by C. J. Box
The shot snapped out, an angry, sharp sound, and the cowboy slumped to the side and rolled off his horse. Keeley watched as the dog trotted over and started licking the cowboy’s face, which almost made Keeley feel bad until he realized the damned dog was tasting blood, so he shot it too.
Keeley got back into the stolen pickup with his stolen gun, said, “Fuckin’ cowboy, anyway,” and turned the vehicle toward the highway, to drive north, to find that game warden.
7
TWO DAYS LATER, MARYBETH PICKETT THREW OPEN the front door after her morning walk and shook their copy of the Saddlestring Roundup. Joe and the girls were having breakfast.
“Wacey Hedeman is dead, that bastard,” she said, showing Joe the front page.
Sheridan said, “Good!”
Lucy said, “You probably shouldn’t say ‘good,’ Sherry.”
“But I mean it,” Sheridan said fiercely. “I hate—hated—that man.”
Joe glanced at his wife and saw that Marybeth had the same reaction as Sheridan. Because Wacey had been the man who had shot her, causing the loss of their baby.
“You know how you wish things, bad things, on people?” Marybeth said. “I have wished harm to Wacey ever since he shot me. But to read now that he’s really dead . . . it’s strange. I feel sort of cheated. I wanted him to know how much I hated him.”
Joe was not surprised at Sheridan’s and Marybeth’s reaction, but it was disconcerting to see such mutual anger on display.
Joe looked at Lucy, trying to gauge what she was thinking of all this. Lucy shot her eyes back and forth between her mother and her sister. She had been three at the time, while Sheridan had been seven. Lucy seemed to take the comments in stride, probably since she’d grown up with the whole Wacey Hedeman thing—it was part of the family history.
“It says he had some kind of seizure,” Marybeth said, reading the story. “They’re still investigating. He might have been poisoned.”
“Poisoned? By another inmate?” Joe asked.
“It doesn’t say,” she said. “But I guess I really don’t care, considering what he did to us.”
“But we’re tough!” Lucy said, repeating something she’d heard over the years. It made Marybeth smile, and wipe a tear from her cheek.
“We’re tough, all right,” Marybeth said.
May
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
—WILLIAM RALPH INGE, OUTSPOKEN ESSAYS, 1922
If you walk around with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
—UNKNOWN
8
IN THE MONTH SINCE SHE’D BEEN REPORTED MISSING, Opal Scarlett—or her body—had not turned up. Not only that, but her car was missing. It wasn’t that she was missed for sentimental reasons. She was missed because she held the keys to so many projects, so many relationships, so much history. Not until she was gone did most people within the community realize how integral Opal Scarlett was to so many things. Opal was on the board of directors for the bank, the museum, the utility company, the Friends of the Library. She was one of three Twelve Sleep County commissioners. Her annual check to fund the entirety of the local Republican Party had not arrived. The GM dealer had already taken the order for her new Cadillac, and it sat in the lot with a SOLD sign on it.
Joe kept expecting something to happen. A call from a ranch downriver saying a body had just washed up on the bank. A postcard from some faraway island, or a phone call to one of her sons to bark an order—something.
None of those things had happened. Opal’s status was in a dread state of limbo and rumors that were starting to fly had practically destabilized the entire valley.
Joe had carefully read the report issued by Sheriff McLanahan’s office, and he had spoken at length to Robey Hersig. It didn’t make sense that her body had not turned up. The river was, as Tommy had pointed out, surprisingly low and slow. Spring runoff hadn’t started yet. There were places near town where a person could walk across the river, hopping from stone to stone. The likelihood of Opal’s body washing downriver without being seen was remote.
Joe had heard some of the theories being bandied about town. Three garnered prominence:
Tommy Wayman threw her in the river, all right, but that was after he strangled her and weighted the body down with stones;
Hank was driving by and happened to see Opal crawling out of the river around the bend from where Tommy threw her in. Hank saw his opportunity and bashed her over the head with a shovel and took the body back to his side of the ranch and buried her, thinking he would eventually get the ranch from Arlen; and
Opal was fine. The brief swim scared her, though, and when she reached shore she got in her car, drove to Vegas, and found a young lover named Mario. She’d be back, eventually. There was even a reported sighting of her from a county resident who swore he saw her with a tall, dark young man in a casino on the strip. The report was credible enough that McLanahan dispatched Deputy Reed to Las Vegas, where he ran up an expense account that created a minor scandal at the city council meeting.
Joe stood on the sidelines with growing frustration. This wasn’t his case in any way and his involvement was peripheral. But it drove him crazy that no progress had been made. He suggested to Robey that maybe he could be involved in the official investigation, and Robey shook his head no, saying the sheriff wanted no outside interference. “Since when would we call in the game warden for a missing-person’s investigation?” Robey asked. And Joe knew better than to bring it up with Director Pope. Joe wasn’t sure he could help the investigation along. But he knew he’d feel better if he was a part of it.
SINCE THAT MORNING in April, details started to leak out about how the Thunderhead Ranch had been run and the difficulties and complications that were resulting from the matriarch’s disappearance. Joe had an appointment with Robey Hersig the next evening to discuss what was going on. Robey had been cryptic in his request for a meeting, and Joe had been intrigued.
“We may have something brewing here that none of us anticipated,” Robey had said to Joe on his cell phone. “The more I dig into it, the worse it gets.”
“So tell me about it,” Joe said.
“Not over the phone, no way.”
“Are you serious? Do you think someone may be listening?”
“You never know,” Robey said, hanging up.
AFTER FEEDING NATE Romanowski’s falcons after school, Joe took Julie and Sheridan to the Thunderhead Ranch so Julie could go home. As they drove down the road they were met by a yellow Ford coming the other way. There was something familiar about the driver, Joe thought, something about the pinched, hard look to his face that triggered a sour familiarity, but Joe couldn’t place it. Unlike most people on a back road, the driver didn’t wave or stop. In his rearview mirror Joe watched the yellow Ford drive off.
“Who was that?” he asked Julie.
She shrugged. “It wasn’t one of our trucks.”
As they neared the ranch house, Julie said to Sheridan, “Did you ask yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Ask what?” Joe said, turning his attention to the girls but still suspicious about the Ford.
Sheridan turned to Joe. “Is it okay to do a sleepover at Julie’s in a couple of weeks?”
Sleepovers were all the rage among the eighth-graders, Joe knew. Scarcely a weekend went by without an invitation to Sheridan to sleep over at someone’s house, along with five or six other girls. It was a group thing, a pack thing, and Joe was helpless before it. He gratefully turned over all planning and coordination to Marybeth. Marybeth rued the change in her oldest daughter from preferring the company of her family to the company of her friends.
Joe said, “Why are you asking me?”
“Because Mom may not let me,” Sheridan admitted.
This was not a place J
oe wanted to go. “We’ll have to discuss it later.”
“Come on, Dad . . .”
He hated when she did that, since his inclination, always, was to give in. Sheridan had the ability to rope him in with such ease that even he was shamed by it.
“Later,” he said.
“I’ll call you,” Sheridan sighed to her friend, patting Julie on the arm. Julie gave Joe a pleading look, and he shrugged as if to say, It’s out of my hands.
9
THE NEXT WEEK, JOE WAS ON A MUDDY TWO-TRACK IN the breaklands doing a preliminary trend count on the mule-deer population when he got the distinct feeling he was being watched. It was a crisp, dry morning. A late-spring snowfall was melting into the inch-high grass as the morning warmed, and the moisture was being sucked into the parched earth. By late afternoon, he was afraid, the ground would be as bone-dry as it had been all year. It would take much more rain and snow to turn back the relentless slow death of the soil caused by the fifth straight year of drought.
He had been counting pregnant does all morning. Most of the fawns wouldn’t be born until June, but from what he could tell so far it would be another bad year for the deer population. A good year could be predicted if there were eighty fawns per one hundred does, or 80 percent. So far, the ratio had been 40 percent pregnant does. The drought—not hunting or development—was severely affecting the population. He would need to recommend fewer deer licenses for the area, which would not make him very popular among the local hunters.
Joe surveyed the horizon to see if he could spot who was watching him. He saw no one, and shrugged it off.
His cell phone rang.
“Guess who this is?” said Special Agent Tony Portenson of the FBI.
Portenson was originally from Brooklyn, and his accent, if anything, had become more pronounced the longer he was stationed in the Wyoming field office.
“Hello, Tony. Where are you?”
“I’m in your town.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Joe said, knowing Portenson had been trying for three years to get a transfer out of the West to someplace more exciting, someplace where there were gangsters and organized crime, maybe even terrorists. Over the years, Portenson had bored Joe for hours with his complaints regarding the poor quality of crime he had to deal with out of his office in Cheyenne: cattle rustling, methamphetamine labs, murders of passion on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Portenson asked.
“I’m out in the field counting deer.”
“Jesus, I wouldn’t want to interrupt that.”
Joe could hear Portenson turn to someone, probably his partner, partially cover his phone, and say, “The guy is counting deer. No shit. Counting deer.”
“I’m counting antelope too,” Joe said.
“They can wait. They aren’t going anywhere, I’m sure.”
“The pronghorn antelope is the second-fastest mammal on the face of the earth,” Joe said. “So that wouldn’t be correct.”
“I’m at that place with the corny name,” Portenson said. “The Burg-O-Pardner. Meet me in ten minutes.”
“It’ll take me twenty.”
“I’ll order breakfast in the meantime.”
TONY PORTENSON WAS sitting in a booth in the back of the restaurant when Joe entered. He looked up from his plate of biscuits, gravy, and bacon and waved Joe back. Portenson was dark, intense, and had close-set eyes and a scar that hitched up his upper lip so that it looked as if he was always sneering. When he smiled, the effect was worse. Sitting across from him was an earnest, fresh-faced, wide-shouldered younger man with buzz-cut hair. His partner, Joe assumed.
“Have a seat, Joe,” Portenson said, standing and offering his hand. “This is Special Agent Gary Child.”
Rather than sit with Portenson or Child, Joe retrieved a chair from a nearby table and pulled it over.
Portenson wore standard FBI clothing—tie, jacket, and slacks, which made him stand out in Saddlestring as if he were wearing a space suit.
“This is the guy I was telling you about,” Portenson said to Child.
Child nodded and looked at Joe with a mix of admiration and disdain. The FBI had a low opinion of local law enforcement that was so ingrained it was institutionalized. Although Joe operated on the margin of the sheriff’s department and was rarely involved with the town cops, he was considered local and therefore less than proficient. Portenson had obviously briefed Child on both cases they’d been involved in before, probably between complaints about the wind and the snow he had to put up with during his long assignment in Wyoming, Joe thought.
“So,” Portenson said as they all sat back down. “What is the fastest mammal?”
“The cheetah,” Joe said.
“Does that mean a cheetah can chase down a pronghorn antelope?”
“Conceivably,” Joe said, “if they lived on the same continent. But they don’t.”
“Hmmpf.”
“What brings you up here, Tony?” Joe asked, assuming it would be either about the Scarletts or . . .
“Have you seen your buddy Nate Romanowski lately?” Portenson asked, getting right to it.
Joe felt a tingle on the back of his neck. “No.”
“You’re telling me he just vanished from the face of the earth?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I hadn’t seen him. And before you ask, no, I also haven’t heard from him.”
Portenson exchanged glances with Child.
Child said, “Let me set the scene. Two men are murdered. Although the condition of their bodies is deteriorated almost beyond recognition, the theory of our medical examiner is that they were each killed by a single gunshot wound to the head from an extremely large-caliber handgun. The bodies were obviously moved from where they were killed. Meanwhile, your friend Nate Romanowski was known to pack a .454 Casull revolver and was at odds with at least one of the murdered men. And according to you, he just vanished?”
Joe stifled a smile. “I have a tough time envisioning Tony here as the good cop in the good cop/bad cop scenario,” he said. “This is more like bad cop/worse cop. Is this a new FBI strategy, or what?”
Child didn’t waver. “We could bring you back for questioning.”
“Go ahead,” Joe said. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where Nate is, and I haven’t been in contact with him.”
Portenson wiped gravy from his lips with a paper napkin and studied Joe closely.
“What?” Portenson said.
“I can’t believe you came all the way here to ask me about Nate,” Joe said. “It seems like a waste of your time.”
“Look,” Child said, leaning toward Joe, his eyes sharp, “we don’t need to explain to you why we do anything. We’re asking the questions here, not you.”
“Then I’ve got deer to count,” Joe said, and started to push his chair back.
“Okay, okay,” Portenson said, holding his hand out palm-up to Child. “Sit back down, Joe. That’s not why we’re here.”
Joe sat.
“Actually, I just figured since we were up here I’d yank your chain a little. See if you had any new information on Mr. Romanowski.”
“I told you I don’t.”
“I believe you,” Portenson said, sighing. “Although I am going to get that guy.”
Joe nodded that he understood, although he didn’t think Portenson would succeed.
Child sat back in the booth. By the look he gave Portenson, it was clear he didn’t like the way his boss had changed tracks.
“Are you up here on the Scarlett case?” Joe asked.
Portenson looked back blankly. Joe outlined Opal’s disappearance, and the battle between the brothers.
“That’s sick,” Portenson said, “but that’s not why we’re here.”
“We’re here on a fucking wild-goose chase,” Child said sullenly.
“Get used to it,” Portenson said to him like a weary father. Then he signaled the waitress for his c
heck.
“Double murder down in Mississippi,” Portenson said. “Some hunting guide killed his clients, stole the couple’s car, and took off. The car was found in Rawlins last month in the parking lot of the state pen, meaning it crossed state lines, which is where we come in. A couple of days later we got a report that an old truck was stolen from the same place.”
The waitress brought the check and Portenson gave her a U.S. government credit card and asked her to charge three packs of Marlboros to it as well.
“My tax dollars at work,” Joe said.
Portenson ignored him and continued. “After the old truck was stolen, it was seen south of Casper in the middle of fucking nowhere. Same day, somebody shot a cowboy off his horse in the vicinity. Left a wife and two kids. We don’t know whether there’s a connection or not. But since the guy was headed north, we thought we’d ask around. Does any of this ring any bells? The stolen truck is a light yellow ’ninety-four Ford with rust spots on the doors. Wyoming plates.”
Joe shook his head. There was something familiar about the description but he couldn’t place it. “What’s the guy’s name?”
“Ex-con named John Kelly,” Child said from memory. “John Wayne Kelly.”
“I’ve not heard of him,” Joe said.
Portenson leveled his gaze at Joe. “My brethren are breaking up al-Qaeda cells and saving humanity. Me? I’m trying to figure out who shot a lonely cowpoke off his horsey. Does anyone but me see the disparity in that?”
Child snorted a laugh.
Joe shook his head at Portenson’s attitude. “I bet that cowboy’s widow and kids would like you to find out who did it.”
“Aw fuck, Joe,” Portenson said. “You’re ruining the mood.”
“Have you talked to the sheriff?”
Portenson snorted while he signed the charge slip. “We sent him the file but I’m delaying actually talking to him as long as I can.”
