by Gene Logsdon
Gabe stared at him, the full implication of what Melonhead was saying coming only slowly. “Man,” he said. “You are a genius.” Melonhead’s logic not only struck him as being undeniable but gave him the almost perfect way to make the Josephian Order over into something profitable.
“Melonhead, you are a genius,” he repeated. “You don’t know just how much of a genius.” Then he paused. “Is it difficult to make liquor?”
“Axel says that it’s easy. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water does and that’s the whole secret of it.”
“But it’s against the law.”
“Smoking isn’t.” Blaze was now getting into the discussion.
“Quit changing the subject. What’s smoking got to do with it?”
“Well, if we can’t sell liquor, we can sell tobacco. And homemade corncob pipes. I’ve been thinking. Axel grows his own tobacco. I tried smoking some of it, and you know, it really isn’t all that bad. Better than cigarette butts. As part of our monastic mission, why don’t we experiment with tobacco? My great grandmother always said that nicotine and whiskey in moderation was good medicine and she lived to 97.”
All three of them laughed, but it was that kind of laugh that had a dangerously serious undertone to it.
The idea of Ascension becoming a place for alternative agricultural and medicinal research gained momentum. Gabe called a grand meeting of all the SBDC Boys in the laboratory, which they now frequented more than the slaughterhouse. Axel and Hasse were there too, which meant that Kluntz also had tagged along. Blaze joked about making them honorary Josephian lay brothers. Melonhead had his speech prepared. He told the others how religious monks had been responsible for most of the advances in agriculture and medicine and that for the Josephians to do the same was only keeping alive the spirit of Church tradition.
“Did you guys know, for instance, that the liqueur, Benedictine, whatever that is, is a monastery product?” Melonhead continued, warming up now. “Beer may have been brewed scientifically first in monasteries. Monks brought wine-making to California. In improving the process of distilling alcohol, those old monks were seeking a medicine, an elixir, that would prolong life indefinitely. Chartreuse, whatever that is, was concocted in 1605 in a monastery and combines 130 different herbs infused in alcohol. The formula is still a secret kept by three Carthusian monks if you can believe that. Of course no monk has come close to living forever drinking any of their mixtures, but they often do live to a very old age. Isn’t eternal life what we are seeking?” He thought that last remark might be carrying his sell a little far, but it came out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“Maybe they just didn’t find the right combination yet.”
The remark came from Clutch Pedali, to the surprise of everyone in the lab. The Engineer of Ascension rarely joined in the barn escapades of his friends. Madcap was not part of his modis operandi, he liked to say. He had his own agenda. While the faculty and most of the seminarians complained about the freewheeling barn crew, it was Clutch who lived the most independent life of them all. Because he was the one man in the community who understood the secrets of motors and electrical relay switches and thermostats and refrigeration units and light fixtures and television tubes and radiators and fuses, he sat right next to God. He was the man without whom the technological comforts of life at Ascension might fail, a danger to be avoided at all costs. Clutch could therefore live much as he pleased, could come and go from all community functions, even come and go to town, with hardly more than a wave of his hand in the Prior’s general direction. He was the keeper of the technological gods and was not to be disturbed.
“So happens I once saw an alcohol still in action,” he continued now. “With Axel’s help, I think I can build a little stovetop model that would not even look like a still to most people.”
“So. I’ll be glad to help ya,” Axel said, grinning broadly.
“Axel, I can’t help noticing,” Dr. Melonhead interrupted. “You have beautiful teeth. Could that come from moonshine?”
“Nope. I chew road tar.”
“Whaaaat?”
“Try it. Cleans teeth better’n anything.”
Gabe made a notation. He had taken to carrying a notepad, like Axel. There were just too many wonderful ideas afloat to keep them all in mind.
“But it’s against the law to distill liquor,” Fen said again. Fen was not a man to enjoy risk. Only a strong sense of loyalty, his great weakness, kept him attached to the escapades of the SBDC Boys. He lived in fear of what trouble he might incur because of them.
“I’ve thought about that,” Melonhead said. “We’re not going to make liquor. Just medicine. Remember Hadacol? That had alcohol in it.”
“And it was very profitable,” Gabe added.
“But how are we going to keep the priests from knowing what we’re up to?”
“We’ll just explain that we are steaming herbs for tinctures and teas, which will be true, sort of,” Melonhead replied.
Clutch snorted. “The typical Josephian doesn’t even know what a dead fuse looks like, let alone a still,” he said derisively. “You can tell ’em anything and they’ll believe it. Remember how for awhile Very Reverend Lukey believed that a manure spreader was a marshmallow picker?”
CHAPTER 8
With the summer over and building construction ahead of schedule, philosophy and theology classes resumed in greater earnest, much to the chagrin of most of the SBDC Boys. They had a full schedule already. With the feverish activity in the laboratory at full throttle, and the crops to bring in, Blaze was having a difficult time finding an afternoon when he could slip away to learn the truth about the train robber and how Jesse James had known his name. Gabe had lost interest in phantom outlaws as he pored over manuals about tobacco farming, homemade cigars, making herbal liqueurs, mixing sugar into his road tar toothpaste so it didn’t taste so bad, and trying to figure out a fast way to bunch and tie watercress for market. To complicate matters further, Brother Walt had persuaded the Prior to rent another farm since the seminary land was proving woefully inadequate to produce all the food needed, or so Brother Walt had argued. The farm he rented just happened to belong to Hasse who, for reasons of his own need for cheap labor, had offered it to the Josephians at a fairly low rate. With the increase in farm work, Gabe prevailed upon Prior Robert to assign Melonhead to the farm crew. That made it easier to continue the herbal medicine explorations that would bring Ascension back to the future.
Clutch of course continued his work in the lab, despite the increasing demands of the classroom. He had only to speak with consternation to Prior Robert about how the barn needed electrical re-wiring and as a result he could spend all the time he wished working on the still, which he described to those outside the SBDC circle as a high output churn to make homemade butter.
But finally a Saturday came when Blaze could sneak away. The priests had all left for weekend duty in nearby parishes, except Fr. Damien, whose turn it was to stay at the seminary and keep an eye on the seminarians. This was the break Blaze had been waiting for. Damien, a teacher and student of languages, was translating into English a rare book written in Hebrew and did not care what the seminarians did, so long as they did not bother him. Blaze fired up the Zephyr and headed for the Western Range, singing “Ghost Riders In the Sky” at the top of his voice.
He sidled his trusty steel steed up beside an old dappled-grey horse in front of the restaurant. He wondered if he might not be the first person in the history of the west not only to play the dual roles of farmer and monk, but to park a tractor at a hitching rail, next to a horse. “This goes in the journal for sure,” he said, even though there was no one around to hear him.
He stepped into the saloon and, looking neither to right nor left, went straight to the bar. He was worldly wise now, not the fledgling out on his first attempt at bar-hopping as he had been last summer. Nash Patroux, never forgetting a face or a name, nodded. “’lo, Jack. A Royal, I believe.�
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“Yep,” Blaze said, eyeing himself in the mirror behind the bar, liking the jaunty young man he saw there with his cowboy hat pushed back on his head. Jesse James was seated at the end stool, as he had been on the first visit. Blaze would act cool this time. He merely nodded at Jesse and sipped his beer. Patroux, behind the bar and bored as usual, winked at Blaze and turned toward Jesse.
“How come you ran out on this young man last time, Jesse? That was a little rude you know.”
“Pinkerton,” Jesse said, not even looking up.
“Whaaaat?”
“He’s a Pinkerton,” Jesse repeated, grinning goofily now, enjoying the surprise he had evoked. It was usually difficult to surprise his pal Nash, goddam him.
“Naw, he’s no Pinkerton,” said Patroux. “You know how you can tell? He doesn’t have a watch on a chain. All those Pinkertons got gold watches in their vest pockets. This guy hasn’t even got a vest.”
Jesse kept grinning. Damn, that’s right. Out loud: “I jus’ foolin’ round.”
“I didn’t think there were any Pinkertons around anymore,” Blaze said, trying to sound serious.
“Ho, they’d like for you to think that,” Jesse said. “They’re lurkin’ around everywhere. They still think Frank is alive somewheres.”
“Frank?”
“Yeah. Frank James.”
“Ooooh.”
“They may be right too. I gotta a letter from Frank. I’m related, you know.”
“You’re related to the real Frank and Jesse James? Oh, wow.”
Patroux remained expressionless. Jesse decided he liked this Jack fellow.
“Sure. I got papers to prove it. You wanna see?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Blaze said trying not to sound eager. Things were going better than he had expected.
Jesse finished his cream soda and made for the door, beckoning Blaze with his head. Blaze had to gulp his beer. Outside, Jesse stopped suddenly. There were no cars in the parking lot.
“You come on that tractor, Jack?” he said, staring strangely at Blaze.
“You came on that horse?” Blaze said, trying to mimic Jesse’s expression.
“I never heard of comin’ to a saloon on a tractor. You must be crazier’n I am.”
Jesse forked his horse, wheeled and headed out onto the highway berm. He had to slow down for Blaze because the Zephyr did not start right away. Presently though, farmers and residents all along the country road that Jesse took, less than half a mile down the highway, saw a strange sight: a horse, mane and tail flying, ridden by a somber old man with ponytail flying, being chased by an old tractor travelling at an unusual rate of speed, its young, cowboy-hatted driver laughing hysterically.
After about a mile over the stony, dusty road, Jesse reined the horse and turned into the barnyard of a run-down farmstead. He stepped down out of the saddle and the horse disappeared into the barn on its own. Blaze turned the motor off on the Zephyr, climbed off the tractor and followed Jesse through the screen door into the house. He thought how funny it would be if he were in a movie and the Zephyr would go to the barn on its own too.
“Pap’s around here somewhere,” Jesse said. “Or maybe he’s in town. He pointed at a kitchen chair. “Sit down. I’ll be back pronto.”
Blaze surveyed the room. It had not been cleaned for a long time. Dirty dishes littered every horizontal plane. The screen door had holes in it, and the ceiling was dotted with flies and flyspecks.
Jesse reappeared with a shoe box; he set it on the table and elaborately lifted the lid. Inside was a jumble of slips of paper and newspaper scraps of different sizes, some folded, all helter-skelter. Jesse looked at Blaze triumphantly, as if the contents of the box proved without any further inspection, that he was related to Jesse James, the outlaw.
Blaze picked out a scrap of paper. On it was written: “G. James, son of P. James, son of F. James. Columbia, Missouri, Feberairy 22, 1942.” Another said: “Isaac James ran filling station in Memphis, Tenn. 1937. And yet another: “Need chicken feed. And Jimmy has clover seed for us.” Included in the mix were several newspaper articles about the James Boys, and pictures of Northfield with the main street lined with autos.
Fishing through the shoe box, Jesse finally unearthed a page torn from a spiral notebook and presented it proudly to Blaze. Blaze scanned the page. The handwriting was large, perhaps deliberately, so that a child would have no trouble reading it.
May 1, 1925
Dear Jesse,
Happy 21st Birthday. Don’t pay any attention to folks who make fun of you for saying I am still alive. This letter is proof. Just show it to those buttholes like Nash Patroux. I am well and hiding out in Tennesee. They will never take me alive. Someday I will come and see you.
Until then, here is my old pistol that I used to rob the bank in Northfield. It doesn’t work anymore, but will someday be of great value.
Your cousin,
Frank James
Blaze read the letter a second time. When he glanced up, Jesse’s face was glowing with pleasure and importance. Looking into that face, Blaze knew that whoever had written the letter had not done so just to make fun but to give the man pleasure.
“Wow, Jesse, this is great.”
“He never did come, though. He’d be too old now, wouldn’t he?”
Jesse stared at Blaze, as if hoping that Blaze would disagree. Then his manner changed, swift as an eye-blink.
“Do you think that goddam Nash wrote this to tease me?”
Blaze’s head jerked involutarily. God. This guy wasn’t really retarded. “Gosh, I don’t think so,” he replied hastily. “The date is about right. I mean Frank James could easily have been alive in 1925. But today he’d have to be over a hundred. You know there are people who think that his brother Jesse, wasn’t killed by Bob Ford, as history says, but died just a few years ago, in 1951. They think they have evidence to support that. He’d have been 104 in 1951 if the birth records are right.”
“Mabel Tuggle is over a hunderd and she still grows her own garden. Maybe Frank’s still alive.”
“If he is, that would be something, wouldn’t it.” Blaze paused. “Think he could still rob trains?”
Jesse eyed Blaze critically. He had to be careful not to reveal anything that might connect to his attempted train robbery.
“Jesse James dead, Jack. Frank too old if he is alive.”
And then he launched into his real problem. What would happen to him when Pap died. He would have no one to take care of him then. “I really don’t need any care, but I afraid they’ll put me in a home.”
Before Blaze could think of anything to say, Jesse started talking about his problems, how some days he could think of just about everything he needed to think of and other days, his mind would not settle, would not concentrate, “will not work,” he said with great emphasis. “But I know nearly everyone’s license plate,” he continued. “If the sheriff stops and wants to know who all passed our house today, I can tell him the numbers. I never forget a number. Ask me anybody’s license on this side of Savage.”
Blaze did not know anybody on this side of Savage. “I bet you don’t know the plate on the truck we came here in the other time.”
“34071 OM”
“Oh, wow!”
“The sheriff says that’s the truck from that monastery over across the river. You from there, Jack?”
“Oh, my God.” There was no use lying. “Yep. I’m from there.”
“Maybe I come see you?”
“Sure. Anytime.”
Blaze’s natural instinct to help people rose within him. And maybe in this way he would eventually get to the truth about the train robber. He could not promise Jesse the kind of help he needed. That would take the cooperation of his Josephian superiors, and he doubted they would give it. He promised anyway. “I’ll make sure you don’t have to go to a home.”
“That’s what Nash says, but I dunno. He’s a busy man.”
“I’ll speak to him.
But say, do you remember the first time we met. You called me ‘Blaze,’ remember?”
Jesse stared dully at his new friend. “What you mean? I never called you Blaze.”
“Well, you did. You said, ‘I gotta see about Blaze. He’ll be wonderin’ about me.’”
Jesse hooted. “Blaze is my horse. You shoulda figured that out. Blaze is a horse’s name.”
CHAPTER 9
The school year rolled on, one studious, dutiful week after another. Fr. Damien, the professor who taught Hebrew, finally gave in to the blank, helpless faces staring at him and said that if the seminarians learned how to write the Our Father and Hail Mary in Hebrew correctly or even almost correctly, they would pass the course. Then he looked out the window with a tiny smile and said, as if to himself: “The biblical Hebrew we are studying has not been spoken or written since before the birth of Christ.” No one laughed except Blaze.
Even The Very Reverend Lukey was getting bored. His mind turned to other matters for relief. Deep in meditation in chapel, his eyes piously gazing at the crucifix above the altar, he thought that he had figured out why Fr. Abelard had not reported what he had seen in the slaughterhouse on the night of The Cure. Lukey wanted Blaze to hear his theory. He didn’t really want Blaze to hear his theory, but he wanted to show the smartass how well he could think.
“You know, Blaze, your mystery about Frank James has given me an idea.” They were both sitting in the library, pretending to be studying metaphysics.
“You mean you are finally learning how to think?”
Lukey ignored him. “Why hasn’t Abs turned us in for what he saw that night in the slaughterhouse? You know I was hanging there buck naked and that should have raised alarm in the soundest of minds, let alone someone as paranoid as he is.”
“Yeah. I thought by now we’d be working out some terrible punishment, like being defrocked.” Blaze meant that as a joke since he would have liked nothing better than to be defrocked.