The Making of Blackwater Jack

by Roy F. Chandler

He usually began a ride at the road tunnel leading into the old mining town of Keystone. Then it was Iron Mountain and the Needles. There were the four presidents carved to gigantic scale, and he went twice to absorb the size and potential splendor of the Crazy Horse Memorial. Tim liked the famed Pig Tail turn with its tunnel and bridges and repeatedly absorbed the rugged grandeur of Spearfish Canyon.

  Then the longer rides across Custer State Park to view prairie dog villages, and the buffalo herds, astonishing roads and beautiful scenery with every mile.

  When he tired of nature’s glories, Tim hit the streets of Sturgis where motorcycle bits and pieces were vendored by hundreds of diligent hucksters.

  The once wild, promiscuous, and lascivious Buffalo Chip campground, that had drawn a rougher crowd, had morphed into a Hollywood-style entertainment city that appeared dedicated to heavy drinking and ultra-loud music. Tim removed The Chip from his list and rode on.

  Tim had devoured two weeks in and around Sturgis. Now September had appeared, and he had reached the Pacific Ocean. More experiences than he could readily recall crowded his mind. For the next few months he could order and settle them in his memory banks. What an incredible nation he had crossed, and in many ways he had just begun.

  There was unexpected failure, however. Although he had looked hard, Tim Carlisle had not found the biker brotherhood that Old Dog had fitted into so nicely.

  There were many clutches of hard riding and usually hard drinking bikers, but those often overly-boisterous groups and clubs did not appeal to him. Old Dog did not drink or carouse, but he had somehow blended comfortably with those who did. Not Tim Carlisle, it seemed.

  Before he left Wyoming, Tim had resigned himself to a solo ride without making permanent friends along the way. The realization gave him pause, and he began looking beyond his lengthy motorcycle journey. Suddenly he was wondering—after the ride, what then?

  Shooter Galloway, who would be a friend forever, suggested he knock off the foolishness and join the Marine Corps or the Army. Galloway had served in both.

  Tim thought maybe he was falling behind. By his age, Shooter had seen combat and had college degrees that allowed him to teach at Carson Long Military Academy and in public schools.

  Riding across the US of A began to seem less of an accomplishment and more as a goad to see as much as he could and move on to … ? That was where the rub began.

  Tim reached the Pacific at Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon where the mighty Columbia River met the ocean. He examined the thunderous driving surge of waves and currents and compared them to those of the familiar Atlantic. He thought he remembered that it had been Balboa who had named the immense ocean. The Spanish explorer must have popped out of the jungle on an especially calm day.

  Tim looked and turned south. Ahead lay one of the world’s great motorcycle rides. He would cruise down route 101 along the Oregon coast, and perhaps visit Crater Lake and probably Mount Shasta.

  Whew, this was dangerous country with volcanoes, earthquakes, forest fires, mudslides, and even tsunamis—but man-oh-man was it beautiful!

  In California he would see Redwoods and further along were the mighty Sequoias. Best of all, there would be Route 1, the Coastal Highway that began at Monterey. Some claimed it matched The Dragon for turns, and going south he would have the Pacific close on his right and mountains on his left. Glorious!

  The new Old Dog bike had run flawlessly. It was all that Driver had claimed it would be. There was also satisfaction in other bikers exclaiming over it.

  The custom was fast, but not like a sport bike could be. Driver’s construction had resulted in a super-comfortable ride. Tim told askers that he simply “Cadillaced” along.

  Of course, he looked over every bike of even slight interest. He decided that, for his style of riding, he had the best out there. He expected that Uncle Dog would have believed the same. In Sturgis he had a pin striper paint “Old Dog” on each side of the gas tank. Nice, he thought.

  Tim wrote to Driver in expectation that the builder would be pleased to hear how his creation was doing. Tim also hoped to hear back details concerning the pickup guys he had left on the floor of the diner. He hoped their pain was great and their recovery was slow. For a return address, Tim gave General Delivery, Crescent City, California.

  He would spend a few nights in that community while reorganizing and resting from many weeks in the saddle. The extremely lowlying city more or less began the magnificence of mighty redwood groves that he would follow all the way to—well, until there were no more.

  Crescent City was low. Tim doubted the heart of town lay more than a couple of feet above higher tides, but Redwood forests lay close by, and Tim tried to see them all.

  The best trees lay further south in California, he was told, but the forest giants he viewed already took his breath.

  Of course, locals barely noticed, but Tim Carlisle’s first impressions were that no healthy Redwood should ever be taken down. Massive and without bend or branch the tremendous trunks soared so high that tops were hardly seen. If he discovered nothing else, Tim believed the great trees made his journey worthwhile.

  A stranger’s discovery was the local person’s overly familiar. New Yorkers rarely go to see the Statue of Liberty or Grant’s Tomb. Washington DC residents rarely visit their museums—that is just the way it is.

  Even the most remarkable of the world’s physical features became routine sites almost unnoted, if you live nearby. To Timmy Carlisle it was all new, and he did his best to miss nothing.

  There were two letters from Driver. Each was short, but they brought Tim up to date.

  The first told that although the large and mean families hunted, no trace had been found of the “brutal bastard” that had come out of nowhere and beaten two of their innocent kin into the hospital for major surgeries. The vengeance they promised could make one’s teeth ache.

  And Driver was working on the old shovelhead, but the damage was greater than he had thought. Driver said that if Tim happened by he should add a couple of hundred dollars to their trading to make up for the additional work Driver had to do. Nice letter, Tim thought.

  Driver’s second letter was mildly worrisome, but Tim decided that Driver had it under control.

  It seemed that the families were so thoroughly inbred that they used the same last name. Driver figured Tim knew how that could be.

  “The family” had discovered that the mystery rider had traded his battered motorcycle to Driver and had departed on Driver’s super-custom.

  Driver explained to the enraged that he had been told that the mangled shovelhead had been deliberately forced off the road by thugs in an old pickup.

  He asked if there was a connection, and the furious got quiet and soon left his property. There had been nothing since—but Tim was not to believe that those kind of people forgot. They never did. They had memories longer than elephants, Driver claimed. The families would always be looking for payback. Tim should keep that in mind.

  As to the excellent performance of the custom bike, Driver had said only, “Of course. That’s the way I build ‘em.”

  Tim figured Driver was pleased by the report and grateful to have heard at all. Tim would keep in touch a little as he traveled along.

  Tim saw a wider spot just off The 101. Two bikes were parked near an ancient pickup that was selling redwood planks of valuable size. A river ran below the highway’s bridge, and a road sign at an inconspicuous exit announced Piercy. He had reached an important location.

  Tim parked alongside, and one of the bikers stepped aside to examine more closely. The rider was typical of a thousand others he had seen or paused to speak with too long hair, some unreadable tattoos, and denim clothing, as usual, worn beyond logical retention. Most wore boots, but unlike Old Dog’s era, more running or hiking type shoes were becoming common. This brother of the road wore engineer boots. That was old school.

  “Nice ride.”

  “Thanks. It runs better than it loo
ks.”

  The man’s tone held no challenge. “Chrome don’t get you home, though.”

  “Nope, but it doesn’t hold you back either. I’ve got 117-cubic inches under my butt. If that won’t do, I’ll pick another road.”

  The rider smiled and nodded. “You’re all the way from Pennsylvania?” Tim’s new plates had been waiting at crescent City. They were vanity plates lettered OLDOG.

  “Yep, all the way.”

  The rider’s interest had apparently peaked and he turned away.

  Tim walked the few steps back onto the river bridge and looked downstream. The river curved to the left a quarter mile along, but all Tim could see were trees and a slight clearing at the river’s edge that might indicate a swimming area.

  Unless the river bottom had been specially dug out there would be little swimming. Tim judged he could walk across at almost any spot without getting his knees wet. He retreated to the redwood salesman’s display.

  The motorcycles roared into life, and Tim held his words until he and the wood man had watched the bikes regain the highway and speed south. Now he would get down to serious business.

  Tim stuck out his hand for shaking. “I’m Tim Carlisle from back east. I expect you are from around here?”

  “You’ve got that right. I came up from the city thirty years back. Been squeezing a living out of wood peddling ever since. Good place to live though, people are friendly, and they leave you alone.”

  Tim nodded. Understanding or agreement, the wood seller could decide.

  “I expect, then, that you know most of the people around here.”

  The peddler raised a restraining hand. “Don’t know as I do, actually. Like I said, we leave each other alone up here.

  “Lots of us have come from the cities ever since the sixties. Plenty of hippies like I was settled here and are still living the style they like. Some arrived only a step ahead of the law. There’s still a lot of pot raised up here and transported to the cities for sale.”

  The man grinned knowingly. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t get involved myself, but the law is always slipping around these parts trying to find out things that them doing it don’t want known.”

  Tim said, “Well, I’m not the law, but I know something about living here. I know, for instance, that when the redwoods got cut down in the old days, the loggers left stumps sometimes fifteen feet high—and more than a few stumps were a lot taller. Some of those old trees were twenty feet or more across, but I guess you know all about that, don’t you?” Tim added a big grin to ease any fears.

  “Of course, I know. That’s where I get my boards, but I cut my lumber with the land owner’s permission.” The wood man paused to share another grin. “Some stump salvagers are said to go onto state land and harvest those big old stumps. Redwood doesn’t rot much, you know. Even the oldest haven’t rotted down more than a few feet. We’ve all got chain saws with four and some five-foot blades. We keep ‘em sharper than straight razors, and we can reduce a huge old stump into rough-cut planks faster than you’d believe. Not that those of us doing it legally have to hurry, you understand, but those that cut a bit on state or private ground without permission have to hump it fast and be gone without leaving revealing tire tracks or their wallet lying where they rested. One nice stump can take care of a family for two years of decent living—with wood to spare.”

  Tim nodded clear understanding.

  “It’s good not to waste fine wood like that, I figure, but that’s not my game. I’m just passing through Piercy with hopes of finding a man I haven’t seen in too many years. He’s a good friend that I’ve lost track of who, at least a few years back, lived right down there near the river curve.”

  The wood seller shrugged. “If you’ve got a name, I might happen to have heard it. Some I’d talk about. Some I wouldn’t.”

  “My friend would be older now, but he is a biker who rides a three-wheeled Harley Servi-Car. He answers to the nickname ‘Stool,’ and … .”

  The peddler interrupted. “Stool! Of course, I knew Stool. He was the man who knew everything and wanted to know more. Why Stool was … .”

  It was Tim’s turn. “You’re saying ‘was’ all the time. Has Stool passed on?”

  The wood man sounded genuinely sorrowful.

  “Yep, Stool got cancer that hit so fast and so hard that he was just gone within a couple of weeks. It was hard to believe because Stool was around about all of the time till of a sudden—he just wasn’t.

  “Only good thing was that he didn’t suffer long.” The man pondered. “I’d like to think that I’ll go that quick when my time comes.”

  Tim slumped against the wood seller’s pickup. It wasn’t that he was completely surprised. There had to have been a reason for Stool’s sudden quiet, but he had hoped … well, he had just hoped, that was all.

  The wood man put in, “Looks like you knew Stool from a long ways back. Amazing man he was. Never forgot anything, and he spoke educated, like he might have been a college man once.”

  Tim said, “Stool was more than that. He was big in the government, but he tossed it all to ride free in the wind with others who liked that lifestyle.”

  Tim was embarrassed that he sounded like a Harley-Davidson advertisement with the “riding free—in the wind” talk, but those words fit what Stool sought more than any others he could come up with.

  The local man said, “One thing I’ve always wondered was, how did Stool get such a dumb sounding nickname? I’m hoping you have the answer as I’d like to pass it on to others who knew him.”

  Tim knew, and he was pleased to pass it on.

  “Stool got tired of standing around while his cycle-riding brothers talked, drank, smoked, and spit for hours on end. He got one of those one-legged stools that people who go to horse races use. They jab the pole end into the ground and balance on the seat, resting easy while the others have to stand.

  “Stool rode on two-wheels in those days, and he carried the stool strapped against his sissy bar. One time out on Cape Cod his pals jumped on the seat until they drove the pole into the sand so that only the top of the seat was showing. Stool had to dig it out.

  “Those brothers claimed they got tired of waiting around while Stool bungeed on his seat.

  “Well, that got to be a ritual with him finding his pole seat pounded into the sand every time he turned away. People were already calling him Stool, so one day out on Rehoboth Beach, I think it was, he just left the thing sunk into the sand, but he never shed the nickname. As far as I could tell, Stool sort of liked it.”

  “Well, I declare. That’s a good story. I’ll pass it around. Everybody out here liked the guy, and they’ll get a chuckle out of hearing the yarn.”

  Tim said, “Well, I’ve got a question that needs answering. What happened to all of Stool’s gear? He had a lot because he was writing a book.”

  The wood man scratched in thought. “Yeah, he was writing, wasn’t he. We never paid much attention to that. A lot of people up here claim to be writers, but we don’t see many books coming out.

  “I suppose the old guy running the cabins would know about his belongings. You go down the first road to the right just a quarter mile ahead. The old office is where the manager, or whatever he is, hangs out. Maybe he can tell you.”

  The wood seller stepped closer and held out a gnarled and work-worn hand for shaking.

  “I’m pleased to meet a friend of Stool’s. We miss him around here. Man was a genius or something. That was for sure, but as they say, the good die young, and Stool wasn’t that old.”

  Tim shook, mounted, and rolled ahead to the turn off.

  The cabins had been by-passed when the new highway went in, and the remains were nothing worth studying over.

  The manager had information.

  “Well, I came on this job after Stool had passed away, but I’ve heard about him a lot. Smart man, everybody says.

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “I
’m asking about his belongings. Stool was writing a book, and he had an old motorcycle that sort of marked him. What happened to all of his personal stuff, anyway?”

  The manager shrugged. All that is left is stuffed into that rusty old Con-X box you can see from here. Mostly junk, it looks like to me, but you can poke through it and see what you think. As far as I know almost everybody that knew Stool has picked over his possessions, so you won’t find much, I’m afraid.”

  The manager scratched his head. “Fact is, I’d like to clear it all out. The box looks bad, but it is watertight and would be useful if the junk was hauled away.”

  Tim asked, “Mind if I take a look?”

  “Box is open. Maybe you’ll want to move some of the stuff out. Help yourself because nobody else wants any of it.”

  The forty-foot-long metal shipping container was a mess inside. It wasn’t just Stool’s possessions. It appeared that anything left by people moving on had been tossed inside, and all of it had been shuffled more than a few times.

  Still, there was Stool’s battered old Harley Servi-Car, looking about like Tim remembered it. There was no sign of Stool’s typewriter, but there was a falling-over pile of his paperwork.

  If some of the clothing or worn out tools and utensils had belonged to Stool, there was no way of identifying them. Tim returned to the manager’s desk.

  He bought a Diet Mountain Dew and considered what, if anything he could or should do. A few thoughts came to mind, and he weighed the effort and the costs against the value.

  Deciding, Tim said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll put all of Stool’s papers into the box on his cycle, and I’ll have the machine shipped to a place in Kentucky that will look it over to see if it can be salvaged.”

  The manager was nodding. “That would be fine. Take anything you want. Maybe your starting will encourage me to empty the rest into a truck and haul it to the landfill.” He grumbled, “Trouble is, even that costs money. Nothing’s free these days.”

  Tim scratched his own chin for a moment. Then he suggested, “I’ll tell you what. Seeing you aren’t giving me static about getting rid of Stool’s pieces, I’ll pay for your shipping everything else to wherever you dump things. That’s assuming you can get it all moved tomorrow. I’ve got to be getting on down the road.