Last Ride to Stillwater: A Killer’s Tale of Grace

By Michael Joens

“Last Ride to Stillwater” begins with a killer named Jimmy Bigelow who, fleeing the authorities in the mountains of western Montana, will stop at nothing, including killing those in his path, to escape the hangman’s noose awaiting him in Deer Lodge. It is late October, 1946. A former U.S. soldier who fought in Patton’s 7th Army in Sicily, he escapes into the Wilderness areas of the Flathead National Forest, armed with a hunting outfitter’s stolen guns, food, and a chestnut mare.
A manhunt led by seasoned Sheriff Buck Sawtell, a gruff and bone-weary peace officer, and his two deputies, pursues the killer into the magnificently forbidding mountains of the Flathead Range. To make the sheriff’s job more difficult, Jimmy is aided by his own backwoodsman’s cunning, and by untimely snowfalls that mask his trail.
Jimmy flees the mountains, steals a vehicle and makes his way cross-state toward an army buddy’s ranch in Wyoming. The narrative follows his pain-filled escape, a flight which moves inexorably to a climactic end in the river town of Stillwater, to a white clapboard church and a pastor who gains a clearer understanding of the unfathomable grace of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796085211

Michael Joens

Michael Joens is the author of nine novels and three children’s books. After serving a tour of duty in the Marine Corps, he graduated from Bible college in 1977 with a BA in English literature. Since then he has worked in the animation industry as a writer, animator, storyboard artist, producer, and director for studios such as Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, Marvel Productions, and DreamWorks, as well as producing and directing commercials for Hasbro, Milton Bradley, Kenner, and McDonald’s through his own company, The Stillwater Production Co. He currently resides in Montana with his wife Cathy. By Michael Joens The Crimson Tapestry (Book 1 Twilight of the Gods) The Shadows of Eden (Book 2 Twilight of the Gods) The Dawn of Mercy Triumph of the Soul An Animated Death in Burbank Blood Reins Angels Descending Last Ride to Stillwater The Son of Caelryck (Book 3 Twilight of the Gods) Theo’s Tales of Little Overhill by Michael Joens The Good Rat The Proud Chicken Belfry’s Christmas Gift

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

October 1946, Flathead Range Montana

T HE SMELL OF breakfast cooking led the killer to their camp. He made his way up the thread of trail from the creek through the aspens and tamaracks, following the scent. Reaching the camp, he crouched in the pine-smelling darkness of the predawn just outside the firelight and watched the men. He counted seven of them. He shivered from the cold.

The camp was a clearing in the midst of the timber with three canvas wall tents and a jackleg corral to the right of them. It looked like a permanent outfitter’s camp. A cook fire, ringed with stones, was in the center of the clearing. A Dutch oven sat on a grill next to an iron skillet, where a man with a towel around his neck was turning strips of bacon, wedges of potatoes, and scrambled eggs. The cook, he thought, any decent outfitter’s camp would have a cook. Another man was saddling horses in the corral. A third was looking over a topographical map. The outfitter, most likely, planning the day’s hunt. The other four men sat in canvas chairs around the fire, bragging about the whitetails they’d hunted. Boone and Crockett whitetails, of course, the men spreading their hands to show the size of the racks. They would be the clients. Dudes, likely. One of them was fat, wearing a plaid scotch cap with the flaps down over his ears but curled out from his cheeks.

The dudes held out tin plates and the cook gave out plenty of food. He took his towel and lifted the lid off the Dutch oven and tonged steaming biscuits to each man. The killer smelled the biscuits and felt his stomach growl. The men finished eating and went into the wall tents and retrieved rifles and before mounting relieved themselves in the trees.

By now the horses were ready. The dudes were making noise, city-boy noise, laughing and pointing their rifles at nothing before mounting their horses. Five of the men mounted. The fat one needed a leg up. The cook helped him. The dudes could be bankers or lawyers or whatever from the east somewhere. He doubted they were Montanans. They certainly weren’t horsemen. They swung into their saddles like city boys. The seventh man stood by the fire with a fork in his hand, chewing on a biscuit. He was staying behind. He had just put three strips of bacon and a few cut potatoes into the skillet.

The mounted men started out of the camp—leaving for a hunt, he guessed—two guides and four dudes. The guide with the topo map was in the lead, the horse wrangler was in the rear ponying two pack mules. He knew they were guides by the way they carried themselves. Going for elk, he assumed. Maybe mulies.

We’ll be back before dusk, Vern, the lead rider called back to the man by the fire.

I’ll be here, Chet, Vern the cook said lifting the fork. Good luck. He stood, finishing the biscuit, then he stooped next to the frying pan and moved bacon around with the fork.

It was cold, late October high up in the mountains above the South Fork of the Flathead, with the threat of snow in the air. The horses heading out of camp nickered against the cold. The stock in the corral nickered back as though they were talking. The dudes made a lot of noise riding out of camp.

The killer watched them disappear into the pines, still making noise. They’d be gone all day, gone long enough anyway.

A crisp breeze soughed in the pines, loosing sprays of needles. The cook fire wavered crazily in the breeze, bacon scent wafting over to the killer. His mouth watered. He had not eaten in two days. Wearing only what he had on when he escaped the prison truck—blue jeans and a cotton shirt and boots—he could feel the cold, feel the gnaw in his belly. He held himself against the cold.

He turned his attention to the camp. The canvas wall tents were dirty gray in the morning mist, each with a stovepipe protruding, one of which was smoking. The corral held mules and a saddle horse. He could see cots through the flaps in one of the tents. There would be bedrolls. A seven-day hunt, he guessed. Maybe ten. Lots of food, provisions, a saddle horse. Guns.

The seventh man, Vern, wore a wool shirt with sleeves rolled up past faded red long-handles. A pistol hung from his right hip, a knife on the other, curved like a skinning knife. He poked a fork into the pan and turned bacon strips and pushed the potatoes around.

The killer waited, watching Vern, watching for anyone else to come out of a tent but none came. The cook was alone. He needed what the cook had—food, warm-weather clothing, a gun. He thought about what he might do.

The cook lifted the bacon onto a tin plate, set the plate on one of the canvas chairs. He looked to be the same build as himself. Thin, rangy, about the same height, he was wearing lace-up packer boots over blue jeans. He could see the man’s face in the firelight—thin, craggy, a two-day beard—in his late thirties likely.

Vern picked up the blue enamel coffee pot sitting on the grill to the edge of the fire, gave it a little shake, then poured the contents into a cup. He spat a stream of tobacco juice into the fire, smoke squirreling out of it. Vern wiped his chin with the back of his sleeve, set the coffee pot down. He sipped coffee, looked around appraising the trees, the sky, the weather maybe, looking for bears maybe.

The killer removed the shiv from his belt, felt the heft of it in his hand. Rough, handleless. Steel. He’d made it from a file, had it hidden it in his boot when they’d transported him from the jail in Hungry Horse. It came in handy when he’d needed it.

Vern stood and stepped around the fire. He took three eggs from an egg carton. His back was to the killer now. The killer moved quickly, silently, over the soft pine-needled ground, feeling the dewy crush of needles beneath his feet.

Vern’s eyes jerked open as the blade went in between his fifth and sixth ribs. Eggs fell to the ground and splattered against the fire stones. He dropped the fork. He fell to his knees, sat back on his heels, started to look behind him then he slumped onto his side and coughed. He breathed heavily, coughing blood. His eyes moved slowly, blinking, as though confused. A dollop of tobacco juice dribbled from his mouth and mingled with bloody foam.

The killer looked down at him, holding the shiv in his hand. He bent down and took the towel from around Vern’s neck and wiped the blood off the shiv. Had to do it, buddy, he said, dropping the towel beside the cook’s face.

Vern blinked at it.

The killer walked over and picked up the plate with the bacon and potatoes in it. He picked up a piece of bacon, still hot, let it dangle a bit, and put it into his mouth. He blew the heat out of his mouth. Oh yeah. Oh, tha’s good. He ate the other two strips of bacon and chewed on a potato. He looked down at Vern. You were a good cook.

Vern blinked dazedly.

The killer dropped onto one knee and went through Vern’s pockets, found a wallet, a bag of Bull Durham, and some papers. He took these. There was forty-five dollars in the wallet and a photo of a woman. He took the bills. Got any more of this lyin’ around? He slapped the cook’s shoulder with the wallet. Look at me. Vern!

Vern’s eyes looked up at him.

Any more money around here?

Vern looked back at the bloody towel.

The killer tossed the wallet, rolled Vern onto his back, unbuckled the pistol belt, and yanked it out from under him. The knife sheath came off the belt. The killer picked it up and slid it back onto the belt and strapped the belt around his waist. He used the same belt hole as the cook. He looked at the pistol, a single action .44 long Colt. There were five rounds in the cylinder, the hammer over an empty chamber.

He went into the tent he’d seen the cook exit. It was warm inside with the stove going. He rummaged around in a haversack until he found some clothes that fit—long underwear, shirt, jeans, wool socks, scotch cap. A black and red wool mackinaw hung over the back of a canvas chair. He took it. A pair of leather gloves were stuffed into one of the pockets.

He stripped, put on the clothes and cap, stood next to the stove, and felt his body warming.

The killer stepped out of the tent and looked around the edge of the camp. There would be a meat sack tied up, a camp this size. He saw it hanging from a pine branch at the far end of the clearing. He went over and cut the rope with Vern’s knife. He caught the sack as it fell and he opened it—bacon, beef, eggs, some spuds, a tin of sugar, a couple bricks of butter. He coiled the rope and put it into the sack, slung the sack over his shoulder, and went over to the stock. He talked to them, Hey, girls. Hey there now. Jimmy’s gonna take care of you.

He smoothed his palm over the saddle horse’s cheek, a chestnut mare. He liked chestnuts. He had a chestnut gelding when he was a boy, seems like ages ago. They took him. The banker did, took the ranch too.

A grim smile played over his mouth as he thought about the banker.

Jimmy found a saddle and blanket and bridle in the cook tent. He saddled the chestnut, talking to her in a calming voice and smoothing his hand over her coat as he led her out of the corral and tied her to the gate post. He went back into the tent, found an extra pair of socks, and rolled them up in one of the bedrolls. There was a yellow slicker draped over the cot, and he rolled the bedroll in it then he came outside and tied it onto the back of the saddle. He found a cup, plate, and utensils, opened the mouth of the meat sack, and put everything into it. He made a loop in the tie and hung it from the saddle horn.

He went back into the cook tent, looked around for a rifle. The cook would have a rifle. There was an empty scabbard on the saddle, so where was the rifle? He went into the next tent and found a Marlin ’95 in .45-70, leaning against a haversack. He checked the magazine and saw it was loaded. He found a box of cartridges in one of the side pockets of the haversack, brought everything out, and loaded the gear onto the saddle. He walked over to the cook. Vern had rolled back onto his side. He was staring at the bloody towel. He had stopped breathing.

Jimmy looked at him, shrugged off a disturbing thought. Then he went back and untied the chestnut and stepped into the saddle. It felt good. It