Harney's Peak

By J. D. Patterson

The President of Western Dakota School of Mines (WDSM) in Rapid City is shot and killed while viewing a "shootout" staged for tourists. How the shooter had live ammunition remains a mystery for some time. The unpopular, power hungry, and ambitious Vice President Dick Rafferty of WDSM assumes the Presidency and initiates controversial changes at the school. The narrator Jim Harrison as well as Bill Harney his friend are physics professors at WDSM. Harney is a very well regarded scientist and he is suspicious of the circumstances. Harrison and Harney investigate the events as best they can aided by Betty Turner a news reporter for the local Rapid City paper. She enlists the aid of Gerald Thompson a national reporter for the New York Journal. Thompson, in effect, breaks the story wide open. Motives as well as connections of Rafferty to the shooter Buzz Franklin are discovered. Rafferty is implicated in the shooting by Franklin and is put on paid administrative leave of absence while Harney is appointed acting President. Included in the motives is the closure of the nearby Homestake Gold Mine and plans to convert it to an underground science laboratory with subsequent valuation of property in the neighborhood. Franklin is indicted for the shooting but before the story reaches a dramatic climax in the trial of Franklin, conflict arises between Rafferty and the faculty, particularly Harney and Harrison, as to the objectives of the school. When Franklin is convicted, he immediately non lethally shoots Rafferty (who was not idicted) and others with a smuggled gun. After Rafferty recovers he resigns his (on leave) Presidency and goes into real estate. Harney proves his mettle by insisting on returning to his position as professor while the mine is converted to a laboratory and WDSM ends up increasing its stature by connections with new lab.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477131510

J. D. Patterson

James D. Patterson’s early life was as a farm boy in Missouri. He has an A. B. from the University of Missouri, an S. M. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph. D. from the University of Kansas, all in Physics. He taught and did research in Physics at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, The Florida Institute of Technology, and Idaho State University, among other universities. JDP now lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This fictional story’s origins come from his observations while attending a cardiac Rehab group in Rapid City.

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Harney’s Peak

Patterson, J. D.

Copyright © 2012 by Patterson, J. D.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4771-3150-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-3151-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events, and characters are either invented or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual incidents, places, or people living or dead is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Characters

Chapter 1      The Shootout

Chapter 2      Consequences?

Chapter 3      Devil in the Details?

Chapter 4      Feeding Suspicions

Chapter 5      On Campus

Chapter 6      The New Yorker

Chapter 7      The Investigation

Chapter 8      The Trial

Chapter 9      An Underground Laboratory

Afterword

Appendix 1      The Black Hills

Appendix 2      Bell Labs

Appendix 3      Two lesser known papers of Einstein

Appendix 4      Gold Mining in the Black Hills

Appendix 5      The Homestake

Appendix 6      Particle Physics and the Neutrino

Appendix 7      Distance to Horizon

Appendix 8      Electromagnetic Pumps

Appendix 9      Bullet trajectories

Appendix 10      Noted South Dakota Physicists

References

Dedicated to honorable University Professors.

The worst sin that can be committed is the betrayal of trust.

William Harney, Rapid City, SD

The first step in wisdom, is to know the false.

Sir Thomas Browne

In The Education of Henry Adams, we read, No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is vicious.

Acknowledgments

My wife, Marluce Patterson, read the manuscript and made valuable comments as well as grammatical corrections. Thanks to Mely Rahn who also read the book and made several very useful corrections and suggestions for improvement. However all errors and imperfections were generated by the author.

Characters

1. Jim Harrison—Narrator

2. Custer—Harrison’s Dog

3. President Roger Ward (of Western Dakota School of Mines, WDSM), Mrs. Ward, Daughter Emma

4. Dick Rafferty—V. P. then President of WDSM

5. Bill Harney—colleague in Physics Dept. Wife Janice

6. Buzz Franklin—the Shooter, Wife Rosalind

7. Governor Howard

8. Board of Regents (BOR) chairman—William Torres

9. Bill Foster—Head of Dept.

10. Ron Cason—University of California/Berkeley Professor

11. Sally Egger—Bugling Elk Waitress

12. Ken Butler—Lawyer, Professor in Humanities Dept., Wife Renova

13. Betty Turner—Western Hills Journal Reporter

14. Brody Jenkins—Geology

15. Cole Flores—EE

16. Ryan Simmons—Chem. E.

17. Chris Roberts—Chem.

18. Wyatt Collins—ME

19. Gerald Thompson—New York Journal (NYJ) Reporter

20. Eric Hughes—English Professor

Chapter 1

The Shootout

Dogs hate loud firecracker like noises. I wouldn’t have brought Custer, my yellow and brown Collie, into Hill City if I had remembered there was a shootout scheduled for tourists that afternoon. I often took him in the car as he liked to ride. In the summer Hill City is a tourist town, and some tourists watching the shootout perhaps thought they were witnessing a reenactment of something that had really occurred there. Hill City actually had been a relatively peaceful place and was now a gem of a little town with art galleries, nice homes on the periphery, low surrounding hills, and a one street downtown that had not been overly prettified.

I had parked the car off the main street and was headed there when I heard the hard flat sounds of revolvers being fired. Custer tried to run away, but I held on to his leash. I was focussed on Custer trying to tug away when I heard screams from a crowd of people near the main steps that led to the Alpine Inn. I started in that direction but realized Custer had had enough of loud sounds and confusion. I better get him back to the Bronco, I said to myself. It was a late August day, but not so hot in the Hills, so if I left the windows open a bit Custer would not be too hot in the car. Maybe I should have driven off, but I wanted to know what had caused the commotion.

There was still a hubbub as I neared the Alpine Inn’s verandah. The Inn had been a hotel for the Harney Peak Mining Company, long defunct, but was now a fine restaurant.

I stepped to the rear of the crowd and asked a middle aged man;

What happened?

Gosh darn awfullest thing I ever saw. Two people were shot by one of the actors in the shootout. He must have been using live ammunition by mistake.

Hurt bad?, I asked.

See for yourself, there they are down on the other wing of this porch, stretched out, waiting for an ambulance.

The Alpine Inn was on a street corner and the roofed verandah formed an L looking over the main street and a side street. I had come from the main street and the people that were shot were around the corner overlooking the side street, so I made my way over there.

Hill City had a health clinic with an ambulance and I already heard the siren. They only had a couple of blocks to go to reach the Alpine Inn. I was sure they would take the injured to the big hospital in Rapid City, about half an hour away. The ambulance pulled up and the driver and another man hopped out and moved quickly.

Clear the way, clear the way, they yelled as they pulled the stretchers out of the back of the truck.

They rushed up to the verandah and loaded one man on the gurney. As he was whisked into the vehicle, I saw with a shock it was President Ward, the head of my university.

Good God, I said to myself.

Ward didn’t seem to be moving at all. His bald head was white rather than red as it normally became when he was agitated. I did not recognize the other wounded man, but at least he showed some movement. Mrs. Ward got in the ambulance along with a male who appeared to be connected with other man. I supposed he was a family member. The medic got in back and the driver jumped in front turned on the siren and they were off.

I glanced south down the main street where the shooters had been. There were some people still milling around, but most had moved swiftly away after realizing, I suppose, that more than a reenactment had taken place.

I looked around the verandah of the Inn, which was a brownish old world two story structure, sitting on the north west corner of the street’s intersection.

The porch was still full of people. Vice President Dick Rafferty and his wife were talking to Emma Ward, the President’s daughter who quite naturally appeared to be stunned and confused. I knew her slightly, and decided that whatever Rafferty, or Sir Talks-a-Lot, as the faculty called him, was saying was probably not what Emma needed just at this time.

Emma saw me coming. She was crying.

Oh, Jim, she said. Did you see it. Father was shot. I think he’s dead.

I only nodded to the Raffertys. At the moment, I didn’t care whether I impressed them or not.

Can I help Emma?, I said. I can drive you back to Rapid.

We’ll drive her, Rafferty said. He did not seem to like me breaking in.

No, no, said Emma, I’ll drive Father’s car back to town.

But, really should you?, I said.

Mrs. Rafferty chirped in. Don’t worry Prof. Harrison, I’ll ride with Emma, Dick can go back in our car.

Well that’s OK, I thought. Mrs. Rafferty is not as obnoxious as her husband and might even be a comfort to Emma.

OK, Emma said. I want to get to the Hospital right now.

She walked off briskly with Mrs. Rafferty following. The Wards took care of business, no matter what. I didn’t know Emma very well, but one thing I knew about her was that she was tough. She would see this though and probably, tear into the shootist who shot her dad even if it were an accident.

Dick Rafferty shrugged his shoulders, and said, I better put the pedal to the metal and follow them. Boy, have we taken a punch in the gut, and he left. However he really did not seem to be as upset as others, including me.

I decided things were in as much control as they would get and I better get out of the way before reporters showed up.

I wondered why Ward and Rafferty were up in Hill City watching the shootout. It hardly seem natural for them to be together outside of the school. Rumor was they did not get along very well. I decided I would find out soon enough.

I walked up the street to the Dairy Queen, and bought two scoops of ice cream and told them to put them on a paper plate.

It’s for my dog, I said. The shootout noises scared him.

"He wasn’t shot also was he?, the attendant asked me.

No, just scared.

Custer was waiting nervously in the Bronco when I got back. He gulped down the ice cream and after licking the plate settled down on the passenger’s front seat.

I had planned to stay the night in my trailer on a little piece of property I owned about three miles from Hill City, but decided I better get back to my house in Rapid. There would be a lot of news on TV that evening and I wanted to hear it. I hoped Ward had survived, but it had not looked good. He was a decent old man. He was honest, fair, maybe a bit old fashioned, but we could have done far worse. Rafferty, for example, was in my opinion a jerk. The drive back from Hill City to Rapid City was good for Custer and me. He slept, and I began to process what I knew and didn’t know. The drive through the Ponderosa pine covered rocky hills always calmed my nerves. What had happened in Hill City would make the national news, and I began to wonder if the reportage would educate people about my state.

South Dakota is divided into two almost equal parts by the Missouri River which runs north-south through the state. The Capital, Pierre, is located in the center of the state on the Missouri River. The East River part is characterized by farms, tall grass prairies, corn and pigs, and a midwesternly feeling. Also the states largest city Sioux Falls is in East River. The West River part contains the second largest city, Rapid City, the mountainous Black Hills with swift flowing creeks and is characterized by ranches, short grass, cattle, mining in the Black Hills and a westerly feel. We even have buffalo on some ranches and in Custer State Park.

Although both parts can experience severe cold in winter, the part near the Black