What happened to his wife? SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Perhaps I missed a key line, but I'm assuming that the ranch owner had his wife and her lover killed after his wife left him?
This is what he is basically repeating with the hiring of the regulator. Was this the intention at first? And the regulator catches on to this in the "how to kill bats" scene. However the ranch owner retorts do not get involved in his family business, so any opinions on this?