by Robert Greer
“No.”
“Did Mom?”
“Pretty certain she didn’t.”
“Well, Spoon sure as heck knew you went, and I’ve got a feeling that he thinks there’s a connection between that trespasser, Ricky, and our natural gas seep.”
My dad shrugged. “What kinda connection?”
“Beats me,” I said, noting that the pump was nearly assembled. “I just got a feeling, after talking to him about that rider and what I saw, that he can see something in all of this that you and I can’t.”
Dad chuckled. “Not another one of his premonitions.”
Bats fluttered in the rafters as the barn door slid open, grating along on ancient wheels inside a concrete guide. Spoon stood in the open doorway. It had started to rain, and a thin mist filled the door opening. With the mist undulating behind him, Spoon somehow seemed suspended. “Got problems with the pump again?” he asked, closing the gap between us.
“Not for long,” my dad said, standing and eyeing the reassembled pump. He looked at Spoon pensively, “Did Marva tell you I was goin’ into Billings today?”
“Nope.”
“Umm. Well, it sure as heck looks like I missed somethin’ by traipsin’ off to talk to Ricky Peterson instead of stickin’ here. TJ told me about the trespassin’ horseman. What’s your take on what he mighta been up to?”
“Don’t know exactly,” Spoon said, glancing toward the rafters. “But I can tell you this. There’s a connection between the rider TJ saw, your lawyer in Billings, and that old gas seep of yours. A connection that goes back to the root of our problems with Acota.”
“Can you spell it out?” my dad asked, a note of disbelief in his tone.
“Nope. I just know there is one. What about your lawyer? Can you trust him?” Spoon asked with obvious reluctance.
“I damn sure can, regardless of any of your conjured-up visions.” Dad shook his head, stepped over to the well, pump in hand, and began bolting the pump back into place. After securing two of the four bolts that held the pump to the well head, he looked up at Spoon, ratcheted down the final two bolts, and dusted off his hands. “You’re way off base if you’re thinkin’ Ricky Peterson might be involved in any double-dealin’ here, Spoon. Miles off.”
“I didn’t say he was,” Spoon countered.
“Well, you damn sure implied it.” Dad worked the pump handle up and down until he had a resistant vacuum. “No more prognosticatin’ for now, okay?”
Spoon offered a reluctant “Okay” as a healthy stream of water poured from the pump’s rusty spigot.
“Good. Now that that’s settled and we got ourselves water, I say we pack it in for the evenin’.” Dad dropped to one knee and began wiping down his tools with a moist shop rag. There was a clear tension between him and Spoon that I hadn’t felt in a very long while—tension brought on by Spoon’s soothsaying, the one thing about the hired man that my dad had never fully come to grips with, and the one thing that had the potential to pull them apart again.
Twelve
The following uneasy, muggy week was unseasonably hot. Each day the temperatures rose a notch until by week’s end we were suffering through humid, windless days in the high eighties.
Spoon made a trip at the end of the week to the town of Colstrip, seventy-five miles north of our ranch, to search out the old Cheyenne Indian man who supposedly knew details about Elijah Witherspoon, the buffalo soldier who’d been killed in an avalanche a century earlier and who Spoon reasoned was his great-grandfather. He came home somber and empty-handed when the old man denied any knowledge of Elijah.
Disappointed, Spoon redoubled his efforts to search out his roots, taking on a schedule at the ranch that had him working from five to three and using the hours at the end of the workday to drive around the countryside and talk to people or go into Hardin to visit the library or courthouse and search through records before
they closed.
On one of his days off, a day that was particularly overcast and gray, I watched him take off at six in the morning for parts unknown. When he came back that evening, looking tired and sullen, my mom asked him if he’d been able to track down any of his people. Looking forlorn,
he walked past my mom and me as we picked grapes and mumbled, “Not really.”
His churlish mood seemed to match that of my dad, who’d grown frustrated trying to coordinate a group of ranchers whose goals didn’t quite mesh. A week after the shaky Willow Creek Ranchers Coalition was formed, word surfaced that the Demasters had not just leased their mineral rights to Acota, but were in the process of negotiating the sale of the entire ranch to the coal, oil, and gas barons, which meant Acota could potentially become not only an energy company exploring for minerals, but a cattle business competitor as well.
To add a lightning edge to things, a couple days after my sighting of the trespassing rider in gray, Willard Johnson had briefly spotted him near Four Corners, just down the hill from the natural gas seep. Neither my dad nor I had yet mentioned the trespasser to Willard. Dad hadn’t had a chance to because of two trips he’d had to take to Billings—which made Willard boiling mad when he ultimately heard about the trespasser. When Dad finally broached the subject, Willard called Sheriff Woodson out to the ranch and had the sheriff ride the property with him on an old ATV. They looked for the rider in gray for hours with no luck. The next day Willard took to carrying an old Colt revolver and a 12-gauge shotgun with him.
A day later, when four men in a new red crew-cab truck with the Acota logo and an oil derrick inside a diamond stenciled on the front doors appeared near Four Corners, Willard took several shots at them.
The man behind the wheel, who happened to be the chief of Acota’s coal exploration operations and a seasoned veteran of the agri-corporate energy wars, had encountered friction between ranchers and his company before, so Willard’s shots didn’t faze him. He simply pulled the vehicle into a protective stand of aspen and called Sheriff Woodson on his two-way. The sheriff in turn hastily called us out to Four Corners, along with Ed Koffman, Willard, Dale Turpin, and the Cundiffs.
Forty-five minutes later, Spoon, my dad, and I stood in a tight semicircle in the blazing noonday sun, fifteen feet from the brass survey pin that marked the spot where the four pioneer-family Willow Creek ranches came together. Ralph Cundiff, rocking nervously from side to side, and Willard Johnson stood just to my left. Dale Turpin stood next to Willard. With his right foot planted firmly on the survey marker, Sheriff Woodson stared stone faced at us from fifteen feet away. A few steps to the sheriff’s right, Acota’s field operations chief, who had been introduced by the sheriff as Larry Volks, stood rubbing his hands together. The three other men in the Acota truck had stayed in their vehicle, which was now parked just in front of the aspen stand. It was clear that their truck was on Willard’s property and a good twenty yards west of our property line.
As we stood baking in the sun, trying to iron things out and waiting for Ed Koffman to arrive, I had the sense that had it been a hundred years earlier, given the same circumstances, someone might have been lying on the ground with a bullet in him.
Standing almost shoulder to shoulder, Spoon and my dad had barely moved since our arrival. It was as if any differences between them had evaporated the instant we’d taken off for Four Corners.
Spoon’s eyes were locked on the horizon and the access road above us. The road, no more than a cow path, petered out just beyond the aspen stand and the Acota truck. Spoon had been reluctant to come along at first, but now, as he stood looking west, never altering his stance or his gaze, I sensed that we were moments away from someone or something appearing over the horizon.
When the clearly angry sheriff announced seconds after his walkie-talkie erupted in a blaze of static that Koffman was a minute or so away, I nodded to myself and whispered, “Knew it.” I didn’t like that Woodson looked somehow pleased over Koffman’s impending arrival, nor did I like the fact that he kept gazing suspiciously toward Spoon, but
under the circumstances, I knew better than to voice my opinions.
Spoon was the first to see dust rising in the distance. “Here he comes.” He tipped his Stetson forward on his head and shaded his eyes with a cupped left hand.
“Don’t see why we need a messiah from Acota playin’ referee here,” said Willard. “It’s clear as a bell that Koffman’s people were trespassin’.” Willard glanced menacingly toward the Acota pickup and back at the sheriff. “I’m thinkin’ you’re a tad more partial to energy folks than us cattlemen, Cain, and I don’t like it one bit.”
“I’m not partial to anybody, damnit, Willard, and I’d appreciate it if you’d pipe down for a second. And for the record, trespassin’ or not, shootin’ at someone constitutes what the law generally views as unnecessary force, maybe even assault.” The sheriff glanced toward the calm-looking Volks.
“Bullshit,” said Willard, kicking at a huge anthill at his feet. As thousands of ants scurried for cover, Willard stomped after them, scowled at the sheriff, and reiterated, “Bullshit.”
Less than a minute later, a pickup identical in color, make, and model to the one Willard had shot at rolled to within fifty feet of us. I couldn’t make out who the driver was, but a serious Koffman began easing his way out of the front passenger seat the instant the truck pulled to a stop. Contrary to the image I’d conjured up during our wait in the searing sun, Koffman didn’t look either menacing or sleazy. Nor did he appear sly, calculating, or even evil, as I’d heard him described by several members of the coalition over the past week. What he looked like was a jowly, determined, slightly less fidgety man than the one who’d been at our house some eleven weeks earlier.
“Why the hell haven’t you arrested Willard, Cain?” Koffman called out, keeping his eyes locked on the sheriff as he approached. “The man tried to shoot my field operations chief.”
Koffman was on top of Woodson before the other man could respond, wagging an index finger at him and kicking the dirt. “He’s a reactionary fool!” Koffman bellowed, obviously intent on putting on a show. The only reaction he got from Willard, however, was an unresponsive stare generated by my dad’s raised-eyebrow plea for Willard to cool it.
When I looked at Spoon to gauge his reaction, I realized that his gaze was fixed on the man who’d driven Koffman to the scene and who now stood stoically next to the crew cab’s open driver’s-side door.
Spoon’s eyes never moved from the driver—and
suddenly, neither did mine. Standing there, six foot two at least, as broad shouldered and muscular as my dad, was the trespassing horseman, outfitted from head to toe in gray. He was wearing expensive lizard-skin boots, and his shirt and gabardine pants looked as if they’d been tailored. Except for the absence of his Johnny Reb cap and the diamond earring in his left earlobe, something I hadn’t been able to see from a distance the day I’d first spotted him, he was the magnified image of the man I’d seen exploring our natural gas seep. His aquamarine eyes were mesmerizing, and his nearly shoulder-length hair, a little longer than Spoon’s, gave him a ghostly George Armstrong Custer look.
My jaw dropped, and I muttered, “Damn.” When I glanced over at Spoon and my dad, whose eyes were also set on the man in gray, I swore I saw a hint of recognition in Spoon’s eyes. As I stood gawking, looking back and forth between the three men, I realized that Spoon was
dissecting our trespasser. When the man looked past me and directly at Spoon as he walked over to join Koffman, I had the sense that he was just as intently examining Spoon. It seemed that the strange evaluative process would continue indefinitely until Ed Koffman broke the silence.
“Can we get this over with, Cain? I don’t have all day to stand out here in the sun and bake.” As if he needed to add something more profound, Koffman said to no one in particular, “We may be the unwanted and the unwelcomed out here right now, gentlemen, but trust me, in the end we’ll have our way.”
My dad bristled as Willard Johnson, unable to control himself any longer, shouted, “The hell you will!”
Looking pleased that he’d finally ruffled Willard, Koffman said, “The Demasters have folded their tent, in case you missed it, Willard. Others will follow.” There was a grating smugness in his tone.
“You fuckin’…” Willard reared back, lowered his head, and charged the startled-looking Koffman.
Sheriff Woodson took a step forward to shove Willard aside, but the man in gray was quicker, and the short, swift karate chop he landed just beneath the back of Willard’s skull sent him sprawling.
“Damnit!” The sheriff unholstered his 9-millimeter, raised it skyward, and squeezed off two rounds. The crack of gunfire froze everyone, including the man in gray, and my dad and Spoon squatted in preparation for rushing the mysterious trespasser. “I’ll use this thing!” Woodson stepped back to help the dazed Willard get up.
As Willard stumbled to his feet, the sheriff eyed the man in gray. “Now, friend, just who the hell are you?”
It was Ed Koffman who responded. “He’s Matt Rodue, chief of field operations security at Acota.”
“Pretty quick to react, aren’t we, Mr. Rodue?” said the sheriff, holstering his weapon.
Rodue remained silent as the thoroughly embarrassed Willard Johnson dusted himself off.
Looking incensed, the sheriff said, “Well, Mr. Rodue, since you seem bent on swallowin’ your tongue, here’s a two-word note for you to tack up on your office wall back at corporate headquarters. No trespassin’! Your people were trespassin’ on private property, friend, and out here that’s a no-no. You got it?”
“They lost their bearings, Cain,” said Koffman, again running interference. “Four huge ranches coming together at this one spot. It’s easy to get turned around.”
“Easy, smeasy—your folks were on land they don’t belong on,” said the sheriff. “Do it again and I’ll get an injunction to keep your vehicles out of the whole damn county. Your buddies over there by the aspen, quakin’ in their boots inside their truck, damn near started a war.”
The sheriff stared us down one by one. “So here, my good folks, is the skinny. Bill, I want you and that ex-con hired man of yours to stay inside your fences. Willard—I need you to do the same. And while you’re at it, for God’s sake, try and check your temper. The same goes for the rest of you,” he said, eyeing Dale Turpin and finally Ralph Cundiff, who’d both been strangely silent.
Turning to face Koffman, he said, “As for you, Ed, and your karate-kid friend here, stay the hell off private property. Am I clear?”
Sounding neither acquiescent nor sincere, Koffman said, “Yes.”
His voice still booming, the sheriff said, “I’m gonna be forced to file a long, detailed report about what happened here today, and that’s gonna take me away from things I should be doin’ that are more important. I don’t ever wanna have to file another such report about problems out here in this valley for as long as I’m sheriff, because if I do, somebody’s gonna pay. Now, I want everybody here to get back on the horse, wagon, truck, ATV, or whatever the hell they rode in on and disperse.”
Koffman offered a meek okay as we all moved to leave. When I glanced at Spoon, I realized he was seething. As he, my dad, and I walked toward our pickup, Spoon said, “Woodson’s an ass.”
He turned back to stare at where we’d all been standing, locking his gaze not on the sheriff but on Matt Rodue, who was down on one knee examining the Four Corners pin.
When Rodue looked up to return Spoon’s gaze, Spoon said, “Your man in gray is stream poison, TJ.” He flashed my dad a look that as much as said, You’ll see.
As the three of us continued to stare at him, Rodue rose and headed back toward the pickup he’d driven in. As he walked toward the vehicle with his back toward us, I could have sworn I heard him snicker.
Thirteen
There wasn’t much to the rest of the afternoon except lingering heat and the feeling, as I rehashed the day’s events over and over in my head, that the confrontation at
Four Corners was just the start of things to come.
Spoon and I finished some overdue equipment maintenance in our machine shop. My dad made a couple of lengthy calls to Ricky Peterson, and mom assembled and washed her canning paraphernalia.
A little past four, Dad asked me to go into Hardin to pick up a couple of culverts he’d ordered for a windmill access road that had a tendency to wash out during early fall snows. We were standing by a flowering crab apple tree in our front yard, a tree he’d planted the year I’d been born that for some reason always bloomed much later than its neighbors. As I fumbled with the keys to my pickup, I noticed that a cluster of leaves near the top had already turned bright orange.
“Late starter, early finisher,” my dad said, noting the intensity in my face. “You decided about school?”
I’d thought long and hard about heading off to Missoula and the University of Montana in January, but I hadn’t exactly decided to go yet. Although the ranch was running as efficiently as it had in years, we’d had a good hay crop, and our calves were fat and as fall-market ready as I’d ever seen, I had the feeling that if I left, Willow Creek would somehow flounder. “I’m still mulling it over,” I finally said.
“Have you told your mom that?” he asked, clearly surprised. “You know she and I are on the same page about you and school.”
“Nope. Haven’t said anything to Spoon either.”
“I’d let ’em both know real soon, if I were you. I’d hate to be on the wrong side of her wishes. As for Spoon, he’s got a right to know if he’s gonna have to bear a bigger share of the load.”
“I will,” I said, suspecting that his remarks were merely perfunctory and that he was wrestling with issues a lot more serious than my going off to college.