C J Box - [Joe Pickett 02]

by C. J. Box

  "That's how goddamned nuts some of those people are, though. I guess they've got stuff on the Internet about it."

  The Old Man just shook his head and chuckled. The early morning sun heated the tops of his thighs through the windshield.

  "They don't believe it, do they?" the Old Man asked. "Our employers, I mean."

  "No."

  The Old Man sipped his coffee and watched Charlie Tibbs drive. He enjoyed watching Tibbs drive. There was such a display of competence, and competence was something the Old Man admired because it was so extremely hard to find. With Charlie Tibbs you always knew where you were going and why The fears he had the night before about Tibbs he dismissed as manifestations of stress and fatigue.

  But the feeling the Old Man had from the dream lingered.

  13

  ON THE SAME MORNING, 580 miles to the southeast of Missoula, Montana, Joe got a call about a mountain lion from a homeowner who lived in Elkhorn Ranches. The homeowner claimed he had been stalked. Joe took down the address and said he would there soon.

  "You better be quick or I'm going to shoot that son-of-a-bitch," the homeowner told Joe.

  On his way out, Joe stopped at the breakfast table to kiss the girls and jokingly complained about "sloppy milk kisses," which set them to howling. Even Sheridan, at the ripe old age often, still participated in the mock outrage over their dad's early morning taunts. It was either about "breakfast kisses" or when he complimented them all on their lovely early morning hairdos before they got dressed and groomed themselves for school.

  Marybeth followed him out the front door. Joe was already at his green Game and Fish pickup before he realized she was still with him. Maxine bounded out of the house and launched herself into the cab of the truck.

  "I'm still disturbed about what happened yesterday in the library" Marybeth said. Joe hoped for more.

  He nodded, and turned to her.

  Marybeth shook her head. "I feel horribly sorry for that woman, but she scared me."

  "What she looked like or what she said?" Joe asked, putting his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin and looking out toward Wolf Mountain, but not really seeing it.

  "Both."

  Her hair smelled fresh, and he kissed the top of her head.

  "She scared the hell out of me the first time, too," Joe said. "She was sort of hidden in the curtains at their house."

  "I feel bad about being so repulsed." Marybeth said quietly "A disease like that could afflict any of us."

  Joe wasn't sure what to say. He rarely thought in those terms. Right now; he only wanted to keep her close. He was grateful for the moment.

  "That Tom Horn business puzzles me," she said. "I'm still not sure if Ginger Finotta is just crazy or if she's trying to tell me something."

  "Maybe we ought to read up on the guy," Joe offered.

  "I'm waiting for her to return the book," Marybeth said. "It's the only copy the library has. I did a search on the computer trying to find it in another collection, but the book is really obscure. I found a copy in Bend, Oregon, and sent them an e-mail but haven't heard back."

  He hugged her tightly After a moment, she pulled away, but gently

  "Any chance you'll get home early this afternoon?" she asked slyly "The girls all have swimming lessons after school and won't be home until five."

  Finally, Joe thought. He smiled at her. He was wearing a department baseball cap until he could get his hat reshaped. "Sounds like a proposition."

  Marybeth smiled mysteriously and turned toward the house.

  "Get home early enough and you'll find out," she said over her shoulder.

  ***

  The three-story red brick home was easy to find because it was the only house on Grand Teton Street in Elkhorn Ranches. All three acres had been recently landscaped with grass, mature Caragana bushes, and ten-foot aspens. The sod was so new that Joe could still see all of the seams in the yard. Joe couldn't see a mountain lion anywhere.

  As he pulled into the driveway from the road, one of the four garage doors began to open. As the door raised Joe saw a pair of fleece slippers, pajama legs of dark blue silk, a thick beige terrycloth robe cinched tight around a large belly, and the rest of a large gray-bearded man holding the garage door opener in one hand and a semiautomatic pistol in the other. The gun startled Joe and he froze behind the wheel. One arm was raised toward Joe. Luckily it was the remote that was raised, not the pistol. Beside Joe, Maxine growled through the windshield.

  Both Joe and the homeowner, at the same instant, realized that if Joe drew and fired, the shooting would be considered justified. The homeowner was armed and standing in the shadows of his garage. The man's raised arm could have easily been mistaken for a threatening gesture. Quickly, the homeowner sidestepped and placed the pistol on a workbench. The man then shook his empty hand as if he had dropped something too hot to hold and an embarrassed look passed over the man's face. Joe let his breath out, aware for the first time that he had been holding it in. If he had been out to get me, Joe thought sourly, it would all be over and he'd be the one left standing. Joe wasn't even sure where his pistol was at that moment. In the field, where nearly every human Joe encountered was armed, Joe was duly cautious and kept his gun with him at all times. But at this huge new showplace home, in a perfectly square three-acre oasis of textured and manicured greenery, in the middle of a huge sagebrush expanse, he had not expected to run into an armed man.

  The homeowner approached Joe's pickup with a forced smile.

  "Do you need to change your pants inside?" the homeowner grinned at Joe as if sharing an inside joke. Joe knew he must have looked terrified for a moment, and he felt an embarrassed flush crawl up his neck.

  As Joe stepped out and shut the door to the pickup, he shot a glance inside the cab. His holster and gun belt were on the floor -where he had left them the night before, the belt buckled around the four wheel-drive gearshift.

  "You okay?" the man asked, thrusting out his hand. "I'm Stan Wilder."

  Joe shook it and said he was just fine. Joe guessed that Stan Wilder was in his late sixties and new to the area. His accent was Northeastern and his words came fast. He had perfect big teeth that he flashed as he talked. The faded blonde-gray mustache and beard that surrounded the man's mouth looked dull and washed out in comparison with his gleaming teeth.

  "I was walking out to get the newspaper," Stan Wilder nodded toward the red plastic Saddlestring Roundup box mounted on a Post at the end of his driveway "when the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Then I looked over there"--Wilder pointed toward a new row of spindly aspen trees--"and saw the mountain lion stalking me. I'm not ashamed to say that I was about as scared as you were just a minute ago!" He clapped Joe on the back.

  Joe stepped far enough away so that Stan Wilder couldn't do that again.

  "How long ago did you see the mountain lion?" Joe asked. He chose not to reciprocate Stan Wilder's banter.

  "Must have been about seven this morning."

  "Did you see him run off?"

  Wilder laughed, throwing his head back showing his teeth again. Joe guessed that he must have been in sales and marketing before he retired and moved west to Elkhorn Ranches.

  "Nope, but he saw me run right back into the house! That's when I got my weapon out and called you."

  "You didn't take any shots at him, did you?"

  Somehow, Joe knew he had. Stan Wilder's face betrayed the answer. "He was on my property, Warden," Wilder explained. "I popped a couple of caps. But I didn't hit him."

  Joe nodded. "You ought to reconsider the next time you want to fire your pistol out here. The highway is just over the hill and there are construction workers framing a house in the next draw You could hit one of them and you could also hit one of Jim Finotta's cows. They graze fairly close to here."

  Stan Wilder snorted and rolled his eyes heavenward.

  Joe walked over and checked the ground around the aspen trees. Because the trees had been pla
nted just a few days before, the earth around them was still soft. A four-inch-long cat track was obvious and fresh near one of the trees.

  "Big cat," Joe said.

  "Damn right," Wilder agreed. "I need him removed."

  Joe turned and sighed. "Removed?"

  "Damn right. I don't mind the antelope and the deer. I see them all the time. I paid for antelope and deer and access to the trout streams.

  Finotta told me that elk sometimes come down this far and I'd like to see a few of them. That'd be added value.

  "But I didn't pay for this," he swept his hand toward his new house, "to have mountain lions stalking me."

  Joe said it was unlikely that the lion was stalking him. He told Stan Wilder that he had never heard of a mountain lion actually stalking and attacking a full-grown man.

  "What about those babies in Los Angeles?" Wilder asked aggressively "Didn't a mountain lion come down from the mountains and kill some babies?"

  Joe said he thought he remembered something about that story but the predator was a coyote and the circumstances were questionable.

  "Well, I remember it being a mountain lion," Stan Wilder said gruffly

  "Look, Mr. Wilder, mountain lion sightings are rare. There's no doubt you saw one, but he didn't do any harm. Up until a year ago this was probably his range. These cats cover about two hundred miles. He was likely as surprised to see a big house and a lawn here as you were to see him. I know I was surprised to see this place out here."

  Stan Wilder told Joe that he had just heard a perfect load of bureaucratic bullshit.

  "If he comes back can I shoot him?" Stan Wilder asked. "I mean legally?"

  Joe grudgingly said that yes, if the cat was actually close enough to do real harm, he could shoot him.

  "But I would advise against it," Joe cautioned.

  "Whose side are you on here, Mr. Game Warden? The cougar's or mine?"

  Joe didn't answer that question.

  "That mountain lion better watch his step," Stan Wilder cautioned, nodding his head toward the handgun in the garage. "If you catch my drift."

  "Like I said, there are cars on the highway workers at other lots, and cows all around."

  Wilder snorted again.

  "You should be aware, Mr. Wilder, that some of these cows have been known to explode," Joe said soberly That got Wilder's attention.

  "What in the hell are you talking about?" Wilder asked, trying to gauge Joe's demeanor to see if he was being made fun of.

  "Don't you read the paper?" Joe asked, then walked back to his pickup.

  A big green suburban with license plates reading "VBarU-1" turned from the highway onto the ranch road as Joe approached the turnoff. Joe stopped his pickup, and the Suburban slowed until the two driver's-side windows lined up. A dark power window lowered and Jim Finotta, looking patiently put upon, asked Joe if he could be of help.

  "Yes, you can." Joe said. "You can help me out with a couple of things."

  Finotta raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. "First, you might want to advise the owners of the starter castles out here that in addition to this being a place where the deer and antelope play, that there might be the occasional bear, badger, skunk, or mountain lion."

  Finotta nodded and smiled with condescension.

  "Second, you can let me get that sample of bone or antler from that bull elk mount in your office. I'll send the sample to our lab in Laramie and we should be able to clear this all up in two or three

  weeks."

  Finotta's eyes became hard.

  "Did you forget what we talked about?" Finotta asked Joe.

  "Nope."

  "Then why are you bothering me about this elk again?" Finotta asked in a barely controlled tone. "You can't be that stupid."

  "I don't know;" Joe said, "I can be pretty stupid."

  Finotta's window began to rise.

  "I talked to Matt Sandvick," Joe said quickly

  The window stopped just below Finotta's chin. Finotta's lips were now pressed together so tightly that they looked like a thin white scar. He was obviously furious, but fighting it. When he spoke his voice was oddly calm. "Just leave it be, Warden."

  Joe shrugged. "I'm doing my job It's important for me to check these things out."

  Finotta sneered. "Important for who? The Governor won't care and therefore your director won't care. Judge Pennock won't give a shit."

  "It's important for me," Joe said, and he meant it.

  "And just who in the hell are you?" Finotta asked with such contempt that Joe felt as if he had been kicked in the face.

  "I'm the game warden of Twelve Sleep District," Joe said. He was fully aware of how lame that sounded, how weak it had come across.

  Finotta glared at him. He began to say something, then thought better of it. The window closed and Jim Finotta drove away leaving Joe sitting in his pickup with a sick feeling in his stomach and the premonition that he was going to be real alone in this.

  ***

  That afternoon, as he drove home, Joe called County Attorney Robey Hersig on his cell phone, only to get Hersig's voice mail Joe outlined what he suspected regarding Jim Finotta's elk and what he had learned from taxidermist Matt Sandvick.

  "I'm ready to move on Finotta but need Sandvick's affidavit and your okay," was how he ended his message.

  14

  To Joe's surprise, Marybeth had both horses in the corral and saddled when he got home. She was bridling her paint, Toby, as he walked up. She looked at him provocatively and said: "Let's go for a ride."

  "Sounds real good to me," Joe grinned.

  Joe rode his buckskin, Lizzie." who was happy to follow the gelding, and they wound up the old game trail behind their house through the Sand rock Draw

  While they rode, Joe watched his wife and her horse and admired them both. Marybeth had taken an interest in horses in the last year, and he had learned things about them through her. Previously he had always thought of horses the same way he thought about an all-terrain vehicle. A horse was a tool; a way of getting to places without roads, of accessing rough country In Joe's opinion, a horse would lose in many, if not all, of the straight-up comparisons with an ATV in fact. Although the initial investment was about the same, horses required daily maintenance and care. ATV's could be parked in the garage and forgotten. Hay grain, and vet bills were expensive, and horses were always breaking things in the corral or injuring themselves in ridiculous ways. ATV's just sat there. If a single stray nail flipped into the corral, there was a 100 percent chance that a horse would step on it, eat it, or puncture himself on it while rolling. Horses could be counted on for eating things that could make them sick or not eating enough to keep them healthy They were magnificently proportioned and heavily muscled and all of that bulk was held up by four thin bony legs that could, and did, snap at any time. And despite their size and heft, a horse was a prey animal. In the face of a real threat like a grizzly bear or a perceived threat like a motorcyclist on a side road or even a plastic bag blowing in the wind, a horse could bolt and take off like a rocket. Most of the injured hunters Joe encountered in the mountains had been injured by horses. He couldn't even guess the number of times that horses simply ran off from camps or makeshift corrals. Lizzie had once trotted miles away after Joe dismounted to look through his binoculars, and he spent the rest of the day chasing her on foot. In comparison, ATV's sometimes ran out of gas or broke down, although not very often.

  But through Marybeth.Joe was starting to think about horses differently She was firm with them, but nurturing. She brought out their personalities. Toby had been an impetuous youth. He was never mean or dangerous, but he preferred his own company and was loath to do anything he didn't want to do--and what he wanted to do, primarily was eat and rest. But she worked with him for months. Unlike old time horsemen who were quick to reach for a whip or a two-by-four, Marybeth "asked" the horse to do things and he eventually did them. It was amazing that a woman Marybeth's size could gain the trust and respect of a
big lazy gelding like Toby who weighed 1,100 pounds. It was as if she had convinced him--connected with something somewhere in his cloudy, preconditioned, herd-instinctive brain--that she was bigger and more dominant than he was.

  All these years, Joe had simply been using Lizzie, not enjoying her. She was a good horse, trouble at times, but generally docile. He had been lucky she was so easy to manage because he was no horseman. Through watching and admiring Marybeth he was coming to appreciate true horsemen and horsewomen. And horses.

  And there was something to be said for the feeling he got when he was riding a horse. That feeling--Marybeth called it "equine communication" or "being one with the horse"--could not be replicated in an ATV

  They cleared the Sandrock Draw and emerged on a grassy bench strewn with glacial boulders. The Bighorn Mountains, as well as the distant encroaching foothills furred with early summer grass were in the distance in front of them and the view was awe-inspiring. A fading jet trail cut across the sky, calling attention to the lack of clouds. Joe urged Lizzie forward so he could ride side-by-side with Marybeth.

  That's when she told him about Stewie Woods and Hayden Powell and the reporter who kept calling. Joe listened, asking only a few questions, steering away from the one he really wanted to ask.

  "I slept with him once. Only once," Marybeth said, wincing, anticipating Joe. On cue, Joe moaned and slumped in his saddle as if hit by a rifle bullet.

  "Aaugh," he groaned. "Yuck. Yipes."

  She stifled a smile. She told him that she had read in the library that Hayden had died recently as well; killed just a week ago in a fire in his home. Joe said he had learned of the fact from two anti-globalist drifters.

  "So were you an ecoterrorist?" Joe asked, still wounded. This was a disquieting circumstance to be in, asking his wife about things he had never known about her.

  "No, I never was," Marybeth answered. "But I was with them a few times when they did things like pull up survey stakes and pour sugar in gas tanks. I never did any of those things, but I was there. And I never told on them."

  Joe nodded. "This reporter," he asked. "Has he called back?"