Butchery of the Mountain Man

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Montana

John carried Claire and the baby back into the house and he laid them both on the bed. The same bed that he and Claire had shared, the same bed on which Kirby had been conceived. He covered their bodies with a bright red blanket, then he pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat there, staring at the covered mounds on the bed.

As John sat there, unbidden, episodes of his past flashed through his mind. He saw himself as an acolyte in his father’s church, and as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Terrible images of the war tumbled by, as well as his difficulty in adjusting when he came back. He recalled his rejection by Lucinda, and his experiences in Annam.

But nothing, nothing in his entire life, had ever hurt him to the degree he was hurting now. The pain was unbearable, and he wanted to scream until he had no voice left.

“God, why?” he asked aloud.

He remembered asking that same question to his father after he came back from the war, when he was having such a difficult time adjusting.

“Why, if He is a just God, would He allow such evil things to happen?” John had asked.

“God allows things to happen for His reasons, whether or not we understand them,” John’s father had answered. “Above all, however, we must remember that He is a good, just, loving, and merciful God. I know that things have happened to you that are beyond your understanding. But you must trust in the Lord, and put aside all doubts.”

Nathaniel’s short homily had done nothing to ease John’s inner turmoil then, and recalling his words was doing nothing toward easing his pain now.

“Why, God! Why?” John shouted at the top of his voice. Then, in an angry snarl he added, “Never mind. I’ll set things right on my own.”

When the sun rose the next morning, John went out into the garden where he gathered every flower that had been planted. Bringing them in, he spread them on top of the bed until the bed was covered with colorful blooms and petals.

That done, John emptied a container of kerosene, then he set fire to the house. He stood out front watching the flames leap up around the logs that he and Claire had cut, shaped, notched, and put into position to build the house.

He could feel the heat of the flames, and even though it was uncomfortable, he made no effort to back away. He stood right there, until the cabin was completely consumed by the fire, so that there was not one recognizable thing about it remaining. He looked where he thought the bed might be, but could see nothing but blackened ash. He made no attempt to look closer.

Not until the last wisp of smoke had died, did he mount his horse and ride away. In less than twenty-four hours, his life had taken a turn that closed off his previous thirty-five years, as if none of it had ever happened. He was now a man consumed with hatred, and a determination to avenge his wife and child.

Old Main Building

Smoke stopped talking and Professor Armbruster waited for a moment, then he reached down to flip the toggle switch on the intercom box.

“Wes, this will be all for the day,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Wes replied.

“Are you okay, Smoke?”

Smoke nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just a little more of this cognitive context-dependent memory you were talking about earlier.”

“Yes, it can be very intense. Look, why don’t you take off early today. You and Sally take in some of the sights of the town.”

When Smoke returned to the hotel room, Sally was sitting on the sofa, her legs curled up under her, reading Babbitt, a novel by Sinclair Lewis. She looked up in surprise when Smoke came in.

“Hello,” she said. “You’re back early.”

“Yes,” Smoke said without further explanation. “Enjoying the book?”

“To be honest? Not particularly. There’s no plot to the story, it’s almost like a diary . . . we’re just following him around, but he isn’t going anywhere.”

“Then if I suggested we go somewhere, you wouldn’t necessarily be against it?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“You’ll know when we get there.”

Fifteen minutes later, Smoke turned into the large lot of the Jordan automobile dealership.

“Smoke, what?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted a sports car?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But nothing. You’re my wife, I love you, we can afford it. So what is there to argue?” Smoke said.

Parking the Duesenberg, Smoke and Sally went inside, then walked over to stand beside a bright, shining, red car.

“Pretty car, isn’t it?” a salesman asked, coming over to them.

“Beautiful,” Sally said.

“It has a 127-inch wheelbase, a finely louvered hood, low-slung beltline, and steeply sloped tail.”

“Where is the top?” Smoke asked. “If it starts raining, do you just get wet?”

“Oh, no, it has a top. But the top is completely removable. That way, you don’t have a bulky folded top to spoil the car’s lines.”

“Is it fast?” Smoke asked.

“Fast? Mister, this car has a flathead six cylinder engine of sixty-five horsepower. Why, on a straight, flat road, you could get her up to seventy miles per hour, easily.”

“We’ll take it.”

“Smoke! Are you serious?”

“Very serious,” Smoke said.

Half an hour later, with the Duesenberg parked at the hotel, Smoke and Sally drove their new sports car up to the top of Flagstaff Mountain. There, they sat in the open-top car and looked down onto the blazing lights of the city of Boulder.

“Why?” Sally asked.

“Why what?”

“You know what I’m asking. Why did you come home early, with the sudden urge to buy this car?”

“Didn’t you want it?”

“I had already put it behind me as a foolish notion. No, you bought this car, and it had nothing to do with me. I just want to know why?”

“It was a pretty rough day today,” Smoke said. “I talked about John finding Claire and his baby, killed, and half eaten by wolves.” Smoke half laughed. “I thought maybe buying this car, and driving it, might help me put it out of my mind.”

Sally reached over to put her hand on his.

“Smoke, why don’t you tell Professor Armbruster you’ve had enough and we’re going home?”

Smoke didn’t answer.

“I mean really, you’ve spoken about losing your father, about Nicole and Art being killed. And now this? It’s too much. Your life was hard enough, and dangerous enough, Smoke. You’ve reached the point to where you should be able to just relax, and drive like a fool if you want to.”

“What? What do you mean, drive like a fool?” Smoke asked with a chuckle.

“I mean you drove like a fool. Do you think you drove cautiously coming up here?”

“The salesman said it would do seventy miles per hour,” Smoke defended.

“Yes, but just because the salesman said this car would go seventy miles per hour, that doesn’t mean you should drive that fast on a winding mountain road.”

“I’ll be more careful going back down,” Smoke said.

“I should hope so.”

A meteor streaked across the sky.

“Look,” Smoke said. “When you see a meteor, you’re supposed to kiss a pretty girl.”

“So now we’re going to drive back in town so you can kiss a pretty girl?” Sally teased.

“I don’t have to go to town for that. Don’t you know, Sally, that when I look at you, I see the same beautiful young schoolteacher you were when I first met you?”

“I’m an old woman, Smoke,” Sally said. She put her arms around his neck. “But I’m glad you still see me that way.”

They kissed.

Residence of the President of the University

“How are your sessions with Mr. Jensen going?” Dr. Norlin asked.

Once again Armbruster had been invited for dinner with the president of the university, but this time the invitation omitted Smoke Jensen. The reason Smoke was left out of the invitation was so Dr. Norlin could speak frankly with Armbruster.

“It’s, uh, going fairly well,” Armbruster replied.

“Fairly well? That’s certainly a measured response. What is wrong?”

“There’s nothing actually wrong, it’s just that . . . well, some of the stories are very intense, and as Smoke shares them, it is as if he is reliving the experiences. And not just of his own life. He just told the event that started John Jackson on his killing spree, his coming home and finding his wife and child out in the garden. They had been killed by the Crow and half consumed by wolves.”

“Would you mind a suggestion from me?” Dr. Norlin asked.

“No, I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“Take the conversation in another direction for a while. Then come back to Jackson.”

“Yes,” Armbruster said. “I was thinking about doing that. Your suggestion just reinforces it.”

Old Main Building

“Are you ready to go on?” Professor Armbruster asked the next morning.

“As ready as I’m going to be,” Smoke replied.

“I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. That’s why I’m here.”

“This business with the Crow Indians, that was two years after you and John Jackson separated, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Just so we can fill in the gap, I’d be interested in catching up on what you were doing during that time.”

“Besides marrying Sally, you mean?”

“Well, that’s significant, yes. But more specifically, I was wondering if you might tell about Fast Lennie Moore. I’ve only read one account of it, and to be truthful with you, I don’t even know if it really happened, or not.”

“It happened,” Smoke said.

[On May 25, 1871, Lennie Moore (whose real name may have been Will Bachman) was drinking heavily in Tucson, Arizona, with his friend Larry Wallace, and eight or nine other cowboys. Wallace insulted Moore’s friend Deputy Marshal Billy Baker. Baker ignored Wallace, but Moore took offense and insisted that Wallace accompany him and apologize to Baker. When Wallace refused, Moore threatened to kill him. Wallace complied, but Moore afterward heaped abuse on Wallace, announcing, “You son of a bitch, I think I’ll just kill you anyhow.”

Moore had already demonstrated his speed and skill with a pistol, and Wallace wanted no fight with him, so he left the saloon. Moore followed him. Feeling threatened, Wallace turned and shot Moore, wounding him in the cheek and neck. Marshal Baker arrested Wallace but the court ruled he acted in self-defense.

A Tucson doctor treated Moore, who had not been seriously wounded. When Moore recovered, he called Wallace out and killed him. Later he killed Michael and Isaac Paterson, cousins of Wallace who had come for revenge. Moore’s reputation began to grow after that, and it is believed that he had killed nine men before his fateful encounter with Smoke Jensen in the small town of Perdition, Arizona.—ED.]