Surviving Jardine

By Tom Onstott

In the summer of 1948, thirteen-year-old Timmy Armstrong's life was about to change in a dramatic fashion. Love, tragedy, and family conflict would join forces to coerce his premature entry into manhood.

"Surviving Jardine" chronicles one year in the life of Timmy, his first love Lila, his parents Bart and Ellen Armstrong, and Mr. Thompson - a special teacher who would become his mentor and lifelong friend.

From childhood mischief to a heroic role in a mine disaster; from boy who loved to fish to a young man deeply in love; from a remedial student to a dedicated scholar; from a boy who thought everyone was his friend to a confused pawn in a labor versus management strife. Thus is his transition from boy to man.

To survive the final year in the dying town and a singular way of life, the residents of Jardine, Montana, must close a wide chasm that has turned friends into enemies. If success is to happen, everyone would have to demonstrate courage, understanding and the shared love of many.

This story may make you laugh, or make you cry, but it is guaranteed to grip you to the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. J. Buckley Publishing
• Release date: Nov 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301217786

Tom Onstott

Raised in a mining camp near Yellowstone Park was an experience that was void of many amenities enjoyed by most youngsters; yet an upbringing TOM ONSTOTT says he would not trade for anything. Even without a movie theater, soda fountain or youth center, he and his boyhood friends entertained themselves in simple ways: sledding, fishing, hunting and of course forming little secret societies.Tom’s passion for writing was spawned during college, but did not reach full bloom until he took early retirement to write full-time. He has authored nine novels in the past ten years. His first attempt at writing a book was when he labored through his own memoir; an effort he now classifies as an amateurish mess. Without benefit of a rewrite or edit, it was delivered to his three sons at Christmas time, an act he hopes they accept as a token of love.NOVELS:SniperSurviving JardineFor the Sake of a Child

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Spring 2002

The photograph was an odd size, thirty-four inches wide and twenty inches high, in grainy black and white. It had been recently matted, framed in dark walnut and protected by glass. The date at the lower left corner read 1908. Since wide-angle photography was unheard of at this early date, one could only assume the picture had been trimmed at the bottom or top, or perhaps both.

Doctor Jason Hougland held the photograph at arm’s length, turning his body slowly in a full circle, trying to orientate his position with a particular area in the old photograph, a difficult chore due to eighty-seven years of changes to surrounding structures. After some consideration, he nodded, satisfied that the spot where he stood represented the geographical center of town, and on a site where a two-story building once stood. The Bannon House, if his calculations were correct.

The photograph came from Jason’s grandfather, along with a great deal of help in identifying each house, shed and industrial building. With each structure came a story or anecdote about the people who lived or worked within their walls. Before coming to Jardine, Jason produced a worksheet where he could document needed information. He had placed a white sheet of paper over the old picture, hung it on the x-ray viewing board and traced a square and number over each structure. On the backside of the paper, Jason wrote the corresponding number, followed by the name of the resident or use of the structure. Upon completion, the little squares on his worksheet numbered forty-nine, but this did not include houses hidden by the trees along Bear Creek or buildings beyond the view of the camera. Jason’s grandfather had estimated the latter at fifteen or more. From the spot where he stood, Jason counted twenty-one structures of varying sizes now missing from the landscape depicted in the photograph.

A two-story hotel, one block to the west and across the street, gone. The miner’s union hall, gone. The general manager’s house, gone. The Maleski House, gone. One by one, as far as he could see in all directions, Jason scanned the almost barren landscape, drawing an X through a square representing the missing piece of someone’s life. How sad it would be for his beloved grandfather.

Jason’s next challenge was to identify and number the structures still standing after over three quarters of a century, marking each corresponding number on his worksheet with a circle. The mine office still stood, its stark two-story framework looking like an unwanted protrusion on a barren block that once included seven houses and a storage shed. Somewhere within those unpainted walls was the office where his grandfather had worked for over a decade.

The little white schoolhouse Jason had heard so much about had fallen into disrepair, yet still stood proudly on top of a high hill. One room, where hundreds or perhaps thousands of students had rotated through on their way to lives of prosperity, failure, or something in between.

An old barn and decaying pole corral stood alone at the edge of a steep slope leading to the creek. Jason’s grandfather had told him this impoundment was a holdover from the teens and twenties when mules and horses were work animals used at the mine.

Jason continued to work, marking more X’s and an occasional circle on his worksheet. When he finished identifying everything in view from his vantage point, he returned the photograph and worksheet to the rear seat of the rented Ford Taurus. Settling behind the wheel, he eyed his next target: the mine yard.

A locked cable gate stretched across the entrance to the mine access road. A faded, barely legible sign read: NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. To his knowledge, Jason had never broken a law of any kind. This would be his first. Would anyone understand that a promise to a dying man transcends the need to obey the law?

For the past ten years, Dr. Jason Hougland had a secret second life. He had harbored a dream since his college days at Northwestern University, saw the dream fade during pre-med at Harvard, and became a distant flicker while an intern at Johns Hopkins. Now, after twenty-five years as a successful orthopedic surgeon, Jason’s work schedule slowed, making room for dreams once again. Slowly his passion was rekindled.

Jason Hougland wanted to write; leave something behind as a permanent record of his existence. Following established guidelines, write about what you know, his first efforts spanned the field of medicine. On five occasions he'd authored medical papers, finding many publication opportunities in medical journals, only to see his work flounder in obscurity among the thousands of similar papers published each year. Next he tried fiction - medical fiction of course. Jason, dissatisfied with this pursuit, chose not to try to publish his single manuscript.

The idea for the present quest had spawned from the many visits to the convalescent home where his grandfather spent his final years. With a body weak and failing, yet a mind as sharp as in his youth, Jason’s grandfather related story after story of a time before Jason’s memory. Stories of men, women and children living ordinary lives, yet often generating extraordinary outcomes.

On the day his grandfather gave him the photograph, Jason confessed his desire to write a book about the early years of Jardine and the Armstrong family’s life. The idea physically pleased his grandfather, reversing a downward trend in his health. For more than a year, their twice-weekly visits were dominated by a litany of information and description of events, chronicling the lives of the people who lived and worked in this once prosperous mining camp. The day before he died, Jason’s grandfather squeezed his grandson’s hand and asked for a promise to fulfill the dream.

Due to the steep grade of the old access road, the quarter-mile hike from the barricade to the mine yard took fifteen minutes. The first building encountered was of cement block construction with a tin roof. The words DANGEROUS, HIGH EXPLOSIVES, were still visible in faded red on the steel door. Jason drew a circle around the appropriate square.

Varied sizes of galvanized tin-covered buildings surrounded the mine yard. The change house, with its long and square profile, was a circle on the map. On the image of the motor barn, brandishing large double doors, Jason drew a circle. The compressor building, another circle. The blacksmith shop, a circle. Odd, he thought, not a single X. The tin on all the buildings was rusted in spots, faded in most, but not a single structure appeared ready for the scrap yard. The only indications of idleness were boarded windows and locked doors.

Jason walked to the top of the waste dump on a dim path, where narrow gauge railroad tracks once guided the mine cars. A spectacular view met his eye: much of the camp, once obscured by trees in the photograph, was now easily seen. Jason squatted on a splintered railroad tie and continued to mark his X’s and circles. For a moment a vision swam before his eyes, an image that erased fifty-four years of time. Below, in the heart of the town, ramshackle buildings shed their years of deterioration. Miniature people and classic cars filled the dirt streets with activity. From behind, the sounds of an active mining operation made him spin on his railroad tie seat. Shadowy figures with muddy clothes and rubber boots walked slowly across the mine yard. A fully loaded ore train rattled down iron tracks toward the very spot where he sat.

Jason closed his eyes and vigorously shook his head. The sounds faded, and when he opened his eyes, the same ghost town appeared. It was a daydream; nothing but a dream, but the realism caused Jason to pause for a moment until he could stop shaking and redirect his efforts to the scene below.

Like the rest of the camp, most of the structures described by his grandfather were now grassy or brush-covered lots. One lone house, two blocks from where a large mill once stood, was a notable exception.

Retracing his steps to the bottom of the hill, Jason drove to a spot between the lone house he viewed from the mine yard and the remains of the old mill. Only charred timbers and a few pieces of rusted machinery gave evidence of the once multi-story mill that churned out the life’s blood of a vibrant mining operation. From his breast pocket, Jason retrieved two old photos given to him by his grandfather. The first showed the building engulfed by flames. The second, the blackened remains of the same building the following day. An involuntary shudder passed through his body, for he knew he was looking at the final chapter in the long life of Jardine. Sadly, he turned to the house.

The roof sagged a bit, emphasized by missing asphalt shingles. Lap siding, cracked and splintered, showed little of the original brown paint. A white picket fence still stood, but leaned at varying angles, giving the impression that someone had constructed it while under the influence.

Turning the door knob, Jason was surprised to find the house unlocked. Inside was a scattering of old furniture: a dilapidated couch with springs protruding through fabric, a wooden chair with broken rungs and rodent-chewed faded red vinyl, and an end table with a missing leg. The hardwood floors, barely visible through a half-inch layer of dust, were wavy and splintered.

As Jason moved from room to room, a flood of visions filled his mind. This was where they lived, where the story he had promised to tell first took root. He had been here as a small baby, but the pictures developing in his mind were not from memory, but from the ramblings of a dying old man.

A sudden revelation struck Jason as he sank carefully onto the creaky couch. Many of the original buildings were gone, but the important ones remained: the mine, the office, the house where they lived. All here, waiting for someone to tell their story.

Jason began writing furiously, jotting down ideas, thoughts, and complete lines. He now knew what to say and who must say it. His eyes closed as a vision appeared – a vision of how it must have all begun.

SURVIVING

JARDINE

CHAPTER 1

Summer 1947

The crunch of its feet in the snow, closer now! Faster, harder! I dare not look back, but I feel the giant strides it is taking. The security of the cabin door is still a hundred feet away. Please, God, don’t let me stumble. I can smell its odor, feel its breath on my neck. Fifty feet. I—

Oh, crap! There’s a goddamn page missing!

Timmy Armstrong! came a screech from the front of the house. You may not use such language! If your father heard you, you know what you would get!

Timmy cringed at the tone of his mother’s voice. Went and did it again, let my mouth outrun my brain. He looked at the book to make sure, page 168, page 169. I’m sorry, Mother, said Timmy when he reached the kitchen. But there’s two pages gone from this book, and it’s right at the end.

His mother’s look softened as her hands came off her hips. Two pages can’t be that big a deal in a whole book.

It is when it’s right at the exciting part, when you don’t know how it came out. Matt was trying to get away from— well, it was right in an exciting part, he said, deciding to cut the explanation short since this was not the kind of book his parents, Dorie and Thad, would approve. You won’t tell Father what I said, will you?

She tried not to smile, but the crinkles at the corners of her mouth gave way to a broad grin. Timmy, I’m glad you’re taking an interest in reading, and I won’t tell your father on the condition you clean up your mouth. You’re not getting those words from that book, are you?

No, ma’am, this book doesn’t have one bad word. It’s for kids, he said, trying to sound serious.

If you don’t know how it came out, you could write your own ending, she advised, turning her attention back to the cookie dough she was mixing.

Sparky Bannon was two years older than Timmy and kind of surly. No, real surly was more like it. At five-foot-five, he was built like a block of granite. With almost white hair cropped close to the scalp and piercing green eyes, he was a miniature version of his father, who was feared by all the regulars at the local bar. So Sparky probably tore the page out just to piss me off, thought Timmy. Whoops, there I go again. I’d better get those curse words out of my mind before I slip in front of my father.

Timmy’s parents had an unwritten pact. From birth to age twelve, it was his mother’s responsibility to discipline the children. When they became teens where Timmy now stood, the heavy hand of his father moved front and center. Is it good to be a tailgate? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Bart Armstrong, the family patriarch, was a strict disciplinarian, but now that Timmy was under his command, the elder Armstrong had mellowed a great deal. Had he grown tired of imposing his will, or perhaps he felt his methods had failed. In either case, Timmy was the recipient of a much easier family life than the siblings he followed.

Timmy wasn’t very close to his brother and sister, mainly because he was born a full four years after his brother, Jay, and more than five years after his sister. Dorie, the eldest of the Armstrong clan, was somewhat rebellious. Being the only girl, she perhaps needed to be strong-willed just to survive. She was also very bright, finishing high school in three years, and was the graduating class valedictorian, despite the less than stellar learning environment offered in her early years in a one-room country school.

Because of her superior intellect, everyone thought she would go to college and become a doctor or lawyer, or perhaps a teacher. But being a free-thinker with a streak of stubbornness that defied authority, she turned the tables on conventional wisdom. Two months short of her eighteenth birthday, Dorie eloped with her long-time boyfriend and moved to the silver mining district in northern Idaho. She always said she would do anything to get away from this little one-horse mining town. She succeeded, too, and now resides in a slightly larger two-horse mining town.

When one uses the term elope, it is understood that the couple in question did so to get married. At sixteen and seventeen years of age, this was impossible for Dorie and Thad, who were too young to marry without their parents’ permission.

As the young couple crossed the state line into Idaho, Dorie expressed her concerns. You know everyone will think I’m pregnant, she said. I can hear them now! ‘Why else would they run away? She’s got to be knocked up!’

Thad glanced sideways at Dorie, then quickly returned his eyes to the increasingly winding highway. Don’t worry about what the gossips say, honey. With my parents moving away from Gardiner, we’re doing what we have to do.

They had just topped the famous Lookout Pass and were descending into the mining area called the Silver District. Whoever designed the steep, insanely crooked two-lane highway had to be drunk or possessed a twisted sense of humor. To further complicate the journey, from the top of the grade, the railroad tracks intersected the highway so often it looked like a child’s doodling.

Adding to their anxiety over the road was the overall condition of Thad’s 1937 Pontiac. Mechanically, it would be considered average for a six-year-old automobile. The real concern was for the tires; all were void of tread with tufts of cord showing in several places. The spare tire, that was at least as bad as the other four, had been exchanged for a blowout two hours earlier. New tires were not available even if they had the money. It was wartime and tires were rationed; and seventeen-year-olds did not have ration books.

The war brought another problem more acute than tires and rationing for the young couple: the mandatory draft. Thad had less than a year before he would be required to register. The war seemed to be going well for the Allies, but an immediate end was not in sight. If the war was still in progress on August 30, 1944, Thad and Dorie would have a very short honeymoon.

When the runaway couple reached the little town of Mullan, they stopped to let the tires cool and have a piece of pie and coffee. They were less than an hour from their destination of Osburn, Idaho, but were in no hurry. It was 6:00 p.m., which meant spending the night in their car, with house hunting to start in the morning. Unfortunately, the Idaho job did not include housing.

Like Jardine, despite the war, most of the mines in the district remained active. The reasons were the same: silver, lead and zinc were all crucial to the war effort. Thad had obtained a job with a company that sold new and reconditioned drill bits for the many mines in the district. He had answered an employee wanted ad in the Livingston, Montana newspaper, fudging his age by one year.

Thad’s father was a blacksmith, and had taught him the trade during summer vacations from school.

At breakfast in a small café in Osburn, Dorie browsed the local paper for rentals while Thad read the news headlines. It says here, he said, that the war is going well, at least in the European theater.

Dorie made a red circle around one of the rental ads and glanced up at Thad. European theater! They make it sound like a goddamn movie theater. Come and see this spectacular event on a huge screen. So vivid you will believe you are there!

Now honey, don’t get riled up. They haven’t come to get me yet. And besides, if I choose to do so, I can probably get a deferment for a job crucial for the war effort.

Dorie laid down her pen and looked hard at her future husband. If you choose to? Would there be any other decision?

Thad folded the paper and pushed it to the side of the table. He was afraid this question would come up someday, and now he was forced to respond. Yes, a hard decision, depending on how things are going over there. I’ll go if they need me.

Dorie picked up her pen and resumed reading the want ads, but her eyes refused to focus. The future was so uncertain, and their life together had just begun. With one more look at her one and only love, she lowered her head in silent prayer. Please Lord, let it be over soon.

Unlike Dorie, Timmy’s brother Jay had his friends, a car, and a life away from Jardine. After graduation from high school his only thought had been to look for a job and find an apartment in Gardiner. For Timmy’s part, although Gardiner was only eight miles away, it may as well be eight hundred. Jay and Dorie moving out of the nest represented a major change in the Armstrong family. Timmy would only see Jay once or twice a month when he got lonesome or wanted a good home-cooked meal. When he would next see Dorie was anyone’s guess. That was the bad part of being the tailgate; you might as well be an only child.

After the move, Jay felt like someone had unlocked the shackles that bound him to the little mining camp where he was raised. He wanted to travel and see the world, but he knew his dreams would take time. The war was still raging in Europe with the Allies closing in on Hitler, and everyone thought at least half of this terrible event would soon be over. Jay’s one worry was that the men who survived would come home, threatening a condition that might saturate the job market. So the first step in Jay’s plan was to find a job.

The job he found wasn’t much: attendant and tire repairman at a local service station. The pay was low and the hours long, but it gave him the feeling of independence. A small apartment in the back of the station took care of his lodging concerns, although sleep was difficult until he became accustomed to the constant smell of oil and gasoline.

With the date for mandatory draft registration looming, Jay followed the progress of the war closely. In June of 1944, the Allies launched a huge assault on the coast of France, and were advancing toward Germany at a rapid pace. Then the Axis mustered a counterattack that, for a time, halted the Allies’ progress. However, with the Russians advancing from the east, the balance of the Allies from the west, and Hitler committing suicide, Germany decided that unconditional surrender was their only option.

That left the war in the Pacific, which most thought would take another year before Japan