Bound by more than blood

(Final part of the story, see sjrnews.com)
After the Norte trial concluded, Mark Gudmundsen didn’t know why some unexplained internal force compelled him to move to Bluff and work for his granduncle, Jacob Adams. Unknown to Mark, Jacob had a nearly identical experience forty-four years earlier. 
Violence broke out at the final dance of Monticello’s Pioneer Day celebration in 1891. A Texas cowboy lay dead from a gunshot on the dance floor of the old log church, his reward for trying to calm Tom Roach, his drunk friend; before the night was over, well-loved and highly respected, Jane Walton was also dead.
Following the death of the cowboy, the situation worsened when Tom Roach, with a gun in hand, blocked anyone from leaving the building. 
William C. Walton, the grandson of Jane, said,
“...a boy about eighteen or nineteen slipped away from the dance and went down to my grandfather’s home, picked up my grandfather’s rifle from above the fireplace, and returned to the crowd; he was going to shoot the cowboy Tom Roach.”
Charles E. Walton Sr., Jane’s husband, recorded the only known account of precisely what happened, 
“Between twelve and one o’clock, Roach started a row and killed a cowboy. Jane was accidentally shot and killed by Jacob Adams, a drunken Mormon boy, with my gun, a 45-70 caliber. The ball passed through her body just under the arms, killing her instantly.”
For nearly 100 years, details of the shooting of Jane Walton were known only to her family and the shooter. The Waltons knew her death was a terrible accident by a remorseful young man who, from that moment, changed his life. They chose to keep the details from the public to spare the shame and disruption a trial would bring.
Not until 1990 did Jane’s great-grandson Harold Allen reveal the specifics: “Just to set the record straight and let people know that the Waltons don’t hold grudges.”
Jacob became a well-known and respected cattleman in the region, loved by all who knew him. He and his wife never had children, but his influence was significant. He mentored many local young men, including his grandnephew, who dreamed of being cowboys.
I’ve not found anything written that tells what Jacob and Mark talked about as they rode through this special place we call home, but whatever was said created an unbreakable bond between them. Mark, with one other cowboy, were the only witnesses to Jacob’s last ride that October day in 1940 when he spurred his horse into a flash flood in White Canyon that ended his life.
Of the three individuals involved in this story, only one had children, Alexander Norte. That child, Alexander Ferrier Norte, later changed his surname to North. Mark Gudmundsen was married for a short time but had no children. Jacob Adams and his long-time wife, Lucy Bronson, were also childless for unknown reasons.
We all deserve to be remembered; remembering those without offspring is tasked to the rest of us. Our connections, whether by blood, common experiences, or shared tragedies, motivate us to tell the stories of people we are connected to but are not closely related. 
I could write volumes about the connections I have uncovered in this story over the past month, but one stands out as the most sublime.
Alexander Norte’s only son, Alexander Ferrier North and Mark Gudmundsen, served in the 90th Bombardment Group in the western South Pacific in WWII. There is no proof that the two ever met; more than a thousand men were in that group. Still, they were there at the same time, in the same unit, were tasked to the same raids in different but identical planes and decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross in the same month and likely on the same day on the same New Guinea beach. North was a pilot, and Mark was a gunner.
On August 29, 1943, less than two weeks after receiving the decoration, young North’s plane was shot down by Japanese warplanes off the coast of Papua New Guinea and lost at sea; he was never seen nor heard from again.
If they had met and realized their connection, oh, what I would have given to have been a fly on the trunk of a palm tree to overhear what was said.
Sources
Allen, Stephen, “The Killing of Jane McKechnie Walton” Blue Mountain Shadows, vol 10, Summer 1992.