Grange Tales: the God: A Tale of Two Centuries

By Stefan Hoognerson

1868: The Blacksmith. Seven paleface corpses rot in their graves as an Injin hangs at the end of a rope. Was this a lynching? A murder? A cover-up? Itinerant blacksmith Milton Wright wants answers and expects to find them in Grange, Kansas.

1968:The Youngster. Eleven-year-old African-American Penny Thomas, a genius, faces someone stranger than any shed ever met; more deadly, more important more needy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452599984

Stefan Hoognerson

The author is Stefan Hoognerson, a computer programmer with thirty years of governmental, financial and aerospace experience, which provides a broad prospective on political and financial dealings, as well as on aeronautics and astronautics, all of which are parts of this and seven subsequent novels.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010, 2015 Stefan Hoognerson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-9998-4 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/26/2015

CONTENTS

1868: THE BLACKSMITH

Saturday: The Stranger

Sunday: The Witness

Monday: Livery Work

Tuesday: The Burro

Wednesday: The Solution

Thursday: The Denouement - 1868

Friday/Saturday: The Shanty

Sunday: The Family

Monday: The Plan

1968: THE YOUNGSTER

Saturday: The New Stranger

Sunday: The Project

Monday: Cover

Tuesday: The Dollar

Wednesday: The Counterfeits

Thursday: Guilt

Friday/Saturday: The Denouement - 1968

Christmas 1971: The Graveside

March 1983: One Dollar

April 1983: The Beginning

I declare special thanks to two very good friends:

Technical advisor: Captain Arthur Schneider - Ret.

United States Air Force Fighter Pilot - Vietnam Era

United States Of America Astronaut Program

Technical advice concerning military customs.

Details of life in the Space Program.

Specific details on flight and the lives of pilots

including writing the texts of multiple incidents

involving flying.

Literary advisor: Susan Reynolds - friend.

Literary criticism, editing, encouragement and advice.

A TALE OF TWO

CENTURIES

1868: THE BLACKSMITH

SATURDAY: THE STRANGER

The hanging was over, the condemned was dead. The motionless corpse hung from the simple gallows, sweat darkening the coarse shirt, urine and excrement fouling the denim trousers, the wry neck stretched to an impossible length.

Blacksmith Milton Wright didn’t spur his horse but approached in respectful silence along the lonely stage trail’s curve. Twice before he had seen such as he approached prairie towns as he did this Kansas town, seen a condemned man’s corpse, moved only by prairie breezes, seen only by hungry buzzards and coyotes, left stark against the sky for hours, sometimes days, serving as a silent threat to the violent, to the criminal, fulfilling the last service of a murderer to the community where he had murdered.

Near a rock twenty feet away someone had vomited.

Milton was familiar enough with death, but he realized something was different here. Something was wrong. What, he wondered?

He dismounted, dropped one of Dixie’s reins to the ground, sure the well-trained gelding wouldn’t move, and untied his shovel from behind the saddle. It was still mid-morning and not so hot as to prevent him from digging a shallow grave. He did so twenty feet from the gallows, a hundred from the lonely trail.

After the hole was three feet deep and long enough, Milton put the shovel away, uncoiled a rope and threw one end over the cross bar. He tied the other to the saddle horn, tossed the loose rein over the horse’s neck and shinnied up the right post. He looped the rope around the corpse’s chest, and then called, bayak in his Tennessee Mountain dialect and his mount backed up. Hawd, he ordered and the horse held still. Milton removed the noose and climbed down. He led the horse closer to the gallows until the body gently settled on the ground with a rag doll’s limpness.

Milton removed the hanging hood and examined the body. The thick neck was unbroken. The face was unmistakably that of an Injin. He remembered Salai, Squirrel, the Cherokee medicine man who’d taught him. Awinita, Fawn, his wife. Their children. The laughter in their home. The tears. Caring for this stranger couldn’t help that dispossessed family. Nor the stranger. Yet ...

The body was dressed in seaman’s clothing including the boots of a seaman. Something about the boot leather seemed strange. What? He studied them closely but he couldn’t see anything unusual about them. What was it that seemed so odd? Why would an injin wear a seaman’s clothing? In Kansas?

The shirt was torn twice over the dead man’s heart. How? There were no marks on the chest behind the rips so the tears weren’t from bullets.

He went through the pockets, not expecting anything to be there, yet he found three extremely shiny Spanish Reales, silver ‘pieces of eight,’ and five playing cards in the pants pockets. The cards were all face cards, were all stiff, all had a crispness which seemed almost impossible. He realized the five, held together, were a quarter the thickness of an entire, regular deck. No one could shuffle a deck like that. How could such a deck exist?

There was nothing else on the body.

As Milton started to return the items, he noticed something odd about the coins: They were absolutely identical, their discolorations, scratches and worn spots were in exactly the same places, someone had rasped them around the edges to remove silver to sell, all in the same places, all three had identical stamp marks punched in them bearing Chinese characters. They’d gone to China. Sailors in New Orleans once told him that Chinese officials stamp coins to authenticate them so foreigners could use them as money. What were they doing back in the states? He could see where the hammered stamp bounced between the two impressions yet they were identically placed, they were identically deep and they were identically worn. The coins were exactly identical. How, he wondered?

The cards. Milton examined them more closely. He examined the Kings of diamonds and hearts, the Queen of diamonds and the Jacks of diamonds and clubs. They looked right, they felt wrong, too thick, too stiff. A gambler? Cheating? Caught in the act? He wondered.

He wrapped the cards and coins in his bandanna and put them in his saddlebag.

He carried the heavily muscled, heavy boned body with his left arm under the legs at the knees and his right arm below the shoulder blades, the corpse’s arms still tied behind it, his right arm pressed upon by two dead arms, the head dangling like a silent bell. As he placed the corpse in the grave he realize the body was strangely tense but not with rigor mortis; he was familiar enough with that thanks to the war. No, it was a stiffness of straining muscles, yet the condemned was unquestionably dead. Why? How?

He buried the corpse, mounted his bay and looked again at the gallows. That was when he read the hand written notice nailed to the post:

Notice of Public Execution

Performed this 14th day of August, 1868

upon one ____________ convicted of murder in the first degree, in lawful trial in the court of His Honor, Judge Lester T. Thigman, in and for the Municipality of Grange, Kansas.

It bore the Judge’s and the Sheriff’s signatures followed by an illegible signature which ended in the letters M.D. Why was the condemned’s name not on the death warrant? Was this whole thing a lynching? Of a redskin? The death warrant was hand written, he’d seen two such before, that was common enough. Was it fake? Was this a murder? Or had a murder been done by white men and blamed on this injin? Had there even been a trial? Had the court simply gone through the motions to give the appearance of a fair trial to justify killing this injin? Milton Wright figured he’d find the answers in the Municipality of Grange Kansas.

Most of Kansas is as flat as pond water. Grange was the nonconformist. Rolling, green, forested hills surrounded the town. The road wound around them gracefully and hid the grim oak gallows from the townsmen’s eyes.

A roadside sign read:

You are now entering the Community of Grange Kansas

Founded June 8, 1847

Population 732

Mayor: Quenton Peabody

Sheriff: Jacques LeGrande

Court Clerk: Ivan Knopik

Milton studied the sign. A Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian runnin’ the place. What was them words? He recalled:

This is America! ¹

This is the New World!

Not the present European

Wasted and withering sphere.

This is America.

He approached from the east.

He rode along the town’s only street, glancing at the tidy shops on both sides.

The first building, on Milton’s right, the street’s north side, was the three story, red brick house of the itinerant doctor, doubling as his office, clearly marked by a wooden sign. The enterprise included an apothecary and also advertised piano lessons. The uppermost floor appeared to be a convalescence center since there was a large, airy porch with a fine southern view where a pajama clad old man sat, seemingly unaware of anything around him. Milton wondered if the motionless figure really was so unaware.

Beside the Doctor’s was the livery stable, built of frame and clapboard. The shop’s proprietor offered blacksmith and farrier services as well as stabling, gunsmithing, the services of a print shop cum newspaper, portrait photography, and a dance hall every Saturday.

Across the street, on his left, the south side, was the general store where another advertisement offered haircuts, seed and grain, the telegraph office, the bank and the U.S. Post Office.

As Milton passed the livery stable, a tan garbed figure turned to watch him from a shadowy spot. The lean, duster clad man tossed a nearly finished cigarette to the street and began walking silently along the board walk in the same direction as Milton, stepping on some of the planks, carefully stepping over others, his gait smooth and gliding. The brim of his white Stetson hid his face from the sun. He moved unnoticed.

At the center of the town were two churches, Catholic on the north side and Baptist on the south, both wood frame with clapboard sides, their doors aligned with each other, convenient for holding a shared Barbeque.

Beside the Catholic church was the combination library and school house, which served only as a library at the moment since school wasn’t in session.

Across from the library, beside the Baptist Church, was the tiny, brick and granite combination courthouse, city hall and jail.

By the City Hall was the mayor’s house, as announced on a grand brass plaque; a square granite building, two stories in height A more modest wooden sign advertised that someone there sewed and gave voice lessons. A third offered the services of Quenton Peabody as the town undertaker and proprietor of the ambulance service.

The westmost building in the town was the combination hotel, salon and restaurant, extending up three stories plus an attic, probably the most massive structure in the community. There Milton stopped and dismounted. He tied Dixie to the hitching rail, pumped water to fill the horse trough, and approached the hotel.

The rooftop sign read, Grange Hotel, Restaurant and Salon. Milton wryly contemplated the sign. Well at least some’un could spell right. That’s French fer ballroom. Good fer him. He looked at the menu, which bore the word bouillabaisse. Another item mentioned imported Truffles. Milton went in for breakfast.

The street door opened into a lobby. Directly to his right was the hotel clerk’s desk with its row of mail slots and keys on hooks. To the left was a swinging door to the bar. Ahead was another swinging door from which wonderful aromas emitted. That had to be the dining room. Milton entered.

Four seconds behind him, the black trousered figure opened the glass paneled street door and moved his Wellingtoned feet over the doorsill with the silence of a ghost.

Milton settled in the second table to the left of the serving area, as one observes the arrangement from the dining room’s swinging door. A woman noticed him.

Good mornin strantzer, the chunky proprietress greeted in a strong Greek accent. Vhat I can get you for breakfast?

Been sniffing your cookin’ all the way from Memphis and I jest couldn’t slow down much fer nothin’. Milton counted his cash. I’d take kindly ta, say, three o’ them there eggs, fried right gentle n’ kind an’ a slice er three o’ fatback an’ maybe three, four griddle cakes. He handed her payment for the meal with an extra gratuity, ‘To Insure Promptness.’ A T.I.P.

Anybody talk zo nice about my cooking, I give big mug coffee in zhust one minute. She was plump, squirrel-frisky, black haired, in her mid-forties with a touch of gray over her temples and a bun at the back of her head. Calico covered most of her and a grin covered the rest. She filled a double fist-sized mug with fresh coffee which was actually worth drinking, not trail stuff, then went into an adjacent room, most likely the kitchen, to prepare his order.

Milton had less time to puzzle out the morning sights than he’d hoped. A huge man entered the restaurant through the back entrance, a freshly chopped forest, presumably intended for the kitchen woodrick, held over each arm. Handyman probably. The man ducked under the door and turned sideways to avoid muscling one or the other wall aside. There wasn’t a bit of fat on him, he had the build of a stevedore or a prize fighter. His face was solemn. There must have been a magic beanstalk somewhere and the wrong one climbed down first. A brace of six shot field cannons swayed on his hips and a tin badge decorated his chest. This was Sheriff LeGrande at work. The memory of the execution earlier would explain the grim face. Having to earn a living would explain the firewood. Sheriff LeGrande glanced at him, took note and carried his load into the kitchen. He came out with his arms free and headed toward Milton, brushing his sleeves and rolling them up, revealing brawny arms with several small burn marks on his left hand and wrist.

The Sheriff sized up the thick-armed newcomer, the tan-faced stranger with a dock hand’s burly physique, gray eyes, massive black hair to his shoulders. The newcomer wore the remains of a Confederate Cavalry shirt, civilian breeches, and a single U.S. Army issue Colt percussion revolver on his right hip. The unfamiliar tracker’s hat on the peg above the table must be his.

Milton presumed, Aims ta confidence me eh? I ‘spec I’m the fur-nur here. He sipped his coffee.

The sheriff settled on a chair at the next table with another cup, grunted in the process, and said, Allo, good morning stranger.

It took Milton less than a half second to peg his accent as true French, not Cajun, or any sort of a creole. Mornin’ sheriff, make yourself pleasant. Ironic, thought Milton, inviting the sheriff to make himself feel at home in his own place. There’s nothing like friendliness to make a lawman suspicious, Milton figured. He suppressed a grin. I’m Milton Wright.

Sheriff LeGrande looked him over, then said, You’re from east Tennessee, mountain country, been traveling since the war. You’re ...late 30’s. 36? 38?

38. What part of France is you from Sheriff? If the sheriff could show off, Milton figured he could too.

South.

Marseille? Now the sheriff looked startled. That’s whar you learned to cook? Now Sheriff LeGrande looked suspicious.

All right, how did you figure that out? The sherif’s English sounded studied, newly acquired.

Them French items on the menu outside. You’re French, I can tell by your accent. Bouillabaisse is French fish soup. You’d most like learned how to make it in a seaport. You’re from the south o’ France you said, ‘n I read once ‘bout Marseilles, a seaport that has some mighty fine cooks. You’re a cook, witness the burn marks on your left hand from hot fat, so I reckon you owns this place. Sheriff LeGrande stared in silent amazement. Milton decided to become inquisitive. I seed that there gallows east o’ town. Who was the Injin? What he done?

Murdered an entire white family, poisoned the lot of them. He was clearly and strictly concentrating on his newly acquired English.

Ah.

The waitress delivered the heaping plate. Thank for gethin’ me firewood, Jacques.

Part of the service, Sophia.

She flirted with the sheriff and returned to the kitchen.

I read that execution order and it didn’ give the Injin’s name. Why?

We didn’t know it. He only spoke Navajo and I only speak a few words.

Sheriff LeGrande approvingly noticed that Milton folded his hands, bowed his head and gave thanks for the meal.

Milton ate in silence as the sheriff small-talked about a couple cases of rabies northeast of town. Finally Milton looked again at the lawman and asked, Would anyone object if’n I asked a few questions ‘bout that there murder?

No, ze, followed by the sheriff’s inarticulate, irritated growl at himself, the worst of the lynch mob sorts have quieted down. That hanging was enough to quell even them.

I seed where someone upchucked nigh the place.

Four did.

Right bad.

I’d rather not talk about it while you’re eating. It took almost an hour.

Right there Milton decided he didn’t want any hanging specifics. Thank’e right kindly Sheriff, I ain’t hankerin’ to hear no details.

He finished his breakfast. He also kept it down.

What do you do, Milton?

Blacksmith. Right fair ‘un I’m told.

Tennessee mountains as I said?

Nigh the Georgia border. Pa learned me smithin’ ‘n kicked me out. Said the town wern’t big enough fer two smiths an’ run me off. Been a-spuddin’ round since. War kept me busy, most with hosses, did a little doctorin’, hoss ‘n man both. After, went north ‘cause they warn’t no work down south. Fixed loco-motives an’ the like as shore wanted fixin’.

I imagine that Southern accent of yours did not help you much up north.

To which Southern accent are you referring? Milton replied in an elegant mix of a Bostonian and a British accent.

For the first time the sheriff grinned. Very good. Where did you learn that?

Back in his usual accent Milton explained, Offn a Yankee Major, a doctor. One o’ the most finest folks I ever met. New Yawkers figgered I was from Boston, Boston folks figgered jes the opposite and I didn’t say nothin’.

Yet you speak with your Southern accent now.

Milton paused, considered, then said, When I was talkin’ like that in Boston ‘n New York, I was lyin’. I was pretendin’ to be something I ain’t. I’s a Tennessee mountain man and I ain’t gonna lie about it, I’m gonna talk the way I learnt to talk.

The sheriff’s face showed admiration. Why did you leave?

Winter. P-nu-mony. Came that close to dyin’, he gestured. Mennonite folks nursed me. Salt o’ the Earth, them folks.

You were with the Union Army then?

Na. Hated slavery, always did, yet I jes couldn’t git maself to kill none o’ my feller southerners so I didn’t join either army, I doctored and smithed fer both. I was at Corrick’s Ford at the start o’ the war back in ‘61. I saw jes’ about all the battles.

Being on a battle field in no one’s uniform could get you shot as a spy.

Warn’t long ‘fore they all knowed me.

Since zen you have drifted?

A piece here, a piece there. Start up a shop, git known a mite, ‘n someone comes long and hits me up wit a bad-sad story and I try to help. I end up moving on with jes my smithin’ tools, ‘n Dixie, ‘n I goes somewheres else.

You’re an exceptional man Milton. Since you’re a blacksmith, I suggest you think about settling here in Grange.

You all got a ‘smith.

Oh? Ever seen his work?

No.

Keep your eyes open son.

Thanks right kindly Sheriff. I’ll do jes that.

The waitress came back for the plate. Milton looked at her and quipped, An how’s ‘bout a purdy smile from the mos’ sweetest lass this side o’ the Atlantic?

You so sweet strantzer. Her eyes impishly sparkled.

The touch o’ that there dainty hand o you’rn ‘d be the most purest o’ blessins straight from Heaven itself.

You are very friendly, but my husband, she gestured toward the sheriff, don’t like that, so is not so good idea. Yes, Jacques?

Milton, his face colorless, looked at the enormous sheriff.

Yes Sophia, I agree, the sheriff solemnly responded.

The room was silent for the better part of a minute as Milton’s bloodless face studied the lawman’s unreadable one. Unreadable, that is, until the man suddenly set his cup aside, laid both arms on the table and dropped forward in almost uncontrollable laughter, his head bouncing on his wrists. In a moment his wife, still standing where she had been, joined in with him.

Thanks Milton, I needed a good laugh after the last few days. There were tears in the sheriff’s eyes.

It was Milton’s turn to laugh along with them. Sheriff LeGrande stood and gave his wife a hug. From the looks on both faces, Milton knew there was a bond between them only death could sever. He didn’t wish to try.

Son, you just made us both feel ten years younger, Sheriff LeGrande said. The two walked from the dining area to the kitchen, hand-in-hand, like two intimate buffalo. Once they were out of the room there was a distinct, feminine giggle.

Milton grinned as he savored his coffee. In a moment the Sheriff returned and they left the dining area, headed to the lobby where Milton signed the register for room 3, accepted a key and went upstairs.

The sheriff went into the kitchen to get a mop, then returned to the dining room to swab the floor. As he entered, he saw the door to the lobby move, swinging an inch or so as it stilled, yet there was no one in the room. Had someone left? He darted through the door and looked in the lobby. The street door was closing, covering half, then all of a tan, broad collared duster. The sheriff hurried to the door, pulled it open and observed the coat moving away toward the livery.

A calf length duster in this heat?

May I help you? the sheriff called after the duster clad figure.

The man turned toward the sheriff. His hat-obscured his face, making his features difficult to see, and said, No thankee, Marshal, I’m jes fine as I am.

Would you care for breakfast? Sheriff LeGrande was certain the man hadn’t eaten anything because Sophia hadn’t delivered anything.

No, that’s right kindly of you Marshall, but I’m fine. The voice paused, then added, Good day so-a-la-ih ak’is. There was mockery in his tenor voice. The figure turned again toward the east and continued walking.

The sheriff stepped inside for a moment, then recalled, Ak’is. That’s Navajo for friend. What does so-a-la-ih mean? Again he looked out.

No duster-garbed figure was there, not on the street, not between any of the buildings to the east as he hurried along the boardwalk for most of the length of the town. Not anywhere.

Returned, the first thing he did in the dining area was check the spoons, forks, knives. They were untouched.

He looked at the tables and noticed that the chair Milton had occupied stood out from its place, which was normal, as did the one where he, himself, had sat. Only one of the others was out of place, the chair at the farthest table along the wall. The next wall, at right angles to the first, had a window in it, creating a glare in line with that table and creating a shadow encompassing that corner, a combination that made it difficult to see anyone at that table.

The sheriff touched the wooden seat and found it cold. He saw traces of trail dust on the polished oak floor and a spot of horse dung such as would come from the boots of a rider.