by C. J. Petit
He slowly walked to the table, then sat down and cradled his chin in his palms. If what Dave had written in his letter was true, then it would explain his reticence to reveal his past. He’d had an adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife and probably fathered their firstborn. No man would want to reveal such immoral behavior. But why had he confessed his sin to Jake in the letter? It would only make sense if it was the truth. Dave could have invented a much more honorable lie to explain his unexpected departure.
Jake was still bumping into mental walls in his maze every time he developed a new theory. Even if Dave’s letter was a lie, how would he ever know? He could ride down to Meagher County and find Dave’s new ranch near Judith Creek, but he didn’t want to make another long and frustrating ride again so soon. Especially after he just married Sara. He could send a telegram to the county sheriff in Diamond City but doubted if he would even reply. The county seat was more than a hundred and fifty miles from the small ranch. He wasn’t even sure the place was on the county tax list. Only big outfits like the Elk seemed obligated to pay county taxes.
He didn’t even hear the noise Sara was making as she prepared their supper. He shifted from the letter to another mystery Dave left behind…the missing Martini-Henry. Why had he taken the long-range rifle? Jake wouldn’t miss it, but if Dave wanted more power than his Winchester ’73, he could have taken the ’76 that was on the rack below the British rifle. It was much more useful unless you were facing down a grizzly, but Jake knew that his ’76 should be able to stop a big bear as well, at least at close range. He wouldn’t need to worry about missing with his only shot, either.
He was startled when Sara set two plates on the table. He began to rise to help when she practically ordered him to stay put.
He lowered himself back onto his chair, then smiled at her as she set two full mugs of steaming coffee on the table. He held his mug in both hands as she added a tub of butter to the table, then handed him his silverware before finally sitting beside him.
Jake sipped his coffee, set the mug down and began to slice his steak as he asked, “Sara, do you think that Dave was lying about everything in his letter?”
Sara was surprised that Jake had managed to set aside his hero-worship of the foreman, so she asked, “Why do you suddenly think it’s possible?”
Jake chewed his steak and swallowed before replying, “I’ve been fishing out all of my old memories about Dave from the time he arrived on the Elk. Only then did I realize that I knew nothing about his past, and I’m sure that none of the other men do either. My father may have known his history, but we weren’t talking very much by then.”
“So, that letter could be a complete fabrication?”
“I suppose so. But why would he use such a shameful lie to explain why he had to leave? He could have invented a much more admirable reason. You know, like he had to help his dying mother or something.”
“Maybe he knew that you’d be more likely to believe the letter if he made it sound despicable.”
Jake shoved some spiced beans and onions into his mouth and began chewing the food and Sara’s suggestion.
She was taking a bite of her steak when he said, “I don’t want to ride all the way to Meagher County just to find out if he was telling the truth, Sara. If the ranch is there, it’s more than twice as far away as it is to Helena. I guess it doesn’t matter, but it will still bother me.”
Sara held up a finger as she chewed her steak then swallowed before saying, “You can just go into town and ask Mister Gallagher if Mister Forrest had a post office box.”
Jake’s forkful of steak froze just an inch before his open mouth as he gaped at Sara.
He finally said, “I hadn’t even thought about that. I think that proves that you really are smarter than I am.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just unencumbered by emotions, at least as far as your foreman and parents are concerned.”
Jake rammed the steak into his mouth and watched Sara eat. He could have checked earlier today but now was wondering what he would do if he discovered that Dave didn’t have a post office box.
A few seconds and one big bite of steak later, Jake said, “I’ll go into town tomorrow and ask. I hope that Dave did have that post office box, because it was a lie, then I’ll have more problems to solve. Then there’s the smaller one about the missing rifle, too.”
“He took a rifle from the office, too? Why would he another need one?”
“My father had two long-range rifles. One was the Sharps that I took with me to Helena and the other was a British rifle. They’re both very powerful guns but they’re breech loaders and can only fire a single shot. They can be reloaded fairly quickly by an experienced shooter, but a Winchester can fire much faster. My ’76 has a more powerful round than the ’73 model that most men have, including Dave. If he needed more range and power, he could have taken the Winchester ’76 on the rack just below the Martini-Henry. I have no idea why he took the long-range rifle.”
Sara wasn’t concerned about the rifle and said, “I may not have known Mister Forrest at all, but there was something in the letter that seemed curious to me.”
Jake had a mouthful of beans, so he just tilted his head and raised his eyebrows to ask his non-verbal question.
“He wrote that he hadn’t seen her in eight years. When he left, she was a young woman who hadn’t even given birth to her first baby yet. Now she had three children and she was eight years older. You noticed the changes in Kay after only three years, so he surely wasn’t expecting to find the same Violet he left behind. He was willing to give up his well-paying position and ride more than a hundred and fifty miles just because he felt guilty?
“If the small ranch was doing so poorly, he could have just asked to borrow a few of your ranch hands, driven down there with your wagon and returned with her, the children and whatever cattle they had. It would have been a much better solution for everyone. He already had a house and I’m sure you would have been more than willing to let him use some men and the wagon.”
Jake nodded as he said, “I would have let him borrow whatever he needed. I would probably have given him a piece of the Elk for his new family when they returned.”
“I also wondered why he felt it was so critical that he couldn’t wait a few days. You told him that you were going to send him a telegram from Helena; didn’t you?”
“I did, but when I decided to stop my search, I only sent one to you because I’d be back on the Elk in three days and wasn’t worried about the ranch.”
“So, why the rush? After eight years, he could have waited at least another week.”
Jake nodded as he continued to eat his supper. Sara’s logical and intuitive questions were having their impact. Everything she was saying made sense, which also made the letter seem more fraudulent. He now expected that when he went to Fort Benton in the morning, Mister Gallagher would shake his head and tell him that Dave had no post office box.
So, if the letter was a well-written lie, what was Dave’s real reason for leaving? He had a notion but wanted to hear Sara’s thoughts.
Jake asked, “Okay. If we assume that the letter was just a fairy tale, then what drove Dave to leave the way he did?”
“Maybe he was worried that his hidden past was about to be exposed. It would have to be much worse than what he wrote about. Maybe he was wanted somewhere and was using an assumed name.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too. But why would it suddenly become a problem after eight years?”
Sara shrugged then replied, “That’s where I can’t help, Jake. I never met the man. All I know is how you described him, and you make it sound as if he was ready for sainthood.”
“I know. I’d liked him as soon as he arrived on the Elk. He was always nice to me and it wasn’t long before I saw him as a replacement for my father. Despite explaining how much he loved Violet, it was even difficult for me to believe he’d committed adultery with his sister-in-law.”
“Did he visit any women while he was here? I meant calling on a woman socially, not spending a night with the painted ladies. I heard you tell Jack Parker that he could get married now that he had his own house. Dave Forrest lived there for six years on his own, so he had the time, a house, and a solid position to offer a prospective wife as well.”
Again, Jake had to dredge up years of memories before answering. He tried to recall a single instance where Dave had been seen with a woman. He could have gone to town to meet someone, but Jake couldn’t remember ever seeing him with a lady visitor.
He finally replied, “No. I never saw him visiting a woman socially, but he might have been seeing someone in town.”
Sara stood and began collecting their dirty dishes, so Jake followed suit and after they’d been set into the sink, he said, “I’ll take care of the sheets and leave the dishes to you, ma’am.”
“That’s a fair trade, Mister Elliott.”
Jake smiled before he headed to the hallway. He was still pondering the letter and Dave’s unexpected and sudden departure as he entered the bathroom.
After washing the sheets and letting the water drain, Jake carried them out to the clothesline and stretched them across the taut cord. He then returned to the house and entered the office. Once inside, he opened the ammunition drawer and wasn’t surprised to find all of the Martini-Henry cartridges gone.
He then stepped behind the desk and took his father’s seat. Now that he was ready to believe that Dave’s letter was a lie, he needed to develop another reason for his behavior. He still found it difficult to imagine the likeable foreman as an outlaw. But if he was a wanted man, then it would explain almost everything.
Once he decided to follow that path, Jake had to find a reason why Dave would suddenly worry about having his past exposed. He hadn’t run away after his mother’s murder but had skedaddled right after Jake had ridden west to find his father. Jake recalled how vehemently Dave had objected to his leaving the Elk. Dave knew he’d be heading to Helena, so maybe it had something to do with his destination. Maybe Dave was wanted by the law in Lewis and Clark County.
Jake then stood and left the office to ask Sara’s opinion of his new theory. But what would he do even if it was right? Would he even bother trying to find an answer? Even if Dave did have a price on his head, it would have been at least eight years old and was probably under a different name. Trying to match it to Dave’s description would have been virtually impossible.
As she washed the dishes, Sara was pleased that Jake had finally accepted the possibility that the letter was fraudulent. While she hadn’t formed her own theory for the foreman’s hasty exit, she believed it had something to do with what had happened in this house on the second of July. If it hadn’t been for the long delay after Jake’s mother had been murdered, she would have suspected the foreman to be the killer and not his father. Jake’s father had run away from the Elk that same day which marked him as the murderer. She just wished that Jake had found his father to find out why he’d committed the heinous crime.
Jake soon entered the kitchen and took a seat at the table just as Sara set the last plate in the drying rack.
She sat next to him and asked, “Did you come up with a reason why Mister Forrest would invent the story?”
“Maybe. He was strongly opposed to my plan to leave the Elk to find my father. I believed he was just trying to protect me. He also knew that if my father killed me, then there would be no one else to run the ranch. At least not legally. But once I accepted that the letter was probably just a product of his imagination, I took a different perspective about his adamant arguments for me to stay. What if he had been working a ranch near Helena and committed some crime. They’d issue an arrest warrant and when they couldn’t find him, they’d probably send out wanted posters if it was serious. He would have had to get far enough away that he wouldn’t be found, so he came to the Elk. What do you think?”
Sara reviewed his new theory for a minute or so before she replied, “That’s possible, but it would be difficult to prove after so long; wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the answers to the most important questions.”
After a short pause, Jake smiled and said, “Maybe I should spend some time in my sanctuary tomorrow. I did a lot of serious thinking while sitting on the top of a pile of boulders.”
“If you go, do you want to be alone, or would you like me to come along?”
“I just mentioned going there out of frustration. I actually think more clearly when I have your help. But before I left, I did promise to give you a tour of the ranch and show my sanctuary to you. So, why don’t we do that in the morning? But I do have to warn you about a potential danger. Just before I left, I told Dave that I was going to give you the tour when I returned.
“When I mentioned that I’d show you my sanctuary, he almost begged me not to take you there. He’d seen some large grizzly tracks nearby and said that I shouldn’t risk your safety. I’ve never been worried about any of the wild critters that visit my sanctuary, but if you still want to come with me, I’ll bring my Winchester. Even if the grizzly shows up, which would be very unusual during the summer, I’m sure that my ’76 would be able to stop him.”
“I’m not worried either. I’ll just depend on my husband to protect me. You wouldn’t shoot him if he just walked past; would you? I’d actually be thrilled to see a giant bear or another large hunter.”
Jake laughed then replied, “I never shoot any of the animals I see in the sanctuary. I’m just visiting their home and I consider it their refuge as well. I imagine that the wild population in that forest and the sanctuary has grown since no one has used it for hunting. Maybe we’ll see the bear, a mountain lion, or a gray wolf while we’re visiting.”
“That would be exciting. Will you still need to climb on top of your boulders to do some thinking?”
“No, ma’am. I have my pretty bride to guide me now, and I wouldn’t want her to watch me tumbling twenty feet to the ground and bouncing off of the smaller boulders on my way.”
“Thank you for your consideration, husband. Have you ever fallen from your boulder perch before?”
“No, but there’s always a first time and I wouldn’t want it to be my last. I guess it didn’t matter before I enlisted, but it surely matters now.”
“Will you go into town to check on the post office box before or after you give me the tour?”
“I think I’ll wait until the afternoon to ride to town. I’d rather spend the morning showing my wife her new home.”
Sara smiled then asked, “The sheets should be dry already. Do you want me to make the bed?”
“I’ll do it. One of the few things I learned in the army was how to make a taut bed with what they call hospital corners. I may as well use my bedmaking skills to impress you.”
Sara laughed before saying, “Be my guest, Mister Elliott,” then asked, “Are we going to keep that room as our bedroom, or will we move into the large one?”
“We’ll stay in your room for a little while. I may need to have you add your personal touch in the big bedroom before we call it our own.”
Sara had asked the question to get an indication of how much Jake had recovered from the constant barrage of troubling and still unanswered problems. When he said that he was willing to use his parents’ bedroom, even if he did ask her to do some remodeling, she knew he was doing better.
She then said, “I promise I won’t add any pink curtains when I start making changes.”
Jake grinned before he stood, kissed her softly, then walked down the hallway.
Sara watched him leave and wished that she could help him even more. While not knowing his father or the missing foreman allowed her to be objective, it also prevented her from understanding their motives. Jake would have to be the one to find his answers. All she could do was to listen and guide him.
_____
An hour later, Sara laughed as she tried to slide
her feet beneath the freshly laundered sheets.
She looked at Jake and said, “I appreciate your efforts, sir. But I think I’ll make the bed in the future. I can barely get my feet all the way under the blankets.”
Jake pushed his larger feet to the end of the bed and kicked the covers into a small tent and ruining his hospital corners but creating room for Sara’s feet to move again.
After he lay beside her, he grinned and said, “The army doesn’t care about how the bunks looked while we were in them, as long as the sergeant could bounce a coin off the blankets when he did his inspections.”
Sara laughed as she rolled halfway onto Jake’s chest, then whispered, “Are you going to give me the night off, husband?”
“I’m sure you already know that I’m more than ready to ravish you again, I think that you do need to rest. I just wish that I could figure out what you are really thinking at least some of the time.”
She was smiling before she kissed him then rolled onto her back and said, “When you can, let me know. You’ll impress my parents.”
“I couldn’t even figure out what Kay was thinking, and she was much more obvious than you.”
“You were just a boy, Jake. Granted, you were a tall, handsome young man, but you were still a teenager, even when you enlisted.”
“And you’re still in your teens, Sara. But you seem to understand much more than I did when I was your age.”
“You forget that I didn’t even understand Kay as well as I believed. It can be that way with family. We grow up with them and usually build our image of them before we even learn to read, so it’s hard to change. But your opinion of your father changed; didn’t it? You told me how you used to admire your father when you were a boy, but that changed before you were ten years old.”
Jake paused before replying, “Yes, it did. I used to respect and admire him when I was a young boy, but that began to change when I was around eight years old. By the time Dave Forrest arrived, I thought my father was a cold, heartless man who only cared about the ranch. I never thought of him as a monster, but I surely didn’t understand him. Unless he returns, I’ll never be able to try.”