R.J. “Gill” Gillilan would often sit in the corner of the room, sporting a leather coat and gold chains or, at other times, bib overalls when he didn’t want to be bothered by anyone. He was in Las Vegas, Nevada as an undercover “john” on what his wife, Carmalen, called “smut patrol.”
Gillilan had planned his personal vacations meticulously and always looked forward to leaving behind the glitz of Sin City for the sage and dirt of Wyoming.
He had been drawn back to his boyhood home by a portrait of a horse.
Eighty years ago, Frank “Wild Horse” Robbins was rounding up mustangs with an airplane in the Red Desert near Rawlins, Wyoming, when he spotted a rare palomino stallion running with the herd. He sent for his photographer, Verne Wood, to take a photo, unaware of the sequence of events that he was about to unleash.
This photo caught the imagination of the world. The horse, now known as Desert Dust, had posed in sage and rock the day of his capture, still untamed and wild. More than a million copies were sold worldwide appearing at such prestigious places as the House of Commons in London.
Wood hired a team to colorize the