The Incident at Bushmaster Ranch

THE INCIDENT AT BUSHMASTER RANCH

Some say it was the elevation, others say the clean air, all I know is they were among the best out there. People would come from all over the world to buy my Grandfather’s horses because they were the best. I remember spending summers as a young girl at my Grandfather’s ranch up in the mountains of Flagstaff Arizona. I remember his sprawling one hundred acre ranch like it was the back of my hand. All the nooks and crannies, all the hills, all the creeks that would vain through the land. I loved it there, and I loved my Grandfather.

That was a long time ago, long before anyone know what was to come of the ranch and what was to come of my Grandfather.

I didn’t know it at the time but now I can see the signs as I look back. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I am here to attest to that. There were these little things, just passing moments, that when I look back and put them together, I can see the culmination of what was the inevitable...

The Incident at Bushmaster Ranch!

When I look back, one of the first things that comes to mind is that time in the old barn. You see my Grandfather had this old barn that connected to the stables, just off behind the main house. This barn was his “saloon”, it had some old neon beer signs from the nineteen seventies, a couple of old pinball machines, and an old coin operated billiard table. There was even and old fashioned fridge.

I probably spent too much time in the old barn, but I loved my Grandfather and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with him. I remember he would be back there, drinking beer and shooting pool. Sometimes he would get a little too drunk and he would occasionally lash out at the ranch hands that worked the property. These guys were hard workers too, they basically spent all their time and energy working the farm, tending to the horses, and essentially pretending to be my Grandfathers “good buddies”. I only say that because he was a hard man to be friends with.

He was a man from a different era, he came out of the “dust bowl” and understood what it meant to literally be dirt poor. He vowed to never go back to that, and as a result, he was very tough on people. Some might say abusive. Anyway, one night, while holding court in the old barn, my Grandfather was being extra demonstrative to one of his oldest hands, Gabriel’s son Ignacio. He was carrying on about how lazy and how useless his father was, and how Ignacio was going to turn out just like him, a good for nothing immigrant from some dirty place in South America. My Grandfather could be pretty mean, but this was going a bit too far in my eyes.

He would tell the boy about how he thought his father was lucky to have a boss like him and how if it wasn’t for him, they would probably be living on the streets somewhere. Now, don’t get me wrong, my Grandfather was a great man, and I loved him, and he was only like this when he drank.

Gabriel was trying to be patient with my Grandfather and also be strong for his son. He was trying to be agreeable while dismantling the situation. He went over to my grandfather, told him “I’s OK, I know you don’t mean it. You have a good night Sir. We are going to bed now”. And when Gabriel went to pat my Grandfather on the back, my Grandfather reared back and smacked Gabriel across the face. This sent Gabriel stumbling backwards a few feet and he fell and hit his head against the edge of the pool table.

Gabriel was out cold. Me and Ignacio, had to help bring him back to consciousness. Gabriel was really light headed and bleeding pretty badly. I ended up helping Ignacio walk his father home and get him to bed. It wasn’t till the next morning did we really know the severity of the situation.

I woke up to the sound of an ambulance pulling into the property. After attending to Gabriel in the Bunk House, I saw the EMT’s haul him into the ambulance and head into town. I asked Ignacio what happened and he said that his father started to shake uncontrollably and that he couldn’t wake him up. Signs of what I would later find out to be a Intracranial Hemorrhage.

Gabriel died at the hospital two days later.

The local Sheriff came around and spoke with my Grandfather, normal stuff I guess. Nothing ever came of it, after all, my Grandfather was pretty vital to the community. He had some weight one would say. So maybe he was to blame for the mans death, no one would ever be charged. It was just an accident after all.

Ignacio left the ranch that same week. I didn’t see him again for about seven years. Ignacio and I were close to a year apart in age, him being the older one. When I saw him again I was seventeen years old and working the farm myself. My Grandfather was pretty frail by this time, but still doing OK. Ignacio came to see if he could come on and work as a ranch hand. Maybe he wanted to see if he could find closure to his fathers death, maybe he had nowhere else to go, I never really found out.

My Grandfather brought him on right there on the spot, and Ignacio was ready and willing. All he had to his name was a small backpack and the clothes on his back and his fathers work ethic.

He was a very hard worker he would work from sunrise to sunset. In

the evenings he would spend his time with the horses in the stables. He never complained, in fact he never really said much at all. It must have been really strange for him, just feet away was the place where his father fell and hit his head. The place where his life changed. If it did bother him, he never showed it. All he did was work.

He continued on with us for a while, working and keeping himself at a distance. I never really thought anything about his quiet nature, I just thought he was just a guy that kept to himself. I still believe that to be true, despite what the authorities have said. I still don’t believe it’s true. I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me go back a little...

About a year or so after Ignacio was brought on to the ranch there were some, oh gosh, how should I put this, occurrences that took place. It started with the local Sheriff. One night, on his way home from work he had pulled off the road to help a stranded motorist. Well, he never made it home that night as the “stranded motorist” was just a ploy, at least that’s what the paper said, and they, or he, or she ambushed him. I say that because no one ever caught the killer. Sheriff Thorpe was killed right there on the side of A1 road, throat slit from ear to ear, he bled out in the cold air with no-one around.

The next few “occurrences” hit a little closer to home. On a warm June night, a few years later, our horse wrangler was found dead in the stables. His face had been mutilated. Someone had attempted to hammer a horseshoe to his head. It was nailed into his forehead upside down and the shoe itself was positioned in such a way that it covered up his recently gouged out eyeballs. It was horrific, real messy!

The Police were brought in but no evidence was ever found on the ranch. Ignacio was cleared as a suspect because he was visiting his Mother in Ecuador at the time. The murder is still unsolved.

The next slaying was, I guess it must have been a few years later in October. The seasons were changing, the ranch needed to be prepped for the coming winter months. During this time on the ranch we usually light a huge bon fire and burn a lot of the old pieces of wood from the barn and the stables, pieces of replaced fence posts and slats, pulled crops, things like that. It ends up being this massive fire that burns most of the night.

When the fire burns, people watch the burning heap in shifts, someone will take an hour here, another will watch for a few hours there, and so on. It must have been about two in the morning when the screams started. The screams came from the ranch’s cook. She stood out by the fire as it burned into the night and screamed bloody murder. It appeared that her husband had gotten drunk and fallen into the burning fire during his shift. She only recognized it to be him because his feet and ankles were sticking out and she noticed his boots.

Another year and another tragedy on the ranch. This one was ruled an accident, no-one to blame just a drunken mistake. After all, work on a ranch is hard, and people tend to drink a lot, just like my Grandfather did. That leads me to the day of the slaughter.

It was January, six years after Ignacio came back to the ranch, and 13 years after that night his Father tragically died. I was making my rounds at the end of the night, walking the property, checking the stables when I heard something. Behind one the horses in the last stall of the stables was where the rustling came from. As I approached I saw something flicker in the moonlight. When I got closer I realized what it was, it was a trail of blood that went into the stall. I followed the trail back behind the horse to its source and that is where I found him.

My Grandfather lived to be eighty-two years old on that ranch. He was murdered right there! His body was laying on its back, eyes gouged out of his skull and placed into his right hand. His right hand was positioned low and open like an offering of some kind. His chest was sliced right down the middle and his ribcage separated by a set of prying sheers. His insides were all removed, cleaned, and placed meticulously at his side. He had horse shoes hammered into his feet. His tongue was carved out of his mouth and placed into his left hand. His left hand was resting up above his head and it was clutching the tongue. I was almost like a cross between some ancient ritual and a piece of modern art.

Ignacio has been is jail awaiting trial for nearly two years now. He has continuously maintained his innocence. I believe him, I just really can’t do anything about it. His trial starts next week, which is why I started thinking about this whole thing to begin with.

I have been running the ranch ever since that day, and I have gotten a lot better with the horse tools too.

I still burn the fires at the end of summer.

I still have a strong disdain for law enforcement.

I still despise alcoholics.

I still care about the innocent.

I still love my Grandfather.