No. 1 question on tour: 'Was he guilty?'

If you recall, in the last column I mentioned that at almost every stop of my Tom Horn tour, the first question was: “Was he guilty?” Well, this was the first question I heard in all but one stop in phase II of the tour: “Was he guilty?” demanded each first interrogator.

So said people in my audience in Casper, Cheyenne, and Laramie. And the people at the one place that failed to ask the big question were all from Colorado, so they probably didn’t understand the proper protocol. I told each of my interrogators the same thing I’d told people before, that in the book I didn’t take a position on Horn’s guilt or innocence, and I wasn’t going to do it this time either. I feel that in such a complex and controversial case, it’s more appropriate to just set out all the facts as I did in my book and let people make up their minds.

It’s not that I don’t have an opinion – my opinion is quite firm, actually – but that the facts will speak for themselves. I think the great majority of people will look at the facts and can arrive at only one conclusion. If most folks arrive at the conclusion I expect, I’ll feel that much better that I didn’t try to cram my opinion down people’s throats. And if they surprise me, then I’ll re-examine the evidence presented, and I’ll learn even more about the Tom Horn case.

One very gratifying comment that I’m hearing is that the book is a page turner for most folks. That was something I tried to produce, but had no idea whether I was successful. Too many trees, one very blurred forest.

The weather was different on this leg of the tour. When I earlier visited places in the Big Horn Basin, it was quite warm. Even when it rained in Thermopolis it was warmer than normal. But in this last week it wasn’t warm anywhere. I began in Casper, and as I left the Natrona County Library, where I’d given my talk, the rain started to fall heavily. It continued all through the night into the next day. The only change thereafter was the rain turning to snow and more wind. I was visiting my uncle Bill Beadle in Paradise Valley and as we talked I happened to glance out the picture window in his house, and that’s when I really noticed that our precipitation had turned white. I had to get to Cheyenne that day, so hurried away before I’d wanted. It was well that I did, because I was able to drive out of the snow a good ways before Cheyenne.

In fact, it was nice once I arrived in Cheyenne. Didn’t last, however. That evening, about the time I finished my talk at the Wyoming State Museum, it started to rain. And it rained and rained, until, like Casper, the rain turned to snow. That was the following morning and I was worried that the road would be closed to Fort Collins. It wasn’t; actually, as I went south the weather got consistently better, although it still wasn’t great when I arrived at the place of my talk. They were nice folks, even if they were G----ies. One young woman bought a book which she asked me to autograph for her father-in-law, one Louis Walrath, formerly of Thermopolis. Another good guy, and it was nice making a connection with Louis, with whom I’d had a cordial relationship for about 40 years.

Anyway, when I returned to Cheyenne and started west on Interstate 80, I heard that the interstate was closed. I didn’t believe it, but then I came to a barricade where long strings of semi-trucks and trailers were parked all along several roads leading into ramps to I80. Faced with no choice in the matter, I headed back to Cheyenne. At first I thought I’d go back to my last night’s motel and see if I could get the phone number for WYDOT to see what roads were closed and what were open. But when I arrived there, I realized the best source might be the Laramie motel for which I had a reservation. And it was, informing me that US 287 out of Fort Collins was open. After a lot of winding around in wet conditions I finally arrived in Laramie; US 287, while wet, was otherwise quite open.

Ah, spring in Wyoming.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is mostly retired. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which is The Trial of Tom Horn.