The Monkey Wrench Gang (54 page)

They awaited sentencing, which had also been prearranged through Judge Frost. Here Abbzug and Smith created fresh difficulties by refusing, at the last hour, to completely recant their crimes, both of them grumbling that, in Smith’s words, “Somebody has to do it.” The probation officer assigned to the case to make a presentencing report to the judge was severely troubled. He consulted with Doc, the judge, and Doc’s attorneys. Doc assumed full responsibility for the acts and attitudes of his co-defendants, insisting that he was the arch-conspirator, that he and he alone had influenced, indoctrinated and knowingly misled his younger colleagues; he guaranteed that he would retread their brains, socialize their hearts and bring them back to Christ. He also promised they would not do it again.
And he willingly agreed, at the judge’s suggestion, to practice the art of medicine for at least the next ten years in a southeast Utah community of less than five thousand population. Settled. The judge pronounced his sentence.

Abbzug, Sarvis and Smith were sentenced each to concurrent terms of not less than one year and not more than five years, to be served in the Utah State Prison (where death by firing squad is still a feasible option). He then suspended the prison sentences, considering the defendants’ records and other circumstances, but ordered all three to be confined for six months to the San Juan County Jail and thereafter to serve four and a half years each on probation, contingent upon good behavior and strict fulfillment of agreed-upon stipulations. In addition, Smith separately was fined the maximum (for a misdemeanor) of $299 for rolling rocks and ordered to make restitution to Bishop Love for the full value of the bishop’s Chevrolet Blazer, which had been flattened, all agreed, flatter than a chinch bug. But the new Love forgave the debt.

The Federal District Court in Phoenix, taking note of the action of the Utah Seventh Judicial District Court and of Judge Frost’s recommendations, tentatively dropped the charges against Abbzug, Sarvis and Smith for crimes allegedly committed in the State of Arizona, taking into account that the prime suspect involved in those matters, a Caucasian male identified only as one “Rudolf the Red” or “Herman Smith,” was known to be dead.

County Attorney Dingledine, although privately if reluctantly acceding to this resolution of the affair, exhibited in public the symptoms of scornful indignation, as was only natural. Encouraged by many statements of outrage at the leniency of the courts, the coddling of criminals and the permissive attitude of society at large, Mr. Dingledine won a seat in the Utah State Senate on a program of rigorous law enforcement, expansion of the state prison system, Federal subsidies for the mining industry, completion of the Utah wilderness freeway system, tax relief for large families and fiscal responsibility in government. He was elected by an overwhelming plurality over his sole opponent,
a retired Paiute whose entire political platform consisted of one plank: free peyote.

There were a few further ramifications. Both Love brothers quit the Search and Rescue Team. Poor Seldom Seen, already a convicted felon, was sued for divorce by his first wife and immediately after by his second; only Susan, the Green River girl, remained loyal. Upon receiving the news in the San Juan County Jail, Smith attempted to make light of this added batch of legal difficulties by saying, “Well, I hope both them gals get married again soon, because then I’ll know there’s gonna be at least two men sorry I got throwed in the slammer.” A pause. “But what the hell should I do about them ambiguity charges? Doc?”

“Be of good cheer,” said Doc. “Christ is the answer.”

Dr. Sarvis sold his house in Albuquerque. He and Mrs. Sarvis selected the town of Green River (pop. 1200 counting dogs) as their new and legal residence. Doc bought a sixty-five-foot houseboat and moored it at the boat ramp on the shore of Smith’s hay and melon ranch. He and Bonnie moved in within a week after completing their jail sentences. Bonnie cultivated a floating garden of marijuana, easily launched downriver, in case the need should arise, by casting off a single light line. Doc attended (for about a year) the Wednesday night meetings of the ward Mutual Improvement Society and went to church (for about a year and a half) each Sunday; he even tried wearing the official, sanctified, regulation Mormon undershirt, although his actual ambition was to grow up to be a jack Mormon, like Seldom. His wife refused to convert, preferring to retain her status as the only Jewish gentile in Green River. Doc rented an office in town, ten miles away, where he and Bonnie practiced medicine. He did the medicine; she practiced. Though the clientele was small and sometimes paid their bills in watermelons, Doc’s services were much appreciated. His nearest medical competitor lived fifty miles away in Moab. He augmented his income, when necessary, by occasional knife jobs in Salt Lake, Denver and Albuquerque. They both liked life on the river and work in a small town, and enjoyed the company of their only neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Seldom Smith. Doc even learned how to run a hay
baler, though he refused to go near the tractor or drive a car. He and Bonnie always bicycled to the office anyway.

Here their story would happily have ended, except for a single and posthumous (out of the earth) detail.

It happens during the second year of probation. Five people sit around a hand-made pinewood table in the first-class salon of a large and comfortable custom-designed houseboat. The time is eleven o’clock at night. Illumination of the tables comes from two clear-burning, silent, shaded, kerosene-burning Aladdin lamps which dangle from iron hooks in the ceiling beam. The lamps swing a little, from time to time, as the houseboat rocks gently on the waves of the river. The table is covered by a green blanket. There are poker chips (sad to relate) in the center of the blanket and the game (dealer’s choice) is five-card stud. The five players are Dr. and Mrs. Sarvis, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and their communal probation officer, a young fellow named Greenspan, who is a relative newcomer to the state of Utah. (Newcomers are always welcome in the Beehive State but are advised to set their watches back fifty years when entering.) The conversation is mostly of a limited, practical nature:

“Pot’s right. Here we go. Ten, no help. Seven, possible. Pair of deuces! Queen, no help, and—well, would you look at that, a pair of cowboys.”

“How do you do that, Doc?”

“Control, friends, control.”

“I mean, so often?”

“Nephi guides my hand. Make it ten on the kings.”

“Jesus.”

“Called.”

“Called.”

“No game for us shoe clerks but I guess I’ll stay.”

Pause. “And you?” says Doc.

“We only get one hole card in this game?”

“That is correct, my love.”

“And nothing’s wild?”

“Nothing.”

“What a crooked, boring game.”

Smith looks up from the table, hearing something. Doc hears it too. Not the wind coming up the river. Not the quiet creaking of the boat. Something else. He listens.

“All right, all right, I’m in, deal ’em. What’re you gaping at?”

“Of course. In a moment. Seldom?”

“I’m out, pardners.” Smith folds, not watching the game.

“Okay. Pot’s right and here we go again.” Doc deals the cards, laying them out one at a time, face up, the old old story. “Four, no help. Bonnie’s deuce, sorry. Trey, no help. Ace, not much help. Kings bet ten more.”

He listens, as the others call, fold, call. He hears the sound of—hoofbeats? Heartbeats? No, it really is the sound of a horse. Or maybe of two horses. Somebody or someone, riding up the dusty lane between the fields, under the glittering summer stars, toward the river, toward the houseboat. Not fast but easily, at a walking pace. The sound carries well in the stillness.

The game goes on. Doc rakes in the pot. The deal passes to Greenspan. He shuffles the deck. Doc glances at Bonnie, who is staring glumly at the table. Something is bothering that girl. Maybe it’s her condition. Have to talk to her tonight. This game has gone on for four hours and we’re only six dollars ahead. And Greenspan has to leave in half an hour. Can’t make an honest living like this. He glances at her again; maybe it’s something else. Must give her my ear tonight. Although there are some things, or there is one thing, which he and Bonnie never talk about.

The steady hoofbeats coming closer as Greenspan deals. Doc looks at Seldom, who is looking at him. Seldom shrugs. In a moment now they will hear the clumping and clattering of steel shoes on the old planks of the landing pier.

Greenspan looks at his watch. He has to drive all the way back to Price tonight. Seventy miles. Rather a dude, the young probation officer is wearing his new buckskin vest, the one with the mountain-man fringes and the silver conchos. “I’ll open,” he says. “Two beans.”
Pushing two white chips into the middle of the blanket, where the ante lays.

Susan Smith is next. “I’ll stay.”

Bonnie’s turn. “Raise you two,” she says, staring with wonder at her hand. Good girl.

The houseboat rocks on the water, the lamps sway a bit. Wind coming up the river against the steady brown flow from Desolation Canyon. Little waves lap at the waterline outside, slapping against the Fiberglas-coated marine-plywood hull. (Doc had wanted an adobe houseboat, with projecting
vigas
of yellow pine on which to hang garlands of red chili peppers à la New Mexico. Not available, at any price. Even the Mexican navy, they say, has given up on adobe water-craft, except for submarines.)

The horses have stopped. Instead of shod hoofs he hears human feet in boots, with jingling spurs, step onto the planking. Doc stands up, letting his cards lie. He withdraws his cigar.

“What’s wrong?” says Mrs. Smith.

“We have a visitor, I think.” Doc feels a strong need to meet that visitor outside the door. Even before the knocking begins he has stepped away from the table. “Excuse me.”

He goes to the door and opens it, barring the way with his bulk. At first he sees no one. Peering harder, he can make out a tall, thin figure backed off out of the lamplight.

“Yes?” says Doc. “Who is it?”

“You Doc Sarvis?”

“Yes.”

“Got a friend of yours out here.” The stranger’s voice is soft and low but full of a practiced menace. “He needs some doctoring.”

“A friend of mine?”

“Yeah.”

Doc hesitates.
His
friends are all inside, around the table, looking at him. Facing them Doc says, “It’s all right, I’ll just be a few minutes. You go on without me.”

He closes the door at his back and follows the stranger, who has retreated across the landing to the riverbank. A horse stands there,
reins trailing on the ground. As his eyes adjust to the starlight Doc confirms his first impression of a tall but very skinny man, a total stranger, dressed in dusty Levi’s, wearing a black hat, a bandanna over the nose and mouth. The man stares at him with one dark eye. The other, Doc notices, the left eye, is gone.

“Who the hell are you?” Doc says. He puffs on his cigar, making the red coal glow in the dark. The hex sign.

“You don’t really want to know that, Doc. But”—a faint movement behind the mask, as of a smile—“some folks used to call me Kemosabe. Come on.”

“Wait a minute.” Doc has halted. “Where is this alleged friend of mine? Where’s the patient?”

A pause. The wind sighs on the river.

The stranger says, “You believe in ghosts, Doc?”

The doctor thinks. “I believe in the ghosts that haunt the human mind.”

“This one ain’t that kind.”

“No?”

“He’s real. He’s come a long way.”

“Well,” says Doc, a trifle shakily, “let’s see him. Let’s see this phenomenon. Where is he?”

Another moment of silence. The stranger nods toward the pathway on top of the riverbank.

“I’m right up here, Doc,” says a familiar voice.

Doc feels the skin crawl on the back of his neck. He stares up through the darkness toward the voice and sees a second horseman silhouetted against the Milky Way, a stocky wide-shouldered brawny man with sombrero and a grin that shines even by starlight. He is mounted on a horse that must be seventeen hands high.

Good God
, Doc thinks. And then realizes that he is not really surprised, that he has been expecting this apparition for two years. He sighs. Here we go again.

“George?”

“Yep.”

“Is that you, George?”

“Fuck yes. Who the hell else?”

Doc sighs again. “They shot you to pieces at Lizard Rock.”

“Not me. Rudolf.”

“Rudolf?”

“A scarecrow. A fucking dummy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well invite us in, for chrissake. I’ll tell you all about it. It’s a long story.”

Doc looks back toward the houseboat. Through the light of the curtained window he sees Greenspan and the others at the table, cards in motion under the lamplight.

“George … our probation officer is in there.”

“Oh. Well, shit, we’ll get out of here. Get out of your hair.”

“No, hold on a minute. He’s a nice guy and I don’t want to put him in a difficult position. You understand. He’ll be leaving in half an hour. Why don’t you and your friend here turn your horses out in the pasture and wait for us in Seldom’s house? There’s nobody there. You know where his house is?”

“We were there five minutes ago.”

They stare at each other through the starlight. Doc is not quite convinced.

“George … is that
really
you?”

“No, it’s Ichabod Ignatz. Come on up here and feel the wounds.”

“I’m going to do that.” Doc climbs the embankment.

The horse stirs nervously. “Whoa, you ignorant sombitch. Yeah. Give me some skin, Doc.” Hayduke is smiling like a little boy.

They shake. They squeeze flesh. The apparition feels like the same smelly solid Hayduke of old. No improvement at all.

“My God…. It really is.” The doctor finds himself blinking back tears. “Are you all right?”

“Fine. Got some old wounds acting up, that’s all. And my friend here wanted to meet you. How’s Seldom?”

“He’s the same as ever. Still working on the dam plan.”

“That’s good.” The horse stamps his feet. “Hold still, goddammit.” A long pause. “How’s Bonnie?”