The Trio
The elegance of Keep it Simple, Stupid
Bendigo Strange
July 31st, 2023
(Monday)
Raining
You woke with a start from some weird dream. The kind you often have when camped out, to see that the sun had just started to rise. It wasn’t over the pines yet, and checking your watch it won’t be for another two hours. A storm had rolled in around three in the morning, rain beating the tent for two hours straight. With the steady rolls of thunder after the lightning told you the main force of it was a few miles away. Like all of the storms that came over the Big Horns on this trip, it had not been a warm summer rain but, a cold mountain rain that dropped the temperature by twenty degrees. The kind that put fresh snow on the peaks each time. This despite the fact that it was the start of July.
Rolling over you see The Wife and Kid asleep on their cots, while the Dog looks at you from under her blanket, tail thumping. Throwing back the heavy wool blanket and sleeping bag, your feet roll down to feel the camp rug that spans the floor of the big Safari “glamping” tent against your bare feet. Putting on a fleece jacket to ward off the chill, along with a pair shorts, you find your Tevas and unzip the tent. The Dog leading the charge, the two of you greet the day.
The sky is clear, and the pines shimmer from the wet, while the air temp hovers around 40 degrees at your best guess. The Dog looking up into the pines and back at you with that wanting-to-go face says it all, “alright, let me throw some clothes on” you say before ducking back in the tent. Throwing the latches to open the trunk where your clothes are you pull out a heavy, green Orvis hunting shirt, socks, wool Filson vest, and black watch cap. Next, out come the desert boots from under your bunk. The very not waterproof and only boots you packed, because it hasn’t rained once in the previous four years of camping in the mountains. You know better than this of course damned be all, as the Levi’s come off the tent floor. You pull the three inch barreled .357 Magnum revolver off the camp table and buckle on a Mike Barranti leather CCR holster as you step out of the tent. The Model 686+ Smith & Wesson now riding comfortably on your hip.
Remembering you had +P .38 Specials loaded in the cylinder, because last night you all were at Devil’s Tower watching the Independence Day fireworks and you not loving the idea of full house .357 loads around the populace. Driving the hundred plus miles back to camp, and not hitting either the antelope, nor the Muley doe on Highway 16 at Midnight proved successful enough, but being worn out, you went to bed without updating the cylinder. Opening up the truck door and finding the speed loader stoked with the hard cast, 180 grained “Heavy” Buffalo Bore loads you do a quick cylinder swap. The value of the revolver’s ability to adapt in a simple exchange. You grin to yourself thinking how there is no need for snake shot in one of the chambers on this morning.
Twenty minutes and, a mile from camp later you watch as cloud bank rolls over Darton Peak. The air is still and you wonder to yourself how long it will take for the clouds to cover camp. “7:03 am” you say aloud, mentally marking the time. Looking down at the now damp desert boots, and being glad that you pulled out the wool socks and not the cotton ones when, you see the fresh Moose track that isn’t more than an hour or so old, as the rain didn’t puddle in it. You whistle for The Cattle Dog, and she comes in a bounding return, wet from the grass of the mountain meadow, and head back to camp to start the coffee.
In typical Mountain Summer fashion, a few days later the temperature shifts overnight and the cool days give way to a burst of heat and full sun. You head to town to kick around for the day.
Knowing that Sheridan has no real shade to speak of, the jeans and boots are abandoned in favor of shorts, a light weight long sleeved camp shirt, your wide brimmed straw hat and the black river sandals once more. Not feeling the need, nor desiring the weight of the heavier .357 for the day you lock it up, pulling out a Smith 442 Airweight snub-nose .38. Not your beloved twenty-two year old “No Dash” 442, but the “Pro Series” one cut for moon clips and rated for stouter loads. Thus allowing you pack a fifty round box of plus P rated lead hollow points to service both of the revolvers in more social types of violent encounters.
The little five shot J frame rides easy inside the waist band as you all eat lunch and wander from store to store. The chances of “needing it” being low, but never zero. Life having been a frequent teacher to you on this topic. You “sit” on the little gun for hours at a time as you make the two full day drives to and from the mountains. The interstate truck stops always raising your level of awareness, as you continually scrutinize every stop, thinking of the kidnapping risks to the women in your life. The old “Bodyguard” in you never leaving. Knowing that you can pack the highest capacity pistol the market cares to produce but, if you aren’t looking thirty seconds into the future at any given moment all those bitty little europellets don’t amount to much after the fact.
A cup of Bison Union coffee in hand you wander up to one of your favorite shops on planet Earth. Sheridan Antiques. The day is sunny and bright, so he has the garage style door rolled open. A rack of vintage jackets and coats sit on the side walk . Realizing the sheep lined vest is two sizes too large you put it back on the rack and head inside, exchanging greetings with the proprietor. Sitting in the same spot as the year before, and the year before that, is the buttstock to a 1928 Thompson Sub-Machine gun. Twenty-five dollars. Leaving one to wonder what happened to the rest of it. Outside of Chicago in the Roaring Twenties, it became popular on the cattle ranches of the West to arm a single cowboy sufficiently against cattle rustlers. Holding the triangular piece of wood the imagination has to ponder as to the fate of the .45 SMG. Does is rest in the rafters of a barn somewhere, or in the bottom of some deep pool in the upper Missouri?
Two years prior, coming home from Montana in the middle of a heatwave you ducked into in the little shop and, there propped up against the wall for thirty-five dollars was a well worn leather rifle scabbard. Making your way up to the counter the man notes that you are paying cash, not credit, and cuts ten dollars off.
Now as you fork over cash for a book on the old Mountain Man, William Hamilton for eight dollars, you look out of the rolled up garage door “window” to your pickup truck parked across the street. There, locked in a gun case because “town”, under the bench seat, covered by a red Mexican blanket is the old rifle scabbard, and in it, is one of your most prized possessions. A late 1970s, Marlin 1894 lever action chambered in .357 Magnum. You smile knowingly and, feel the tinge of grief that comes with it. It would mean something to him that you had it with you and paired up with a brace of handguns. Had it really been that long since he passed? Eighteen years, you think to yourself, as The Kid looks at row after row of antique knives.
Later that night, or two in the morning being the more precise, dressed once more in a pair of tan shorts, a black fleece jacket and the ever present Tevas, with flashlight in hand you escort The Dog outside the tent. As you walk towards the pines you tell her to “hold up”, to which she does. Opening the truck door and pulling the Mexican blanket back, you slide the rifle from the scabbard. A few nights prior a moose had been standing in the creek right outside camp, and a rifle can be a handy thing against a moose…or anything else that goes bump in the night. Using the light to scan the darkness, looking for any eyes that might be peering back but seeing none you say real quiet like, “Alright, go” to the little red cattle dog and she heads into the blackness of the pines. Your index finger slides along the flat receiver of the rifle, the other three finger curling into the lever loop, as the rifle barrel raises up and rests against your shoulder. You follow her into the dark, looking up through the pines and into the bejeweled night sky of the American West.
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