by Rich Curtin
Another article two years later in the San Juan Record described an effort by a group of civic-minded locals to draft Sam Dryden as a candidate for the County Council. Dryden had thanked them but demurred saying he had no interest in politics. The article mentioned that Dryden was generous to the community and a big supporter of the Monticello High School football team.
A handwritten sheet of paper included a list of the encounters Emmett Mitchell had had with Sam Dryden. The notes described him as friendly, intelligent, and somewhat reticent—he wasn’t one to talk about his many accomplishments.
The third file folder was labeled Herman. It contained three sheets of paper. The first was a record of a phone call dated August of 2013 from Emmett Mitchell to Adam Dunne, the BLM Investigative Agent whose territory covered all BLM land in the southeast Utah quadrant, some fifty thousand square miles of wilderness. Mitchell had informed Dunne about a recluse named Herman who had erected a home made of logs, rocks, and mud on BLM land and lived there by himself in the vast emptiness between Montezuma Canyon and Tin Cup Mesa. Dunne said he’d known about Herman for many years and that since he’d heard no complaints about him, he’d decided to leave well enough alone. Dunne had said there were any number of people squatting on BLM land and living in homemade dwellings constructed under cliff overhangs or in natural caves. As long as they weren’t bothering anyone, he’d made the decision not to do anything about it.
The second sheet of paper contained notes Mitchell had written to himself after encountering Herman four times in the backcountry. “Seems harmless” was written across the top of the page. Below that was written “Nice Fellow,” “Army Veteran,” and “PTSD?” There were no further entries.
The third sheet of paper was a hand-drawn map showing the location of Herman’s dwelling.
Rivera scooped up the file folders and dropped them into his briefcase. He grabbed his Stetson and walked down the hall to Nick Lathrop’s office, hoping to find it empty. It wasn’t. Lathrop was hunched over his computer.
“I’m heading out to visit the Converse and Dryden Ranches. Want to come along?”
“Sure. It’s a slow day. Got nothin’ better to do.”
Too bad, Rivera thought to himself.
7
AN HOUR LATER, Rivera was driving on the gravel of Route 347 east of Montezuma Canyon. Nick Lathrop had been silent the whole trip. The blue sky, the beautiful backcountry scenery, and the absence of conversation had a calming effect on Rivera and allowed him to forget his resentment of Lathrop. He chided himself for letting the situation get under his skin. He told himself to relax and not to give up on the young deputy.
A few hundred feet past the airstrip, Rivera spotted Ranch Road, the narrow gravel road that led to the two ranch entrances. It was right where Mitchell had said it would be. Rivera turned left and headed north.
Lathrop broke the silence. “What do you expect to learn from these ranchers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one of them saw something or heard something. I’m especially interested in that landing strip and whether it’s still being used.”
“You think maybe the victims stumbled onto some kind of drug deal?”
“The way I work is to gather all the information I can, and then see where it takes me. Could be drug running. Could be something else.”
“I still think it was a murder-suicide.”
“You could be right, but we can’t just guess. We have to find out for sure. Let’s take the investigation one step at a time.”
“No reason to believe it was anything else. Ockham’s Razor—the simplest, most obvious explanation is usually the right one.”
Rivera grinned. “Yeah, well don’t forget, things didn’t end too well for William of Ockham.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was a Franciscan monk who was excommunicated from the church for putting forth ideas the Vatican disagreed with.” Rivera smiled.
“How’d you know that?”
“I took a comparative religion course in college.”
“Well, just the same, I think he was right about the simplest explanation business. How about we make a little bet, then? Say, twenty bucks?”
“I enjoy a friendly wager now and then, but in this case it’s not a good idea. You don’t want to bias your thought process.” Rivera glanced sideways at Lathrop to see if he understood the point. Lathrop appeared to be digesting the notion.
“Like trying to prove I’m right instead of conducting an objective investigation?”
“Exactly. The goal here is to determine if the Masons were murdered and if so, by whom. Not to win a bet and not even to be the first one to solve the problem. The goal is to solve the problem, and not to worry about who gets credit for solving the problem.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. I guess I was turning it into a competition.” Lathrop fell quiet for a long moment. “To tell you the truth, I was disappointed the sheriff didn’t assign the case to me. He knows I want to become an investigator. I’ve been waiting a long time for an opportunity like this.”
“Be patient. There’ll be lots more opportunities.” Rivera smiled. “I guarantee it.”
Three miles later, Rivera turned right and rumbled across a cattle guard onto the Converse ranch. The road into the ranch was gravel and exceptionally well maintained, a tribute, Rivera guessed, to the revenue flowing from the oil wells they passed along the way. The grass in the rolling pastureland was a grayish-tan color and the rabbit brush and snakeweed along the fence lines were dead and brittle from the cold winter nights. Dark green junipers and grayish-green sage were sprinkled across the terrain here and there. They passed a stone watering trough next to a windmill. A dozen Hereford cows grazed nearby.
“The Converse pastureland looks pretty good. The grass is dead this time of year, of course, but it looks like excellent grazing land,” said Rivera.
“Yeah, up here it’s in good shape. The cattle population density is low, thanks to the income from the wells. You should see the pastures on the Navajo Reservation south of here. They look real bad—almost bare earth. Every acre you see down there is overgrazed. Individual Navajos don’t own the land they live on—the U.S. government owns it—so they get no direct royalty income from the oil that’s pumped out of the ground they live on. For many of them, their sole source of income is their sheep—the mutton and the rugs and blankets the weavers produce from the wool.”
That bit of information bothered Rivera. He saw many good things in his small world while performing his duties—individual generosity, exceptional caring, setting wrongs right—but he also saw a great deal of unfairness. He considered the inequity for a long moment, then decided the thought was unproductive. He put it out of his mind and forced himself to focus on the job at hand. There was nothing he could do about the economic plight of the Navajo.
As he continued across the undulating terrain of the Converse Ranch, Rivera passed cattle grazing in the fields, clusters of oil storage tanks, and pump jacks that sat atop the Converse oil wells. Mr. Converse’s wealth was obvious. Every oscillation of every walking beam pumped another quantity of crude into one of the tanks and another increment of cash into the Converse coffers. He corrected the mental image of the ranch his brain had formed based upon reading the articles in the Mitchell file. The ranch seemed larger and more valuable than anything he’d imagined—it seemed to be more of an empire than a ranch. Rivera spotted a tanker truck on a distant hilltop off to his left. It was parked next to an assemblage of oil storage tanks. Rivera recognized the driver as Felix and waved. Felix just stood there and stared at the sheriff’s vehicle as it passed by.
Two miles into the ranch, they passed a vineyard on the right side of the road. It looked to be about ten acres in size. Two field hands were pruning the vines. On the left side of the road, three workers were attaching strands of wire to rows of short posts, establishing what appeared to be another vineyard about the same size as the first one. The wine business must be good, Rivera tho
ught.
Farther ahead, he spotted a complex of industrial type buildings. There were large barns, equipment sheds, and a fancy stone building that appeared to be a winery. Several new Ford F-250 pickup trucks and a John Deere tractor were parked on the hard-packed earth in front of the barn. Dirt roads radiated out from the building complex, disappearing over the surrounding hills.
A quarter mile beyond that, nestled in a small valley, was a sprawling ranch house constructed of spruce logs. A wide porch wrapped around the entire structure. A Mercedes Benz sedan was parked in front. South of the main house was a second residence, and behind that was a small helicopter resting on a helipad.
As the deputies exited their vehicle, an older man, six feet tall with hunched shoulders and a thick torso, opened the front door, peered through black-rimmed glasses at his visitors, and stepped out onto the porch. He wore faded jeans supported by suspenders, a plaid flannel shirt, a sleeveless, wool-lined denim jacket, and a felt cowboy hat. He had a yellowish-white walrus mustache and his round face was a maze of wrinkles. He smiled and waved, then grasped the banister with both hands and carefully descended the three steps from the porch to the front yard. Rivera recognized Bill Converse from his picture in the San Juan Record newspaper article.
“Howdy. I’m Bill Converse. How can I help you boys?” His high-pitched voice seemed incongruous with his size.
Rivera introduced himself and Lathrop. “This is a beautiful place you’ve got here,” he said, attempting to break the ice. “Just driving by on Route 347, you’d never guess there was so much activity back here.”
“Well, thank you.” He cut short the chit-chat. “How can I help you fellas?”
“You’ve heard about the dead couple we found yesterday out near Route 347?”
“Yeah, my foreman told me about that. Damn shame. C’mon, let’s go sit on the porch and get comfortable. My back’s killing me.” Converse led them up the steps and gestured toward some wooden chairs with thick, green cushions.
Rivera selected a chair on the edge of the porch which faced Converse and also gave him a partial view of the ranch. Sunlight angled in under the porch roof and warmed his shoulders. The air smelled of faint traces of dust, manure, and oil. A horse whinnied in the distance.
Rivera pulled a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket. “How long have you lived here, Mr. Converse?”
Converse studied Rivera with intelligent, blue eyes. “All my life. This place was started as a cattle ranch by my father, Ralph Converse. For a lot of years it was just like most cattle ranches. You take care of the animals as best you can and every day you pray for rain. After oil was discovered on the place, everything changed.” He smiled. “Made life a lot easier.”
“We’re looking for any information that might explain what happened to the Mason couple. Have you seen or heard about anything unusual out here recently?”
“The only unusual thing that’s happened recently is that couple killing themselves. Mason? Was that their name?” He thought for a moment. “Say, are you thinking someone might’ve killed those people? Word is it was a murder-suicide.”
“Might have been that. We’re required to investigate the matter. Determine exactly what happened.”
Converse pushed his hat back on his head. “Well, I can’t really say I’ve run across anything out of the ordinary. Every day is pretty much the same for us. The animals need to be fed and cared for, the wells need to be serviced, the oil needs to be hauled off from the storage tanks to the refinery, and we’re getting ready to start drilling a new well out yonder.” He pointed northward. “We also tend the vineyard and just started putting in a second one. Our winemaking takes place in the stone building behind the barn. Winemaking is my new hobby. Turns out it can be quite profitable. We only produce a few hundred cases a year, but we expect that to grow. Our brand is Desert Lily Vineyards, named after a type of wildflower that grows around here. My ranch hands and I do pretty much the same thing every day, so I can’t say I’m aware of anything unusual going on.”
“I’m particularly interested in that airstrip near where the bodies were found. Have you seen any aircraft flying in or out of there recently?”
Converse was smiling now, his eyes curious, measuring. “Not since the DEA busted that drug running operation a couple of years ago. You think maybe that’s started up again?”
Rivera shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m searching for any possible reason why those people were killed.”
“Of course, if small aircraft were flying in and out of there, I might not hear them from this far away. And the house is set low in this little valley so I might not see them. I guess it’s possible that business has started up again. I just don’t know.”
“Did you hear any gunshots yesterday morning?”
Converse’s eyebrows went up. “No, I didn’t, but now that you mention it, my foreman said he heard some shots. He thought it was hunters, but I suppose it could have been the shots that killed those people.” Converse pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket, spoke into it for a few seconds, and clicked off. “Slim will be here in a couple of minutes.”
“You have the BLM grazing lease for that land south of Route 347, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we share it with the Dryden Ranch. Sam Dryden and I go way back. My father started this ranch back in the Depression, and I was born and grew up here. Like I said, been here all my life—seventy-four years. My father passed away thirty years ago and left the place to me. Sam’s grandfather Jared started the Dryden Ranch about the same time my father started this ranch, and Sam has lived there most of his adult life. I remember Jared Dryden well. He was a fine man. I used to visit him a lot when I was a kid. He taught me how to play chess. Jared had a grown son living with him who went to the hospital for an appendectomy, caught a staph infection, and died. Jared was getting old and his eyesight was failing him, so he couldn’t run the ranch by himself. That’s when his grandson Sam came to live with him. I was several years older than Sam, but we became fast friends. Sam and I don’t run many head on our shared BLM lease anymore because, frankly, since the oil play up here began, we don’t really need the income from cattle anymore. The oil has produced an embarrassment of riches. And I’m not shy about spending the money. I’m sure my father wouldn’t have approved. He was a conservative cattleman through and through. So was Sam’s grandfather.”
“Do you live here by yourself?”
“My foreman lives in the small house behind the main house.”
“Anyone besides you living in the main house? Is there a Mrs. Converse?”
“My wife and I divorced back in the seventies. We married too young and just grew apart. She preferred city lights and glitter and I preferred, well, this.” He made an all-encompassing gesture with his hands. “I love it here. Anyway, after she was long gone, the oil came in. So she sued me for half of it. ‘Her fair share,’ she called it.” He laughed. “Been suing me ever since, but so far, she hasn’t gotten a nickel out of me since the divorce settlement.”
Rivera was surprised at Converse’s openness about his personal life. “I saw where you filed a complaint about a Navajo sheepherder,” Rivera said.
“A complaint?”
“Yeah. He was grazing his sheep on your BLM allotment.”
“Oh, that. That was foolish of me. I regret ever mentioning it. That old Navajo was taking his flock of Churro sheep off the reservation and bringing them five miles into Sam’s and my lease. Sam didn’t seem to mind, but it irritated me. The old man might have at least asked our permission. But no, he just brought them up here every day, eating our grass and drinking from our spring. So I complained. Then a few weeks later, I happened to be driving through the Rez and saw how dry and overgrazed that land was. It made me feel awful for complaining, especially since I collect oil royalties every month for just sitting on my butt. After that, I shut up. I asked Emmett Mitchell to forget about the complaint, but I guess there’s still some paperwork in the file.”
Nick Lathrop was slouching in his chair with a bored look on his face, not saying anything. Rivera wondered if the young deputy was paying attention.
“I noticed a small helicopter on a pad behind the house. Are you the pilot?”
Converse nodded. “I was a chopper pilot during Vietnam. Flew over thirty rescue missions. Got hit once by small-arms fire.” He pulled up his sleeve and displayed a scar on his forearm. “I was glad to get out of Nam alive. I did my duty, but I never believed in the cause. What the hell were we doing there? Anyway, I enjoy flying from time to time. It’s a great way for me to survey the ranch. I guess that chopper is just another one of my toys.”
A tall, broad-shouldered man rode up on a magnificent black stallion and gracefully dismounted. He was wearing black jeans, a black, long-sleeve shirt, and a black cowboy hat. He was a tough-looking man and reminded Rivera of Jack Palance from some old cowboy movie. He stepped up onto the porch.
“This is Slim Keegan, my foreman.”
Keegan forced a narrow smile and nodded at the deputies.
“How can I help you, boss?”
“You said you heard some gunshots yesterday. Tell the deputies about that.”
“Not much to tell, really. I was riding the fences in the southeast pastures yesterday morning and heard four shots. Two shots and then about thirty seconds later two more shots. Figured it was hunters on our grazing lease. It’s legal for them to be there, of course, and not unusual.”
“What time of day was that?” asked Rivera.
“Around eight or eight-thirty. When I heard later about that old couple who killed themselves, I figured those might have been the fatal shots. Couldn’t figure out why there were four shots, though.”
“Why didn’t you report it?” asked Lathrop.
Keegan looked down at Lathrop with an ice-cold stare and said nothing.
“He did report it,” said Converse. “To me. Now I’m reporting it to you.”
Lathrop blinked, looked away, said nothing further.
