Rocky Mountain Justice (The Legend of Camel's Hump) Read online

  Jerry had turned white around his bandages. In a very serious tone, he said, “This is my fault. I should’ve refused to go to the sheriff. Aunt Hilda and Ray are good people; as nice as anyone that I know - - - and now they’re homeless because of me.” For the first time during this ordeal, he began openly sobbing, saying over and over, “It’s my fault. It’s my fault.” Dawn didn’t know what to say, so she pulled his head onto her shoulder and hugged him.

  Mrs. Parker had no such problem. She knew exactly what needed to be said and she said it as she came back into the room. “Jerry, that kind of talk is just crap! Just plain crap! This is in no way your fault. That fire may be just a coincidence. And if it isn’t, it still isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of whoever started the fire, not you! Let’s start figuring out what we can do about it, not whose fault it is. Your Aunt is going to need help. We all need to be thinking about that right now.

  With that, Mrs. Parker left to check on her home and Dawn took the seat beside the bed. They talked for a while, but Jerry was fading fast. When he nodded off for the third time, Dawn left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She went on to the kitchen where she began cleaning up and washing the dishes. After a while, she snuck in to check on Jerry, but he was sleeping soundly.

  CHAPTER SIX:

  The Plan

  Jerry slept until almost midnight. When he woke the house was dark and silent. He tried to go back to sleep, but it just didn’t work. He was awake now and his mind refused to turn off. Try as he might, he just couldn’t get the Moore’s plight out of his mind. He laid awake for what seemed like hours thinking about it. Finally he drifted into a fitful sleep, awakening occasionally as he bumped his injuries.

  He came fully awake with the first light. He painfully climbed out of bed and dressed himself. Dawn and her mother were still asleep, so he was very careful to stay quiet as he moved about. He went into the little bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. He cleaned himself up as best he could, carefully splashing some water in his eyes and rinsing his mouth. Then he retreated to his bedroom where he pulled out his school notebook and a pencil. Moving to the little shelf in the corner where he did his homework, he laid out the paper, pulled up a chair and started writing.

  He was still there three hours later when Mrs. Parker noticed the light under his bedroom door. “Jerry, are you all right?” “Sure. Thanks.” She opened the door and came in. “What’re you doing, Boy? You need to stay in bed for a day or two. You have some bad injuries and they need time to heal.” He turned to look at her. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. But there’s just too much that needs to get done. I’ve been thinking all night about Aunt Hilda and Ray. I think we can help them, but I need your help.”

  Her reply was equally firm. “Not yet. You need some breakfast and we need to look at your bandages. Then we can talk about the Moore’s problems. Now go get cleaned up. When you’re done in the bathroom, I’ll wake Dawn.”

  Jerry hurried to comply. He had been waiting for some movement in the house so he could brush his teeth. His mouth hurt, but the taste of the blood and iodine mixed with two nights’ crustiness, made him look forward to whatever damage his old toothbrush inflicted. While he was busy, Mrs. Parker was working in the kitchen and soon the odors of coffee and frying bacon were drifting back to him. By the time he was done, Mrs. Parker already had a plate set out for him and he attacked it ravenously.

  Dawn emerged from Dad’s bedroom, and came close to inspect his face. Her long hair was tossed and rumpled and signs of sleepiness were all over her face. Jerry’s heart skipped a beat as he looked at her. He thought she looked more beautiful that anybody he had ever seen at that moment. “How are you feeling?” she asked. Jerry’s mouth was full, but her mother answered for him, “He must be fine. From the looks of the paper crumpled up on the floor beside his desk, he’s been working for hours. Get cleaned up so we can all find out what he’s been doing.” Dawn gave Jerry a puzzled look and scampered off to do as she was told.

  When Jerry finished breakfast, Mrs. Parker, who had been eating her breakfast standing beside the stove, came over and did a thorough inspection of his bandages, replacing a couple that had come loose overnight. In the meantime, Dawn returned and served herself breakfast. By the time she finished, Mrs. Parker had finally decided that Jerry’s bandages were satisfactory. Then she opened the conversation they had been waiting for. “OK, Jerry. What do you need my help with?”

  “Can you call a town meeting this afternoon after working hours?” he asked. In Dublin, such meetings were often used to resolve local issues, set school hours, establish town budgets and the like. These meetings had been a big part of life during the war a few years ago. At that time, they had been held weekly so that the wives could exchange information with one another and provide help wherever a need was seen. Most of the Dublin men had been in the military and the meetings had been a lifeline for the women left behind. Now they were just held annually or whenever a citizen saw a need. The meetings were held in the school’s assembly room.

  “Sure,” she replied, “anyone can call a town meeting. All we have to do is ring the school bell. But it would be smart to put a notice up in the post office and the grocery store first.” “I thought of that,” Jerry said as he rose to go back to his bedroom. “I got some flyers ready so we can stick them up around town this morning.” He showed them some flyers that he had made with lined tablet paper and crayons. In big red letters, they read, TOWN MEETING 6 PM JUNE 12, 1949. Then under the heading, in calmer green and blue letters, he had written, OUR NEIGHBORS, THE MOORES, NEED HELP! Please join us to talk about it! The letters weren’t exactly perfect and the colors were atrocious, but the message was there and Mrs. Parker was not about to quibble.

  “Jerry, what do you think we can do?” she asked. At that, he brought out the rest of the papers he had been working on. She saw that they were lists. “I made a list of everything I could think of that’s needed to build a house. Then I spent time on every item and came up with lists of people that could help with each one of them. We can build the Moore’s a new place! It might not be a two-story farm house, but we can certainly build a house about the size of this place I’m living in. They have the land. We have logs all around us and we certainly have enough loggers and logging trucks. At least five people here own bulldozers and the heavy equipment we need. All of us High School kids are free for the summer and we can pound nails. We can do it!” With that he fell silent, looking appealingly at her across the table.

  Mrs. Parker thought about this for a minute. “I see what you are thinking, Jerry. But I’m going to be the devil’s advocate here. Are you sure that Mrs. Moore needs the help? She did sell her ranch recently. She may not need us and she may be offended if we offer.” Jerry didn’t hesitate. “No, she needs us. She gets quarterly payments on the ranch and that covers their living expenses. But they don’t have any extra money at all. I overheard her explaining this to Ray one day when they were talking about saving to go visit relatives over in Idaho. They do need help.”

  “OK, if that’s true, I guess I’m onboard. But why do you need me to call the meeting?” Jerry came back to her with, “Because you’re the adult. The townspeople aren’t going to listen to a couple of kids like Dawn and me. I’ve seen you work when you’re trying to get something going, like getting the new desks for the school last year. You’re good at it. Besides, there’ll have to be some money involved and you know how to handle that stuff.”

  Mrs. Parker thought about this for a moment. It was Dawn that finally broke the silence. “Mom, he’s right. Please help.” That tipped the scales. “Let me see your lists.” Jerry handed them to her and she started studying them, occasionally looking up to ask Jerry a question. Getting a pencil, she started making notes on the papers. Finally she looked up. “Jerry, what do you have planned for today?” His response was slow and thoughtful, “I wanted to drive out and see the Moore place. Then I want to go up to the mine and talk to Dad. He needs to know about everything that’s happened and I want him to hear it from me. I also want to offer the Moore’s the use of our house here while their new one is being built, but I need to talk to Dad about that before I make the offer.”

  Mrs. Parker reacted with a start. “Darn it! I’d forgotten about all of the other part of this. What are we going to do about Ike and the sheriff? Your father is going to go hunting them if we let him. We certainly don’t want that!” It was Jerry’s turn to be startled. “You’re right. I’d been concentrating on the Moore’s problem so hard that I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Now it was Dawn that thought the fastest, “Stop! We can’t do everything at once and the Ike problem is not something that we want to get wrong. We know now what those bastards are capable of and we’ve gotta be careful.” She looked a bit embarrassed and glanced at her mother when she said “bastards”. But uncharacteristically, her mother ignored it, so she went on. “I think that we need to concentrate on helping the Moore family right now. But, while we’re doing that, I think we need to keep an eye on Ike and make sure he doesn’t surprise us with anything. When we have the Moore family in a home, we can worry about dealing with them. That will give us time to come up with a plan for Ike and his buddy, the sheriff.”

  Once again, Mrs. Parker was taken aback. “Man! I sure wouldn’t ever want to get on the bad side of you two. Jerry, can you get your dad to be cool for a while?” Jerry’s answer was, “I dunno, but I’ll give it my best try.”

  “OK, Team. Here’s the plan. Dawn, I want you to put these signs up in the post office, grocery store and the garage. Stick one on the front door of the school too. Then go home and type these lists up, double-spaced. I think I can get to the school’s mimeograph machine if
we can type them fast enough. I’d like to have them available for tonight if we can. Jerry, it’s your job to get to your father and make sure that his Irish temper doesn’t make a mess before we’re ready for it. Let’s plan on meeting at the school at about a quarter after five to get our act together before the meeting. OK?”

  Within an hour, Jerry was on the road. First he went to the Moore’s home site. Although he had steeled himself in anticipation, it was a real shock to see the piles of debris that were the home he’d shared just a couple of days ago. He got out of the car and walked around the yard, staring numbly at the devastation. Everything that had been close to the house had burned. Even the old outhouse, the woodshed, and the well house with its hand-pump were gone. The volunteer fire department had done a good job. They’d cleared all of the debris back at least forty feet from the house so that there was no chance of the fire spreading. It looked like a huge barbeque pit, with the fire pit in the middle where the house had been and the area around it scoured clean. A few of Mrs. Moore’s prized lilac bushes had survived, standing forlornly in the midst of the desolation.

  He heard the chickens cackling in the coop that stood behind the big cottonwoods. “They were probably forgotten in all of the hassle.” He went back to the little shed beside the chicken coop, got some feed, and filled the little troughs that fed the chickens. After that, he filled their water troughs and then got back in the car and began the long drive to the mine.

  He went through town before turning onto the dirt road that led to his father’s mining claim. From here, the drive was a beautiful one and he cheered up a bit as he navigated the winding road. The mining claim was about fifteen miles back into the mountains that lay along the Montana-Idaho border. To get there, the road followed a small creek up the side of the mountains toward its headwaters. The towering cedars that lined the road were spectacular and wildlife was everywhere. Jerry loved this road, with its wild isolation and incredible beauty. Today it helped to take his mind off of the destruction of the past few days.

  Too soon, he came in sight of the little lake that lay in the center of his father’s mining claim. The lake was nestled in a small valley framed by mountains on all sides. Already known to the locals as Flynn Lake, it was a thing of beauty. Back in 1910, almost forty ago, a forest fire had gone through this area and shortly thereafter a small earthquake had partially dammed the creek, creating the lake. The evidence of the old fire was everywhere. The placid lake still had some charred, dead, trees along its sides. There were even a few sticking up from its depths like grey skeletons. Somehow all of this just enhanced the lake’s wild beauty. The deep blue of the lake contrasted with the grey of the sheer cliffs on two sides of the lake and the deep green fir and cedar forest on the other sides.

  The little cabin that Jerry’s father had built was barely visible, setting back in the cedars at the base of a mountain. His mine shaft and its pile of tailings were completely hidden unless you walked back behind the cabin to the mountainside. Nothing marred the pristine beauty of the little valley.

  Jerry stopped the car when he came over the last hill and sat there, looking down into the valley. He usually did this because he loved this spot and he liked to take his time absorbing it. Today, he admitted to himself, he stopped so that he could gather his thoughts before he had to face his father. He was dreading this. Finally he started the car down the hill and parked in front of the cabin beside his father’s big pickup truck.

  Jerry’s father, Wayne Flynn, was a product of these mountains. He’d been born on the nearby Flathead Indian Reservation and had lived there until he was twelve. Then his family had moved to Big River where he had grown up. But he had never liked the bigger town, so he’d moved to Dublin as soon as he graduated from high school. He had earned his living by logging for a while and then working as a carpenter, helping to build homes in the area. At the age of twenty, he’d married his high school sweetheart and settled down. Jerry had come along a year later. Then Wayne had gone off to war, coming home four years later with shrapnel in his shoulder and a deep, deep, appreciation for the life that he and his wife had here in Dublin.

  Soon after his return, he started helping his wife’s father in a little mine across the valley from Dublin and had caught gold fever. That mine had eventually played out and he had gone on to other jobs. But even as he worked the other jobs, he had spent most of his free time prospecting in the mountains. Then he had found “color” beside the little lake and in the hills around it. He filed his claim three years ago and had been working here since then.

  So far, the one-man mining operation had produced enough gold and silver ore to keep them fed and clothed. It hadn’t made them rich, but Wayne kept at it, always hopeful, always working toward the dream that he once shared with the wife he’d loved so very much.

  Shaking loose from his thoughts, Jerry gave the horn three toots in their accustomed signal, parked the car, and started walking around the cabin toward the mine shaft where he knew his father was working. Before Jerry got past the cabin, he saw his father coming out of the mine shaft, tossing his gloves aside and wiping his hands on an old rag.

  He was an imposing man, standing easily 6’4” tall and weighing well over 200 pounds. But his face held a permanent sadness and there was a premature slump in his shoulders. He had aged tremendously in the past two years. Jerry and many Dublin friends had tried to cheer him up, but the light behind Wayne’s bright blue eyes had gone out when his wife died.

  Jerry waved and his father waved back as he clambered down the slope. Judging by the lack of excitement in the wave, Jerry knew that Dad hadn’t seen his face yet. But that came soon enough. At the bottom of the slope, Wayne came to an abrupt stop as he finally noticed the swath of bandages surrounding Jerry’s forced smile. The question Jerry was dreading came immediately. “What in hell happened to you?” Jerry had thought about this and his response was carefully planned. “It’s not as bad as it looks, Dad. Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you the whole, long, story.” Looking more alive and alert than Jerry had seen him for a long time, Wayne nodded curtly and continued walking toward Jerry. When he reached him, he gave Jerry a hug and, at the same time, said, “This had better be good. You aren’t in any trouble are you?” Jerry shook his head and the two big men walked to the cabin.

  Wayne said, “I’m really thirsty. Would you go for a Coke?” Jerry replied in the affirmative and his father went inside to get one for each of them. Then the two sat down on the porch overlooking Flynn Lake and sipped their drinks for a moment. Then Wayne opened the conversation. “OK, Let’s have it.”

  Jerry started with a question. “Dad, the story I’m about to tell you is gonna really make you mad. Can you promise me that you won’t do anything until you’ve heard the whole story? Will you promise that?” This startled Wayne and he turned to look at Jerry. “What’re you talking about?” Jerry was adamant, “Please promise me, Dad. No action from you until I’m done.” Wayne studied his son carefully and slowly agreed. “All right. But this better be good.”

  With that, Jerry launched into his story, starting with the boxing incident and going through everything that had happened. Twice, his father had jumped to his feet, but quieted down again in response to Jerry’s pleas. Finally the story was over and the two sat there in silence as Wayne absorbed the incredible tale. Then, still obviously in deep thought, he said, “Of course Hilda and Ray can stay at our place. That was good thinking on your part.” A pause, then, “The idea of building them another place is a good one. We may actually be able to trade some logs to the saw mill for lumber and build a frame home like they had before the fire. I know the mill owner and I think that I can get with George Parker and make it happen.” With that he lapsed back into deep thought.