Then the door was fully open, and Joe pivoted around the side of the wagon and aimed his flashlight inside. The tranquilizer gun was held parallel to the flashlight.
The sheep wagon was empty.
“All clear,” Joe croaked, his voice giving away his fear.
Nate wheeled around the door and looked down the sight of his handgun into the wagon.
“The place has been trashed,” Nate said, easing the hammer down and holstering the gun.
Inside, in the naked white light of the flashlight, Joe could see that the table was splintered and the old mattress on the bunk was shredded, with rolls of foam blooming from the tears. The insides of the walls were battered.
Joe stepped up on the trailer hitch and shined his flashlight on the old cooking stove. It showed deep scratches from huge claws, as did the cupboards and shelves.
“He’s been here, all right,” Joe said. “But where is he now?”
Nate shouldered Joe aside and reached down into the gloom. Joe shined his light down to see what he was after. A battered, sun-faded nylon collar hung from the bent-back steel handle of an ancient icebox. Nate pried it loose and held it up.
Joe said, “He must have snagged his collar on that handle, and ripped it off when he pulled out. But what was he even doing here, going inside a sheep wagon? There are plenty of sheep out there to dine on.”
He looked closely at the radio collar, surprised how old it looked. The collars Joe had seen had much smaller radio transmitters. This collar looked like an old model. Perhaps the underfunded bear researchers had had to dig into their storage containers to keep up with demand. No wonder it hadn’t worked properly, he thought.
oe dropped Nate off at the Jeep.
“Thanks for the adventure,” Nate said.
“Are you going to follow me out?” Joe asked, before driving away. Nate slowly shook his head. “I’m going in the other direction, back to the wagon.” “What?”
Nate shrugged. “That bear is close.”
“He doesn’t even have his collar anymore, Nate,” Joe said. “How are you going to find him?”
Nate was silent for a moment. He seemed utterly calm. “I’m going to stay here and let him come to me. I think he’ll come when he realizes I mean no harm.”
Joe thought about it for a moment. There was no point in arguing, because it wouldn’t do any good. Nate hunted for deer and antelope by staking out a spot and “letting the animals come to him.” Joe had scoffed when he heard it the first time. He didn’t scoff anymore.
“Don’t disturb the crime scene, okay? And don’t get hurt.”
Nate was quiet for a few seconds. “Remember when you asked why the bear trashed the sheep wagon?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he was looking for somebody,” Nate said and smiled wickedly.
As Joe made it back onto the highway, he listened to his radio after he called Trey Crump to let him know about the bear collar. His report had caused a firestorm of recrimination and controversy among the elite bear team. They openly doubted his claim that the collar was an old model. Trey promised to send it to them after he received it from Joe. One of the researchers accused another of using old equipment, and the man accused denied it. An argument started. Joe turned down the volume of the radio to a low roar.
He thought about the sheep wagon, the collar, what Nate had said. He thought about Nate out there in the dark, letting the grizzly come to him. And what had Nate meant about different levels of reality? Joe shook the thought off.
Then he remembered the telephone number.
Why not, he thought. He pulled over to the side of the road and found the number in his notebook. Grabbing his cell phone from the dashboard, he keyed the number, then held it to his ear.
It rang four times, then someone picked up. “Nuss-bomb,” a deep voice answered.
“Hello?” Joe said, not understanding.
“Nuss-bomb.”
“What? Who is this?”
“NUSS-BOMB!”
“I can’t understand you,” Joe said, his voice betraying a hint of panic as well as the knowledge that he might have just done something really stupid.
“Nuss. Bomb,” the man said patiently. “Where are you?”
The phone clicked off.
“Damn it!” Joe shouted. What had he done?
He weighed calling again, but decided against it. This might be a matter for the task force. He pulled back on to the road, mentally kicking himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Driving down Bighorn Road to his house, he reconsidered slightly. Why would the man who answered assume he was involved in any kind of investigation? As far as the man on the other end knew, it was a wrong number. Joe hadn’t identified himself, or given any indication why he called.
Joe was pleased to see that Maxine was up and excited to see him when he came in the house. She was still white, though.
Sheridan worked on homework on the kitchen table, while Lucy watched television.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
Sheridan gestured toward his office. The door was closed, which was unusual, and he opened it.
Marybeth sat behind his desk, the glow of the computer monitor making her features look harsh. But when she raised her face, Joe could see she was troubled.
“You’ve got some messages on the answering machine,” she said. “Why don’t you take care of those and then come back in here. We need to talk.”
27
The first telephone message was from Sheriff Harvey in Park County.
“We tracked the cell phone number down, Joe. It is leased from Cingular Wireless to a guy named L. Robert Eckhardt, RN, whose last known address is Fort Bragg in North Carolina.”
Nate was right about that, Joe thought. He wrote the name down on a legal pad.
Harvey continued, “I’m assuming RN stands for registered nurse. We’ve got calls down there but we couldn’t get much cooperation. One guy we talked to was friendly at first, then he put us on hold and came back and wouldn’t say jack-shit. I got the impression he’d been told to stonewall us. We asked the FBI through Portenson to put some heat on them down there, and we should know more tomorrow. I’ll give you a call.”
The second message was from Robey Hersig: “The APB is out, Joe, but as of six this evening, there are no reports of Cleve Garrett and his traveling road show.”
The third was from Sheriff Barnum. His voice was tight with anger. “Pickett, I got a call from Sheriff Harvey in Park County. He says they may have an angle on somebody, but didn’t give much detail.” There was a long pause, and Joe pictured Barnum fuming at his desk, trying to keep calm, trying to find the right words to say. Finally, “You need to keep me in the goddamned loop here, Mr. Pickett.” The telephone was slammed down violently on the other end. Joe saved the messages for later, in case he needed them.
“Done?” Marybeth asked, trying to contain her impatience. Joe nodded. “Can I grab something to eat first?”
“Sure. There’s some cold Wally’s Pizza in the refrigerator.” “I haven’t eaten since . . .”
“Go, Joe.”
He returned with the box and a bottle of beer and sat down across from his desk. Except for some condiments, milk, and something old and green wrapped in plastic, the refrigerator was now officially empty. He tried not to let it get to him.
The look on her face shifted his line of thinking immediately. She looked agitated, yet sad. Maybe a little angry. He hoped it wasn’t aimed at him.
“You wanted me to find out what I could about Tanner Engineering, and how long ago Tuff Montegue worked for them,” Marybeth said, standing up and walking past Joe so she could close the door of his office. “There is a lot of information on them on the Internet. I started with a simple Google search.”
Joe listened, eating cold pizza.
“It was really easy to find,” she said, her eyes widening. She gestured at a stack of paper she had printed out and placed facedown on the edge of the desk. “Tanner Engineering is an environmental research firm that is contracted by the federal government and a lot of energy companies to assist with environmental impact statements. Their specialty is water-testing—and their most recent clients included all of the big firms drilling for coal-bed methane in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming—but mainly Wyoming. Especially in the Powder River Basin and here in Twelve Sleep County.