screen” for the real murderers. And the person who seemed most
intent on framing Bunch was the King of the Osage Hills. After
Roan’s murder, Hale had visited Roan’s widow several times to try
to get her to sign various papers regarding claims against Roan’s
estate. Once, Hale had left a bottle of whiskey for her as a gift. But
she refused to taste the moonshine: she feared that it was
poisoned.
Though White had gathered circumstantial evidence implicating
Hale in the murder of Roan, there were still huge holes in the
case. There was no proof—no fingerprints, no credible
eyewitnesses—that Hale had shot Roan or that he had ordered one
of his nephews or another henchman to do so. And while the
suspicious life-insurance policy seemed to tie Hale to Roan’s
murder, it did not provide a motive for the other Osage killings.
Yet, as White studied the Roan case further, one detail stood
out. Before Hale obtained the life-insurance policy on Roan, he
had attempted to purchase Roan’s headright—his share in the
tribe’s mineral trust, which was more precious than any cache of
diamonds or gold. Hale knew that the law prevented anyone from
buying or selling a headright, but he’d been confident that
lobbying pressure from influential whites would soon eliminate
this prohibition. Indeed, Hale once said, “I, like many other good
men, believed it would be only a short time until Congress would
pass a law permitting every educated Indian who had his
certificate of competency to sell or convey his or her mineral
rights to whom they wished.” Yet the law had not been changed,
and White suspected that this setback had prompted Hale to turn
to the insurance murder plot.
There was one legal way, though, that someone could still
obtain a headright: inheritance. As White examined probate