Savage Run

27

After entering the house and kissing Sheridan, Marybeth asked if Joe had called. Sheridan, still lounging on her pillows in front of the TV, answered that he hadn’t.

Marybeth dropped the Tom Horn book on the kitchen table and launched herself into scrubbing the counters and washing the dishes. It was a way of fighting off the sense of dread she had been feeling since the telephone calls and the incident with Ginger Finotta in the library. It was barely four in the afternoon and Joe had said he would be back by dark or call first. It was still early, and she had no good reason to feel such anxiousness.

Reading the book hadn’t helped. Although it meandered through Tom Horn’s Indian fighting days-he was one of those hired to pursue Geronimo-and his service with the U.S. Army in Cuba, what interested her were the chapters at the end of the book. Those chapters covered the period when Tom Horn was hired by Wyoming ranchers to clear out rustlers and homesteaders in southern Wyoming. The ranchers were a gentlemanly, genteel group. Many had nothing to do with day-to-day ranch work, which they hired out to their foremen, and they spent their days in the men’s clubs wearing fashionable clothing and their nights in a cluster of beautiful Victorian homes in Cheyenne. Some had visited their vast holdings up north only for occasional hunting trips. They knew, however, that the presence of rustlers, outlaws, and settlers threatened not only their income but also their political power base and the concept of open range. The ranchers were all members of the nascent Wyoming Cattle Growers’ Association. So it was decided among a cabal of association members that the rustlers had to go, and it would be best if it were accomplished ruthlessly, to send a powerful message. Based on the landowners’ experience in the territory thus far, local law enforcement couldn’t handle the job. The rustlers were local and their connections within the community were pervasive. For example, the rustlers knew well in advance when a sheriff’s posse was forming or where deputies were going to be sent to try to break them up.

So Tom Horn was hired, supposedly to break horses for the Swan Land and Cattle Company. He lived alone in a rough cabin in the rocky Iron Mountain range, which was country better suited for mountain lions than for people. But there was no mistaking the real reason he was in the area, and it had little to do with horses.

One by one, men suspected of rustling turned up dead. They were found in the high sagebrush flats and amid the granite crags of the Medicine Bow Mountains. There was a pattern to their deaths. All were found shot in the head, probably from a great distance, with a large caliber rifle bullet. And under their lifeless heads, someone had placed a rock.

“You be good,” parents of the time would say to their children, “or Tom Horn’ll get you!”

At five, Marybeth called the dispatcher to find out if there had been any word from Joe. The dispatcher said that according to the log, Joe had not called in the entire day. At Marybeth’s request, the dispatcher tried to reach him, but after several attempts, she reported that either Joe’s radio was turned off or he was simply out of range. Both Marybeth and the dispatcher knew how difficult it could be at times to make contact with officers in the mountains.

At five-thirty, Marybeth called the Sheriff’s Office. Joe had promised to call the sheriff and advise him of his whereabouts, as well as his agenda. Sheriff Barnum was out of town at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas for firearms recertification, and Marybeth didn’t trust Deputy McLanahan enough to tell him her suspicions. Barnum was not expected back until late Sunday afternoon. The Sheriff’s Office told Marybeth that Joe had called early in the morning and had left his cell phone number for the sheriff to use when and if he called in.

Marybeth felt a flash of anger at Joe. Knowing Joe, he had probably been grateful that Barnum wasn’t in. This way, he could investigate the cabin on his own. This was the kind of stubborn behavior that worried and enraged her. She tried to relax, telling herself that he was probably just fine, simply out of radio or cell phone range. He was probably rumbling up out of the trees with the horse trailer after having met Stewie Woods-or not. He would certainly call her when he could. But dammit, he had no right to put her through this.

She stepped out of Sheridan’s line of sight while she composed her thoughts. She breathed deeply and calmed herself. The one thing she didn’t want to do was to worry Sheridan, because the two of them would feed off of each other and their dual concern would escalate-which wouldn’t accomplish anything of value. Marybeth was grateful that Lucy and April were both at church camp so there were two less children to hide her feelings from. But then, at times like these, she wanted all of her children around her. She wanted to be able to shelter and protect them.

She thought of Trey Crump, Joe’s district supervisor in Cody. He was a good guy, and wouldn’t begrudge her calling him for advice. It was still much too early to panic, but if Trey was aware of the situation he might have some ideas on how to proceed, and he was the closest to the mountains-although from the other side-if it were necessary to start a search.

Joe had taken a copy of the directions she had written down when Stewie called, but Marybeth assumed the original was still in the small desktop copier in his office. She noted that Sheridan’s eyes were on her as she crossed the family room and entered Joe’s office.

“Anything wrong, Mom?” Sheridan asked.

“No, nothing,” Marybeth answered a little too quickly.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Sheridan said from her cushions. “A man came here today and left a letter for Dad.”

Marybeth stepped from the office doorway holding the envelope that was printed with the return address of Whelchel, Bushko, and Marchand, Attorneys at Law.

“You need to tell me these things,” Marybeth snapped.

Sheridan did her best “Hey, I’m innocent” shrug. “I just did,” she explained. “Besides, people drop stuff off for Dad all the time.”

Marybeth sighed, knowing Sheridan was right. Still holding the envelope, she found the directions in the copier, exactly where she thought they would be. Then she stared at the writing on the envelope.

Game Warden. Important.

Important enough to open now, she wondered? Important enough for the game warden’s wife to open it?

“Tell me what the man looked like,” she asked Sheridan.

“Jeez, chill, mom,” Sheridan said, turning the television volume down with the remote control. “He was an older guy, probably sixty or so. He had on a cowboy hat and jeans. He had a potbelly and he seemed like a nice guy. He said his name was Jim Coble or something like that.”

Marybeth thought about it. The description wasn’t much help, except that the man wasn’t someone they knew.

Trey Crump wasn’t at home so Marybeth talked to his wife. They agreed that this kind of situation was maddeningly familiar and would probably reduce both their normal life expectancies. Mrs. Crump said she would have Trey call Marybeth as soon as she heard from him.

“Tell him I’m not panicking,” Marybeth asked. “That’s important.”

Mrs. Crump said she understood.

The gentlemen ranchers, the pampered sons of industrialists and shipping magnates and bankers from Europe and New York and Boston, had gotten together and conspired over brandy and cigars and had determined that the local authorities were too stupid, too ineffectual, and too familiar with the rustlers and the settlers to eliminate the problem. What they needed, to preserve the status quo and the dominant concept of open range, was a calculating hired assassin from the outside who would answer only to them.

So Tom Horn was brought in, hired by an associate who could not directly implicate them, to do the job.

The rustlers were criminals, but they were not treated with the condemnation by the public that they deserved, the ranchers thought. Rustlers were often portrayed as dashing cowboy rogues, the last of the frontiersmen. The settlers, who were building shanties (some actually burrowing into the earth like human rodents) and putting up fences on their open range, were thought of as rugged individualists. Public sentiment was growing against the gentlemen ranchers. Locals spoke of a distinction between the ranchers who lived on their land and took on the elements and the markets as opposed to the gentlemen ranchers who lived in Cheyenne and managed their affairs over fine dinners and liquor sent out daily on the Union Pacific.

So the ranchers started a small war. And they were very successful, at least for a while.

Marybeth lowered the book and her eyes burned a hole into the clock above the stove. It was six-thirty, and shadows were beginning to grow across the road on Wolf Mountain. Joe hadn’t called in. Neither had Trey Crump.

Maybe this is what Ginger Finotta was trying to tell her. Maybe, she thought, the ranchers were going to war again.

She drew the envelope from her pocket. It could be anything. It could be a letter asking about where the man could get permission to hunt. In the Rockies, men generally thought that anything to do with hunting should be labeled “Important.” And ranchers thought anything that had to do with their land was important.

She ripped open the envelope and pulled out a single folded sheet and read the wavering script.

“Oh My God,” she said aloud.

“Mom, what is it?” Sheridan called from the other room.