Bill, 83, died November 14, 2021, in Austin, Texas. He was born July 31, 1938, in Tucson, Arizona. "Bill was an attorney, an Officer in the U.S. Navy, an F.B.I. agent, a farm and ranch hand, a smokejumper and forestry aid, a professor of criminal justice, a student of history, a writer and storyteller, and a European traveler. He was also an avid hunter-not only of wild game in his youth, but of corruption, crooks and Klansman, of books, beauty, and bargains.

"Bill had a special connection to the Texas landscape, its ruggedness and its rockiness, and he would often take his sons on treks to scout and re-home rocks so heavy they seemed impossible to move-their size almost comical in the bed of his pickup-as he worked to sculpt his enchanted land in Sunset Valley. Over a period of 50 years, Bill built and maintained perhaps some of the most intricate and personal dry stacked stone walls in Texas, each individual stone self-harvested from the native soil of his land and placed by hand with technical precision and a sacred sensitivity."

Bill jumped at Missoula during the 1959 season.