Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) (31 page)

“Well, let’s see. If you failed to name an heir, I believe your son would have no trouble staking his claim to it. You’ve claimed publicly that he is your son. It’s even a matter of official court records. If he fails to contest, it would all go to your brother. If you survive your brother, it would all be sold, with proceeds going to the state. Now, I need to warn you that if you cut Victor out completely, it could be later argued that you were not sound of mind and forgot him, in which case the court would likely rule in his favor.”

“So even if I cut him out, he could still wind up with everything. No. There must be something I can do to prevent that.”

“There is.” Charles Reynolds smiled. “You can leave him one percent. You leave instructions for your estate to be sold or auctioned. Name someone you trust to act as executor, and will to Victor one percent of your estate’s net, or after sale, profit. Leave the rest to anyone you like: your best friend, your church, even your dog.” Reynolds said.

“And that would be iron clad?”

“Mr. Marshall, the only thing that could imperil the legality of such a division of your assets would be if you were to commit suicide and leave a note behind that contained severe mental language. I trust you’re not planning to do any such thing. With the one-percent inclusion, a court would plainly see that you did not forget Victor Bowman/Marshall and would discredit any diminished capacity contention.”

“Very well. Let’s do it. Of course I would want Will to handle everything, but if by some wild chance I survive Will, then I would like Rebecca Tjaden to handle my estate.”

The men proceeded to divide up Sean’s estate according to his requested bequeaths, ultimately leaving just one percent of the estate unaccounted for. That would go to Victor Bowman.

The attorney took furious shorthand notes. Then, looking up, he added, “I’m going to need a specific list of your real assets, Sean.”

“I figured you might. Got it right here.” He handed over the three sheets of paper. “I guess you can tell I’m a little anxious to have this business squared away. I’m not in good health,” he added by way of explanation.

“I understand, Sean. I’m sorry too. You have my word that this will be completed by day’s end.”

Sean stood up and offered his hand to the attorney. “I’m sorry I came off at you the last time we met, Charles. That wasn’t me. I want to thank you for seeing me on short notice.”

“The pleasure is mine to be sure, Sean. Now go home and get some rest. You can take piece of mind that your affairs are now in order.”

The next stop for Sean was a carpenter’s shop in Newport. The man had said on the phone that he had one door with beveled glass inserted the length of it. It would have to do as a replacement for the door Mavis Marshall had been so particular about. His ma had always said the front door was the first impression of the family living behind it. She had commissioned the door in 1906, to have the glass insert beveled for dimension, in double-thick floated glass for strength and pureness, with acid-etched designs done by hand for deftness as well as grace. The replacement door would reflect no grace. But that had really died with Mavis Marshall anyway.

Chapter 68

July, 1941

Cloverdale, Oregon

T
iny’s hard-shooting muzzle-loading gun reported with a powerful crack, and Victor howled.

“Gotta watch out for them coyanthers, Tiny!” He slapped his knee and laughed some more.

“Kye-whats? Damn it, Victor! Were you just funning me again?”

“Coyanthers, fool. You know, part coyote and part panther. They sit up there in the trees and keep on the lookout for their natural enemy.”

“Oh yeah? You’re so smart, what’s the natural enemy of a coyanther then?” He looked doubtful.

“Tiny Welby and his fool gun!”

He howled some more. Tiny was looking peeved. “Come on, Tiny. It’s a joke! Don’t go getting all dandered up now. I told ya I didn’t want to come hunting up here. I’m just making the best of it.”

“Oh yeah? Well, pickin’ deer outta the water ain’t even sport, Victor. You got no sense of adventure.”

“And I’ll tell you again, I can’t eat adventure. I can eat venison.” Victor had managed to talk Evan Tjaden out of his skiff for a day and he had wanted to go deer hunting at the Cape of Kiwanda in Pacific City, just a couple miles west of Cloverdale. At night, the cougars would chase the deer down from the hills to the beach, where the deer would swim out beyond the breakers and stay until it was daylight, when the cougars were scared back up into their dens in the mountain. But clobbering the deer in the water with boat oars was too easy living for Tiny, he claimed. He wanted to hunt.

“Speaking of adventure, look out, Tiny! There’s a hide-behind!”

Tiny spun on his heels and fired up into a tree. The report of the gun knocked him on his butt. Seconds later, the only thing that fell from that tree was a big branch, and it darned near hit Tiny in the head.

“Dag-nabbit, Victor!” Tiny yelled.

“Well, I never saw such bad shooting! Missed it by a mile! Heck, you’d prob’ly miss water if ya fell out of a boat!”

“Bull hockey! Ain’t nothing in that tree. Ain’t no such thing as a hide-behind or a coyanther. You do that again and I’m gonna whoop ya.” He reloaded his gun with another shot.

“Yeah? You and what army, Tiny? And there are so hide-behinds and coyanthers. Hammer-tail cats too. I read stories about ’em. Sneak right up behind ya, making sounds you can hear but you can’t never see them, and they whack ya on the top of the head with them deadly hammer tails of theirs. It’s how they get their name. Must be such a thing, or else you’ve been shootin’ at nothing all morning.” He had himself another good laugh, falling to the ground and rolling.

“Hammer-tail cats! I’m gonna hammer your head!”

And with that, Tiny leapt at his friend and the two wrestled on the floor of the thick woods, among bramble and fallen leaves. They both stopped their laughing and punching for a second or two when they thought they heard twigs snapping off to their right.

“Uh-oh! Hammer-tails, Tiny! Better watch out!”

That earned Victor a solid punch in the gut, which was still sore from the beating he took a week earlier. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of Victor’s eye, he caught a glimpse of something big and darkly furred bounding out of the service berries to the right of them. “Get up! Get off me, Tiny! I mean it! Get off!” He pushed his pal roughly to the side. “There was something in the bushes there. Didn’t you hear it run off?”

“More bull!” He drew back his fist.

“No, look!” Victor pointed in the direction he saw the blur run off to, and sure enough, there was a black bear cub bounding up the densely treed hillside. “Hey, it’s a little cub, Tiny!”

“Whoo-hoo!” Tiny hollered, scrambling for his gun. He was a good shot when he had a legitimate target.

“Wait! What are you doin’? No! Hey!” Victor leapt at Tiny when he saw Tiny take aim at the climbing bear cub, but he was too late.

Tiny shot it. It fell dead in its tracks.

“I got it!” He jumped in the air.

“Man, Tiny. That’s just a cub. Why did you go an’ kill it for?”

“You were the one hollering!”

“Yeah, for you to look. I didn’t expect you’d find sport in killing a baby!” And then something occurred to Victor. “Say, Tiny, that there’s a cub. There’s certain to be a mother bear close behind.”

Tiny ignored Victor and was already making his way toward the fallen cub to examine it.

“Tiny, wait!” he yelled for his friend, but Tiny was still sore and was ignoring him.

Tiny reached the cub just as the mother bear emerged from the berry bramble. She made a beeline for Tiny; his scent was too close for any self-respecting black bear to ignore. When she saw her cub lying dead at Tiny’s feet, she was one angry mother bear.

“Oh, sheez! Tiny, look out!” Victor shouted.

Tiny did turn around, just in time to see the bear charging for him. He lifted his gun and aimed, but he carelessly had failed to reload his weapon. Tiny tossed the rifle, turned, and started to run. The bear closed the gap and struck at him, tearing Tiny’s hunting jacket from him in one swipe. Tiny ran for a tree. Victor was running full speed, trying to help his friend. He carried the Winchester that Sean Marshall had given him.

“Tiny, not the tree!” he yelled.

Grizzlies, it was widely known, could not climb. But black bears could. Tiny heard Victor’s warning and changed course, but the bear overtook Tiny in no time. A single blow knocked him to the ground and tore loose his shoulder blade. Then the bear, with one or two strokes of her claws, tore most of Tiny’s clothes off.

“Memaloose, Tiny! Memaloose!”

The Indians said that if a black bear attacked you and you played dead, the bear would leave you alone.
Memaloose
was the Indian word for “as dead.” But this mother bear had apparently never heard that black bears don’t molest dead men, because she angrily bit into Tiny’s loins and back so that he screamed from the pain. The bear clawed at Tiny’s head, turning him over to rip out his throat, but by then Victor was close enough to get the shot. The bear was all over Tiny, and Victor feared he might shoot his friend by accident.

He glanced at the sky and murmured a quick prayer. “If you won’t help Tiny, Lord, please just don’t help that bear no more.” He looked down the sight of his barrel. “I got her, Tiny! Stay down!”

Tiny rammed his fist into the bear’s mouth, making her rear up. At the same moment that the bear was crushing the bones in Tiny’s hand, the report from Victor’s Winchester 30-30 ripped into her. Victor killed the mother bear with one shot.

Tiny was still conscious when Victor crept up and nudged the bear with the muzzle of his rifle. She was dead.

Tiny’s eyes met his friends. “I’ll never see old Cloverdale again, Victor,” and Tiny fainted.

Victor checked to see if his friend was alive. He seemed to be, just barely. When he tried to heft Tiny over his shoulder shot pouch-fashion, to carry him down the hill, it took Victor three tries. Strange thoughts went through his mind, like why Tiny Welby was called Tiny when he was so gol’ darned fat. He’d have to come back for the weapons, which made him feel a bit vulnerable considering what had just happened. Trappers said that the black bears hang out together wherever their food source is. Probably all the shooting scared any others off, but you never knew anything for sure.

He managed to carry Tiny back to the clearing where they had wrestled. He laid his friend down and ran for the horses they had left hitched to a tree just off the trail. He had to lay Tiny across his horse in dead-man fashion. He tied Tiny down, grabbed for the horse’s lead in his hand, and lead the horses out of the woods.

He took him to the nearest home, that of the Tjaden’s. Thankfully, Evan and his older, married sister, Ellie, were at the homestead.

When Ellie opened the door to see Victor carrying a bloody Tiny Welby with hardly any clothing left on his body that wasn’t shredded, she shrieked, “Ev, come quick!” She pulled Victor toward the sofa in the large living area and quickly threw a blanket down.

Victor let Tiny roll off his tired shoulder. “Bear,” he said to her questioning eyes. “Tiny shot her cub. I never have seen a black bear charge a man like she went after Tiny. He didn’t have a chance.”

“Why didn’t he shoot at her?” Ellie gingerly touched the flap of bloody flesh hanging loose from the bone of his shoulder. “Oh my,” she looked as though she might be the one to faint next.

“What’s all the commotion, Ellie? God’s name! What’s this?” Evan took in the torn and tattered man bleeding his life out on the Tjaden’s sofa.

In response to his question and hers, Victor continued to explain. “He shot the cub and I guess he just forgot to reload his weapon. Then the mama came tearing out of the service berries on the hill and charged after him.”

“Foolish, not reloading your weapons. To say nothing of hunting cubs for sport,” Evan admonished. He watched as his sister brought over a pale of soapy water and a clean rag and began dabbing at Tiny’s flesh.

“Yes, sir, I know.” Now that he had Tiny in safe hands, Victor felt weak and a little out of sorts. His words started tumbling clumsily out of his mouth. “We were wrestling around a bit, and then we heard something. Tiny shot at it, I think before he even knew what it was he was shootin’ at. And then, instead of reloading, he went to see what he shot down. Then, all of the sudden, Tiny was running for his life and that mama bear was chasing him and I was running as fast as I could carrying my rifle and I shot her.” He had to take a breath. “But not before she did all this to him.” Victor turned a shade of green as he looked over Ellie’s ministering.

Evan handed Victor a double shot of bourbon and pushed him down into a chair. “Drink that. I’ll get the doctor.”

Ellie asked her brother to fetch Rebecca before leaving. “He needs a surgeon, Ev. You’re gonna have to call over to Tillamook. And, Ev, hurry,” she added unnecessarily.

She and Rebecca carefully washed out Tiny’s wounds. Then, with sack needles and twine, they began sewing back into place the flesh that was hanging loose from Tiny’s shattered shoulder blade. Meanwhile, the surgeon was at the hospital and was free to come, but the other doctor on duty was using the only vehicle to make his rounds. Evan Tjaden drove at full speed to fetch the surgeon. He agreed that Tiny needed one, and there was only the one doctor who qualified.

It took almost two hours for Evan to return with the surgeon. By then, the women had finished with the sewing, the bleeding had been controlled, and Tiny was beginning to come around.

The doctor frowned and ordered up a tumbler of whiskey for Tiny. “Be better off for him if he stayed passed out,” he grumbled, opening his black doctor bag.

“The cleansing woke him. I’m sorry. I tried to be as gentle as I could,” Ellie apologized.

“You gals did just fine, Ellie. Good as army field nurses. Good dressing too. But I’m afraid those are going to have to come out,” he nodded at the stitches. The doctor busied himself by filling a syringe as he explained to Ellie that they had done a fine job, but the danger of infection from an animal’s mouth and claws were much too great to be satisfied with soap and water. He set about ripping out the stitches to apply iodine to the deep gashes. The lacerations to the young man’s scalp were terrible, and the surgeon thought Tiny would not live, but he did. The surgeon also thought the services of a particular bone doctor in Portland could fix Tiny’s shoulder, which was so badly shattered when the bear ripped the bone loose. He told Tiny’s parents the bone doctor could probably save the young man’s arm. But Tiny’s family had no money for that. The local surgeon did his best to fix it, but was unable to restore its strength and usefulness. Tiny’s new nickname would be Lefty.