DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997                 TAG: 9702270639

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY WILLIAM BLAKE 

                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

CHEROKEE TALE EASY AND ENJOYABLE

ZEKE AND NED

LARRY McMURTRY AND DIANA OSSANA

Simon and Schuster. 478 pp. $25.

``Easy as whistling, was how Ned made it seem,'' says Zeke Proctor of his younger friend Ned Christie in Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana's Zeke and Ned. Those who enjoyed the writers' first collaboration in Pretty Boy Floyd might be tempted to say that McMurtry and Ossana make their storytelling as ``easy as whistling,'' too.

The story - part tall tale - is based on real people and events that happened in the Cherokee Nation some 40 years after the tragic Trail of Tears, which forced the tribe out of its southern lands and onto new territory west of Arkansas. To Oklahoma.

Zeke, a part-Cherokee farmer, husband and father, and Ned, a full-blooded Cherokee, are two warriors who run afoul of the white law while trying to scratch a living in the Cherokee Going Snake District.

After 17 years of marriage, Zeke fancies the white Polly Beck and seeks her for his second wife, a custom allowed under the Cherokees. Recognizing Zeke's intentions, Polly's jealous husband, T. Spade Beck, puts weevils in Zeke's corn for revenge. Zeke shows up at T. Spade's mill, aiming to kill him, but Polly jumps in front of her husband, taking the bullet instead.

From this mistake, much destruction flows. Zekes spends time ``on the scout,'' trying to avoid the law, but ultimately gives himself up to a tribal court. The brothers Beck try to kill him, however, and Ned, the District's best shot, comes to Zeke's defense in a bloody melee the equal of movie director Sam Peckinpah's bloodiest. Ned's loyalty to his friend, who becomes his father-in-law, dooms his marriage and forces him onto the war path.

The duo's actions also put the Cherokee way of life and independence in jeopardy as President Ulysses S. Grant orders U.S. marshals, who are little more than deputized killers, into the Going Snake District. In retaliation, Zeke forms the Cherokee Militia, and Ned holes up in a fort atop a mountain.

While Zeke and Ned are interesting characters, they don't approach the memorable Gus and Woodrow of Lonesome Dove, the best known of McMurtry's 20 novels. Both are members of the Keetoowah Society, which swears to uphold the Cherokee ways against white encroachment, and have been friends for years. Readers are told about this, but don't get to see much of it. Their culture is not really identified, suggesting that their inevitable tragedy is universal among men.

The novel's women, such as Zeke's quiet, but strong-willed wife, Becca, and their 16-year-old daughter, Jewel, are far more appealing. Female characters have long been a strength of McMurtry; all here are finely drawn. An eccentric assortment of villains adds to the action, which does not lack for McMurtry's trademark brutality.

For much of the story, the authors are in control, but for the last 100 pages, Zeke takes over the narrative. The switch is difficult and unnecessary. Zeke's yarning seems out of place and his ``voice'' almost forced at times.

Zeke and Ned is good McMurtry, but not great. But it is McMurtry. MEMO: William Blake is a free-lance writer who lives in Chesapeake.

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