FOLLOW THE LEADER - Chapter 45

 Chapter 45

 The park rangers were right. Very little was left. There was a chimney, part of a stove and the charred walls of a foundation. I stepped onto it and searched the area for clues, working in a circle, 

outside-in.

Nothing.

Just to the side of me was a deep fire pit. Was this where Jason’s man heated the branding irons? I began to compare Jason to Charles Manson. From what I had read, Manson did not kill animals. Some of his Family came from decent homes, whereas Jason’s bunch seemed to have no homes. And they were not averse to killing animals big and small.

The exception, of course, was Katherine Rollins. 

We were nowhere near answering the question: Why her?

From Helter-Skelter I learned that Manson had his favorites, all of whom would have sex with him. And just about anyone else. During his Family’s stay at Spahn Ranch, the place was an incubator of syphilis and gonorrhea.

Was Katherine one of Jason’s favorites?

Were Jason and his girls holed up now on an abandoned ranch? I thought there was a good chance that that location was in northern California.

I saw a small hill some distance from the site. From there, a lookout could spot a car coming out of the pass.

I tried to picture Tex Watson, one of the scarier members of Manson’s Family, sitting atop this hill on a wooden chair. Maybe he would only be keeping watch at night. Otherwise he would wilt from the heat. Would he be a smoker? How did he entertain himself?

Just for the hell of it, I left the site and climbed up the hill. It was the perfect place to watch the winding road that came down through the pass. Even without binoculars I could see the narrow opening.

Then I looked down. A small object poked up from the dust. I went over to inspect it. It was a matchbook from a restaurant in Petaluma: Washoe House. Supposedly the oldest roadhouse in Calfornia. The  matchbook was in good shape but not brand new. Definitely recent. Someone not too long ago had stood where I was standing and he was smoking something. Tobacco, weed. or maybe crack. Maybe after an hour or so, the lookout lit a cigarette or a joint.

I picked up the matchbook and dropped it into a baggie. I sifted through the dust and found several charred matches, but nothing else.

Someone had kept the watch one night, I guessed.  The lookout could have passed through Petaluma and stopped to eat there.  Or…And this was a distinct possibility: That person could be living in or around Petaluma.