Joe knew it was true. Robey knew more than he probably wanted to. As county prosecutor, Robey was aware of things that he likely wished he wasn’t. But as a good man, one who valued actual justice as opposed to process, Robey had chosen simply not to ask certain questions of Joe when he had a right, and a duty, to ask them. Because of that, Joe was fiercely loyal to his friend.
THE TOPIC TURNED to the purpose of the meeting in the first place.
“It’s the curse of the third generation,” Robey said, shaking his head and absently rolling the beer bottle between the palms of his hands. “I don’t know if there is a worse thing in the West than that.”
Robey paused and glanced up at Joe. His face looked haunted. “Did I ever tell you the main reason I left private practice and ran for county attorney?”
“Let me guess,” Joe said facetiously. “Would it be . . . the curse of the third generation?”
“That would be it,” Robey said. “It’s a pattern you can pretty much predict. When I first got my license, I was involved in way too many of these cases, and it just about killed me. It works this way: A matriarch or patriarch establishes the original ranch, and passes it along to the firstborn. The heir inherits land and power, and it feels different to him because he didn’t have to fight for it or earn it. It’s his by birthright, but he’s close enough to the founders that the initial struggle still resonates. But from then on, everything starts to get comfortable. This works the same way with family-owned companies. But if we’re talking about ranches, and we are, it gets more personal than if it was a shoe factory, because on a ranch everyone lives together and eats together. Sometimes, the second generation is smart and appreciates what they’ve got and how they got it, and plans ahead. You know—they form corporations or partnerships or something.” Robey paused to take a long pull of his beer before resuming, and Joe marveled at how engaged his friend was with the subject, how much he had obviously thought about it, how it concerned him.
“So,” Robey contined, “the third generation inherits a going concern but they really don’t give a shit about how they got it. The third generation splinters. A couple of the sons and daughters want to keep the place, and the others want to do something else. So when it comes time to figure out who owns what, the lawyers are called in to battle it out. It’s like couples who divorce without considering the best interests of the children because they’re so bitter. But instead of children, we’re talking about the ranch itself. There is only so much land in the world, it’s finite. Especially good, scenic, or productive land that can’t speak for itself. The litigation gets so messy that sometimes it’s unbelievable. Other people want that land, that asset. So we’ve got brothers against brothers and sisters against sisters. You can really see the worst in human nature in a situation like that, and you just want to grab those idiots and knock their heads together and say ‘Wake up! Look what you’re doing to a place your ancestors put all of their sweat and blood into!’”
Robey rose and pretended he was grasping litigants by their necks and smashing their heads together. Joe looked around to see if anyone at the bar was watching. Fortunately, they weren’t.
Joe said, “And when it comes to our situation here with the Scarletts and the Thunderhead Ranch, we’ve got the curse in spades, right?”
“It’s like the curse has gone nuclear,” Robey said. “In this case, the original ranch was established in the eighteen-eighties, which was when most of the big ranches got going in our part of the country. Before statehood, and before homesteaders started spreading their wings. For the Thunderhead Ranch, a man named Homer Scarlett left West Virginia and used a small inheritance to buy what was then a small five-thousand-acre ranch on the river.”
“That would be the original Thunderhead Ranch?” Joe asked.
Robey shook his head. “Nope, the Thunderhead was the ranch next door at the time. Homer Scarlett, the great-grandfather, acquired it through somewhat dubious means—I think he won a big chunk of it in a poker game or something—and added it to his own holdings. He picked up five or six other small ranches along the way, and kept adding on. He was ruthless, from what I’ve heard. But he was also a hell of a businessman, because he thrived when others around him were going broke. As he added property, he put them all under the umbrella of the Thunderhead Ranch, I guess because he liked the name. Pretty soon, Scarlett owned sixty thousand acres outright and another hundred thousand acres on long-term lease from the government. He used his influence to make Saddlestring the county seat, and for a while there they almost renamed this town Scarlettville. Did you know that?”
Joe shook his head. “No. How do you know all of this?”
Robey laughed wearily. “Because I’m on the museum board and a few weeks ago we took a tour through the new Scarlett wing that’s scheduled to be dedicated next month. In fact, your mother-in-law was on the tour. It’s a damned nice addition to the building, and there is a special room to honor the family. Opal insisted on the display, and provided the photos and documents.
“Anyway,” Robey continued, “Homer had a son named Henry and two daughters named June and Laura. In those days, it was a lot simpler than it is now, and Henry assumed control of the ranch because he was the only male heir. There wasn’t any squabbling about control, even though the daughters legally had the same claim to it. Henry Scarlett took it over in the mid-nineteen-thirties, and the two daughters got nice little cottages on the ranch. June and Laura never married, so they produced no heirs. Henry had a couple of sons, though, named Wilbur and Dub. Dub died in combat at Normandy, so Wilbur had a clear line.”
“And Wilbur married Opal,” Joe said. “Who eventually had three sons.”
“Right.”
“So when did Wilbur die?”
“Early 1970s,” Robey said. “He was driving a truck across an old bridge over the river on the ranch when the bridge collapsed. I read about it. He was pinned inside the vehicle, and drowned in six inches of water.”
“And Opal got everything?”
Robey signaled for two more beers. “The whole thing lock, stock, and barrel. If Wilbur specified which one of his sons got the place, or if he had plans to divide up the ranch—no one knows. There wasn’t a will.”
“So where are we now?” Joe asked.
“We are in limbo, ownership hell,” Robey said. “Arlen claims Opal assured him the ranch would be his because he’s the oldest. Hank says Opal told him the same thing, and that she never trusted Arlen. Opal has two lawyers here in town, and both thought the other took care of the estate planning, but it turns out neither did. The ranch is a corporation with Opal Scarlett as its sole owner, with no management agreement, no will, no nothing.”
“What’s it worth?” Joe asked, thinking of the vast acreage, the meadows, the buildings, the twenty miles of riverfront.
“Tens of millions,” Robey said. “An appraisal will need to be done, but we know we’re in the mid-teens. If it were put up for sale, there would be buyers from all over the country and the world. These days, all the rich corporate guys want to own a ranch.”
Joe whistled.
“Until Opal’s proven dead and there’s a court order—or a will is found—nothing can be done to establish ownership or a succession plan,” Robey said. “Those brothers just continue to live out there in conflict. They could decide to sell the place and pocket the money, or one could buy it outright from the other. But in order to do that, they’d need to sit down and talk like human beings. Instead, they’ve both hired lawyers, accountants, and soldiers of their own, and they’re preparing for battle. My fear is that the war won’t make it as far as a courtroom, that it’ll start breaking out all over this valley.”