me directions seemed to share my concern. After he drew me a map on the back of a complaint form—diagramming several unsigned roads and turns off the main highway—he gave me a funny look.
“You going out there alone? About this river thing?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged.
“Just curious. There could be a lot of reasons for a DCI guy to head out that way.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“The family’s a little high-strung, you might say. Not a lot of respect for authority. The father used to be a regular customer in here when he was a young buck. The two older boys—a pair of twins—are doing their damnedest to follow in his footsteps. I’ve got a daughter their age, and she thinks that they’re getting into meth pretty heavy. It’s becoming a real problem around here. But being with DCI, I guess you already know that. Anyway, I suppose the younger boys are still nice kids.”
I thanked him for the information. And I decided it would be a good idea to call ahead instead of just dropping by.
On the phone I talked to a woman who identified herself as Elizabeth Mann, the boys’ mother. She sounded surprisingly friendly.
“Sure, come on out,” she said. “We’re all lying pretty low this morning, feeling blue about Cody. I’ll send Ed or one of the boys down to meet you at the gate.”
In the late-morning heat, Mungo and I headed out of town. The route took us west along the highway beside the river. There were several vehicles parked on top of the hill above the big boulder. I didn’t slow to gawk. Past the turnout, we forked right on a county road and rose up into the foothills. It was a pretty drive. The sagebrush was still a little green from the spring, and the peaks of the Wind River range gleamed with fresh white snow. I could make out some of the distant couloirs, ridges, and faces, and took note of the ones I had climbed, remembering good times in simpler days.
Ed Mann seemed even smaller in the daylight than he’d appeared last night in the darkness. Maybe it had something to do with having vented his anger on me already. He was leaning against the bumper of a ranch truck at the last turn that was marked on my hand-drawn map.
Seeing me, he nodded without smiling, tugged on the brim of his dirty baseball cap, and climbed into the cab of his truck. He stuck out an arm and waved for me to follow. I quickly saw why Mrs. Mann had thought it necessary to send out her husband as a guide. After passing the gate and entering the Manns’ property, there was a maze of double-tracks leading off in all directions.
I followed close to the ranch truck’s bumper, observing the gun rack and the sticker in the back window that read:
“Freedom at Any Cost”
—Randy Weaver
Ruby Ridge, Idaho
Nice. Really nice. Especially for a cop already apprehensive about making this trip. I was glad, at least, that I didn’t wear a uniform or drive a police cruiser. If Mungo could read, she wouldn’t have liked a sticker on the tailgate: “Shoot a Wolf, Save a Rancher.” And then there were the usual round decals proclaiming the driver’s affiliation with the National Rifle Association. I rolled up the back windows so Mungo couldn’t stick her big head out.
As expected, the house wasn’t much. Just a regular ranch house, unlike the Wallises’ fancier residence. A functional place that had been added to many times over the years with unprofessional labor, surrounded by dirt, sage, and weeds. But it was relatively neat—there was none of the usual ranch junk in the yard. An L of tall cottonwoods screened it from the west and north winds. The height of the big trees indicated the house had probably been here a very long time. Mann didn’t stop in front of the house, but more than fifty feet away, behind the line of trees. Here I found all their junk—old pickups, tractors, and appliances all in various stages of either deterioration or reconstruction. He parked and I did, too. I expected that
“You going out there alone? About this river thing?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged.
“Just curious. There could be a lot of reasons for a DCI guy to head out that way.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“The family’s a little high-strung, you might say. Not a lot of respect for authority. The father used to be a regular customer in here when he was a young buck. The two older boys—a pair of twins—are doing their damnedest to follow in his footsteps. I’ve got a daughter their age, and she thinks that they’re getting into meth pretty heavy. It’s becoming a real problem around here. But being with DCI, I guess you already know that. Anyway, I suppose the younger boys are still nice kids.”
I thanked him for the information. And I decided it would be a good idea to call ahead instead of just dropping by.
On the phone I talked to a woman who identified herself as Elizabeth Mann, the boys’ mother. She sounded surprisingly friendly.
“Sure, come on out,” she said. “We’re all lying pretty low this morning, feeling blue about Cody. I’ll send Ed or one of the boys down to meet you at the gate.”
In the late-morning heat, Mungo and I headed out of town. The route took us west along the highway beside the river. There were several vehicles parked on top of the hill above the big boulder. I didn’t slow to gawk. Past the turnout, we forked right on a county road and rose up into the foothills. It was a pretty drive. The sagebrush was still a little green from the spring, and the peaks of the Wind River range gleamed with fresh white snow. I could make out some of the distant couloirs, ridges, and faces, and took note of the ones I had climbed, remembering good times in simpler days.
Ed Mann seemed even smaller in the daylight than he’d appeared last night in the darkness. Maybe it had something to do with having vented his anger on me already. He was leaning against the bumper of a ranch truck at the last turn that was marked on my hand-drawn map.
Seeing me, he nodded without smiling, tugged on the brim of his dirty baseball cap, and climbed into the cab of his truck. He stuck out an arm and waved for me to follow. I quickly saw why Mrs. Mann had thought it necessary to send out her husband as a guide. After passing the gate and entering the Manns’ property, there was a maze of double-tracks leading off in all directions.
I followed close to the ranch truck’s bumper, observing the gun rack and the sticker in the back window that read:
“Freedom at Any Cost”
—Randy Weaver
Ruby Ridge, Idaho
Nice. Really nice. Especially for a cop already apprehensive about making this trip. I was glad, at least, that I didn’t wear a uniform or drive a police cruiser. If Mungo could read, she wouldn’t have liked a sticker on the tailgate: “Shoot a Wolf, Save a Rancher.” And then there were the usual round decals proclaiming the driver’s affiliation with the National Rifle Association. I rolled up the back windows so Mungo couldn’t stick her big head out.
As expected, the house wasn’t much. Just a regular ranch house, unlike the Wallises’ fancier residence. A functional place that had been added to many times over the years with unprofessional labor, surrounded by dirt, sage, and weeds. But it was relatively neat—there was none of the usual ranch junk in the yard. An L of tall cottonwoods screened it from the west and north winds. The height of the big trees indicated the house had probably been here a very long time. Mann didn’t stop in front of the house, but more than fifty feet away, behind the line of trees. Here I found all their junk—old pickups, tractors, and appliances all in various stages of either deterioration or reconstruction. He parked and I did, too. I expected that
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