I pick up the daypack, which now sags with weight.
My bare hands, my clothes, even my face are sticky with blood. My concern isn't the blood that is on me. The clothes will be burned and the blood will be washed off my skin and scraped out from beneath my fingernails. What worries me, always, is leaving a track, leaving a trace of myself.
I know Edmond Locard's Principle, the central theory of modern forensic crime-scene investigation: something is always left behind.
And this time, like the other times, I have left something for them intentionally. What I don't want to leave is something unintentional, something that can lead them to me.
Before I leave the area for my long hike back, I use my binoculars to take a last look at the investigators. As I do, I see the lean game warden studying the ground beneath the hanging body and squatting to retrieve what I placed in the grass. AS A HUNTER I am looked down upon in Western society. I am portrayed as a brute. I am denigrated and spat upon, and thought of as a slow-witted anachronism, the dregs of a discredited culture. This happened quickly when one looks at human history. The skills I possess-the ability to track, hunt, kill, and dress out my prey so it can be served at a table to feed others-were prized for tens of thousands of years. Hunters fed those in the tribe and family who could not hunt well or did not hunt because they weren't physically able to. The success of the hunter produced not only healthy food and clothing, tools, medicine, and amenities, but a direct hot-blooded connection with God and the natural world. The hunter was the provider, and exalted as such.
I often think that in the world we live in today, where we are threatened by forces as violent and primitive as anything we have ever faced, that it would be wise to look back a little ourselves and embrace our heritage. We were once a nation of hunters. And not the effete, European-style hunters who did it for sport. We hunted for our food, our independence. It's what made us who we are. But, like so many other virtues that made us unique, we have, as a society, forgotten where we came from and how we got here. What was once both noble and essential has become perverted and indefensible.
Here's what I know:
Those who disparage me are ignorant.
Those who damage me will pay.
And:
A human head is pretty heavy.
5
THE TELECONFERENCE with Governor Spencer Rulon was scheduled for 7 P.M. in the conference room in the county building in Saddlestring. Joe sat waiting for it to begin at a long table with his back to the wall. In front of him on the table were three manila files brought by Randy Pope, a spread of topo maps, and, in a plastic evidence bag, the single red poker chip he had found in the grass near the body. The poker chip had been dusted for prints. None were found. Sheriff McLanahan had ordered food in from the Burg-O-Pardner-burgers, fries, coffee, cookies-and the room smelled of hot grease and dry-erase markers. Joe's cheeseburger sat untouched on a white foam plate.
"You gonna eat that?" Kiner asked.
Joe shook his head.
"You mind?"
"Not at all."
"I can't believe I'm hungry," Kiner mumbled as he unwrapped Joe's cheeseburger.
Joe shrugged. He had had no appetite since that morning and could not get the image of Frank Urman's hanging body out of his mind. The photo spread of the crime scene tacked on a bulletin board didn't help.
McLanahan and his deputies occupied the other end of the table, digging into the box of food like hyenas over a fresh kill. On the wall opposite Joe were three television monitors and two stationary cameras. The county technician fiddled with a control board out of view of the cameras and whispered to his counterpart in the governor's office in Cheyenne.
Robey Hersig, the county attorney and Joe's friend, read over the crime-scene report prepared by the sheriff. At one point he gulped, looked up, said, "Man oh man," before reading on. It was good to see Robey again, but Joe wished the circumstances were different, wished they were on Joe or Robey's drift boat fly-fishing for trout on the Twelve Sleep River.
"Five minutes before airtime, gentlemen," the technician said.
Director Randy Pope paced the room, head down, hands clasped behind his back. Pope was tall and thin with light blue eyes and sandy hair and a pallor that came from working indoors in an office. He had a slight brown mustache and a weak chin and his lips were pinched together so tightly they looked like twin bands of white cord.
"Pope is making me nervous," Kiner whispered between bites. "I've never seen him like this before."
"Me either," Joe said.
"He's not just passing through either," Kiner said. "He got a room at the Holiday Inn. He'll be here awhile."
"Terrific," Joe said sourly.
"I wish he'd sit down," Kiner said. "He's making me jumpy."
"Two minutes," the technician called out.
Pope stopped pacing and stood and closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. All eyes in the room were on him, but he seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to know or care, Joe thought. Joe found it difficult to work up the anger he once felt toward Pope now that his nemesis was in the room instead of barking orders or making innuendos over the phone. Since his arrival, Pope had surprised Joe with his lack of animosity at the crime scene, and Joe was equally pleased, puzzled, and suspicious.
The director took his seat next to Kiner and gathered the files in front of him, then stacked them one on top of the other. Joe read the tabs on the files. The bottom one read J. GARRETT, the middle one W. TUCKER, the top one F. URMAN. He looked to Pope for some kind of explanation of the files but the director avoided meeting Joe's eyes.
"What's with the three files?" Joe asked.
"Not now, Joe," Pope said out of the side of his mouth.
"Why are you and the governor so directly involved in this case?"
Pope shot Joe a look of admonition tinged with panic, and repeated, "Not now, Joe."
The middle monitor flickered, revealing the top of a desk and the State of Wyoming seal on the wall behind the desk. The technician brought the audio up as Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon filled the screen and sat down. Rulon was a big man with a wide, expressive face, a big gut, a shock of silver-flecked brown hair, a quick sloppy smile, and eyes that rarely stayed on anything or anyone very long. Joe thought the governor had gained some weight since he'd seen him last, and his upper cheeks seemed rounder and ruddier. He wondered if Stella was there in the room, if she would appear on the screen.
"Are we live?" Rulon asked. His voice was gravelly.
"Yes, sir," Pope answered.
"Sheriff, we'd like to thank you for the use of your facilities."
McLanahan nodded, still chewing. "You paid for 'em," he said.
"There are benefits to being flush with cash," Rulon said with a slight smile, referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars of energy severance taxes flowing into the state. "This is one of 'em."
Rulon's eyes left the camera and shifted to his monitor. "I see we've got everyone here. Director Pope, Sheriff McLanahan, Robey, Joe Pickett. How you doing, Joe?"
"Fine, Governor," Joe said, shifting in his chair for being singled out. "Considering."
"Game Warden Phil Kiner is present as well," Pope said quickly.
"Okay," Rulon said without enthusiasm. Joe could feel Kiner deflate next to him at the governor's cool reaction to the mention of his name. Then: "What have we got here, gentlemen?"
Pope cleared his throat, indicating to everyone in the room that he planned to take the lead. Joe wasn't surprised.
"Mr. Frank Urman's body was found this morning about three miles from his elk camp. Urman was sixty-two. He owned a hotel and gas station in Sheridan. What we heard over the radio turned out to be true. He was killed and mutilated in a manner that suggests he was left to resemble a game animal."