Endangered

26

It made a warped kind of sense, Joe thought. If Eldon Cates needed to hide a vehicle fast, where better than an elk camp that was unknown to everyone, including the game warden?

Revis Wentworth had given Joe an all-important clue to the location of the elk camp simply by describing which direction the two vehicles were going on the two-track road across the sagebrush bench. Joe had been on the road before, of course, when he’d found Lek 64. He’d taken a more established county road to the two-track, and when he intersected it, he’d turned east.

Several years ago, Joe had taken the road west through the foothills of the Bighorns and on into the timber. At the time, he was looking for a promontory, or high-altitude point, where he might “perch” and glass the terrain with his spotting scope. The road was little used, and Joe had given up looking for an opening in the timber as he ascended the mountain. It was difficult even finding a place to perform a three-point turn because the lodgepole pines were so thick.

His district was 1,800 square miles of mountains, plains, and broken country. There were hundreds of ancient two-tracks running through it, most leading nowhere in particular. If they didn’t lead to an obvious destination or were rarely used by hunters or fishermen, he simply forgot about them, like he had with this nameless path.

The western direction of the two-track from the sagebrush bench into the mountains would be convenient for an elk outfitter like Eldon Cates, he thought. Eldon could access it from his compound down below in the valley and never cross a highway or county road, therefore not likely to be seen by hunters or anyone else. The land the two-track crossed was a confusing mix of BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and private land. It was a baffling checkerboard on the map and likely to deter visitors. So it was perfect for Eldon.

If Joe was guessing right, anyhow.

Something else made sense, now that he thought about it. He’d wondered how it was that April’s possessions had been found at Tilden Cudmore’s place and in his vehicle if Cudmore wasn’t responsible for her attack. Or how Nate’s assailants had accessed the HF Bar Ranch through a locked gate and not been seen.

Although he had to first confirm the existence of the secret elk camp and that the Yarak, Inc. van was hidden there, dots were suddenly connecting.

—

HE HIT THE SPEED DIAL on his phone as his tires sizzled on the wet highway.

“County Sheriff’s Department,” the receptionist said.

“I need to talk to Sheriff Reed.”

“Joe?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in a meeting.”

“Get him out, please.”

The snow was sticking to the green shoots of grass on the side of the highway, and the storm was moving over the tops of the mountains and coming down the western side like rolls of smoke. Joe had his windshield wipers on low and the defroster on. He thought he could find the camp and get out before dark and before the storm enveloped the Twelve Sleep Valley.

“Reed here. What is it, Joe? I’m in a budget meeting with the county commissioners.”

“I got a lead,” Joe said. “Revis Wentworth was at Lek Sixty-four last Tuesday and he said he saw two vehicles crossing the sagebrush into the mountains. One fits the description of Eldon Cates’s old Suburban. The other fits the description of the white van Nate was driving the day he got ambushed.”

Reed paused. “What are you saying exactly?”

“That the Cateses were involved in the shooting. Either they did it on their own or somebody hired them to remove Nate’s van from the scene. They’re implicated one way or another. Moving that van made everyone wonder where Olivia Brannan had gone after the shooting and made people think she must have been in on it. But it doesn’t sound like she was there when Wentworth saw the two vehicles. The descriptions he gave me of the drivers sound like Eldon and Bull.”

Reed said, “Why would they go after Romanowski? What’s the connection there?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself.”

“This is coming out of left field,” Reed said. “How are we going to prove anything? Do you need a couple of my guys?”

“Not yet,” Joe said. “But you might want to let them know what’s going on so they’ll be ready. I’m on my way up the mountain to see if I can find that van in Eldon Cates’s elk camp. If I find it, we can go after Eldon.”

“In this storm?”

“It’s just snow, Mike,” Joe said. “It doesn’t look to be as bad as they were predicting. If we only worked in good weather, we wouldn’t get much done around here, would we?”

Reed snorted.

“There’s another thing,” Joe said. “I’ve been thinking about Tilden Cudmore.”

“What about him?”

“We all wondered how he could possibly be innocent in regard to April’s attack after her stuff was found on his place and in his car, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I want you to think about something,” Joe said as he turned off the highway onto the county road that would lead him to the Lek 64 two-track. No one had driven on the road since the snow started, and it was untracked. “Think about patrolling this county every day. You—and me—always keep an eye out for anything unusual. We notice cars we’ve never seen before, or out-of-county plates. We notice out-of-state plates, or pickups with two or three men inside—that kind of thing. But what we don’t notice is normal activities. We just kind of shunt them aside.”

“I’m not quite getting what you’re saying,” Reed said.

Joe continued. “We don’t even see the propane truck making its rounds. We don’t notice the mail carrier on her route or the garbage service. We see them so often, they turn invisible, because we’re only tuned to people and activities that aren’t part of the day-to-day. They hide in plain sight.”

Reed said, “Like a sewage-service pump truck.”

“Exactly,” Joe said. “Like C&C Sewer and Septic Tank Service. I probably see that truck, or trucks like it, five times a day and never even think about it. You probably do, too. They’re all over, but we just don’t see them.”

Reed said, “Hold on.” Joe could hear the sheriff speaking to someone while he held the phone away from his mouth. “Tell the commissioners it’s going to be a minute.”

Then back to Joe: “I see where you’re going with this. You’re saying Eldon could have planted evidence at Cudmore’s place and in his vehicle and no one would have given a second glance. He could roll his pump truck onto Cudmore’s property and no one would even look up.”

“Right,” Joe said. “And I bet if you take a look at that big key ring Eldon has on his belt, you’d find a key to the front gate of the HF Bar. They probably have a contract with him and they wouldn’t even notice him when the ranch is in full swing. He comes and goes, and his pump truck is big, but it’s also invisible.”

“I hear you,” Reed said. “But if what you’re saying is true, you’re back to thinking it was Dallas who beat April and dumped her. That the Cates family was covering for him by planting evidence at the Cudmore place.”

Joe said, “Yup.”

“It also means an innocent man hung himself in my jail because of the pressure we put on him.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Tilden Cudmore ended up like Tilden Cudmore always thought he would: persecuted by the government.”

“You said it, not me.”

“That’s a lot of speculation, Joe.”

“It is.”

“But it sort of makes sense.”

“It does.”

“We need real evidence before we can move on anything, but I’ll run this by Dulcie and see if she can shoot any holes in it.”

“Good.”

“Still, though,” Reed said, “it doesn’t account for a couple of things. One, why did they ambush Nate Romanowski? Two, what happened to Olivia Brannan?”

Joe almost overran the two-track that intersected the county road, but he recognized it and turned right.

He said, “I just found the road into the mountains and I’m taking it. We may lose our connection real soon.”

“Call me on my cell phone either way,” Reed said. “I’ll reschedule this damned meeting I’m in and call Dulcie. We’ll be ready to move if you find something.”

—

BECAUSE THE SNOW was coming from the west as the storm barreled down the mountain, it now swirled like a white kaleidoscope in front of the windshield. The volume of it had increased since he turned off the highway.

Joe couldn’t focus his vision in the distance so he concentrated on keeping his front wheels in the two-track. Daisy seemed to sense his anxiety and she put her big head on his lap. She was warm so he didn’t push her away.

The snowstorm was both good and bad, he thought. It was unlikely the Cateses would be out and about and see him on the road from their compound. But if the intensity of the snow kept building and turned into a patented Rocky Mountain spring whiteout, he ran the risk of getting lost or stuck.

Joe keyed the button on his dash-mounted GPS to record his current location. If nothing else, he’d be able to find his way back to where he started.

—

THE ONCOMING SNOW stopped swirling once he entered the trees at the base of the Bighorns. Instead, it sifted down through the pine branches like fine flour.

The lodgepoles closed in as the pickup serpentined up the mountain in a long series of switchbacks. A mile up the grade, the road got rougher and the canopy of branches closed in over the top of the cab. He remembered turning around at about this spot the first time he’d ventured up.

But it felt right, he thought. If Eldon’s camp was up ahead, the last thing Eldon would do would be to improve the access road. The grade and condition of the road itself would turn back most visitors.

Then: Whump.

Joe nearly lost control of the steering wheel when something hit the passenger side of his truck. Daisy’s head jerked up with alarm.

He looked over to see the mirror had struck a thick branch and had folded back against the passenger window. Joe looked at his reflection and observed, He looks worried.

And he was.

The tires ground over large slick rocks now, pitching the pickup right to left as it climbed. Snow-covered boughs smacked the windshield and dumped more wet snow over the hood.

Joe upped the speed of his wipers to compensate and to keep the glass clear.

“We’re going to find it and get out,” he assured Daisy. She looked up at him as if she understood.

—

HIS SITUATION CRYSTALLIZED as he shifted into four-wheel drive low to continue the ascent. Whether or not he found Eldon’s camp, he could be in trouble. He could easily imagine getting high-centered and stuck on the boulder-strewn path during an epic spring storm. He was out of cell tower range and his radio crackled with static. Even the satellite phone he kept in his gear box in the bed of the pickup would likely not get a signal through the thick canopy of snow-covered branches overhead.

There were no openings in which to turn his truck around, and there was no way he could back it out down the switchbacks he’d taken. He had no choice but to keep going up.

—

SOUR THOUGHTS came to him as he climbed.

He’d assumed the Yarak, Inc. van had followed the Suburban up the trail. But how could a two-wheel-drive van have gotten up there, considering the fact that his pickup was barely making it?

He realized he might be completely wrong about the scenario he’d laid out for Reed.

Revis Wentworth could have lied about the two vehicles, or been so drunk he got the direction and the road they were on incorrect.

Joe imagined a fruitless grind up the eastern face of the Bighorn Mountains that resulted in him getting his pickup hopelessly stuck and him traipsing back down in knee-high snow at the same time his daughter was being brought out of her coma in a Billings hospital.

Then the road leveled, and even through the thick snowfall, he could see a slot in the rock wall ahead that appeared wide enough to drive his truck through.

—

THE STRIATION THAT FORMED the granite wall stretched out as far as he could see in either direction. Behind and above the twelve-foot wall, the timbered mountain continued to climb. But on the other side of the slot, there appeared to be an opening in the timber, a clearing.

He jumped out of his truck to move a log that blocked the entrance. As he moved it, he noticed how simply it came up and swung to the side. None of its branches were embedded in the ground and the base of the log was cut cleanly, meaning it had been moved before. Perhaps many times.

Joe got back in his pickup and slowly drove into the middle of Eldon Cates’s elk camp.

—

WEATHERED GRAY CROSS POLES had been chained to the lodgepole trunks to hang game carcasses. Each had a rusty block-and-tackle assembly at the midpoint of the game pole.

Several square-shaped tent sites were aligned around a blackened fire pit. Broken glass winked within the pit, as did beer bottle caps. Metal boxes were stacked against the inside granite wall. They were locked and bear-proof.

It was a terrific location for an elk camp, he thought. No wonder Eldon kept it a secret.

The white Yarak, Inc. panel van was located against the thick wall of trees on the south edge of the camp. It didn’t look to be parked there as much as pushed there.

Joe approached it on foot with his shotgun barrel resting in the crook of his left arm. He noticed that both the front and back bumpers were practically wrenched from the van’s frame, probably from tow chains they’d used to pull the vehicle up the rocky road.

He photographed the van from several angles as he got close to it. Other than the bumpers, it didn’t appear to be damaged.

Joe took a breath before peering inside. He braced himself, hoping he wouldn’t find Liv Brannan’s body on the floor of the van. He exhaled his relief.

After pulling on a pair of leather gloves so he wouldn’t leave additional fingerprints on the surfaces, he opened the vehicle and shot the interior with his camera. He recognized the hoods and jesses hanging from the inside walls as Nate’s. Joe wondered what the Cateses had done with the falcons. He hoped they were still alive.

—

BACK AT HIS PICKUP, Joe tried again to see if he could raise a signal on his cell phone or radio. Nothing.

He dug his satellite phone from the back gear box and he tried to get a signal through the snowfall and tree canopy. It didn’t work, either.

It was oddly quiet within the elk camp. Snow floated straight down and muted outside sound. There was about three inches of snow on the ground now, but not enough to be concerned about. How beautiful it looked, he thought. Even the worst scenes could be improved by a layer of white snow.

Joe placed the shotgun muzzle down on the floorboard and marked the location on his GPS for later. He called Daisy back into the cab and hoisted himself behind the wheel. He performed a three-point turn on the grounds of the campsite to head back down the mountain. There was an hour of daylight left and he thought there was no reason he shouldn’t make it. Going down the switchback road would be faster than coming up. The only thing he had to worry about was not pushing too hard and sliding his tires off the rocks and the truck into the trees.

As he turned the wheel and pointed the nose of the pickup toward the slot, it suddenly filled with a pair of headlights that blocked the exit.

Joe recognized the pickup immediately by the steel pole and crossbeam in the bed: it belonged to Bull Cates.

—

IT HAPPENED FAST, so fast Joe almost didn’t have time to react.

Bull slammed his truck into park and bailed out with a semiautomatic rifle loaded with a large magazine, the driver’s-side door thumping the rock wall because it was such close quarters. He had to step back to close the door to give himself a shooting lane.

Joe considered flooring the accelerator of his own pickup in the hope that the head-on collision would knock Bull’s vehicle out of the entrance. But Bull’s truck was a three-quarter-ton four-wheel-drive, and Joe drove a half-ton Ford F-150. At best, he might push Bull’s vehicle back a few feet but he would probably injure himself in the process. Instead, Joe reached for his shotgun.

But Bull was faster. There was a sharp crack, a hole in Joe’s windshield at eye level, and searing pain on the right side of his head.

He flopped more than dove to his right, pinning Daisy to the bench seat.

Bull was firing as quickly as he could pull the trigger.

Round after round punched through the windshield and exited through the back. Slivers of glass were everywhere, on Joe’s clothing, in Daisy’s coat, all over the seat, on the floorboards. As he writhed, trying to get even lower, he saw bright red blood on Daisy’s head and shoulders, lots of it, but she didn’t seem to be hurt.

Then he realized the blood was coming from him. Nothing bled like a head wound.

Bull apparently leveled his aim and Joe felt the bullets thump into the grille of his pickup and actually rock it back and forth on its springs. A bullet caromed off the front hood into the shattered windshield and the entire plate of glass imploded and fell into the cab like a collapsed roof.

Joe tried to recall how long the magazine was on Bull’s rifle and tried to guess how many rounds he had left. He knew his truck had been hit at least twenty times, maybe more.

He reached up to the side of his head with his right hand and when he took it away it was covered with blood. He could actually hear it pattering on the fabric of the bench seat when it wasn’t pouring onto Daisy. Joe couldn’t tell how badly he was hit. His right eye socket was filled with blood and he wiped it clean with his shirtsleeve to clear his vision. He recalled once encountering a hunter who flagged him down because he said he had a terrible headache. Turned out he had shot himself in the head. He died before the EMTs could arrive.

Suddenly, the cab filled with acrid steam. He recognized the smell as fluid pouring from the radiator through bullet holes onto the hot engine. It stung his eyes and made Daisy whimper.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack.

The pickup jerked with every shot, and it was remarkable how fast the punctured tires deflated.

Then silence.

—

TWENTY SECONDS OF SILENCE. Snow fell inside the cab through the frame of the missing windshield.

Joe could only guess what Bull was doing. Approaching the truck? Reloading? Waiting for Joe to rise up and look around so he could finish him?

Although his ears were ringing from the rifle shots, Joe heard a metal-on-metal sound and then the distinctive snap of a bolt being engaged.

Reloading.

Daisy whimpered again and Joe realized he was crushing her. He repositioned himself so she could breathe more easily. As he did, slivers of glass tinkled from the seat to the floorboards.

“Hey, game warden, are you in there?” Bull called.

Joe didn’t respond.

“Good thing I took the long way home tonight and ran across them tire tracks in the snow. I followed them all the way here, but I didn’t think it would be you.”

The voice didn’t sound any closer. Joe imagined Bull was still near his own truck, probably still on the side of it, since he’d been able to reach into the cab for his second magazine.

“I told you I’d get even with you for taking away my livelihood,” Bull said. “I just never figured you’d come to me.”

After a beat, Bull said, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Joe didn’t raise his head. He held Daisy down with his right hand and searched through the broken glass on the floor for his shotgun. When he closed his hand around the grip, he felt the piercing bite of dozens of tiny slivers of glass in the flesh of his palm.

Because she didn’t like being confined, Daisy moaned.

Bull obviously heard it and mistook it as coming from Joe. He said, “What do you know? It sounds like you’re hurt. I thought I got you with that first shot.”

Joe pulled the shotgun closer to him.

“Since you seen that van, there was only one way this could go,” Bull said. His voice was growing louder. He was cautiously approaching Joe’s pickup. Joe could hear boots crunch in the snow.

Joe was at an odd position: facedown on the seat with a dog underneath him and the shotgun at his side. It would be difficult to scramble around to defend himself.

Slowly, he rolled to his back and squared his shoulders. He used Daisy as a pillow. He raised the shotgun so it was next to him on the seat, pointing toward the driver’s-side door.

The crunching got closer.

Joe lowered his eyelids, but didn’t shut them tight.

There was a beat of silence, then the top of Bull’s face appeared in the driver’s-side window. It vanished before Joe could react.

He waited, then Bull slowly raised back up. Joe saw the crown of Bull’s cowboy hat with a dusting of snow on it, then the brim. Then Bull’s narrow-set eyes. When Bull saw Joe’s condition, saw the blood, his eyes scrunched in a smile.

Joe raised the muzzle and shot Bull in the forehead and he dropped out of view.

The sound of the discharge within the cab was so loud, all Joe could hear was a dull buzzing in his ears.

—

HE SAT UP and pulled on the door handle and kicked it open with his boot. The body, not two feet from the truck, thrashed in the snow for thirty seconds, then went still. A river of blood steamed through the snow like hot syrup. Bull died with the top half of his head gone and his arms and legs splayed out as if he were making a snow angel. The .223 Ruger Mini-14 tactical rifle lay at his side. The barrel was still so hot from all the firing, it had melted the snow around it.

Joe slid down from the seat. When his boots hit the ground, he swooned on rubber legs and he grasped the side mirror for support. Daisy jumped out and went straight to the body, sniffing it from top to bottom, her tail working like a metronome.

He was still holding the mirror bracket for support when he looked at his reflection. He thought, No wonder Bull thought I was dead.

Thick rivulets of blood covered his entire face. His collar and the front of his shirt were black with blood, and when he turned his head he could see where blood was still pulsing out of an ugly slash just above his right ear. He touched the wound with the tips of his fingers and found it numb. The bullet had broken skin and exposed a white line of slick bone. He’d never seen any of his skull before.

One more inch to the left and he would have been dead.

—

AFTER CLEANING HIS FACE with snow, Joe opened his first-aid kit and did the best job he could of taping a square of gauze over the wound. Within a few seconds, the gauze turned pink, but the blood had stopped flowing.

He was even able to clamp his hat back on.

When he turned and saw that Daisy was eating snow near Bull’s body that had been colored with a mist of blood and bits of brain matter, he yelled harshly at her. She slunk away, looking humiliated.

Then he threw up between his boots and waited for the last of the adrenaline in his bloodstream to burn off.