Old Main Building
Smoke stopped talking and Professor Armbruster waited for a moment, then he reached down to flip the toggle switch on the intercom box.
“Wes, this will be all for the day,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Wes replied.
“Are you okay, Smoke?”
Smoke nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess it’s just a little more of this cognitive context-dependent memory you were talking about earlier.”
“Yes, it can be very intense. Look, why don’t you take off early today. You and Sally take in some of the sights of the town.”
When Smoke returned to the hotel room, Sally was sitting on the sofa, her legs curled up under her, reading Babbitt, a novel by Sinclair Lewis. She looked up in surprise when Smoke came in.
“Hello,” she said. “You’re back early.”
“Yes,” Smoke said without further explanation. “Enjoying the book?”
“To be honest? Not particularly. There’s no plot to the story, it’s almost like a diary . . . we’re just following him around, but he isn’t going anywhere.”
“Then if I suggested we go somewhere, you wouldn’t necessarily be against it?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
Fifteen minutes later, Smoke turned into the large lot of the Jordan automobile dealership.
“Smoke, what?”
“Didn’t you say you wanted a sports car?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“But nothing. You’re my wife, I love you, we can afford it. So what is there to argue?” Smoke said.
Parking the Duesenberg, Smoke and Sally went inside, then walked over to stand beside a bright, shining, red car.
“Pretty car, isn’t it?” a salesman asked, coming over to them.
“Beautiful,” Sally said.
“It has a 127-inch wheelbase, a finely louvered hood, low-slung beltline, and steeply sloped tail.”
“Where is the top?” Smoke asked. “If it starts raining, do you just get wet?”
“Oh, no, it has a top. But the top is completely removable. That way, you don’t have a bulky folded top to spoil the car’s lines.”
“Is it fast?” Smoke asked.
“Fast? Mister, this car has a flathead six cylinder engine of sixty-five horsepower. Why, on a straight, flat road, you could get her up to seventy miles per hour, easily.”
“We’ll take it.”
“Smoke! Are you serious?”
“Very serious,” Smoke said.
Half an hour later, with the Duesenberg parked at the hotel, Smoke and Sally drove their new sports car up to the top of Flagstaff Mountain. There, they sat in the open-top car and looked down onto the blazing lights of the city of Boulder.
“Why?” Sally asked.
“Why what?”
“You know what I’m asking. Why did you come home early, with the sudden urge to buy this car?”
“Didn’t you want it?”
“I had already put it behind me as a foolish notion. No, you bought this car, and it had nothing to do with me. I just want to know why?”
“It was a pretty rough day today,” Smoke said. “I talked about John finding Claire and his baby, killed, and half eaten by wolves.” Smoke half laughed. “I thought maybe buying this car, and driving it, might help me put it out of my mind.”
Sally reached over to put her hand on his.
“Smoke, why don’t you tell Professor Armbruster you’ve had enough and we’re going home?”
Smoke didn’t answer.
“I mean really, you’ve spoken about losing your father, about Nicole and Art being killed. And now this? It’s too much. Your life was hard enough, and dangerous enough, Smoke. You’ve reached the point to where you should be able to just relax, and drive like a fool if you want to.”
“What? What do you mean, drive like a fool?” Smoke asked with a chuckle.
“I mean you drove like a fool. Do you think you drove cautiously coming up here?”
“The salesman said it would do seventy miles per hour,” Smoke defended.
“Yes, but just because the salesman said this car would go seventy miles per hour, that doesn’t mean you should drive that fast on a winding mountain road.”
“I’ll be more careful going back down,” Smoke said.
“I should hope so.”
A meteor streaked across the sky.
“Look,” Smoke said. “When you see a meteor, you’re supposed to kiss a pretty girl.”
“So now we’re going to drive back in town so you can kiss a pretty girl?” Sally teased.
“I don’t have to go to town for that. Don’t you know, Sally, that when I look at you, I see the same beautiful young schoolteacher you were when I first met you?”
“I’m an old woman, Smoke,” Sally said. She put her arms around his neck. “But I’m glad you still see me that way.”
They kissed.
Residence of the President of the University
“How are your sessions with Mr. Jensen going?” Dr. Norlin asked.
Once again Armbruster had been invited for dinner with the president of the university, but this time the invitation omitted Smoke Jensen. The reason Smoke was left out of the invitation was so Dr. Norlin could speak frankly with Armbruster.
“It’s, uh, going fairly well,” Armbruster replied.
“Fairly well? That’s certainly a measured response. What is wrong?”
“There’s nothing actually wrong, it’s just that . . . well, some of the stories are very intense, and as Smoke shares them, it is as if he is reliving the experiences. And not just of his own life. He just told the event that started John Jackson on his killing spree, his coming home and finding his wife and child out in the garden. They had been killed by the Crow and half consumed by wolves.”
“Would you mind a suggestion from me?” Dr. Norlin asked.
“No, I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Take the conversation in another direction for a while. Then come back to Jackson.”
“Yes,” Armbruster said. “I was thinking about doing that. Your suggestion just reinforces it.”
Old Main Building
“Are you ready to go on?” Professor Armbruster asked the next morning.
“As ready as I’m going to be,” Smoke replied.
“I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. That’s why I’m here.”
“This business with the Crow Indians, that was two years after you and John Jackson separated, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Just so we can fill in the gap, I’d be interested in catching up on what you were doing during that time.”
“Besides marrying Sally, you mean?”
“Well, that’s significant, yes. But more specifically, I was wondering if you might tell about Fast Lennie Moore. I’ve only read one account of it, and to be truthful with you, I don’t even know if it really happened, or not.”
“It happened,” Smoke said.
[On May 25, 1871, Lennie Moore (whose real name may have been Will Bachman) was drinking heavily in Tucson, Arizona, with his friend Larry Wallace, and eight or nine other cowboys. Wallace insulted Moore’s friend Deputy Marshal Billy Baker. Baker ignored Wallace, but Moore took offense and insisted that Wallace accompany him and apologize to Baker. When Wallace refused, Moore threatened to kill him. Wallace complied, but Moore afterward heaped abuse on Wallace, announcing, “You son of a bitch, I think I’ll just kill you anyhow.”