Rocky Mountain Justice (The Legend of Camel's Hump) (8 page)

Now George’s business owned four logging trucks, four bulldozers (including two big D8 Caterpillars), log jammers and a slew of smaller equipment. He was one of the biggest employers in Dublin, but you would never know it to look at him. He was a big, jovial, person who never had a bad word for anyone and was one of the few people in the Dublin logging community who never seemed to lose his temper. Everyone liked George, but no one really knew him well. He kept to himself, showing up at community functions and helping when there was a need, but even then he somehow seemed unapproachable. His wife Ida, daughter Dawn, and her seven-year-old brother George Jr., were his only real confidants. But even they could not get him to go to church on Sundays. “God will understand if I want to sleep in on my only day off. If he doesn’t, we’ll discuss it man-to-man when I get there.” He found a lot of reasons for not mingling more, but the truth was that George had been a boss for so long that he had forgotten how to make small talk and he was genuinely uneasy socializing with other townspeople.

On this day, George Jr. had been riding with his father in a logging truck and he was bubbling over with stories when his mother, Jerry, and Dawn arrived at the house. Big George had just showered and was in the bedroom getting dressed, so Ida went in to brief him on the events of the day. Soon George came out and found Jerry and Dawn assembling sandwiches for all of them. “Jerry, you look like crap!” Jerry tried to smile, but ended up wincing and putting his hand to his mouth instead. “Sorry, George, I’ll try to clean up my act before I come over here next time”. He got along with George better than almost anyone else in town. Somehow it had seemed as if George and Ida had always been there for him, through good times and bad. Between them and Aunt Hilda, Jerry had always had people that he could depend on for help. That had been important when his mother died and his father had been sidelined with grief.

Finally it was time to walk over to the little schoolhouse. They went as a group and found Wayne waiting there for them with a half-dozen or so of his friends. All of them had comments to make about Jerry’s face, but he shook it off good-naturedly.

Ida and her friends went inside to prepare for the meeting. Wayne, George, and the men friends stayed on the porch, smoking and talking as they waited for the meeting to start.

Then there was a stir and a murmur as the men on the porch turned to face the unexpected. Ike Schumann had driven up and was parking in front of the school. The men on the steps were astounded. They had’nt expected Ike to show his face, but here he was. He confidently climbed out of his pickup truck and walked down the path toward the schoolhouse door, obviously planning to attend the meeting.

He got almost to the front steps before Wayne started down to meet him. But big George Parker intervened. “No Wayne, we don’t want to give them an excuse.” George stepped between Ike and Wayne and stood facing Ike. “Mr. Schumann, you aren’t invited to this meeting. Please leave - - now!” His voice was still low, but there was no mistaking the force behind it. Ike stopped and stared at him, appearing to be surprised. “George, you don’t have the authority to make that call. I’m the law here and I plan to be at this meeting.” George turned his head slightly and asked the assembled men on the steps, “Do you fellows agree with Ike?” The response was a unified movement as the entire group moved down to stand beside George. Wayne spat on the ground and, following George’s lead, calmly told Ike, “You can walk away or we’ll carry you back to your pickup. But you aren’t welcome here. Which way do you want to leave?”

Faced with a dozen men, Ike capitulated. He turned on his heel and left without saying another word. The men stood there silently, watching him leave until the pickup was lost in road dust. Then the school bell tolled, calling them into the meeting.

When everyone was inside, the group fell silent, quietly waiting. In Dublin, community meetings always began with the pastor offering a prayer. But the pastor was noticeably absent. Finally, Mrs. Parker stood and asked for quiet. Everyone fell silent and she said a short prayer, asking the Lord to bless the efforts that they were gathered to discuss. Then, as was the custom in Dublin, everyone stood, placed their hands over their hearts, and pledged allegiance to the flag of the united States of America. Only then, with the pre-meeting rituals complete, could she take the podium in front of the small audience and explain the reasons for the gathering. When she finished, she asked for a vote to determine if the assembly was in favor of trying to replace the Moore’s home. No further discussion was required; the vote was unanimous.

Then Mrs. Parker asked Dawn and Jerry to pass out the lists they had prepared. With them in hand, the discussion turned to planning the project. The entire assembly worked as one mind. They had known each other for years and they all knew the strengths and weaknesses of their friends, so they knew when to talk and when to listen. They had all talked to one another during the day and there was total agreement on the big picture. Dublin was going to build the house. They were just there to work out the details.

Hilda and Ray Moore arrived a bit late, and when they did arrive, she tried to object to the building plan. She said that she appreciated their thoughts, but she knew that no one could afford this, and she wasn’t going to let them go broke on her account. But no one listened. After that, she sat in the rear of the room, quietly crying, listening to her friends as they planned her future home. Ray sat beside her, holding her. It had been a rough few days for the two of them.

Before long, a plan was in place. George Parker was bringing one of his big bulldozers to town next Monday and one of his operators would work a few days cleaning the area where the old house had stood. They would dig a hole in the field and just plow the debris into it and cover it. Then they would dig another hole for the basement and the project would be started.

On Monday, a delegation of three townspeople, George Parker, Wayne Flynn, and Otto Schweitzer, the town grocer, would go to Big River and set up a bank account for the project. They would also talk to the owners of the lumber mill and the hardware store to arrange for building materials.

The plan in place, the townspeople “passed the hat” and collected almost a thousand dollars, in cash, checks, and IOUs, to start the project. Everyone had known that this was coming and, again, the people were ready.

When the meeting was finally breaking up, Jerry and his father went to where Aunt Hilda and Ray were setting, talking to some well-wishers. Taking his sister aside, Wayne offered their cottage to the widow for her to use until the new home was finished. Even though she had thought about this already, the offer caused Hilda to totally break down. It took several minutes before she could communicate anything, and even then her acceptance was just a nod and huge hugs for both Wayne and Jerry. She was beyond verbal communication.

Jerry and his father headed for home, knowing that they had a huge cleaning job to do the next day.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Strange Behavior

 
J
erry and Wayne labored through the weekend preparing their home for the Moore’s arrival. First they scrubbed the home thoroughly and then they did several huge loads of laundry, including all of the bed linens. Then they removed all of Wayne’s clothing from his bedroom, bundling it for transport to the mine cabin. With that done, they turned to some badly needed touch-up painting and even weeded the long-ignored flower gardens in the front yard. By Monday morning, when Aunt Hilda and Ray arrived, the home looked vastly different from the house that Jerry had come home to a few days before.

But it all didn’t matter a lot, because when Hilda arrived she immediately put them all to work again, re-scrubbing everything that didn’t move. She put Ray with Jerry, cleaning and rearranging the bedroom that the boys would share in the future. A spare cot that Wayne had stored away for company was brought down from the attic and soon the home was set up to accommodate Aunt Hilda, Jerry and Ray. For the summer, Wayne would be staying in his cabin beside Flynn Lake.

By lunchtime the home was ready and the Moore family’s’ few remaining belongings were brought in and stored away. Townspeople kept arriving with used clothing and little things that they could spare for the family. Soon the home was overwhelmed by ladies who took it on themselves to help cheer up Aunt Hilda. The boys felt totally out of place in this crowd, so they decided to go out to the burned home, feed the chickens, and look for anything that might be there that could have value.

They stopped for Dawn and then the three drove to the home site, arriving in the early afternoon. They parked Jerry’s coupe to the rear of the chicken coop and fed the chickens. Then they wandered around the site for over an hour, looking and digging for little trophies that were now important souvenirs of the Moores’ life before the fire. Finally they gave up, convinced that they had found everything that was, even remotely, of value.

Jerry and Dawn climbed into the car and prepared to leave. But Ray held back, saying, “Guys, I think I’m gonna hang out here for a while. I want to look around some more. I’ll see you down at Otto’s Soda Fountain in an hour or so.” Jerry and Dawn agreed and they headed back toward town. When they were out of sight behind a hill, Jerry pulled the car over and put his arm around Dawn’s shoulders.

Dawn came willingly toward Jerry, cuddling in the comfort of his arms. Looking up at him she commented, “This isn’t going to do you a bit of good, you know. If I kiss you, you’re gonna bleed all over everything. You are out of commission, Sir!” Jerry chuckled and held her tighter. “Just want to tell you how much I love you, Dawn. You’ve been wonderful the past few days.” She just smiled and snuggled closer. After a few minutes, Jerry started the old grey car again and they headed for Otto’s Grocery Store and its soda fountain.

In the meantime, Ray had gone into the storage shed to rearrange the bags of chicken feed and spruce up the little shack. He had been working for almost an hour when he heard the deep throaty rumble of a high-powered car coming toward him. He looked out through a crack in the shed wall and saw the sheriff’s car coming up the road.

The teenager left the shed and stood watching as the big black car rumbled up the road. Standing beside the shed, behind the cottonwood trees, he was invisible to anyone on the main road. He waited to watch the sheriff go by, wondering what he was doing so far from his usual route through the area.

But Sheriff Montgomery didn’t pass by. Instead, he stopped his car on the road in front of the burned-out hulk that had been the Moore’s home. Seeing this, Ray hunkered down and hid behind a chokecherry bush.

The sheriff got out of his car and stretched, his gaze covering the area as if to make sure he was alone. Satisfied, he reached in the car and came out with a balled up piece of blue cloth that he jammed into his back pocket. Then he opened the trunk lid and pulled out a gallon can, of the type that typically held kerosene or gasoline. This he tossed into the ditch on the far side of the road. Then he reached back into the trunk and brought out a large camera with a flash attachment mounted on it.

With the camera, he took several pictures of the can in the ditch before putting on a pair of gloves and picking the can up and carefully placing it back in the trunk.

Ray could see the sheriff clearly although he was over a hundred feet away. “
What on earth is he doing?”

The sheriff walked toward the bare spot where the house had been, then stopped beside one of the Aunt Hilda’s remaining lilac bushes. This one had been smashed by the fire trucks into a big tangle of leafy, broken, sticks. Nearby, other lilac bushes were still standing. Stopping beside the crushed bush, he took another careful look around. Seeing nothing unusual, he pulled the blue cloth out of his pocket, rubbed it in the dirt and began carefully stuffing it into an opening between the broken lilac branches.

Ray suddenly recognized the rag and whispered a startled “Damn!” under his breath. “
That’s my old shirt, the one that I loaned Jerry to go to Big River the other day!
”

When he had the shirt placed exactly the way he wanted it, the sheriff stepped back and picked up the camera. He took a series of pictures of the shirt from different angles, then carefully picked it up and placed it in a white paper bag that he pulled out of his jacket pocket. With the bag and his camera in hand, he went back to his car and got in. Ray could see him sitting there, writing something on the paper bag. When he was done writing, he started the big car and turned it back toward town. Soon he was just a dust cloud, dwindling in the distance.

Ray slowly stood up and moved out of the trees. “W
hat was that all about?”
He walked over to look at the broken Lilac bush. Then he realized that this could be important and he turned toward town and started running. He needed to talk to Jerry!

CHAPTER NINE:

Otto’s Soda Fountain

O
tto Schweitzer was a huge middle-aged man who had trained as a butcher in his native Germany before immigrating to the united States. He had worked his way west until he found the village of Dublin. He said it reminded him of his little home town in the German Alps. He had left Germany during the difficult years that preceded World War Two; the years when Hitler was “purifying” the country. Otto didn’t speak of it often, but when he did, it was with a tremendous sadness.

He would tell his friends that he just didn’t understand how normal people could become so evil; so unable to see the bad things that their government was doing. It was something that Otto just could not understand, so he had spoken out and had come to the attention of the German Brown Shirts. As a result, he had to flee his native country in the dark of night. Now he was here, where he struggled to learn English, but still spoke with an accent that made him virtually unintelligible to most people. But the teens of Dublin had been raised in and around Otto’s store and its soda fountain, so they understood him perfectly. Otto’s soda fountain was their unofficial headquarters and Otto was always a friend they knew they could trust.