“She never mentioned it to any of us, so we didn’t know. You were pretty determined to make your own way when you left, so when you didn’t even send a telegram for a week, we figured that you weren’t even coming back. We didn’t even know if you were still alive, Jake.”
“Well, I’m back now, so tell me what happened. Arv Zendt explained what you wrote in your statement, but I want you to give me any details that you might not have written.”
Before he began his telling Jake all he knew, Dave asked, “How long are you staying, Jake? Did the army give you a furlough?”
“No. They mustered me out. I’m not putting my uniform on again.”
Dave seemed surprised as he nodded, then began describing the events of the second of July.
As Jake listened, he didn’t hear anything that wasn’t in Dave’s statement. He was disappointed, but when Dave finished, Jake would ask questions that should give him more details.
“…I didn’t go into the house until I was sure that your father wouldn’t be coming back. I didn’t want to disturb your mother if she was upset. It’s not my place. I’m just an employee.”
Jake said, “It was my place, Dave. I should have been here for her. How badly was she hurt when you found her?”
“Pretty bad. At least you didn’t get to see her looking like that.”
Jake’s guilt rose a few notches before he asked, “Did you hear anything that might give me a clue about what caused the argument?”
Dave shook his head as he replied, “Nope. I was kinda busy with my gut problems, but I can tell you it was even louder than those melees you and your father had. When I found your mother later, I felt really bad for not going to the house. You know, I could have pretended that I needed to talk to your father.”
Jake thought he couldn’t feel guiltier but did before he said, “It’s not your fault, Dave. I forgot to ask the sheriff if he sent any telegrams to other towns to arrest my father. Did he do that? Did they even issue an arrest warrant?”
“No to both questions. The prosecutor said that he’d never get a jury to convict your pa based on what I told the sheriff. He said that any decent defense lawyer would be able to explain it all away. He could even tell the jury that I was the one who murdered your mother.”
Jake sighed but knew that the prosecutor was right. There was only one witness, and he spent most of that time in the privy or in his on small house on his bunk.
After a brief pause, Jake said. “He was probably right, but I don’t need a judge or jury. I’ll find my father and deliver justice for my mother.”
Dave’s eyebrows popped up as he exclaimed, “You can’t leave, Jake! You need to run the Elk!”
“You can run it, Dave. I’ll leave on Monday to find him. I’ll come back once a month or so until I find him just to check on everything and to give you more cash to pay the boys. I see that my father emptied the safe. Did you check the bank account?”
“Nope. Only your folks and you can do that. But I don’t think he could have gone to the bank anyway. It was after they closed on Saturday and he wasn’t gonna show his face in town on Monday.”
“I know that, but he could have reached Helena by Tuesday. Then he just had to open a new bank account there and have them wire the Fort Benton Bank to transfer all the money. He would have known that even if I received the telegram right away, I couldn’t get here before he was able to empty the bank account.”
“What happens if he did that?”
“Then we sell a couple of hundred head. What’s the current count, anyway?”
“Um, if you include all of them, it’s just short of thirty-two hundred.”
Jake nodded then asked, “Why didn’t my father take any of the guns from the office? Did he buy a new one that struck his fancy?”
Dave hesitated for a few seconds before he answered, “I’m not sure, Jake. We got along fine after you left, but about six months ago, he started treating me different. It was almost like I was a stranger. He could have bought a new Winchester, but he wouldn’t tell me about it.”
“Did you see if he had one on his horse when he left?”
“Nope. It would have been on the other side of his horse anyway.”
“Why didn’t he take Emperor? He loved that horse.”
“I reckon he didn’t want to stick out. Emperor would be easy to spot. He picked two of the plainest geldings we had in the corral. I couldn’t pick them out if I tried. That’s another reason that you won’t be able to find him, Jake. It’s been almost three weeks and he could have changed his name already. You oughta stay here and take over.”
“If he opened a new bank account, it would have had to be in his own name to avoid suspicion. I’ll ask John Vindaloos at the bank tomorrow. Even if he hasn’t tried to do that, I still intend to find him. I know that I can’t track him, but I owe it to my mother to make him pay for what he did.”
Then Jake paused before asking the question he wasn’t sure he could force himself to voice.
“Dave, where is my mother buried?”
Dave looked down at the tabletop as he quietly replied, “I had her buried next to your brothers. We had Reverend Ord say the prayers. All of us were there, and a lot of folks from
