"Can we drive to the scene?" McLanahan asked.
"We've gotta walk. There's no road."
"Well," McLanahan said, "lead the way."
Urman turned crisply and started up a trail and his companions fell in behind him. Joe, Kiner, and McLanahan and his two deputies followed. "WE JUST got back from Iraq," Jake Dempster told Joe over his shoulder. "Wyoming National Guard. Chris's uncle Frank invited us all to come here elk hunting when we got back. He was a good old guy. This is his camp. We've been looking forward to this trip for seven months. It's the only thing that got me through some days when it was a hundred and forty degrees and I was sick as hell of dealing with those Iraqi knuckleheads."
"Thanks for your service," Joe said.
Dempster nodded. "We all saw some pretty bad stuff over there where we were stationed, near Tikrit. You know the stories."
"Yup."
"Yup."
"But in two years over there in the world's armpit, I never seen anything like this," he said. "Shooting Uncle Frank was bad enough but what was done to his body afterwards is something else. If we catch who did it, you're gonna see Chris go medieval on his ass. And me and Craig are going to help him. So I hope you guys catch whoever did it fast, because you'll be doing them a favor."
Dempster's eyes were hard and clear. Joe said, "I believe you."
"I gotta tell you something else," Dempster said as they walked. "I realize it can't be used as evidence or anything, but my buddies and I were talking last night how we felt like someone was up here watching us. I thought it was just me, so I kind of hesitated saying anything. But when Urman brought it up, both me and Craig said we'd felt the same thing yesterday while we were hunting."
Joe knew the feeling. He'd had it. Sometimes it was a game animal watching him, sometimes a hunter in a blind. And sometimes he never learned what caused it.
"I got that same buzz once over in Iraq," Dempster said. "We were on patrol and parked at an intersection one night. It was pure black because the lights were out. I could feel it on my neck when I looked outside the Humvee. Then one of our guys who had night-vision goggles opened up on an insurgent sniper up on a roof and took him out. The sniper had been sighting in on us on the street. That's what it felt like yesterday, that someone was looking at me through a scope but I couldn't see him." JOE ADMIRED hunters who hunted seriously and with respect not only for the animals they pursued but for the resource itself. Most of the hunters in Wyoming were like that, and they had passed their respect along to the next generation. While the numbers of hunters had declined over the years, it was still a vibrant local tradition. Good hunters considered hunting a solemn privilege and a means to reconnect with the natural world, to place themselves back on earth, into a place without supermarkets, processed foods, and commercial meat manufacturing industries. Hunting was basic, primal, and humbling. He had less respect for trophy hunters and thought poachers who took the antlers and left the meat deserved a special place in hell and he was happy to arrest them and send them there.
He valued those who shot well and took care of their game properly. This involved field dressing the downed animal quickly and cleanly, and cooling the meat by placing lengths of wood inside the body cavity to open it up to the crisp fall air. Back limbs were spread out and the game was then hung by the legs from a tree branch or game pole. The game carcass was then skinned to accelerate cooling, and washed down to clean it of hair and dirt. The head was often removed as well as the legs past their joints. It was respectful of the animal and the tradition of hunting to take care of the kill this way.
Over the years, Joe had seen hanging in trees hundreds of carcasses of deer, moose, elk, and pronghorn antelope that had been field-dressed, skinned, and beheaded.
This was the first time he'd ever seen a man hung in the same condition.
4
I WATCH them come over the ridge through my rifle scope. They come down the trail single file, like wild turkeys. I'm much too far away to hear their conversation but I find I don't need to since their actions and gestures tell me what they're thinking and saying to one another. I'm surprised there are so many of them so quickly, and I thank God I was finished and away from there before they showed up. I'm also grateful the soldiers decided to call law enforcement rather than to pursue me on their own. It could have gone either way, I know, when the three of them stood near the hanging body an hour ago and argued over what to do. Their leader, the tall one, wanted to come after me right then and there after discovering the body. It was obvious by the way he unslung his rifle and held it like the weapon it was, light in his hands and deadly. His friends calmed him down eventually and argued persuasively to call the authorities once they got back to their camp. I have nothing against the soldiers, and I fear their abilities and their young aggression. No doubt they've been well trained in tactics and strategy. Although it is my aim to elude them, there is always the chance that through sheer will and physical ability they will run me down and force a confrontation.
Behind the soldiers are two men wearing cowboy hats with red shirts and patches on their shoulders. Game wardens. One is lean and wary and the other big and already out of breath. Behind the game wardens are members of the sheriff's office.
They stop about fifteen yards from where the body is hanging. I can tell by their physical reactions to the body how the sight affects each of them. The soldiers/hunters gesture to confirm what they've described, where they were standing when they found the corpse. One of the deputies turns away and looks up at the tops of the trees, gazing at anything other than what is in front of him. The other stares morbidly at the body, as does the sheriff, who looks perplexed. The big game warden has lost all his color and seems frozen and ineffectual, as if the life has gone out of him, his face frozen into a white mask. The lean game warden steps aside into the trees and bends over with his hands on his knees, is violently sick. The sheriff points at him and nudges his deputy, and the two of them exchange glances and smirk.
I watch the game warden who threw up. When he's done, he rises and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He's angry, but not at the sheriff for making fun of him. By the way he glares in my direction and at the forest and meadows he can see, I think he's angry with me. For the briefest moment, I can see his eyes lock with mine although he doesn't register the fact because he's not sure I'm here. The crosshairs of the scope linger on his red shirt over his heart. I could squeeze the trigger and make the shot-it's a long way but there is no wind and my angle is decent-but I won't because it would give my position away. There's something about the set of his jaw and his squint that tells me he is taking this personally.
Of all of them, I decide he's the one to worry about. WHEN HE FINALLY rejoins the others, I rise to my knees and use the trunk of a tree to get to my feet. My legs are tired from walking most of the night and they shake from the dissipating adrenaline that still burns through my thigh and calf muscles. I feel for a moment like sleeping, but I know I can't.
I move slowly in the shadows of the timber. A quick movement could startle a lurking animal or a nesting bird and give me away. Although it is cold, I stay away from anywhere the sun is filtering through the trees to avoid a sun-caught glint from my rifle barrel or scope. I cap my scope and sling my rifle over my shoulder. The spent cartridge is still in the chamber because I've learned not to eject it after firing and risk the possibility of it being found. I look around on the bed of pine needles where I lay to make sure I haven't dropped anything. Then I nose my boot through the shape that's still defined in the needles, erasing the impression of my body.