Savage Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

was constructed of massive rounded stones, probably from the bottom of the river, in the days when dredging didn't require a
    permit. Huge windows made up of hundreds of tiny panes looked out over the ranch yard and beyond to the mountains.
    When Buster opened the front door, Joe half expected the hand to bow and say something like "Mr. Finotta will see you now." Instead, Buster nodded toward the interior of the house and told Joe to go inside. Which he did.
    The foyer was decorated in pure mid-fifties ranch gothic. The chairs and couches were upholstered with dark Hereford red-and-white hides. The chandelier, suspended from the high ceiling by a thick logging chain, was a wagon wheel with 50-watt bulbs on each spoke. The dominating wall was covered with the brands of local ranches burned into the barn wood paneling, with tiny brass plaques under each brand naming the ranch.
    Joe stopped here. He was taken aback by the fact that he had surveyed the room without taking notice of a small seated figure in the corner of it, shaded from the window by a bushy Asian evergreen tree.
    "Can I get you something?" Her voice was scratchy and high. Now Joe could see her clearly. He was embarrassed by the fact that he had missed her when he entered because she was so still and he was so unobservant. She was bent and small and still, seated in a wheelchair. Her back was curved so that it thrust her head forward, chin out. She held her face at a forty-five degree angle, her eyes large but blank, her airy light-brown hair molded into a helmet shape by spray One stunted arm lay along the armrest of her chair like a strand of rope and the other was curled on her lap out of view He guessed her age as at least seventy but it was hard to tell. "I'm sorry I didn't see you there." Joe said, removing his hat. "Thanks for the offer but I'm fine."
    "You thought I was a piece of furniture, didn't you?" she asked in a high voice.
    Joe knew he flushed red. That's exactly what he was thinking.
    "Don't deny it," she chided, letting out a bubble of laughter like a hiccup. "If I were a snake I could have bitten you."
    Joe introduced himself. She said her name was Ginger. Joe had hoped for more than a name. He couldn't be sure whether Ginger was Jim Finotta's wife or mother. Or someone else. And he didn't know how to ask.
    Jim Finotta, a small man, appeared in the foyer. Finotta wore casual pleated slacks and a short-sleeved polo shirt. Finotta was slight and dark; his full head of hair moussed back from his high forehead. His face was dour and pinched, foreshadowing the tendency of his mouth to curl downward into an expression that said "no." Finotta earned himself with an air of impatient self-importance.
    His $800 ostrich-skin boots glided over the hardwood flooring, but he stopped at the opposite wall under what appeared to be an original Charles Russell painting and spoke without meeting Joe's eye. He nodded kindly to Ginger and asked her if she minded if he met with the "local game warden" for a minute in his office. Ginger hummed her assent, and Finotta smiled at her. With a nod of his head he indicated for Joe to follow him.
    Finotta's office -was a manly classic English den with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled primarily with legal volumes. A framed fox hunting print hung behind the massive mahogany desk and a green-shaded lamp provided most of the light. A massive bull elk head was mounted on the wall in the shadows above the door. Finotta walked briskly around the desk and sat in his chair, clasped his small hands together, and looked up expectantly at Joe. He did not offer Joe a seat.
    "You run cattle in the Bighorns near Hazelton Road?" Joe asked, feeling awkward and out of place in Finotta's study
    "I run two thousand head practically the entire length of the Bighorns in both Twelve Sleep and Johnson County" Finotta answered crisply "We also feed another eleven hundred on our pastures for the summer months. Now how can I help you?" Finotta made