Homes were set back off of the road, and most were hidden by trees. There were no street signs, and driveways to homes were marked by brass plaques imbedded in the pavement with the owners' last names. When he saw the name Kensinger, he turned.
Wacey's muddy green Ford pickup was parked at a rakish angle on the side of the massive two-level log home. Joe parked behind it and got out. His footsteps on the pavement were the only sound he could hear. Joe knocked on the door.
The wide oak front door swung open, and Wacey stood in it and squinted at Joe with a sour expression on his face. Wacey was still thin and compact--a bull rider's body--and his mouth was hidden under a thick auburn gunfighter's mustache. The only thing he was wearing was his red chamois Game and Fish shirt.
"Take your pants off and come on in, Joe," Wacey said in a whisper. "That's what I did." A slow full-face grin started near his corners of his blue eyes.
Someone inside the dark house, a woman, asked Wacey what he was doing.
"My colleague Joe Pickett from the Saddlestring District is here," Wacey said over his shoulder. "I'll just be a minute."
Behind Wacey, in the gloom, Joe saw the form of a very white and naked woman pass. He heard her bare feet slap across the marble floor.
To Joe, Wacey mouthed the name "Aimee Kensinger." Then: "She really does like us wardens."
Despite himself, Joe smiled. Wacey was something else. Wacey had once told Joe that Aimee Kensinger, the trophy wife of Donald Kensinger of Kensinger Communications, had a thing for cowboy-types in uniform. Joe knew Wacey had been spending a lot of time of late at the Eagle Mountain Club. He also knew that Wacey's visits coincided with Donald Kensinger's business trips.
Wacey stepped out on the porch and eased the door closed behind him. "What's going on?" Wacey asked. "I was right in the middle of something."
Joe knew what. There was a wet stain on the front tail of Hedeman's shirt where his erection stretched out at the fabric like a tent pole. Hedeman followed Joe's eyes.
"That's kinda embarrassing," Wacey said. "Guess I'm leakin' a bit. She'll make a guy do things like that when they aren't used to it."
Joe Pickett told Wacey what had happened that morning. He confirmed that Wacey did know where Ote Keeley's elk camp was located on the Twelve Sleep Drainage.
He told Wacey about the cooler, and Wacey seemed interested.
"Ote Keeley. He was that guy ..."
"Yup," Joe answered sharply.
"When do we need to get going?" Wacey asked.
"Right now," Joe said.
"Right now."
"I gotta call Arlene,". Wacey replied, referring to his wife.
"Maybe you ought to do it from the truck."
Wacey again started his slow, infectious smile. He winked at Joe and nodded his head toward the door. "She's gonna finance my campaign for sheriff," Wacey said in a conspiratorial voice.
"And when it comes to sex, she'll try just about anything. She even shaved herself this morning. You ever mess around with a woman who is shaved clean as a whistle? It's weird. Sort of like a little girl, but not a little girl at all, you know? You just don't realize how big and ripe those lips are down there unless you can really see 'em."
Joe nodded uncomfortably.
Aimee Kensinger came out of the house wearing a thick white robe.
Joe said hello. He had met her once at a museum fundraiser dinner Marybeth had taken him to, but he knew she didn't remember him. He hadn't been in his uniform.
"Hello, officer," Aimee Kensinger said. It was a purr, a self conscious, very obvious purr. Joe was both alarmed and aroused. Aimee Kensinger had a wide-open healthy face framed by a bell of dark hair. Her feet were bare and her calves were trim. She wore no makeup, but her face was still flushed from whatever Wacey and she had been doing inside.
"Forget it, babe." Wacey said gently to her, giving her a brotherly punch on the arm. "He's married."
"So are you, honey," she said.
"It's different with Joe, though," Wacey answered, shrugging as if he couldn't understand it himself.
"Good for you," she said. Joe couldn't tell if she meant it or not.
The Command Position that had been established at the Crazy Woman Creek Campground had quickly become chaos. The murder of Ote Keeley and the possibility of an armed camp of suspects had ignited the imagination of the entire valley. A crowd had formed in the campground including off-duty Saddlestring police officers, volunteer fire department members, the mayor, the editor of the weekly Saddlestring Roundup, even elderly officers of the local VFW armed with Korean War-era M-1 carbines. Two local survivalists had shown up in battle fatigues with specially modified SKS Chinese assault rifles and concussion grenades hung from web belts. Sheriff Barnum didn't mind the crowd; he reveled in it. His makeshift office was established in a stout-walled Cabella's outfitter tent. His desk was a card table. Someone (Joe guessed one of the Korean War vets) told him that when he sat at the table and smoked, he reminded them of General Ulysses S. Grant at Shilo . Barnum enjoyed the comparison and mentioned it to anyone who would listen.
Joe Pickett and Wacey Hedeman saddled their horses and shook the hands of well-wishers while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to arrive. Joe had brought up his six-year-old buckskin mare named Lizzie. Joe felt like he and Wacey were star athletes of the local football team. Men clapped them on their shoulders and whacked them on the butt as they walked by. Many said they wished they were going along.
McLanahan arrived armed for a small war, and the gear he had brought would have been fine if the three of them were setting off on a land offensive with four-wheel drives and transport trucks. Unfortunately for McLanahan, this was a designated roadless area of the national forest and the only access was by foot or horseback. In his Blazer and horse trailer, McLanahan had brought hundreds of pounds of bulky outfitter tents, sleeping bags, a propane stove, blankets, cast-iron skillets, Dutch ovens and frying pans, radio equipment and a chuck box filled with plates and utensils that weighed more than 150 pounds by itself. The back of the Blazer was stacked with guns--Joe imagined McLanahan cleaned out the gun cabinet in the sheriff's office. He saw several high-powered sniper's rifles with night-vision scopes, semiautomatic carbines loaded with armor-piercing shells, a couple of MAC-10 machine pistols, M-16 automatic rifles, and emiautomatic riot shotguns.
"Typical Barnum overkill," Wacey had scoffed loud enough to be heard by the crowd in the camp. A few people laughed.
"Supporters," Wacey whispered to Joe.
Barnum had ordered the three horsemen to "take as much as they could," and McLanahan had loaded down the canvas panniers while Joe and Wacey stared at each other in puzzlement. Barnum made it clear that he was assuming command of the operation and that the two Game and Fish officers were subordinate to the county sheriff, which was officially true in this circumstance. He "strongly advised" that both equip themselves with more firepower. Both had sidearms--Joe had his never-fired-in-anger-and-once-swiped-by-Ote-Keeley Smith & Wesson357 Magnum revolver, and Wacey had his 9mm Beretta semiautomatic. Finally, Wacey was persuaded to strap to his saddle one of the carbines in a scabbard.
Both had pitched in to help McLanahan, who was a boyish-looking former college ROTC officer, to load the panniers on the two packhorses so they could finally leave.
Barnum scoffed when he saw that, instead of digging into the county arsenal, Joe was taking his personal Remington Wing master .12-gauge shotgun, which was primarily a bird-hunting weapon. If he had to take a shotgun, Barnum said, at least it should be one of the short-barreled riot guns from the truck. Joe explained that he had had the shotgun since his teens and he was comfortable with it. Joe was known as an excellent wing shot when it came to game birds or, occasionally, clay targets. Strangely, he could rarely hit a target if it was stationary, only if it was moving or flushing from the underbrush. He had the ability to hit a fast-moving target by instinct and reaction, and he never really aimed. If he aimed, he missed. Joe had failed his initial pistol test and had barely passed on his second (and last) attempt. While he was fully capable of bagging his limit of three pheasants with three well-placed aerial shots, he was unable to punch holes in the outline of an intruder on the firing range.