Massacre at Powder River

Epilogue

Number 10 Downing Street, London

June 23, 1944

“Mr. Prime Minister?” An RAF colonel said, sticking his head into the cabinet room where Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower were still in conversation. “We have the strike report on the American attack at Peenemünde.”

“Yes, yes, let us hear it,” Churchill said. “This is where the Boche are launching their bloody buzz-bombs,” he said to Eisenhower, even though Eisenhower had already been thoroughly briefed.

“Three hundred seventy-seven B-17s bombed the launch site at Peenemünde, the experimental headquarters at Zinnowitz, and the marshalling yards at Straslund. Three B-17s were lost and sixty-four badly damaged. There were two hundred ninety-seven escort fighters, consisting of P-38 Lightnings and p-51 Mustangs. Three of the Mustangs were shot down. The launch pad near Werke Süd was a complete loss.”

“Thank you, General,” Churchill said. “And my prayer for the American boys who carried out the raid,” he added to Eisenhower after the RAF colonel left.

Churchill refreshed his drink, then he held up the bottle of Tennessee mash for Eisenhower.

“Recharge your glass, General?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you,” Eisenhower said. “I would like to hear the rest of your story, though. What happened to Teasdale and Frewen?”

“Teasdale was tried and found guilty of receiving stolen property. He should have been tried for murder, but they didn’t think they could make the case. He didn’t serve one day in prison; instead he was deported back to England where he was disgraced and ostracized by his peers. Three years after he returned, his wife found him one morning, slumped over his desk with a bullet in his brain. He committed suicide. Margaret, I am glad to say, remarried, and lived comfortably until she died, about six years ago.

“Frewen drove all his cattle a thousand miles north to Alberta where he sold out. Then, for the next thirty years, he traveled the world, investing in inventions, disinfectants, forests, poets, artists, and gold, silver, and coal mines. He never succeeded at any venture he tried, though he never quite went bankrupt. Late in life, he actually became a member of Parliament, and I am happy to say that I was the first one to welcome him. I loved that old man, despite his faults and foibles.”

“And Morrison?”

“Believe it or not, Morrison and I corresponded for a while. And he and Uncle Moreton even reconciled. He was a sheriff’s deputy down in Texas the last time I heard from him.”

“Reed?”

“Less than six months later, Reed was killed in an aborted bank robbery.”

“You don’t have to tell me what happened to the boy,” Eisenhower said. “I know where he wound up.”

Churchill chuckled. “I never heard again from some of the cowboys I met—Jeff Singleton, for example, or Tibby Ware, or any of the others. I’m sure they never thought I would amount to anything—and indeed, whether I have or have not will be for history to decide. But I do wonder, sometimes, if they have ever made the connection between the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the boy who used to eat ‘grub’ with them.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything more about Matt Jensen, either,” Eisenhower said. “I have read enough books about that gentleman to know what a stalwart and heroic career he had.”

Churchill held up his finger. “General, I have something I would like to give you.”

“Oh?”

“I have kept it for lo, these many years. But because it is truly American in origin, by rights, it should belong to an American. And not just any American, but to one who is worthy. Wait here for a moment.”

Churchill left the cabinet room for fully a minute while Eisenhower lit a cigarette, wondering what this was all about. When Churchill returned, he was holding a small silver box.

“This is for you,” he said, handing the box to Eisenhower.

Eisenhower looked at the box in curiosity.

“Not the box—what is inside,” Churchill said.

Eisenhower opened the box and saw inside a single bullet. He removed the bullet, then held it out to look at it, his curiosity still not satisfied.

“It is a bullet,” Eisenhower said.

Churchill chuckled. “Yes. But not just any bullet. This, my dear General, is a forty-four caliber bullet that Matt Jensen personally removed from the cylinder of his pistol. He gave it to me as a keepsake. But now, on behalf of a grateful nation for what you have done for us, I take tremendous pleasure in giving to you.”

“Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t know what to say,” Eisenhower said. “I appreciate this, very much.”

“I thought you might,” Churchill said. “Us ‘cowboys’ are simpatico that way. Oh, there is one way I would let you get rid of it, though,” he added.

“How is that?”

“If you could find a Colt .44 pistol and use it to personally put a bullet in Hitler’s head.”

Churchill laughed, and Eisenhower laughed with him.

In the car on the way back to 20 Grosvenor Square, Eisenhower opened his hand and looked at the bullet Churchill had given him. The thought that Matt Jensen had personally held this bullet, and now he was holding it, gave him a sense of connection to one of the heroes he had read about.

“Kaye?”

“Yes, General?” his driver replied.

“Next time you order a batch of Westerns for me, see what you can find about Matt Jensen.”