by C. J. Box
TWENTY
Bud Barnum was starting to get impatient. It had been a week since Randan Bello had come into the Stockman's, and Barnum was starting to wonder if Bello was consciously avoiding him. He knew the tall man hadn't moved on. Tubby Reeves, who managed the rifle range for the county, told Barnum that he had watched Bello put over a hundred rounds through each of his rifles the day before, and said they were nice rifles too. Bello shot long distance, peppering target after target with tight patterns at four hundred yards, the most distant standard available at the range. Reeves said Bello had three handguns as well: a heavy-caliber revolver, a mid-range semiautomatic with a fourteen-shot clip, and a little .25 caliber he wore in an ankle holster.
"More coffee?" Timberman asked, walking the length of the bar with the pot.
"Nearly changeover time," Barnum said, putting his hand over the top of his cup.
"Changeover time is getting earlier every day, it seems," Timberman mumbled.
Barnum said, "Thanks for sharing your opinion on that."
BELLO HAD CHECKED into the Holiday Inn at the edge of town and not moved since. The receptionist, a blocky woman named Sharon, had once let Barnum bed her, and she still had feelings for the retired sheriff. She was willing to tell Barnum what he wanted to know. According to Sharon, Bello was out of his room early every day and didn't return until dark. He was a good guest, she said, an "easy keeper." Meaning he was quiet, didn't use many towels, kept his room neat, and put two dollars on the dresser for the maid, which was Sharon most days. He had paid cash a week in advance but told her he may be staying up to three weeks. When he left in the morning he took his rifle cases, as well as a briefcase and a heavy duffel bag. The only things he left in his room were his clothes and a few books on falconry.
Barnum had a good idea where Randan Bello went when he wasn't at the range practicing. Bello was scouting, like the hunter he was.
Earlier, during coffee with the morning men, Barnum had almost said something. The mayor had been droning on about the possible annexation of some land near the river, Guy Allen was saying that the temperature in Yuma was in the nineties, a rancher was bitching about how cattle prices had dropped because another mad cow had been found in Alberta. The conversation was the same as the day before, and the day before that. Barnum had felt the urge to lean forward, get their attention, and say, "There's going to be a killing." But he restrained himself, thinking that instead of announcing it now, he would tell them later, after it had happened, that he had suspected it all along. Telling the story slowly would have more impact, he thought. He'd explain how he'd pieced it together but was powerless to stop it because the citizens of Twelve Sleep County, in their infinite wisdom, had voted him out of office and replaced him with a preening nitwit.
TWENTY-ONE
Mary Seels looked up from her reception desk Tuesday morning as Joe entered the lobby carrying his briefcase and the Good Meat files. She said sternly, "You should be parking in the back, in Will's old spot. There's no need to use visitor parking. You're not a visitor."
"Okay," he said sheepishly, mounting the stairs to his office. At the top of the landing he stopped and looked down at her. She was hunched over paperwork, bent forward as if struggling under the weight of armor. He wanted to ask her about what she'd started to tell him the day before.
"Mary..."
"Not now," she growled.
He sat at his desk and looked around the office. He felt much better today. He had finally talked to Marybeth. He had slept through the night for the first time in three nights—except for that dream involving Stella Ennis that excited and shamed him when he replayed it in his mind.
Will's notebooks were still stacked on the desktop, and he rifled through them, not sure what he was looking for. There was unopened mail in the inbox. The huge topo map dominated the wall, seemed to lean on him, the outfitter camp pushpins looking like an unclasped beaded necklace. I need to get up there, he told himself. But there were other matters at hand. He rubbed his face and eyes, thought, Where in the hell do I start?
But all he could think of, as he stared at the notebooks, the files, the map on the wall, was Stella Ennis and that dream. He could see why someone would write a song about her. He was attracted to her, no doubt. Entranced would be a better word. A dark shroud of guilt, like a thun-derhead, had begun to nose over the mountains.
He needed to divert his thoughts and concentrate on something that was appropriate to the situation.
Thankfully, there was something else that rankled him. Something Sheriff Tassell had said, a throwaway line at the time that had struck Joe as slightly off. He'd forgotten about it, but it resurfaced after he had talked through the situation with Marybeth the night before.
He called the sheriff's office and got Tassell.
"Who was the medical examiner called to Will Jensen's house?"
He heard Tassell sigh. "I'm in the middle of another meeting with the Secret Service right now. Can I call you back later?"
"No," Joe said abruptly. "All I want is the name. It's a real simple question."
"Your tone is inappropriate," Tassell said.
"It probably is," Joe said. "But all I need is the name."
"What is the problem?" Tassell asked.
"There may not be one at all," Joe said. Then: "I thought you were in a meeting. That you didn't have time for this?"
"I don't have time," Tassell said. "But—"
"Sheriff, it's public information. I just wanted to save some time instead of looking it up."
Tassell sighed again. "Shane Graves. Dr. Shane Graves. He lives between here and Pinedale. We share him with Sublette County on account of neither of us needs him much."
"Thank you."
"Joe," Tassell said, "keep me informed if you find anything."
"I will," Joe said, thinking, Was that so damned hard?
DR. GRAVES WAS at his ranch, and told Joe that the files and photographs were there also. Graves sounded refined, cultured, aristocratic, and not at all what Joe had expected.
"If I drive down, can I look at the report?" Joe asked.
Graves hesitated. "I'm busy all day, and I was kind of planning on spending the evening with my companion tonight. Is this an urgent request?"
"Yes," Joe said, figuring that anything that would take his mind off Stella Ennis and back to Will's suicide was urgent. "I've got to get up into the backcountry as soon as possible, and I'd like to wrap up as much as I can here before I go."
"Okay, then," Graves said unenthusiastically. "You can come tonight around six. I'll give you directions."
Joe wrote them down.
"I'll see you tonight, then," Joe said.
"You didn't say anything. I'm surprised," Graves said coyly.
"About what?"
"About my name. Graves. Most people comment on the fact that I'm the medical examiner and my name is Graves."
"I'm not that clever," Joe said. He was glad he hadn't said anything—he had assumed Graves was talking about his use of the word companion.
JOE SPENT THE afternoon in the corrals, learning the personalities of Will Jensen's packhorses. There were two he really liked, a black gelding and a buckskin mare who reminded him of a horse he used to have. Both seemed calm and tough, and neither balked when he saddled them or put on the boxy saddle panniers that, when filled, would carry his gear. The horses looked well fed and in good shape. They would have to be, he thought, for where he would be taking them.
THERE WERE FREQUENT delays along the highway south of Jackson, as Joe drove his pickup and followed a school bus dropping off children at the mouths of rural lanes. While stopped, he surveyed the homes splayed out across the floodplain valley below him, and was struck by the overall neatness. He was reminded that because Jackson was bordered on all sides by mountainous federal land, the valley itself was like a glittering island in a sea of ten-thousand-foot waves.
The bus made the turn at Hoback Canyon toward Pinedale, and Joe sighed a
nd looked at his wristwatch. He would be late to Dr. Graves's.
Hoback Canyon, in the high copper wattage of dusk, pulsed with such color and raw physicality that it almost hurt to look at it. The road paralleled the curving Hoback River.
At a straightaway, Joe looked in his rearview mirror. The school bus was holding up a long procession of vehicles. He noted that most of the drivers were talking on cell phones or drumming their fingers impatiently on the steering wheels of their SUVs.
As the children from the bus trudged down their roads wearing backpacks and hemp necklaces and bracelets, he thought of Sheridan and Lucy, and of Marybeth. Would Sheridan, with her teenage angst and strong opinions, fare well here? He couldn't imagine it, just as he had trouble imagining them all staying in Saddlestring. Would Marybeth like it? he wondered.
Joe mulled over the possibility of Marybeth and Stella Ennis in the same town. Jackson, he thought with a sharp stab of guilt, wasn't big enough for both of them.
TWENTY-TWO
Marybeth Pickett was boiling water and measuring uncooked strands of spaghetti for three when there was a heavy knock on the front door.
"Would you get that?" she asked Sheridan, who was working at the kitchen table.
"I'm doing my homework," her daughter said.
"Sheridan..."
"Okay, okay," Sheridan said with a put-upon sigh, pushing back her chair.
During hunting season, it wasn't unusual for people to come to their house at odd hours. Normally, if Joe wasn't there to take care of the problem, he could be reached by cell phone or radio and would come home. In the eight days he had been gone, Marybeth had felt blessed that things had been quiet. Since Joe had left she had known it wouldn't last. To top it off, there had been a message on the phone earlier from Phil Kiner in Laramie, who was being sent north to oversee Joe's district temporarily, saying he was delayed because he had to testify in court and wasn't sure when he'd make it.
Sheridan came back into the kitchen. "There's a man at the door who says he's here to turn himself in to the game warden."
"Oh, great," Marybeth said, setting the pasta on the counter and reducing the heat under the water.
"I think he's drunk," Sheridan whispered.
"Wonderful."
Marybeth gathered herself for a moment, then strode through the kitchen, Sheridan on her heels.
"I've got your back, Mom," Sheridan said in a low voice.
A large man wearing bloody camouflage clothing filled the doorway of the mudroom. His face was perfectly round, with flushed cherubic cheeks and glassy eyes.
"Joe isn't in," Marybeth said. "What can I help you with?"
"As I told the little lady, I'm here to turn myself in," he slurred.
Marybeth could smell whiskey on him from a few feet away.
"I was shooting at a buck but I hit a fawn somehow," the man said, choosing each word deliberately and over-enunciating. "I brung down the fawn to hand it over and to accept my citation."
"You brought it here?"
"Yes."
"What am I supposed to do with it?"
"I don't know," the man said, his eyes glistening. "Whatever you do with dead fawns."
Marybeth looked to Sheridan, who shrugged.
"I'm afraid I can't take it," Marybeth said. "My husband is ... not back until later." She almost said Joe was out of town, but they'd agreed before he left not to give out that information.
"Oh." The hunter seemed perplexed, and angry. "I didn't have to do this, you know. I coulda just left it up there and not said a damned word."
"I realize that," Marybeth said. "You did the right thing. I just don't have any way of helping you."
"That's a hell of a note. A man tries to do the right thing and he gets turned away."
Marybeth thought she recognized in the hunter the potential for him to quickly escalate from drunk and maudlin to drunk and enraged. She didn't want that to happen, and didn't want him in her house. She was grateful when Max-ine padded in from the kitchen. Sheridan reached down and grasped the dog's collar.
"If you left your number, I could have Joe get in touch with you," Marybeth said. She figured she'd give the information to him that night when he called to pass along to dispatch. Now, though, she wanted the man out of her house. The hunter was so drunk, Marybeth doubted he'd remember any of what she told him.
The hunter's eyes were now hard and dark. He glared at her and she involuntarily stepped back into Sheridan. Max-ine growled and strained on her collar. The inherent danger of the situation weighed on her, and she thought of safety and the safety of her children. If he took a step forward, she vowed, she would instruct Sheridan to let Maxine go and dial 911 while she went for the can of pepper spray in her purse.
But the man mumbled something, turned clumsily, and went out the door.
Marybeth and Sheridan stood still for a moment, watching the screen door wheeze shut.
"Whew," Sheridan said.
They heard a thump in the front lawn, then a truck start up and roar away toward Saddlestring.
Marybeth turned on the porch light and looked outside. There was a large bundle of some kind on the grass. Retrieving a flashlight from Joe's office, she went outside and found the dead fawn. It had been gut shot, and its tiny speckled body was splayed out in unnatural angles.
"That's sick," Sheridan said, joining her in the yard. "That poor little thing. You should have at least gotten his license plate number. That's what Dad would have done."
"I really don't need your help after the fact," Marybeth snapped back, still on edge.
"Fine," Sheridan said, spinning angrily on her heel and going into the house.
Marybeth called after her, "Sheridan, make sure to keep Lucy in the house."
Her daughter stopped in the doorway. "I'll be sure to send her right out."
"Sheridan..."
BACK IN THE kitchen, Sheridan watched her mom use the wall phone to place two calls. One, she assumed, was to the house her dad was staying in. There was clearly no answer.
"Try his cell," Sheridan said from the table.
"I did. He's either got it turned off or he's out of range."
"Call dispatch."
Her mom shot her a look, then turned back to the phone. "I'm calling Nate."
"Are we going to eat dinner at some point?" Sheridan asked, not looking up from her homework. She knew her mother would call Nate. She'd known it for a year.
NATE ROMANOWSKI ARRIVED at 9:00, tossed the fawn into the back seat of his Jeep, and came to the door.
"I can't let him see me like this!" Sheridan said, running from the family room in her pajamas. Marybeth was amused.
"Thank you so much, Nate," she said at the door.
"Not a problem. I'm good with dead bodies."
"I hope you're making a joke."
Nate shrugged. "Sort of."
"Have you eaten? We have some spaghetti left."
His silence told her he was hungry, and she invited him in.
"Mind if I wash up first?" he asked.
"Bathroom's down the hall," she said, walking to the kitchen to retrieve the covered bowl of spaghetti out of the refrigerator and put it in the microwave to heat. She set about making him garlic bread as well.
From down the hall she heard Nate say, "Hi, Sheridan," followed by Sheridan's "Eeek!" and the slamming of her bedroom door.
Nate was still smiling from the exchange when he came to the table. "I appreciate this," he said. "I'm getting pretty sick and tired of my own cooking. I used to have some imagination in the kitchen, but now I seem stuck in a broiled meat rut. Oooh, and garlic bread too."
She sat at the other end of the table and tried not to watch him eat. It still struck her how interesting he was to look at, with his sharp angles and fluid movements. Despite his size and ranginess, he looked coiled up, like he could strike out quickly at any time. There was something about him that reminded her of a large cat.
"Did you get the name of the guy who
left the deer?" Nate asked between mouthfuls.
"No, and I didn't get his license plate either."
"I could track him down if you want me to."
"How would you go about doing that?" she asked.
He flashed his sly grin. "You said he was a fat guy. He probably hasn't washed the blood out of his truck. I would guess he's an out-of-stater or you'd know him. Saddlestring only has a few places to stay."
"Mmmmm."
"So do you want me to find him?"
"No," she said. "I'm just glad he's gone."
He nodded and ate.
"No one's ever liked my spaghetti so much."
"Sorry, am I eating like a pig?"
"No. I'm glad you like it."
He cleaned out the bowl, then wiped his plate with the last piece of garlic bread. "So, how's Joe doing over in Jackson?"
Marybeth sighed. "He seems harried. We've had trouble communicating."
Nate looked up sharply.
She felt her neck get red. "I mean he calls when I can't talk, or I call and the connection is bad. That's what I mean."
AT THE FRONT door, Nate thanked Marybeth again for the meal.
"It's the least I could do," she said, "since I'm such a lousy game warden."
He smiled uncomfortably, she thought.
"Where are you taking the deer? Are you going to bury it?"
Nate shook his head. "Some of it's going to feed my birds," he said. "The rest I'll dispose of in a place I found out in the breaklands."
"Way out there?"
He hesitated for a moment, as if deciding whether to let her in on a secret. Then: "It's a nasty thermal spring. I found it last winter. There's natural sulfuric acid in the water. I tossed a road-killed antelope in it and the meat was gone within a week and the bones were dissolved in a month."
"Does Joe know about it?" she asked.
Nate nodded. "I showed it to him. He tried to figure out where it came from, to see if it was somehow connected to the underground thermal activity by Thermopolis or in Yellowstone Park."
"Sounds like Joe."
