Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Old Main Building

“Are you ready to resume, Mr. Jensen?” Professor Armbruster asked the next morning when Smoke returned to the Old Main building on campus.

“Yes, sir, I am,” Smoke said. “Where did I leave off yesterday?”

“You and Jackson had just been attacked by six Pawnee,” Professor Armbruster said, “but you drove them off.”

“So we did.”

“Did you have any more Indian encounters?”

“Not immediately. We kept moving north until we left Colorado, then we wound up at Fort Laramie, in Wyoming.”

“Laramie?”

Smoke thought of the car ad Sally had read to him yesterday—“Somewhere west of Laramie”—and he smiled. “No, sir, we were at Fort Laramie,” he said.

Fort Laramie

When Smoke and John reached Fort Laramie, they were stopped by the guard at the front gate of the post.

“What is your business here?” the guard at the gate asked.

“We have no particular business, private,” John said. “We are just passing through and thought we would take shelter here for a couple of days.”

“You’re both civilians, I can’t let you through.”

“I realize that you can’t authorize our entry. But your post commandant can. So I’m asking you to call the corporal of the guard so that he may escort us to the post headquarters where we will secure permission from your commanding officer.”

“The corporal won’t take you there.”

“Oh, I think he will,” John said. “Army regulations twenty-two-dash-five specifically state that civilian personnel may be billeted on a military reservation under certain conditions where safety is concerned, and permission for such visits may be granted at any time by authority of the post commandant.”

The guard looked at John with a shocked expression on his face, but he was no more shocked than Smoke.

“Go ahead, Private, call him,” John said. There was an air of authority in John’s voice that Smoke had not heard before.

“Corporal of the guard, front gate!” the private called.

The other sentries repeated the gate guard’s call until, after a few moments a corporal came strolling up to the gate.

“What is it?” the corporal asked.

“Corporal, under the provisions of army regulations twenty-two-dash-five, my friend and I wish to petition the post commandant for permission to spend a few nights inside the fort,” John said.

“I ain’t never heard of no regulation like that,” the private said. “Have you ever heard of it, Corporal?”

“Of course I have,” the corporal replied. He stared at John and Smoke for a moment, then nodded. “All right, come with me.”

“John, is there such a regulation?” Smoke asked, quietly, as they followed the sergeant across the open area toward the headquarters building.

John chuckled. “I don’t have the slightest idea,” he said. “But it has gotten us this far.”

Smoke laughed. “Yeah, it has.”

“Wait here,” the corporal of the guard said when he led them into the orderly room. The first sergeant and the company clerk were both sitting at their desks.

“Top, these men want to see the commandant,” the corporal of the guard said.

The first sergeant gave Smoke and John a cursory glance, then nodded and stepped into the CO’s office. A moment later a major stepped out of his office. At first there was a rather irritated look on his face, but when he saw John, he broke into a wide grin.

“Captain Jackson!” he said.

“Lieutenant Sanderson,” John replied. “I haven’t seen you since Gettysburg. What happened to you? Other than the fact that you made major?”

“I went to the hospital in Washington, D.C., and when I recovered, I was assigned to General Grant’s staff.”

“Ha. I can see why you made major then. Oh, this is my friend, Smoke Jensen.”

“Mr. Jensen,” Sanderson said.

“Smoke, during the war Bobby Sanderson and I served together.”

“Served together? Don’t you mean you were my commanding officer?” Sanderson replied.

“Congratulations on making major, though I’m sure the congratulations are late,” John said.

“What brings you to Fort Laramie?” Sanderson asked.

“I’m in a new business now,” John said. “I’m a fur trapper, and my friend, who knows about these things, tells me that the best place to trap now is in Montana. So we’re headed up that way, and I thought you might be generous enough to put us up here for a couple of nights.”

“Of course I will,” Sanderson said. “And you are here just in time to help us celebrate Independence Day.”

“Independence Day? What day is this, anyway?”

“July third,” Sanderson said.

“Yes, we would love to celebrate the Fourth with you and the troops.”

“First Sergeant, get these gentlemen billeted in the officers’ quarters,” Sanderson said.

“Yes, sir. If you gentlemen will come with me?” the first sergeant invited.

The first thing Smoke did after being assigned a room in the bachelor officers’ quarters, was to take a bath, and get into clean clothes. Although he had bathed in streams, this was his first real tub bath in over a year, and he sat in the tub for a long time, just luxuriating in the water. He heard a knock on the door.

“Smoke? Smoke, are you in there?”

“Yeah, John, if you don’t mind seeing me in the bathtub, come on in,” Smoke said.

When John came in, Smoke was surprised to see that he was wearing the uniform of an army captain.

“I’ll bet you didn’t even know I had this uniform with me, did you?”

Smoke chuckled. “Hell, John, I didn’t even know you had ever been in the army. Let alone an officer. And a captain, no less. That’s pretty damn impressive.”

“Not all that impressive. The army was huge during the war, and it required a lot of officers. Those of us who had college educations sort of had a leg up on the rest of the troops.”

“Well, it impresses me,” Smoke said.

“Bobby has invited us to his quarters for supper tonight,” John said. “I took the liberty of accepting the invitation for both of us. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, why should I mind? I never turn down a free meal. But I’m afraid the best I can do for clothes would be a buckskin outfit that’s clean, instead of the dirty one I’ve been wearing. Hand me that towel, would you?”

“Your buckskins will be fine,” John said, handing Smoke the towel as he stepped from the tub.

“I have to tell you, I’m a little out of place here, on an army post,” Smoke said. “I wanted to go to the war, but my pa and my brother went, and my sister ran off, so that left me to take care of ma.”

“You would have been too young anyway, wouldn’t you?” John asked.

“I could have lied about it.”

“Well, for the time being, you and I will be trading places,” John said. “You have the lead when we are in the mountains; I’ll take the lead while we are here, on the army post.”

“Sounds like the best way to handle it,” Smoke said.

Major Sanderson lived in the commandant’s house, which was a rather large, two-story home with Corinthian columns supporting the porch roof. Smoke and John were met at the front door by an enlisted man who was Sanderson’s striker.

“Come in, sirs, the major is expecting you.”

“Thank you, Private,” John said.

Major Sanderson and his wife were waiting in the parlor.

“Hello, John. I would like you to meet my wife, Cindy.”

John smiled. “You have done well, Bobby, both in your military career and your choice of a wife. What a lovely lady you have married. I’m most pleased to meet you, Mrs. Sanderson.”

“Mrs. Sanderson,” Smoke said with a slight nod of his head.

“I have heard much about you, Captain Jackson,” Cindy said. “It is good to finally meet you.”

For the next half hour, and even after they were called to dinner, Smoke listened, with interest, to the stories John and Major Sanderson exchanged.

“Were you in the war, Mr. Jensen?” Major Sanderson asked.

“No, I missed it. My father and my older brother were.” Smoke smiled. “But I’m afraid they fought on the opposite side from you gentlemen.”

“Men of good conscience fought on both sides,” Sanderson said. “Who was your father with?”

“He was with Mosby’s Raiders.”

“Mosby? Wait a minute,” Major Sanderson said. “Jensen? Your father wouldn’t be Emmett Jensen, would he?”

“Yes.”

“My, what a warrior he was,” Sanderson said. “John, it was before I came to your company. I was on General Stoughton’s staff when Mosby’s Rangers showed up. Two men went into the general’s quarters and awakened him, most rudely I must say, by a slap on his rear. General Stoughton was incensed and, pulling himself up in righteous indignation, said, ‘Do you know who I am?’

“One of the two men replied by saying, ‘Do you know who John Mosby is?’

“‘Yes! Have you got the rascal?’ General Stoughton asked.

“‘No, but he has got you!’ The two men in the room with the general that night were John Mosby”—Major Sanderson looked over at Smoke—“and your father.”

John laughed out loud. “How did the men take it?” he asked.

“I have to tell you, John, that General Stoughton was a pompous ass. The truth is, I think at least half the men applauded Mosby, and Emmett Jensen. Myself included,” he added.

“Good,” Smoke said. “I wouldn’t want to make enemies from new friends.”

John and Major Sanderson continued to discuss the war. The incident where General Stoughton was captured happened in March 1863. In May, Lieutenant Sanderson joined Captain Jackson’s company and fought under him in the greatest battle of the war, the Battle of Gettysburg.

In Smoke’s young life he had already faced death many times, and smelled the acrid smell of gunpowder, so he was not unfamiliar with violent death. But the scale of Gettysburg, with thousands of men on either side facing shot and shell, advancing and withdrawing across battlefields strewn with the dead and dying, was enough to hold even his attention.

John and Major Sanderson continued to share such stories.

“What made you decide to go into the fur-trapping business?” Sanderson asked. “I thought you had some girl you were anxious to marry back in, where was it? Boston? Philadelphia?”

“Philadelphia, and it didn’t work out,” John said.

“That happened to a number of people, I think,” Sanderson said.

“Yes. But not everyone did something as foolish as I did.”

Sanderson chuckled. “What did you do that was so foolish?”

“I joined the French Foreign Legion.”

“What? You did? But wait . . . I’ve read about the Foreign Legion. The term of enlistment is five years, isn’t it? If you joined the Foreign Legion, how is it that you are no longer a member?”

“Let’s just say that I altered my contract with them.”

“You altered your contract? What do you mean?”

“I deserted.”

“Oh,” Sanderson said. “Are you afraid that . . . what I mean is, do you think they’ll come looking for you?”

“No. They would have to come, not only to America, but to the Rocky Mountains to find me. They won’t waste their time, they’ll just recruit someone to take my place.”

“Bobby, can’t we find a more pleasant subject to discuss?”

“Yes, forgive me, my dear,” Major Sanderson said. He smiled. “Because tomorrow is Independence Day, it will be a day of no work for the men. We plan to have a day-long celebration, and a barbeque. You’ll probably smell the meat cooking tonight.”

Smoke did smell the meat cooking all night long, two beef halves on spits that were suspended over glowing coals. By the next morning morale on the post was high, not only because of the barbeque, but because the day was given over to celebrations and games. One of the games was baseball, the first time Smoke had ever seen the game played.

That night there was a dance. Held at the sutler’s store, it was for everyone on the post, enlisted and officers alike, though it was somewhat limited, due to the lack of women. The wives of the post did their part by allowing their dance cards to be filled by the bachelor officers and men, and it wasn’t all that unusual to see Major Sanderson’s wife, Cindy, dancing with a young private.

There were very few single women at the post, mostly laundresses who lived on “Soapsuds Row” washing and ironing the post laundry. As a rule, the laundresses did not stay single very long. They were prime candidates for marriage to the noncommissioned officers of the post.

Both John and Smoke danced once with the major’s wife, but generally stayed out of the dance in order to give the men of the post more opportunities. There were a few of the women, though, who made it known by looks and gestures that they would welcome a dance with the two handsome strangers.

The next morning, the two men left immediately after breakfast.