After a few seconds of silence, Sara asked, “Why do you think he took the long-range rifle?”
Jake hadn’t even thought about the missing Martini-Henry until Sara asked, so he just continued to stare across the open ground as he thought about it.
When he hadn’t replied for almost a minute, Sara asked, “Do you think that he followed you to kill you before you returned?”
Jake had already dismissed that idea primarily because of the letter. If he was going to put a bullet in his back, then he wouldn’t have bothered writing it.
He shook his head as he replied, “No. I don’t believe he would even consider killing me. Despite everything that he’s done, I think that he actually liked me. Even if he was going to try to ambush me, he wouldn’t have left that letter. If he succeeded, he would have just wanted to return and wait for my body to be found. Then he could take over the ranch without any questions.”
“Then why did he take it?”
“I’m still trying to understand why he waited for me to leave for Helena before he ran. Something must have made him nervous enough to leave that letter and then disappear.”
“Maybe it was when you told him that you’d be taking me into your sanctuary. You said he became very agitated and told you that you couldn’t take me there because he’d found grizzly tracks. You may have told him you wouldn’t, but he couldn’t be sure. He was probably already worried about it before you said you’d show it to me. That’s why he was able to invent the story of the grizzly tracks so quickly.”
Jake looked at Sara as he said, “You’re probably right. He couldn’t run away so soon after the murders because it would look bad. Then he probably began to believe I wouldn’t return at all. That would have been his best chance that no one would ever discover my father’s grave. But when I did show up, I’m surprised that he was so adamant about keeping me on the ranch.”
Sara couldn’t understand the foreman’s reason for trying to prevent Jake from leaving either. He should have been anxious for Jake to leave, so he could make his escape.
She finally said, “Maybe he knew you well enough to know that you’d leave anyway, so it didn’t matter what he said. Would you have been surprised if he’d encouraged you to leave?”
“Yes, but he did offer to come along on the search.”
“I guess we may never know why he acted as he did.”
“I suppose he could just have been bouncing between his guilt for what he’d done and his friendship for me. Part of him wanted me to stay on the ranch despite his need for me to avoid going into my sanctuary.”
“But none of that matters; does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I just realized that he took more than that rifle and the seven hundred dollars you left for him. He probably did have the combination to the safe and took all of the cash inside.”
Jake sighed as he said, “I’m sure he did. He probably has more than fifteen hundred dollars of the Elk’s money. That would give him freedom to go anywhere.”
“Do you think he really rode south as he wrote in that letter?”
“I don’t know where he went, but there’s not much in that direction for a couple of hundred miles. Maybe someone saw him riding out of town Thursday night. I’ll ask Sheriff Zendt when he arrives.”
Sara was relieved when Jake had carried out a normal conversation about such an abnormally shocking situation. She hoped that he’d keep his calm state of mind when they had to remove his father’s body from his temporary grave.
_____
Over the next hour and a half, the ranch hands began arriving but even after they dismounted, none asked Jake why he’d summoned them. Jake assumed that John had already told each of them of his request for the sheriff and mortician and there could only be one reason for having the lawman and undertaker to come to the Elk. When John arrived, he was carrying the shovel Jake had asked him to bring, and just leaned it against a rock nearby.
Jake and Sara remained sitting on the rock as more men continued to show up, then silently dismount and tie off their horses. It was a strange gathering as they began taking seats on rocks or the ground without a word being spoken.
When all eleven men had arrived, including Pack Oliver, who must have ridden at breakneck speed to and from Fort Benton, Jake and Sara finally stood and waited for the men to get to their feet.
He scanned their faces before saying, “A couple of hours ago, I was showing Sara my refuge. When we entered the forest, we found a spot where the ground was soft and there were some cut pine branches spread over the ground. After I asked her to leave, I dug down with my hands until I found the toes of my father’s boots. I kicked some of the dirt back into the hole before coming back out and asking you all to meet me. I won’t ask you to do anything, but I felt that you should know that it wasn’t my father who murdered my mother. It was Dave Forrest who killed them both. When the sheriff arrives, we’ll exhume my father’s body. I expect to find that he’d been shot, and I’ll ask the sheriff to have a warrant issued for Dave’s arrest.
“I don’t know what happened that day, but if any of you can give me an idea of why Dave would have done such a thing, please let me know when I return to the
