Long Range

by Box, C. J.

  “I can’t even see the Hewitt house clearly from here.”

  “I think that was the idea,” Nate said. “If you can’t see him, he can’t see you. Every man can be a sniper these days.”

  *

  THE WORLD OF long-range shooting wasn’t unfamiliar to Joe, because it had become an integral aspect of his job as a game warden in an incredibly short period of time. He couldn’t recall a technical revolution in big-game hunting happening as quickly, and he likened it to when repeating arms had been introduced to the American West or when modern gunpowder had replaced black powder over a hundred years before he was born.

  He still cringed when he encountered a hunter in possession of such a technically advanced weapon.

  Before the last ten years, a six-hundred- to eight-hundred-yard shot had been considered extreme and ill-advised. Ethical hunters rarely even tried one because the possibility of wounding an animal that far away made it more difficult to finish it off or track it if it ran away. Most hunters didn’t even pull the trigger if the game was over two hundred yards away.

  High-tech laser range finders like the one Nate carried had changed everything. Knowing the exact distance of the target made ultra-long shots possible, because the shooter could adjust his aim to account for all of the factors—wind, temperature, atmospheric pressure, incline/decline—that would affect the shot. There were now rifle scopes that were computers in and of themselves and they enabled the shooter to dispense with a subsequent laser range finder. Scopes were now range finders and ballistic calculators.

  In addition to precision optics, carbon fiber–wrapped barrels were lighter and stiffer and they cut down on vibration. Bad rifle ergonomics had been replaced by perfectly sculpted composite stocks. Bad steel triggers had been replaced by foolproof titanium. Specially engineered ammunition resulted in rounds that were more powerful, more accurate, and more consistent. Copper alloy–jacketed bullets with ballistic tips emerged from muzzles at over three hundred thousand rotations per minute.

  As Nate had said, any man could now be a sniper. The average-Joe hunter could own a technologically advanced and engineered rifle that was beyond anything a military sniper had possessed twenty years before.

  All it took was money.

  Joe had seen rifles that cost the hunters carrying them over six thousand dollars for the rifle and scope. And he’d met an elk hunter who bragged that his weapon was custom-made for him for nearly twenty thousand.

  Most of the ultra-long-range rifles Joe had seen in hunting camps were chambered for .300 Winchester Magnum, .338 Lapua, 7mm Magnum, or 6.5 Creedmoor Magnum cartridges. All of the rounds were close enough to the .30 caliber bullet that hit Sue Hewitt that Sheriff Kapelow’s determination of the projectile was all but useless.

  Factory or aftermarket suppressors mounted on the muzzles reduced recoil and muted the decibel level of the shot itself from 160 dB down to 120 dB. It was still loud—Joe scoffed when he saw a silencer used in a movie or television show that was whisper-soft—but it resulted in a crack that was below the 140 dB threshold that could result in hearing loss.

  *

  NATE WAS BREATHING hard as they approached the top of the hill. Because they’d had to skirt gnarled sagebrush all the way up, their route had been half-again more taxing than walking straight up the rise. Joe caught up with him and they summited the ridge side by side.

  The folds of the terrain opened up before them all the way to the mountains. A herd of twenty pronghorn antelope had strategically selected the top of the ridge, where it was flat to mill around. The height afforded them clear views in every direction. When Joe and Nate appeared on the western rim, the herd scattered. The flat was littered with pronghorn excrement in pellet piles, and churned-up dirt where the animals had prepared the ground.

  Nate paused on the top and turned on his heel.

  “Yep, this is where they set up,” he said.

  Joe walked cautiously along the rim, and within ten steps he found where the shooter had been. A slight depression that butted up against the lip of the ridge was long enough for a man to lie prone. Several flat rocks had been stacked on the end of it in the direction of the club, and a small ball cactus had been kicked loose to the side so the shooter wouldn’t have to make contact with it on the ground. The dried yellow grass was crushed in the hollow and he could make out two oblong depressions in the dirt where the toes of two boots had dug in.

  Joe backed off a few feet and let his pack drop to the ground. As he did, Nate joined him.

  “That’s where he shot from,” Nate said. “He used those rocks as a gun rest to elevate his aim, although he probably brought along some sandbags to further stabilize the rifle. He might have used a bipod.”

  Joe agreed. He dropped to a knee so he could dig into his daypack for a bundle of wire flag markers. After determining the exact coordinates and photographing the crime scene—both accomplished with his phone—he’d mark it off with the flags so the very busy crime scene tech could find it.

  Joe wasn’t really surprised that Nate had located the spot so quickly. His past experience certainly helped, but Nate also had a very rare ability: he was an intuitive shooter who didn’t need technology and optics to make a shot—even with his .454 revolver. Like the birds he flew, Nate interpreted variables for an accurate shot without instrumentation, and he rarely missed, even at a tremendous distance. When Joe asked how, Nate couldn’t explain his abilities other than to say that he could “see” wind speed and atmospheric pressure as long as he didn’t think too long and hard about it. Like a peregrine falcon who zeroed in on prey thousands of feet above the surface and tucked in its wings to begin a bullet-like drop, Nate said he had to make split-second decisions based on what he referred to as “informed instinct.”

  “I’m not surprised there isn’t a spent casing on the ground,” Joe said. “The guy only fired once, so there was no need to eject it.”

  “Either that, or his spotter picked it up,” Nate mused.

  Joe froze. “Spotter?”

  Nate nodded. “It’s just about impossible for most shooters to make a shot like this without a spotter. Even the best. That was my role on the team. The spotter is just as important as the guy who pulls the trigger, if not more so.”

  “Really?”

  “Sometimes I did it without a range finder,” Nate said.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “But in reality, and on the battlefield, the spotter determines everything,” Nate said. “He’s the one with the laser optics and the computer readings. The shooter programs in what the spotter tells him. We’re talking wind speed—crosswinds, updrafts, downdrafts—settings, distance. Adjustments need to be made on the scope depending on the atmospheric pressure—how thick the air is. It’s the difference between shooting through water versus motor oil.”

  Joe shook his head. “I never even considered two people.”

  “Very few if any snipers could make this shot by themselves, and I doubt that’s what happened here.”

  Joe placed the last of his flags in the ground. He removed his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  Joe asked, “How long does it usually take for a high-tech range finder to determine the distance and all the variables for the shot?”

  “On average, fifteen seconds.”

  The distant Eagle Mountain Club undulated in waves of heat from the valley floor.

  “Neither Sheriff Kapelow nor Judge Hewitt are going to like hearing this,” Joe said.

  Then: “This changes everything.”

  *

  KAPELOW DIDN’T PICK UP and Joe’s call to him went straight to voicemail.

  Looking out across the river valley at the Eagle Mountain Club, he said, “Sheriff, I think we’re looking for two suspects, not one. The shooter is in possession of an advanced long-range rifle. I’m standing twenty feet away from where I think the shot was fired and the location is secured for you and Norwood. We haven’t disturbed a thing and there m
ay be tracks or forensic evidence up here. The GPS coordinates are . . .”

  After reading off the numbers he signed off and called Deputy Steck.

  “I’m trying to find the sheriff,” he explained.

  Steck said Kapelow had left the Hewitt home to meet with Judge Hewitt at the hospital and brief him on their progress thus far.

  “What progress?” Joe asked.

  Steck sighed, then proceeded with a faux reverence for Kapelow that Joe picked up right away. “My boss has a theory now that we’ve gone over the entire golf course inch by inch and found nothing. He thinks the bullet that hit Miz Sue was a stray round. ‘A million-to-one coincidence with a tragic ending,’ as he put it. He spent twenty minutes on the internet this morning googling ‘victim struck by stray bullet,’ and he announced that he got over a million hits. He printed off a few of the articles to take to the judge to show him how often it happens.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I was there. I watched him at the computer,” Steck said. “Most of the news stories were about urban drive-bys, but the boss found a couple where a stray bullet came from nowhere and hit somebody.”

  Joe didn’t know how to respond.

  “Are you sure the Game and Fish Department isn’t hiring?” Steck asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “But you’ll let me know if an opening comes up, right? Before you tell Justin?”

  “Sure,” Joe sighed.

  “Because if I stay in this loony bin much longer, I’m gonna eat my gun.”

  “Don’t do it,” Joe said. “We need you around.”

  “Sheriff Kapelow doesn’t,” Steck groused.

  Joe told Steck about finding the location where the shot had been fired.

  After a long pause, Steck asked, “How far away was it?”

  “At least sixteen hundred yards.”

  “Jesus. Who are we dealing with here?”

  Joe looked up to see that Nate was following the conversation. His friend rolled his eyes, as if confirming that his long-standing opinion of law enforcement bureaucracies was once again being confirmed.

  “We’re looking for a shooter and a spotter,” Joe said. “Two suspects, not one.”

  “Oh, man. Who’s going to tell the judge?”

  “I will,” Joe said. “I’m headed to the hospital as soon as I get off this hill.”

  “I’d like to see the sheriff’s face when you tell him,” Steck said with a chuckle.

  TEN

  But the sheriff was not at the Twelve Sleep County Hospital when Joe arrived after dropping Nate at his van. There were a half-dozen cars in the parking lot, but no departmental SUV.

  Kapelow had been there, though. Joe noted his name just before his own on the visitor registry. He’d missed him by five minutes.

  As he walked down the hallway to the small ICU, Joe checked his phone to see if Kapelow had called him back. There was a “Call me when you can” message from Marybeth, but nothing from the sheriff.

  He paused outside a door with the name Hewitt written on a whiteboard and speed-dialed Marybeth at the library.

  She said, “Given what’s going on right now, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen?”

  “Did someone take a shot at you?”

  “Worse than that,” Marybeth said. “My mother is waiting for me at our house.”

  Joe felt a wave of revulsion and fear wash over him.

  “Missy is here? Why?”

  He knew it sounded like a plea to the heavens.

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

  “I thought she was still traveling the world.”

  “So did I,” Marybeth said. “But apparently she’s back.”

  “You’re right,” Joe said. “That is the worst thing I can think of. But her timing is still true to form.”

  “It’s one of her special gifts,” Marybeth said with a bitter sigh. “I’ll head out there and see what she wants. Maybe I can convince her to leave before you get home.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Missy Vankueren Hand had been married six times, most recently to the infamous defense attorney Marcus Hand of Jackson Hole. Each husband—with the exception of Hand—had been wealthier and more influential than the previous one, a strategy she referred to as “trading up.” Hand was more of a lateral move because he’d served as her defense attorney when she’d feared prison for the murder of husband number five, wealthy rancher Earl Alden. Not only would Hand defend her, but as her spouse, he wouldn’t be forced to testify against her in court. So she solved two problems at the same time.

  Missy had not only disapproved of her daughter’s wedding to Joe Pickett; she’d relentlessly tried to sabotage the marriage ever since. Joe thought of her as his nemesis and he still marveled at how Marybeth had turned out to be the opposite of everything her mother stood for. Although Missy had recently turned seventy—Joe was sure of that because they’d received a postcard from her from Venice where she’d written in a flowery scrawl that Seventy is the new forty-five—his mother-in-law had somehow maintained her tiny hourglass figure, heart-shaped porcelain face, and the ability to melt the hearts and morals of new wealthy husbands while simultaneously gutting the men she’d left behind.

  His mother-in-law was now independently wealthy because she’d sold the ranch that had been passed along to her and she could afford to pick up and travel the world whenever the mood struck her or the law closed in.

  And now, Joe moaned to himself, she was back.

  He slid the phone into his pocket and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he remembered why he was there.

  *

  JUDGE HEWITT SAT unshaven and disheveled in a hard-backed chair at the bedside of his wife, Sue, who was both unconscious and looked to be sprouting tubes and wires from her body beneath her sheet. Her head was turned to the side, facing the judge, but her face was obscured by a cloudy oxygen mask. A bank of monitors blinked and clicked behind her headboard.

  Hewitt’s eyes were red-rimmed when they rose to meet Joe’s.

  “What now?” he asked sharply. “First that idiot Kapelow and now you.”

  Joe removed his hat and nodded. Although Judge Hewitt’s greeting had been less than friendly, Joe chalked at least some of it up to the judge being viewed in a very vulnerable and intimate state. Judge Hewitt was used to looking down on others from his bench while wearing a black robe that served as a kind of force field. Now here he was in rumpled clothing grasping the hand of his wife who couldn’t squeeze back. Joe felt for him.

  “How is she doing?” he asked softly.

  Hewitt started to speak, then caught himself and looked away. Sue was obviously not improving, but he couldn’t come up with the words without breaking down.

  “She’s opened her eyes and looked at me a couple of times,” Hewitt said. “I thought she was here with me and I started to talk to her. Then she slipped away. I can’t say for certain she even heard what I said.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said. “We’ll pray for her.”

  “Do that,” Hewitt said. “I’m doing all I can. I’ve threatened to cite Him for contempt if He doesn’t bring her back to me.”

  His attempt at dark humor—and the reminder that he was still a judge—made Joe wince.

  “This is a terrible thing,” Hewitt said while stroking Sue’s hand. “I can’t help but think how much I wasn’t there for her over the years. I was selfish—either on the bench or chasing after trophies all over the world. She had to resent it, but she rarely complained. It must have been very lonely for her.

  “Now this has happened. I’ve sworn to God that if she makes it through, I’ll change. I’ll be different. I’ll listen to her when she yammers on and I’ll be there for her the way she’s been there for me. I swear it.”

  Joe was taken aback. Judge Hewitt had never spoken to him with such intimacy or regret before.

  “She always wanted to go on a European trip,” Hewitt said. “I told her we wo
uld—someday. But I used my time off for me—always thinking we’d go later after I retired. Now . . . Now I realize that time may never come.”

  His eyes filled with tears and Joe had to steel himself not to look away.

  “If she gets through this, we’re going to Europe, which I hate. They’re so smug over there that they don’t know their time is up. But I can put those feelings aside for a few weeks for Sue. And I hope I have the opportunity to do just that.”

  “I can’t imagine how you feel,” Joe said.

  “I have a long bucket list of species I have always intended to kill,” Hewitt said. “I’m about seventy-five percent through the list. But those remaining creatures mean nothing to me at this moment. Right now, I want just two things.”

  He turned to Sue as if she could hear him. He said, “I want you to get through this.”

  Then he turned to Joe. “And I want retribution for what happened to her.”

  Joe gulped.

  Hewitt gently lay Sue’s hand down on the mattress and released it, then he turned and grasped a sheaf of papers from a bedside table and shook them at Joe.

  “This is what Kapelow brought me,” he said angrily. “Newspaper stories from around the country where people were struck by stray rounds fired from miles away. He thinks this proves something in Sue’s case. He’s a mental midget like I’ve rarely encountered. The only people worse are the moron voters of Twelve Sleep County who elected him sheriff.”

  Joe didn’t want to remind Hewitt that those same morons had elected the judge time and time again.

  Hewitt said, “I reiterated to him that every hour that goes by without real progress in the case is an hour lost that we’ll never get back, and he’s spending his time printing off garbage stories and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

  “It’s really very simple. So simple even an idiot can get it. Someone tried to kill me and they hit my wife. Why is that such a difficult thing for the sheriff to grasp?” Hewitt asked Joe.

  “There’s some news on that front,” Joe said.

  As he detailed his trip up the hill that morning, he showed Judge Hewitt the photos he’d taken on his phone. Hewitt grasped the significance instantly.