“Shut the fuck up, Luthi,” Cross hissed.
“Rory Cross—he’s your killer,” Luthi yelled as he dropped his right hand to point his finger at Cross.
“I said shut up!” Cross barked as he dropped his hands and reached behind his back.
Joe had no time to react before Cross drew out a pistol and aimed it at Luthi two feet away from him.
The gunshots—bang-BOOM—happened so close together they almost sounded like one. Luthi grabbed at his chest and teetered back from the impact of Cross’s bullet as half of Cross’s head exploded into red mist. The bodies of both men hit the ground at the same time.
“And then there was one,” Joe said into the phone as he fought through the shock of what had just happened.
He heard the snick-snick sound of Nate’s revolver being cocked again.
Joe said to Dallas, “They would have turned on you anyway. They were motivated by cash from Brenda, and that’s dried up.”
“Yeah,” Dallas said, suddenly weary.
“It wasn’t her idea at first, but Brenda has set you free.”
“Is she okay?” Dallas asked. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“She’s still mean,” Joe said.
Dallas chuckled.
“Put the phone down on the picnic table and put your hands on top of your head,” Joe said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Can I finish my cigar?” Dallas asked.
“Sure. You do that.”
“This ain’t over.”
Joe said, “How about we pick it back up when you get out of Rawlins in fifty years? How’s that work for you?”
“That works just fine.”
Dallas tilted his chin up and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. He was grinning.
28
The predawn sun was igniting stringy cirrus clouds over the top of the eastern mountains in his rearview mirror as Joe headed back toward the Twelve Sleep River Valley. Far below, mist clung to the serpentine contours of the river itself, waiting for the sunlight to disperse it. The first heavy frost of the fall bunched in the shadows and folds of the foothills like a scout waiting for the real army to arrive.
He was so exhausted that his head swam with hallucinations that were part recollection, part imagination: an owl flying through the pines with eyes on each side of its head, Dallas puffing on his cigar while his associates twitched with death rattles at his feet, a phantom elk sporting reindeer antlers hung with Christmas tree bulbs that darted out of the roadside brush but really wasn’t there after he hit his brakes, and Brenda Cates pitching ass over teakettle in her wheelchair.
An hour before at the hunting camp, Sheriff Reed had said, “Too bad Lester had that terrible accident. He must have fallen from a tree just right to get those injuries to his head. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” Then, to Joe: “We’ve got this under control, although I have no idea where we’re going to put so many bodies. You look like hell. Go home, Joe.”
And he did. Nate hadn’t stuck around for the sheriff and his team to arrive, and he’d long since vanished into the timber. He’d said something about checking his falcon traps.
—
JOE WAS SO OUT OF IT that he instinctively drove to the pile of ashes that had once been his house. He’d forgotten it was no longer standing. As he neared it, he saw his own truck was parked where he always put it, but that didn’t make sense. After all, Joe was driving his pickup.
Another hallucination caused by sleep deprivation, he thought.
Then Rick Ewig climbed out of the green Ford pickup and waved at him.
Joe pulled alongside. It hurt so much to climb out that he grunted like a very old man getting out of a lounge chair.
“Man, are you okay?” Ewig asked, genuinely alarmed.
“Nope.”
“Want me to drive you somewhere?”
“I’ll be fine,” Joe lied.
Ewig gestured at the blackened pile that was once Joe’s house. “How long do you suppose it’ll take the agency to build a new one?”
“No idea.”
“If it’s like everything else, it’ll take a long time. I wonder where you’ll be living in the meanwhile?”
Joe shrugged. He hadn’t had time even to think about it.
“You can always move your family in with me,” Ewig said. “They might not like that, but I’ve got two extra rooms since Viv and the kids moved out.”
“Thank you for the offer. I’ll need to talk to the boss about that.”
“Good luck.” Ewig laughed. None of the game wardens in the field wanted to have the conversation with Joe’s director that Joe was about to have.
“I identified our poachers,” Ewig said. “At this minute they’re cutting up two white-tailed deer in that warehouse I told you about. I got a call and followed them. They didn’t know I was behind them.”
Joe looked up quizzically. “They’re there now?”
“Yes. They’re packaging deer steaks.”
“But you’re here.”
“Yeah,” Ewig said, leaning over the top of his pickup hood on his elbows. “There’s something I wanted to run by you in person. I didn’t want to call, and I sure as hell didn’t want to talk to you about it over the radio.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it turns out I know these guys,” Ewig said. “They’re good men. Friends, even. The three of them worked at the coal mines until they were shut down a few months ago.”
Joe nodded for him to go on.
“I heard through the grapevine about what’s been going on,” Ewig said. “These three guys have been delivering packaged meat to other unemployed coal miners and their families. They haven’t sold the meat or wasted it. They’re trying to keep people fed and in the area in case the mines ever reopen. That’s why they only killed non-trophy animals. They wanted the meat.”
“It’s still poaching,” Joe said.
“It is. But you know what’ll happen if we arrest them and file all the charges we can throw at them. These guys will have to forfeit their guns, trucks, and all that equipment they bought to package the meat. They’ll lose hunting privileges for life, probably, and they’ll have to pay fines that none of them can afford. We’ll be kicking them when they’re down. It isn’t their fault their jobs got jerked out from under them. Governor Allen made all kinds of promises about helping them out, but so far he hasn’t done a damn thing.”
Joe thought for a minute. “Then tell them to stop.”
Ewig eyed Joe. “Are you serious?”
“Yup.”
“This is between you and me, right?” Ewig asked.
“Yup.”
“I’ll give them a really stern lecture,” Ewig said. “I’ll put the fear of God into them, so they’ll never poach another deer again.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Joe said.
“It’ll be a hell of a stern lecture,” Ewig said with obvious relief.
—
AFTER EWIG DROVE AWAY, Joe climbed back into his truck and aimed it toward Saddlestring.
He keyed his cell phone and woke Marybeth.
“I’m on my way home,” he said.
“I wish we had one,” she said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank the people who provided help, expertise, and information for this novel, including Col. H. Kenneth Johnson, Al LaPointe, and Alex Heil of the Wyoming Wing Civil Air Patrol; Betty Abbott, John Martin, and Joe Wilson at the Wyoming Department of Corrections; attorneys Terry Mackey and Becky Reif; and Don Budd.
Special thanks to my first readers Laurie Box, Molly Donnell, Becky Reif, and Roxanne Woods.
Kudos to Molly Donnell and Prairie Sage Creative for cjbox.net and Jennifer Fonnesbeck for social media expertise and merchandise sales.
> It’s a sincere pleasure to work with professionals at Putnam, including the legendary Neil Nyren, Ivan Held, Alexis Welby, Christine Ball, and Katie Grinch.
And thanks, of course, to my agent and friend Ann Rittenberg.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. J. Box is the author of seventeen Joe Pickett novels, most recently Off the Grid; five stand-alone novels, most recently Badlands; and the story collection Shots Fired. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and two Barry awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38 and a French Elle magazine literary award. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He and his wife, Laurie, split their time between their home and ranch in Wyoming.
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C. J. Box, Vicious Circle
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