Joe nodded and began to fill out the citation. "I heard about you. Everybody has. You're the bonehead who arrested the governor of Wyoming for fishing without a license, right?"
Joe could feel his neck getting hot. "I didn't know he was the governor," Joe said, wishing he hadn't said anything.
Ote Keeley laughed and slapped his thigh.
"Didn't know he was the governor," Ote repeated. "I read about that in the paper. Everybody did.
"Rookie Game Warden Arrests Governor Budd."" Ote turned serious: "Hey, you're not really going to ticket me, are you? I'm a professional hunting outfitter. I can't feed my family if my outfitter's license gets pulled. I'm not kidding. I'm sure we can work this out."
Joe looked up at Ote Keeley.
"I'm not kidding, either. Now give me your driver's license."
It was as if Ote Keeley, for the first time, realized what was really happening. Joe was amazed at the man's almost staggering stupidity. Joe caught Ote glancing toward where he had left his rifle.
"There's more animals in Wyoming than people," Ote spat. "These critters won't be missed by anyone. That herd ran nearly thirty. Vern Dunnegan wouldn't have pulled this shit."
"I'm not Vern Dunnegan." Joe said, hiding his surprise about what Ote had said about his predecessor and mentor.
"You sure as hell ain't," Ote Keeley said bitterly, as he pulled his wallet out of his jeans and held it out for Joe. As Joe reached for it, Ote grabbed Joe's arm and jerked it past him, throwing Joe off balance. Ote had Joe's revolver out of the holster before he could recover.
For a brief second, Joe Pickett and Ote Keeley stared at each other in genuine surprise, then Ote raised the pistol and aimed it squarely at Joe's face.
"Uh-oh, look what just happened," Ote said, a little in awe.
"I would suggest you give that back," Joe answered, trying to keep his face from twitching. He was terrified. "Give it back and we'll call it even."
Ote Keeley smoothly cocked the hammer of the revolver. Joe watched the cylinder rotate. Dull noses of lead filled each chamber, and the mouth of the barrel was black and huge, gaping. Ote wrapped his other hand around the grip, steadying his aim.
"Now we're in really, really fucking deep," Ote said, more to himself than anybody.
Joe thought of his daughters, Sheridan and Lucy, both at home, probably playing outside in the backyard. He thought of his wife, Marybeth, who had always feared that something like this would happen.
Then Joe's entire consciousness, his entire being, focused on one simple question: would he die with his eyes open or closed?
PART ONE
FINDINGS, PURPOSES, AND POLICY
(b) Purposes. The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in subsections of this section.
--The Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1982 Printed for the use of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works US Government Printing Office Washington: 1983
Joe lived, but it wasn't something he was particularly proud of. It was now fall and Sunday morning dawned slate gray and cold. He was making pancakes for his girls when he first heard of the bloody beast who had come down from the mountains and tried to enter the house during the night.
Seven-year-old Sheridan Pickett related her dream aloud to the stuffed bear that served as her confidant. Lucy, three and horrified, listened in. The television set was on even though the reception from the vintage satellite dish was snowy and poor, as usual.
The monster, Sheridan said, had come down from the mountains through the dark, steep canyon behind the house very late last night. She watched it through a slit in the curtain on her window, just a few inches from the top bunk other bed. The canyon was where Sheridan had always suspected a monster would come from, and she felt proud, if a bit fearful, that she had been right. The only light had been the moon through the dried leaves of the cottonwood tree. The monster had rattled the back gate before figuring out the latch and had then lurched clumsily (sort of like mummies in old movies) across the yard to the backdoor. Its eyes and teeth glinted yellow, and for a second, Sheridan felt an electric bolt jolt through her as the monster's head swiveled around and seemed to looked directly at her before it fled. The monster was hairy and shiny, as if covered with liquid. Twigs and leaves were stuck to it. There was something white, a large sack or box, swinging from the monster's hand.
"Sheridan, stop talking about monsters," Joe called out. The dream disturbed him because the details were so precise. Sheridan's dreams were usually more fantastic, inhabited by talking pets or magical things that flew.
"You're going to scare your little sister."
"I'm already scared," Lucy declared, pulling her blanket to her mouth.
"Then the man walked slowly away across the yard through the gate toward the woodpile where he fell down into a big shadow. And he's still out there," Sheridan finished, widening her eyes toward her sister to deliver the complete effect.
"Hold it, Sheridan," Joe said abruptly, entering the room with a spatula in his hand. Joe was wearing his threadbare terry-cloth bathrobe he had purchased on a lark in Jackson Hole on his and Marybeth's honeymoon ten years before. He shuffled in fleece slippers that were a size too large.
"You said 'man'." You didn't say 'monster'." You said 'man'." Sheridan looked up quizzically, her big eyes wide.
"Maybe it was a man. Maybe it wasn't a dream after all."
Joe heard a Vehicle outside, racing up the gravel Bighorn Road much too fast, but by the time he crossed the living room and parted the faded drapes of the front picture window, the car or truck was gone. Dust rolled lazily down the road where it had been.
Beyond the window was the front yard, still green from summer and littered with plastic toys. Then there was the white fence, recently painted, paralleled by the gravel road. Farther, beyond the road, the landscape dipped into a willow-choked saddle where the Twelve Sleep River branched out into six fingers clogged with beaver ponds and brackish mosquito-heaven eddies and paused for a breath before its muscular rush through and past the town of Saddlestring.
Beyond were the folds of the valley as it arched and suddenly climbed to form a precipitous mountain-face known as Wolf Mountain, a peak in the Twelve Sleep Range. With Wolf Mountain in front of them and the foothills and canyon in back, the Pickett family, eight miles from town in their house, lived a life of deep and casting shadows.
The front door opened and Maxine burst in, followed by Marybeth. Marybeth's cheeks were flushed--either from the brisk cold air or her long walk with the dog, Joe wasn't sure which--and she looked annoyed. She wore her winter walking uniform of lightweight hiking boots, chinos, anorak, and wool hat. The anorak was stretched tight across her pregnant belly.
"It's cold out there," Marybeth said, peeling the hat off so her blond hair tumbled onto her shoulders.
"Did you see that truck tear by here? That was Sheriff Barnum's truck going too fast on that road up to the mountains."
"Barnum?"Joe said, genuinely puzzled.
"And your dog was going nuts when we got back to the house. She nearly took my arm off just a minute ago." Marybeth unclipped Maxine's leash from her collar, and Maxine padded to her water dish and drank sloppily.
Joe had a blank expression on his face while he was thinking. The expression sometimes annoyed Marybeth, who was afraid people would think him simple. It was the same expression, in a photograph, that had been transmitted throughout the region via the Associated Press when Joe, while still a trainee, had arrested a tall man--who turned out to be the new governor of Wyoming--for fishing without a license.