The Hound of Tooty River: A Retelling of a Family Story

By LTC David Ryder US Army Retired

Terry Toivo desperately wanted to hide from his legend; an outlaw which every sheriff wanted out of town. Branded as the Ghost of Fort Rice, a title earned by cheating the gallows, Terry finds unexpected and unwelcomed help to turn his life around, to include a judge that declared him married to his nemesis. Hounded by an Indian tracker, his journey takes him from complete reprobation to a respected hero of the Dakota Territories. The Hound of Tooty River is a masterpiece of both simple and complex themes modeled after the C.S. Lewis style of storytelling. This authentic narrative tells of the lives of the hard working families living on the vanguards of the nation as frontier justice gave way to rule of law. Drawing from family oral traditions, a military dossier, a Canadian Bible, and newspaper clippings dating back to the early days of Fort Rice and Bismarck, The Hound of Tooty River is a deep, moving, and exciting account of the romance that brought the author’s great-grandparents to marriage, and made an honest man out of Terry Toivo.

Readers will want to mine the next page for new clues as the “Hound” chases the unlikely hero through a captivating series of events. This adventure will delight the teen, stir the heart of the romantic, and inspire the theologian.
Dr. Lloyd Olson

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490855608

LTC David Ryder US Army Retired

David Ryder retired from the Army after twenty-six years of commissioned service with Special Forces, Counter-Intelligence, and Combat Engineers. He and his wife life in Huntsville, Alabama and as empty-nesters they are actively planning their retirement. In 2014 David completed a 3,872 mile bicycle ride across the United States from California to Maine.

Book preview

1. The Fort Days

THE WIND BLOWING through the prairies of the Dakota Territories can growl like the meanest of wolves, and during the winter the frost can bite just as badly. Of those willfully bitten were thousands of hardy immigrants claiming the American promise of cheap land and an honest chance at prosperity for themselves and their progeny. They headed north and west away from the Civil War ravaged lands and flooded through the Dakota Territory. The Fort Rice area, situated on the west bank of the Missouri River, saw its share of these hard working poor. Hundreds of newly coined Americans took full advantage of Mr. Lincoln’s initiatives to settle the West.

There was safety in proximity of the fort. The small percentage of immigrants that did not continue west was afforded protection courtesy of what the locals called Galvanized Yankees. These steeled uniformed men were the captured Confederate soldiers that chose to pledge their loyalty to the Union Army. They had no home to go to and decided to risk their fates on the frontier rather than in a Union prison camp.

Life in these newly built forts along the steamship routes was rough. In its inaugural year, Fort Rice suffered seven casualties from skirmishes with the Indians and over seventy deaths from sicknesses. Life outside the fort was also brutal, but there was a decent opportunity for the immigrants to make a living wage. The fort needed provisions. These families found a steady income by providing daily vittles (called victuals in proper society) to the quartermaster sergeant responsible for feeding the soldiers. Over time, a small community of hard working and good-hearted people built homes just north of the fort proper. Others, those who provided for the less honorable needs of the soldiers, seemed content to remain on the steamers. The music was lively, the beds were warm, and winning poker hands at tables full of gullible soldiers were commonly available.

Into this quest for a new life in this wide and windy land came Aina (I-`näh) and Paavo (`Päh-vō) with their babies Terry and Tommy. Their actual Finnish surname, an unpronounceable gaggle of tongue-twisting characters, has forever been lost. It was not their difficult name, but having identical twin boys that halted this family from wandering any further west. The howl of the summer wind would give way to a growl in the winter. With the babies, they needed the steady income and protection from the Indians that Fort Rice would provide. Prior settlers had already claimed all the tillable river bottomland. Nevertheless, some forested and rocky land tucked against the bluffs north of the fort did not inconvenience their chickens one bit; in fact, they thrived.

Hard work, disease, and accidents depressed the life expectancy of sodbusters. More often than not, these hardy souls were buried long before they could hold their own grandchildren. Sadly, Aina and Paavo also fell prey to that rule. There were other good reasons to stay near Fort Rice, but primarily Aina’s slow recovery from child bearing kept this young family from moving further west. Bad health again kept them from continuing westward the spring following the twins’ birth. Then the following year came even more reasons, and still more the following year. After three cycles of Dakota weather, Aina and Paavo decided that either by fate or fortune, they, their boys, and their chickens were planted. The homestead was not what they had dreamed of when they turned their faces west; but that small section of woods and ravine up against the Missouri valley’s western edge had their surname on it. This unanticipated tract in the Promised Land was now called home.

==0== 1.1 Death of Aina & Paavo

The mess sergeant at the fort knew that he could depend on the Toivo family to bring in eggs and chickens regularly. It was from this mess sergeant that Aino and Paavo received their new surname. Rather than correcting the sergeant and risk losing his favor and future business, Aina and Paavo decided that Toivo was a fine Finnish-sounding American name. It was close enough to the actual pronunciation so they decided to adopt it. They really did not have a choice. The kind-hearted but boisterous mess sergeant made sure everybody in the fort recognized them as the Toivos rather than by their real surnames. And as went the fort, so went the town. He rebranded many families in those early years based on memories from his own childhood acquaintances.

Like others, Aina and Paavo never enjoyed the pleasure of blessing their own grandchildren. Terry and Tommy were just sixteen when Paavo fell seriously ill and passed. Sadly, the following spring Aina was buried next to him. These young men had learned everything about raising chickens there was to know. Both had walked the five miles through town and to the fort so many times that they could do it blindfolded. Selling eggs worked out well until the fort was decommissioned in 1878. Afterwards, earning a living from selling chickens and eggs depended on the needs of the steamboat cooks and the folks in the small town a mile north of the old stockade.

Nevertheless, life was good. This small community of two hundred souls was becoming more self-sufficient with increased river trade. It had to. The once vanguard stockade of the frontier was eventually abandoned. By default, this adjacent community inherited the fort’s name. Everybody else in the territory, particularly those who drew the maps, called that landing on the west bank of the Missouri River Fort Rice. The citizens eventually gave up trying to change the map, acquiescing to adopt the name given to them in honor of the quartermaster’s custom.

As it is with many brothers, it should not be assumed that they got along. Terry was a restless boy wanting adventure, and Tommy, well, he just wasn’t quite right. He was a slow learner and dependable, but he was extremely gullible and easily fooled. Taking advantage of these traits, Terry would send Tommy into town every day because he could always talk him into it. But the real reason, other than distaste for work, was because Terry had developed a real hatred of chickens. Tommy’s honest face and sweet spirit found paying customers who would not give Terry the time of day - even if they needed eggs. Besides that, if Tommy earned a quarter, he would return home with a quarter’s worth of supplies or the right change. Terry, quite the opposite, could not leave a coin in his pocket long enough to buy provisions. There was always somebody on the steamship ready to help him put down a losing wager at the riverboat’s gambling tables.

The howl of the wind began to call Terry south before the next winter arrived. One day he left without a trace, most likely as a deck hand on a steamship heading down river to Independence, Missouri. Tommy missed Terry, but never really decided why. He only knew Terry was a blood relative, and he ought to miss him. Aina had taught him that.

2. On Their Own

TOMMY NEVER LIKED horses because he could never establish his authority. To complicate things, he would have the day’s harvest of eggs in one hand and a bagged live chicken in the other. Just thinking of trying to mount a horse while trying to balance his load was more than his mind could manage. No, walking was his fate, and for him there was never a good enough reason to be in a hurry. Chickens only lay eggs so fast.

In Fort Rice it was commonly known that when Tommy put his earnings into his porous pockets the coins would fall to the floor before he got out of the buyer’s house. If it were not for several kind women customers doing some quick stitching of his pockets, he could lose a week’s wages before he would have even noticed. If a coin was found in the street, any passersby first assumed it had once belonged to Tommy.

Unlike Tommy, who would be homebound for the rest of his life, Terry found his way westward. He liked working on cattle drives in Oklahoma and Kansas, but wanted more than seasonal work. Worse, motivating uncooperative cows did not deliver on the get rich quick promise he had made to himself. Thinking of wealth occupied his thoughts during many hours in the saddle and permeated his dreams under the stars at night.

Terry eventually found his way west to Nevada to get his share of the silver found in Virginia City’s Comstock Lode. And Terry did get his share, several times. He lost it several times too, along with the loosening of a few teeth in bar fights. The coroner stayed busy during those dangerous boom years. Out of the eighty men that died while Terry lived in Virginia City, he only could recollect that four of them passed of natural causes. Eventually, two things chased Terry out of town. Second was Terry’s aversion to a daily diet of rice, chicken, and eggs that his Chinese-operated boarding house provided. The first well-earned reason was staying outside the sheriff’s reach.

Terry’s next stop was buffalo hunting on the Great Plains. He was good with horses, and even better with a rifle. He had woods-sense enough to easily find work as a guide for East Coast Yankees on safari. His boss also knew that if his patrons did not get their bison, Terry could provide his paying guests with hours of stories to entertain them. Terry liked these rich people because rich people had what he wanted. After a season in the eastern Montana Territory, Terry was reminded of what was thought forgotten. The constant lonely howl of the plain’s wind reminded him of Fort Rice, growing up on the homestead, his parents’ care, and his slow brother. He decided to return, but he never could give himself a better reason other than he felt that he ought to.

==0== 2.1 Anna’s Misery

Times were tough and marriages were not always based on decisions of the heart. The practical reality was that farm hands were needed and couples got them by growing their own. If romance blossomed between spouses, well, that was a bonus. Most mothers thought it would be a fate worse than death to have their daughter without a ring on the fourth finger by her twentieth birthday. Most young women came to the same conclusion if they reached eighteen unwed.

There was an especially unattractive twenty-two year old daughter in Fort Rice who felt that pressure. She surveyed the landscape of available beaux, and decided that Tommy Toivo would be hers before she became an old maid of twenty-three. He was slow, easy to persuade and possessed no working definition of beauty or sublimity. Down deep he was good natured, and better yet, entirely controllable. She didn’t want a man that would argue with her. She wasn’t able to tolerate any challenge to her behavior or decisions, especially if the male response was brute strength.

Anna’s inner life was a contest that pitted her desire to dominate with wishing that her feminine supportive side could someday win the heart of a man. She often compared herself unfavorably with others. Even if a man found her attractive, she would assume it to be a lie to conceal a less noble motive. She would stay away from social events because that was where the ‘beautiful people’ went. Her mother loved her dearly, and that would have to suffice. But, oh, how she sought the impossibility that a man might desire her for who she was, scars and all.

Anna’s mother knew her daughter was a miserable woman. Many times she found Anna on her bed stung to tears because of a neighbor’s questioning glance or teasing from the boys. Anna’s mother recognized in her daughter the need of socializing and becoming softer in spirit. Although she attended church in deference to her mother’s request, Anna’s bitterness never allowed her to listen to a single sermon. She knew of her daughter’s vow never to cry in front of a man because of the humiliation of it. Their sewing room became Anna’s refuge. Anna led a miserable existence of self-torture and contempt for God – He was the one that gave her rightful share of beauty to others.

After this daughter resolved Tommy was to be hers, she set about the task of convincing her mother to the wisdom of her decision. She reminded her widowed mother how well she had been taught mastering all the domestic skills required to run her own household. She also claimed she would bring to the proposed relationship the ability to manage money (and everything else too). Her mother saw that Anna’s mind was made up and chose not argue with her. She was pleased that her little girl had developed leanings towards the possibility of a relationship with a man, although she was not completely happy with her selection.

Have you mentioned any of your plans to Mr. Tommy Toivo yet?

Anna replied (prophetically), He will never know what hit him.

Do you really think you will be happy in such a relationship? What about Tommy, dear? Will he be happy, as you say, being hit?

Arranged marriages are nothing new, momma. Honestly, the man needs some structure in his life, and I am going to provide it. He will be happy if I smile big and tell him he is.

I’m not worried about Tommy’s happiness as much as my only daughter’s. And you; are you worried about your happiness? Is happiness really your motivation?

Momma!

And what about grandchildren, Anna? I would rather not have a grandchild than to see you suffer with one that is slow. You never had patience for such things. The child would suffer too.

Anna responded confidently, Momma, I assure you, you have nothing to worry about.

==0== 2.2 Anna Gets Married

Later that week Anna called on Tommy to take her to the Bismarck courthouse to do some important legal paperwork. Her sense of urgency convinced Tommy that the trip was a life or death situation. Tommy was to rent a buckboard early the next morning for the trip and plan on returning later that evening. What happened there she never did share with anyone, but she did persuade Tommy to sign a prearranged mortgage on the Toivo homestead and then use the proceeds to purchase a humble home for her on the north edge of town. In return, she told Tommy he could still go back every day to the farm he loved to mind the chicken coop. In addition, if he promised to bring her the coins he had earned, he would be allowed to gather the eggs and come to town to sell them. Anna made it clear to Tommy that he needed to get her permission before he was allowed to sell a chicken. Tommy, overwhelmed by Anna’s sureness, agreed to all her terms.

Although Anna now had her own house, she still would go home and sew with her mother most days; and as it turned out most nights too. It would be unkind (but accurate) to say she was controlling and manipulative, but this was a special case. She considered herself a benevolent monarch with a strong desire for security and privacy, and no desire for intimacy. Given time, it was possible that she could fall in love with Tommy. She also wondered if Tommy could fall in love with her. Tommy failed every test of this theory. Nothing she could do or say would provoke a different or unkind reaction from Tommy. That caused her both frustration and a secret envy of him. What bothered her most was that to Tommy she never was more than one of his customers. Tommy’s kindheartedness towards her was not out of affection, but because he treated anybody who might buy a chicken nicely.

Tommy was not comfortable with relationships either. Years of teasing gave him a strong desire to spend his time with the only person who never tried to trick him, that is, himself. Every day he would ask Anna once again (as if it was the first time) if she wouldn’t mind if he stayed at the homestead again to make sure the vermin didn’t get the chickens. And every day she would give him her permission, a bag of vittles and a kiss on the cheek. This was her definition of a good man.

Three months after the trip to Bismarck Anna mentioned to Tommy that they were married.

Are you sure, Miss Anna? I don’t remember that.

You married me in Bismarck, remember? We bought this house then too.

I thought you had to get married in a church. Are you really sure we are married? Or are you just teasing me, Miss Anna?

Yes, we are married, and I am very happy about it. You like my cooking and I like keeping your clothes all mended up. I can tell you are happy too.

I am? responded Tommy, wondering if he was happy or not.

Yes you are, and because you are happy I am happy too.

Does that mean I have to live here? I like my bed at the homestead.

It makes me very happy that you like staying there, Tommy. It is good that you are there to protect our chickens. That is what good men do, Tommy Toivo.

I like being good.

And you are. You are a very good man, Tommy. She then handed him his egg carrier, dinner bag, coat and hat. Tommy left Anna’s with a smile and a fresh kiss planted on his cheek. Each evening on his walk back to the homestead he decided anew that he was happy.

==0== 2.3 Terry’s Return to Fort Rice

Seven years had passed, now 1885, since Terry had slipped out of Fort Rice. The town looked about the same to him during this unannounced visit, but just a bit colder. The honest side of Terry thought it would be good to see his brother Tommy again. The dark side enjoyed being unnoticed, and the dark side prevailed. The only thing on Terry’s mind was that their parent’s homestead was worth a fortune by now and that fortune was at least half his. After all, he was the first born by a few minutes. He did not think Tommy had the sense to keep it up or smart enough to pay the bills. Acreage now brought a premium price given several record crop years and statehood right around the corner. He fanaticized about what he would do with all that money once he sold the homestead.

After dismounting his horse, which half sheltered him from being recognized, he noticed there were many new faces as he walked through Fort Rice. Not being the only new person there gave him some comfort and anonymity. Terry had learned from his western experience that the law made it their business to notice any strangers coming into town. He took the position, based on unpleasant personal history, that his business was none of the sheriff’s business. Terry was never sure who might have known something about him, true or made up. After he surveyed what was new in Fort Rice his second order of business was to check on his farm.

Two days earlier, on his way south through Bismarck, Terry stopped at the courthouse. He inquired and discovered that the homestead was still in Aina’s and Paavo’s names. The good news was that the taxes had been paid. The bad news was that the Fort Rice bank now had a lien on the property. Despite this complication, his mind went to work on how to get control of the land and then sell it. To do that he would have to trick his brother into signing documents, and that was highly unlikely. Tommy was dumb, but schooled to the fact that anything Terry told him was only for Terry’s benefit. Tommy would ask questions such as ‘Where have you been for seven years?’ and ‘Why do you think this place is yours all of a sudden?’ He was thinking that maybe some conniving widow woman had adopted his stupid twin to gain control of the land. That trull must have taken over Tommy’s life just to deprive him of all that which was rightfully his.

That night an angry Terry Toivo camped just beyond the edge of the homestead. He would wait there until morning to see what had happened to his brother and possibly others living there. Terry was determined to get what was rightfully his, and if he could, also take that which was not.

==0== 2.4 Shot in the Dark

From a distance, Terry could see that Tommy had aged. That was all. His walk had not changed nor had his predictability. Terry laughed to himself as he saw his brother on his morning egg hunt and then chase down the slowest hen. Nothing had changed, and yes, some chickens still seemed smarter than Tommy. He watched Tommy eventually corner and catch a chicken and then put it into a sack. Predictably, he would then arrange the eggs carefully inside his traveling basket. Next, as if on schedule, Tommy would head down the shady lane towards town. Terry knew he would return for his shoes, something he often forgot. Once Tommy got to (and felt with his feet) where the raspberries grew he would be heading back. As predicted, the comedy was repeated. Once again, just like clockwork, Tommy struggled with the mental challenge of putting on shoes while still holding a sack with a live chicken in it.

Once Terry was sure Tommy was not coming back, Terry covertly explored the homestead in his twin’s absence. He feigned disappointment to find a very unkempt home; he knew it would be. He searched for a safe but found nothing of value anywhere. He did find Tommy’s life savings, all coins, and their mother’s picture sealed in a glass-canning jar. There was no stash of paper money, no documents, nothing but his brother’s worn out clothes and a stack of burlap bags to carry captured chickens. Just as he deduced, a sympathetic do-gooder citizen of Fort Rice must have taken Tommy under her wing to help him manage his fortune. Tommy was always a favorite of those who purchased eggs from him, even if they didn’t need any. Terry did notice that someone had taught Tommy how to chop wood. There was more than a winter’s worth out by the chicken coop! Terry’s search for something worth taking was a complete bust, and without booty, there was no reason to let his brother know he had been there. And all those stinky chickens… Oh, he hated that smell.

That afternoon Terry followed the path by the river into town. The path was several yards off the stage route located on lower ground and obscured by brush. Not much traffic on the road, just a few sodbusters every now and then. Terry did not want to meet any of them. Closer to town Terry heard a school bell ring, and soon afterwards he saw children walking home. He did hear something else too, something that mattered to him; it was the sound of a heavy wagon much like the mint wagons loaded with silver ore he had seen often in Nevada. Now motivated, he wandered into town and located that heavy wagon parked in front of the bank. Next to the wagon were the banker, the sheriff, and a wainwright that just walked over to join them. Terry decided to go down by the river to kill time that afternoon. His mind raced with how he could once again get rich, just like he dreamed about on the plains of Kansas.

That evening Terry saw that the banker had not done anything extra or strange to secure his building. He just locked the door and went home! The wagon had to be a mint wagon, and whatever had been in it must now be in the bank. That ‘whatever’ probably would be in there awhile if a wainwright was called in to do any repairs. But maybe not. The wainwright would have taken the wagon to his shop or just a wheel if it needed repairing. No, the wagon would probably be leaving tomorrow at daybreak in order to make it to the next town down the road. Terry took his horse down by the river for the night, and planned a way to leave town in a hurry if need be. At full dark, he walked by the bank a couple times an hour just to make sure there were no signs of any guards staying in there. Behind the bank was a livery stable with horses and several fine carriages.

After moonset, Terry decided it was dark enough to satisfy his curiosity as to what the wagon had brought to the bank. He had no problem slipping open a window on the alley side of the bank and he was soon inside. He found that the little safe the bank had seven years prior had been replaced by a very large wall safe. Obviously that monster wasn’t going to be opened with a bullet through the lock or hinge. He tried the handle and found it locked, and soon convinced himself he was not going succeed in opening it. Next he went to the teller’s cage to see if he could find some money or bank checks. He slipped some items, not sure what they were, into a chicken sack and then opened a drawer below the cage. A loud alarm bell went off. In the few seconds that remained before somebody came, he stuffed whatever was in the drawer into the bag and exited as fast as he could. As he cleared the window he heard somebody in front and other noises coming from town.

Terry needed to avoid capture, and did not have time or cover to get to his horse by the river. He ran into the livery and chose the first horse that was awake. Terry quietly put a bridle on the horse and raced out the other end of the stable. The noise of horse hoofs alerted the sheriff currently in the bank of Terry’s flight. As Terry took the turn onto the street heading north out of town, the sheriff got off two rounds with his rifle, both missing. A third shot winged Terry’s side.

Terry could not believe what bad luck he had, or the unbelievable good aim of whoever had taken that shot in the dark. His wound hurt badly, burning like a hot poker, and he wanted to scream out in pain. He forced himself to keep his mouth shut by biting down on his sack he now carried by his teeth. Terry could tell from his dampening shirt that his wound was bleeding badly. He had no time to tend to his injury figuring he had only a two or three minute head start on the law. He knew that he couldn’t outrun any pursuer while riding bareback weakened by his bleeding.

Desperate times call for desperate actions. He decided his only hope was to ride to the homestead where Tommy was and hide out there. By the time he got to the chicken coop he knew he was much too weak to ride any more that night – he was spent. He heard hoofs down on the road of at least two pursuers, but probably not turning into the homestead. Conditions went from desperate to despicable. A devilish idea came to his mind. If Terry got lucky he figured he could get both revenge and rich out of this. He walked up quietly to the shack on the homestead, pulled out his gun, found his brother, and shot Tommy in the side while he slept. Terry took off his bloody shirt and left it by his brother’s bed, and took his brother’s cleaner one that was draped over a chair. As Terry headed out into the dark he took the canning jar holding his brother’s life savings while leaving the chicken sack containing the stolen items from the bank.

Back outside, Terry went over to the horse acquired from the livery. Terry shot the animal in a place where it would not die quickly, but bleed everywhere and become a distraction allowing him to get away unnoticed. Terry left his brother there in the house bleeding and screaming. Silently, he slipped out behind the homestead via the trails he knew well from childhood. After feeling far enough away, Terry collapsed on the hillside just over the bluff line on the back of the property. If his brother was hung for horse thieving, and if he lived through his own wound, Terry could then get clear title to sell this land.

==0== 2.5 Bleeding in Bismarck

The following dawn Terry was surprised to discover that his wound was not that serious. In fact, he was shocked he had bled as much as he had last night, but now was not the time for whining. He made his way back into town through the bottomlands and found his horse tied up just where he had left it. He traveled north and ferried across the Missouri River into Bismarck by evening. He rented a hotel room in the city and stayed three days while his ‘bleeder’ wound healed. A week later he crossed into Canada, sold his horse, and took a job offered by the railway. He refused to think about what was happening in Fort Rice.

==0== 2.6 Arrested, Tried, & Hung

Tommy was delirious when the posse showed up in the middle of the night. A well-placed bullet by the deputy took care of the horse that was writhing in pain. The sheriff cuffed Tommy to his bed, left a guard, and arranged for a wagon to bring him into town at dawn. That night the guard had found a bag full of worthless bank litter and a bloody shirt. When Tommy became fully aware later that morning, the first thing that came to his mind was to ask the sheriff if he wanted to buy some eggs, or maybe even a chicken. They asked him how he had gotten shot, and Tommy could not explain. Tommy was quite good at not being able to explain things, given his twenty plus years of practice. Are you sure you don’t want to buy any eggs? asked Tommy.

Nobody in town could believe what Tommy had done. If something of value had been stolen from the bank they would have known Tommy was innocent. That would have required knowing what was valuable – and that was not something Tommy knew. However, breaking into the bank was not the most serious crime. Stealing the banker’s horse, one of many he kept at the livery, called for a hanging. Technically, in the territories, a horse thief was not hung for stealing a horse. He was hung to discourage future stealing. Tommy was placed in the jail cell where the sheriff’s wife provided some rudimentary first aid. Her husband told her not to waste too many bandages on him.

After the arrest, the sheriff sent word to the judge in Bismarck asking him to preside over Tommy’s trial in Fort Rice. A second task would prove more difficult; finding lodging for him with somebody without a strong opinion about the crime. Against his better judgment (but obligated by protocol) he also sent a notification to the newspaper in Bismarck. None of this activity caught Tommy’s attention. He was concerned about all the eggs that would be laid back at the homestead and how he was ever going to tell the good ones from the bad ones when he got back home.

Meanwhile, against the protests of Anna, a gallows was built on the town commons. Also, while justifying his actions as a sound business decision, the banker called in the mortgage on the homestead and waited for the incarcerated Tommy to respond to the letter he sent to the involuntarily abandoned chicken farm. In a week, Tommy would be dead and he would foreclose on the property technically and exclusively owned by Aina and Paavo. With a smirk of giddiness, he started making plans for the property. After all, he reasoned, he was now out one horse, and Tommy was not going to be living there anymore. He even had in mind an immigrant family to lease the land for additional profit. Poor Anna would have to remain poor, but this was business, not charity.

The banker, to protect his investment, made sure that the defendant got his money’s worth from his assigned pro bono lawyer. The territory’s case had superior counsel and the trial would not take long. It was a pitiful sight when Tommy finally took to the witness stand. Oblivious to his circumstances, he asked the judge with complete sincerity if he wanted to buy some eggs. His question stunned everybody who was there from out of town. The locals who knew Tommy had heard that same question about as often as they had heard steamships on the Missouri. A few women watching the trial had to wipe moisture from their eyes, but not so with anybody on the jury.

The members of the jury felt sad about convicting Tommy, but the code of the west did not tolerate stealing horses. In the territory, the only appeal is to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that was not going to happen in this case. Although something did not seem quite right about this trial, Judge Church had no problem accepting the jury’s findings given the strength of the case made against Tommy Toivo. The trial was over by noon and the execution was scheduled for two days later.

Nothing like a hanging to draw a crowd into town, and the hanging was done well. Tommy’s corpse was given the traditional burial afforded a horse thief. At sundown, Tommy’s body was cut down from the gallows. Bereft of the dignity of a funeral and still wearing his noose, the coroner took his body by wheelbarrow down to the dock and unceremoniously dumped it into the river.

3. The Tracker

TERRY WAS SURPRISED that he found a job as a track laborer on the Canadian railway with so little effort. It had everything he needed: a place to sleep, a daily ration, a predictable payday, and a promise of constantly being on the move. Six months later when he was up to his armpits in snow, he would curse the man who hired him. It must have been an oversight. The man somehow forgot to mention how cold the Canadian winters were living out in the elements. That was the reason the railway only allowed their foremen to have guns – to keep hired hands from shooting management and each other. Terry had wisely sold his sidearm prior to climbing into his first boxcar.

Terry kept it to himself, but the biggest benefit of working above the border was because it was outside the jurisdiction of the Dakota and Nevada marshals. To complete his escape from responsibility and his own history, Terry gradually perfected his ability to dispatch shame at the first inkling. His creative imagination could justify his actions in so many different ways. He had easily convinced himself that his brother had cheated him. He started by blaming Tommy for not giving him his portion of the homestead years before he had slipped away in the night. Relying on his own modified and selective recollection of events, obviously this whole bank thing would have never happened if Tommy would have willingly given him his obviously rightful inheritance. Obviously, Tommy got what was coming to him, and obviously Tommy was to blame for the bullet he took in his own side. Terry obviously couldn’t risk trusting a city doctor to keep silent to tend to his wounds in Bismarck. Obscure and creative reasoning grew in magnitude each evening. To use his favorite word, obviously Terry’s conscience now was as dead as the banker’s horse.

The problem with guilt is that it easily resists the efforts of its host to be extracted, and then it manifests itself in uncanny ways. The ever present whistling cold wind – it haunted his soul deeply – and the high pitched singing of the telegraph wires adjacent to the rails drove Terry almost to the point of insanity. The rail crew he worked with also discovered this. They made sport of his eerie aversion to eggs by purposely cooking them for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or midnight snacks. They would also tease him by making whistling sounds that mimicked the wind – well, at least to the moment Terry threatened to carve up his tormenting boxcar buddies with his contraband knife.

The winter of 1885-1886 came several weeks early and devastated the economy of the north. Years of bountiful harvests were buried in repeated blizzards that swept across the open prairie. Over seventy-five percent of the livestock in the territories froze to death changing forever the cattleman’s overstocking strategy. Land was now cheap again. Many ranchers went bankrupt and likewise the farmers who did not have money or credit to buy seed. Not so for Terry. More snow meant more pay, but it was bitter work and keeping warm was a daily battle. The wind was in a full growl for days at a time, and he thought it torturous that his work included the repair of snapped wires. He so loathed the sound every time they restarted their singing.

One problem with Canadian winters is that the sun goes down early, and then to make up for it, the sun comes up late the next day. The deep darkness mixed with bone chilling wind and near horizontal snowfall made work often unbearable. Moreover, the snow relented for no one, and work often went through the night. Worse was when they stopped due to exhaustion. When they ceased moving, their own internal furnaces stopped too and risked the bite of the ‘snow-snake’, their name for frostbite. One of the most difficult jobs was keeping the moving boxcar warm when the locomotive took them to the next drifted-over set of tracks. Sleep would often overcome the fire keeper, and that was dangerous for many reasons: the smoke, the fire going out, or the stove falling over as the car jostled down the tracks. It wasn’t uncommon for socks to catch on fire as they dried too close to the flame. Eventually the foreman took over that duty, if only to make sure he had a living crew to dig out the next snowbound set of tracks.

Those were long and cold days, but as long as Terry had his hands attached to a shovel, he was happy. It was when he was resting that he found time enough to think about everything there ever was to think about. Once, in a spark of revived false conscience and indigestion, Terry hatched a plan. He desired to discover if his brother had struck a fortune or was willing to respond to an offer of one. He sent a telegram under an assumed name to Tommy notifying him that he had inherited part of a gold mine in the Canadian Rockies. Terry felt sure there must be at least one rascal like himself in Fort Rice willing to help Tommy claim it. Later, after not hearing any reply, Terry figured that his slow brother did not respond because he could not find anybody to read the telegram to him. Terry also rationalized that Tommy deserved everything he got for being greedy. Terry thus buried his real reason for the telegram. He could not stomach the thought that Tommy might have had a lethal appointment with a short rope off a tall platform. No, he fantasized that Tommy had struck it rich and was too selfish to share his fortune with his only flesh and blood. Terry’s reprobation was now complete, and sadly, he was comfortable with it.

==0== 3.1 Death of the Paymaster’s Baby

The harsh weather was also hard on the city folk. The paymaster was a highly respected and well-liked man by all of the rail crews. There was nothing not to like about him. He was a good and able person that was a perfect fit for his position in temperament and integrity. Terry’s team leader often said that they could cuss each other, they could cuss him, and they could even cuss his own blessed mother, but there would be no cussing of the paymaster. The paymaster, sometimes called Father Frank (outside of his earshot), was the common tie that bonded the men together as brethren. His nick name was no accident, and his authority perpetuated the closest thing to family these men would ever know. When the news arrived that one of his babies had died of the typhus the foreman said they had a choice of either going to the funeral mass or finding another job. That decision required no thought given their home on wheels was already hitched to a locomotive going in that direction. There was no dispute that this bereaved father both had earned and deserved their respect.

The weather cooperated for the event too. Spring was leaving her hints everywhere. The buds on the trees and the thawing creeks tattled that winter was giving way to the annual greening of the land. The crews knew their snow work was slowing down and the possibility of city entertainments (after paying appropriate due respect) provided an additional enticement. Unspoken out of fear of the foreman’s wrath, but readily seen in each of the crew members’ eyes, was a good possibility of spending all their pay on pleasures they hadn’t experienced since the first snowfall. The foreman didn’t want to hear any of it, nor their future complaining about again being penniless.

Terry and the other work hands had no idea how many other crews were also working the rails. Soon the crew cousins now gathered behind the engine yard were fully engaged in telling each other their stories of badgers, beavers, bears, and buffalos, and quite surprisingly, not getting into any fights. There seemed to be an invisible hand restraining bad behavior. The viable explanation was the visible hand of the respected paymaster, knowing it was his tragic misfortune that called for this unscheduled holy holiday. Yes, they got paid too. Everybody received an advance of five dollars.

And it was quite a gathering. Terry and most the hands had never been in a church before, much less hearing something out of the good book or a priest’s homily. He overheard somebody say that the service was ‘lovely’. First of all, Terry had never heard that word before, and never thought dying could ever be spoken of so nicely. The ‘father’ (Terry thought that a strange name for an unmarried holy guy) in all those fancy robes had ‘commended the soul of the baby into the loving arms of a God who would welcome the child into heaven’. How sweet! he thought, undecided if that notion was something the holy guy actually believed. More likely the thought was generated by Terry’s bitter sarcasm bubbling up from the dark inside him. The question was quickly dispatched unresolved, remembering that the foreman said they could start drinking again back at the yard once the funeral mass was over. Quickly (because all those statues in the church were looking at them) and without apology, Terry and others picked up the scraps of paper found anywhere in the church after the funeral. They would come in handy starting their evening fires. Little did Terry know that act of misappropriation would be part of his eventual undoing.

It was no accident that at sundown the foremen confined the bullies to the rail yard and that the dispatchers directed the engines and crews load up and leave before the belligerences began. It would be morning’s light when the crews’ booze would finally wear off and the reality of returning to work was at hand. As long as they worked hard, the foremen tolerated the playing hard and drinking hard. None of the drunken bantering of the prior night had turned mean, ugly or public. In an oblique way the event remained respectable – in fact, they all joked later, something resembling a miracle. Knowing it, but not knowing why, over the next weeks they all felt richer from the experience. They now appropriated the stories they had heard from their ‘cousins’ as if they were their own.

Being away from the rail yard had a twice-sobering effect. First was the lack of good whisky, and the second, the time left alone to find one’s own thoughts. One evening Terry made the mistake of reading one of the funeral paper scraps before starting the fire. It told without apology the reality of a judgment at death. That piece of paper did not last long – with ironic prejudice it was purposely the first scrap to go up in flames. Terry knew he was no innocent like that baby, and the chance of some preacher man saying niceties over his coffin followed by ‘commending him to a heaven’ was laughable. At least he wasn’t as bad as his selfish brother was; Tommy had gotten what was coming to him. Terry’s twinges of guilt were quickly drowned in the communal brew the crew had stashed for emergencies and special occasions. This situation, Terry reasoned, being the former. There would be a price to pay in teasing and restocking, but the pain was now and the liquor was just as alone as he was in that boxcar – in every way.

Of all the bantering betwixt the rail crew, talk of heaven was never a topic. Words, some only heard properly in church, came up on a regular basis, but their use only as adjectives for emphasis. Almost half of the other words said that entire spring were nonessential to the conversation; only used to add spice and insult. Terry would not dare speak of his passing torments to his fellow hands; speaking such words would only breed more mockery of his weaknesses. His boxcar buddies had already proven they could tease to the point of fisticuffs about his aversion to chicken. The bringing up of religion, for or against, would get him ordained as the boxcar altar boy, or worse. As tough as he was, he could not take the teasing. He often had to swallow his rage lest his mates would detect they were getting to him.

The unremitting wind was now a tame howl, but like an Indian tracker, it was relentless and without rest or mercy. Would those wires ever stop singing in the wind? The hum followed Terry everywhere, and seemingly kept calling him back home. It was not a call, but a drive, like hounds pushing a fox to the hunter. He felt as if he was being corralled into an unknown destiny waiting for him in Fort Rice. Something or someone was watching him. The presence was so heavy that Terry began to sleep with his knife in his pocket. If there was an Indian following him, he was not going to be captured without cutting his attacker up.

Over time Terry became so used to looking over his shoulder that he wondered if his crewmates noticed. They had not, but he decided he still must be careful. He solicited the help of his buddies in a manly way by telling them of his adventures out west. They did not believe him when he said he was now in Canada to avoid legal complications. More of his stories mentioned Indians being hired to track and capture fugitives. These bounty hunters would then spirit fugitives back to the territories for a taste of frontier justice at the hands of the Indian’s sponsor.

With spring in full bloom, they used less shovel and more pick. Work changed to prepositioning ties and rail along the line followed by backbreaking ballast work. It was not as rewarding as winter work where they were declared heroes after clearing the rails after each blizzard. Without the urgency and the overtime, there just became too much time left for thinking. Even when he was fishing there was just too much silence.

He did not know why, but Terry felt like he was nothing more than just a big dumb bison. He remembered how easy money came when he stampeded those buffalo in front of the plush Easterner’s shooting blinds. Now, just like those buffalo, he was imagining something whoopin’ and hollarin’ him towards an ill fate, directly into the hunter’s kill zone. He daily resisted that thought, and diverted attention by entertaining his crew buddies with more stories. Eventually the tune changed. The wires started singing new thoughts – and as if coming up through his boots and into his feet the same phrase came from below, over and over and over – Don’t you want to know, Terry? Don’t you want to know? Even the sound of the clickity-clack of the boxcar rolling down the rails whispered the phrase. Over and over, over miles of track, eyes shut or eyes open, repeated the cadence of the rails, Don’t you want to know, Terry? Don’t you want to know?

==0== 3.2 Pay Call

When pay call came the following month, the crew was ready for a good time with the awaiting temptresses at the saloons. The company policy stated that the crew had to be cleaned up and wearing something respectable when meeting the paymaster. For this reason they were required to keep a set of clean clothes in the back of the central rail shed. The railway even provided a barber before they changed into their ‘clean duds’. If they were going into town, their employer demanded they would at least look presentable when they set out.

Different from other paydays, the paymaster did not use scrip. Strangely, all were paid in real money this time, even if it was all coins. Those hardened crewmembers had a difficult time keeping their pants up when walking after being paid in dollar coins and quarters. Everybody thought it was rather clever of the railway. The paymaster suggested they should go over to the bank and exchange it, and better yet, they should try to save some of it. Everybody concluded that encouragement was tainted because the railway also owned the bank. Obviously, in jest, this was all part of a master plan to keep them from having their fun. Yet they laughed themselves silly jingling as they taxed their suspenders walking to the bank while trying to keep their britches from sinking to their ankles.

Terry and his buddies were standing in line at the bank making boasts over which saloons had the prettiest girls and the strongest liquor. They also philosophized to which of these dark virtues needed to be sampled first. A wind shift caused a moderate but cool gust to blow through the open windows at the bank. None of his brethren even flinched, but Terry felt a chill come over and through him. It was a haunting coldness, and left him feeling hollow, if such a feeling could exist… or maybe… unsatisfied; it was rather indescribable. The draft pierced him to his inner being as if his skin was but a colander trying to hold water. Terry’s eyes darted all around, looking for an escape, looking for the tracker, looking for the source of the chill. His buddies were still laughing, and completely unaffected by the change in weather. Terry realized he was unexpectedly cornered in a bank… with some coins… with his brothers of the rail… with a banker… and with horses just outside the door… The chill caused his wounded side to ache.

Outside the front door of the bank Terry saw a mercantile, and at its entrance the famed wooden Indian advertising tobacco products. Terry’s heart said to flee, but his head said to conduct his business and bring no attention to himself. His eyes were still darting. He was detached from the merriment his friends were making. He had to leave, and the windows could not be used – no honest person leaves a bank through a window. All had come full circle and he was cornered. He had to find an escape from this place, from himself.

Terry gave an excuse why he had to ‘paint the town red’¹ alone. He told his buddies not to spend all their money on just one girl. Terry, facing his fear, walked out of the bank and across to the store. He stuck his finger into the eye of the wooden Indian for a laugh just to make sure it was dead. He started to inwardly chuckle, turned, and came face to face with a man he thought he recognized.

Son, where are you boys going to be spending the night tonight? said a tall, clean-shaven, muscular man with six shooters on his hips and a star on his vest.

I suppose in town until the money is gone, Constable, Terry replied in a cautious tone.

And what about you, son? Where are you going?

I don’t rightly know this moment. Probably the first saloon that is open this early, I guess. As long as I am behaving, what concern of that is yours?

Son, you have nothing to worry about if you all behave, but if you start tearing up the town I have a place adjacent my office I can keep you until the judge arrives tomorrow. I’m not threatening, boy, just asking. I want to know where my deputies can deposit your drunken carcasses when the bars close and you are too drunk to find your way back to where you started.

We’re in boxcars on the spur going to the feedlot. I’ll be there. Bring them to me and I will make sure they don’t go back into town. Terry turned to go and could kick himself for saying what he did. The lawman had no business in knowing his business or where he was staying. And acting bigger than his britches… Terry was talking high and mighty like he was the crew chief or foreman.

Instead of going into town, he went back to the railcar they called home. He lit the stove and sat in the corner with some rotgut whisky he had purchased. He could not get the potbellied stove hot enough to chase away the chill that froze his flesh from his bones outward. That phantom wind was putting him on the edge of tears, suicide, and anger – and worse, not announcing why. All night long he felt caged, frozen in place, beset by the howling wind, and haunted by a portrait in his mind of the paymaster’s family – the image of what is right in this world. Indeed, this was a very strange night in solitude with his grog-lubricated imagination. After some sleep he woke up wet with sweat. In his dream he had been running from an Indian. That eye-poked wooden Indian outside the mercantile had come to life, and that constable he thought he recognized would not stop asking him questions. He concluded if there was an eternal place of torment, he just made a visit to it.

Early that next morning, just before dawn, the foreman came by to count noses. He opened the boxcar door wide and saw the most unkempt pile of human debris he had seen in at least a month – the last time they came into town to be paid. Okay, boys, he said loudly in case their hangovers were not yet in full bloom, how many of you are going to church this morning? It is a beautiful Sunday morning and the preacher is looking for some sinners to kneel at his altar.

We ain’t going to no church, came a response through a chorus of moans.

Good. Then we need to get your city duds all washed up and put away for next payday. We start loading our flat bed with rails and ties needed for our next job within the hour. At noon I will have steak waiting for you behind the station, but I will feed it to the dogs if the stuff ain’t loaded when I’m ready to serve. We will be heading east on the three o’clock today, so get a giddy-up in your steps and pack up.

Terry walked out with the foreman as he was starting to leave. On the way back across the tracks, Terry suggested that while he was looking for the crew’s lunch that he might also hire another man before leaving town. When asked why, Terry told him he had heard his brother had been shot and he needed to go back home to Fort Rice. The foreman asked him if he was sure he wanted to return to the territories. When confirmed, he told Terry he understood and would miss him. The foreman also said that he was lucky. He could carry him by rail as far as North Portal, but once at the border he would be on his own. This was the first time anybody ever told Terry ‘thank you’. This may have been the first time he ever earned it.

==0== 3.3 Terry Quits the RR

The trip east was cold. Terry kept earning his keep by helping and teaching the new man the tricks of the trade. He thought somehow his Indian friend, or fiend, would give him a break, but no. The relentless, haunting growl of the wind and the singing wires seemed to intensify as they moved closer and closer towards the Dakota Territory. As the team traveled southeast Terry kept hearing the rails speak, repeating constantly, Don’t you want to know? Terry, don’t you want to know?

4. The Return

THE FOREMAN KEPT his word. At Portal he told Terry he would be welcomed back to work the rails if he decided to return. Just inside of the border, Terry, armed with sixty dollars and a knife looked for transportation south. The only thing he could find for sale was an expensive horse and a cheap mule. He decided he had no use for a fast horse, so the choice was easy. The beast could help him convince sodbusters along the way to spare a meal and a warm bed in exchange for some work. He was tired of running, and the weather changed for the better the day he purchased the mule. The brightness of the noonday gave Terry the thought that maybe that phantom Indian decided to stay in Canada. At least the nightmares stayed north of the border. He reasoned those bad dreams came from bad company, bad weather, bad bed, and bad brew.

As he traveled south he was surprised at what a good investment the mule was. Terry never lacked for something to eat and a place to sleep. What the immigrant farmers lacked in English was made up in their cooking. The accommodations were often just a straw mattress and a quilt, but he never slept in worse conditions than his host family. He was out of the weather and close to the biscuits, so what more could a man want?

The trip toward home was a month of hard working, sleeping soundly, and eating well. One farmer bartered several days of Terry’s labor for a gun and gun belt