Craig R. Saunders, M.D.

I am neither a fisherman nor own a boat. My name is neither Fuentes nor Gutierrez,[1] and I had only reached my seventh year when the genius of Hemingway put ink to paper and penned the perfect metaphor of my, as yet unrealized life. And, quite possibly yours.

     I am neither a Hemingway scholar nor professional adventurer though his lifestyle prompted an African safari as one of my first independent adult adventures and the mere title, Snows of Kilimanjaro, enticed me to explore their depths atop the majestic peak years later. But it was a rather nondescript billboard on a nondescript urban street in Newark, New Jersey that screamed at me one early morning as I drove to work.  The quote, “The time has come for a man to do that for which he was born” from Hemingway’s, The Old Man and the Sea, demanded that I read the book.

     “Good book,” I murmured to no one as I turned the last page, “no question he knows fishing, but a Nobel Prize?” and the book was relegated to an anonymous shelf with other soon forgotten works. A few years later an opportunity to tour Hemingway’s Cuban haunts, with his granddaughter Muriel proved irresistible and the book was retrieved from exile. This time I sat stunned, turning page after page realizing the story of life, the story of MY life, and many others, quite likely yours was unfolding before me.

     In life we choose our profession, not all are fishermen, but none-the-less we have our dreams and sail out into them with visions of glory yet to be won. We all have our idols, our role models to immolate along the way. The Old Man had Joe DiMaggio.  But it’s not easy and along the way there are good times and bad times and sometimes the bad outweigh the good. The Old Man had a very bad stretch with no fish and lost The Boy, his apprentice.  We have all had those we have relied upon, who, for one reason or another, decide your dream is not their dream and they seek other vessels. The Old Man lost The Boy; we may lose a mate, an apprentice, a partner or colleague but like the fisherman, we continue on.

     And you know what? We win! With hard work, attention to detail and perseverance we make our own luck and we win! The Old Man landed the fish, we may land a contract, achieve some goal or fulfill a dream but the point is we are successful.

     My success was leading a team that accepted the challenge of rebuilding what was arguably the worst heart surgery program in a state with the worst outcomes in the national database. A few years later, with a lot of help, the cardiac program at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center was listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 50 in the United States.   

     The Old Man’s boat was too small to carry the big fish, so he lashed it to the side of his boat. For many of us, perchance something in the infrastructure or support group is too small to assimilate the full magnitude of the accomplishment. In our specific situation Administration refused to spend the money to maintain optimal nurse-patient ratios and obtain an industry wide benchmark called Magnet Program.

     None-the-less we proceed with our bounty, quite conceivably unaware we are at our zenith as we turn to head ‘home’ to enjoy the success of our bounty.    

     It is inevitable the sharks will arrive. The biggest, the bravest come first, to steal a portion of our victory for themselves. The Old Man had a harpoon and successfully killed the giant mako shark but lost the harpoon and a big bite of his fish. We too successfully fight off our own big shark and sustain wounds but remain determined.

     The Old Man knows there is more to come and straps his knife to an oar, his makeshift harpoon kills more attacking sharks until the knife breaks and more of his fish is lost. We too fashion our defenses from what is at hand and fight our battles to retain our success but its not easy and each time we run the risk a small piece of our fish will be lost. After two short years we lost our Top Fifty designation.

     As the Old Man strains his sunburned eyes for lights of home on the distant dark shore, he still prays for a successful landing, but instinctively he knows there will be more sharks. Even had he not lost his harpoon it would be worthless now in these shallow waters. Even if his fatigued body had retained the strength to launch the harpoon with any degree of accuracy, there will be no grand majestic opponents worth his fight. There will be only the opportunistic scavengers, too small and too dull to win a victory like the Old Man’s, and too many, of that he is assured. With no other recourse he moves to the stern of his tiny boat and takes the rudder from its fastenings to use it as a club. He drifts rudderless now, pushed only by the wind, the current and his own determintion. He tells the sharks they have killed his dream.

     The Old Man arrives successfully on shore, dead tired but alive. He secures his boat upon the beach head, gathers his merger belongings, leaves the skeleton of the fish tied to the boat and seeks the long-awaited opiate of sleep.

     As the sun rises that morning, the village awakes and sees his boat. “What a fish it must have been.” they exclaim and the few fishermen amongst them think to themselves “What a fight.” One fisherman measures it, 18 feet from nose to tail, the biggest ever caught in these waters. Another fisherman tells The Boy to tell the Old Man how sorry he is.

     In a nearby tourist café a woman peers out the window at the skeleton on the beach and asks the waiter ‘What’s that?”

     “Sharks.” the waiter replied, thinking it’s obvious sharks did that to the great fish. But the woman doesn’t understand.

     “I didn’t know sharks had such large tails,” the lady said.

     “Neither did I.” her husband replied nonchalantly returning to his coffee.

     Up the path from the café, in his small desolate cottage on the outskirts of the village, the Old Man still sleeps as few take time to acknowledge the magnitude of his victory. Meanwhile the world completely fails to comprehend.

      Yet the Old Man still sleeps and still dreams of faraway places and lions playing on the beach.

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[1] The two men, but primarily Fuentes, commonly thought to be Hemingway’s Inspiration, though he publicly proclaimed the Old Man was “based on no one in particular.”

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     THE POLK CITY MURDERERS:

“Ya’da think a feller with a rope round his neck would come to his senses.” Esquire Darnell was the Sheriff of Shelby County, Iowa and the man who put William Hardy, the sole surviving Polk City murderer behind bars, albeit only temporally. “But he stood right there on the bridge, the very assemblage recruited to send him from God’s green Earth straight to Hells fires, and lied through his teeth.”

     “I’d a hung him right then and there.” E.J. sat staring at the potbelly stove in the exact center of the small office while it warmed a pot of stale jailhouse coffee.

     “Said his name was William Smith of Denison, Texas. Aged 22 years. Said his Ma died when he was ten. Said he loved Jesus.” Esquire added.

     “Can’t imagine nobody ‘bout to be hung not askin Jesus’ help.” Curled at E.J.’s feet was his three-legged dog, a black and white collie-ish sort-of-dog, who once got the worst part of a chase involving a runaway team and wagon – his name was Lucky.

      “Said he never killed nobody, said he believed in a Supreme Being. Said only to have been in bad company. Said the greatest crime to which he would confess was he’d ‘borrowed’ some horses.” the sheriff continued.

     “How’d ya catch him?”

     “I Didn’t. Lectricity did.”

     Lucky paid E.J. no never mind when suddenly and deftly, E.J. ejected a large bolus of tobacco juice into the fire. He watched it sizzle briefly on the potbelly’s cast iron innards before the acrid steam reached his nostrils. His unshaven face, defined by a decidedly non-noble nose, was three or four teeth short of a full smile and spittin through them was the one thing he did well. E.J. sat transfixed, staring into the flames while the unexpected answer percolated through his cortex. Finding no refuge of logic on which to take hold, this little drama played out to no end other than utter befuddlement. Only then did E.J. turn to his friend Esquire, spit again and mouth a guttural, ”Whaaat?”

    “Ol’Jeb’s the Constable over’n Polk City, he told me they had an unexplained murder.” Esquire resumed, “He said Mayor Stubbs was woke from a sound sleep one night a couple months ago by two men. They’s a roamin round his bedroom with a darkened lantern.”

     “No good’s ever come from the likes a’those behaviors.” E.J. surmised.

      “Naturally, the mayor, he’s startled, an he sprung from his bed only to fall back in it when a bullet pierced his heart. Left a hole bout the size’a Indianhead nickel.” Esquire Darnell’s voice lowered in a sense of defeat. “A search was made for the assassins. Constable Jeb said no pains an no expense was spared but the search was, alas, in vain.”

     Tobacco juice seeped from the corner of E.J’s half parted lips, then, as his forearm swiped across his

stubbly befuddled face, it joined its predecessors on the brown stained sleeve of his once white shirt, “So how’d they get’em?”

     ‘Not sure they did.” Esquire enjoyed confounding his old friend, it was akin to poking a sleeping pig with a stick. “But then Ol’Jeb, he toll me about how Saturday night last, a man named Clinigan, and his partner Hanger, had just locked up the general store. Store also served as the Polk City Post Office an Mr. Clinigan, well, he’s the Postmaster too, an he had the cash box tucked under his arm.”

     “I’d ‘spect he figured it safer that way. You know, at home under his bed rather than in the cold dark store over the Sabbath.” E.J. surmised again.

     “Maybe so,” Esquire conceded, “But then Ol’Jeb said the key was barely outta the lock when the approaching footsteps of two near-be-goods echoed up off’n the boardwalk inta the two merchant’s ears.”

     “Evening.” Hanger allowed with questioning eyes.

     “Evenin’.” the taller of the two smiled with a diversionary tip of his hat while the shorter made directly for the cash box. There was a scuffle and a few seconds later the postmaster lay dead, a bullet hole through his neck, bout the size of a Indian head nickel.”   

     “They the same what killed the Mayor?”, E.J. asked.

     “Don’t know.” It was another poke at the pig. Lucky righted himself then settled turning his other side to the stove and after an annoyingly long pause, to assure himself Lucky was listening again, Esquire continued, “A posse was rightly formed but not till after the trail was cold. ‘Ceptin for two stole horses down the road apiece the posse didn’t know what way to go so they commenced goin’ every which way.”

     “I’d a gone to Des Moines, got lost in the city”, E.J. advised.

     “Yeah, maybe so,” Esquire agreed, unwisely granting E.J. a momentary stake in the conversation, “but then Charlie Stuart over by Audubon saw the two horse thieves hi’tailin cross his ranch, pushin’ their horses faster an what’s good for’em.”

     “Ain’t no ranches in Audubon, only got farmers in Iowa.”

     “They’s one. You know why?”

     “Why?”

     “Cause Charlie Stuarts a rich sum’bitch an he says so. Charlie wanna call his farm a ranch, then itsa ranch. Calls it Charles Stuart & Son.”

     “That don’t mean its no ranch, just cause he say.”

     “You know what else he got?” both Lucky and the Sheriff ignored E.J.’s argument. “Got himself a Telephone. He surely does.” Esquire slapped his knee to emphasize the enormity of this amazing fact and then continued in quiet reverence. “Strung the wires out from town himself on fence poles an trees. He an his boy. Ain’t no other phone in the country, they’s all in town . . . ‘ceptin his.”

     “So what, so he got a ranch an he got a tellyphone.” E.J. couldn’t connect the dots.

     “SO WHAT? So, Charlie rings up his telephone and gets Marshal Spriggs in town and tells him what he seen. He’s sure it’s the Polk City Murderers skeedaddlin west, fast as the horses could carry’em. Then Spriggs calls the Agent down to the Rock Island and the Agent there sends telegrams to Agents up and down the line, tellin em be on the lookout. Ain’t no horse anywhere ever gonna out run lectricity.”

     E.J. pushed his chair back on its two hind legs, spit once more into the fire and allowed only the momentary widening whiteness of his eyeballs to convey the magnitude of his recognition. Lucky too sensed the occasion and propped himself up on his one front leg, cocked his head, leaning his one good ear towards E.J. and awaited his master’s proclamation.

     E.J. had been born into a world where no word had ever traveled faster than a man on horseback. Then, when the concept was fully matured, when he understood, to the very depths of his soul that today, the world that he knew had changed forever. Only then did he speak. “Sheee-it.”

     Lucky staired at E.J. with large liquid eyes, reflecting all the empathy a three-legged dog could muster for a man who the world had just passed by. Lucky circled the stove once and laid back down with a yawn inspired by the total confidence there would be no change, at least not in his three-legged world, today.

     “Word got out up and down the line, the posse started growin and it weren’t long till they weren’t just chasin em murderers, theys waitin for em. Word starts commin in by telegraph sayin’ where they been and where theys headed. Turns out they rode west all night from Polk City then compelled a farmer in Guthrie County to gettem breakfast fore they stole his two best horses. Rode em all night into Audubon County where next morning saw Hugh McGill over in Melville Township, workin a fine team out in the cornfield. They approached him with revolvers drawn, ‘We want your team.’ they threatened.”

     “Theys makin’ a mistake.” E.J. said, he was getting into the story himself now. “Makes no never-mind how fine a team, everybody knows a teams built for walkin. All day long. Built for walkin back and forth in the field. Built for endurance, ain’t built for runnin, ain’t built for speed. Theys shuda knowed.”

     “Probably did.” Esquire was willing to give his buddy his due, “but their tired now, ain’t slept, their guts gnawing on their backbone they so hungry an it ain’t like they got a lotta options. They rode west on the old Mormon Trail. Some think theys tryin to get to Kansas Territory. Come across John Gardner and E. Baxter building a bridge cross Indian Creek. John tells em bridge ain’t safe yet but the manner in which the duo received the news raised suspicion. They jumpt the stream and galloped off full speed. John and Baxter saddled up and follered. Got as far as Elkhorn Grove fore one a the team horses broke down. They knowed theys be’in chased but theys all outta runnin. Both’em mount the remainin horse and ride into the grove.”

     “Told ya.” E.J. grinned with sleuthful self-satisfaction.

     “When they couldn’t go no farther, they tied up the horse and proceeded deeper inta the grove on foot.”

     “Gottem now.” In his mind E.J. was now a full sworn member of the posse.

     “Gardner, Baxter and two ol’Dane farmers who lived close by went into the woods and brought the horse out. They stayed keepin a eye out and in a short time twenty farmers had joined the stakeout. Bout noon Gardner and a couple fellers decided to go through the grove, but their reconnaissance revealed nothin new. Word got out, more men arrived, the grove was surrounded, and a scheme was hatched to form a line an march through the woods, each man bout 20 feet apart. Maybe 300 yards into the woods young Willis Hallock calls out, ‘Here they are!’ whereupon he gets hisself shot. Shot dead.”

     “Damn, Willis was a good man. He was to get married soon but I liked him anyway.”

     “Nobody else seen em what with all the confusion an tryin to help Willis, the murderers escape further into the woods. By nightfall there’s no less that 300 men surrounding the woods and more comin every minute. There’s lots of noises too, what with everyone around an lots of nerves on edge. Four maybe five times durin the night shots is fired at the noise, thinkin maybe the villains try’n to escape, but with no useful purpose.”

     “Gotta wait till sunup.” E.J., now the sage.

     “By morning we had ourselves a regular ole Chautauqua. Peoples bringin food and coffee. Town folk, not keen on helpin, were drivin their ladies out in fancy carriages some dressed like church goin. Dogs an kids playin in the dirt. An stories, my lord, stories galore. You’d think each and everyone there already had a personal encounter with the killers. Only thing missin was a brass band.”

     “Several forays into the woods led to speculation, maybe the killers had escaped during the night but a final march though the grove orchestrated by some serious cool-headed officers, flushed the culprits. One, the tall one, pulled his revolver and gut shot John Maddy, the ball takin him in the side.”

     “But he lived though didn’t he?”

     “Ain’t dead yet.” Esquire conceded, “The murderers though they was done and they knew it. Started runnin for their lives but it was a race theys destined to lose. Bout 40 yard out into the wheat field, Levi Montgomery shot the leader down. That sent the remainin racer back into the woods.”

     “The shot man, the tall one, name was Tommy, lived only about another 30 minutes. At first, he refused to talk about the Stubbs murder but then, when the taste of death was full in his mouth an he knew deep down in his damned soul he’d never see another sunrise, he confessed to shooting Clinigan and the two men in the grove.”

     “By this time there were present fully 2,000 people and a chant rung out as the second man was led from the woods at gunpoint, hands tied behind his back. “Hang him!” “Hang him.” They cried.

     “How’ed you stop’em?” E.J. asked.

     “I didn’t, not then. Polk County Sheriff wanted to take charge, but the crowd would have none of it. He tried to speak to the crowd, other good citizens tried too. They pleaded with them not to defeat justice, told em not to feel the touch of human blood on their hands.”

     “The boy appealed too and for awhile cool heads succeeded in gaining a calm. They even fed the boy when they learn’t he ain’t ate for two full days.”

     “I’da hung him, right then and there. Don’t care ‘ifin he didn’t pull the trigger his self. He’s a ‘complice, just as guilty.” E.J. had just graduated from posse to a regular Judge Lynch.

     “Lotta folks felt the same. Be prudent just to finish it there, no telln what a shyster lawyer or a bought judge might do for the man.”  Esquire Darnell really didn’t want to believe what he just said. Being Sheriff and all, he couldn’t. However, he did know the reality and he understood the feeling, not that there existed any lawyers or judges of that ilk in Shelby County. “The crowd weren’t done. One of our

boys lay stone cold dead havin spent his last day on the green side’a the grass, another still got warm red blood seepin out his side an down his back. No sir, the crowd weren’t done, theys got too much stored up energy and ain’t yet got no satisfaction.”

     “Rope!” came from the crowd.

      “Rope!” Someone else yelled again.

     “Get a rope! Get a rope” repeated through the crowd and the echo gave birth to a mob.” Esquire just shook his head and stared at his boots. “Good people got caught up an a rope was produced. Nobody could stop em from tyin’ up the boy again, not just his hands, wound the rope round his body with arms pinned to his side, only his legs is free. Nobody could rightly complain about tyin’ up the scoundrel but then they put ‘nother rope round his neck.”

    The mob spoke, “Take him to the bridge!”

     “They turned south and led him with the rope nearly a mile to the bridge at Indian Creek, yelling violently all the way, so much so it frightened the horses and upset some buggies. Yet the boy stayed calm. Oh, he begged for mercy, to be sure, yet he seem perfectly cool in all his actions. He was taken to the center of the bridge and told he must soon die, a fact he’d already presumed, and it didn’t seem to ruffle him in the least.”

     “I’da been shaken in my boots an peein’ in my pants.” E.J. correctly surmised.

     “He asked for a pencil and paper for to write his mother and asked if someone would convey it, along with the $14 in his pocket to her. Dick Griggs came up with the back of a scale-book leaf and a little stubby pencil with which the condemned wrote the following:”

To Mrs. Ellen Crist, Butler, Bates County, Missouri.

Dear Mother,

As I am now on the gallows, speaking the last time to you, I will speak in sorrowful although in firm tones. I am sorry to have come to such an end. I know it will nearly kill you, but it is my fault, not yours. Mr. Griggs will see that I am decently buried and give you the details of the case. I will send you what money I have and a lock of my hair, that will, I hope, have some bearing on the future life of the boys.

Your loving son, 

WM. HARDY

     “That made him seem damn near human.” E.J said, “What’d you do next?”

     “Prominent men spoke on his behalf or at least on the side of justice and the law. The prisoner spoke at length of his innocence then more people tried to cool the crowd. They was wearin em down. That’s when I come to the idea to put’in it to a vote. I had my buggy there with me in the middle of the bridge, I stood Hardy up in it, long side me and fired off a couple shots into the air. Got their attention well enough to propose a vote. Couldn’t count hands and there weren’t no ballots, so I suggested all in favor of hangin him stand on the east side of the bridge, on the road to Audubon. Those in favor of grantin’ him mercy stand on the west side, on the road to Harlan.”

     “So, they voted him mercy?” E.J. asked incredulously.

     “Hell no, most all wanted to hang the bastard right then and there. They all went to east end to be counted. Blocked the road they did.” Sheriff Darnell laughed at the memory. “Only a few God-fearing souls went west to stand on the road to Harlan. That’s when I sat his sorry ass down in the buggy seat, grabbed the reins, snapped the whip and headed west fast as the horses could go. Had him all locked up in the Shelby County jail near ‘fore nobody knowed what happened!”

HARDY LYNCHED

Shelby County Record, Harlan Iowa

July 30, 1882

William Hardy was confined in the jail at Harlan July 14, and on the night of the 24^th of the same month, at about two o’clock A.M., the city fire-bell rang an alarm to awaken the citizens, who speedily as possible, after finding the trouble, went to the county jail, which had been quietly surrounded by about fifty masked men, who frightened the keys from the jailor’s wife, they then securely tied the jailor, and at once proceeded to take Hardy from his cell, which they quickly accomplished, and hastened him along through the town to the bridge; just south of the town, crossing the Nishnabotna River at a point near JW Chatburn’s flouring mill, where from all that could be traced by the officers who looked the ground over afterward, it seem they hung and shot the outlaw, and afterward threw his body into the river. The only conversation heard by Judge Chatburn, who, upon hearing the noise, stepped to his doorway, when he heard someone say, “Please don’t shoot me, boys” Again a voice said. “Pull him up from the water!” and immediately there were not less than 100 shots fired, a dozen or more of which took deadly effect in the body of Hardy.

Hundreds of people began to crowd around the scene by this time, but at night no one seemed to lead, and those who constituted the mob of lynchers made good their escape, some going in one direction and some in another.

A search was at once made. JH Weeks, member of the Harlan fire department, volunteered to go into the river in search of the body, which in less than ten minutes was found and brought to the shore.

Upon examination it seemed quite certain that he had at first been hung, and then shot at by the mob as they passed along by the man in rapid succession. Some of the dozen or more balls had penetrated his heart; the size of the bullets were thirty-two caliber. The teeth of the corpse were firmly set, showing that Hardy had died as he lived – a man of iron nerve. His hand had been tied behind him with a piece of cheek-rower cord, the same as was used in binding the jailor.

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