Marc Sutton was still feeling the buzz over watching the 24-hour news channel’s coverage of the giant energy company scandal. What was the world coming to? Congress was looking for scapegoats, for sure. He knew that the massive scandal went deeper than what was unfolding on the hotel’s television. Look at all the potential trouble at Gen Tech. Were the barbarians at the gate? He had been trying to find out.

            He should be feeling self-congratulatory. He was going to marry the woman of his dreams. And, he had stopped Forbes-Robinson’s financing scheme dead in its tracks. That had been a stroke of genius. He had crunched the numbers, showing the derivatives financing to be way too risky for the firm. Schultz finally agreed that traditional financing was the way to go to finance the project. Sanity had prevailed, at long last!

            He hoped that Michael Jones’ upcoming trip would confirm his suspicions about Inland Pacific’s financial shenanigans. Things would then be headed back in the right direction. God knows there was enough to worry about with concerns running rampant about industrial espionage surrounding the firm’s new fuel cell technology, and the shaky status of some of the gas-fired power plant power sales agreements. He was at the hub of this maelstrom of activity. These last nine months had been a nightmare.

            Today he felt relaxed, fishing on his beloved Madison River. Casting his fly rod for big trout relieved all his stress, and the Madison was his favorite trout river. If he caught a big brownie, well it didn’t get any better than that. His thoughts drifted from the river to his future, to being married, to finally putting his life on course. Sometimes he felt he was a phony, having achieved so much in the business world without much natural talent. His gift, he knew, was simple: good intuition about the right course of action to take. And luck. He’d been one lucky son-of-a-gun.

He wondered why Danny Red Wolf hadn’t showed up. The note said to meet at the small parking lot by the dam at 3:00. He had waited a half hour at the Hebgen Dam parking lot, casting a few times into the tailrace before deciding to work downstream. To hell with that damned Indian!

            The day was getting away from him, so he drove back to Ennis for dinner and then a bit of fishing at the local spots around the town, trying to take a big brownie. He read the second note left at the motel for him from Danny Red Wolf. It said Danny got behind schedule and would meet him at the river, giving the location of the turn out. But Danny wasn’t there. Nor had he caught any big fish, as he had hoped. Time to call it a night, as darkness fell and he could no longer see the sun’s shafts of light over the Gravelly Mountains.

            The dusk settled, giving off a glow that made him feel alive. The coolness of the evening was refreshing after the heat of the day. He started loading the fishing gear but then decided to give it a few more casts. He saw another rig up the road but hadn’t seen anyone angling either up or downstream. It wasn’t the Nez Perce’s rig, and the thought of that damned Indian made him a little angry. They still had issues to settle. Wonder why he hadn’t shown up, again?

He was now at the river’s edge, getting ready to wade into the little eddy. He had no time to react when the blow felled him. He went to his knees, stunned. Then the second blow sent him to his Maker. There was no time for fear or concern, just the void.