Free Fire

9

The next morning, joe waited alone in the hotellobby for Demming to arrive. There were no other guests up and around so early and he had the entire lobby to himself. He sat in an overstuffed chair and read a day-old Billings Gazette- newspapers from the outside world didn’t arrive in the park untillater in the day-sipping from a large cup of coffee. Morning sun streamed through the eastern windows, lighting dust motes suspended in the air. The old hotel seemed vastly empty, the only sounds the scratch of a pen on paper and occasional keyboardclacking from Simon behind the front desk. On the lawns outside the hotel he could see that a herd of buffalo had moved in during the night and both the elk and buffalo grazed. The presence of wildlife larger than him just outside the hotel humbledhim, as it always did, reminding him that he was just anotherplayer. When an official-looking white Park Service Suburban pulled aggressively into the alcove in front of the hotel,Joe assumed it was Demming and started to gather his daypackand briefcase.

Instead of Demming, a uniformed man of medium build pushed through the front doors. He had the aura of officialdom about him. Joe watched him stride across the lobby floor with a sense of purpose, his head tilted forward like a battering ram despite his bland, open face, his flat-brimmed ranger hat in his hand whacking against his thigh, keeping time with his steps. The ranger’s uniform had crisp pleats and shoes shined to a high gloss. He had a full head of silver-white hair, thin lips, a belt cinched too tight, as if to deny the paunch above it that strained against the fabric of his shirt. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, although the white hair made him seem older at first. Beneath a heavy brow and clown-white eyebrows, two sharp brown eyes surveyed the room like drive-by shooters. The ranger saw Joe sitting in his Cinch shirt and Wranglers, dismissedhim quickly as someone of no interest to him, and approachedthe front desk.

“I need to check on a guest,” the ranger said in a clipped, authoritativevoice.

“Name?” Simon asked without deference.

“Pickett. Joe Pickett.”

“He checked in last night.”

“How long is he staying?”

Tap-tap-tap. “The reservation extends through next week.”

“A week! Okay, thank you.”

The ranger turned on his heel and began to cross the lobby.

“Can I help you?” Joe asked, startling the ranger. “I’m Joe Pickett.”

The man stopped, turned, studied Joe while biting his lower lip as if trying to decide something. He held out his hand but didn’t come over to Joe. Meaning if Joe wanted to shake it, he’d need to go to him. Joe did.

“Chief Ranger James Langston,” the man said, biting off his words. “Welcome to Yellowstone.”

“We missed you at the meeting yesterday,” Joe said.

“I had other matters to tend to.”

“I thought it was your day off.”

Langston nodded. “In my job, you never have a day off.”

“That’s too bad,” Joe said, not knowing why he said it.

Neither did Langston. He released Joe’s hand and stepped back, said, “I hope you got all the information you needed and everybody’s been helpful and cooperative.”

“So far.”

“Good, good. Nice to meet you,” Langston said, starting to head for the door.

“Why did you want to know how long I was staying?” Joe asked pleasantly.

“Just curious,” Langston said. “We’d like to get this whole McCann thing behind us and move on. What’s done is done. There isn’t anything you or anyone else can do about it.”

“Ah,” Joe said.

“I’ve got to go. My motor’s running.”

“It sure is,” Joe said.

Langston looked at him curiously, clamped on his hat, and went outside. The Suburban roared off all of two blocks to the Pagoda.

Demming came in the front door. “Was that Chief Ranger Langston?” she asked Joe.

“Yup.”

“What did he want?”

Joe said, “I’m not real sure.”

Demming parked her cruiser and they took Joe’s Yukon to the Bechler ranger station. Because of an overnight rock slide near Obsidian Cliff that likely wouldn’t be cleared until that evening, Demming suggested they exit the park through the north entrance at Gardiner, drive to Bozeman, and double back south through West Yellowstone and on to Bechler.

“That’s a lot of driving,” Joe said as they cleared Mammoth.

“Get used to it,” she laughed. “This is a huge place. You learn not to be in a hurry. Four or five hours to get somewhere is pretty common. The park forces you to slow down, whether you want to or not.”

Joe drove down the switchbacks toward Gardiner. As he did, a growing sense of dread introduced itself to his stomach.

“Do you notice how laid back the pace is here?” Demming said, unaware of Joe’s increasing trepidation. “No one is in a hurry. Rangers, waiters, desk clerks. . everybody moves at a slower pace than the outside world. We’re like a tropical island in the middle of the county-everything is different here. Slower, more deliberate. Nothing can’t wait until tomorrow. It drives you crazy at first but you get used to it. You know what we call it?”

They cleared the switchbacks and the terrain flattened out. The road became a long straightaway of asphalt across a grassy meadow. In the distance he could see the stone arch that signified the north entrance to the park. At one time, when the railroadsdelivered tourists like Rudyard Kipling, it was the primary gateway to Yellowstone.

“Joe, did you hear me?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, do you know what we call it?”

“No.”

“Yellowstone Time. Everybody here is on Yellowstone Time.”

“I see,” he said, distracted.

They drove under the arch with the words FOR THE BENEFIT AND ENJOYMENT OF THE PEOPLE carved into the rock. The cornerwas still scarred and had not been patched. It receded in his rearview mirror.

“Joe, are you okay?” Demming asked.

“Why?”

“Your face is white. Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Are you okay to drive?”

“Yes.”

She settled back in her seat, silent, but stealing looks at him.

“I haven’t seen that arch for twenty-one years,” Joe said finally.“It brings back all kinds of bad memories. I’m sorry, but it sort of took me by surprise.”

“A stone archway took you by surprise?” she said gently.

He nodded. “My family used to vacation in the park. This is the way we came in. I still have pictures of us standing by the arch, my dad and mom, my brother and me. Victor was two years younger. We were close. The park was our special place, maybe because it was the only place where my dad was happy. He loved Teddy Roosevelt’s words: ‘For the benefit and enjoymentof the people.’ He used to say it all the time.”

Joe hesitated, surprised how hard it was to tell the story, surprisedhe wanted to tell it.

Demming didn’t prompt him for more. They drove north through Paradise Valley in Montana as the morning sun poured over the Absaroka Mountains.

He swallowed, continued. “I was in college. On my brother’s sixteenth birthday he called me in my dorm room at two in the morning. He was drunk and real upset. His girlfriend had dumped him that day and he was, well, sixteen. Everything was a crisis. He wanted to talk but I told him to go home, get some sleep, I had a test in the morning.”

Joe slowed while a rancher and two cowboys herded cows down the borrow pit next to the highway. Puffs of condensation came out of their mouths like silent word balloons. Calves bawled. When they were past, Joe sped up.

“After I hung up on him, Victor went home like I told him but took my dad’s car. Stole it, actually. He drove five hours in the middle of the night and crashed it head-on into that arch. The police said later they estimated he was going a hundred and ten miles an hour.”

She said, “My God.”

“We stayed at the Mammoth Hotel for the funeral. Victor’s buried in the Gardiner cemetery somewhere. My dad said he didn’t want him back. I haven’t been to his grave since.”

Tears formed in his eyes and he didn’t want them there. He wiped brusquely at his face with the back of his hand, hoping she didn’t see them.

“Do you want to turn around and go there?”

Joe turned his head away from her. “Later, maybe.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry I started your morning out with such a downer.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“Okay.”

What he didn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her, was that when his family returned home after the funeral his mother never unpacked.She left without saying good-bye. His mother and father blamed each other for Victor’s death, although Joe knew it was his fault. The implosion had been in the cards for years, fueled by alcohol. He went back to college after that. While he was gone, his father sold the house and vanished as well. Getting back at her, Joe supposed. He’d not heard from either of them in years, although an Internet search by Marybeth indicated his mother had remarried and moved to New Mexico. His father’s name produced no hits. Joe tried not to think of them at all, and asked Marybeth to stop searching. His parents could be happy, or dead. His family consisted of Marybeth and the girls. Period.

After they cleared Bozeman, Joe said, “Really, I’m sorry about telling you that story. Don’t pay any attention to me. Forget you heard it.”

She was puzzled. “You probably needed to get it out.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s okay, Joe.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said. “I’m not really a touchy-feely guy and I don’t want you to think I’m sensitive.”

She laughed and shook her head, reached over and patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry-your secret’s safe with me.”

He glowered at her.

Joe said, “you mentioned last night that the park has its own language. What are some of the other terms you can think of unique to here?”

She smiled. “Over the years, I’ve kept a list of them. ‘Bubblequeens’ are laundry room workers; ‘pearl divers’ are dishwashers;‘pillow punchers’ change sheets on the beds; ‘heavers’ are waiters and waitresses. All guests are called ‘dudes’ behind their backs long before everybody called everybodydudes.”

“What are flamers?” Joe asked.

“Excuse me?”

“When I read Hoening’s e-mails to prospective women, he always wrote, ‘We’ll go hot-potting and light a couple of flamers.’ ”

Demming shrugged. “I’m not sure. Zephyr people have their own language within a language.”

“Is he talking about dope?”

“I assume.”

“Maybe Layborn was on to something,” Joe said.

“Maybe.”

They stopped for lunch at Rocky’s in West Yellowstone. It was one of the few places open. The streets were deserted, most businesses closed until the winter season. While they waited for their sandwiches, Joe surveyed the crowd. Everyone looked localand had the same logy listlessness about them as the people he saw in Mammoth; no doubt recovering from the tourist season,he thought.

“James Langston,” Joe asked Demming, “what’s he like?”

“The chief ranger? He’s a bureaucrat of rare order. I’ve alwaysfound him arrogant and very political. He didn’t get to where he’s at by being everyone’s friend, that’s for sure. I heard him say once he thinks he’s underappreciated given all he has to put up with. By underappreciated he meant underpaid. Ha! He should take home my government paycheck.”

Joe said, “Maybe he should quit the Park Service and work in the private sector if he wants more money.”

“What-and have to be accountable to shareholders? Work past five? And not live in a mansion that’s financed by taxpayers?Are you crazy, Joe? What are you saying?”

She caught herself and looked horrified. “But I shouldn’t be saying that.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Joe said slyly. “Why do you suppose he was checking up on me?”

She sighed. “I’m sure he just wants you gone. He doesn’t want this McCann thing in the news again.”

“Speaking of McCann,” Joe said. “We’re in his hometown. Have you guys kept track of him since he was released?”

“I assume he’s back here,” she said, “that he came home. If he left I haven’t heard. Why, do you want to check up on him?”

Joe nodded.

“Now?”

“I’m curious. Aren’t you?”

In the car, Joe turned on Madison.

“This isn’t the road to Bechler,” Demming said.

“Nope.”

“Then what. .”

He gestured out the window. “Look.”

The law office of Clay McCann was a simple single-story structure made of logs. It looked like the type of place that was once an art gallery or a Laundromat.

“Think he’s in there?” she asked.

Joe shrugged, but felt a tug of anxiety. He stared at the law office as if he might get a better read on McCann by studying it.

The news photos of McCann made the lawyer look bland and soft. Joe wanted to see him in the flesh, look into his eyes, see what was there. Joe parked the Yukon on the other side of the street.

“Maybe we should go in and say hello,” Joe said.

As they climbed out, Joe dug the Glock out of his daypack and shoved it into his Wranglers behind his back.

“Did you have that gun in the park?” Demming asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re breaking the law. You can’t have firearms in the park.”

“I know.”

“Joe. .”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I can’t hit anything with it.”

She continued to shake her head at him as they crossed the street.

Joe entered the office, Demming behind him. A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman sat at a reception desk reading a glossy magazine.She looked as out of place as a nail salon in a cow pasture and she raised a face filled with undisguised suspicion.

“Is Clay McCann in?” Joe asked.

“Who are you?” she asked in a hard-edged East Coast accent.

“I’m Joe, this is Judy.”

“What do you want?”

“To see Clay McCann.”

“Sorry, he’s not in at the moment and you don’t have an appointment,” she said, running a lacquered nail down a calendar on her desk. Joe noted there were no appointments at all written on it.

“When will he be back?”

“He’s off making a call at the supermarket,” she said, apparentlyunaware how odd that sounded. “That takes him hours sometimes. So, Punch and Judy, if you want to meet with him you can schedule an appointment.”

“You’re his secretary?”

She performed what amounted to a dry spit take. “Secretary?Hardly. I’m Sheila D’Amato and I’m stuck in this one-horsetown. I’m filling in because his real secretary quit.”

Joe and Demming looked at each other. Joe didn’t want to wait, neither did Demming.

“We’ll be back,” Joe said, handing Sheila his card, as did Demming. He used the opportunity to steal a look through an open door behind Sheila into what was undoubtedly McCann’s office. One entire wall was filled with Montana statute books. There was a messy desk stacked high with unopened mail. On a credenza behind McCann’s desk were binders emblazoned with corporate names and logos: Allied, Genetech, BioCorp, Schroeder Engineering, EnerDyne. The names rang no bells, but the collection of them struck the same discordant note as Sheila.

“A game warden and a park ranger,” Sheila said, curling her lip with distaste. “Punch and Judy. I bet I know what you want to talk to him about.”

Outside, Joe paused on the sidewalk to scribble the company names into a notebook he withdrew from his pocket. While he did, Demming said, “Let’s go, Punch.”

“Why would he be making a call at the supermarket?” Demming asked as they cleared West Yellowstone. “I assume he’s using a pay phone. Why not just call from his office?”

“Probably thinks his lines are tapped,” Joe said. “Or he doesn’t want Sheila D’Amato to know what he’s up to.”

“What is he up to?”