Trophy Hunt

by C. J. Box

“Yup, but not the elk tag.”

  O’Bannon rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly annoyed.

  While the hunters set their bows aside and dug for their wallets, Joe waited with his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his Wranglers.

  “Have you heard anything lately about those murders?” the short hunter asked, giving Joe his license.

  “Like what?” Joe asked, checking it over. Pete was a state resident from Gillette. His license and stamp were okay, so Joe handed it back.

  “Have there been any more sightings around here? Any more, you know, incidents?”

  O’Bannon chuckled when he heard the question.

  “Not since last week,” Joe said. “I’m sure you heard about that.”

  “No little green men?” O’Bannon asked, smiling so that his teeth glinted in the headlights.

  “Nope, just hunters.” Joe said, looking over the license. “You need to sign this,” he told O’Bannon, pointing toward the signature line.

  “Jesus,” O’Bannon sighed, shaking his head “I knew you’d find something to hassle me over.”

  I told you I would, Joe thought.

  “I’m glad things are quiet,” Pete said. “I almost didn’t come over here to go hunting when I read about them murders. Jeff had to work hard to convince me to come hunting with him.”

  Joe nodded, wondering how many hunters were thinking twice about traveling to his district.

  “Jeff said he’d take care of those little green bastards if they showed up.”

  Joe had started to turn toward his pickup when he stopped.

  “Really, how?”

  He could see the blood drain from O’Bannon’s face, even through the face paint.

  “Pete . . .” O’Bannon whispered.

  “Show him, Jeff,” Pete said enthusiastically.

  “Show me, Jeff,” Joe said, raising his eyebrows.

  O’Bannon didn’t move. Pete looked at Jeff, and slowly realized what he had done.

  “Show me, Jeff,” Joe repeated.

  “Shit, it’s for self-protection only. Self-protection!” O’Bannon said, raising his voice. “When people are getting cut up in the woods by something, it only makes sense!”

  “Show me, Jeff.”

  Sighing, O’Bannon pulled back his camouflage coat to reveal a heavy, stainless-steel revolver in a holster on his hip.

  “What’s that, a .357 Magnum?” Joe asked.

  O’Bannon nodded.

  “I used to carry one of those myself,” Joe said. “I couldn’t hit anything with it. Well, once . . .” he let his voice trail off.

  “Jeff’s won some trophies in open-range pistol shoots,” Pete volunteered, trying to ease the situation.

  “That’s good,” Joe said, reaching for the ticket book that he kept in his back pocket, “but it’s archery season, fellows. Archery. Bows and arrows. When you carry a handgun, you’re violating regulations as well as the whole spirit of the season.”

  “I told you it was for self-protection only,” O’Bannon said. “I didn’t even shoot it!”

  “I understand,” Joe said, flipping the ticket book open. “And in other circumstances—like if you were somebody else—I would likely issue you a strong verbal warning. But, Jeff, you’re special.”

  Thumbing through his well-worn booklet of regulations, Joe found the page he was looking for and read out loud from the light of the headlights: “Statute 23-2-104(d). No person holding an archery license shall take big game or trophy game animals during a special hunting season while in possession of any type of firearm.”

  Joe wrote the ticket while O’Bannon glared at his former friend.

  “You’re also in violation of the concealed-weapons statutes unless you have a valid permit signed by Sheriff Barnum,” Joe said. “If I remember correctly, you could be looking at six months or so in jail. Do you have a permit?”

  “I’m contesting this,” O’Bannon said, snatching the violation sheet from Joe and wadding it into his front pocket. “I’ll see you in fucking court!”

  “Yes, you will,” Joe said. “In the meantime, I’d advise you to stay home for a while. It’ll play better with Judge Pennock if you show some remorse, even if you’re just faking it.”

  O’Bannon looked like he was about to have a stroke. His eyes bulged and his jaw was thrust forward. His hands had clenched into meaty fists.

  Joe tensed and laid a hand on his gun as a warning. He felt slightly ashamed for taking the frustration of the day out on Jeff O’Bannon. But only slightly.

  Pete looked from O’Bannon to Joe, and back to O’Bannon.

  “Can I get a ride to town with you?” he asked Joe.

  Joe smiled. “Jump in.”

  After dinner—takeout again that Marybeth grabbed from the Burg-O-Pardner on her way home from work—Joe checked his messages. Nothing from the lab on the samples he had sent, nothing from Trey Crump on the bear, nothing from Hersig on any progress in the investigation.

  Marybeth came into the office and shut the door behind her.

  “Did you notice anything odd at dinner tonight?” she asked.

  Joe grimaced. He studied her quickly. No new haircut, her clothes looked familiar. Something else, then.

  “When Cam brought Lucy home earlier, she was pretty upset. Cam had asked the girls not to explore the outbuildings at their place, so guess where they went after school?”

  “Is she all right?”

  Marybeth nodded. “She’s fine. She’s upset that she got in trouble, though. She said Cam was pretty angry with them and told Jessica she couldn’t play with Lucy for a while.”

  “Nobody hurt, though?”

  “No. I told Lucy it was her job to listen to Cam and Marie when she was at their house, and to follow their rules.”

  Joe nodded.

  “You didn’t notice that Lucy never said a word during dinner?”

  “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”

  “So how did your task-force meeting go?”

  Joe leaned against his desk and filled her in. She made faces as he described the meeting, and laughed when he told her about McLanahan’s theory about Arabs.

  “I bet you wish they would have forgotten about you when it came to naming the members of that group,” Marybeth said.

  “I’ve got Trey and Hersig to thank for that.”

  She stood in silence, studying Joe. “Do you think Portenson will be trouble for us?”

  Joe nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be watching me closely. He also mentioned Nate.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe.”

  He shrugged, as if to say we knew this was possible.

  Anxious to change the subject, he asked about her day.

  “Cam’s listing more homes and ranches every day. Ranchers are talking to each other and singing his praises. But those mutilations are big news . . . no one wants to buy right now. Cam’s trying to get them to lower their prices. It’s a little tense around the office right now. But if things go well, he asked me if I’d be interested in going full-time, Joe. As a realtor.” She beamed.

  Inwardly, Joe moaned and guilt washed over him.

  “That’s great, honey.”

  “That’s not really what you think, is it?” she asked, smiling slightly.

  “Of course it is. We need the money.”

  “Joe, I like the Logues. I admire them. And you know I’d be a hell of a good realtor.”

  “Yes, you would. You are good at everything you do.”

  “Damn straight,” she said.

  He smiled and reached out for her. If only he could provide enough for the family. He silently vowed that as soon as the task force investigation wrapped up, he would start exploring his options in earnest.

  “Don’t forget that we’re having dinner with Mom and Bud Longbrake tomorrow night,” Marybeth said, dashing his mood further.

  An overnight envelope lay in the in-box on his desk. When he saw that it was from the forensics laboratory in Laramie, he anxiously ripped it o
pen and pulled out the documents. It was the toxicology report on his moose. He fanned through the pages listing the details of the analysis and found the conclusion in a memo at the end.

  The lab had found no unusual substances, and no abnormal levels of natural substances. He scanned the pages for the word “oxindole,” but it simply wasn’t there.

  “Damn,” he said, and threw the report on his desk.

  Sheridan was snoring, but Lucy was still awake when Joe came into their bedroom to kiss them good night. The room was small and there wasn’t much space between the two single beds. He sidled between them and sat down on Lucy’s bed, smoothing her blond hair.

  “I heard what happened,” Joe said softly.

  Lucy nodded, “Did Mom tell you about that shack we found?”

  “No,” Joe said, “she didn’t.”

  “Somebody was living out there. We saw where he slept and we thought we heard something. We were so scared, Dad.”

  Joe wondered why Marybeth hadn’t told him about this, but figured that probably it wasn’t the issue. He assumed that a transient was using the shack, which alarmed him. Who knew how long ago somebody had been there? The house had been unoccupied for years before the Logues bought it and began restoration. Had Cam called the sheriff? He would need to ask Marybeth.

  “You need to stay out of those buildings, Lucy,” he said firmly. “There are strange people in town because of what’s going on. You need to listen to Mr. Logue and to us.”

  Lucy nodded, her eyes wide.

  As he climbed the stairs, he thought: My wife the realtor, imagining a photo of her face at the bottom of an advertisement in the Roundup real estate section.

  15

  THE NEXT MORNING, Joe headed out to the Riverside RV Park to pay a visit to Cleve Garrett, self-proclaimed expert in the paranormal. Joe prayed that his mother-in-law would never find out about this. He cringed just thinking about the multitude of woo-woo questions she’d have for him. The RV park was located on the west bank of the river and was surrounded by three acres of heavily wooded and seriously overgrown river cottonwoods.

  As Joe nosed his pickup onto the ancient steel bridge, he thought that the RV park looked like the aftermath of a giant garbage can tipped over in the wind. Bits of glass, metal, weathered plywood, and old tires looked like they were caught in the spidery silver trees that had just lost the last of their leaves. On closer inspection, however, he saw that the trash was actually a number of aging mobile homes tucked into alcoves among the trees. The old tires had been placed on the tops of the mobile homes to keep the roofs from blowing off in the wind.

  Under the bridge, he noticed a single fisherman in the water below, and smiled. It was the man known as Not Ike, who since his arrival in Saddlestring, had become the single most dedicated fly-fisherman Joe had ever seen. Not Ike was the “slow” cousin of Ike Easter, the county clerk. Because Ike Easter had been the only black face in Saddlestring for ten years, when his cousin the fly-fisherman moved to town he found himself being called Ike everywhere he went, so he had a sweatshirt printed up that said I’M NOT IKE. But instead of being called by his actual name, which was George, he became known as Not Ike.

  Along with a couple of retired local men named Hans and Jack, Not Ike worked the pocket waters near the two bridges that crossed the Twelve Sleep River for trout, and Joe had seen him out there in every kind of weather. Because Not Ike couldn’t yet afford an annual nonresident license, he bought cheaper, three- and five-day temporary licenses, one after the other, as they expired, so he could keep fishing. At least Joe hoped Not Ike was still buying the licenses, and made a mental note to check him out later.

  As he reached the other side of the bridge, Joe turned left and passed under a faded hanging sign announcing his entrance to the Riverside Resort and RV Park.

  Although once conceived as a “resort,” the Riverside RV Park had declined and amalgamated into a sort of idiosyncratic hybrid. Most of the spaces were occupied by permanent residents; retirees from the lumber mill, service workers for the Eagle Mountain Club, transients, and now CBM crews. A few new model mobile homes with strips of neat landscaped lawn sat next to sagging, dented trailers mounted on cinder blocks, with out-of-plumb wooden storage sheds occupying every foot of the property. From the entrance, the road branched into three lanes, with mobile homes lining both sides of the lanes.

  Joe had been to the Riverside two years before, following up on an anonymous poaching tip, so he was somewhat familiar with the layout. He had caught two employees of a highway construction crew skinning pronghorn antelopes hung from trees behind a rented trailer, and he had arrested them both for taking the animals out of season. The RV park had changed very little since then, although due to the influx of CBM workers, it now looked as if most of the spaces were occupied.

  He stopped at the first trailer, the one with RESORT MANAGER in sculpted wrought-iron above the gate. The trailer had been there long enough that the silver skin of the unit had oxidized into pewter. A basket of frosted plastic flowers hung from a sun porch near the door.

  Leaving his truck idling with Maxine curled and sleeping under the dashboard heater vent, he swung out and clamped on his gray Stetson. It was a cold, still morning, and the park was silent. He zipped his coat up a few inches, and thrust his hands into his coat pockets.

  He could smell coffee brewing and bacon frying from inside the manager’s office as he approached the door. The doorbell rang, and he stepped back on the porch and waited, wishing the bright morning sun could find him through the trees and warm his back.

  The interior door clicked and opened inward, then the manager pushed the screen door open.

  “Good morning, Jimbo,” Joe said.

  Jimbo Francis had been the manager of the Riverside since Joe had moved to the Saddlestring District. He was a big man with a massive belly. His face was as round as a hubcap, with protruding ears and a band of wispy, white cotton under a bald dome that expanded into a full mustache and beard stained with streaks of yellow. Jimbo had once been a government trapper, in charge of eradicating predators in the Bighorns and valleys by shooting, trapping, or poisoning them. When federal funding was withdrawn, he had taken the job of managing the “resort” temporarily, until funding for the program was restored. That was twenty-five years before, and he was still waiting. Jimbo was also a self-proclaimed patron of the arts, and was the chairman of the Saddlestring Library Foundation. He had once told Joe and Marybeth that his passion in life was “reading books and eradicating vermin.” Now that he was in his late seventies and his eyes were failing—he had been instrumental in creating the books-on-tape section in the library—both of his passions were waning. As was his sanity, Joe suspected.

  “And a good morning to you, Vern Dunnegan!” Jimbo boomed.

  “Joe Pickett,” Joe corrected. “Vern’s been gone for six years. I replaced him.” Vern’s in prison where he belongs, Joe thought but didn’t say. No reason to confuse Jimbo further.

  “I knew that, I guess,” Jimbo said, rubbing his hand through his hair. “Of course I knew that. I don’t know what I was thinking. Vern was here so damned long, I guess, that I still think of him. That just goes to show you that a man shouldn’t open his door in the morning until he’s had his first three cups of coffee. I knew Vern was gone.”

  “Sure you did,” Joe said, patting Jimbo on the shoulder.

  “Is Marybeth still working at the library?” he asked, as if trying to further prove he was lucid.

  “Not anymore, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s too goddamn bad,” Jimbo said. “She was a looker.”

  Joe sighed.

  “You need some coffee? You’re here pretty early, Joe. I’ve got breakfast started. Do you want some eggs and bacon?”

  “No thanks, Jimbo. I need to check with you on a new renter.”

  “We call them guests.”

  “Okay. On a new guest. The name is Cleve Garrett.”

  Jimbo rolled his eyes
into his head, as if trying to find his mental rental list. Joe waited for Jimbo’s eyes to reappear. When they did, Jimbo said, “It’s a cold morning. Do you want to come in?”

  “That’s okay,” Joe said patiently. He remembered the interior of Jimbo’s trailer from before. The place was claustrophobic, books crammed among Jimbo’s collection of coyote, badger, beaver, and mountain lion skulls, empty eye sockets of dozens of predators looking out over everything. “If you could just tell me what space Cleve Garrett is renting, I’ll be off.”

  “He’s got a girl with him,” Jimbo said. “Skinny little number.”

  Joe nodded. He could have simply cruised the lanes, looking for the new RV. But he’d wanted to clear it with Jimbo first. Now he was regretting his choice.

  “He’s here, then.”

  “He’s here, all right,” Jimbo said. “Been a parade of folks through here lately, all asking about ‘Cleve Garrett, Cleve Garrett.’ They’re all star-struck. He’s some kind of big expert in the paranormal, I guess. He’s giving lectures on it. I plan to attend a couple. Maybe we can get him to speak at the library while he’s here.”

  “Maybe,” Joe said, his patience just about gone. “Which space is he in?”

  “Lot C-17,” Jimbo said finally. “You know, I’ve seen him before, but I can’t figure out where. Maybe on television or something. These mutilations in our community are weighing heavily on my mind. You want a strip of bacon to go?”

  Chewing on the bacon, Joe drove down lane C. He tossed the second half of the strip to Maxine.

  Cleve Garrett’s trailer was obvious before Joe even looked at the lot numbers. It couldn’t have been more out of place. Joe fought an urge to laugh out loud, but at the same time he felt an icy electric tingle shoot up his spine. The huge trailer stood out as if it were a spacecraft that had docked in a cemetery. A bulging, extremely expensive, gleaming silver Airstream—the Lexus of trailers—bristled with antennae and small satellite dishes. A device shaped like a tuning fork rotated in the air near the front of the trailer. The Airstream was unhitched, and the modified, dual-wheeled diesel Suburban that had pulled it was parked to the side. Joe stopped his truck briefly behind the Suburban, jotting down the Nevada license plate numbers in his notebook before pulling to the other side of the trailer.