Skalkaho Chapter 6: High School, 1970 and Vietnam

The journey lunges forward to 1970 before that can happen it is important to catch up on family matters with a short version starting with Running Eagle and Skalkaho. The journey from Blackleaf rendezvous to Skalkaho's secret place at the Mud Creek drainage made sense but it also changed history in little bits. A true love blossomed at the creek's edge. It was safe to say all caution was buried when left alone and making blind leaps of love around the splashing sounds the creek rolling over its rocks. Skalkaho had no intention going north or south. He only wanted to be left alone with Running Eagle.

His story didn't end at this camp but it changed remarkably with Running Eagle at his side. By next spring it would show all over Running Eagles stature. There would be a baby before mid-summer. No one had found them and all disruptions were several days away in any direction. There was no trail to their camp or tracking towards the lodge that he had been built last fall. The hides Skalkaho had taken on his numerous trips across the front wrapped his lodge in a secure and snug manner of the Blackfoot tribe. Running Eagle made sure he constructed it right to her liking. The subalpine trees at the base of the mountains near their encampment made it an easy task for making a trapper's and native's home hidden away. 

A boy was born during a moonless night where some would call it a mid-summer dream. It was a lazy and pleasant night and the only sound heard, was a baby's claim on this world from its soft crying. The first of a series of generations arrived building towards all things together is for the good. Secondly, everything made has a purpose and place in the Universe. 

Skalkaho once read a verse from the Holy Bible in a trading store and he remembered its wisdom...

Ecclesiastes 3:11 came to mind as his sons birth: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

His story hinges on this point forward and every generation that follows will have wisdom in their hearts.

There were about five generations coming from this spot along the garden wall dividing the continent. Many people knew what both Skalkaho and Running Eagle had when finding why the next generations had a reckless impulse and unsurpassed courage. The most common trait emerged in Benjamin Skalkaho graduating from Chateau High school in June of 1970. He had a heart with no bounds for people he loves. No one knew where he came from or what was capable of until pushed into a corner which is not so much different than what his "great" relatives six generations ago had demonstrated back in 1838. The passing of an age did not cancel the bloodlines and character of a French and English speaking trapper nor a fearless Piegan warrior. The die was set and the graduate Benjamin Skalkaho had no idea how this would make his life complicated.

Benjamin had a close friend during his senior year of school, she was probably the most popular girl in her school. She was called Marias. Somehow, she came from an old family of French descent. Her father had a large ranch east of where Benjamin lived on his Blackleaf ranch. Skalkaho's now deceased grand-parents had once owned it and now his traveling father let Benjamin run the homestead. His ranch was about two sections of land up against the Rocky Mountain front. It wasn't far where his ancestors were rumored to have settled during the 19th century. 

In fact, rumor had it, that it all started on the back section of the ranch at the origin of Mud Creek, coming out from the Rocky Mountain Front. The over 1,200-acre spread was modest by east of the continental divide standards. Marias' family had about 20 sections of land which were greater than 20,000 acres stretch going miles into the wheat country.

A second person in his life at school was John Charbonneau. Talk about money, John never knew a hundred dollar bill he didn't like. The range of his family's ranch extended about 30,000 acres North and South of the Blackleaf ranch. Skalkaho's domain was hemmed it by a John Charbonneau's stranglehold. There was his oil, wheat, and cattle along the front and the Charbonneau’s had it all or at least they thought they had it all. There was a fly in the ointment, it was Skalkaho's "Blackleaf" spread. The branding was blunt for both empires. Skalkaho had a subtle brand Bar Lazy B (b). It was a work ethic brand for the family.

The Charbonneau’s brand was even bolder. Benjamin called it the Money and Power brand or M&P barring all interlopers. John wanted Marias on his own because M&P can do anything it wants. John's dad went by the name "Jack" from an old family French name Jacques. Nobody knew who Jacques was or did they care because it was so ago. The past was on a collision course with 1970.

Politics is a cruel master and Jack had made the most out of his term as US Senator from Montana. His empire was the envy of the US Senate. He was the committee head for budget oversight as well as Armed Services. His power controlled winners and losers of the Federal Government. As an active member of Finance, he was a power broker at all levels. Not only that, his Ways and Means clout drove industry in the winners and losers bracket of taxation. Jack was at the pinnacle of M&P's ranching empire except for the Blackleaf Ranch. The Vietnam War was raging on and as it was in US politics. It was a useful device for making more winners and losers. The winners built helicopters and bullets where the losers just died on some lonely spot in the jungle. John knew his dad had power and Jack wanted the Blackleaf Ranch for welding his empire together. Now John wanted Marias and Benjamin was his the way.

Marias was so much head over heels for Benjamin. It wasn't anything material but it was his soul she was attracted too. Not only were the other girls in the school smitten by his rugged looks he had a certain mischievous look in his eye that drove the women of the school silly. There was a serious demeanor about him when leadership issues arose during school. He was a strong advocate against the war in South East Asia's, Vietnam. Benjamin thought it wasn't a fight for defending his country, but it was a fight for M&P and everything it stood while "others" built empires.

The b was in for a bumpy ride and John would take his first shot at Benjamin's basic aspirations, called Marias. 

It so happened Jack had a great influence on the draft board nationally. In middle 1970 there would be a national draft lottery picking civilians for military combat service. Skalkaho's lottery drawing was on July 1, 1970. Skalkaho had about a month after his graduation shoring up life before what was going to occur. He could not join the military after graduation because of running the Blackleaf family ranch. He would take his chance of not being drafted.

Jack began his quest for the b on his first stroke of the pen would in an attempt for making the 1,200-acre Blackleaf a national monument later to be rescinded when oil exploration would begin during the following years. The second prong of his attack would be personal taxation measure targeting a traveling man away from his ranch. The final prong of the attack would be a condemnation of the land protecting the Rocky Mountain Front. 

But first Benjamin's Skalkaho and his dad had to be removed permanently from both Jack and John own needs. Benjamin after graduation began his ranch duties during the summer months and a federal SUV showed up at his front door in late June. An eviction notice was nailed to his door declaring the ranch as federal property through a Government condemnation process. He had thirty days to leave or fight it. Skalkaho was a fighter and did not think of even leaving. He went to Great Falls, Montana the next morning after the notice was ripped off the door. There was some ranch operation money but not much from a lawyers point of view.

Benjamin went on a search of who could defend against the condemnation process. Going to the best-known lawyer and then the next influential lawyer only left him discouraged. The lawyers were not even trying and he knew why. It was Jack undercutting his defense attempts. Finally, two days after the "notice", his father was reported killed when a Semi truck ran over his car he was driving. Mysteriously the semi was never found but only its skid marks from that mystery truck stopped at the cars flattened frame. It was also noted the victim had an unusually high amount of narcotics in his blood. Needle marks were only found in one spot on his body. The coroner report stated he died of a combination of blunt force trauma and a drug overdose. Skalkaho knew it was an assassination. His dad never drank or smoked and was some kind of health nut when it came to putting anything his body, food had to be organic!

The rising sense is he would next grow into an ominous foreboding of pending disaster. He had nowhere to turn. His friendship with Marias grew increasingly cool without any explanation. She didn't call her usual weekly phone chatting after the graduation ceremony was over. In fact, he saw her once in town and it looked like she high tailed it out of town when he had pulled out next to her. He took it as she didn't see him. But three weeks and no phone call even after his dad was found dead in a flattened car? It didn't add up. Things began to get serious on his mind concerning everything. It was too much to bare all at once. 

It was July 1, 1970, and he was sitting next to the radio listening to the draft number being drawn. The rules of the day were to pick the first 125 birth dates out of the fishbowl, they would be drafted as a marine. The other 241 birth dates not drawn would be excused from military service unless volunteering. Everything else had gone wrong in June why would Skalkaho expect something different? He clicked on the radio at noon to hear if any draft lottery reports were broadcast.

Benjamin Skalkaho was born on July 25th much like the day his ancestor back in 1839 when another Benjamin was born July, 25th. Then it came in a gut-churning bombshell. 

Over the radio, he heard, "July 25th is number 3." 

It was one of those moments of disbelief and shock, he was going to Vietnam as a Marine.

He didn't have a long to wait by week's end there were a couple of marines at his doorstep. They were cheerful and firm with the mission.

They said, "hello we're Marines and we're here to help"! 

The orders were cut last week and they were in transit for several days. The lottery was on a Wednesday and now it was Friday and Skalkaho was a Marine now.

All of this made Skalkaho a cornered warrior the Marines would cherish. Unless power was in play with a sprinkle of money. He had to abandon the ranch today. His father's death, the ranch condemnation and now a marine were not coincidental. It had the markings of the M&P brand.  


Skalkaho Chapter 7: Losing Marias and Getting Lost