If you know of a young person who is, at heart, an adventurous outdoor lover, this is probably the book for them. The story mixes a love of the outdoors with the danger of fighting criminals later in the story.
Please note:
This story contains some language that might offend some people… but it’s the way boys talk… really !
Prologue:
As far as the four of us were concerned, the movie was a classic: Robert Redford as the mountain man who could take on anything or anyone.
“Imagine, takin’ on Injuns bare fisted. Killin’ a b’ar, then skinnin’ it, then wearin’ the fur. Jeremiah Johnson… Wow, what a way to live.”
Eddie, Mitch, Bob and Randy yelled out together:
“Tuck in yer tails and run for yer lives,
cause I’m a sassy-assed bastard
with fire in his eyes.”
That was the greeting that we came up with for the JJC… er… that is The Jeremiah Johnson Club. Sure, we didn’t fight Injuns or nothin’ but we did have a cabin… well, kind of… that we were in the process of building up on Mr. Guckman’s woods. We had time to fish, trap, smoke, spit and scratch. It was Heaven.
Later in the week, as we were pulling in our slip-sinker rigs hoping for catfish, we pulled in something that we were not expecting. Our hook snagged on something.
We struggled and were finally able to pull it out of the water and found that the bag was filled with packs and packs of hundred dollar bills. They weren’t mossy or dirty, so we reckoned that the money was dumped into their river recently.
We had no way of knowing just how recently. Griff Stanley and Jake Jacobs were only too aware that we had found their bag of money. There was just no way for the two men to get down to us quickly. They stared at us from the edge of the bridge. “Damn that Sheriff, anyway!”
The crooks had a flat tire, and they were just about good to go when the local Sheriff stopped by to help them out. Griff had panicked and chucked the bag over the edge of the bridge. He figured it’d be no problem, since it was so heavy anyway.
With the sheriff gone, the two had planned on climbing down to get the bag, but they saw us dragging the orange bag of money from the water downstream a ways.
Griff and Jake had several questions that needed answers:
“Who were these kids?” “Where did they live?” “How do we get back our money?” and “How do we keep these damned kids from talking?”
