Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Old Main Building

There were several young people out in front of the Old Main building when Smoke parked his car the next morning. Many of the young men were wearing gold sweaters, with the block letter C.

“Hello, Mr. Jensen.”

“Hi, Mr. Jensen.”

“Good morning, Mr. Jensen.”

The greetings were friendly and numerous, and Smoke returned them all as he went into the building.

“What’s going on out front?” he asked Professor Armbruster.

Armbruster chuckled. “Don’t you know? It is all over campus what you did last night, putting Vinnie Sarducci and Eddie DeSchamp in their place. Those two have made themselves very unpopular around here, and I think what you did was much appreciated. You have become a campus hero.”

“There must be a scarcity of heroes,” Smoke said.

“Not at all. It’s just that they have put you up there with them, and given your history, rightly so.”

“So you say.”

“Well, shall we go on? What happened with John and the Indian girl?”

“John and I separated after Rendezvous. He and Claire went back into the mountains of Montana, I went back to Colorado.”

Upper Missouri River, Montana—1870

John Jackson and Claire rode west along the upper reaches of the Missouri. Because of his experience with Smoke the year before, John was well aware of the potential danger that threatened from behind every stand of trees and every butte or rock. They were just crossing a tributary when Claire called out to him.

“John Jackson,” she said. She pointed up the tributary. “We go that way.”

“What? You speak English?” John asked, surprised to hear the words.

“Yes.”

“But you said you only speak French.”

“I did not want Cooper to know I can speak English. He was not a good man.”

John chuckled. “That is as true a statement as I’ve ever heard. Why do you think we should go up this tributary?”

“When the cold returns, the trapping there will be good. There would be a good place to build a house, because there is water and shelter from the cold winds in the winter, and shade from the hot sun in the summer. Also, the only Indians are friendly Indians.”

“And you say that is where I should build the house, huh?”

“Yes.”

“All right, if you say so, that’s where we’ll go.”

The tributary took them into a wide ravine that, as Claire had pointed out, kept them shaded from the hot sun. It also tended to shield them from observation.

“We’ll camp here, tonight,” John said. He led his horse and pack mule to the stream so they could drink. Claire, by agreement of everyone at Rendezvous, had inherited Cooper’s saddle horse and pack mule, and she led them to the stream to drink alongside John’s animals.

“I’ll gather up some firewood,” John said. “Can you make us a fire pit from stone?” He picked up a couple of rocks and put them on the ground, then made a circle with his hand. “We’ll make the fire here.”

“Yes,” Claire said, nodding her head.

John wandered off into the trees, where he started gathering old, downed limbs, branches, and even a piece of rotted-out log. When he came back he saw that Claire had laid the fire pit, but he didn’t see her. Concerned, he put the wood down and started looking around. When he found her, he stopped in his tracks.

Claire was standing knee-deep in the water, and she was totally nude. Her back was to him, and he couldn’t help but enjoy the gentle curves, and the smooth golden skin. She was taking a bath, and though he felt that he should turn away, he couldn’t make himself do so. He leaned against a tree and watched as she splashed water on herself. Then, unexpectedly, she turned and started out of the water, affording a total view as she did so.

When Claire glanced up, she saw that John was looking at her, but she showed no alarm, nor did she display any modesty. She smiled at him, then reached down and picked up a clean dress and pulled it down over her still-wet body.

“Did you start the fire?” she asked.

“Uh, no,” John replied.

“We cannot cook if we have no fire.”

John chuckled. “I guess you have a point there. I’ll get a fire started, then carve off a piece of ham for us.”

“Not ham,” Claire said. “Fish.”

“Fish? Might be good but we’ll have to catch . . .” John stopped in mid-sentence when, with a broad smile, Claire walked over to the edge of the stream and picked up two good-sized salmon that he hadn’t seen earlier.

“How did you catch those? Where is your hook and line?”

“I use my hands,” Claire said, making a swooping motion with her hands to demonstrate.

John started the fire as Claire cleaned the fish, then she ran a green stick down through each of them and leaned them out over the fire to cook.

That night, John lay in his bedroll by the fire, watching the red sparks ride the rising columns of heat into the sky, there to blend with the stars. He thought back over the last few years of his life . . . the fiancée who promised to wait, but who spurned him after he returned from the war . . . the friends he had met, and who were killed during the war . . . and the difficult time he had adjusting to peacetime civilian life, then his experience with the French Foreign Legion in Annam.

He recalled his last conversation with his father, just before he left Pennsylvania to come west.

“I don’t know what is wrong with you, son,” his father told him when he returned from Europe. “When you came back from the war you said you just needed a little time to readjust, so you went to Europe and joined the French Foreign Legion. I told you then that you were making a mistake, but you didn’t listen to me.

“So, what happened to you in Europe? You were just as disturbed when you came back from there as you were when you came back from the war. You’ve told me nothing of your experiences with the Foreign Legion. Was it an unpleasant experience?”

“There is nothing to talk about,” John replied.

“You’ve said nothing about going into battle with the Foreign Legion, but you have returned with a medal that you can only get by being in battle. Was it bad?”

John didn’t answer.

“John, you have been much in my prayers for these last several years. While you were in the war, I prayed for your physical survival. But since the war, I have prayed for the survival of your soul. You just aren’t the same sweet boy, or even good man, you once were. You are too quick to anger, you have too little patience, you don’t enjoy the things you once did, you haven’t reconnected with your old friends, and you can’t sleep at night. I know the stress you went through during the war, and maybe even when you were with the Foreign Legion, is causing that. Maybe someday there will be a name for it . . . but nothing I have ever read addresses it.”

“You don’t understand,” John had told his father. “I can’t sleep at night, because when I do, I hear the gunfire . . . I hear the moans of the wounded and the dying.”

“I know you were upset when you returned from Europe, and found that Lucy had married another. But you’ve made no effort to meet any other young women. You shouldn’t let what she did keep you from seeing other women.”

“To tell you the truth, Pop, I’m actually glad she found someone else. I just don’t feel like being around any women now.”

“I know you said you wanted to go west, into the mountains where you would be away from everyone. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Maybe if you are alone long enough, you’ll get back to normal.”

And so here he was, the sum total of his entire life had brought him to this time and this place, in the mountains, alone. No, he wasn’t really alone, nor had he been alone. There had been Preacher and Smoke. But he was thankful to Smoke. What he had learned from Smoke in the last year was worth a four-year college degree. It was certainly more valuable than the degree he had earned at the University of Pennsylvania.

Claire was lying in her blankets, not five feet away from him. She had certainly not been a part of his plans. There was no room in the life he wanted now for any kind of a companion, let alone a female companion, and especially not an Indian woman. He had been forced into taking her, convinced that the circumstances were such that she would not survive had he not done so. He had tried, to the degree that it was possible, to maintain a separation between them. He had thought that the difference in language would help in that regard.

Then he learned that she could speak English.

All right, it was probably a good thing that she could speak English. If they were going to be together, there would be times when it would be necessary for them to communicate. He would just put her out of his mind as much as he could.

But tonight, he saw her naked, and he saw, for the first time, what an exceptionally beautiful woman she was. And now she was lying beside him, totally dependent upon him for her survival, and for all intents and purposes, his to do with as he pleased.

If he went to her now, what would she do? Would she acquiesce to his advances? Or would she fight him off?

What about her time with Cooper? Had she been with Cooper?

Of course she had, there was no way she could have avoided it. And she did say that she had been Cooper’s wife.

For a moment the thought of Claire having been with Cooper disgusted him, and he thought the less of her for it.

Why? Why did he think that? She was absolutely helpless. How could she have possibly controlled her own fate?

Now John felt guilty for having such negative thoughts about her. The truth was, in the few days they had been together, he had grown comfortable with her. Yes, she was dependent upon him for her survival, but to a degree he was dependent upon her as well.

She knew the country and had offered suggestions from time to time, such as following this tributary from the river. She was helpful around the camp, she could make a fire, she could cook, she was able to point out what plants were edible, she could find wild, sweet berries, as well as honey. And tonight she had shown him that she could fish.

Yes, having her with him was not the burden he thought it would be.

A gas bubble, trapped in one of the burning logs, popped loudly, and sent up a shower of sparks. A couple of them landed on Claire’s blanket, and John, afraid that the blanket would catch on fire, moved over quickly to brush the sparks off.

Claire opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her eyes reflected bright orange points of light, and her face gleamed in the glow of the fire. She stared up at him for a long time with those big, brown, trusting eyes, and when John put his hand on her cheek, she reached for it, not to push it away, but to hold it in her own hand.

With Claire’s other hand she opened the blanket in invitation and he saw that she was as nude as she had been when he saw her in the water. Quickly taking off his own clothes, John got under the blanket with her.

John was awakened the next morning by the loud, rapid hammering of a woodpecker. The first thing he realized was that Claire wasn’t in bed with him. Raising up on his elbow, he saw her by the fire, cooking something in the skillet. He could smell it, and it smelled very good.

“What are you cooking?” he asked.

“Breakfast.”

“Yes, but what?”

“You eat first, then I will tell you,” she said.

John chuckled, then he started to get up from the blankets. That was when he realized that he was naked and, inexplicably, he felt a sense of embarrassment. He reached for his clothes and dressed, all the while keeping himself covered with the blanket.

The breakfast meal consisted of Indian fry bread, which John had eaten for the first time at Rendezvous, bacon, and something else, something that resembled scrambled eggs, though it was more orange than yellow.

Claire spooned it out of the frying pan and onto two tin plates. She gave one plate, and a fork, to John.

“Eat,” she said.

John knew that he liked bacon, and he knew that he liked the fry bread. He didn’t know what the orange stuff was, but he took a bite.

Claire studied his reaction, intensely.

It wasn’t at all an unpleasant taste, but John had never tasted anything quite like it. It had sort of a salty taste, but not overly so. He took two or three bites, hesitantly, then with a little more confidence, and by the time he finished he discovered that he was actually enjoying it.

“What was that I just ate?” he asked.

“Come, I will show you.”

Claire led John to the water’s edge, then she pointed to some leaves that were growing in the water. Clinging to the leaves were hundreds of little, round, almost translucent balls.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Fish eggs,” Claire replied with a broad smile.

John chuckled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I know that some rich folks back in Philadelphia serve fish eggs. They call it caviar. If I ever get back there, I’ll have to tell them how good it can be when it’s fried in bacon grease.”

“You like?”

“Yes, I do. Claire, what do you say we build our cabin here?”

“I think here is a good place,” Claire replied.