Chapter 33: Simon’s Way

The events described in the closing paragraphs of the following story are known only because they were recorded by the protagonist. Owing to certain limitations imposed by his personality, plus his use of a blunt pencil and very coarse paper, it has been necessary for slight liberties to be taken with respect to a few words. However, there is no reason to question the accuracy of the account, which came to light as the result of a search organised by one Herbert Stebbins, attorney-at-law.

Following the death of his father, Simon Long was left in a strange position. Though he had become a wealthy man, he was no less mentally handicapped than before. In different circumstances, he might have received remedial attention, but the environment of the sparsely populated West in those days was not always conducive to such refinements. It wasn’t that people were uncaring, but rather that almost everyone needed to use virtually all their physical and psychological resources just to stay alive. Hardly anybody had surplus time or energy to deal with a problem as knotty as Simon’s mind.

Jacob and Alice Long had decided that their son’s affliction had been visited upon him – and them – because of their imagined sins in earlier lifetimes. In fact, they were thoroughly decent people. They saw Simon’s condition as their burden and no concern of anyone else. Also, they rejected the idea of seeking medical help, fearing that such a step might see their son consigned to some far-distant institution – a thought that filled them with horror.

Most townsfolk made allowances for Simon. They knew that he was not as they were and treated him accordingly, though it was noted that whatever his shortcomings, he did at times exhibit a certain low cunning. Unfortunately for Simon, there were enough of the other kind around; people who considered it not only legitimate but almost a duty to make fun of him, as though he had been placed among them for their entertainment. They did it in a variety of ways, ranging from merely unpleasant to downright dangerous.

As long as Simon’s parents were alive, his existence, though distressing to him, was just about tolerable. There was someone to turn to when he was being pestered, an arm to go round his big beefy shoulders and a kind word to console him when the tormenting was too severe. But first his mother died. That happened when he was twenty-one. Then, three years later, his father went too and Simon, as an only child with no other relations, was left alone.

He wasn’t helpless. A big, strong man, a inch or so over six feet in height and built like an ox, he was capable enough in terms of physical work, not that he was required to indulge in it if he did not want to, for he had no need to make a living. This came about as a result of his parents’ own inheritance, plus their shrewdness in commercial affairs. Well-off from early in life, they had prospered further by a series of successful investment decisions.

Before he died, Simon’s father had been seriously ill for over a year. Seeing the end coming and knowing that Simon was incapable of dealing with commercial matters, Jacob Long had liquidated his assets, in order to provide for his son in as simple a way as possible. His demise left Simon with the family home and bank balance sufficient to keep him in luxury for life. However, possibly on account of the severity of his own illness and the rapidity of his decline, Jacob made no provision for his son in the wider social context. After he passed on, nothing shielded Simon from the taunting and practical jokes which continued to come his way as youngsters passed on the sport to their junior siblings.

For a short while after his father’s death, Simon received visits from the more kindly disposed neighbours, but the frequency of their calls dwindled steadily, for he was anything but stimulating company. Gradually, he became a virtual recluse, seldom leaving his home. He wasn’t missing much, for other than what took place in the two saloons, there was little social life in the town. That more or less left Simon out, as he seldom indulged in alcoholic drink.

For two lonely and distressing years, Simon occupied himself by pottering around his house and garden. When he couldn’t find anything more to do, he usually sat in a wooden armchair on the porch, drinking water or apple juice, waiting for another day to end, hoping the baiters would leave him in peace. He seemed to be impervious to heat or cold and regardless of the weather, never wore anything over one of his thick wool shirts.

On the opposite side of town to Simon’s house, Ned Benson and Alvin Swain lived together in Benson’s split-log cabin. Nobody knew quite what to make of this pair. Like Simon, Benson had been born and raised in the area. Also, in the same way as Simon, he had inherited his father’s fortune, though in his case there had been precious little of it, comprising as it did a plot of untended hardscrabble land, largely taken up by a huge rock formation rising incongruously from the surrounding plain. Benson had not lived there since his adolescence, the only property on the land being a tumbledown shack that had been home to his parents.

Swain was a little more puzzling. He had drifted into the area, ostensibly as an old friend of Benson’s, moved into the cabin and shared it with his host for three years. The two became inseparable. At times they disappeared together for periods ranging from two weeks to a month.

The mystery concerning Benson and Swain arose from their mode of life, for neither of them ever indulged in anything as commonplace as work. Yet they seemed to get by – and not on a mere survival basis. Almost every evening they could be found drinking in the Polestar saloon, always playing cards. Most of the time they fared badly, often losing sums large enough to discourage the average small-time gambler. But they were never out of funds. That was odd.

It was this very matter of finances that occupied the two men as they sat by the pot-bellied stove in Benson’s place one chilly September morning, ceaselessly rolling and smoking cigarettes, tossing the makings to and fro between them. The subject had been brought up by Swain, a small slim man with a pale narrow face and dark evasive eyes. Having deposited the problem with his intellectual superior, he sat back to await developments.

Ned Benson had been pondering on the question for some time. In addition to being the thinker in the partnership, he was physically the more prepossessing of the pair. At thirty-one, he was two years Swain’s junior. A little over medium height and solidly built, he had fair wavy hair, an ingratiating smile and a pair of remarkably innocent-looking blue eyes. The facade masked a devious mind. Also, taken together with his earlier record of youthful recklessness, it gave him a reputation as a more or less innocuous scapegrace. That suited him perfectly.

“You’re right,” he said when Swain raised the point. “As it happens, I’ve been giving that a good deal of thought lately and I believe I have the answer.”

“Well, I wish you’d tell me what it is,” said Swain. “The roll we got left won’t keep us much longer.”

Benson laughed. “Al, your trouble is you have to have a situation right in front of you, then you react well enough. But maybe you ought to try your hand at a little thinking now and then.” Having made this suggestion, Benson immediately reconsidered it. “Then again, maybe you shouldn’t,” he grinned.

“Never mind what I ought to do,” Swain rapped back. “What about this thinkin’ you’ve been doin’?”

Benson tossed a cigarette butt into the stove, crooked his finger for return of the tobacco sack and, catching it, lounged back in his chair, resting his right ankle on his left knee. “Well, “ he said. “I see it this way. We’ve been together for quite a time and what have we done? I’ll remind you. We’ve robbed two stagecoaches, one freight office and one train and altogether we’ve picked up enough to last us until now and maybe for a couple of months more. See, what we’ve being doing is penny ante stuff. That’s not right for a couple of high-class gents like us. What we need is one big deal to set us up for good, or for a few years anyway.”

“It don’t take a genius to figure that out,” Swain answered. “If you’ve dreamed up a job, let’s get down to it.”

“Don’t rush me,” said Benson. “Just think about this. If you want to get hold of a lot of money, where do you look?” He chuckled at Swain’s blank stare. “You seek somebody who has it. And who has it around here? Nobody but Simon Long.”

“Simon,” Swain shouted. “Are you serious? He don’t play with a full deck.”

Benson was enjoying himself. “Oh,” he said, “I grant you that when it comes to brains, Simon doesn’t run more than fifty cents in the dollar, but there’s no doubt he’s the richest man in these parts. The Longs were already loaded with money before they came here and they went on doing well. It’s common knowledge that Jacob sold up and from the figuring I’ve done and rumours I’ve heard, I reckon he was worth at least forty thousand dollars and maybe even fifty thousand. Everything went to Simon and it’s sitting right there, in the bank.”

“What? All that cash?”

“Of course not. They don’t keep such amounts in a small bank. Most likely they’ve laid it off with the big boys somehow. There’ll just be a credit balance here.”

“I wish you’d quit talkin’ in riddles,” snapped Swain. “How does that do us any good?”

Benson sighed. “Al, if your mind was as quick as your trigger-finger, maybe you could help out a little with the planning around here. Anyway, what we do is offer Simon a proposition that persuades him, all legal and above board, to pass his funds, or most of them, over to us.”

Swain harrumphed. “An’ just how do we do that?” Benson explained his idea, Swain’s eyes getting wider and his smile craftier as the scheme unfolded. When Benson was through, his partner sat back, profoundly impressed. “I got to hand it to you,” he said in awe. “If it works, it sure is a beauty. Do you think he’ll really swallow it?”

Ned Benson shrugged. “We can only try,” he said. “Look at it this way. If he doesn’t, we’ll be no worse off than we are now. If he does, we’ll be rich. The only problem is, we need a stake to get the thing going. What the businessmen call starting capital.”

“An’ I suppose you got that figgered out too?”

“I think so. Since we’re on the subject of banking, you remember that little one-storey sardine can we looked at down in Colorado a while back?”

Swain nodded. “Yeah. Seemed real easy.”

Benson rubbed his hands together. “Well,” he said briskly, “I think it’s time we paid it a visit.”

Four weeks later, the bank Benson had mentioned was robbed. Tellers reported that the culprits were two masked men, one above average height and blue-eyed, the other small and thin, with dark shifty eyes. The incident happened early on a Friday morning, when the bank was holding either takings or payrolls for most of the local businesses. The loss was just over six thousand dollars.

It was a further three weeks before Benson and Swain returned to Montana and after ten days bustling around Helena, they finally headed back to Benson’s place. During their travels, they had spent over five thousand dollars and had received in return a fair quantity of high-grade gold ore, some dust and a few genuine nuggets of the metal and a tiny quantity of industrial diamonds. The whole pile didn’t seem all that much to Swain, but Benson reckoned it was enough. The pair employed themselves for a further week on the first hard physical work either had done for some time, then they were ready.

Simon Long was a very surprised man when Ned Benson called on him one evening in November. To avoid attracting attention, Benson had left his horse at the livery stable in town, waiting until full darkness before making his way, unseen by anyone, to the Long house. He found Simon sitting on the porch, unperturbed as ever by the cold. Benson strode up, smiling. “Hello there, Simon,” he said, the essence of joviality. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

Though he was mystified by the visit, Simon had no quarrel with Benson who, unlike so many others, had never troubled him. “Hello Ned,” he said. “Thought you was out of town.”

“Yes,” Benson replied, “I’ve been away a few weeks. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about, if you can spare a little time. Can we go inside?”

“Oh, I always got plenty of time,” said Simon. “Come on in.” He led the way, motioning to his visitor to take an easy chair and depositing himself in its mate. “What do you want, Ned?” he said.

Benson closed the door and looked around cautiously. “We alone, Simon?” he whispered.

“Sure we are. Nobody comes around here any more.”