by Rob Phillips
“It’s worth a shot,” she said. “Let’s get the word out. Remember the Ted Kaczynski thing?”
“That’s John Krasinski,” McCain said with a laugh.
Chapter 19
McCain and Hargraves met the next morning to discuss the little issue of the Johnson brothers. If they were continuing in the family tradition of poaching black bears, they were most likely doing so in familiar territory, at least that is what McCain figured. Hargraves suggested they first take a look up in the Ahtanum, where they had discovered LeRoy Junior over a bear bait in the spring. And, he thought it would be worth checking out the area to the west too, as some bears would have headed to higher country in the summer.
Hargraves would do some checking a couple miles due west of the Johnson’s last bear baits, and McCain would check around in the area where the baits had been placed a few months earlier. The officers agreed to check in with each other at one o’clock.
Before he headed out to check on the bait sites, McCain went and picked up Jack. He figured the dog would like a little outing in the woods. After grabbing Jack, McCain drove west out of town on Ahtanum Road through orchards and small farm fields. When he hit the Tampico store he veered to the right and followed the north fork of Ahtanum Creek up into the area known as Nasty Creek. This is where the Johnsons had tried to score some bear bladders to sell on the black market, and odds were this is where they had returned.
McCain parked on an old logging two-track road on National Forest land and started walking up the trail. Jack crisscrossed ahead as McCain searched the surroundings for anything out of place. The Johnsons had used a camouflaged pop-up blind where Hargraves had nabbed LeRoy Junior during the spring, so he looked for those or the blue fifty-gallon plastic drums that were used as bait containers. McCain also looked for boot tracks in the dirt and found a few old tracks, but they could have been made weeks ago as Central Washington hadn’t had any rain in almost two months.
He searched for a couple hours, up two more two-track roads, and was just about to turn around on a third when he was startled by a rifle shot nearby. He hadn’t heard the sizzle of a bullet flying by and figured the shot wasn’t meant for him. Still, the boom of the rifle was close enough that he decided to head that way and check it out.
McCain whistled for Jack. The dog had, at the sound of the gun, gone in search of something to retrieve. With Jack by his side he moved through the trees in the direction of the rifle fire.
As they worked over the small hogback ridge toward the shot, McCain took it slowly, watching all around him as he walked. Jack stayed dutifully by his side. After a few more quiet steps, McCain heard someone walking down below. When he finally spotted the man moving through the brush and trees, he wasn’t surprised. It was none other than LeRoy Johnson Jr.
McCain decided he wasn’t up for running down another member of the Johnson family, so he snuck in closer to LeRoy who was walking with purpose and not paying much attention to what else was going on.
Because Johnson was carrying a rifle, McCain pulled his pistol. When he was within twenty yards, McCain said, “Hello, LeRoy.”
LeRoy turned, and as he did he brought his rifle up level with his chest.
“State police! Drop the rifle, LeRoy,” McCain shouted.
When LeRoy Junior saw the pistol aimed at him, he lowered the rifle.
“Put your rifle on the ground and step back three steps,” McCain ordered.
He watched Johnson put the rifle down in the grass and back up. McCain could see the young man mouthing, “one, two, three” as he took the steps back.
McCain lowered his pistol and walked toward Johnson.
“Do you have any other weapons on you?” McCain asked.
“Jest my skinnin’ knife,” Johnson said.
“Well, for now, maybe you better give that to me too.” McCain said.
The man obliged and gave McCain a folding knife which, on closer inspection, had fairly new blood on the handle. McCain then handcuffed Johnson and frisked him, just in case the man had forgotten about a pistol in his sock or something. McCain asked LeRoy what he was shooting at. LeRoy said he had shot at a running black bear.
“Did you hit it?” McCain asked.
“Dunno,” Johnson said. “I was just goin’ to look when you stopped me.”
“Okay, here’s what we are going to do. Let’s walk back to my truck, and I’ll call in some help to see if we can find the bear, if it was hit. Where is your truck parked?”
“Back at our place.”
“So, how’d you get out here?”
“Teddy brung me.”
“And where is Teddy now?” McCain asked. All he needed was another armed Johnson running around out here in the woods.
“He’s gunna pick me up on the road at dark. Unless he’s got a bear down. Then I have to wait for him awhile.”
“Where’s Teddy hunting?”
“He’s up in Cowiche. We got some baits up there.”
“I see,” McCain said. “And you know bear hunting is closed right now.”
“Yeah, but Aaron, he’s been paying us $400 for each bear bladder we git for him. And he gives us another $200 for each hide.”
“This is Aaron Armitage, Teddy’s friend?”
“Yeah, Teddy likes him, but he’s mean to me. He even kicks the chickens when he comes to our house.”
“Sounds like a nice guy.”
McCain picked up Johnson’s rifle, pulled out his GPS and marked a waypoint to help him look for the bear. He then tapped his hip for Jack to come, and the two men and the yellow dog headed back to the truck.
At the truck, McCain radioed for Hargraves.
“Go ahead,” Hargraves answered.
“I found LeRoy Junior hunting bears,” McCain reported. “I have him in custody, but we have a couple other issues. You should probably head my way as soon as you can.”
“10-4,” Hargraves said. “You still up the north fork?”
“I’m up Nasty Creek off the North Fork Road. You’ll see my rig. I think we need a sheriff’s deputy here too. Someone needs to get LeRoy transported downtown, and we have a potential wounded bear to deal with. I have Jack with me, so we can track it down if the bear is wounded. But someone also needs to be here when Teddy shows up to pick up his brother. And we need to send a deputy to try to run down this guy who is buying the bear parts. LeRoy says it’s Aaron Armitage. YSO might want to connect with Kittitas County because I think he lives up there. I know he’s done time at Coyote Ridge, so they may be keeping tabs on him.”
“Copy that,” Hargraves said. “I’ll get a deputy rolling and get them to make contact with Kittitas County, and I’ll be there as quickly as I can. It’ll be probably thirty minutes.”
While they waited, McCain asked LeRoy about their bear poaching business. The younger Johnson told McCain they started back up hunting bears three weeks ago, and so far they’d killed four. They’d killed one the day before yesterday, Johnson said, which McCain figured might account for the blood in the back of Teddy’s truck.
Hargraves showed up twenty-five minutes later, followed by Deputy Garcia a few minutes after that.
“Finding more bodies?” Garcia asked McCain as he climbed out of his SUV.
McCain ignored him and said, “Can you transport Mr. Johnson here down to the county lock-up for me? Hargraves has to be here to arrest Johnson’s brother when he shows up, and I need to go deal with a possible wounded bear.”
Garcia agreed to take Johnson to Yakima, so McCain took his handcuffs off the man, and Garcia cuffed him with his own and put Johnson in the backseat of his rig.
“Thanks, Paul,” McCain said. “I owe you lunch.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Garcia said. “Don’t get eaten by that bear.”
Garcia drove off in a cloud of dust, and Hargraves turned to McCain and said, “Since Teddy isn’t due here until dark, you want me to go help you look for that bear?”
“Naw, I think Jack and I can handle it,�
�� McCain said. “Besides, I don’t want to miss Teddy. I’d hate to have him come looking for his brother and you’re not here to greet him.”
McCain reminded Hargraves that Teddy Johnson drove a maroon Dodge Ram 4X4, but he could possibly be in LeRoy Junior’s white Chevy four-wheel drive pickup too.
“And don’t be surprised if the guy makes a run for it,” McCain said. “He strikes me as just the type. Hopefully, Jack and I will find the bear quickly, and we can get back to assist you.”
“Go do your thing,” Hargraves said. “I’ll be fine.”
McCain checked the GPS unit and headed back toward the waypoint. It showed it was a little over a mile away. He probably could have walked right to it without the assist from a bunch of satellites overhead, but he looked at the device anyway. Before he left his truck, he grabbed the .223 rifle out of the rack and made sure it was loaded, with a round in the chamber and a full clip underneath.
As they walked, Jack cast about, looking for whatever. There were probably a million smells in the woods this time of year, and the yellow dog seemed to be taking them all in.
When they reached the place where they had cut off the younger Johnson, McCain called Jack in and kept him close as he looked for either blood or bear tracks. It took them a while, but McCain finally spotted blood on some grass. He had Jack come in to get a good whiff of the blood and the tracks in the dirt and grass.
“Go find him boy,” McCain said to the dog.
Jack started immediately working the scent. When he began tracking faster, McCain would say his name and tell him to “slow down.” The last thing he wanted was to have the dog rush headlong into a wounded bear. McCain continued to see dribbles of blood here and there as Jack worked the trail, but there were never any big splotches showing the animal was mortally wounded and bleeding out.
They worked along until they hit Nasty Creek, and then Jack turned and started tracking down the small stream. McCain thought that was a good sign, as most mortally wounded animals will often head to water, and they will frequently head downhill.
Unfortunately, the bear wasn’t as near to death as McCain had hoped.
Chapter 20
Jack was doing a good job of tracking the bear. McCain had to slow him down more frequently now, which meant they were probably getting closer to the bruin. Finally, the dog followed the tracks right up to a big thicket of wild blackberries. When Jack started growling in a low rumble, McCain called him back to his side. McCain was 99.8% sure the bear was in the bramble, and the last thing he wanted was Jack in there with a wounded and pissed-off bear.
McCain knew that bears would attack if cornered, so he stood at the ready, trying to figure out what to do next. Before he’d devised his plan, he heard a “whoof” sounding like a big dog with a sore throat. McCain raised his rifle just in time to see a big black head emerge from the berry patch with a rumbling black body right behind. Not surprisingly, the bear was headed right at him. McCain heard Jack bark and saw a yellow flash headed at the bear.
Time slowed down for McCain as he calculated in microseconds how fast the bear was running and where he needed to aim to stop the bear in one shot without hitting Jack. Rather than aim, McCain instinctually pointed and pulled the trigger. All the years shooting at jackrabbits with a little .22 caliber rifle when he was a kid culminated in that moment. It was a life or death situation, for Jack, and for him. McCain squeezed the trigger and started calculating where to make the next shot.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about it. The beast was dead before it did a face plant in the grass just three yards in front of him.
McCain looked around for Jack. The dog was just coming into the flank of the bear, barking and dancing like a boxer, in and out, just in case the bruin came back to life.
“We’re good,” McCain said to Jack. “He’s dead.”
Although the bullet hole right between the bruin’s eyes told the whole story, McCain still poked the bear a couple times to make sure he was, in fact, dead. Then he sat down and called Jack over.
“Good boy,” he said to Jack as he rubbed the dog’s sides and scratched his ears. “I couldn’t have done that without you.”
McCain marked the location of the bear on his GPS, and then he and Jack followed the creek down to where it crossed the Forest Service road. They ended up about three-quarters of a mile up the road from where McCain’s truck was parked. They had just hit the road and were headed back to the truck when around the corner came Hargraves in his pickup.
“I heard the shot, and thought I might catch you up this way,” Hargraves said. “So, what happened?”
“You have a good sharp knife?” McCain asked.
Hargraves said he did, in his utility box in his truck. McCain asked him to grab it and then as they hiked back up the creek to the dead bear, he told Hargraves the whole story.
“Do you need some clean shorts?” Hargraves asked. “I think I would.”
Jack knew exactly where they were going and sprinted ahead to the bear.
The two men field dressed the bear, removing the innards and organs from the beast so the meat could cool, and then dragged the carcass down to Hargrave’s truck. They didn’t skin the bear. They would leave that to the butcher, where the bear would be taken for processing. The meat then would be donated to a food bank, or the Mission in Yakima.
As they were dragging the bear, Hargraves said, “It would sure be nice to have one of those game carts.”
McCain laughed.
During a much-needed breather with a bottle of water, the two WDFW officers discussed how they might box Teddy Johnson in when he arrived. They decided Hargraves would wait behind the Tampico store, out of sight of the main road but in a spot where he could watch the North Fork Road. McCain would park about a mile past where he had found LeRoy Junior earlier and would prepare for the arrival of Teddy, once Hargraves radioed that the maroon Dodge Ram was on the way up the road. He would block the road with his truck, and Hargraves would come in from behind, so theoretically, they’d have Johnson trapped.
The sun had gone down behind the hills and light was fading when Teddy Johnson blew by the Tampico store headed to Nasty Creek. Hargraves radioed McCain, told him that Johnson was headed his way, and then pulled out, staying far enough behind that Johnson couldn’t see him.
There was still enough light that Hargraves could see the dust clouds rolling up above the brush and trees as Johnson drove up the dirt road ahead of him, which helped him track the truck as well. Occasionally he would radio McCain and give him an update.
Finally, McCain radioed back and said, “I see the running lights and the dust clouds. He’s getting close. Maybe move up a little closer.”
“10-4,” said Hargraves into the radio and pushed the Ford a bit harder.
As soon as Teddy saw the WDFW pickup in the road ahead of him he slammed on the brakes, threw it into reverse, and backed with amazing speed and control back down the road. He noticed the WDFW pickup coming up fast behind him, so he whipped the Ram into a tiny two-track side road and backed up as fast as the Dodge could go. As it turned out, it was too fast. Teddy missed a slight turn in the road, bounced over a stout rock, and the back end of the truck flew just high enough to land onto an old stump.
Johnson was high-centered, and even with the four-wheel drive trying to pull the truck off the stump from the front, he wasn’t going anywhere. Teddy tried to get the truck unstuck for about three seconds, but seeing it was futile he jumped from the cab and started running.
The two officers were just pulling up next to Teddy’s rig when he jumped and ran. Both were out of their trucks in an instant. McCain in front, Hargraves right behind. Hargraves saw a yellow flash take off out of McCain’s truck and knew Jack was on the chase too.
“Stop, Teddy!” McCain yelled as he ran behind the man, but it was of no use.
McCain almost laughed as he thought about chasing down another Johnson. He’d just told himself only a few hours earlier he di
dn’t want to have to do this again.
Teddy kept running and might still be running if Jack hadn’t come up on him and clipped his right heel from behind. Johnson tripped and went down rolling, like a short, round human bowling ball. It was most likely an accident that Jack had hit the man’s leg as it was coming back, but it sure did the job of putting him down.
McCain got to Teddy first, and even though he had the guy by almost ten inches and twenty pounds, Johnson wasn’t intimidated. He was built like a fire hydrant and was tough. He took a swing and hit McCain in the shoulder. Johnson wound up to swing again when he stiffened, started shaking and fell over.
McCain looked at Hargraves, who was holding his Taser. He’d just hit Teddy with five seconds of 50,000 volts. It didn’t matter how strong the man was, he definitely was feeling the effects of the electricity. It was known technically as “electrical pulse incapacitation.” And incapacitate it did.
“You can thank me later,” Hargraves said with a smile on his face.
“Hey, I had him just where I wanted him,” McCain said. “But I’ll go ahead and thank you now.”
McCain put his handcuffs on his second Johnson of the day, and he helped the dazed man to his feet.
“That was quite a move Jack put on him,” Hargraves said. “Did you train him to do that?”
“Nope, that was all Jack,” McCain said. “I’m glad he did it though. I wasn’t gaining much ground on Teddy here. Those short little legs of his were churning pretty fast.”
“Screw you,” Teddy said. “Where’s my brother?”
“I’m guessing by now he’s in a cell right next to your father,” Hargraves said. “And they’re saving a spot for you too. It will be like one big family reunion.”
