“Do you have any single rooms available?” Joe asked, nodding toward the open ledger in front of her.
“Did my better half send you here?” Alice asked, meaning the saloon. Apparently, the bartender was her husband.
“Yup.”
“Well, we got a room on the top floor that just opened up, but it ain’t cleaned out yet, so I can’t rent it to you.”
“I’ll take it,” Joe said.
She looked put-out. “My housekeeping folks have left for the night.”
“I’ll still take it,” Joe said, reaching for his wallet. He could tell by the set of her mouth that she was about to turn him away. “Do you take cash?”
Her eyebrows arched conspiratorially, and she said, “Yes, that would be fine.” Meaning: she could keep him off the books and pocket the cash and not enter the rental in her ledger, and there wouldn’t be a credit card trail to tie either one to the transaction.
“It’ll be a hundred,” Alice said.
Joe counted out five twenties, leaving only thirty dollars in his wallet.
“This means I’m gonna have to go up there myself when I get a break and take care of it. So the room won’t be available for a few hours.”
“That’s fine.”
She gave him a registration card. He filled it out and handed it back.
“Here’s the key,” she said, reading the card. He wondered if she’d ball it up and toss it in a garbage can the second his back was turned. “Welcome to the Black Forest Inn, Mr. . . .” She struggled with the pronunciation of the last name.
“Romanowski,” Joe said. “Nate Romanowski.”
“Like I said, give me a few hours to get up there. Unless you want to wallow in the empty beer cans and assorted filth from the last guests.”
“No thanks.”
“How long are you staying, Mr. Roma-nooski?”
Joe shrugged. “Maybe just tonight.”
She cackled at his answer. “You must be pretty sure you’ll kill something tomorrow, then.”
He nodded, and said, “I think I’m on their trail.”
• • •
AN HOUR AND TWO COORS and a double cheeseburger later, the south interior door of the saloon opened inward and three men shuffled in. Joe glanced at his watch—eight-thirty. It was a half-hour after the wild game–processing facility had closed to receiving, and the men were obviously employees just off the clock. They looked exhausted. Joe recognized two of them from when he entered the lot before nightfall as the workers who assisted the Michigan hunters with their deer. One large man with a full red beard still wore his blood-covered apron. Small bits of bone, like cracker crumbs, nested in his beard from sawing off limbs and cracking through pelvises and rib cages. The red-bearded man and a second meatcutter took two adjacent barstools, and the third wandered Joe’s way, looking for a place to sit.
Joe had empty barstools on both sides of him, and he nodded toward the approaching meatcutter that it was okay for him to have a seat. The worker nodded back, sat down on Joe’s left with a heavy sigh. He was short and round, with thinning black hair and had the bulbous red nose of a drinker.
“Want a beer?” Joe asked, gesturing toward the five full cans and three whiskey shots sitting in front of him. “Guys keep buying rounds for the house and every time I look up, there’s another one in front of me. I don’t even want to try to drink ’em all.”
The worker looked over, assessing Joe’s intentions. Free beer from a stranger? “Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Somebody back there came up with a rule where anyone who got his deer or elk today had to buy a round for the house. I was just sitting here minding my own business, and the drinks started piling up. Feel free to have one . . . or two.”
“Hell of a deal,” the worker said with a grin, and quickly drained half of a Coors in a long pull. “Damn, that’s good after the kind of day I had.”
“Lots of work back there?” Joe asked.
“Jesus, you have no idea,” the man said, shaking his head. “I think we took in something like thirty deer and seven elk today. I’m worn out from lifting those things from the back of pickups and carrying quarters to the butcher tables, I’ll tell you. I couldn’t wait until closing time.”
“I’ll bet,” Joe said as the worker finished the beer, crushed the aluminum can as if pronouncing it dead, and started to reach for another.
He paused: “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Joe said. “I’m going out early tomorrow and I don’t want to be hungover.”
“I wouldn’t come to work any other way.” The man laughed as he slid another beer toward him from Joe’s collection.
His name was Willie McKay, he told Joe over the next half-hour and three beers. An unspoken deal was struck: he’d keep talking as long as Joe provided the free alcohol. It was a part-time job, he said, that supplemented the limits of his EBT card, and it was a good deal for him, tax-wise, because he and the other meatcutters were paid off the books in cash. He’d once been a logger, McKay said, before that industry went “all to shit.”
Joe brought the conversation back to the facility. He said, “I’m considering bringing my elk here if I kill it tomorrow. Between you and me, if it were you, would you bring game here to be processed? I’m real particular about how it turns out.”
“Shit,” McKay said, “I’d bring my kill here in a heartbeat, and I don’t even hunt. You can’t do no better than this place, I swear it.”
“What about keeping track of my elk?” Joe asked. “It wouldn’t get thrown in with someone else’s animal?”
“Not a chance in hell,” McKay said, slightly offended at the question. “Part of my job is to tag the quarters of every carcass that comes in. We make damned sure we never mix the meat—even the hamburger. You get back what you brought in, one thousand percent.”
“That’s good to hear,” Joe said. “So your hours are from six in the morning to eight at night?”
“Long fucking day,” McKay said, sighing and reaching for Joe’s last spare beer. He didn’t feel the need to even ask anymore. As he did, Joe signaled the bartender for two more.
McKay said, “If you want one-inch steaks and chops, that’s what you’ll get. If you want the steaks butterflied, well, it’ll cost you a little more in labor, but that’s what you’ll get. And if you want some of the trim ground into burger, sausage, or jerky, well, we make the best there is.”
“Is it just the three of you?” Joe asked, nodding toward the other two meatcutters who had set up a few stools down.
“Sometimes there’s as many as seven,” McKay said. “We were supposed to have more help today, in fact, but the guys they hired didn’t even bother to show up. That’s why I’m so beat. What is it with young people anymore?” he asked. “Don’t none of them have a work ethic at all? They’d rather play video games or jerk off to their iPads or whatever it is they do, because they sure don’t want to work hard.”
Joe shrugged.
“Hey,” McKay said suddenly, as his new beer arrived, “you want to see the shop? You’ll see I’m not blowing smoke.”
“You mean a tour?” Joe asked.
“Like that,” McKay said.
Not really, Joe thought. But when he saw through the crowd of milling hunters that Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith had entered the saloon by way of the lobby, he said, “Let’s go.”
“Now?” McKay asked, with the beer halfway to his mouth.
Critchfield and Smith seemed to be very well known among the hunters, and several stepped forward to shake their hands and tell them about their day—as if seeking approval from them. Joe realized why: most of the men in the room had booked their hunting trips through the two local men who had access to Templeton’s game-rich private land.
“Now,” Joe said to McKay, quickly turning on his stool so his back was to
Critchfield and Smith. He didn’t think they’d recognize him without his uniform shirt but couldn’t afford to take any chances. “Bring your beer along. I’ll pop for another one when we come back.”
“Hell of a deal,” McKay said, turning and dismounting from his stool. He hopped down with more energy than he’d shown when he entered the saloon, Joe thought, as if the beer had served as nutrition.
Joe kept his back to Critchfield and Smith as he followed McKay through hunters toward the south door. The red-bearded meatcutter raised his eyebrows as they passed by, and McKay said to him, “He wants a tour.”
“Don’t mess anything up,” the bearded man said. “And make sure the lights are off and everything’s locked back up when you leave.”
• • •
AS THE DOOR wheezed shut behind them, Joe let out a long breath of relief.
The wild game–processing facility was larger than he had anticipated, and as clean and sterile-looking as advertised. Long stainless-steel counters ran along the side walls, and a stout steel table stood in the middle. A worn but spotless butcher block bristled with knives and cleavers, and an assortment of bone saws hung from hooks on the wall. It smelled of ammonia from being wiped down, and there was an absence of the metallic meat and blood smell in the air that lingered in similar shops Joe had experienced. The large accordion door to the receiving dock outside was closed tight and locked with a chain and padlock, Joe noted.
“What do you think?” McKay asked with pride as he lowered his beer.
“Impressive,” Joe said. “You guys seem to take a lot of pride in your work.”
McKay shrugged. “We don’t have a choice, really. It gets crazy during hunting season sometimes. But somebody complained to Mr. T. himself, and he showed up here one night a couple of years ago and he ripped each one of us new assholes and fired the foreman. He said he wanted this room to look like a surgical suite in a hospital from then on, and we never know when he might pop in and start firing people—or worse—if we screw up.”
“That would be Wolfgang Templeton?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, he’s the owner of this whole operation: the rooms, the restaurant, and the wild game–processing facility. Like I said, he pays in cash and he pays well. I don’t want to lose this gig and neither do the others, so we keep the shop spotless.”
“What did you mean when you said or worse?” Joe asked.
McKay leaned close enough to Joe that Joe could smell his beer breath. He said, “Did you happen to notice those two guys who just came into the bar out there a minute ago? Guys wearing cowboy hats and acting like fucking lords of the manor or something?”
“I saw them,” Joe said.
“They work for Mr. T., running the guiding and hunting operation, and throw their weight around. I don’t think Mr. T. knows what assholes they are.”
“Like how?” Joe asked.
“They’re thugs,” McKay said, shaking his head. The alcohol had loosened his tongue. “It ain’t unusual for them to take somebody outside and whip their asses if they think he ain’t doing his job or if he gives them any lip. That’s one reason, I think, it’s getting harder and harder to get new employees. The word is out that if you screw up, you might get your ass kicked.”
Joe shook his head in sympathy.
McKay said, “I keep my nose clean around those yay-hoos, I’ll tell you.”
“Probably a smart plan.”
“You bet it is. Hey, do you want to see the whole plant?”
Joe figured Critchfield and Smith were likely still in the saloon, so he agreed.
• • •
HE FOLLOWED MCKAY through the refrigerated meat-hanging lockers while the cutter kept up a nonstop dialogue. Joe was astounded at the quantity of hanging skinned carcasses. There were so many, and they were packed together so tightly, that he couldn’t wade through them without thumping his shoulder into meaty hindquarters, which bumped into adjoining quarters and set them all rocking slightly. The exposed meat and tallow had taken on a veneer like translucent wax due to exposure to air, but beneath the dry exterior the lean muscle had plenty of give. He noted the multiple tags on each carcass indicating who had brought it in, just as McKay had said.
As McKay explained the process, Joe noted another large steel door on the back wall. As McKay shifted his weight during his monologue, Joe could see a sophisticated keypad near the doorjamb behind him.
“What’s in there?” he asked.
McKay paused and turned. “Oh, that room is reserved for the ranch.”
“What does that mean?”
“They don’t want their beef mixed up with all this wild game,” McKay said. “So they hang beef in there.”
“And they need a keypad lock?” Joe asked.
“I guess they don’t want none of the employees pinching any of it,” McKay said with a shrug.
“This place is quite an operation,” Joe said.
McKay finished his beer and crushed the can. “You still buyin’?” he asked.
“Yup,” Joe said.
• • •
HE PAUSED AT THE SOUTH DOOR after McKay went through it to confirm that Critchfield and Smith had left. Then he bought McKay another beer, excused himself, and went outside.
Joe walked along the loading dock to the east side of the facility, re-creating in his mind where the freezer room was, and where the hanging lockers were located. There, on the other side of the stone exterior wall, was Templeton’s private meat locker. There were no windows or openings to indicate what was there.
He squinted and rubbed his chin.
Sand Creek Ranch
With a pair of snips from his tool bag, Joe clipped the holding wires of the three taut strands of barbed wire on the steel T-post that delineated the western border of the Sand Creek Ranch. He’d strapped on a headlamp to be able to see what he was doing. The ATV idled in the trees behind him.
After flattening the loosened barbed wire to the ground with two downed logs, he climbed back on the four-wheeler and drove the vehicle over the top, then rolled the logs away. He loosely restored the fence behind him with baling wire he always carried with him.
Joe glanced around at the terrain and hoped he’d be able to find the entrance he’d created on his way out. There were no landmarks or characteristics to the endless pine forest all around him except for the faint old logging road he’d taken to approach the ranch from the west. He’d decided early on he couldn’t risk driving through the entrance gate again where the closed-circuit cameras were located.
Over the years, Joe had rarely trespassed on private property. But the few times he’d had to—to find a wounded animal or rescue a hunter or fisherman—were the reason he always carried cutters and wire for a quick repair.
Nevertheless, his conscience nagged at him. There he was, out of uniform and trespassing on a private ranch without invitation and with only the vague authority of the governor of Wyoming—who would likely plead ignorance if Joe was caught or arrested. This was after he’d registered under a false name at a hunting lodge.
• • •
AS HE PICKED HIS WAY UP the mountain on the ATV, he kept the speed low and his eyes wide open so he wouldn’t overrun the pool of yellow light from the four-wheeler’s headlights. The old road he was on hadn’t been maintained and at times was blocked by brush and fallen logs. Several times, he looked ahead to see twin sets of green eye dots in the blackness ahead—deer or elk eyes reflecting back. For a mile or so, he followed fresh elk tracks and pellets on the two-track ahead of him until the herd eventually broke off and plunged into the forest.
He had no idea where the old road would end, but it was going where he wanted to go: east and up. Joe hoped that when he found the spine of the local Black Hills he’d be able to get his bearings, see below into the timbered valley, and possibly get a cell phone signal to check me
ssages and communicate.
The department had never replaced the handheld GPS he’d left in his old pickup on the top of the mountain in the Bighorns, and until this moment, Joe hadn’t missed it. Judging by the rounded peaks ahead under the star-washed sky, he thought he was headed in the right direction. If he was correct, he should be able to see the ranch headquarters below him through his binoculars and get a better understanding of the layout.
• • •
WHEN HE CRESTED THE RIDGE, a line shack appeared in his headlights so suddenly Joe didn’t have the opportunity to kill the motor or douse his lights before he was upon it. Instinctively, he braked and froze while a swirl of dust from the knobby tires of the ATV curled through the beam.
Joe recovered from the surprise of seeing the structure fifty feet in front of him and snatched his shotgun out of the saddle scabbard. He dismounted and took several steps to the left into the trees and waited for the door of the shack to open or the curtains behind a window to rustle.
What would he tell the occupant about why he was there? Joe was a poor liar. He could only hope he’d be instantly mistaken for a lost hunter.
He cursed to himself as he pressed the slide release of his Wingmaster, ready if necessary to defend himself by racking in a 12-gauge shell filled with buckshot. He could feel his heart whump in his chest, and he tried to hear over the roar of blood in his ears.
Nothing happened.
The shack looked occupied: there was fresh lumber and building materials stacked on the side of it, there were tire tracks in the ground on the edge of the cut grass, and bright multicolored electrical wires were stapled to the exterior logs. A new galvanized tin chimney on the roof didn’t even have soot on it yet, and it gleamed in the lights from his ATV.
After a few minutes of waiting, Joe cautiously approached his four-wheeler and shut it off and killed the headlights. Was it possible, he wondered, that whoever was inside hadn’t heard him coming in the dead of night? He considered rolling the ATV back down the hill until he was far enough away to start it and retreat off the mountain, but instead he was drawn to the shack first. Did a Templeton ranch hand stay there? Was anybody home?