William Johnstone - Butchery of the Mountain Man

“Room service,” a voice called from the other side of the door.

Sally tried to pull away, but Smoke continued to hold her.

“Uhmm, that’s our dinner,” she said. “It’ll get cold.”

“Let it,” Smoke teased. “Don’t forget, you are the one who started this.”

“Smoke,” Sally said, laughing.

Smoke opened his arms and stepped back from her, but he continued to smile.

The white-jacketed bellhop brought their dinner in on a cart, the various dishes protected by domed silver covers. He lit the two candles, then served the meal.

“Thank you, Reginald,” Sally said,

Dinner was a lobster bisque, followed by a filet mignon with asparagus and baked potato.

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.”