by Pamela Clare
“Have you ruled out disease?” Winona asked. “Lots of prey animals will take advantage of carrion, including wolves.”
Jack nodded. “Our vet checked the herd and found nothing but healthy animals. In all my years running cattle, we’ve lost livestock to cougars, black bears, coyotes, even a bobcat or two. But I’ve never seen a cow’s carcass disappear. Even if the animals got at it, we’d find something.”
Winona picked up her coffee, clearly thinking this through. “Wolves are messy eaters. A pack of wolves will typically tear a kill apart, each wolf dragging its share to a different spot to feed, but they wouldn’t carry the entire animal away. You typically find bits of bone and other parts of the carcass around.”
Jason had never raised cattle, but he’d seen his share of dead animals in the desert. “I’ve seen cougar kills in the wild. There’s not much left, but there’s always something—antlers, hide, bone, viscera.”
“We found another steer killed yesterday morning. It rained the night before, so there are lots of tracks. I had Nate cordon off the area and cover it with a tarp to protect whatever sign is there. We bagged the head and set it aside. I thought maybe there’d be a way to determine what killed the animal.”
“Smart.” Jason drained his coffee mug. “When do we get started?”
Winona glared at him. “When I finish my cinnamon roll.”
Chapter 6
The pasture where the latest steer had been killed was a forty-minute drive on dirt roads through tall glades of aspen and stretches of towering pines. It was some of the most beautiful scenery Winona had seen in Colorado.
“This herd is headed for market in the spring.” Jack parked his truck near a gate. “I expect losses—every rancher does—but I can’t let predators pick off my profits one steer at a time.”
Winona climbed out of the truck. The sun was high in the sky now, but the wind was cold, the air carrying the unmistakable scent of autumn. In the distance, black cattle grazed on the last of the sun-dried summer grass. “It’s beautiful up here.”
The sound of an engine announced Nate’s arrival. He stepped out of his truck looking like the quintessential cowboy, brown hat on his head, denim and plaid on his body, cowboy boots on his feet.
He introduced himself to Jason and then shook Winona’s hand, a grin on his scarred face. “Good to see you again, Winona. I hear you’re an aunt now. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Son, why don’t you show Chiago where you found the kill? I’ll stay here with Winona while she checks out the remains.”
“Sure thing.” Nate walked to a nearby gate, opened it. “This way.”
“I’ve got the head on ice in a cooler back here.” Jack opened the tailgate and reached for a plastic cooler. “There’s a box of nitrile gloves in the back seat.”
“I already grabbed a pair.” Winona slipped the gloves over her hands. “Just to be clear, I’m not a forensic specialist or an expert in bite marks.”
“No, but you know a hell of a lot about wolves.” Jack drew a plastic garbage bag out of the cooler. “This won’t be the prettiest sight you’ve seen—and it doesn’t smell good, either.”
Winona laughed, her gaze on Jason as he walked away with Nate. What was it about him that drew her like a magnet? “I take care of wild animals. Have you ever smelled skunk poo?”
“No, and I don’t think I want to.” Jack pulled the head out of the cooler, spread a plastic bag on the tailgate, and set the head on top of it. “All right, boy, let’s see what Winona has to say about you.”
There wasn’t as much flesh left on it as Winona had imagined, the skull intact, the bones unbroken but exposed, a few vertebrae still attached. She worked as methodically as she could, examining every surface.
She canted the head so Jack could see the left jawbone. “These are tooth pits where the animal bit down. These grooves are called scores.”
Jack pointed. “What about those deeper grooves?”
“Those were probably made by rodents.”
“Rodents?”
“They eat bones and antlers for calcium, and they’ve got those big front teeth. See how those marks are deeper at the bottom than the top?” She pointed with a gloved pinky finger. “I sometimes give bones to rodents at the clinic. Their bite marks look just like this. I bet these came from a squirrel.”
Jack leaned closer. “I had no idea.”
Winona went on with her examination. “I wish I’d taken more time to study the bones from the roadkill I fed Shota. Most of the time, he got frozen blocks of meat to gnaw on. There was nothing left by the time he’d finished.”
Still, the bite marks looked like they could be from a wolf, but she couldn’t be certain. For all she knew, they might just as easily come from a mountain lion or black bear. “It’s possible that these marks weren’t left by the predator that killed the steer. Kleptoparasitism is very common. A mountain lion kills an elk, feeds, and caches the rest. A black bear finds the cache, drags the kill away, and feeds on it for several days. While the bear isn’t looking, foxes or coyotes take their share.”
Nature wasted nothing.
She turned the skull to see what she could of the vertebrae. “A mountain lion typically attacks the neck and crushes the vertebrae and part of the skull. That didn’t happen here, but…”
She ran a gloved finger over a mark on the bottom of the lowest vertebra. It was too narrow to be scoring from a tooth. It was almost razor-thin, like a...
“I think this was made by a knife.” She held it out so Jack could see.
“A knife?” He leaned in, brow furrowed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“It looks like a cut mark to me, but I don’t know enough about forensic science to be certain. I could be making this up.”
“I appreciate that disclaimer, Winona, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
She set the remains down on the plastic. “I’d probably be more helpful to you if I took a careful look around the pasture. That’s where the story is.”
Jack bagged the remains and set the bag inside the cooler. “Let’s head out there and see what Chiago has for us.”
While Nate hung back so as not to tread on sign, Jason walked around the site of the kill, studying it, and snapping photos with his phone.
A large depression in the grass where the steer had fallen. Lots of dried blood and small bits of tissue drawing flies. Scattered sign—overlapping tracks from squirrels, coyotes, humans, and possibly a wolf.
Click. Click. Click.
Jason knelt beside a single clear print of a front paw that was as wide as his palm. It certainly looked like a wolf, but he needed to see a complete set of tracks to be certain.
Click.
He tried backtracking, following bent and broken grasses and the occasional partial print in a straight line back toward the fence. He hadn’t gone far when he found what he’d been searching for—tracks from both the front and hind paws—and beyond that, gray fur snagged on barbed wire.
This was where the animal crossed into the pasture.
But where had it gone afterward?
Click. Click.
He walked back to the site of the kill, looking for drag marks or places where the grass had been flattened. There were none, except…
He backtracked the way he and Nate had come, heading toward the gate. He’d assumed that Jack and Nate had trampled the grass when Nate had entered the pasture to examine the site and cover it. But maybe Jason was wrong about that. He stepped carefully, his gaze moving over a two-foot-wide path.
Boot tracks. A front and hind paw print. And there—dried blood on the grass.
Click. Click. Click.
He saw that Winona and Jack had joined Nate and made his way carefully over to them. “I’m pretty certain I know what happened here.”
He walked them through it, starting at the site of the kill and moving toward the barbed wire with the bit of fur, which he plucked off and handed to Winona. “This is where the
wolf entered the pasture. It can be hard to tell a wolf track from that of a large dog, but there are differences.”
He pointed to the toes. “See how the claw marks are visible for each of the toes and how they point forward? We often don’t see all of the claws on dog tracks, and the outer toes tend to be splayed outward. But the biggest difference is the way they walk.”
“The way they walk?” Nate asked.
“Wolves walk in a straight line. Dogs don’t. See where the rear paw track is right in front of the larger front track? You wouldn’t see that with dogs.”
The three bent to examine the track.
“So, we’ve got ourselves a wolf.” Jack lifted his gaze from the track to Jason. “Can you tell how many wolves were here? Is it a pack?”
“So far, what I’ve seen looks like a lone wolf.”
“It wasn’t a pack.” Winona glanced around the pasture, the wind catching strands of her dark hair. “If a pack had attacked that steer, there’d be several drag trails and depressions in the grass where pack members sat down to feed. They would have left some of the larger bones, maybe hide. There would be something here.”
Jason motioned to them to follow him. “There’s more.”
He led them back to the kill site, knelt, and pointed. “There are lots of boot tracks around the place where the steer fell. At first, I figured they belonged to you, but you’re both wearing cowboy boots. Some of these tracks have deep tread with a circle in the center of the heel. What kind of boots were you wearing when you covered the site?”
Nate lifted a foot, showed Jason the tread. “These same cowboy boots.”
Jack scowled. “I don’t like where this is going.”
Jason stood, led them back toward the gate. “There are drops of dried blood on the grass. I also found tracks with that same deep tread, as well as a few wolf tracks. The wolf left the pasture the same way you entered it—through that gate.”
Winona met his gaze, understanding in her eyes. “The wolf didn’t kill the steer.”
Jason looked from Nate to Jack. “Your predator walks on two legs.”
“Son of a bitch.” Jack removed his cowboy hat, ran a hand through his gray hair.
Nate swore under his breath. “A poacher.”
“That fits with what Winona found on the remains of the head.” Jack left it to Winona to explain.
“There are tooth pits and scoring on the bones, which could be from a wolf. I think coyotes and a squirrel got at it, too. But on the last vertebra, there’s a striation that must have come from a knife.”
Jason put the pieces together. “Someone killed the steer, probably with a firearm. Then he dressed it, cut it into manageable pieces, bagged it, and carried it away. The wolf probably fed on the viscera and the head.”
Nate glanced back down at the wolf track. “The wolf must have been drawn by the scent of carrion.”
Jason wasn’t sure about that. “Winona’s the wolf expert.”
“A wolf would definitely be drawn by the smell of the kill. Wolves aren’t obligate carnivores, so, unlike mountain lions, they do eat the digestive organs of ungulates, including the rumen. It could have followed the scent trail left by the blood droplets over to the gate. An adult wolf would have no trouble jumping over the fence. But there’s another possibility.”
“What’s that?” Jack asked.
Winona seemed to hesitate. “It’s just a hunch.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“It’s strange that you found wolf tracks at all of the kills. I would expect a lone wolf to range over a territory of hundreds of square miles. There’s a chance that the wolf might belong to the poacher.”
Winona helped Jason cover the spot where the steer was killed to protect the evidence. She was conscious of his every movement, every breath, every glance, her senses heightened, some kind of awareness stretching between them.
He’s taken. Don’t forget that.
“Hold the tarp down so I can hammer in these stakes.”
She dropped to her knees and held down one edge of the tarp, fighting to keep the wind from taking it.
Jason glanced up, his gaze catching Winona’s. “Are you disappointed that it’s not a wolf pack?”
“A little.” Winona couldn’t deny it. “I would love to see wild wolves back in Colorado. I’m also relieved. At least now, I don’t have to worry that ranchers are going to start killing them out of fear for their livestock.”
“You can’t shoot what isn’t there.”
“I’m impressed with how quickly you put it together.” She’d only watched him work for a few minutes, but she’d found it mesmerizing—the way he moved, the concentration on his handsome face, his ability to read the land at a glance. “Who taught you to cut sign?”
“My grandfather. He and my grandmother took me in after my parents were murdered. They taught me about the Tohono O’odham himdag, our way of life. They made sure I learned the traditional skills so I could pass them down one day.”
Winona stared at him. “Your parents were … murdered?”
The word cut through her like cold barbed wire, sent chills down her spine. Some part of her wanted to tell Jason that she’d almost been murdered, too. But she wouldn’t open that door. She couldn’t. Besides, this wasn’t about her.
“The police said it was drug traffickers.” Jason hammered in another stake, his face downturned so she couldn’t see his expression. “They were shot execution-style while coming back one night from my grandparents’ home on the Mexican side, their bodies left in the desert.”
“I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“So young.” She’d been only ten when her mother had died. “I guess that’s why you became a federal agent.”
He hammered in another stake. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad your grandparents were there for you. You grew up on the Mexican side? You must speak Spanish.”
“Sí, por supuesto.” He grinned. “All O’odham speak English and Spanish, as well as our own language. We all have dual citizenship, too—US and Mexican.”
“Our grandparents taught Chaska and me Lakota. There aren’t that many Lakota people who still speak the language, especially young people.”
“Have you thought about going back to Pine Ridge to teach Lakota classes? It sounds like they need you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I’d be a good teacher. I wouldn’t want to leave the clinic or move far away from Chaska.”
Jason reached for another stake. “You two are close.”
“When I was little, our mother had too much to drink one night and got lost in a snowstorm. Chaska and I found her the next morning, frozen to death, just ten feet from our front door.”
Jason’s head came up, sympathy in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Our dad had a girlfriend and wasn’t around much, so Chaska took care of me. For a time, all we had was each other. He kept me safe, got me to school, and made sure I had something to eat every day until our grandparents came for us.”
“He sounds like a good big brother.”
“The best.”
“Where’s your father now? Or maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“I’ve had a hard time forgiving him for being unfaithful to our mother and abandoning us. He and Chaska were on speaking terms for a while after Chaska completed his fourth Sun Dance. But then Chaska caught him taking money from non-Native tourists for bogus ceremonies—vision quests, naming ceremonies, and the like. That was the last straw for both of us.”
Jason frowned. “That’s not okay. I’m sorry.”
With the tarp in place, they made their way back to the truck.
“I called the sheriff’s department,” Jack told them. “They’re sending a deputy this afternoon. I was wondering if we could head over to the other pasture to look at the other two sites before lunch.”
Winona had taken off the entire day. “I’ve got time.”
/> “Fine by me.” Jason turned and walked toward the trees. “Before we go, I want to check the edge of the forest, see if I can find anything else. The poacher left the pasture heading this way.”
Winona walked beside him, amazed at how quickly he moved. She’d have been on her hands and knees, crawling along with a magnifying glass if she’d been looking for sign, but he walked at a normal pace. Did he have laser eyes?
He stopped, knelt. “Do you have any more of those nitrile gloves?”
There, lying in the duff, was a brass shell casing.
“I’ll get some.” She ran back to the truck where Jack and Nate stood talking, grabbed a pair of gloves, and hurried back to Jason.
He slipped a glove onto one hand, picked up the shell casing, and examined it. “Thirty-ought-six. Absolutely big enough to put down a steer.”
He dropped the brass inside the other nitrile glove, tucked it into his pocket, and got to his feet.
Winona turned, glanced back to where the steer had died. “The shooter would’ve had a clear line of sight from here. What distance is this—fifty yards?”
“I’d say that’s about right. An easy shot.” Jason turned, walked twenty or so paces into the forest. “He passed through here.”
Jack and Nate joined them.
“Did he find something?” Jack asked.
“So far, a thirty-ought-six shell casing and some tracks.”
Jason walked back to them, handed Jack the nitrile glove with the shell casing. “It looks like he shot the steer from the edge of the forest here. Then he loaded the bagged meat onto some kind of four-wheeler and headed deeper into the mountains.”
“Into the mountains?” Jack’s expression went dark. “That’s our land.”
“Is there a highway or road he could have used for his exfil?”
“There are a couple of old mining roads, but it’s mostly untouched wilderness.”
Nate met his father’s gaze. “We need to find this son of a bitch.”
Chapter 7
Jason walked through the pasture where the other two steers had been killed but found little. Whatever sign there’d been had washed away in the rain or been trampled by grazing cattle. But based on what he’d learned about wolf behavior from Winona, what they didn’t find was revealing.
