Undercover in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  Desi shook her head. “Isn’t there someplace safer to do target practice?” Of course there was.

  “Yeah, but...” The man was young and looked utterly miserable. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Give me my ticket.”

  She could have. Eagles were protected, but she didn’t want to nail a guy who’d made a stupid mistake and had owned up to it. “Just a warning. Find a better place to practice, sir.”

  “I will.” The young man looked toward the carrier on her truck bed. “Will it survive?”

  “I hope so. But you know eagles mate for life? If we can’t rehab this one, there’s going to be one very lonely eagle in these woods.”

  “Hell.” He stuffed his free hand into a pocket on his camo pants. “Where are you taking it?”

  “First stop Dr. Windwalker. If he thinks it can be saved, he’ll probably remove the arrow and call a rehabber to pick the bird up.”

  “I hope it’s okay.”

  “Me, too,” Desi agreed. She stripped off her protective gear, got the guy’s bow hunting license and ID and started to write the warning.

  He accepted the papers and stuffed them into a breast pocket. “I don’t need to do anything?”

  “No.” Desi shook her head. “The warning will be on the record, though, so don’t make another mistake. Find a better place to practice, one with some sight lines so you don’t hit something you shouldn’t.”

  “You’re right. I never even thought about it. I just wanted to practice in the woods, like I was hunting.” One corner of his mouth turned down. “Guess I learned something.”

  She offered her hand. “I want you to know I appreciate you calling this in. If you’d just left it...”

  The young man shook his head vehemently. “I’d never do that. Even if it was dead. I know better.”

  Desi started to turn away, then paused. “You hear anything about the poaching of a bighorn?”

  He nodded slowly. “Heard about it. Hard not to hear when some folks are really mad about it. Think you’ll catch them?”

  “I’m working on it. You hear anything, you got my number.”

  He nodded. “I’ll use it.”

  He seemed like a nice enough guy, she thought as she drove carefully down the bumpy dirt road so as not to hurt the eagle unnecessarily. When she at last reached blacktop, she gunned it. No way to know if that bird could make it, but time was of the essence.

  Mike Windwalker’s vet practice just outside Conard City had grown a lot over the last few years. People had evidently swallowed any lingering prejudice they felt toward a full-blood Cheyenne. His kennels had doubled in size, he operated a pet adoption service, had a big barn for livestock that couldn’t be treated on the ranches and maybe four vet techs helped him now.

  He had time for the wounded eagle, however. He came out of the exam room immediately and guided Desi and the carrier into another exam room, away from the barking and meowing in his waiting room, which had to be troubling the bird.

  Wearing protective gloves and a face shield, he grabbed a towel and reached into the carrier wrapping all of the bird except the wounded wing in it.

  “Cover his eyes,” he said to Desi. She grabbed another towel and put it over the bird’s eyes. At once its attempts to struggle ceased.

  Mike carefully extended the wing and examined it. “I need to do X-rays. If this hit a major blood vessel he could bleed out when I remove the arrow. And I need to see if it got any bone. Want me to call you later? This may take a while.”

  “Thanks, Mike.” Desi gave him a wan smile. “It was an accident, by the way.”

  “Accidents can be as bad as on purpose.”

  “So it’s a male?”

  From behind his protective face plate he gave her an amused look. “Like I could tell? I haven’t examined it yet. His was the default.”

  “You men,” she said, and heard him laugh as she walked out.

  A glance at her watch told her the day was far from over. She decided to extend her patrol a bit and talk to any hunters she happened across. Maybe they’d have some intel on the poacher.

  Instead she spent her time hunting down the people who had set up camp just off the road and were turning beautiful public land into a trash dump full of discarded food containers and beer bottles.

  She almost enjoyed making them clean it up.

  * * *

  Kel returned to the warden’s station at dusk. He’d had an interesting time in the local gun store. Plenty of stories to share, as the owner was a former spec-ops guy from the Vietnam era, so they hung around talking about firearms, of course, but a lot of other topics as well. The owner, Les Armitage by name, didn’t seem at all bothered that Kel was an outfitter.

  “Some folks wanna hunt,” was his philosophical answer, “but they couldn’t find their way around those mountains without help.” Les snorted. “GPS wouldn’t even save ’em. Who has time to spend running rescue parties for idiots? Hell, most of the time they couldn’t even get a cell signal up there. Who knows how long they’d be stumbling around before they were reported missing.”

  Kel laughed. “You need to do your research, too.”

  “That’s the other thing,” Les agreed, leaning an arm on his counter. “Scouting. Some people don’t even think about it. Me, I spend all summer scouting good areas.”

  “Ever got a permit for big game?”

  Well, it seemed Les had, and he had a few great stories to share. In the end, though, he wound up with poaching. He looked Kel straight in the eye. “I don’t mind telling you that when I get wind of poaching I report it to the wardens.”

  Kel nodded. “Glad to hear it. They need all the eyes and ears they can get.”

  “Exactly. Big state, few wardens. And this last one, happening on posted ranchland? I wouldn’t mind hunting those guys myself.”

  Finally Kel decided to go back and face whatever was wrong with Desi. Maybe it had evaporated during the day. Right now, he could only wonder. He stopped at the diner and picked up some takeout, then headed back.

  He was just pulling into the parking lot when he saw Desi emerge from the office. She locked the door, then waited for him.

  Maybe he was about to get his marching orders. He kinda hoped not. The woman intrigued him, and he needed to work closely with her on this.

  He pulled the big paper bags out of the truck and walked toward her. “How was your day?” he asked.

  “Interesting.” She hesitated. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound abrupt. Let’s go up. I’d like to put my feet up.”

  Well, that sounded more gracious. He followed her up the outside stairs and into her apartment where he deposited the diner bags onto the counter.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. “I need to wash up a bit.”

  Not a bad idea. He let himself into the bunkhouse section and used the bath there to scrub away some of the day’s grime. He beat her to the front room, so he pulled the foam containers and tall coffees out of the bags. He hoped she liked steak sandwiches. Then he took one of the coffees and settled on the chair, waiting and wondering.

  He’d learned a bit today, and figured there were a lot of eyes and ears that gave a damn about poaching. Desi had built some good relationships around here. And he was welcome as long as he stayed within the law. So that was good.

  But the messages that had been spread around on social media under the fake name of his outfit implied something else altogether. He hoped the locals didn’t make the connection because that would blow everything out of the water.

  His skin was beginning to crawl a bit, though. A feeling he hadn’t had since he left the army. A feeling he rarely ignored. It didn’t seem possible that he’d been localized this quickly by the outfitting ring. He’d only been here a couple of days. But if locals talked, it shouldn’t be too much
longer.

  A threat was marching his way, not a new thing, but playing bait was different. The question was whether they’d simply hunt him down and remove him, or if they’d lay a trap. Given the kind of people they were, he was betting on a trap.

  Meanwhile he and Desi had to be on the lookout for more poaching, more signs that rules and laws were being ignored. Which meant he needed to start spending some time up in the public lands keeping watch. Desi had a whole list of things she needed to keep an eye on. She couldn’t simply join him in a manhunt in the mountains. No way.

  But he’d feel a whole lot better if he could find out what had gotten under her skin.

  She emerged at last in clean clothes, half-ready to drop everything and get on her steed in minutes. Funny, he’d lived that way once, but hadn’t considered that she was living that way, too.

  No clock punching for a warden or a soldier.

  “I brought dinner,” he said, pointing to the counter. “The coffee’s yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  She seemed a little cool and he wondered if he should ask what had happened. But he hadn’t noticed she had any problem speaking her mind, so he guessed he’d just have to wait.

  She didn’t seem to mind steak sandwiches, because she took one of the containers and the coffee, then sat on the couch with the container in her lap. “Thanks,” she offered.

  “My pleasure. So how was your day?”

  “Pretty much the usual. However...” She paused and smiled faintly. “I made a crew of eight campers miserable by ordering them to clean up their trash and watching while they did it.”

  “Pretty bad?”

  “The place was looking like a landfill. Of course they claimed they were going to pack it all out when they were done hunting, but the astonishing absence of trash bags kind of gave lie to that.”

  He laughed. “It would. So you made them clean it up?”

  “Every scrap. I hate to admit how much I enjoyed it.” Then her face clouded. “Unfortunately, I got a call about a wounded eagle. Seems a young man, only twenty-one, decided he needed to practice with his bow in the woods instead of at a range. God knows how, but he hit a bald eagle.”

  Kel straightened a bit. “Oh, no. It’s dead?”

  “Not by the time I got it to the vet. Arrow through the wing. I give the guy credit—he called for help as soon as he realized what he’d done. He could have walked away and we’d probably never have found that bird.”

  Kel nodded slowly. “Good for him then.”

  “Except for what he admitted was stupidity, yeah. I’ll call Mike Windwalker in the morning and find out how the bird is. I hope we don’t lose it, but I fear we may never be able to release it.”

  Kel nodded, sat back sipping his coffee, waiting to see if she had more she wanted to say. With eagles it was bad. It wasn’t just one bird affected; it was a pair of birds. It was breeding that would now never occur because the other bird would never again mate. He hated to think about it.

  * * *

  Desi had spent all day, when work gave her a moment, wondering why she felt so damn mixed up about Kel. He was here on a job, he was a colleague, and he was undercover. He hadn’t done a thing his job didn’t require of him, so why was she taking it so personally?

  Because of her experience in college? Was that fair? Sure, she’d found it better to avoid men as a rule, especially given her job. It didn’t leave her a lot of time during parts of the year for anything like a normal life...although maybe some of that was her fault. She’d joined the department with a huge chip on her shoulder, something to prove. Well, hadn’t she proved it? Senior warden at such an early age. She worked with men who’d been wardens twice as long or longer and had never become seniors. So...

  Her problem, she decided. Maybe one she needed to deal with. For all she knew, she was being prickly at the wrong times with her colleagues. It couldn’t be too bad, or she wouldn’t be here now, but...

  Aw, heck, think about it later. As the steak sandwich began to fill her stomach, nothing seemed quite as bad. At least Kel was eating now, too. Which should be some kind of social occasion, she guessed. He’d brought dinner. The least she could do was talk with him.

  “What did you do today?” she asked.

  “Wandered around town, talking to anyone who’d talk to me. Kinda let it be known what I was doing, got a lot of warnings about sticking to the law. Les at the gun store even warned me people around here would let you know if they saw me doing wrong. You’ve got a good network, Desi.”

  “Not nearly enough of one,” she muttered, then pulled off a bit of her sandwich, holding it between index finger and thumb, looking at it. “It keeps happening. Too much wilderness out there. But I have to admit I’m grateful to all the people who really understand what Game and Fish is about and want to protect our resources.”

  “You do a lot of outreach?”

  She half smiled, raising her gaze. “Of course. Every time I write a citation. And all of us take turns talking at schools and anywhere else we’re invited. We run an antipoaching program at public gatherings, like the county fair. We even work on persuading people not to rescue baby animals but to contact us. Most of the time the young haven’t been abandoned, but good people want to step in and help because Mama’s been away for a few hours. So yeah, as much outreach as we can fit in.”

  She tilted her head and looked inquisitively at him. “I guess working for the investigative unit hasn’t given you much of a look at a warden’s regular day.”

  “Unfortunately, no. I get the general gist, but seeing it on the ground?” He shook his head. “Since they assigned me to the unit, I’ve been pretty much...” He hesitated.

  She perked. “You’re kind of a secret?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed slowly. “I go undercover a lot. I’m not supposed to be linked to the unit.”

  “So here you are at my place?” The question was a little sharp, but she didn’t apologize.

  “Yeah. I am. Because this time I can be a friend from your past and it won’t draw much attention. Because I can be here without letting anyone know what I really do. Because this one’s big and I can’t do it without your help.”

  “But what about other times?”

  “It’s like being a narc. I listen. I become background. Then I report what I hear. I go out when we’ve got something to investigate and no one wants redshirts poking around yet. I also spend a lot of time in the office.”

  “Well, I’m poking around.”

  He nodded. “That makes you even better cover.”

  So she was cover? At least he wasn’t lying to her, but she still had trouble with the idea. He’d drawn her into this in a way that didn’t make her comfortable. She’d spent a lot of time making herself into a relatively transparent person, honest sometimes to a fault. If she knew what it was, Desi spoke the truth. Maybe a reaction to Joe, her rapist, but who cared? It was who she had worked to become.

  But it had started already when she told Jos that Kel was an old friend. Lie number one. How many more would there be?

  “Desi?” Kel interrupted her unhappy line of thought. “Why did you tell Jos I was your old friend? Is there some reason you don’t trust your wardens?”

  “I told you. If four more people know, someone is apt to slip and mention it somewhere. We’re not a group that’s used to keeping secrets among ourselves or from our families.”

  He nodded slowly. “Let me ask another way. Is there anyone you wouldn’t trust to know about me?”

  That drew her up short. Was there? Running through four guys in her head didn’t take long. Except for one, she’d known them the entire five years she’d been here. The other...she hesitated. “We’ve got one warden who only started here two years ago. He’s young. Logan. Max Logan. But I think he’s okay.” Then she st
iffened. “Why? Do you think this ring has inside help?”

  Kel just shook his head. “Desi, I don’t know. I told you. We see the results but can’t get a handle on who these guys are. I have to look at every possibility. So Logan’s been here only two years. That doesn’t mean anything one way or the other.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Just that he’s the new guy.”

  “Agreed. I just wanted your sense of the situation. If using my cover story with them troubles you, go ahead and tell them what I’m here for.”

  Desi looked down at the half-eaten sandwich on her lap. Things were swimming to the surface from the depths of her mind. Bad things from the past. Things she tried never to remember. Joe.

  God! She jumped up. She wasn’t going to wallow in that again. Bad things happened to people. Big surprise there. She was hardly a special case. In fact, she’d buried it so well that it hardly rose near the surface anymore.

  Somehow Kel had changed that. Why? It wasn’t as if he resembled Joe in any way. Maybe her attraction to him? Something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in over a decade?

  That must be it. Wrapping plastic around the remains of her dinner, she thrust the box into the refrigerator and started a pot of coffee. For something to do. To keep her alert because this evening was far from over and that phone could ring at any time.

  “Hey, Desi?” Kel said to her back as she stood at the coffeepot.

  “Yeah?”

  “You have trouble trusting, don’t you?”

  “Why the hell...” Then she broke off, everything inside her roiling uncomfortably, hearing her own words to him: Just don’t snow me. Hardly the thing to say to a new acquaintance, and far more revealing than she should have allowed.

  “Maybe,” she finally said. “What does it matter?”

  He didn’t answer until she eventually turned around. He was still in the chair, feet propped on the battered coffee table. “I guess it doesn’t.”

  But it did matter or he wouldn’t have asked. While the coffeepot dribbled and steamed, she folded her arms and stared at him. “Are you worried you can’t trust me?”