Weapons of Mass Destruction by Margaret Vandenburg Page A

Great-grandfather Tyler Sinclair was alternately altruistic, shrewd, or downright disreputable, depending on the teller. He sold horses to the Confederacy or the Union, if not both armies, in which case he narrowly escaped swinging on the end of a rope. Sinclair’s father, who was a confirmed skeptic, insisted that Tyler had deserted from the Confederate army, saving his skin by hiding in a hollow log to elude bloodhounds. As far as Sinclair was concerned, his father was a notoriously unreliable narrator, especially when the story involved military exploits. Vietnam had convinced his generation that war was just an excuse to open up foreign markets. If he’d been old enough for the draft, he would have slipped into Canada, especially since the Sunset Ranch was so conveniently located near the border.
    “It runs in the family,” Sinclair’s father liked to say.
    “What does?”
    “Draft dodging.”
    “Knock it off, Dad,” Sinclair said. “Just because you’re a traitor doesn’t mean great-grandfather Tyler was.”
    “Neither of us are traitors, Billy. What’s the point of getting your butt blown off in a senseless war?”
    “The Civil War wasn’t a senseless war.”
    “It was if you knew damn good and well you were on the losing side.”
    “There was more at stake than just winning or losing.”
    “Like what?”
    “Honor. The right to defend your land.”
    “A bunch of slave-holding rats clinging to a sinking ship doesn’t make them honorable, Billy.”
    His father’s relentless pragmatism offended the youthful idealism Sinclair had no intention of outgrowing. For him the central issue was patriotism itself, allegiance to a cause. The politics of the Confederacy were less important than the right to determine their own destiny. Democracy itself was at stake in the Civil War. When America fought wars, democracy was always at stake.
    Grandpa’s version of the story was much more circumspect. For one thing, he referred to Tyler’s move to Montana as a migration rather than a desertion. Big Sky country beckoned and he went west with all the other young men. A hollow log and bloodhounds were involved. But the identity of the troops in pursuit was more nebulous.
    “They could have been Yankees chasing a loyal Confederate soldier,” Grandpa said.
    “That sounds more like it,” Sinclair said.
    “If they’d been rebels tracking a traitor, they’d have nabbed him.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Better bloodhounds. Used to tracking runaway slaves.”
    Grandpa’s interpretation, cleansed of troubling nuances, appealed to the black-and-white clarity of Sinclair’s moral universe. He simply couldn’t comprehend anything that didn’t fit into the scheme of good and evil. Right was right and wrong was wrong, and the measure of manhood was standing up for what you believed in. There was no question in Sinclair’s mind that Tyler was a loyal patriot. But one troubling fact still dogged him. Horses with the Sunset Ranch brand—an “S” with a snake’s head—had been registered in both Confederate and Union armies. The only possible explanation was that Yankees had commandeered the horses of fallen rebel heroes. Spoils of victory. Pete, whose imagination was less encumbered by moral certainties, offered a less exalted explanation. Tyler was a businessman, an entrepreneurial American dedicated to the belief that what was good for the goose was good for the gander. Whether this meant he was a traitor or not depended on your definition of the pursuit of happiness. One man’s opportunism was another man’s free enterprise. Pirates were notoriously hard to distinguish from patriots, especially during the Civil War.
    Pete and Sinclair may have disagreed about the details of the illustrious history of the Sunset Ranch, but both boys blamed their fathers for its recent demise. Previous generations loomed in heroic relief against the immediate backdrop of alcoholism and cynicism. Whatever pride Pete took in his