Water disputes, water rights and allocation of water is a central thread running through much of America’s history, especially in our western states. On occasion, the battle over water rights has erupted in violence and bloodshed. In 1972, in a rural Montana farm community, a woman and her son are brutally murdered and her husband, who supposedly committed the crimes, kills himself in remorse. Did their deaths have anything to do with a disagreement over water rights or was there a more sinister motive for what happened?
Thirty years later, the family’s surviving daughter, who wasn’t home the night of the murders, returns to the Gallatin Valley with a silver bracelet to prove her father wasn't a cold-blooded killer.
Excerpt from Chapter 2:
“So, what is it about your family being murdered that brings you back here after all these years?”
“See this bracelet?” Hilary said, taking the silver bracelet off her wrist and holding it out to Dustin. “This bracelet belonged to my father. My mother gave it to my father on their tenth wedding anniversary. I found it recently trolling eBay for antique jewelry, which I collect. This bracelet may be an important clue to prove my father’s innocence. I hope to prove his innocence once and for all; beyond a reasonable doubt, as we like to say, because I’ve never believed he was guilty of killing my mother and brother. The person who put this bracelet up for sale on eBay, was a Mrs. Veenstrom. I found out that she lives here in the Gallatin Valley, in Manhattan actually. I’m hoping she might know something about my parent’s deaths.”
“You’re sure that was your father’s bracelet?”
“Positive. I knew it as soon as Mrs. Veenstrom read me the inscription on the inside,” Hilary said, pushing the bracelet into Dustin’s hands.
Dustin read the inscription on the inside of the bracelet.
“Frogs don’t drink up all the water in the ponds they live in.”
“My mother bought this bracelet from a Lakota Sioux woman selling crafts at a street fair in Bozeman one day. I remember my mother showing me the bracelet when she brought it home. My mother had collected a few pieces of Native American jewelry - this Hopi turquoise ring I’m wearing is one example - and she loved this bracelet.
“She bought it for my father because he was a ditch rider. I want to track down Mrs. Veenstrom who put the bracelet on eBay. It was not among any of my parent’s things that I received after their deaths. I need to find out how Mrs. Veenstrom got hold of it.”
“I see,” Dustin said.
“I spent a lot of years in therapy Dustin, but I just never could convince myself that the gentle man I knew as my father was a man capable of committing such a heinous crime as murdering his family."
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