In Plain Sight

23

ON MONDAY MORNING, JOE PULLED ON HIS RED UNIFORM shirt and jeans for perhaps the last time, called Maxine, and drove out into the breaklands to finish up the mule-deer trend count he had started weeks before.

As he cruised down the state highway, he kept a close watch on the blunt thunderheads advancing over the Bighorns. The clouds looked heavy and swollen with rain. “Come on,” he said aloud, “keep on rolling this way.” By his count, it had not rained in twenty-five days. Maxine thought he was talking to her and got excited.

He had one more quadrant to go before submitting his report. The area butted up against the property line of the upper Thunderhead Ranch, Hank’s half.

When his cell phone rang, Joe opened it and expected to hear “Hold for Director Pope.”

But it was Tony Portenson. “Hello, Joe.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Joe asked, keeping the sarcasm out of his voice and wishing that years before he hadn’t given his phone number to the FBI agent.

“We got a call from a contact in Idaho,” Portenson said. “Someone matching the description of Nate Romanowski was spotted at a Conoco station in Victor, headed east toward Wyoming. I was wondering if perhaps you’d seen your old friend recently.”

Joe felt himself smile, but kept the grin out of his voice. “No, I haven’t seen or heard from him.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Joe?”

“Nope, I don’t do that.”

Portenson sighed. “I guess you don’t. But you’ll keep me informed if he shows up, right?”

“Nope, probably not.”

“At least tell him I want to talk with him, okay?”

“I’m sure he knows that.”

“You’re not very helpful, Joe.”

“He’s my friend,” Joe said. Then he quickly changed the subject. “Did you ever find that guy you were looking for? The one who shot the cowboy?”

Portenson’s voice dropped. “He’s still at large. We faxed the information to the sheriff’s department but haven’t heard anything from him.”

“I’m not surprised,” Joe said.

Portenson said, “Tell Romanowski I haven’t forgotten about him.”

BY THE TIME Joe found the southeast corner of the quadrant, the dark clouds had redoubled in scale and continued their advance. Thirty miles away, he could see spouts of rain connecting the clouds to the earth, an illusion that made it look as though it were raining up. Rain in any form was a revelation.

“Keep on rolling,” he said again, wishing he could see the secrets and motivations of the people in the valley with the same long-distance clarity.

Instead of mule deer, he happened first on a herd of thirty pronghorn antelope grazing and picking their way in the distance across the tabletop flat of a butte. Their brown-and-white camouflage coloring, which worked for eight months of the year, failed them miserably against the pulsing green carpet of spring grass and made them stand out like highway cones.

Joe fixed his spotting scope to the top of his driver’s-side window and surveyed the pronghorn. Antelope almost always had twins, and the little ones were perfectly proportioned, despite their size, and within days were capable of running as fast as the adults. He loved to watch them play, chasing other newborns around, scampering between the legs of their mothers like shooting sparks.

Joe swung the telescope and found the lead buck. As always, he stood alone facing his herd, prepared at any moment to wade into the throng to enforce his will on them or punish transgressions. As Joe admired the buck through the scope a puff of dust and hair shot out of the buck’s neck and the animal crumpled and dropped. A rifle shot followed, pow-WHOP, the sound of a hit, echoing across the sagebrush. In the bottom of his scope view, Joe could see the buck kicking out violently, windmilling his legs in a death dance.

“Man!” Joe shouted, amazed at what had happened right in front of his eyes.

The rest of the herd ignited as one and were suddenly sweeping across the top of the butte leaving twenty-nine streams of dust that looked like vapor trails in their wake.

Angry, Joe jumped out of his pickup with his binoculars. Antelope season was four months away. Before raising the glasses to his eyes, he swept the hills, trying to see the shooter. Was it possible the poacher didn’t know the game warden was in the vicinity? No, Joe thought, the odds were totally against it. In a district of fifteen hundred square miles, the chance of his actually being there to see the kill in front of his eyes were infinitesimal. The act was a deliberate provocation, a direct challenge.

He followed the long line of three-strand barbed-wire fence that separated the public Bureau of Land Management land from the Thunderhead Ranch. The fence went on as far as he could see. But behind it—on a ridge, partially hidden by a fold in the terrain—was a light-colored pickup he didn’t recognize.

He raised the glasses and focused furiously.

The pickup came into view.

It was an older model, at least ten years old, light yellow, rust spots on the door. The description was familiar to him, but from where? He didn’t take the time to figure it out. The driver’s-side door was open, and the window was down. A rifle rested on the sill, still pointing in the general direction of the butte.

A man stepped out from behind the door and waved.

Bill Monroe.

He waved again at Joe in a goofy, come-on-y’all wave.

Then Monroe stepped away from the pickup, set his feet, and pulled out his penis: a flash of pink against blue jeans. He urinated a long stream into the dirt in front of him, then leaned back in an exaggerated way, pointed at Joe with his free hand, and Joe could read his lips as he shouted: “This is what I think of you, Joe Pickett.”

A THUNDERCLAP NOT unlike the sound of the rifle shot boomed across the breaklands followed by a long series of deep-throated rumbles. Joe could feel the temperature dropping even as he drove, as the clouds pulled across the sun like a curtain shutting out the light, muting light and shadow.

He had plunged his truck over the rise into the saddle slope of a valley in pursuit of Bill Monroe. There were no established roads that would get him from where he had seen the shooting, across the top of the butte, to the border of the Thunderhead Ranch, so Joe kept his left front tire in a meandering game trail that pointed vaguely toward Monroe’s pickup and let the right tires bounce through knee-high sagebrush. He was driving much faster than he should have, the engine straining. Maxine stood on the bench seat with her front paws on the dash, trying to keep balanced.

Damn him, Joe thought.

Joe hated poachers, and not simply because they were breaking the law he was sworn to enforce. He hated the idea of poaching—killing a creature for sport with no intention of eating the meat. Joe took poaching as a personal affront, and to see it happen this way, to be mocked by Bill Monroe in this way . . .

And Bill Monroe was not yet running. He was still up there, outside of his pickup, on the far ridge, outlined against the roiling dark clouds. Monroe had plenty of time and distance before Joe got there, and he was in no hurry.

Maybe he wouldn’t run at all. Maybe he would wait for Joe, and the two of them could have it out. Joe thought that sounded fine to him.

He was halfway across the saddle slope when three things happened at once:

His radio came to life, the dispatcher calling him directly by his code number, saying he was to call Director Randy Pope immediately off the air.

The check-engine light on the dashboard flickered and stayed on while the temperature-gauge needle shouldered hard into the red.

And the clouds opened up with a clash of cymbals and sheets of rain swept across the ground with such force that the first wave of rain actually raised dust as if it were strafing the ground.

BILL MONROE WAS still on the ridge, standing in the rain as if he didn’t know it was soaking him. Joe was closer now, close enough to see the leer on Monroe’s face, see his hands on his hips as he looked down at Joe climbing up the slope, aimed right at him.

A moment later, there was a pop under the hood of the engine and clouds of acrid green steam rolled out from under the pickup, through the grille, and into the cab through the air vents. The radiator hose has blown.

Joe cursed and slammed the dash with the heel of his hand. He stopped the truck and the engine died before he could turn the key.

JOE OPENED THE door and jumped out of his crippled pickup. Despite the opening salvos of rain, the ground was still drought dry; the moisture had not yet penetrated and was pooling wherever there was a low spot. The rainfall was steady and hard, stinging his bare hands.

Joe looked up the slope at Monroe.

“What’s wrong with your truck?” Monroe shouted down.

“You’re under arrest,” Joe shouted back.

“For what?”

“For killing that buck. I saw the whole thing.”

Monroe shook his head. “I didn’t kill no buck.”

“I saw you.”

“I don’t even own a rifle.”

“I saw you.”

“Your word against mine, I guess.”

“Yup.”

“I understand you’re pretty convincing when it comes to Judge Pennock,” Monroe said.

Joe felt a pang in his chest. So Monroe was well aware of the rejected search warrant.

The rain hammered the brim of Joe’s hat and an icy stream of it poured into his collar and snaked down along his backbone.

“Good thing your truck blew up,” Monroe said. “You would have been trespassing on private property.”

The fence line was just in front of Monroe, Joe saw.

Then Joe realized Monroe wanted him to come over there onto the Thunderhead, where access had been previously refused by Hank. What would Monroe have done when Joe crossed the line? What had been his plan?

IT WAS AN odd thing, how sometimes there could be a moment of absolute clarity in the midst of rampant chaos. With the rain falling hard, his vehicle disabled, the dispatcher calling for him, and Bill Monroe grinning at him from behind the fence, at least part of the picture cleared up. Portenson’s call had reminded him of something.

The truck Monroe was driving was light yellow, ten years old, with rust spots on the door. Where had that description come from? Then it hit him.

Joe looked up at Bill Monroe, who wasn’t really Bill Monroe.

“You know who I am now, don’t you?”

Oh, God. Joe felt a chill.

“You’re John W. Kelly,” he shouted, dredging up the name Special Agent Gary Child had told him.

Monroe snorted. “Close,” he said.

“You shot a cowboy in the Shirley Basin,” Joe said, suddenly thinking of the .40 Glock on his hip and the shotgun in his pickup. Up there on the ridge, Monroe had the drop on him.

Monroe laughed. “I didn’t shoot no cowboy, just like I didn’t shoot no antelope buck.”

“I saw you.”

“It’s just too damned bad your truck blew up,” Monroe said. “Another two hundred fifty feet and you woulda’ been on private property. Who knows what would have happened.”

Joe started to answer when Monroe backed away from the top of the ridge. In a moment, Joe heard an engine flare and the grinding of gears before the truck drove off, leaving him there.

JOE STOOD IN the rain, thinking, running scenarios through his mind. They kept getting worse.

He got back inside the cab with Maxine. Even though the motor wasn’t running the battery still worked, as did his radio. He even had a cell-phone signal, although it was weak.

BEFORE CALLING RANDY Pope, Joe reached Bud Longbrake on the ranch. Bud had a one-ton flatbed with a winch and he was much closer to where Joe was stranded than any of the tow-truck drivers in town. Bud agreed to come rescue Joe, bring his truck back, and even lend Joe a ranch vehicle in the meantime. Bud was positively giddy when Joe talked with him.

“This rain just makes me happy,” he said. Joe could tell Bud was smiling by his voice. “It hasn’t rained this hard in three years.”

ROBEY WASN’T IN his office when Joe called. His secretary said he was trapped in his house because a flash flood had taken out the bridge that crossed over to the highway from Robey’s property. She told Joe that Robey’s phone was down now as well, as were most of the telephones in the valley, because lightning had struck a transformer and knocked the service out.

“What about his cell?” Joe asked.

“You can call it, I guess,” she said. “But I can see his cell phone sitting on his desk in his office. He must have forgotten to take it home with him last night.”

Joe rolled his eyes with frustration. “Please have him call me the minute he makes contact,” Joe said. “It’s important.”

“Will do,” she said. “Isn’t this great, this rain? We really needed it.”

“Yes,” Joe said.

THE NEXT CALL was to the FBI office in Cheyenne. Joe asked for Tony Portenson and was told Portenson was away from his desk.

“Tony, this is Joe Pickett,” he said on Portenson’s voice mail. “Can you please fax or e-mail me the file on John Kelly? I may have a lead for you.”

FURTHER DELAYING THE inevitable, Joe speed-dialed the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department and asked for McLanahan.

“McLanahan.” He sounded harried, high-pitched, and out of breath.

“Joe Pickett, Sheriff. I’m broken down on the border of the Thunderhead Ranch where I just had an encounter with Bill Monroe, although I don’t think that’s really his name.”

“I’m lost,” McLanahan said.

You sure are, Joe thought. He outlined his theory and told McLanahan about the yellow pickup and the investigation by the FBI.

McLanahan was silent for a moment after Joe finished, then said, “Are you sure you aren’t just obsessed by the guy?”

“What?”

“He’s the one who pounded you, right?”

“What difference does that make? You’ve got a warrant out for his arrest, even if I’m wrong about the rest of it. Why don’t you drive out there and take the guy down?”

McLanahan sighed. “Have you looked outside recently?”

“I am outside.”

“It looks like a cow pissing on a flat rock, this rain. We’re in a state of emergency right now. You can’t dump three inches of rain on a county that’s dry as concrete and expect it to soak in. We’ve got flash floods everywhere. Bridges are out. In town the river has jumped the banks in at least three places. We’ve got a mess here, Joe. I’ve got truckloads of sandbags on the way from Gillette. I can’t do anything until we get it under control.”

Joe thought, Man, oh man.

“I’ve gotta go,” McLanahan said. “Somebody just saw a Volkswagen Beetle float down First Street.”

JOE BREATHED IN and out, in and out, then direct-dialed Randy Pope’s office. He got the evil receptionist. The gleeful tone in her voice when he introduced himself told Joe all he needed to know.

“I told you I needed a new truck,” Joe said when Pope came on the line. “Because of this lousy equipment you gave me, a poacher and murder suspect has gotten away.”

Pope’s voice was dry, barely controlled. “Joe, when I ask that you call in immediately, I mean immediately. Not when you get around to it.”

“I was in pursuit of a murder suspect,” Joe said. “I couldn’t stop and call in at the time.”

“That was an hour ago.”

“Yes, and I called as soon as I could. I need to get this broken-down truck towed out of the middle of nowhere.”

Pope sighed, then said, “I got a call from Arlen Scarlett, Joe.”

Joe sat back. “I figured you would.”

“We’ve now got official protests lodged against you from both Arlen and Hank Scarlett. Think about it. The only thing those two seem to agree on is that you are completely out of control, and that reflects on me. You’re wasting time on a case totally out of our purview while game violations are going on in the middle of town.”

“And you’re only too happy to side with them,” Joe said.

“You’re fired, Joe,” Pope snapped.

He heard the words he had been expecting to hear. Nevertheless, Joe still had trouble believing it was actually happening.

Pope’s voice rose as he continued. “As of today, Joe, you’re history. And don’t try to fight me on this. You’ll lose! I’ve got documentation stretching back six years. Threatening a legislator and Game and Fish commissioner with property destruction and bodily harm? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

“Do you really want to know or is that a rhetorical question?” Joe asked, his mouth dry.

“I won’t miss your cowboy antics,” Pope said. “This is a new era.”

“I’ve heard,” Joe said. He was tired of arguing with Pope. He felt defeated. The rain lashed at the windshield.

Pope transferred Joe to someone in personnel who outlined, in a monotone, what procedural steps were available for him to take if he wanted to contest the decision. Joe half listened, then punched off.

IT WAS THREE hours before Bud Longbrake showed up in his one-ton. The rain had increased in intensity, and it channeled into arroyos and draws, filling dry beds that had been parched for years, even rushing down the game trail in what looked like a river of angry chocolate milk.

Joe watched the one-ton start down the hill, then brake and begin to slide, the wheels not holding. Bud was driving, and he managed to reverse the vehicle and grind back up the hill before he slid to the bottom and got stuck. Bud flashed his headlights on and off.

Joe understood the signal. Bud couldn’t bring the one-ton all the way across the basin to pull the truck out.

“Fine,” Joe said, feeling like the embodiment of the subject of a blues song as he slid out of the truck into the mud carrying his shotgun, briefcase, and lunch and walked through the pouring rain to the one-ton with Maxine slogging along, head down, beside him.

“Fine!”