Barnum scoffed when he saw that, instead of digging into the county arsenal, Joe was taking his personal Remington Wingmaster .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. Barnum finally persuaded Joe to at least load his shotgun with magnum double-ought buckshot shells so if he had to he could “knock down a house.” But Joe thought how odd it was to be loading the shotgun he had used since boyhood for ducks and pine grouse with shells designed solely to kill a man. But he did it, and he filled one pocket of a saddle bag with a dozen extra rounds.
Barnum briefly took Joe and Wacey aside while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to secure his panniers.
“Guess who is on the way to observe this rodeo, boys?” Barnum asked them. Joe and Wacey exchanged glances but neither knew.
“Vern Dunnegan!” Barnum clapped Joe and Wacey on their shoulders. “Your mentor. He called and left a message with the dispatch.”
“Why is Vern here?” Joe asked. Wacey shrugged.
“He was in the area and heard about it on the radio, I suppose,” Barnum said. “So don’t screw up, boys. Not only will the entire valley be watching, but Vern will be watching, too.” There was sarcasm in Barnum’s voice.
Most of the gear, including the chuck box, they left with Barnum and the bustle of people and equipment. As they finally mounted and had turned their horses to the trail-head, they could hear Sheriff Barnum, flanked by the two retired Korean War vets from the VFW post, on his radio trying to track down his missing helicopter.
“How close are we?” Joe asked Wacey as he nosed his horse through the silent pocket of aspen. In timber this thick, it was best to let Lizzie pick her own way through. He just pointed her in the general direction, which was behind and to the left of Wacey. Wacey was a few yards ahead, and he reined in his mount and leaned to the side of his saddle.
“Coupla hours,” Wacey said, also in a murmur.
“That’s what I was worried about.”
Hedeman nodded. They would not make it to the outfitters’ elk camp in daylight, even though getting there before dark had been the purpose of the trip.
Joe walked his horse abreast Wacey’s palomino. Two aspens as thin and round as baseball bats stood between them. The grove was heavily timbered, and black roots curled up through a carpet of lemon-colored leaves.
“And here comes the reason why,” Wacey grumbled.
It was hushed in the middle of the trees, the light was dappled and muted, but they could hear the clinking of Deputy McLanahan and his packhorse skirting the grove on the outside. McLanahan had fitted the packhorse with hunting panniers, and the bulging canvas bags were so wide that he couldn’t follow Joe and Wacey into the grove. Joe and Hedeman caught a glimpse of the deputy down a narrow chute in the trees; it was clear that McLanahan was much less of a horseman than Joe on his worst day.
“When I’m elected I’m going to fire his butt before I even order business cards,” Hedeman whispered, looking down the chute where McLanahan had passed. Joe didn’t respond. There was no need to.
They waited for Deputy McLanahan in the clear of a saddle slope that was bordered on each side by juniper pine. Commas of snow from that morning lay in long pools of shadow cast by boulders and trees. Groves of aspen were bright yellow with fingers of crimson coursing through them. The evening sun made the colors intense, almost throbbing.
Joe thought of the contrast of the last few hours. At Crazy Woman Creek, he had seemed crowded by admirers and he felt like a member of a powerful force. Here, in the cool darkening stillness of the Bighorns, he felt tiny and insignificant.
“I’m gonna be real sore tomorrow,” bellowed McLanahan as he approached.
Joe noticed Wacey shift his weight sharply in his saddle, a familiar sign of irritation.
“When you’re sneaking up on somebody, you might consider keeping your voice low,” Wacey hissed as McLanahan approached. “It’s an old, sly Indian trick. We’re assuming that the people we are sneaking up on have ears mounted on each side of their head.”
Deputy McLanahan, clearly angry, started to say something but caught himself. Wacey was not fun to argue with.
“You’re slow and we’re late,” Wacey continued in the low hiss. “We aren’t going to get there with any light. We’re going to have to cold camp up here and go into the outfitters’ camp at dawn to see if we can catch anyone.”
McLanahan’s jaw was tight, and his eyes glistened. Joe felt sorry for the deputy. Much of the delay had been the deputy’s fault but Hedeman was pressing the point.
“Starting late ain’t my fault. Barnum read me a list of supplies to bring that was as long as your arm,” McLanahan finally said, and his voice caught.
“The hell it ain’t,” Wacey answered, turning away and nudging his horse forward.
“Don’t worry about it,” Joe assured McLanahan. “Let it go.”
“He don’t need to say that,” McLanahan answered, his bottom lip trembling. “Not that way.”
Don’t cry, for God’s sake, thought Joe. He clicked his tongue, and the buckskin walked. He left McLanahan alone to compose himself, and he wondered what was with Wacey. Wacey seemed uncommonly irritable. He hoped it didn’t have to do with the fact that the success or failure of this venture would likely become an issue in the future sheriff’s race against Barnum.
They picketed their horses by the blue light of fluorescent battery lamps and spread out sleeping bags tight against a granite bluff. They were close enough to the elk camp, Wacey said, that a fire was out of the question.
Marybeth had made a half-dozen ham sandwiches, and they ate them in the dark. McLanahan passed around a pint of Jim Beam bourbon, which seemed to improve Hedeman’s mood, at least a little.
“I missed my son’s football practice tonight,” McLanahan said unexpectantly. “I’m the defensive line coach.”
“You have a son?” Joe asked. McLanahan was just too young for that, he thought.
“Well, he’s not actually my son.” McLanahan sounded a bit sheepish. “He’s the son of my fiancée. We’re livin’ together. She’s been married a couple of times before. She’s quite a bit older.”
“Oh.”
Wacey snorted. “What in the hell does that have to do with the price of milk?”
“First practice I missed,” McLanahan said. “Twelve Sleep plays Buffalo on Friday. Home opener.”
“The mighty Buffalo Bison, our nemesis,” Hedeman said sarcastically. Then: “Why don’t you go find your radio and tell Barnum where we’re at and what we’re doin’. All those folks down there will want a report so they can spend the rest of the evening second-guessing us. Let him know we’ll move on the elk camp before dawn tomorrow.”
McLanahan nodded and wandered away to dig through his panniers.
“Jesus,” Wacey complained after McLanahan was gone. “Havin’ him on the payroll is like havin’ two good men gone.”
“Take it easy on him,” Joe said.
Wacey grunted and chewed his sandwich. “I’ll be interested to find out what was in that cooler Ote had with him.”
“Yup.”
“I suppose it coulda been anything,” Wacey continued. “Of course it might not mean a goddamn thing in the end, I guess.”
Joe nodded. Then he reel
ed off the number of ranch houses between Crazy Woman Creek and the Pickett home that Ote Keeley could have gone to for help.
“There was a reason he came to our house,” Joe said. “I just don’t know what it could be.”
“You’re gonna send that cooler and those shit pellets to Cheyenne to get it checked out?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we’ll know,” Wacey said.
“Then we’ll know,” Joe echoed.
“Could be nothin’,” Wacey said. “Could be one of those things we just never know, and the only guy who knows is stupid, dead Ote.”
“Maybe Ote was bringing you a couple of beers,” Deputy McLanahan said from the dark as he approached. “Maybe that’s what was in that cooler. Maybe he thought you guys would pop a couple and forgive each other.”
“Excuse me, McLanahan,” Wacey said. “Did you get Barnum?”
McLanahan told Joe and Wacey that he had talked with Sheriff Barnum and told him of their status. He said Barnum had located the helicopter and the earliest it could get back up to Saddlestring was tomorrow afternoon. There had been no sightings as yet of the other two outfitters, Kyle Lensegrav or Calvin Mendes.
“Guess who else was down there at command central?” McLanahan asked, the light reflecting off his teeth.
Neither spoke.
“Vern Dunnegan!” McLanahan’s voice was a mix of excitement and awe.
Joe noted that Wacey had looked sharply at him to check his reaction. Joe didn’t flinch.
“Vern says, ‘Be careful, boys. Make me proud.’ ”
“What’s Barnum say?” Joe asked.
“Barnum says, ‘Don’t fuck up and make me look bad.’” McLanahan laughed.
Vern, like Barnum, was a kind of legend—the most popular and influential game warden ever in the area, as well as a force in the community. The kind of guy who had coffee with the city councilmen at 10 each morning in the Alpine Cafe and who was not only tougher than hell on poachers and game violators but was also known to fix a few tickets and let a few locals off the hook. Even though he was primarily a state employee, Vern always like to think of himself as an entrepreneur. He boasted that he had 31 years of business experience. Vern was always involved with something in town, whether it was the local shopper newspaper, a video store, satellite dishes, or a local radio station. Vern always owned a share and had a partner or two. For whatever reasons, the partners always left town and Vern ended up with the enterprise. Then he sold it and moved on to the next venture. Some said he was a good businessman. Most said he was nakedly greedy, and he systematically looted each company until the partners left out of disgust and fear. Vern Dunnegan had cast a big shadow. So big, Marybeth had said, that Joe had yet to see much sunlight in the Twelve Sleep Valley as far as the community went. Vern had supervised both Wacey and Joe, and he had tutored them both in the ways of the field. No one knew more about the ways and means of poachers and game law violators—or about the vile side of humans out-of-doors—than Vern Dunnegan.
It was Vern’s shadow that had probably prevented Joe from being notified that morning about the incident in the campground at Crazy Woman Creek. Vern had resigned six months earlier to go to work for a large energy company as a field executive in “local relations,” whatever that was. The rumor at the time was that Vern had more than tripled his salary.
They discussed the plan and the possibilities. They would move in on the elk camp in the predawn from three directions and close in. Wacey said he would communicate with Joe and Deputy McLanahan with hand signals. If anyone was in the camp, they would surround and disarm them as quickly as possible.
“We don’t know if these two had anything to do with Ote getting shot,” Wacey said. “Ote may have wandered out of camp on his own, run into some kind of trouble, and made the midnight run to Pickett’s house. These two might not even know where he is or what’s going on.”
“On the other hand ...” interrupted McLanahan, barely able to contain his excitement of the possibility of being part of some real action.
“On the other hand, they may have gotten drunk with old Ote and got in a fight and shot him a couple of times,” Hedeman finished. “So we’ve got to be prepared for just about anything.”
“If they’re involved they might not even be there,” Joe said. “They might have cleared out last night and they’re in Montana by now.”
Joe lay in his sleeping bag but couldn’t sleep. He doubted the other two could either. The stars were out, and it was colder than he had expected it to be. He could see his breath in the starlight.
His revolver was within reach on the side of his sleeping bag, and he reached down in the dark and felt the checkered grip.
Joe thought of his girls. It was only 9:30, although it seemed much later. Both girls would be in bed, but probably not asleep. More than likely, they would be pretty wound up in that motel room. Sheridan would be reading or gabbing to her bear. She used to do that at night with her kitten, and before that, her puppy. Marybeth would be reading Lucy a story or cuddling her until she drifted off. Sheridan would no doubt be checking the motel window for the approach of more monsters.
He wondered how this incident would affect his girls, especially Sheridan. It was one thing to look for monsters and another thing to actually see them. Ote’s sudden appearance had somehow thrown a new curve on things, and Joe knew Marybeth would be thinking about that. The sanctity of their little family had been violated. Ote’s blood would remain on the walk for months—and in their memories forever. Joe wondered what kind of cleaning substance he could buy that would remove bloodstains from concrete. How would Lucy remember this day? Would it make her more cautious, more suspicious? Would Sheridan wonder if her parents—especially her dad—could actually protect her from harm after all? The relationship between a father and his daughters, Joe had discovered, was a remarkably powerful thing. They looked to him to accomplish greatness; they expected it as a matter of course because he was their dad and therefore a great man. Someday, he knew, he would do something less than great and they would see it. It was inevitable. He wondered at what age his luster would dim in Sheridan’s eyes and then in Lucy’s. He wondered how painful it would be for them all when they recognized it.
Joe Pickett had two passions. One was his family and the other was his job. He had tried as best he could to keep them separate, but that morning Ote Keeley had forced them together. Joe now looked at both differently and what he saw pained him. Marybeth had never actually complained about the way her life had gone since marrying Joe Pickett. Her frustration appeared in random sighs and sometimes hopeless facial expressions that she probably didn’t even recognize as such—but Joe did. Marybeth had been on a career path—she was a bright and attractive woman. But by marrying Joe in college, having children, and moving around the state with him from one beat-up house to another, her life had turned out differently than she, or her hard-driving mother, imagined. Marybeth deserved a certain standard, or at least a permanent home of their own; Joe had not been able to provide either. It was eating at him, taking a million tiny bites. When she talked on the telephone to her old college friends who were traveling and managing businesses and enrolling their children in private schools, she would be blue for weeks afterward, although she wouldn’t admit it. While he loved his job—he was, after all, nature boy—the guilt he felt this morning when he learned that they couldn’t even afford a motel room in town still shrouded him. The exhilaration of the mountains right now brought a hard-edged sense of regret and confusion. His belief that what he did was good—and that he was good at it—would not put his daughters through college or allow his wife to ever take a real vacation.
Joe shifted to try to get more comfortable. He tried to think of other things but he couldn’t. Joe tried to imagine what Marybeth would think if she could see him now, on a manhunt with his hand on his revolver and two (heavily armed) men sleeping next to him. It was a boyhood dream coming true; good guys pursuing bad guys. He
couldn’t deny the excitement that was keeping him wide awake. It would be hard to describe to Marybeth how he felt right now. He wasn’t sure she would understand.
He wondered what Marybeth, the protector of his career who had never understood what Joe saw in Vern (or Wacey, for that matter), would think of Vern being back in Saddlestring. Joe tried to stave off the resentment he felt toward Vern. Vern had been good to him and had recommended him for the Saddlestring district. It wasn’t Vern’s fault that everybody seemed to think Vern hung the moon when it came to setting the standard for a local warden.
Too much to think about, and no conclusions to be reached.
He raised up on an elbow and in the faint light of the stars, could see Deputy McLanahan walking away from the camp to relieve himself. McLanahan couldn’t sleep either.
As he stared up at the hard white stars—there were so many of them that the night sky looked gauzy—Joe realized that if things were to change for him and his family, he probably would have to change. Marybeth and his girls deserved better than what they had; to give them more, he would have to give up the other thing he deeply loved.
But first there was the matter of a dead man in his backyard and an elk camp a few miles away.