called in Cherokee, Nede Wade! Ned saw his wife’s frightened eyes peering at him from the opening at the top of the ladder.

Other friends and relatives came running to see what the shooting was about. They managed to get Christie out of the burning house and hid him in the woods. They also found the badly wounded James and sent for Dr. Bitting, a white man who owned a grist mill nearby.

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