Now, for the first time, he made a study of them, and his readings became more refined and precise, enabling him to avoid or deal with trouble as a law officer.
Fritzi was careful not to favor his son-in-law unfairly on the job, but with a year under his belt, Curtis was easily the best of his deputies, except perhaps for the undersheriff. So he promoted him to corporal.
The duties weren’t often dangerous, or even particularly onerous. With the repeal of prohibition, several bars had opened in Nehtaka, and drunkenness became more common, or at least more open. The Moose Hall quickly got a liquor license, followed promptly by the Swedish Club, the Sons of Norway, and the Finnish Brotherhood.
Public drunkenness, fighting, and traffic violations made up most of the work load, and the brawlers in particular could be hard to handle. So in 1935, Fritzi sent Macurdy to Seattle for three weeks of intensive jujitsu training under a Japanese who advertised in law enforcement journals. Macurdy came back with a certificate of completion, another as “best student,” and an excellent basic grasp of principles as well as very useful techniques. Fritzi then had him train the other deputies, and afterward, Macurdy claimed that teaching had been almost as helpful as taking the course in the first place.
More important, he had a definite talent for cajoling drunks and others out of violence, and when cajolery wasn’t adequate, onlookers were invariably impressed with his new physical skills, which augmented his previous reputation nicely, and helped make cajolery effective.
At the jujitsu classes, Curtis Macurdy met a Jack McCurdy, a deputy sheriff from Lewis County, Washington. Jack MaCurdy’s uncle kept saddle horses on his place near Morton, Washington, and on three different summers, Curtis and Mary went with Jack and his wife on horseback trips into the wild high country of the Cascade Mountains. They’d pack in to a lake and make camp. It was the women who fished, while the men explored the craggy higher country on horseback and afoot. Jack asked Curtis where he’d learned to ride so skillfully.
Curtis didn’t tell him it had been in a world called Yuulith. He thought it best not to.
He never imagined the experience gained in those Cascade outings would prove valuable, a few years later.
Traffic accidents increased with the constant increase in cars and speeds, and Macurdy had occasions to use his shamanic skills to save a life.
In addition he’d received valuable first-aid training as a deputy, but more interesting was the help he got from Doe Wesley. Fritzi had bragged to the doctor about his son-in-law’s work on his arm and Klara’s leg and hip. The doctor loaned Macurdy basic texts on anatomy and physiology, with the comment: “If you’re going to mess around with healing, you’d better know something about bodies.”
Much of the physiological material was over Macurdy’s head. His only actual instruction in science had been in the eighth grade, in the one-room Maple Crossing School, which was innocent of a laboratory. But he found the anatomy text, and the more general physiological discussions both understandable and interesting. Particularly since on several evenings, Doc Wesley took the time to answer and even discuss his questions.
In 1937, Mary got pregnant again, and again miscarried. Macurdy wondered if perhaps he was snake-bit on the subject of fatherhood. Or if the ylvin strain in his ancestry might have something to do with his family tendency not to beget many children, at least with regular humans.
By that time he was reading a German language weekly paper, the California Demokrat from San Francisco. Reading it aloud, because Klara could no longer see well enough to read newspaper print. He’d read all of it that interested her, with only occasional corrections of pronunciation. Fritzi told him he had a talent for German, that if he ever went to Germany, he’d get along just fine.
In the fall of 1937 they got a new young preacher at Holy Redeemer, Pastor Jacob Huseby. Pastor Huseby’s wife, Margaret, was said to have an eye for men. It was even rumored that in
Huseby’s last church, she’d seduced a teenaged parishioner, who’d become so guilt-stricken, he’d run away. Macurdy was skeptical; wishful thinking, he told himself. Margaret Huseby was well-built and sexy, and he’d heard men say they wished she’d seduce them.