"Besides, it sounds like I'll be too busy dealing with Sheriff McLanahan and Randy Pope. I'm not looking forward to that."
"I don't trust her," Marybeth said. "But I do trust you."
"You should."
"Plus, Sheridan and Lucy would kill you if you ever did anything untoward."
"That I'm sure of," Joe said.
"So what's going on? Another hunter?"
"Apparently," Joe said. "I don't know much yet, but the governor's worried."
"Any idea how long you'll be gone this time?"
"I should be back tonight."
"No," she said. "I mean on this case."
He buckled on his holster with the.40 Glock, pepper spray, and handcuffs and reached for his Stetson that was crown down on the dresser.
"I don't know," he said. "We don't know if it's another accident or foul play. Everyone's jumpy because of those other hunters who got shot. No one wants to imagine that someone is hunting hunters, but everyone is thinking that."
She nodded. She didn't need to tell him there were parent-teacher conferences later in the week at Lucy's junior high and Sheridan's high school. Or about the party they'd been invited to with members of their church. Or about the fact that she wanted him home while she battled with her mother and needed his support.
"I'll be home as soon as I can," he said.
She walked him to the door. Lucy was still watching television and didn't look at him. She simply said, "Gone again?"
Joe stopped, hurt. Marybeth pushed him gently out the door into the front yard.
"We'll be here when you get home," she said. Then: "It looks like there's someone who would like to go with you."
He turned, hoping Sheridan was on the porch pulling on her jacket. But it was Maxine, his old Labrador who had turned white four years before and was now half-blind, half-deaf, and fully flatulent.
"Come on, girl," Joe said.
Maxine clattered stiff-legged down the sidewalk, her tail snapping side to side like her old self. Joe had to lift her back end into the cab.
"I am curious how she ended up on the governor's staff," Marybeth said. "I'll have to do a little snooping."
Joe kissed her. "You've made your point," he said. "There's nothing to worry about here. I need to go."
"I understand," she said, "but Ed Nedny is going to be real upset with you."
3
PHIL KINER, the new game warden of the Saddlestring District, was waiting for Joe in his green Ford four-wheel-drive pickup with the Wyoming Game and Fish logo on the door in front of Joe's old home on Bighorn Road. Joe drove an identical pickup. Joe tried not to let it get to him that Phil now lived in his former state-owned home with the view of Wolf Mountain, tried not to allow the nostalgia he'd let in that morning eat further into him, but when he saw the house he couldn't help it. The picket fence needed painting and the corral needed repair. When he shot a glance at the windows of the house he saw the images and ghosts of his younger family looking out as they had once posed-Marybeth, Sheridan, Lucy-and his foster daughter, April. He shook his head hard to rid himself of the memory and stanched his longing for the innocence and naivete of that time.
Kiner unrolled his window as Joe pulled up beside him nose to tail, the quintessential cop maneuver so neither would need to get out of his vehicle. "Have you been listening on your radio?"
"Not really," Joe said, a little ashamed he'd been so preoccupied on the eight-mile drive out.
"McLanahan's up ahead, waiting for us," Kiner said. "He knows the general area but doesn't know where this elk camp is at. He needs for us to get there and show him."
"Whose camp?"
"Frank Urman from Cheyenne. He's the victim. You know him?"
"The name's familiar," Joe said. "I think I know the camp."
"Good, because I don't."
Kiner said it without bitterness, which Joe welcomed. Throughout the first year Kiner took over, he hadn't contacted Joe for advice or background on the district Joe had overseen for six years. Marybeth speculated that it was either misplaced pride or Kiner's fear of displeasing Randy Pope by creating the impression he was close to Joe. Either way, it hurt. Joe tried to put himself in Kiner's shoes, and when he did he understood the dilemma but still thought Kiner should have reached out. They had reconciled only after Sheridan slugged Kiner's son Jason in the lunchroom at school and both sets of parents were called in for a conference with the vice principal.
"How many are up there?" Joe asked.
"Three," Kiner said. "Related to the victim, from what I can tell so far. They sound really pissed off, so we need to get up there before they go after whoever shot the fourth guy."
"Is it possible it was an accident?" Joe asked.
"It sure as hell doesn't sound like one, but we won't know for sure until we get there," Kiner said, raising his eyebrows. "But from what I've heard, it sounds fucking horrible. In fact, I can't even believe what they're telling the dispatcher they found."
"What?"
"Turn on your radio," Kiner said while putting the pickup in gear and roaring off.
Joe sat for a moment, took a deep breath, and followed. He kept far enough back of Kiner's dust cloud to look up at the looming dark mountains as they framed the valley. Fingers of fall color probed down the slopes and folds. The sky had turned from brilliant blue to a light steel gray as a film of cloud cover moved from the north, bringing, no doubt, a drop in temperature and possibly snow flurries. He turned on his radio beneath the dash and clicked it to the mutual aid channel. It was crackling with voices.
The dispatcher said, "Mr. Urman, I understand. But please remain where you are and don't pursue anyone on your own. We've got units on the way."
"That's easy for you to say, lady," the man Joe assumed was Urman said with barely controlled fury, "you haven't seen what happened to my uncle this morning. And whoever did it is still out there."
"Mr. Urman-"
"Somebody shot him with a high-powered rifle," Urman said, "like a goddamned elk!"
Joe swallowed hard.
"Like a goddamned elk," Urman repeated in a near whisper, an auditory hitch in his voice. AS HE FOLLOWED KINER, Joe did a quick inventory of his pickup. He'd been practically living in it for the past month and it showed. The carpeting on the floorboards showed mud from the clay draws and arroyos near Lusk, the Little Snake River bottomland of Baggs, the desert of Rawlins, the Wind River foothills out of Pinedale. There was a gritty covering of dust on his dashboard and over his instruments. The console was packed with maps, notes, citation books. The skinny space behind his seat was crammed with jackets and coats for every weather possibility, as well as his personal shotgun, his Remington WingMaster twelve-gauge, his third since he'd become a full-time game warden. An M-14 carbine with a peep sight was under the seat, a Winchester.270 rifle was secured in brackets behind his head. The large padlocked metal box in the bed of the vehicle held evidence kits, survival gear, necropsy kits, heavy winter clothing, tools, spare radios, a tent and sleeping bag. Single-cab pickups for game wardens with all this gear was proof that whoever it was in the department who purchased the vehicles had never been out in the field.
Since he'd lost his district and been assigned to work "without portfolio" for the governor, Joe filled in across the state whenever and wherever he was needed. Since there were only fifty-four game wardens covering the ninety-eight thousand square miles of the state, he was constantly in demand. If a warden was sick, injured, or had extended duty in court or on assignment, Joe was asked to substitute. Because he was moving around so much, agency biologists had asked him to gather samples from big-game animals across the state so they could monitor the spread of chronic wasting disease. CWD was a transmissible neurological disease that attacked the brains of deer and elk and was similar to mad cow disease. From a few isolated cases in the southwest of the state, the disease seemed to be moving north and was turning into a significant threat to the wild game population. Joe was concerned, as were many others. Too many animals were showing positive results for CWD, although not yet in crisis proportions.