Undercover in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  “Or any other public grounds either,” he noted. “Same kind of thing around the state. Hence, you get me. With a half-baked plan, I’m beginning to think. Yeah, we need a wedge, a way to get a look at this ring. Just one person, one phone number, one talkative trophy hunter. Just one. It’s kind of amazing, though. We have a pact with thirty states to report this kind of business, and not one whisper from out there about trophies inexplicably showing up. They must have a taxidermist in their pocket. Out of state.”

  “So maybe we’ll never get them until I fall face first into their camp stove.”

  That drew a laugh from him, and the tension began to leave Desi. No need to be paranoid. Nothing about Kel seemed evasive. Last night...well, best to leave that alone. Especially if all it was going to do was make her paranoid.

  Around a bend and there was a truck parked alongside the road. Desi immediately pulled up behind it, glanced at the time, then put her truck in Park and set the emergency brake. Then she turned on her rear and front flashers, leaving the roof rack dark. The truck chimed repeatedly as she climbed out, leaving the keys in the ignition. She was glad that Kel stayed put. This was her job.

  She could see the backs of two heads as she approached. They swiveled around, then as her boots crunched on gravel, she heard the driver’s window slide down.

  “How’s it going?” she asked as she approached.

  “Waiting,” came the answer. An elbow lifted, perching on the door frame. She stepped closer and saw a face that she thought she recognized. “Bill Grayling?”

  He smiled. “I wish I could say I’m glad you remember me. Howdy, Warden. This here’s my son, Tom. Warden Jenks, Tom.”

  The younger man nodded.

  “So you got your privileges back, Mr. Grayling?”

  “I sure did.” He reached into the front pocket of his hunting vest and pulled out papers. “See for yourself.”

  She pulled a penlight out of her pocket and scanned the papers. They appeared to be in order. “Good job, Mr. Grayling,” she said as she handed them back. “Tom, are you going to hunt, too?”

  “Give her your papers, boy,” Bill said gruffly. “You don’t want trouble like I got.”

  Desi smiled. “All about the rules now, are we?”

  “Believe it,” Bill said as he passed his son’s papers to her. “Weren’t no fun losing my gun and having to stay home when I shoulda been hunting for my family. ’Twasn’t a fun winter. My wife weren’t happy with me, I can tell you. Lean pickin’s.”

  “I’m sorry. But I see you’re waiting.”

  “Damn straight,” Bill said. He took his son’s papers back from her and turned them over to Tom. “Clock says twenty-five minutes. That right?”

  Desi looked at her watch. “Exactly. You seen good game out here?”

  “Lotsa deer. It’d be nice if we could both bag one, huh, Tommy? Lots of hungry mouths at home now with the grandkids.”

  Tommy smiled. “There sure are.”

  “Good luck to you both. Say, Bill, you seen anything around while you were scouting, anything that didn’t look right to you somehow?”

  Bill started to shake his head. “Not really. Lots of people have been scouting since late summer. Plenty not from around here, but that’s not unusual. Folks want to know where the hunting is good.”

  “True. Well, thanks, Bill.” Desi started to turn away.

  “You know,” Bill said slowly, “there was a guy...”

  Desi faced him again. “Yes?”

  “He was on horseback, headed into the back country.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Just a bit. I remarked how hard it would be to get any big game out of the back of beyond, and he said he had pack horses he’d bring. And maybe some friends.”

  “But that struck you as odd. Why?”

  “Because I was at the drawing for the big game permits. Always wanted to get me a moose tag. Anyway, this guy mentioned looking for bighorn, and you know what? I’m pretty certain I didn’t see him at the drawing. And they wasn’t no leftover permits afterward.”

  Desi felt something prickle along her back. “You sure?”

  Bill looked at Tom. Tom hesitated, then said, “Maybe we’re wrong, but I don’t remember him at the drawing neither.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  Bill shrugged. “Can’t tell you how tall. He was on a horse. Seemed in a hurry, too. Just asked me if any bighorn were moving down yet. Well, yeah, they’re coming lower now, but at the time, not so much. Course, they weren’t in season yet.”

  “See any dogs?”

  That arrested Bill. “Yeah,” he said. “Didn’t like it. I mean, what kind of scouting can you do with a pack of dogs? Any game that wasn’t sick would run far and fast.”

  Desi pulled out her pad and pen. “Tell me everything you can, Bill. About the man, the horse, the dogs, who was with him.”

  Bill’s eyes widened a shade. “Poacher?”

  “I don’t know, Bill, but I’d sure like to talk to the guy.” She wrote down the vague description Bill and Tom provided her and thanked them.

  “I’ll tell you,” Bill said. “I see ’em again I’ll call you. Maybe take more notice. Since I paid for my crime, seems like everyone else should, too.”

  The way he said it made her laugh. She wished them luck again and headed back to her truck.

  Desi climbed in, turned off the flashers and eased around the pickup. As soon as they were back on empty road, Kel spoke. “That looked like an interesting conversation.”

  “It was. Bill and I go back aways. I always had a feeling he might be skirting the law, but never found any proof until two years ago. I caught him hunting after sunset. A good hour outside regulation time. So he lost his gun and his license for a while. Anyway, he’s legal again.”

  “I gathered that or you wouldn’t have left him there.”

  She supposed she was explaining too much. She sometimes had a tendency to do that. “Sorry. I asked him if he’d seen anything that bugged him. He remembered a guy on horseback with a pack of dogs, which he thought was ridiculous if you’re looking for big game. Anyway, the guy asked him about the bighorn and whether they’d started to come to a lower elevation. The thing that bothered Bill most, however, was that he was sure the guy wasn’t at the drawing for the big game permits. And his son agreed.”

  “So they’re out here,” Kel remarked. “Description?”

  “Not much. They couldn’t guess height because he was on a horse. Head covered by a cowboy hat that shadowed his face. So it’s a vague description. They seem to think he had dark hair, along with six billion other people.”

  “A pack of dogs, though. I wonder if we should check with vets in the area?”

  “There’s only one here, but he could check others, I suppose.” She didn’t hold high hopes though. Lots of people with the room had multiple dogs, and some dogs were used for hunting within very strict limits.

  For example, if dogs hounded that bighorn down the mountain until it died at the Madison place, that was strictly illegal. Dogs could be used to chase wildcats, but little else. But why use the dogs to bring the animal down so close to civilization? Unless it had been wounded and had taken off, so the dogs were used to keep it from running into impassable country. Or maybe the dogs had just gotten out of hand.

  She chewed her lip thinking about it. A pack of dogs. Given that it was illegal to let dogs harass, chase or harm most game, what use would a pack of them be except for something illegal, because if you had that many of them, how likely was it you could prevent them from going after something they shouldn’t? Bill was right, but more than he knew.

  “Given the law,” Kel remarked, “it doesn’t make sense unless he was after mountain lions. But he asked about bighorn.”


  “Believe me, I’m adding two and two.”

  Up and down narrow back roads for the next several hours, finding campsites set up in a few places. Twice they stopped to check deer being loaded into trucks, but nothing was amiss. Being a weekday, it also wasn’t very busy. Come the weekend...

  But the relative peace of the morning was shattered just before noon by a radio call from Jos. His voice crackled over the air. “We’ve got a hunter down.” He gave coordinates, Desi responded and turned her truck around, heading out to help. She didn’t spare the gas.

  “Will we have to carry him out?” Kel asked.

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll help.”

  It was a good thing they both had their seat belts on. The road was bumpy and they’d probably both have gotten concussions if they’d been free of restraint. Desi slowed only when she knew the bumps might be bad enough to damage an axle, and then only when she couldn’t find a way around.

  “When he said hunter down,” Kel asked, “did that tell you anything?”

  “Gunshot. Otherwise it would have been hunter injured.”

  “That explains a lot,” he remarked as they jolted again.

  She guessed he was referring to the way she was pushing the envelope with her driving. If she hadn’t been so familiar with these roads, she wouldn’t be doing this, but she didn’t bother to tell him. She needed all her attention for driving.

  She used her siren to get past two pickups carrying game, gave one wish that she could check it out, and kept going. Someone’s life was in the balance. That mattered more than anything.

  At last she got as close to the coordinates Jos had given as she could. No other official vehicles had arrived yet, but she wasn’t surprised. She had been closest. She pulled up behind Jos’s truck and scrambled out. From the back she pulled her folding stretcher and a first aid kit. Kel took the stretcher from her.

  Then they hurried into the woods. Desi keyed her radio. “We’re in the woods approaching you, Jos.”

  “Good. I’m gonna need some help with the other guy, too. He’s half-crazed.”

  “He did it?”

  “No, and that’s not calming him down any. But wait till you get here.”

  They trotted through the woods, avoiding obstacles. It shouldn’t be too far, Desi thought. Maybe a mile from where Jos was parked. Had the wounded man’s companion somehow managed to make a cell connection from the woods? It was getting easier to do that, but it still wasn’t exactly reliable.

  So the guy’s hunting buddy hadn’t shot him. The information sharpened Desi’s senses, and she saw that Kel was scanning the woods as they hurried. He hadn’t missed it either. He was also limping a bit and ignoring it.

  Someone else was out here. Probably an incautious hunter now on the run. Probably nothing deliberate. Probably.

  The light coming through the evergreens was greenish, but every so often they broke into a patch of deciduous trees that had shed their autumn leaves and into bright sunshine. The contrast could be almost blinding, but there wasn’t enough of it to cause Desi to pull out her sunglasses.

  The radio burst with static. “I hear you,” Jos said. “Two of you?”

  “Yeah, Kel is with me.”

  “Good,” said Jos.

  He’d asked and she wondered why, then understood. He was worried about who else might be out here. A shooter. Maybe it hadn’t been accidental, but she doubted Jos could know that.

  Then they burst into another clearing where bright light shown through the skeletal fingers of the trees. Jos was kneeling beside the wounded hunter, both of their orange vests nearly glowing, except where the one was bloodstained. Another man huddled at the edge of the clearing, looking terrified. “Why?” he kept saying. “Why?”

  Good question, Desi thought. There wasn’t enough cover in this clearing for anyone to mistake the fallen man for an animal.

  She dropped to her knees beside Jos. The wounded man’s eyes were open. He looked a bit dazed, but he was breathing.

  Kel dropped the stretcher beside them, then went over to the huddled man and squatted down.

  “It’ll be okay, buddy. We’re here. Wanna tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” the man groaned. “Never saw anyone. Just standing here looking at the GPS cuz Don had seen some moose near here.”

  “That’s Don over there?”

  “Yeah, is he gonna die?”

  “No,” Jos answered firmly. “We’re going to get him out of here.” He looked at Desi. “Bad wound in the shoulder. We gotta get him to the road.”

  She nodded and turned to open the stretcher. “You called for help?”

  “I tried but couldn’t raise anyone but you, and the guy was bleeding so badly...”

  “You come help us carry your buddy out,” Kel said to the other man. He took him by his arm and helped him to his feet. “You can do that, right?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t sound very convincing but at least he was willing to try. Then he said something that explained a whole lot to Desi.

  “Jeez, man, just like Iraq. Sniper bullets coming out of nowhere!”

  “I know what you mean,” Kel said. “But this isn’t Iraq, is it? Look at all the trees. Never saw anything like that, did you?”

  “No...no...”

  “And what’s the first thing we need to do?”

  “Get Don out of the line of fire.”

  “Then let’s go do it.”

  Line of fire? Desi’s scalp prickled and she looked around quickly. Sniper? Maybe something more than a gunshot out of nowhere had set this guy off. But now was not the time.

  The three of them managed to get Don on the stretcher. Jos and Kel took the head end while she and the friend took the foot. She used her free hand to try to call for air evac. For a while, all she got was static, but then she connected. She described the situation tersely and recited the coordinates as they hurried through the woods as fast as they could. “We’ll meet you on Hessler Road.”

  “You guys got here just in time,” Jos remarked. “I was so busy staunching the bleeding that I gave up trying to get through. Maybe they could have put a Stokes basket down there.”

  “Too tight,” Desi said. “You were right. Bleeding first or the rescue would be pointless. Anyway, the road’ll be better.”

  “Yeah.” Jos shook his head. “At least I didn’t lose my head. I don’t get it. The guy was putting pressure on the wound, but as soon as I arrived he just freaked...”

  Desi quickly glanced at the other man, across from her at the foot end of the stretcher. He didn’t even seem to pick up on that, but a quick glance back told her that Kel had and he wasn’t pleased.

  But Jos was young and this wasn’t the time to educate him. Later maybe.

  One thing for certain, the mile back to the road seemed to take longer this time. They paused once to switch sides of the stretcher, and she was glad to see Don’s friend was calming down.

  “What’s your name?” she asked as they resumed the hike.

  “Thor Edvaldson, and I hate the jokes.”

  “I would, too,” she answered pleasantly. “So you didn’t see anything at all?”

  “Not until Don was hit. The woods seemed quiet, almost empty, which was frustrating Don because he blamed it on the dogs.”

  “Dogs?” Her ears pricked.

  “Yeah. Maybe a half hour before the shot we passed four guys on horseback. Don took exception to their dogs and told them to leash them. I guess I don’t have to tell you why. Anyway, they laughed and just kept going.”

  “Don didn’t try to follow them, did he?”

  “Naw. He was ticked though. Figured they’d ruined our hunting for the day. So maybe they were as careless as they were stupid. I don’t like people who
break the rules.”

  “Neither do I.” Now the skin on the back of her neck felt like it was crawling. “Did the men say anything else?”

  “I don’t...” Thor paused. “Well, Don told ’em to get the dogs out of here or it was going to waste his moose permit. That seemed to interest them, but they just kept moving.”

  “Interest them how?”

  “Not sure. Like they might be looking for moose, too? But who the hell takes a bunch of dogs on a moose hunt? Guarantees you won’t see a single animal.”

  Unless, Desi thought, you wanted to drive them, herd them, cluster some up and pick the best. She saw what dogs could do on the ranches around here. She couldn’t imagine any reason why hunting dogs couldn’t be used the same way...which was why it was forbidden.

  When they reached the road, Jos radioed to find out how long before the helo arrived. “Five minutes,” came the clipped response.

  “Jos?” Desi asked. “Was the wound through and through?”

  Jos nodded.

  She looked at Thor again. “Mr. Edvaldson, what did you do when Don was shot?”

  “Hit the ground.”

  “Training,” remarked Kel. “He was probably flat before Don finished falling.”

  Desi nodded. “So...given the way Don was hit, any idea what direction the bullet must have come from?”

  Thor lowered his head, thinking. “Upslope to the north of us. Northwest, I’d guess. When it came through his shoulder it just missed me. He was pointing that way, to where he’d seen some moose a couple weeks ago. Seems like there were some elk, too. Anyway, I was standing mostly behind him, just a bit to the side so I could see where he was pointing. He’d bent some twigs to mark his path last time. GPS isn’t always reliable up in these mountains.” Then he fell silent.

  Kel clapped his arm. “You gonna be okay, man?”

  “Always okay sooner or later.” He stiffened as the sound of rotors became audible.