Open Season

Open Season

C.J. Box

Prologue

When a high-powered rifle bullet hits living flesh makes a distinctive-- pow WHOP sound that is unmistakable even at tremendous distance. There is rarely an echo or fading reverberation or the tailing rumbling hum that is the sound of a miss. The guttural boom rolls over the terrain but stops sharply in a close-ended way, as if jerked back. A hit is blunt and solid like an airborne grunt. When the sound is heard and identified, it isn't easily forgotten.

When Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett heard the sound, he was building a seven-foot elk fence on the perimeter of a rancher's haystack. He paused, his fencing pliers frozen in mid-twirl. Then he stepped back, lowered his head, and listened. He slipped the pliers into the back pocket of his jeans and took off his straw cowboy hat to wipe his forehead with a bandanna. His red uniform shirt stuck to his chest, and he felt a single, warm trickle of sweat crawl down his spine into his Wranglers.

He waited. He had learned over the years that it was easy to be fooled by sounds of any kind outside, away from town. A single, sharp crack heard at a distance could be a rifle shot, yes, but it could also be a tree falling, a branch snapping, a cow breaking through a sheet of ice in the winter, or the backfire of a motor.

"Don't confirm the first gunshot until you hear the second" was a basic tenet of the outdoors. Good poachers knew that, too. It tended to improve their aim.

In a way, Joe hoped he wouldn't hear a second shot. The fence wasn't done, and if someone was shooting, it was his duty to investigate. Joe had been on the job for a only a week, and he was hopelessly backlogged with work that had accumulated since the legendary Warden Vern Dunnegan had retired three months before. It was the state's responsibility to keep the elk herds out of private hay, and the pile of work orders on his desk for elk fence was nearly an inch high. Even if he built fence from dawn to dusk, he didn't see how he could possibly get it all done before hunting season started.

There was nothing really unusual about gunshots ringing out at any time of day or night or at any time of the year in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming. Everybody owned guns. A rancher could be shooting at a coyote, or some of the boys from town could be our sighting in their rifles on a target.

Pow-WHOP.

Joe's eyes swung northwest toward the direction of the second shot, toward the foothills of the mountains where outstretched fingers of timber reached down into the high sage that reflected blue in the heat. The shot had come from a long way, three to five miles.

Maxine, Joe's eight-year-old yellow Labrador, also heard the shot, and bounded from her pool of shadow under Joe's green Ford pickup. She knew it was time to go to work. Joe opened the passenger door with the Wyoming Game and Fish logo on it, and she leaped in. Before he closed the door, he unsheathed his Winchester .270 rifle and scope from its scabbard case behind the seat and fitted the rifle into the gun rack across the back window. His gun belt was coiled in a pile on the floorboard of the truck, so he picked it up and he buckled it on. Even though regulations dictated that he wear his sidearm at all times, Joe hated driving with his holster on because the heavy pistol jabbed him in the back.

As he climbed into the pickup, there were two more quick shots, one after the other. The first shot wafted across the brush and hay. The second was definitely another hit. Joe thought it was likely that at least two--and possibly three--animals were down.

Joe shoved the pickup into four-wheel drive and headed west toward the mountains, driving as fast as he could without losing control of the wheel.

There were no established roads, so he kept the left tires in a cow track while the right wheels bounced through knee-high, then thigh-high, sagebrush. Maxine leaned into the windshield with both of her large paws on the dashboard, balancing against the violent pitching of the terrain. Her tongue swung from side to side and spattered the dashboard with dog spit.

"Get ready," Joe told her--although for what he didn't know.

They plunged into a dry wash and ground up out of it, the tires independently grabbing dirt and shooting plumes of dust into the air. Joe nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel as it wrenched hard to the right and left, then he regained control and powered up a brushy slope. His mouth was dry, and he was, quite frankly, very scared.

A game Warden in the field rarely encountered anyone who wasn't armed. Hunters, of course, had rifles, shotguns, and sidearms. Hikers, fishers, and campers all too often were packing. Even archery hunters had bows capable of rocketing a razor-sharp broad-head arrow through his pickup door. But that was during hunting season. This was the middle of summer, and there were no seasons open. The only kind of people who would be knocking down big animals now would be poachers or cattle rustlers, and either could be desperate and dangerous if caught in the act.

Joe Pickett topped the small hill and quickly sized up the situation: three large buck mule deer were dead, lying on their sides, on the bottom of the saddle slope. Their throats had been cut to bleed them, but they hadn't been opened up yet to field dress. A bearded man wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a King Ropes cap straddled the largest of the bucks. He was a big man, built solidly with thick arms and a barrel chest. His T-shirt read happiness Is A warm gut pile. He outweighed Joe by at least 40 pounds, but he didn't seem menacing, only very upset with the fact that he had been caught. He held a dripping knife in his hand. His rifle was propped up in a tall sagebrush about 50 feet away from him. He appeared not to have a sidearm. His pickup, a battered three quarter-ton GMC, nosed out of the timber on the opposite slope.

He squinted up at Joe's pickup and his face fell open.

"Oh, fuck me," the man said, loud enough for Joe to hear over the whine of the engine.

Joe drove quickly down the hill and positioned his Ford between the man and the rifle so the poacher couldn't lunge for it. Joe got out, told Maxine to stay, and approached the man and the downed deer.

"Please drop the knife," Joe asked, sizing up the deer and the poacher. The poacher tossed the knife aside into the grass. Joe saw no reason to draw his revolver. Joe rarely found a reason to draw his weapon, and even if he did, he doubted he could hit anything with it. Joe was a notoriously bad pistol shot at any range, the worst in his class.

"You're about four months early for deer season, you know," Joe said. He now recognized the man, a local outfitter named Ote Keeley. Joe had seen his photo and a reference request for an outfitter's license on his desk his first day on the job.

Ote sighed. "Meat for the pot, warden. Just meat for the pot. Some of us got a family to feed." Ote had a deep Southern accent. Joe couldn't identify the state.

Joe squatted over the nearest and largest buck deer and ran his fingers over the soft velvet that still covered the antlers.

"Seems to me you didn't have to kill the only trophies in the herd just to fill your freezer." He looked up at Ote Keeley, his eyes hard. "A meat hunter would have probably been happy with a big dry doe or two."

Joe knew there was a black market for antlers in velvet, and that racks this size would command thousands of dollars in Asia where they were thought to possess healing powers as well as serve as an aphrodisiac when ground up and ingested.

"I'm going to have to write you up. Ote Keeley, isn't it?"

Ote was genuinely surprised. His face flushed red. "You're gosh-darned kidding me, right?" Ote asked, as if avoiding an additional ticket for cursing.

Joe stood and pulled his ticket book out of his back pocket and flipped it open.

"No, I'm not kidding."

Ote stepped toward Joe over the downed deer he was straddling.

"Hey--I know you. You're the brand-new game warden, ain't you?"

Joe nodded and began to fill out the citation. "I heard about you. Everybody has. You're the bonehead who arrested the governor of Wyoming for fishing without a license, right?"

Joe could feel his neck getting hot. "I didn't know he was the governor," Joe said, wishing he hadn't said anything.

Ote Keeley laughed and slapped his thigh.

"Didn't know he was the governor," Ote repeated. "I read about that in the paper. Everybody did.

"Rookie Game Warden Arrests Governor Budd."" Ote turned serious: "Hey, you're not really going to ticket me, are you? I'm a professional hunting outfitter. I can't feed my family if my outfitter's license gets pulled. I'm not kidding. I'm sure we can work this out."

Joe looked up at Ote Keeley.

"I'm not kidding, either. Now give me your driver's license."

It was as if Ote Keeley, for the first time, realized what was really happening. Joe was amazed at the man's almost staggering stupidity. Joe caught Ote glancing toward where he had left his rifle.

"There's more animals in Wyoming than people," Ote spat. "These critters won't be missed by anyone. That herd ran nearly thirty. Vern Dunnegan wouldn't have pulled this shit."

"I'm not Vern Dunnegan." Joe said, hiding his surprise about what Ote had said about his predecessor and mentor.

"You sure as hell ain't," Ote Keeley said bitterly, as he pulled his wallet out of his jeans and held it out for Joe. As Joe reached for it, Ote grabbed Joe's arm and jerked it past him, throwing Joe off balance. Ote had Joe's revolver out of the holster before he could recover.

For a brief second, Joe Pickett and Ote Keeley stared at each other in genuine surprise, then Ote raised the pistol and aimed it squarely at Joe's face.

"Uh-oh, look what just happened," Ote said, a little in awe.

"I would suggest you give that back," Joe answered, trying to keep his face from twitching. He was terrified. "Give it back and we'll call it even."

Ote Keeley smoothly cocked the hammer of the revolver. Joe watched the cylinder rotate. Dull noses of lead filled each chamber, and the mouth of the barrel was black and huge, gaping. Ote wrapped his other hand around the grip, steadying his aim.

"Now we're in really, really fucking deep," Ote said, more to himself than anybody.

Joe thought of his daughters, Sheridan and Lucy, both at home, probably playing outside in the backyard. He thought of his wife, Marybeth, who had always feared that something like this would happen.

Then Joe's entire consciousness, his entire being, focused on one simple question: would he die with his eyes open or closed?

PART ONE

FINDINGS, PURPOSES, AND POLICY

(b) Purposes. The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in subsections of this section.

--The Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1982 Printed for the use of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works US Government Printing Office Washington: 1983

Joe lived, but it wasn't something he was particularly proud of. It was now fall and Sunday morning dawned slate gray and cold. He was making pancakes for his girls when he first heard of the bloody beast who had come down from the mountains and tried to enter the house during the night.

Seven-year-old Sheridan Pickett related her dream aloud to the stuffed bear that served as her confidant. Lucy, three and horrified, listened in. The television set was on even though the reception from the vintage satellite dish was snowy and poor, as usual.

The monster, Sheridan said, had come down from the mountains through the dark, steep canyon behind the house very late last night. She watched it through a slit in the curtain on her window, just a few inches from the top bunk other bed. The canyon was where Sheridan had always suspected a monster would come from, and she felt proud, if a bit fearful, that she had been right. The only light had been the moon through the dried leaves of the cottonwood tree. The monster had rattled the back gate before figuring out the latch and had then lurched clumsily (sort of like mummies in old movies) across the yard to the backdoor. Its eyes and teeth glinted yellow, and for a second, Sheridan felt an electric bolt jolt through her as the monster's head swiveled around and seemed to looked directly at her before it fled. The monster was hairy and shiny, as if covered with liquid. Twigs and leaves were stuck to it. There was something white, a large sack or box, swinging from the monster's hand.

"Sheridan, stop talking about monsters," Joe called out. The dream disturbed him because the details were so precise. Sheridan's dreams were usually more fantastic, inhabited by talking pets or magical things that flew.

"You're going to scare your little sister."

"I'm already scared," Lucy declared, pulling her blanket to her mouth.

"Then the man walked slowly away across the yard through the gate toward the woodpile where he fell down into a big shadow. And he's still out there," Sheridan finished, widening her eyes toward her sister to deliver the complete effect.

"Hold it, Sheridan," Joe said abruptly, entering the room with a spatula in his hand. Joe was wearing his threadbare terry-cloth bathrobe he had purchased on a lark in Jackson Hole on his and Marybeth's honeymoon ten years before. He shuffled in fleece slippers that were a size too large.

"You said 'man'." You didn't say 'monster'." You said 'man'." Sheridan looked up quizzically, her big eyes wide.

"Maybe it was a man. Maybe it wasn't a dream after all."

Joe heard a Vehicle outside, racing up the gravel Bighorn Road much too fast, but by the time he crossed the living room and parted the faded drapes of the front picture window, the car or truck was gone. Dust rolled lazily down the road where it had been.

Beyond the window was the front yard, still green from summer and littered with plastic toys. Then there was the white fence, recently painted, paralleled by the gravel road. Farther, beyond the road, the landscape dipped into a willow-choked saddle where the Twelve Sleep River branched out into six fingers clogged with beaver ponds and brackish mosquito-heaven eddies and paused for a breath before its muscular rush through and past the town of Saddlestring.

Beyond were the folds of the valley as it arched and suddenly climbed to form a precipitous mountain-face known as Wolf Mountain, a peak in the Twelve Sleep Range. With Wolf Mountain in front of them and the foothills and canyon in back, the Pickett family, eight miles from town in their house, lived a life of deep and casting shadows.

The front door opened and Maxine burst in, followed by Marybeth. Marybeth's cheeks were flushed--either from the brisk cold air or her long walk with the dog, Joe wasn't sure which--and she looked annoyed. She wore her winter walking uniform of lightweight hiking boots, chinos, anorak, and wool hat. The anorak was stretched tight across her pregnant belly.

"It's cold out there," Marybeth said, peeling the hat off so her blond hair tumbled onto her shoulders.

"Did you see that truck tear by here? That was Sheriff Barnum's truck going too fast on that road up to the mountains."

"Barnum?"Joe said, genuinely puzzled.

"And your dog was going nuts when we got back to the house. She nearly took my arm off just a minute ago." Marybeth unclipped Maxine's leash from her collar, and Maxine padded to her water dish and drank sloppily.

Joe had a blank expression on his face while he was thinking. The expression sometimes annoyed Marybeth, who was afraid people would think him simple. It was the same expression, in a photograph, that had been transmitted throughout the region via the Associated Press when Joe, while still a trainee, had arrested a tall man--who turned out to be the new governor of Wyoming--for fishing without a license.

"Where did Maxine want to go?" he asked.

"She wanted to go out back," she said. "Toward the woodpile."

Joe turned around. Sheridan and Lucy had paused at breakfast and were looking to him. Lucy looked away and resumed eating. Sheridan held his gaze, and she nodded triumphantly.

"Better take your gun," Sheridan said.

Joe managed a grin. "Eat your breakfast," he said.

"What's this all about?" Marybeth asked.

"Bloody monsters," Sheridan said, her eyes wide. "There's a bloody monster in the woodpile."

Suddenly, there was the roar of motors coming up Bighorn Road from Saddlestring.

Joe was thinking exactly what Marybeth said next: "Something's going on. I wonder why nobody called here?"

Joe lifted the telephone receiver to make sure it was working, the dial tone echoed clearly into his ear.

"Maybe it's because you're the new guy. People here still can't get used to the fact that Vern Dunnegan isn't around anymore," Marybeth said, and Joe knew instantly she wished she could take it back.

"Dad, about that monster?" Sheridan said from the table, almost apologetic.

Joe buckled his holster over his bathrobe, clamped on his black Stetson, and stepped outside onto the back porch. He was surprised how cool and crisp it was this early in the fall. When he saw the large spatters of dried blood between his oversized fleece slippers, the chill suddenly became more pronounced. Joe pulled his revolver and broke the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

Framed in the dining room window were Sheridan and Lucy. Marybeth stood behind them and off to the side. His three girls in the window were various stages of the same painfully beautiful blond and willowy female. Their green eyes were on him, and their faces were wide open. He knew how silly he must look. He couldn't tell if they could see what he could: splashes of blood on the ancient concrete walkway that halved the yard and crushed frozen grass where it appeared that someone--or something--had rolled. It looked almost like the night nesting place of a large deer or elk the way the grass and crisp autumn leaves had been flattened.

Grasping the pistol in front of him with both hands, Joe skirted a young pine and stepped through the open gate of the weathered fence to the place where the woodpile was. Joe sucked in his breath and involuntarily stepped back, his ears filled with the whumping sound of his own heart beating.

A big, bearded man was sprawled across the woodpile, both of his large hands folded across his belly, palms down, and one leg cocked over a stump. The man's head rested on a log, his mouth parted just enough to show two rows of yellow teeth that looked like corn on the cob. His eyelids weren't completely shut, and where there should have been a moist reflection from his eyes there was instead a dull, dry membrane that looked like crinkled cellophane. His long hair and full beard was matted by blood into crude dreadlocks. The man wore a thick beige chamois shirt and jeans, and broad stripes of dark blood had coursed down both. It was Ote Keeley, and Ote looked dead.

Joe reached out and touched Ore's meaty, pale white hand. The skin was cold and did not give to the touch. Except for the dried blood in his hair and on his clothes and his waxy skin, Ote looked to be very comfortable. He could have been reclining in his La-Z Boy, having a beer and watching the Bronco game on television.

Clutched in one of Ote Keeley's hands was the handle of a small plastic cooler minus the lid. Joe kneeled down and looked into the cooler, which was empty except for a scatter of small teardrop-shaped animal excrement. The inside walls of the cooler were scratched and scarred, as if clawed. Whatever had been in there had been manic about getting out, and it had succeeded.

Joe stood and saw the extra buckskin horse standing near the corral. The horse was saddled, and the reins hung down from the bridle. The horse had been ridden hard and had lost enough weight that the cinch slipped and the saddle hung loose and upside down.

Joe stared at Ote's blank face, recalling that day in June when Ote had pointed Joe's own pistol at his face and cocked the hammer. Even though Ote had thought better of it and had sighed theatrically and spun the weapon around butt-first with his finger in the trigger guard like the Lone Ranger, Joe had never quite been the same. He had been expecting to die at that moment, and for all practical purposes he deserved to die, having given up his weapon so stupidly.

But it hadn't happened. Joe had holstered his revolver with his hands shaking so badly that the barrel of the revolver rattled around the mouth of the holster. His knees had been so weak that he backed up against his pickup to brace him self so he wouldn't collapse. Ote had simply watched him with a bemused expression on his face. Without a word, Joe had written out the citation for poaching in a shaking scrawl and handed the ticket to Ote Keeley, who took it and stuffed it in his pocket without even looking at it.

"I won't say nothin' if you don't about what just happened," Ote had said.

Joe hadn't acknowledged the offer, but he hadn't arrested Ote either. The deal had been struck: Ote's silence in exchange for Joe's life and career. It was a deal Joe agonized over later, usually late at night. Ote Keeley had taken something from him that he could never get back. In a way, Ote Keeley had killed Joe, just a little bit. Joe hated him for that, although he never said a word to anyone except Marybeth. What made it worse was when word of the incident filtered out anyway.

During the summer Ote had gotten drunk and told everyone at the bar what had happened. The story about the new game warden losing his weapon to a local outfitter had joyously made the rounds, and it even appeared in the wicked anonymous column "Ranch Gossip" that ran in the weekly Saddlestring Roundup. It was the kind of story the locals loved. In the latest version, Joe had lost control of his sphincter and had begged Ote for the gun back. Joe's supervisor in Cheyenne heard the rumors and had called Joe. Joe confirmed what had actually happened. In spite of Joe's explanation, the supervisor sent Joe a reprimand that would stay in his personnel file forever. An investigation was still possible.

Keeley's poaching trial date had been set to take place in two weeks, but obviously Ote wouldn't be appearing. Ote Keeley was the first dead person Joe had ever seen except in a coffin at a funeral. There was nothing alive or real about Ote's expression. He did not look happy, puzzled, sad, or in pain. The look on his face--frozen by death and for several hours--told Joe nothing about what Ote was thinking or feeling when he died. Joe fought an urge to reach up and close Ote's eyes and mouth, to make him look more like he was sleeping. Joe had seen a lot of dead big game animals, but only the stillness and the salt-ripe odor was the same. When he saw dead animals, he had many different emotions, depending on the circumstances--from indifference to pity and sometimes to quiet rage aimed at careless hunters. This was different, Joe thought, because the dead body was human and could be him. Joe made himself stop staring.

Joe stood up. There had been a monster. He heard something and turned around.

The backdoor slammed shut, and Sheridan was coming out in her nightgown, skipping down the walk with her hands in the air to see what he had found.

"Get BACK into that house!" Joe commanded with such unexpected force that Sheridan spun on her bare feet and flew right back inside.

On his way through the house and to the phone, Joe told Marybeth who the dead man was.

Of course, County Sheriff O. R. "Bud" Barnum wasn't in when Joe called the dispatch center in Saddlestring. According to the dispatcher--a chain-smoking conspiracy buff named Wendy--neither was Deputy McLanahan. Both, she said, had responded to an emergency that morning in a Forest Service campground in the mountains.

"Some campers reported seeing a wounded man on horseback ride straight through their camp last night," Wendy told Joe. "They said the suspect allegedly rode his horse right through their camp while displaying a weapon and threatening the campers with said weapon."

Joe could tell that Wendy loved this situation, loved being in the center of the action, loved telling Joe about it, loved saying things like "allegedly" and "said weapon." She did not get a chance to use those words often in Twelve Sleep County.

"I called out the entire sheriff's office and both emergency medical vehicles at seven-twelve a.m. this morning to respond."

"Did you get a description of the man on horseback?" Joe asked. Wendy paused on the telephone, then read from the report:

"Late thirties, wearing a beard, bloody shirt. A big man. Crazy eyes, they said. The suspect was allegedly swinging some kind of plastic box or cooler around."

Joe leaned his chair back so he could see out of the small room near the front door that served as his office. Both girls were still lined up at the back window, looking out. Marybeth hovered behind them, trying to draw their attention away by rattling a box of pretzels the same way she would shake dog biscuits at Maxine to get her to come into the house.

"Why wasn't I called?" Joe inquired calmly. "I live on the Bighorn Road."

There was no response. Finally: "I never even thought about it." Joe recalled what Marybeth had said about Vern Dunnegan but said nothing. "Sheriff Barnum didn't mention it neither," Wendy said defensively.

"The injured man was displaying and threatening a weapon with one hand and swinging a plastic box with the other?" Joe asked. "How did he steer his horse?"

"That's what the report says." Wendy sniffed. "That's what the campers reported. They was out-of-staters. From Massachusetts or Boston or some place like that."

She said the last part as if it explained away the inconsistency.

"Which campground?" Joe persisted. "It says here they was at Crazy Woman Creek."

Crazy Woman was the last developed U.S. Forest Service campground on Bighorn Road, a place generally used as a jumping-off site for hikers and horse-packers entering the mountains.

"Are you in radio contact with Sheriff Barnum?" Joe asked.

"I believe so."

"Why don't you give him a call and let him know that the man on horseback was Ote Keeley and that Ote is lying dead on my woodpile behind the house."

Joe could hear Wendy gasp, then try to regain her composure. "Say again?" she replied.

Joe hung up the telephone and started for the backdoor.

"You're not going back out there?" Sheridan whispered.

"Just for a minute," Joe said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.

He shut the door behind him and slowly walked toward the body of Ote Keeley, his eyes sweeping across the yard, taking in the bloodstained walk, the woodpile, the canyon mouth behind the house. He wanted a clear picture of everything as it was right now, before the sheriff and deputies arrived. He didn't want to screw up again.

Squatting near the plastic cooler, Joe drew two empty envelopes and a pencil from the pocket on his robe. Using the tip of the eraser, Joe flicked several small pieces of scat from the cooler into an envelope. He would send that to headquarters for analysis. He gathered several more pieces of scat and put them in another envelope. He sealed both and put them back in his pocket. He left the rest for the sheriff.

Back in the house, Joe dressed in his day-to-day uniform: blue jeans and his red, button-up chamois shirt with the pronghorn antelope patch on the sleeve. Over the breast pocket was his name plate, which read game warden and under that J. Pickett.

When he came downstairs, the girls were sprawled in front of the snowy television, and Marybeth was sitting at the table flanked by dirty dishes. She held a big mug of coffee in her hands and stared at something in the air between them. Her eyes raised until they met Joe's.

"It'll be okay," Joe said, forcing a smile. He asked Marybeth to gather up the children and some clothes and go into Saddlestring. They could check into a motel until this was over and the backyard was cleaned up. He didn't want the kids seeing the dead man. Sheridan's dreams were already vivid enough.

"Joe, who will pay for the room? Will the state pay for it?" Marybeth asked softly so the children couldn't hear.

"You mean we can't?" Joe replied, incredulous. She shook her head no. Marybeth kept the meager family budget under a tight rein. It was the end of the month.

She would know if they were broke, and apparently that was the case. Joe felt his face flush. Maybe they could stay with somebody? Joe dismissed that. While they had made a few friends in town, they were still new, and he didn't know who they could call to ask this kind of favor.

"Can we use the credit card?" he asked.

"Nearly maxed out." She said. "It might work for a night or two, though."

He felt another wave of heat wash up his neck.

"I'm sorry, honey," he mumbled. He fitted his dusty black hat on his head and went outside to wait.

***

After inoaSUrillO, marking, and photographing, the deputies sealed off the woodpile with yellow crime scene tape and unfurled a body bag.

Joe stationed himself outside with his back to the window so no one who looked out could see the deputies bend Ote Keeley into the bag, folding his stiff arms and legs inside so they could zip it up and carry it away. Ote was heavy, and the middle part of the bag hummed along the top of the grass as the deputies took the body out of the yard and around the side of the house to the ambulance.

Sheriff O. R. "Bud" Barnum had arrived first and had briskly ordered Joe to show him where Ote Keeley's body was. Despite his age, Barnum still moved with speed and stiff grace. His pale blue eyes were set in a pallid leather face and rimmed with paper-thin flaps of skin. Joe watched as the blue eyes swept the scene.

Joe had expected questions and was prepared for them. He informed Barnum that he had gathered the scat evidence to send to headquarters, but Barnum had waved him off.

"Yup, that's Ote all right," Barnum had said, before returning to his Blazer.

"You'll write up a report on it?" Joe nodded yes. That was all there was. No questions, no notes. Joe was surprised and felt useless. From the side of the house, Joe observed the sheriff as he held the mike of his police scanner to his mouth with one hand and gestured in the air with the other. By his movements, Joe could tell that Barnum was becoming frustrated with somebody or something. So was Joe, but he tried not to show it.

Joe went inside the house. Marybeth watched him nervously from her place on the couch.

"Is it gone?" she asked, referring to the body. She didn't want to say Ote's name.

Joe assured her that it was.

She was pale, Joe noticed. Her face was drawn tight. Marybeth rubbed her hand across her extended belly. She didn't realize she was doing it. He remembered the gesture from before, when she was pregnant with Sheridan and then Lucy. It was something she did when she felt that things were on the verge of chaos. She held her arms across her unborn baby as if to shield it from whatever unpleasantness was happening outside. Marybeth was a good mother, Joe thought, and she reared the children with care. She resented it when outside events intruded on her family without her prior consent, permission, or planning.

"He's the guy who took your gun a while back," Marybeth said with dawning realization.

"I've met his wife. In the obstetrician's office. She's at least five months along also." She grimaced. "They have a little one about Sheridan's age and I think one younger. Those poor kids ..."

Joe nodded and poured some coffee in a mug to deliver to Sheriff Barnum out in his Blazer.

"I just wish it wouldn't have happened here," Marybeth said. "I know these things happen but why did he have to come here, to our house? Right to our house?"

It's not our house, Joe said to himself. It belongs to the State of Wyoming. We just live here. But Joe didn't say that and instead went out the front door after a quick "I'll be right back."

Barnum was signing off from a conversation, and he angrily hung up the microphone in its cradle on the dashboard. Joe handed him the cup of coffee, and Barnum took it without a word.

"What we know so far is that Keeley went into the mountains with two other guides to scout for elk and set up their camp last Thursday," Barnum said, not looking directly at Joe.

"They have an outfitters camp up there somewhere. They weren't expected back until tomorrow so nobody had missed them yet."

"Who were the other guides?" Joe asked.

"Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes," Barnum replied, finally looking at him.

"You know 'em?"

Joe nodded. "I've run into them a few times. Their names have come up along with Ote Keeley s in connection with a poaching ring. But nobody's caught them doing anything as far as I know." Joe had once had a beer in the Stockman Bar with both of them. They were both in their mid-thirties, and both mountain-man throwback types. Lensegrav was tall and thin, and he wore thick glasses mounted on a hooked nose. He had a scraggle of blond beard. Mendes was short and stout, with dark eyes and a charming, flashbulb smile. Pickett had heard that Mendes and Ote Keeley had been in the army together and that they had both served in Desert Storm.

"Well, nobody's seen Lensegrav or Mendes," Barnum continued. "My guess is that they're trying like hell to get out of state because they shot their good old pal Ote Keeley right in the chest a couple of times, for whatever reason."

"Or they're still up in the mountains," Joe said.

"Yup." Barnum paused, pursing his lips.

"Or that. The word is out to the Highway Patrol statewide to watch out for 'em. Problem is I don't know yet what they're driving. Keeleys truck and horse trailer are up at Crazy Woman Creek where they left it. We're trying to find out if one of them took a vehicle up there as well."

Joe nodded at Barnum and said "Hmmmm." There was an uncomfortable minute of silence.

Sheriff Barnum was an institution in Twelve Sleep County, and he had been in office for 24 years. He rarely had opposition when he ran for election, and in the few times he had, he'd taken 70 percent of the vote. He was a hands-on sheriff, involved in everything from civic organizations to officiating at high school football and basketball games. He knew everybody in the county, and they in turn knew and respected him. Very little got by Sheriff Barnum. Over the years, he had become a storied and colorful character. Specific incidents had become legend. He had put a .357 magnum bullet into the eyebrow of a ranch foreman who had just used an irrigation shovel to bludgeon to death his own mother, brother, and a Mexican hired hand. He had taken Polaroid snapshots of cows who had apparently been mutilated by alien beings who had arrived on earth in cigar-shaped flying objects. He had arrested a Basque sheepherder in his sheep wagon and confiscated a ewe named Maria that had been dyed pink. He had once turned back two dozen Hell's Angels en route to Sturgis, South Dakota, by firing up a 24-inch chain saw while straddling the yellow line on the highway.

"Your office should have called me this morning," Joe said abruptly. "I was closer to the scene than anyone else."

Barnum sipped the coffee and squinted at Joe as if sizing Joe up for the first time.

"You're right," Barnum answered. Then: "Wasn't it Ote Keeley who took your gun away from you while you were giving him a citation?"

"Yes, it was," Joe replied, feeling his ears flush hot.

"Strange he came here," Barnum said.

Joe nodded.

"Maybe he wanted to take your gun away from you again." Barnum smiled crookedly to show he was joking. Barnum was wily, no doubt about it. Joe hardly knew the sheriff, but Barnum had already tweaked one of his weak spots. There was a moment of hesitation before Joe asked if Barnum planned to investigate the elk hunting camp.

"I would, but right now I'm screwed," Barnum said, banging the dashboard with his fist.

"That camp is in a roadless area so we can't get to it. Our chopper's on loan to the Forest Service so they can fight that fire down in the Medicine Bow Forest. Tomorrow night's the earliest we could get it back.

"And my horse posse guys are all in the mountains already because they're all getting' ready to go hunting." Barnum looked over at Joe, exasperated. "We can't get to that camp unless we hoof it, and I'm not walking."

Joe thought it over for a moment. "I know a guy who knows where that elk camp is located, and I've got a couple of horses."

Barnum began to object, then caught himself. "Well, I don't see why not, since you're volunteering. How soon could you get going?"

Joe rubbed his jaw. "This afternoon. I've got to fetch my horse trailer and get outfitted, but I'm pretty sure I could get on the trail by about two or three."

"Take my guy McLanahan," Barnum said. "I'll get on the radio and tell him to grab his saddle and some heavy artillery and get his lazy butt out here. You guys might run into some bad business up there, and I want to make sure you've got 'em outgunned."

Barnum grabbed his microphone but halted before he spoke into it.

"Who is it who knows where that hunting camp is?" Barnum asked.

"Wacey Hedeman,"Joe replied.

"Wacey Hedeman?" Barnum hissed. "He's declared that he's going to run against me in the next election, that blow-dried son of a bitch."

Joe shrugged. Wacey was the game warden in the next district but had patrolled in the Twelve Sleep area temporarily after Vern left and before Joe was assigned the position. Wacey had once mapped out all of the licensed outfitters' elk camps along the Crazy Woman drainage.

"Goddamnit," Barnum spat vehemently. "I hate it when things turn cowboy." Barnum cursed again, then turned away to radio his dispatcher.

Wacey didn't answer the telephone in his home office and didn't respond to the radio call, but Joe had a good idea where to find him. Before he left in the truck to find Wacey, he kissed Marybeth and his girls good-bye. Lucy gave him a bored kiss. She didn't approve of him leaving the house at any time for any reason, and this was how she showed it. Because she was so much younger and was wise beyond her years--she had absorbed, as if by osmosis, many of the lessons her older sister had learned the hard way--Joe often treated Lucy as a fellow adult conspirator, fighting the many emerging preadolescent forces other animated older sister.

Sheridan and Lucy were confused by why they had to leave their house. Marybeth was telling them how exciting it would be to stay in a motel, but they weren't yet convinced.

Joe stopped at the door and turned back. Sheridan was watching him closely.

"You okay, honey?" Joe asked her.

"I'm okay, Dad."

"Next time you say you see a monster, I'm going to believe you."

"Okay, Dad."

"You remember who's coming tomorrow night, don't you?" Marybeth asked.

He had not thought about it at all with everything that had happened that morning.

"Your mother."

"My mother," Marybeth echoed. "So we'll be back in the house by then. Hopefully, you will, too."

Joe grimaced.

***

While her mother PaCked a suitcase in the bedroom, Sheridan did exactly what she had been told not to do and went to the dining room window to watch. However, before she did, she made sure that Lucy was still wrapped in her blanket on the floor watching television. Lucy would gladly tell

on her older sister.

The man her dad called Sheriff Barnum stood in the yard near the woodpile, and another man wearing the same kind of policeman's uniform--he was younger than Sheriff Barnum but still old, like her dad--stood near him. The sheriff stood with his back to the woodpile, pointing toward the mountains and talking. His arm swept along the top of the mountains and up the road, and the younger man's eyes followed the gesture. Sheridan couldn't hear what the sheriff was saying.

At one point, the sheriff walked from the woodpile to the house. He stopped squarely in front of Sheridan at the window, and Sheridan was too scared to move. Over his shoulder, to the other man, the sheriff called out the number of paces he had measured. Before turning back, he had looked down and grinned at her. It had been a kind of "get out of my way, kid" smile. Sheridan wasn't sure she liked Sheriff Barnum. She didn't like his pale eyes. She didn't like cigarettes, either, and even through the screen in the window she could smell them on his uniform.

As Sheriff Barnum returned to the woodpile, Sheridan thought about how surprised she was that this thing had happened. How could it be that what she had thought the night before was a monster from her "overactive imagination" (as her mom called it) had turned out to be real. It was as if her dream world and the real world had merged for this event. Suddenly, adults were involved. She had had a strange notion: what if her imagination was so powerful that she could dream things into existence? But she decided this wasn't the case. If it was, she would have brought forth something much nicer than this. Like a pet-- a real pet of her own.

Sheriff Barnum took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shook them, and flipped one up into his mouth. It was a neat trick, she thought. She had never seen it before. The man with Sheriff Barnum reached over and lighted the sheriff's cigarette for him. A great roll of white smoke grew around the sheriff's head.

Sheridan wore her glasses. She wished now she would have had her glasses on the night before, so she could have seen the man's face in detail when he looked at her. If she would have seen him clearly, she would have trusted her own mind over her imagination and run to her parents' room instead of convincing herself that she had a nightmare about monsters coming down from the mountains.

She loved that she could see clearly now but hated the fact that she was the only student in her class who had to wear glasses. Her first day of school at Twelve Sleep Elementary was also her first day wearing glasses. She would never forget how tall she seemed to be when she looked down or how awkward she felt when she walked. The chalkboard and the words on it were in such sharp focus that they hurt her eyes. It was bad enough that she was one of the new girls in school, and the rude girls had already grouped her into a category called "Weird Country" that was made up of students who lived out of town. Or that she could already read books and say poetry she had memorized while they struggled with sentences. But on top of all of that, she also had to show up wearing glasses.

And she was the new game warden's daughter in a place where the local game warden was a big deal because nearly everyone's dad hunted. It was understood that Sheridan's dad could put others in jail. So far, in the two weeks since school had begun, she had absolutely no friends in the second-grade class.

Sheridan's only friends were her animals, had been her animals, and they had all disappeared. The loss of her cat, Jasmine, had devastated her. She had cried and prayed for Jasmine to come back, but she didn't. She begged her parents for another pet to love, but they said she would have to wait until she got a little older. They told her she would have to get a fish or a bird in a cage, something that didn't go outside or into the hills behind the house. She had overheard her dad telling her mom about coyotes (although she wasn't supposed to know), and she had figured out that her cat Jasmine had been eaten. Just like her puppy before that. But while those pets were nice, they weren't what she needed. She wanted a pet to cuddle with. She wished she had a secret pet, one that neither her parents, the rude girls at school, or the coyotes knew about. A secret pet that was just hers. A pet she could love and who would love her for who she was: a lonely girl who had moved from place to place before she could make friends and who had a little sister who was too adorable for words and a baby on the way who would command most of her parents' love and attention for ... maybe forever.

Then she saw something outside that quickly brought her back to earth. Something had moved in the woodpile; something tan and lightning fast had streaked across the bottom row of logs and darted into a dark opening near the base between two lengths of wood.

The sheriff and the younger man were still talking, and they had their backs to the fence and the woodpile. What she had seen was just behind them, only a few feet away, but it didn't look like they had noticed anything. They hadn't even turned around. She could see nothing now. A ground squirrel? Too big. A marmot? Too sleek and fast. She had never seen this kind of animal before, and she knew every inch of that yard and every creature in it. She even knew where the nest of tiny field mice was and had studied the wriggling pink naked mouse babies before their eyes opened. But this animal was long and thin, and it moved like a bolt of lightning.

Sheridan gasped and jumped when her Mom spoke her name sharply behind her. Sheridan turned around quickly but her mom was looking sternly at her and not at the woodpile through the window. Sheridan didn't say a word when her mom guided her away from the window, through the house, and to the car.

As her mom backed out of the driveway and Lucy sang a nonsense song, Sheridan watched over her shoulder through the back car window as the house got smaller. As they crested the first hill toward town, the little house was the size of a matchbox.

Behind the matchbox house, Sheridan thought, was a woodpile. And in that woodpile was the gift her imagination had brought her.

PART TWO

DETERMINATION OF ENDANGERED SPECIES AND THREATENED SPECIES

Sec. 4. (a) General.- (1) The Secretary shall by regulation promulgated in accordance with subsection (b) determine whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following factors:

[(1)] (A) the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range;

[(2)] (B) over utilization for commercial, [sporting,] recreational, scientific, or educational purposes;

[(3) (C) disease or predation;

[(4)] (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms;

or [(5)] (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence.

--The Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1982

There were 55 game wardens in the State of Wyoming, an elite group, and Joe Pickett and Wacey were two of them. Wacey had received his B.A. in wildlife management while bull-riding at summer rodeos before Joe had graduated with a degree in natural resource management. Three years apart, both had been certified at the state law enforcement academy in Douglas and both had passed the written and oral interviews, as well as the personality profile, to become permanent trainees in Jeffrey City and Gillette districts respectively, before becoming wardens. Each now made barely $26,000 a year.

As Joe drove down the two-lane highway toward the Eagle Mountain Club, he thought of how the morning had violently changed course. Ote Keeley had ridden down from the mountains in the middle of the Pickett family Sunday routine. It was a routine that had moved with them as they relocated throughout the state. It continued to Baggs in Southern Wyoming, then to Saddle string as he worked under the high-profile Game Warden Vern Dunnegan, then to Buffalo when Joe took on his first full-fledged post as game warden.

There had been six different state-owned houses in nine years, five different towns. All of the homes--and especially this one--had been plebeian and small. They were careful at headquarters not to give the taxpayers the idea that their hunting license fees were going toward elaborate homes for state employees. The Pickett house was built into the mouth of a small canyon on a lot that included a barn, a corral, and a detached garage. They had brought their family routine back to Saddle string district after Vern suddenly retired from the state and Joe finally got the job he wanted most, in the place he and Marybeth liked the best.

It was a job Joe almost didn't get. Vern had recommended Joe and had used his influence at headquarters to get Joe an interview with the director. In what Joe and Marybeth later called "one his larger bonehead moves," Joe had written the wrong date for the appointment with the director in his calendar and simply missed it. When Joe screwed up, he tended to do it massively and publicly. The director had been furious for being stood up and it was only through Vern's intervention that Joe was able to later meet with the director and secure the post.

Both Marybeth and Joe had commented how much bigger the house had seemed to be when Vern and his wife occupied it, back when Joe worked under Vern and he and Marybeth would visit. They both remembered sitting in the shaded backyard, sipping cocktails while Vern barbecued steaks and Vern's attractive wife, Georgia (they had no children), mixed drinks and tossed salad inside. The house at that time seemed almost elegant in a way, and both Joe and Marybeth were envious. The future seemed so bright then. But that was two children and a Labrador ago, and the same three-bedroom home was filled. After only four months in the house it seemed to be shrinking. The baby would make the house even smaller. And everything about it was falling apart. The shelf life for a state-owned and -constructed home was short.

Today was, he knew, likely to be the last Sunday for at least three months that he would be able to cook breakfast for his girls and read the newspapers--and now he hadn't even been able to do that. Big game hunting season in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming, would begin on Thursday with antelope season. Deer would follow, then elk and moose. Joe would be out in the mountains and foothills, patrolling. School would even be let out for "Elk Day" because the children of hunters were expected to go with their families into the mountains.

Hunters began before dawn, and Joe would begin before dawn. Hunters could legally take game up to a half an hour after dark, and Joe would be out among them until well after that, checking permits and licenses, making sure that the game was tagged properly, that laws weren't broken, and that private land wasn't trespassed on. In Wyoming, the people owned the game animals, and they took their ownership to heart. Joe took his job just as seriously.

He thought about Sheridan saying "Better take your gun," and it bothered him.

Sheridan had certainly noticed his Sam Browne belt and the pistol in it when he came home every night. His .270 Winchester rifle rested permanently in the window gun rack of the department green Ford pickup he drove. They knew that his job entailed carrying a gun with him. But never had either child ever suggested he go out and shoot something. Maybe they didn't realize what he really did all day. He had heard Sheridan say in passing that her Dad "saved animals" for his job. He liked that definition, even though it was only partially true.

Joe slowed on the highway to let a herd of pronghorn antelope cross. He watched as they ducked under a barbed-wire fence and continued their journey toward the foothills, toward Wacey Hedeman's district.

Wacey and Joe had both been trained in the field by Vern Dunnegan at different times. Vern told anyone who would listen that they were his "best boys." Because their districts adjoined each other--the warden in the Saddlestring district and the warden in the Basin district--Wacey and Joe often teamed up on projects and investigations. They built hay fences together, shared horses and snow machines when needed for patrol, called on each other for support if necessary, and traded notes. As a result of spending many predawn hours together in one or the other's trucks, Joe had come to know Wacey well. They had even become friends, of a sort. Wacey fascinated Joe at the same time he repelled him. Wacey knew the county and was intimate with ranchers and poachers alike. Wacey was an ex-rodeo cowboy who had an easy, oily charm that worked on just about everyone, Joe included. Even Marybeth seemed to enjoy Wacey, although she startled Joe once by saying that she didn't trust him. Some of the things Joe knew about Wacey would have confirmed her opinion, but he kept them to himself.

Joe turned his pickup off of the highway into the entrance of the Eagle Mountain Club. A uniformed guard in a white clapboard guardhouse waved at him to go through, and the motorized wrought-iron gate swung wide. But as Joe drove forward, the guard suddenly swung out of the door of the house and approached his window.

The guard was in his late fifties, and his uniform strained across his belly.

"I thought you were somebody else when I waved at you," the guard said, bending his head to the side so he could see into the truck.

"You thought I was Wacey Hedeman," Joe said.

"He has a truck just like this. I'm here to see Wacey."

The guard stared hard at Joe. "Have you been here before?"

"Once, with Wacey." Joe let his voice drop. "Now please let me through now. There was a homicide near Saddlestring, and I need Wacey s help on it now."

The guard stepped back but took a moment to wave Pickett through. In his rearview mirror, Joe watched the guard step into the road and write down Joe's license plate number on a pad he took from his pocket.

The Eagle Mountain Club was an exclusive private resort on a hilltop overlooking the Big Horn River. From what Wacey had told him, initial dues to the club were $250,000 and members joined by invitation only. The Eagle Mountain Club had only 250 members, and new members joined only when old members died, dropped out, or were denied privileges by a majority of the members. This had happened only twice to Joe's knowledge, once to the famous televangelist who "baptized" a housekeeper by inserting the neck of a vodka bottle into her and then dunking her in the tub-stocked trout pond and the other time when a member, a former astronaut, was found guilty of beating his wife to death with a bronze replica of the Lunar Landing Module. The club had a 36-hole golf course that fingered through the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, as well as a private fish hatchery, shooting range, airstrip, and about 60 multimillion-dollar homes that had been constructed when a million dollars was an obscene amount of money. The one thing the exclusive membership had in common was a passion for privacy. Few people in the state even knew about the Eagle Mountain Club, and access to it was purposely difficult. It was more than 200 miles from the nearest city of any size-Billings, Montana--and more than 500 miles from Denver.

The Eagle Mountain Club was nearly vacant in the fall, and Joe encountered no vehicles or golf carts on the road. Few residents stayed during the winter, and most were already gone. As he drove along the wide empty roads bordered by manicured lawns with the Bighorns looming all around him, Joe got the sense of being on top of the country that spread out around him. It was a false oasis hidden away on a mountaintop in Wyoming, a high and dry place where the grass grew only because of nonstop, unrepentant irrigation and where all of the food in the four-star restaurant was flown in from other places. Joe felt that this place didn't belong, and he knew it was there for precisely that reason. The Eagle Mountain Club predated the recent flight to the Rocky Mountains by rich celebrities by about 30 years.

Homes were set back off of the road, and most were hidden by trees. There were no street signs, and driveways to homes were marked by brass plaques imbedded in the pavement with the owners' last names. When he saw the name Kensinger, he turned.

Wacey's muddy green Ford pickup was parked at a rakish angle on the side of the massive two-level log home. Joe parked behind it and got out. His footsteps on the pavement were the only sound he could hear. Joe knocked on the door.

The wide oak front door swung open, and Wacey stood in it and squinted at Joe with a sour expression on his face. Wacey was still thin and compact--a bull rider's body--and his mouth was hidden under a thick auburn gunfighter's mustache. The only thing he was wearing was his red chamois Game and Fish shirt.

"Take your pants off and come on in, Joe," Wacey said in a whisper. "That's what I did." A slow full-face grin started near his corners of his blue eyes.

Someone inside the dark house, a woman, asked Wacey what he was doing.

"My colleague Joe Pickett from the Saddlestring District is here," Wacey said over his shoulder. "I'll just be a minute."

Behind Wacey, in the gloom, Joe saw the form of a very white and naked woman pass. He heard her bare feet slap across the marble floor.

To Joe, Wacey mouthed the name "Aimee Kensinger." Then: "She really does like us wardens."

Despite himself, Joe smiled. Wacey was something else. Wacey had once told Joe that Aimee Kensinger, the trophy wife of Donald Kensinger of Kensinger Communications, had a thing for cowboy-types in uniform. Joe knew Wacey had been spending a lot of time of late at the Eagle Mountain Club. He also knew that Wacey's visits coincided with Donald Kensinger's business trips.

Wacey stepped out on the porch and eased the door closed behind him. "What's going on?" Wacey asked. "I was right in the middle of something."

Joe knew what. There was a wet stain on the front tail of Hedeman's shirt where his erection stretched out at the fabric like a tent pole. Hedeman followed Joe's eyes.

"That's kinda embarrassing," Wacey said. "Guess I'm leakin' a bit. She'll make a guy do things like that when they aren't used to it."

Joe Pickett told Wacey what had happened that morning. He confirmed that Wacey did know where Ote Keeley's elk camp was located on the Twelve Sleep Drainage.

He told Wacey about the cooler, and Wacey seemed interested.

"Ote Keeley. He was that guy ..."

"Yup," Joe answered sharply.

"When do we need to get going?" Wacey asked.

"Right now," Joe said.

"Right now."

"I gotta call Arlene,". Wacey replied, referring to his wife.

"Maybe you ought to do it from the truck."

Wacey again started his slow, infectious smile. He winked at Joe and nodded his head toward the door. "She's gonna finance my campaign for sheriff," Wacey said in a conspiratorial voice.

"And when it comes to sex, she'll try just about anything. She even shaved herself this morning. You ever mess around with a woman who is shaved clean as a whistle? It's weird. Sort of like a little girl, but not a little girl at all, you know? You just don't realize how big and ripe those lips are down there unless you can really see 'em."

Joe nodded uncomfortably.

Aimee Kensinger came out of the house wearing a thick white robe.

Joe said hello. He had met her once at a museum fundraiser dinner Marybeth had taken him to, but he knew she didn't remember him. He hadn't been in his uniform.

"Hello, officer," Aimee Kensinger said. It was a purr, a self conscious, very obvious purr. Joe was both alarmed and aroused. Aimee Kensinger had a wide-open healthy face framed by a bell of dark hair. Her feet were bare and her calves were trim. She wore no makeup, but her face was still flushed from whatever Wacey and she had been doing inside.

"Forget it, babe." Wacey said gently to her, giving her a brotherly punch on the arm. "He's married."

"So are you, honey," she said.

"It's different with Joe, though," Wacey answered, shrugging as if he couldn't understand it himself.

"Good for you," she said. Joe couldn't tell if she meant it or not.

The Command Position that had been established at the Crazy Woman Creek Campground had quickly become chaos. The murder of Ote Keeley and the possibility of an armed camp of suspects had ignited the imagination of the entire valley. A crowd had formed in the campground including off-duty Saddlestring police officers, volunteer fire department members, the mayor, the editor of the weekly Saddlestring Roundup, even elderly officers of the local VFW armed with Korean War-era M-1 carbines. Two local survivalists had shown up in battle fatigues with specially modified SKS Chinese assault rifles and concussion grenades hung from web belts. Sheriff Barnum didn't mind the crowd; he reveled in it. His makeshift office was established in a stout-walled Cabella's outfitter tent. His desk was a card table. Someone (Joe guessed one of the Korean War vets) told him that when he sat at the table and smoked, he reminded them of General Ulysses S. Grant at Shilo . Barnum enjoyed the comparison and mentioned it to anyone who would listen.

Joe Pickett and Wacey Hedeman saddled their horses and shook the hands of well-wishers while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to arrive. Joe had brought up his six-year-old buckskin mare named Lizzie. Joe felt like he and Wacey were star athletes of the local football team. Men clapped them on their shoulders and whacked them on the butt as they walked by. Many said they wished they were going along.

McLanahan arrived armed for a small war, and the gear he had brought would have been fine if the three of them were setting off on a land offensive with four-wheel drives and transport trucks. Unfortunately for McLanahan, this was a designated roadless area of the national forest and the only access was by foot or horseback. In his Blazer and horse trailer, McLanahan had brought hundreds of pounds of bulky outfitter tents, sleeping bags, a propane stove, blankets, cast-iron skillets, Dutch ovens and frying pans, radio equipment and a chuck box filled with plates and utensils that weighed more than 150 pounds by itself. The back of the Blazer was stacked with guns--Joe imagined McLanahan cleaned out the gun cabinet in the sheriff's office. He saw several high-powered sniper's rifles with night-vision scopes, semiautomatic carbines loaded with armor-piercing shells, a couple of MAC-10 machine pistols, M-16 automatic rifles, and emiautomatic riot shotguns.

"Typical Barnum overkill," Wacey had scoffed loud enough to be heard by the crowd in the camp. A few people laughed.

"Supporters," Wacey whispered to Joe.

Barnum had ordered the three horsemen to "take as much as they could," and McLanahan had loaded down the canvas panniers while Joe and Wacey stared at each other in puzzlement. Barnum made it clear that he was assuming command of the operation and that the two Game and Fish officers were subordinate to the county sheriff, which was officially true in this circumstance. He "strongly advised" that both equip themselves with more firepower. Both had sidearms--Joe had his never-fired-in-anger-and-once-swiped-by-Ote-Keeley Smith & Wesson357 Magnum revolver, and Wacey had his 9mm Beretta semiautomatic. Finally, Wacey was persuaded to strap to his saddle one of the carbines in a scabbard.

Both had pitched in to help McLanahan, who was a boyish-looking former college ROTC officer, to load the panniers on the two packhorses so they could finally leave.

Barnum scoffed when he saw that, instead of digging into the county arsenal, Joe was taking his personal Remington Wing master .12-gauge shotgun, which was primarily a bird-hunting weapon. If he had to take a shotgun, Barnum said, at least it should be one of the short-barreled riot guns from the truck. Joe explained that he had had the shotgun since his teens and he was comfortable with it. Joe was known as an excellent wing shot when it came to game birds or, occasionally, clay targets. Strangely, he could rarely hit a target if it was stationary, only if it was moving or flushing from the underbrush. He had the ability to hit a fast-moving target by instinct and reaction, and he never really aimed. If he aimed, he missed. Joe had failed his initial pistol test and had barely passed on his second (and last) attempt. While he was fully capable of bagging his limit of three pheasants with three well-placed aerial shots, he was unable to punch holes in the outline of an intruder on the firing range.

Barnum finally persuaded Joe to at least load his shotgun with magnum double ought buckshot shells so if he had to be could "knock down a house." But Joe thought how odd it was to be loading the shotgun he had used since boyhood for ducks and pine grouse with shells designed solely to kill a man. But he did it, and he filled one pocket of a saddle bag with a dozen extra rounds.

Barnum briefly took Joe and Wacey aside while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to secure his panniers. "Guess who is on the way to observe this rodeo, boys?" Barnum asked them. Joe and Wacey exchanged glances but neither knew.

"Vern Dunnegan!" Barnum clapped Joe and Wacey on their shoulders. "Your mentor. He called and left a message with the dispatch."

"Why is Vern here?" Joe asked. Wacey shrugged. "He was in the area and heard about it on the radio, I suppose," Barnum said. "So don't screw up, boys. Not only will the entire valley be watching, but Vern will be watching, too." There was sarcasm in Barnum's voice.

Most of the gear, including the chuck box, they left with Barnum and the bustle of people and equipment. As they finally mounted and had turned their horses to the trailhead, they could hear Sheriff Barnum, flanked by the two retired Korean War vets from the VFW post, on his radio trying to track down his missing helicopter.

"How close are we?" Joe asked Wacey as he nosed his horse through the silent pocket of aspen. In timber this thick, it was best to let Lizzie pick her own way through. He just pointed her in the general direction, which was behind and to the left of Wacey. Wacey was a few yards ahead, and he reined in his mount and leaned to the side of his saddle.

"Coupla hours," Wacey said, also in a murmur.

"That's what I was worried about." Hedeman nodded. They would not make it to the outfitters'

elk camp in daylight, even though getting there before dark had been the purpose of the trip.

Joe walked his horse abreast Wacey's palomino. Two aspens as thin and round as baseball bats stood between them. The grove was heavily timbered, and black roots curled up through a carpet of lemon-colored leaves.

"And here comes the reason why," Wacey grumbled.

It was hushed in the middle of the trees, the light was dappled and muted, but they could hear the clinking of Deputy McLanahan and his packhorse skirting the grove on the outside. McLanahan had fitted the packhorse with hunting panniers, and the bulging canvas bags were so wide that he couldn't follow Joe and Wacey into the grove. Joe and Hedeman caught a glimpse of the deputy down a narrow chute in the trees; it was clear that McLanahan was much less of a horseman than Joe on his worst day.

"When I'm elected I'm going to fire his butt before I even order business cards," Hedeman whispered, looking down the chute where McLanahan had passed.

Joe didn't respond. There was no need to.

They Waited for Deputy McLanahan in the clear of a saddle slope that was bordered on each side by juniper pine. Commas of snow from that morning lay in long pools of shadow cast by boulders and trees. Groves of aspen were bright yellow with fingers of crimson coursing through them. The evening sun made the colors intense, almost throbbing. Joe thought of the contrast of the last few hours. At Crazy Woman Creek, he had seemed crowded by admirers and he felt like a member of a powerful force. Here, in the cool darkening stillness of the Bighorns, he felt tiny and insignificant.

"I'm gonna be real sore tomorrow," bellowed McLanahan as he approached.

Joe noticed Wacey shift his weight sharply in his saddle, a familiar sign of irritation.

"When you're sneaking up on somebody, you might consider keeping your voice low," Wacey hissed as McLanahan approached. "It's an old, sly Indian trick. We're assuming that the people we are sneaking up on have ears mounted on each side of their head."

Deputy McLanahan, clearly angry, started to say something but caught himself. Wacey was not fun to argue with.

"You're slow and we're late," Wacey continued in the low hiss. "We aren't going to get there with any light. We're going to have to cold camp up here and go into the outfitters' camp at dawn to see if we can catch anyone."

McLanahan's jaw was tight, and his eyes glistened. Joe felt sorry for the deputy. Much of the delay had been the deputy's fault but Hedeman was pressing the point.

"Starting late ain't my fault. Barnum read me a list of supplies to bring that was as long as your arm," McLanahan finally said, and his voice caught.

"The hell it ain't," Wacey answered, turning away and nudging his horse forward.

"Don't worry about it," Joe assured McLanahan. "Let it go."

"He don't need to say that," McLanahan answered, his bottom lip trembling. "Not that way."

Don't cry, for God's sake, thought Joe. He clicked his tongue, and the buckskin walked. He left McLanahan alone to compose himself, and he wondered what was with Wacey. Wacey seemed uncommonly irritable. He hoped it didn't have to do with the fact that the success or failure of this venture would likely become an issue in the future sheriff's race against Barnum.

They Picketed their horses by the blue light of fluorescent battery lamps and spread out sleeping bags tight against a granite bluff. They were close enough to the elk camp, Wacey said, that a fire was out of the question.

Marybeth had made a half-dozen ham sandwiches, and they ate them in the dark. McLanahan passed around a pint of Jim Beam bourbon, which seemed to improve Hedeman's mood, at least a little.

"I missed my son's football practice tonight," McLanahan said unexpectantly.

"I'm the defensive line coach."

"You have a son?" Joe asked. McLanahan was just too young for that, he thought.

"Well, he's not actually my son." McLanahan sounded a bit sheepish. "He's the son of my fiancee. We're livin' together. She's been married a couple of times before. She's quite a bit older."

"Oh."

Wacey snorted. "What in the hell does that have to do with the price of milk?"

"First practice I missed," McLanahan said. "Twelve Sleep plays Buffalo on Friday. Home opener."

"The mighty Buffalo Bison, our nemesis," Hedeman said sarcastically. Then: "Why don't you go find your radio and tell Barnum where we're at and what we're doin'. All those folks down there will want a report so they can spend the rest of the evening second-guessing us. Let him know we'll move on the elk camp before dawn tomorrow."

McLanahan nodded and wandered away to dig through his panniers.

"Jesus," Wacey complained after McLanahan was gone. "Havin' him on the payroll is like havin' two good men gone."

"Take it easy on him," Joe said.

Wacey grunted and chewed his sandwich. "I'll be interested to find out what was in that cooler Ote had with him."

"Yup."

"I suppose it coulda been anything," Wacey continued. "Of course it might not mean a goddamn thing in the end, I guess."

Joe nodded. Then he reeled off the number of ranch houses between Crazy Woman Creek and the Pickett home that Ote Keeley could have gone to for help.

"There was a reason he came to our house," Joe said. "I just don't know what it could be."

"You're gonna send that cooler and those shit pellets to Cheyenne to get it checked out?"

"Yeah."

"Then we'll know," Wacey said.

"Then we'll know," Joe echoed.

"Could be nothin'," Wacey said.

"Could be one of those things we just never know, and the only guy who knows is stupid, dead Ote ."

"Maybe Ote was bringing you a couple of beers," Deputy McLanahan said from the dark as he approached.

"Maybe that's what was in that cooler. Maybe he thought you guys would pop a couple and forgive each other."

"Excuse me, McLanahan," Wacey said. "Did you get Barnum?"

McLanahan told Joe and Wacey that he had talked with Sheriff Barnum and told him of their status. He said Barnum had located the helicopter and the earliest it could get back up to Saddlestring was tomorrow afternoon. There had been no sightings as yet of the other two outfitters, Kyle Lensegrav or Calvin Mendes.

"Guess who else was down there at command central?" McLanahan asked, the light reflecting off his teeth.

Neither spoke.

"Vern Dunnegan!" McLanahan's voice was a mix of excitement and awe.

Joe noted that Wacey had looked sharply at him to check his reaction. Joe didn't flinch.

"Vern says, 'Be careful, boys. Make me proud.'"

"What's Barnum say?" Joe asked.

"Barnum says, 'Don't fuck up and make me look bad.'" McLanahan laughed.

Vern, like Barnum, was a kind of legend--the most popular and influential game warden ever in the area, as well as a force in the community. The kind of guy who had coffee with the city councilmen at 10 each morning in the Alpine Cafe and who was not only tougher than hell on poachers and game violators but was also known to fix a few tickets and let a few locals off the hook. Even though he was primarily a state employee, Vern always like to think of himself as an entrepreneur. He boasted that he had 31 years of business experience. Vern was always involved with something in town, whether it was the local shopper newspaper, a video store, satellite dishes, or a local radio station. Vern always owned a share and had a partner or two. For whatever reasons, the partners always left town and Vern ended up with the enterprise. Then he sold it and moved on to the next venture.

Some said he was a good businessman. Most said he was nakedly greedy, and he systematically looted each company until the partners left out of disgust and fear. Vern Dunnegan had cast a big shadow. So big, Maryberh had said, that Joe had yet to see much sunlight in the Twelve Sheep Valley as far as the community went. Vern had supervised both Wacey and Joe, and he had tutored them both in the ways of the field. No one knew more about the ways and means of poachers and game law violators--or about the vile side of humans out-of-doors--than Vern Dunnegan.

It was Vern's shadow that had probably prevented Joe from being notified that morning about the incident in the campground at Crazy Woman Creek. Vern had resigned six months earlier to go to work for a large energy company as a field executive in "local relations," whatever that was. The rumor at the time was that Vern had more than tripled his salary.

They discussed the plan and the possibilities. They would move in on the elk camp in the predawn from three directions and close in. Wacey said he would communicate with Joe and Deputy McLanahan with hand signals. It anyone was in the camp, they would surround and disarm them as quickly as possible.

"We don't know if these two had anything to do with Ote getting shot," Wacey said. "Ote may have wandered out of camp on his own, run into some kind of trouble, and made the midnight run to Pickett's house. These two might not even know where he is or what's going on."

"On the other hand ..." interrupted McLanahan, barely able to contain his excitement of the possibility of being part of some real action.

"On the other hand, they may have gotten drunk with old Ote and got in a fight and shot him a couple of times," Hedeman finished. "So we've got to be prepared for just about anything."

"If they're involved they might not even be there," Joe said. "They might have cleared out last night and they're in Montana by now."

***

Joe lay in his sleeping bag but couldn't sleep. He doubted the other two could either. The stars were out, and it was colder than he had expected it to be. He could see his breath in the starlight.

His revolver was within reach on the side of his sleeping bag, and he reached down in the dark and felt the checkered grip.

Joe thought of his girls. It was only 9:30, although it seemed much later. Both girls would be in bed, but probably not asleep. More than likely, they would be pretty wound up in that motel room. Sheridan would be reading or gabbing to her bear. She used to do that at night with her kitten, and before that, her puppy.

Marybeth would be reading Lucy a story or cuddling her until she drifted off.

Sheridan would no doubt be checking the motel window for the approach of more monsters.

He wondered how this incident would effect his girls, especially Sheridan. It was one thing to look for monsters and another thing to actually see them. Ote's sudden appearance had somehow thrown a new curve on things, and Joe knew Marybeth would be thinking about that. The sanctity of their little family had been violated. Ote's blood would remain on the walk for months--and in their memories forever. Joe wondered what kind of cleaning substance he could buy that would remove bloodstains from concrete. How would Lucy remember this day? Would it make her more cautious, more suspicious? Would Sheridan wonder if her parents--especially her dad--could actually protect her from harm after all? The relationship between a father and his daughters, Joe had discovered, was a remarkably powerful thing. They looked to him to accomplish greatness; they expected it as a matter of course because he was their dad and therefore a great man. Someday, he knew, he would do something less than great and they would see it. It was inevitable. He wondered at what age his luster would dim in Sheridan's eyes and then in Lucy's. He wondered how painful it would be for them all when they recognized it.

Joe Pickett had two passions. One was his family and the other was his job. He had tried as best he could to keep them separate, but that morning Ote Keeley had forced them together. Joe now looked at both differently and what he saw pained him. Marybeth had never actually complained about the way her life had gone since marrying Joe Pickett. Her frustration appeared in random sighs and sometimes hopeless facial expressions that she probably didn't even recognize as such--but Joe did. Marybeth had been on a career path--she was a bright and attractive woman. But by marrying Joe in college, having children, and moving around the state with him from one beat-up house to another, her life had turned out differently than she, or her hard-driving mother, imagined. Marybeth deserved a certain standard, or at least a permanent home of their own; Joe had not been able to provide either. It was eating at him, taking a million tiny bites. When she talked on the telephone to her old college friends who were traveling and managing businesses and enrolling their children in private schools, she would be blue for weeks afterward, although she wouldn't admit it.

While he loved his job--he was, after all, nature boy--the guilt he felt this morning when he learned that they couldn't even afford a motel room in town still shrouded him. The exhilaration of the mountains right now brought a hard edged sense of regret and confusion. His belief that what he did was good--and that he was good at it--would not put his daughters through college or allow his wife to ever take a real vacation.

Joe shifted to try to get more comfortable. He tried to think of other things but he couldn't. Joe tried to imagine what Marybeth would think if she could see him now, on a manhunt with his hand on his revolver and two (heavily armed) men sleeping next to him. It was a boyhood dream coming true; good guys pursuing bad guys. He couldn't deny the excitement that was keeping him wide awake. It would be hard to describe to Marybeth how he felt right now. He wasn't sure she would understand.

He wondered what Marybeth, the protector of his career who had never understood what Joe saw in Vern (or Wacey, for that matter), would think of Vern being back in Saddlestring. Joe tried to stave off the resentment he felt toward Vern. Vern had been good to him and had recommended him for the Saddlestring district. It wasn't Vern's fault that everybody seemed to think Vern hung the moon when it came to setting the standard for a local warden.

Too much to think about, and no conclusions to be reached.

He raised up on an elbow and in the faint light of the stars, could see Deputy McLanahan walking away from the camp to relieve himself. McLanahan couldn't sleep either.

As he stared up at the hard white stars--there were so many of them that the night sky looked gauzy--Joe realized that if things were to change for him and his family, he probably would have to change. Marybeth and his girls deserved better than what they had; to give them more, he would have to give up the other thing he deeply loved.

But first there was the matter of a dead man in his backyard and an elk camp a few miles away.

Wacey sighed deeply. He was snoring. He seemed to be exhausted. Joe wished he could sleep like that.

***

At SIX a.m. they had rolled up their sleeping bags in silence, saddled up, and followed Wacey up and over the summit into the creek bottom where the elk camp was. No one had brought breakfast.

Joe was alert but not completely awake. Although he knew he must have slept, he could not recall actually waking. He had slipped in and out of a kind of cruel half-consciousness that was vivid with dreams and episodes that didn't connect.

Joe followed Wacey down a horse trail toward the camp. It was still dark enough that Wacey's worn denim jacket was out of focus. Deputy McLanahan followed Joe. No words had yet been exchanged that morning.

They tied up their horses in a stand of lodgepole pines. Wacey poured dusty piles of oats into the grass for the horses to eat and to distract them and keep them quiet while the three men walked the rest of the way up the trail to the camp. It was an hour before dawn and the mountain air was crisp. The cold that had settled in for the night was just beginning to retreat through the trees and up the slopes.

They were upon the camp in less than thirty minutes. Canvas outfitters' tents came suddenly into view, blue-gray smudges against the dark grass and trees, and when they did, Wacey dropped into a hunter's squat and Joe and McLanahan followed suit. They kept hidden from the tents by a hedgerow of three-foot young pines.

Wacey leaned into Joe and McLanahan and whispered that McLanahan should flank left and Joe right. Wacey would continue down the horse trail and hide behind a granite spur just inside the periphery of the camp. When they all found good cover where they could see into the camp, they would wait until it was light.

Wacey said he would ask the outfitters to come out with their hands behind their heads. If only he spoke, he said, the outfitters wouldn't know how many men were out there. Joe was impressed by Wacey s take-charge attitude and command of tactics. Wacey seemed to be a natural and comfortable leader, and he had led them straight to the elk camp without a map. He had taken command and was not shy about it. Joe had not seen this side of Wacey before.

"Did you see the horses?" Wacey asked, in a low whisper.

"There's two of 'em in a corral." Joe shook his head no. He had dropped too quickly to see anything more than the tents.

"There's probably somebody in camp after all," Wacey said, looking to both Joe and McLanahan.

"Those horses are likely to notice us before the outfitters do, so keep quiet and close to the ground and out of sight."

McLanahan let out a long breath that rattled at the end of it and mindlessly caressed the stock of his shotgun with his thumb. He was anxious and probably scared. McLanahan's face no longer had the kind of whiz-bang enthusiasm for action in it that Joe had seen the night before. Joe understood.

Joe kept low and picked his way through the trees to the right side of the camp.

He kept his shotgun parallel to the ground, glad he had it with him. He slid along the trunk of a thick, downed pine tree until he reached the root pan. It was there, for the first time, that he really raised up and looked at the camp.

There were three tents constructed in a semicircle, with the opening of each aimed at a fire ring. They were permanent tents with stoves inside and probably wooden floors. Black stovepipes poked from the top of each tent. A thick wooden picnic table with benches was near the fire ring, as well as stumps for the elk hunters to sit on while they drank and watched the fire at night.

The ground around the tents was hard packed by years of boots and horses' hooves during hunting season. A blackened coffee pot hung from an iron T near the cold camp fire. It was impossible to tell when the campsite had been used last.

Behind the tents, directly opposite the horse trail they had entered the camp on, was the area used for hanging elk and deer. The crossbeams for suspending the carcasses as they were skinned and cooled were wired high in the trees, as well as rusty block and-tackle for winching up 500-pound animals. Joe could now see the makeshift lodgepole corral through the trees.

The camp was still. Only the gentle tinkling of a foot-wide creek--the headwaters of the north fork of the Crazy Woman-made a sound. They had somehow surrounded the camp without raising warning chatters by squirrels, and the horses apparently hadn't seen them either because there was no nickering. Joe looked at his watch and waited. The fused warm light of dawn was now creeping down the summit. It was a clear morning, and the camp would soon be bathed in sunlight.

He shifted to get more comfortable and tried to imagine who might be inside the tents and what they might be doing. As he did so, he noticed a quick movement. Suddenly, there was a shiver of the canvas on the side wall of the nearest tent.

Joe eased the barrel of the shotgun through the roots of the tree so it pointed in the direction of the camp. He looked down the length of it toward the tent and the side wall.

There was another shiver, then a sharp tug from the inside. Joe watched both the side of the tent and the door for any sudden movement. Joe held his breath. A low muffled grunt came from within the tent. He raised himself up hoping to catch the eye of either Wacey or Deputy McLanahan to indicate to them there was movement in the tent but could see neither. Joe settled back down and located the safety on the shotgun and clicked it off. The beating of his own heart now rivaled the sounds of the creek.

A distinct round bulge appeared in the canvas, about a foot from the floor of the tent. The bulge slid slowly down the wall, straining at the material and pulling the canvas tight until the bulge rested near the ground. Joe kept the front bead of the shotgun on the middle of the bulge. He thought about his historic inability to hit anything that was stationary, and it worried him.

He had never been in a situation like this before. How would he react?

Then the bulge pushed its way outside and what emerged was the black-and-white bicycle-seat head of an enormous badger. The badger's head darted from side to side, and it sniffed the air.

Joe lowered the shotgun and briefly closed his eyes. He let his breath out in relief. Then he studied the badger as it grunted and struggled its way out from under the wall of the tent. The badger was massive, the largest he had ever seen. As it scuttled away from the tent, rolls of fat shimmered under its coat, and its belly nearly dragged along the ground. Before it crossed the creek and entered the brush, it froze and noticed Joe for the first time. The badger swung its head at him and bared its teeth, and Joe noticed the pink tint of its head and mouth, the bright red of the piece of meat in its jaws. The badger had been feeding on something inside the tent. There was a brief, chilling moment when Joe and the badger stared into each other's eyes.

Then things happened too quickly. Nearly out of his field of vision, Joe saw the door of the middle tent flap open and a man step out wearing old-fashioned long-handled underwear. Someone yelled--McLanahan or Wacey--and the man reacted by turning toward the sound. A rifle barrel raised from the side of the man, and suddenly there was a rapid series of deafening explosions that split the stillness of the morning wide open like an ax to a melon.

Something struck Joe hard in the face and he found himself sitting down, his gloved hand covering a vicious red-hot sting under his right eye. He pulled the glove away and saw his own blood smeared across the leather. There were several more explosions and then a ringing in his ears. Joe scrambled back to the roots of the tree. The middle tent was now collapsing under the sprawled weight of the man who had raised the rifle. Flowers of dark red bloomed on his thermal shirt.

The man was still and his arms outstretched, and his rifle was on the ground near his feet. Wacey was screaming for McLanahan to stop firing.

Then Wacey turned toward the camp: "Anybody in that tent throw your weapons out first and come out with your hands behind your heads!" Wacey shouted.

"There are twelve armed U.S. marshals out here and one of your party is already down!"

Joe brought the shotgun to his cheek and pointed it toward the nearest tent. The butt of the shotgun was instantly slick with his blood. His face was now numb; he would assess his wounds when this was over.

In the camp, nothing happened. Wacey barked out another warning. Both Joe and Wacey shot nervous looks at the body on the middle tent, and neither saw any movement. The tent was now down, and the man was partially covered by thick folds of dirty canvas that collapsed over him.

Wacey stepped from behind the rocks and slowly walked into the camp, his carbine held loosely and ready in front of him. Wacey had fired at least one shot from the carbine, because he jacked an empty brass shell into the grass with the lever action. McLanahan stood up from where he had hidden directly across the camp. He was reloading stubby shells into his shotgun.

"You shot me, Joe thought. One of your pellets ricocheted and hit me right in the face, McLanahan.

Wacey had quickly determined that no one was in the tent nearest to him

and had now crossed over the fire ring and approached the tent the man

had come out of.

Wacey squatted for a moment over the body of the man who had just been shot, apparently confirming that he would be no further trouble. Joe crossed the creek and neared the closest tent, the tent the badger had come out of, from the side.

"Anybody home?" Wacey called toward the last tent. Joe smelled it before he saw it; when Wacey threw open the tent flap, Joe gagged and turned away.

Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes were still in the sleeping bags where they had been shot and killed two nights before, their pale naked arms and parts of their faces chewed to the clean white bone by the badger.

***

Sheridan sat in the shade of the big cottonwood tree in her backyard and ate a bowl of dry cereal with her fingers. She still wore her blue school dress but had kicked off her shoes and socks. She ate and watched the woodpile, waiting and hoping for something to happen.

Someone from town had called her mom to tell her that her dad was okay and would be on his way home soon, and now Mom was calling Sheridan's grandmother to give her the good news. When Mom talked to Grandmother Missy, she talked for a long time. Unlike other grandmothers, Sheridan's insisted that her grandchildren call her by her proper name. Likewise, Missy never referred to her grandchildren as grandchildren. Sheridan felt that Missy was embarrassed that she even had grandchildren. Sheridan always felt a little silly calling a lady of her grandmother's age "Missy." It seemed like such a lightweight name.

Mom said that the bad guys had been caught and that Dad had been hurt a little but that he would be all right. Dad would have to spend the night in the hospital in Saddlestring and answer a lot of questions and then he'd be home. So that would be good.

The hotel had been okay for a night but Sheridan was glad to be back home. It had been fun. For dinner, she and Lucy had eaten popcorn shrimp that was delicious, and there were more than 30 television channels in their room. There was an elevator to all five floors, and she and Lucy had spent hours going up and down on it. There was a game room where she begged her mom to play pinball with her, and her mom had agreed. Her mom could actually be kind of fun when she wanted to be, and it surprised Sheridan that Mom had played pinball before. She even knew how to bump the console with her hip to manipulate the steel ball. It was nice not to have to make the bed in the morning, and Mom said it was okay to leave the towels on the floor of the bathroom, which was a treat. But by then Sheridan was ready to leave and go to school. Lucy wanted to stay. Mom said Lucy liked luxury, just like Grandmother Missy.

In school, the rude girls had gathered around her and asked her questions about the dead outfitter and her Dad and what had happened in the mountains. Sheridan was for once the center of attention, and she liked that. The girls who had called her Weird Country now wanted to be around her because she had seen a real live dead man. They asked her what the dead man looked like, how is eyes were.

The monster, in a strange way, had brought Sheridan not only a secret but a lot of luck. She liked the new good luck her secret had brought her. One girl, named Melanie, who was popular and had never spoken to Sheridan before, asked Sheridan if she wanted to be her best friend.

She had almost told her mom about what she had seen in the woodpile while they were in the hotel but had decided not to do it. Sheridan reveled in her secret, and wanted to see the animals again. She knew somehow that what she had seen in the woodpile was important. If seeing a dead man caused all of this attention, what would happen if people knew about the secret pets?

When Sheridan got home from school, it looked like Mom had tried to scrub the blood off of the sidewalk and had thrown away the lengths of wood from the top of the woodpile that had blood on them. Sheridan could still see some of the stain on the walk but she had to look hard to do so.

A small sound pulled her attention away from the walk. Sharp black eyes looked out at her from the woodpile and she held her breath, afraid even the slightest movement would scare the little creature away. She didn't know how long it had been watching her, and she had not seen it poke its head out from between the ends of two thick logs. The creature was perfectly still and hard to see at first.

The little animal had a round knobby head and large, black shiny eyes. Its ears poked up straight and round from its head like a cartoon Mickey Mouse. It had a tiny pink nose at the end of a slim snout, and it looked chinless. The animal was light brown with a dark stripe that came over the top of its head and down between its large eyes. She could see a long, thin neck behind its head but couldn't see the creature's body in the shadows of the logs. All that was visible was one small foot with slender fingers and nails poised around the bark of the log it stood on. The creature's hands were delicate and well-formed, and they looked capable of grasping and picking up small objects.

Sheridan was delighted that the creature had not retreated into the logs yet, but stayed and let itself be looked at. She liked the creature's big, dark eyes, and thought that the animal not only looked cute but smart as well. Its eyes were intelligent and sparkling.

Without breaking her gaze with the animal, she reached down into the fold of her dress and grasped a handful of Cheerios. Trying not to make her movements too quick, she threw the cereal toward the woodpile. Cheerios rained on the logs and the creature popped quickly back inside.

She was starting to regret what she had done--she thought she had scared the animal back into hiding--when the little round head reappeared. This time, Sheridan sat still, trying to quiet both her heart and her breath. She was so excited that she wanted to shout, but she didn't dare.

"Hello again, little guy," Sheridan whispered.

The creature was now leaning farther out of the logs than it had been before. She could see its tiny shoulders and clawlike front feet. Its long, narrow body was now several inches out of the hole in the wood. The dark stripe ran down its back as far as she could see. The creature focused on a Cheerio directly below it in the joint of a branch. It looked from the Cheerio to Sheridan and back to the Cheerio. Suddenly, in a lightning movement, it shot completely out of the hole, stuffed the Cheerio in its cheek, turned like a little, brown tornado, and vanished back into the woodpile.

Sheridan let out a long whistle.

"Wow," she said.

"Wow" She scooped the rest of the cereal from her dress and the grass and tossed it in handfuls toward the woodpile. She hoped the creature would now know the sound for what it was--food.

And then there were three. Their heads popped out of the side of the woodpile.

Pop, pop, pop. She instantly recognized the first creature she had seen as the biggest and darkest. There was also a lighter brown animal with a smaller head. And the smallest one was almost light yellow in color and with a sleeker look about it.

She felt happily overwhelmed by the six shiny eyes on her, and she giggled and covered her mouth.

One by one, with the large, dark animal leading the way, the creatures shot out of the woodpile, gathered cereal, crammed their cheeks, and zipped back into holes in the logs. By the third trip, they all seemed more comfortable, and not as manic in their movements. The big, dark one ventured the farthest from the woodpile. It stood straight up on its hind legs. Then it used its front paws to stuff a Cheerio into its now-fat cheeks. It looked alert--and comical. Now it stood just a few feet away from Sheridan.

"What are you doing, Sherry?"

Lucy's voice scared Sheridan as much as it did the animals. All three creatures disappeared quickly back into the woodpile.

"What were those things?" Lucy asked. Lucy sat down in the grass next to Sheridan. Lucy could be so annoying.

Sheridan explained in a finger-pointing, big-sister way that the animals were their secret pets. She told Lucy not to say anything to Mom about them. Lucy didn't really understand. She kept asking if she could play with them now.

"If you tell Mom and Dad about those pets, they'll die, and we'll be in A LOT OF trouble," Sheridan hissed. "All of my pets die when people know about them!"

"Can they be my pets, too?" Lucy asked.

Sheridan fought the impulse to say no and made a decision to bargain instead. "They can be our pets," she said. "But they're a secret."

"Can we name them?" Lucy asked. She always wanted to name everything. Sheridan agreed.

Then she sent Lucy back inside with the empty bowl to ask for more dry cereal.

***

The helicopter finally arrived at the outfitters' camp late in the afternoon to airlift bodies both alive and dead to the Twelve Sleep County Memorial Hospital.

Sheriff Barnum as well as officers from the State of Wyoming's Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) were waiting at the hospital to talk to Joe. He was interviewed at least five different times by different men, including Sheriff Barnum. Although Joe could not say he actually saw the man point his rifle at Wacey or Deputy John McLanahan, he could say that he saw the man raise the weapon. Was it possible the shooting victim was raising his hands above his head to surrender at the time? Joe said he didn't think so. The state investigators didn't press that line of questioning.

By the time they were done, Joe hoped he had told the same story to each investigator, that there were no inconsistencies. It was apparent though, by the tone and questions of the last interviews, that the shooting was considered justified.

Remarkably, the man who had been shot at the elk camp was still alive and had been airlifted to Billings for massive surgery. The last Joe had heard, the man was reported to be in critical condition and not expected to live through night. The victim had been shot seven times, including five partial and somewhat reckless shotgun blasts (McLanahan) and two 30-caliber rifle bullets (Wacey).

The man who had been shot was Clyde Lidgard, a local from outside of Saddlestring who lived in a wreck of a house trailer on the road to the landfill. Lidgard was a mentally unbalanced modern-woodsman type who lived on a disability pension from the lumber mill as well as fees he collected for looking after summer cabins in the mountains. Lidgard was not an outfitter, and as far as anyone knew, he had never associated with any of the three murdered men. Joe had once been to Lidgard's trailer after someone had called the office and reported a wounded mule deer limping around near the dump. Joe couldn't find the deer, and he went to Lidgard's trailer to see if Lidgard had seen the animal.

Clyde Lidgard was not inside the trailer at the time but was instead hiding in the outhouse. Joe heard him in there and waited for him to come out. Joe had heard from someone that Lidgard didn't like visitors and that his outhouse was his hideout of choice. After nearly fifteen minutes, Lidgard had stuck a gray, craggy face outside the door.

"Ain't no sick deer here," Lidgard had bellowed.

"How do you know I was looking for a deer?" Joe had asked back.

"Go away," Lidgard had croaked.

"You is on private property!" He had pronounced it propity

Lidgard had been right, and since Joe hadn't seen any sign of a deer, dead or alive, he had left. As Joe had driven his pickup along the rutted trail toward the road, he had watched in his rearview mirrors as Clyde Lidgard had scuttled from the outhouse into his trailer. The next time he would see Clyde Lidgard would be as he came out of the tent in the elk camp and walked into a firestorm of shotgun blasts. But in the confusion at the elk camp, Joe had no idea who the man was.

Lidgard was considered crazy but not dangerous, despite the fact that he was rarely seen in the mountains without his ancient .30-.30 lever action rifle. No one had ever seen the 9mm semiautomatic handgun they had found stuffed in Lidgard's coat pocket, but few people knew Lidgard well at all. It would be a couple of days before the pistol could be confirmed to be the murder weapon of all three outfitters. Why Lidgard had stayed in the camp after shooting the men--two while they slept in their tent--was unknown and the subject of much speculation. Maybe he wanted the camp for himself, one of the state investigators said. Maybe he just didn't know what to do, McLanahan guessed. Or maybe he was waiting for someone, Barnum said.

Joe thought about the fact that men like Clyde Lidgard were not the aberration in places like Saddlestring that many might think. Mountain towns and out-of-the-way rural communities all had men like Clyde Lidgard in and around them. Stops at the end of the road collected Clyde Lidgards like dams collected silt.

Wacey came into joe hospital room that night after Marybeth had left. Wacey looked even more exhausted than Joe felt. Wacey said the investigation was continuing, but it would probably be wrapped up soon. All of the evidence indicated that the shooter was Clyde Lidgard. All they were waiting on was the report from DCI that the gun found on Lidgard was in fact the gun that had been used on the outfitters. Wacey said he had talked to reporters not only from the local papers but to radio and television reporters as far away as Denver. He told Joe, not without a hint of a sly grin, that he, Joe, and unfortunately Deputy McLanahan were being thought of as heroes. Wacey said the whole story was being treated as quite a big deal and had made all of the wire services. A stringer from CNN had interviewed him on camera, and the piece was supposed to be broadcast that night. Barnum, though, was being questioned as to why he sent the small party into the mountains without backup and why it took so long to airlift them all out with a wounded suspect.

"I'm looking good and Barnum's looking bad," Wacey said. "I can live with that."

"I bet you can," Joe said. "Now answer one question for me."

"Fire away."

"Was Clyde Lidgard raising his rifle to shoot at you?"

Wacey shook his head no. "Not at me. He was aiming it at McLanahan. That's why McLanahan

started blasting."

"Then why did you shoot him twice? McLanahan was shooting buckshot, but you nailed the guy twice in the lungs with your rifle."

Wacey shrugged. "Wouldn't you want me there and ready if Clyde Lidgard had raised his rifle at you?"

Not long after Wacey left the hospital room, Joe felt another presence near his bed. When he opened his eyes, someone was looming over him in the dark. He hadn't realized that the lights in his room had been turned off. And he didn't understand how anyone other than a doctor could be in his room. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. But then he recognized the silhouette as belonging to Vern Dunnegan, his old supervisor, the man who cast the big shadow. Vern clicked on the bedside lamp.

"Hello, son," he said gently.

Joe could see Vern clearly now. Vern had gained some weight, but he'd been portly to begin with. Vern had a trimmed, dark beard flecked with gray that bordered a round, jovial face. He had a round nose and probing, dark eyes. His movements, despite his bulk, had always been swift, and he gave the impression of a man who carried himself well. Vern had a quick, jolly chuckle that would burble out at any time, in any situation. The chuckle often disguised what Vern was really thinking and what he might say or do. It was one of the things Marybeth had never liked about him. She found Vern patronizing, especially toward Joe. She said he was calculating and manipulative, and she didn't like her husband to be manipulated. As warden, Vern had an extremely high opinion of himself and his influence in the county and the state. Generally, he was right.

People knew him and respected him. Many feared him. But he had always considered himself to be a mentor to Joe. Vern's dealings with Joe had always been fair, and to Joe's advantage. It was Vern who had fought for Joe's moving back to the Saddlestring district, and he had made it happen. The fact that Joe was one of Vern's favorites didn't do him any harm within the agency either.

Vern sat down on the bed near Joe's knees. Joe felt the mattress sag.

"I just talked to Wacey," Vern said. "My boys did all right up there. How's your cheek where old Deputy McLanahan shot you?"

Joe nodded and said he was okay, just tired. Absently, he touched the bandage on his face.

"Need a drink? I've got my flask in my pocket. I'm drinking Maker's Mark these days instead of that old Jim Beam I was used to. I've moved up the bourbon hierarchy."

Joe shook his head no. He remembered how angry Marybeth used to get when he returned home late after drinking with Vern, pretending he'd "just had a couple of beers."

Vern seemed to read his mind. "How many kids do you and Marybeth have now?"

"Two. Sheridan and Lucy. And Marybeth's pregnant."

Vern chuckled and shook his head. "A loving wife, two wonderful kids. A house with a picket fence. Literally a picket fence. D'you still have your Lab?"

"Maxine. Yes."

Vern continued to shake his head and chuckle. "Tell me about Ote Keeley," Vern said.

Joe told him all of the details that Sheriff Barnum had never asked him about.

Dunnegan waved his hand when Joe began to recount the actions of the EMTs.

"Interesting," Vern said.

"You sent the shit pellets in?"

Joe nodded.

"Heard anything?"

"Not yet. I plan to call tomorrow."

"Let me know, will you? I'm still interested in this kind of stuff."

"Yup."

"How's Georgia?" Joe asked.

"She's fine, she's fine. She's living pretty well on the alimony I pay her," Vern said.

"I hadn't heard," Joe said, taken aback.

"You know, Joe, I came to a realization. That realization is that I'm a promiscuous man. I wasn't doing her any favors staying with her and chasing women on the side, as you know. One morning about eight months ago, I just woke up and rolled over and looked at her puffy face and decided I didn't want to ever do it again. Simple as that, I wanted to wake up next to other bodies-younger bodies, older bodies, bodies with big lips and big breasts. I wanted to hear other women's voices. So I packed my stuff and I didn't see her again until court."

Dunnegan smiled and shrugged, showing Joe palms-up and his 10 stubby fingers.

"It could happen to anyone," Vern continued. "Men are promiscuous. That's what we are. We try to pretend otherwise, but deep down we know it's true. We wake up with hard-ons and don't really care who's next to us as long as we can poke her."

Vern let out his trademark happy chuckle but his eyes were on Joe's face. In fact those eyes never left Joe's face as Vern talked, as he changed subjects from this to that, as he prodded and tested for what made Joe react. It was this probing, mildly sarcastic, offbeat quality that had made Vern such a good interrogator when he was a game warden.

"I mean it could happen to anyone except Joe Pickett, who is clean and pure and good," Vern said.

"I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that," Joe said.

Vern leaned forward and rolled the bed tray to him so he could put his elbows on it.

"Marybeth is a fine woman, I'm sure," Vern said.

"But wouldn't it be fun to get a piece of somebody else? Did you ever meet Aimee Kensinger? Don't you think about that? She likes guys like us. Guys in uniforms, who carry guns and work outside."

Joe looked away. He didn't like where this was going.

"Look at you, Joe. Tall, rangy. Gold-flecked brown eyes. Babes love solid guys like you."

"You didn't come here to talk to me about that," Joe said.

Vern chuckled and slid a paper napkin out from beneath a water container on the tray. Joe watched as Vern unfolded the napkin, then refolded it until it was in the shape of a rectangle. Vern drew a pen from his shirt pocket.

"This is the state of Wyoming." Vern said, sketching the border of Yellowstone Park in the northwest corner and the ranges of the Rocky Mountains from top to bottom on the napkin. Vern found the motorized bed control and raised up the head of it so Joe could see clearly.

"Joe, what we've got here are two pipelines currently under construction." Vern drew two heavy black lines from north to south on the east side of the mountains. "The idea is to start at the natural gas fields in Alberta, cross Montana and Wyoming, and be the first to hook up to the energy system

in Southern California. Inter West Resources, my new outfit, are the good guys.

CanCal our competitors, are the bad guys. Each pipeline costs about a million dollars a mile to build. Whoever gets there first is going to spend a fortune in order to make a gazillion dollars. Whoever gets there second just spends a fortune."

On the napkin, Vern drew the CanCal pipeline as it ran through the Powder River Basin to Central Wyoming near Lander then took a sharp left through the Wind River Mountains.

CanCal is working on environmental and regulatory approvals to take their pipeline over South Pass and on to L.A." For Los Angeles, Vern drew a set of dollar signs.

"The hoops these companies have to go through to build the line are fucking insane. There's environmental impact statements, federal and state easements, private property easements. It's unbelievable. Inter West has as many lawyers on the payroll as it does pipe fitters. The capital outlay is unbelievable to accomplish something of this magnitude."

Joe simply nodded. The race to California by the two companies had been a fixture of state news for more than a year. He watched as Vern lowered his pen to the end of the Inter West line on the napkin.

"I met the Inter West boys when they first came to Saddlestring about two years ago. They contacted me because I knew everybody and everything." Vern chuckled and his eyes moved to Joe's face.

"The Inter West boys had been looking at the topo maps, and they saw where if they could take their pipeline through the Bighorns that they might gain six months on CanCal and be the first to California. They asked me if it was possible to do this. I told them it could be done if they had the right front guy working the landowners, the Feds, and the state land guys.

"Give the right guy a checkbook," is what I told them."

Joe reached out and spun the napkin around. The pipeline ran straight through the mountains and through the Twelve Sleep Valley.

"The right guy was me, of course," Vern said. "I negotiated with them for a real salary for the first time in my life and one percent of the stock in the company. I promised them I would deliver a route for their pipeline and by God if I didn't get it done."

Joe looked up from the napkin.

"You have?"

Vern sat back triumphantly. His eyes seemed to glow. "Private easements are done, state lands are cleared legally, and all we're waiting on is the final approval from the Forest Service on the environmental impact statement and approval at a few town meetings, and we'll be bringing the pipeline over the top," Vern said.

"Saddlestring is dying, Joe. This pipeline will bring in a bonanza for the whole county. It'll be like the oil-boom days of the early eighties once again. People around here will have good paying jobs

again."

Joe shook his head. What a gamble Vern had taken with the community and environment. "Inter West needed someone who knew these people so they came to me. They needed someone who was trusted--and clean as a whistle-pig. You're that same kind of guy, Joe."

"Are you offering me a job?"

Vern leaned forward and spoke softly.

"I'm testing the water."

"What's the job pay?"

"Three times what you're making, Joe. For the life of the project. Five to ten years, maybe more. Who knows after that." Vern slipped the flask from his hip pocket and poured some in a water glass. He offered it to Joe, who shook his head no, then sucked on it himself.

"Maybe some stock options, too."

Joe sat back in the bed. He felt hot. It was as if Vern had somehow read his thoughts while he had been in the mountains the night before.

"You've got a wife and kids, Joe. You're a nice, wholesome guy. You're a goddamned hero right now. No one could ever doubt your sincerity when you talk to them. You deserve a lot better. You're working for nothing. You have a family, and a picket fence, and a dog. You," Vern said, letting the chuckle start low in his belly, "are an endangered species. There ain't many like you, Joe."

Vern slipped his pen back in his pocket and pulled out a business card. Joe read it: Vernon S. Dunnegan Land Manager Inter West Resources.

"Call me," Vern said, standing up. "Do it soon."

***

At Joe's insistence, the doctors grudgingly released him not long after Vern Dunnegan's visit. They had strongly suggested Joe stay in the hospital and rest but Joe had no intention of following their advice. I'm fine, he said. As much as he wanted to call Marybeth and have her come pick him up, he didn't. It was late and the girls would be in bed--he didn't want to wake them. He signed off on the insurance paperwork and located his pickup in the parking garage. As he swung the truck out onto the street, one thought kept repeating over and over in his mind: eight miles on the right-hand side and we're home. As he swung off of the Bighorn Highway onto the narrow gravel strip near his house he thought: my wife and my girls, my anchors, will be inside. The discussion with Vern had left a bad taste in his mouth.

The simple acts of turning off the headlights, pulling the keys from the ignition, and crawling out of the pickup were difficult in themselves. He was worn out and almost drunk from fatigue. He rubbed his eyes as he let himself in the front gate. The only thing that had kept him going for the last few hours was the prospect of getting home. Now that he was home, it was as if he were imploding. They had kept him overnight in the hospital for observation, and Marybeth had come alone to confirm that he was all right. The double-ought buckshot had chipped his cheekbone and stopped there, and it was easily removed. He would have a scar there for the rest of his life.

The first person he saw when he stepped inside his home was his mother-in-law, Missy Vankeuren, curled up on the couch with dozens of glossy magazines splayed like a massive poker hand on the floor beneath her. She was wearing a cream cashmere sweater and black stirrup pants. Her dark hair was cut close to her face and, as usual, she didn't look her age. She was and always had been an attractive woman. When she looked up, there was no doubt she read him like a book, because he was too tired to feign a hardy welcome. In fact, in all that had happened over the last three days, he had forgotten she was coming.

"I never get a chance to read at home," was what she said by means of a greeting. "So I brought my magazines with me, and it's wonderful to have the time."

"That's great," Joe said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Missy lived in Phoenix now, Marybeth had told him, dating a wildly rich and influential cable television magnate who was part of the Arizona political glitterati (Missy dutifully sent Marybeth society page clippings from the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette that mentioned her name). She no doubt had little time between functions to read all the back issues of Glamour, Gourmet, Southern Living, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Pair, and Conde Nast Traveler that were arranged on the door.

Marybeth arrived from the hallway and had on her perfect hostess face with the big grin.

"The girls wanted to stay up, but I finally put them to bed. They're awake right now and want a good-night kiss."

"That I'd be glad to do," Joe said. He squeezed Marybeth's hand as he walked past her and opened the door to the girls' bedroom. The light was on and they were reading. He kissed Sheridan in the top bunk and Lucy in the bottom bunk.

"What happened to your face?" Sheridan asked.

"Just an accident," Joe said, involuntarily reaching up and fingering the large bandage beneath his eye.

"That's not what I heard," Sheridan said, propping herself up on her pillow. "At school they said you got shot."

"It was an accidental shooting," Joe said.

"Will you tell us about it tomorrow?" Sheridan asked. Joe paused.

"You girls get to sleep," he said. Lucy rolled her eyes and covered herself with the sheet.

"I've been looking out this window," Sheridan told him. "I haven't seen anything. No more monsters."

"You won't," Joe assured her. "That's all over now." Lucy was faking sleep. It was something she

did to punish her father for being away. He kissed her and told her good night, but she held firm and wouldn't acknowledge it, except for a hint of a smile.

***

Joe poured himself a bourbon and water in the kitchen. He had not taken any of the painkillers the doctor had prescribed for him, saving them for tomorrow.

"It says here that fat grams aren't everything," Missy Vankeuren said from the other room. Joe assumed she was talking to Marybeth. "You still need to watch calories. Just because something is low in fat doesn't give you license to eat like a pig."

He drank a quarter of the drink, then topped off the glass with more Jim Beam.

Joe was not much of a drinker anymore, although he'd done more than his share in college and when he worked with Vern. But his intake of alcohol always increased proportionately when his mother-in-law was around.

He came into the living room and sat down. Marybeth had just come from tucking in Lucy. She frowned at Joe, and then smiled at her mother. She offered to get her mother something to drink, and Joe realized he was being scolded for not asking her himself.

"Do you have any red wine? That would be nice."

"Joe, would you open a bottle?" Marybeth asked.

"Where is it?"

"In the pantry," Marybeth said. "And I'd like a glass also."

Joe found the wine on a shelf in the pantry. There were a half dozen bottles to choose from. All must have been purchased within the last couple of days, anticipating her mother's visit, because normally the only thing on that shelf were boxes of breakfast cereal.

Marybeth, Joe grumbled to himself as he located the corkscrew, was a wonderful strong woman with strong opinions .. . except when her mother was present. When Missy flew in to visit, Marybeth shifted from being Joe's wife and partner to Missy's daughter, the one with unrealized potential, according to Missy. Her favorite child, according to Missy. Marybeth's older brother, Rob, was a loner who failed to keep in touch, and her younger sister, Ellen, had devoted her life to following the alternative rock band Phish on their never-ending concert tour.

Marybeth was the one, Missy had once said while she was drunk and sobbing, who married too early and too low (she may have forgotten about those comments by now, but Joe hadn't). Rather than being the welldressed, wealthy corporate lawyer she should have been, Marybeth was the wife of a game warden in the middle of Wyoming who made less than $30,000 a year. But, Missy no doubt felt, it still may not be too late. At least that's what Joe read into many of the things Missy said and did.

They had discussed all this before, and Marybeth thought Joe was too hard on her mother. Marybeth said that yes, she did sometimes assume the role of daughter when Missy was around, but after all she was Missy's daughter. Her mother just wanted the best for her, which was what mothers did. And Missy was proud of Joe in a way, Marybeth had said. Joe appeared to be faithful and a good father.

Marybeth could have done much worse, Missy felt.

Joe's mood was sour when Marybeth came into the kitchen. He poured two glasses and handed them to her.

"Cheer up," Marybeth said. "She's trying to be pleasant." Joe grunted.

"I thought I was being the model of propriety."

"You're not being very accommodating," Marybeth said, her eyes flashing. Joe stepped up close to Marybeth, so that what he had to say couldn't be heard in the next room. He had just been through three of the strangest days of his life, he told her, from finding Ote's body, to the shoot-out at the outfitters' camp, the finding of the mutilated bodies, to the barrage of questions afterward, to the hospital. His mind was reeling, and he was beyond tired. The last thing he needed upon finally getting home was Missy Vankeuren. The Missy Vankeuren who at one time resented the hell out of her daughter for having the gall to make her a grandmother, of all things.

Real anger flashed in Marybeth's face.

"It's not her fault all of this happened," Marybeth said. "She's just here to visit her granddaughters. She had nothing to do with a man dying in our backyard. She has a right to visit me and her

granddaughters, who think she's wonderful."

"But why does it have to be now?" Joe asked lamely.

"Thomas Joseph Pickett," Marybeth said sharply, "go to bed. You're tired and disagreeable, and we can discuss this tomorrow."

Joe started to say something, then caught himself. Her tone was similar to what he heard when she was mad at the children and used their formal names. It was fortunate she was right because Joe didn't have the energy for an argument.

Joe entered the living room, and Missy looked up from her magazine. Her eyebrows were arched in an expectant way. Joe found this annoying. She obviously knew there had been words in the kitchen.

"I'm going to bed," Joe declared. He knew he sounded simple.

"You should do that," Missy said, purring. "You are probably just dead with all you've gone through."

"Yup."

"Good night, Joe. Sweet dreams." Missy dropped her eyes back to her magazine and, with that gesture, dismissed him.

When Marybeth came into the bedroom later, Joe woke up with a start. He had been dreaming he was back in the mountains, back at the elk camp, reliving what had happened. In the aftershock of the shooting, time had become fluid, and Joe had drifted with it, like a raft on a river. The bodies of the outfitters were still in their tent where they had been found. Clyde Lidgard was still wrapped in the folds of the tent. He was moaning. They covered him with blankets. Pink bubbles formed and popped from a hole in his chest as he breathed. Deputy McLanahan was getting violently sick in the bushes from the tension and the release. The stench from the tent drifted to Joe and Wacey when the wind shifted.

In his dream, they were still waiting on the helicopter to arrive. They were all hungry.

"What time is it?" Joe asked. Marybeth was scrubbing her makeup off in the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom.

She was scrubbing hard. She was still mad.

"Midnight," she said. "Mom and I were visiting. I didn't realize how late it was getting."

"Honey, I'm sorry," Joe said. "I just need sleep."

"So sleep."

"I will, if you'll get me that bottle of pills from the counter."

Marybeth brought him a glass of water and the bottle of painkillers and returned to the sink. She had stripped to her bra and panties to scrub her face. Joe thought she looked good standing there. She stood on her toes to get her face closer to the mirror, and he admired her legs. Marybeth was not extremely thin, but she was firm and still looked athletic. The only place she looked pregnant was her belly. Marybeth carried her babies high and straight out as if she were already proud of them. She looked perfect as far as Joe was concerned. She could be fun in bed, and Joe suddenly wanted her there.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, looking at him from the mirror.

"I'm thinking you look pretty good."

"And .. ." Marybeth said, "aren't you too tired?"

"And I want you."

Marybeth stopped scrubbing and turned toward him. "Honey ..." she said, almost pleading and gesturing toward the closed bedroom door.

"She can't hear us," Joe replied dryly. "I'll make a point not to shout."

Marybeth glared at him. "It's not that. You know I don't like to do anything when my mother is in the house."

Joe knew. They had had this discussion before, many times. But he continued, "Do you think she thinks the kids were conceived by divine intervention?"

"No," Marybeth said, "but I'm just not comfortable when I know she's in the house, under the same roof. If I'm not comfortable, how fun can it be?"

Joe conceded the point, as he had conceded the point before.

"Okay," he said, covering up. "No hard feelings."

"Good," she said. "I'm glad you understand. I know it's irrational, but it's the case here."

When she came to bed, he was still awake. "Do you want to know who came in and saw me last night in the hospital?" Joe asked as she snuggled into him.

"Wacey."

"Well, him, too," Joe said. "But after Wacey, Vern Dunnegan came to call."

He felt her stiffen.

"I really hate hospitals," Joe said.

"I know you do. What did Vern have to say?"

"He just wished us well and said he thought I had done a good job up there in that camp with Wacey. He said he was proud of his two boys."

"You're my boy, not Vern's," Marybeth said. Then she cautioned him. "Be careful with that man. I don't trust him. I never have."

Joe chuckled at that. The pills were beginning to work. He felt numbing waves slowly wash over him.

"He just stayed for a minute, but he said he wanted to meet with me later this week. He said he wanted to talk about my future."

"What did he mean?" Marybeth asked haltingly.

"He kind of offered me a job with Inter West Resources," Joe said. "For a lot more money."

"You're kidding," Marybeth said, sitting up and turning to him.

"I'm not," Joe said, patting her.

"Well, my goodness, Joe," she said. "My goodness."

PART THREE

LISTS

(c) (1) The Secretary of the Interior shall publish in the Federal Register [, and from time to time he may by regulation revise,] a list of all species determined by him or the Secretary of Commerce to be threatened species and a list of all species determined by him or the Secretary of Commerce to be an endangered species. Each list shall refer to the species contained therein by scientific and common name or names, if any, specify in respect to such species over what portion of its range it is endangered or threatened, and specify any critical habitat within such range. The Secretary shall from time to time revise each list published under the authority of this subsection to reflect recent determinations, designations, and revisions made in accordance with subsections (a) and (b).

--The Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1982

The triple funeral for the three dead outfitters was unlike anything Joe Pickett had experienced before. Ote Keeley's wish that he be buried in his 1989 Ford F-250 XLT Lariat turbo diesel had caused complications with the staff of the Twelve Sleep County Cemetery in that they were required to dig the biggest hole in the ground they had ever dug. The rental of an earthmover was necessary, and the size of the hole created a fifteen-foot mound of fresh soil at the head of the grave. The ceremony had been organized by the widows of Ote Keeley and Kyle Lensegrav (Calvin Mendes was unmarried) and the "unconventional" Reverend B. J. Cobb of the First Alpine Church of Saddlestring.

Joe Pickett stood soberly in his suit, hat, and bandage on a hillside listening to Reverend Cobb give the eulogy as he stood perched on the hood of the pickup.

The Keeley and Lensegrav widows and children flanked the crowd and the truck.

Behind the families, a blue plastic tarp hid a large pile of something.

It was a beautiful day at the cemetery. A very light breeze rattled the leaves of the cotton-woods, and the sun shone down brilliantly. Dew twinkled in the late fall grass, and the last of the departing morning river mist paused at the treetops.

Although Reverend Cobb's eulogy covered the short history of the outfitters--boyhood friends who hunted in Mississippi, joined the army together, served the country well in Operation Desert Storm, and relocated to the game-rich mountains and plains of Wyoming--Joe couldn't stop looking at the massive hole in the ground in front of the pickup and wondering what was under the blue tarp behind the families.

The mourners consisted of a few fellow Alpine Church members and several of the outfitters' drinking buddies. Joe noticed that there were no other outfitters present, and when he thought about it, he wasn't that surprised. Keeley, Lensegrav, and Mendes had been drummed out of the Wyoming Outfitters Association for their radical views and tendency to commit obvious game violations.

"They were salt-of-the-earch types," intoned the Reverend Cobb, a pudgy bachelor with a crew cut, who was known for his survivalist tendencies and small but fervent congregation.

"They loved their trucks. They were throwbacks to a time when men lived off of the land and provided for their families by their outdoor skills and cunning. They were prototypes of the first white Americans. They were frontiersmen. They were outdoors men They were sportsmen of

the highest caliber.

And these boys knew their calibers, all right. They ate elk, not lamb. They ate venison, not pork. They ate wild duck, not chicken ..."

The three mahogany-stained pine caskets were in the bed of the pickup, two side-by-side on the bottom and the third laid across them on top. Joe couldn't tell which casket contained whom.

The weight of the caskets made the four-wheel-drive pickup list to the rear. The Reverend Cobb finally finished up his comments about what the outfitters ate.

Ote Keeley's wife wasn't hard to pick out as she was the only pregnant woman there. She was thin and small and severe. Joe guessed that normally she wouldn't weigh more than 100 pounds. She had short-cropped blond hair and a pinched, hard face. Her mouth was set around an unlit cigarette. She tightly held the hand of a small girl who wanted to go look at the big hole instead of stand there respectfully with her mother. The girl--Joe would later learn that her name was April--was a five-year-old version of her mother but with a sweet, haunting face.

Joe had introduced himself to her before the services began and had said he was sorry about what happened and that he had children, too, with another on the way.

She had glared at him, her eyes narrowing into slits.

"Aren't you the motherfucking prick who wanted to take my One's outfitting license away?" Her Southern accent made the last word sound like "uh-why."

The little girl didn't flinch at her language, but Joe did. Joe said he was sorry, that this was probably a bad time, and scuttled back to the loose knot of mourners on the side of the pickup.

The Reverend Cobb ended his eulogy by saying that there were certain sacred items that the families of the deceased wanted their loved ones to have with them in the afterlife. At his cue, Mrs. Keeley and Mrs. Lensegrav peeled back the blue tarp to reveal a large pile of objects.

"Kyle Lensegrav would be lost in heaven ..." the reverend paused until Mrs. Lensegrav turned from the pile with her arms full, ".. . without his Denver Broncos jacket."

Mrs. Lensegrav approached the pickup and draped the jacket over one of the coffins on the bed of the truck.

"Where Kyle will be, the Denver Broncos will always be predominantly orange and blue, as they were in the seventies, eighties, and mid-nineties before they changed into their new hideous uniforms," thundered the reverend.

Joe watched in fascination as Mrs. Lensegrav placed Kyle's favorite hunting cap, spotting scope, Leatherman tool bag, meat saw, Gore-Tex boots, and saddle scabbard on the coffin.

Mrs. Keeley was next. "Not every man has the skill, determination, and acumen to bag a moose that will forever be listed as one of the top five Boone and Crockett-sanctioned trophies of North America!" the reverend said.

"But Ote Keeley can make that claim and these massive beauties ..."

Mrs. Keeley struggled under the weight of the huge moose antlers--rumor had it that Ote had actually shot the animal illegally within Yellowstone Park and sneaked it out--and Joe felt an urge to step forward to help her. He caught himself because he wasn't sure that she wouldn't attempt to skewer him. Somehow, she summoned the strength to place the antlers over the top coffin.

".. . will forever be mounted above Ote's celestial easy chair."

There were more items for Ote, including a television, VCR, tanned hides, his happiness Is A warm gut pile T-shirt. Calvin Mendes was probably shortchanged in the ceremony overall because the only items the women put on his casket were his bound volumes of Hustler magazine and a case of Schmidt beer.

Then the Reverend Cobb started up the pickup, eased it into drive, and leaped from the cab. Joe watched, as did the rest of the small crowd and the families, as the Ford inched forward and descended into the massive hole. It settled to the bottom with a solid thump, and no one wanted to look down to see if the caskets had jarred loose and broken open.

Joe wondered, as he walked down the hill through the cemetery, how long the engine of the pickup would keep running and whether or not the cemetery staff would choose to shut it off before they filled up the grave with the earthmover.

After the funeral, Joe went to work. It felt good to get out of town and away from the cemetery and go to work. He had packed his lunch that morning in the kitchen and filled a Thermos of coffee. Maxine had been waiting for him in the back of the pickup, her heavy tail thumping the toolbox like a metronome as he approached.

He patrolled a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) tract to the west of Saddlestring, a huge, nearly treeless expanse that stretched from the river to the foothills of the Bighorns. It was deceptive, complicated country, and he had always liked it. From a distance, it appeared to be simply a massive slow rise in elevation from the valley floor to the mountains. In actuality, it was an undulating, cut-and-jive high-country break land of hills and draws and sagebrush. The landscape had folds in it like draped satin, places where shadows grew and pronghorn antelope and large buck mule deer thrived. A spider's web of old unnamed ranch roads coursed through it. Herds of deer and antelope had long learned how to take advantage of the land and the landscape, to live within its folds and draws and literally vanish when pursued. The antelope especially used the starkness of the break land for defense, and they often frustrated hunters by silhouetting themselves on the tops of hills and rises so that they were so much in the open there was no way to sneak up on them. The only trees in the area were the silent markers of hundred-year-old failed homesteads and

cabins.

It was opening day of antelope season, the only day there would be real hunting pressure, and it was Joe's job to check the licenses and wildlife stamps of hunters. Most of the hunters he had checked that morning were local and out for meat, although he did visit the trailer camp of an outfitter with four hungover Michigan auto executive clients who were wearing state-of the-art outdoor gear and were struggling through a Dutch-oven breakfast. Everyone was legal, with the correct licenses and stamps. They planned to go hunting later in the day when they sobered up.

Joe idly wondered how Missy Vankeuren would react when Marybeth told her about Joe's job offer with Inter West Resources. Joe harbored a feeling of sweet vengeance and secretly wanted to be there when Marybeth gave her the news. It had been a special time in bed after he told Marybeth, and they had both been a little giddy. Marybeth had even broken her rule about not having sex hile her mother was under the same roof. Neither before or after had Marybeth said she wanted Joe to take the job, and Joe didn't say he wanted to take it. But the possibilities electrified them both. He wondered now if Missy would warm up to him, now that she knew that his salary could soon triple. In his experience, the women in his life were brutally, honestly practical. Maybe she would think that her daughter had done all right after all.

As he left the camp, he heard the booming of rifles in the distance, and he drove toward the direction of the shots. There was the closed-in pow-WHOP sound rather than an open-ended explosion, and he knew that whoever had been shooting had hit something. They had; three local hunters had killed four antelope, which was one too many. The hunters explained to Joe that a bullet had passed through a buck and hit a doe unintentionally. Although Joe believed them, he gave them a speech about shooting into the herd instead of selecting specific ta gets, and he ticketed the hunter who had killed two. Joe asked the hunters to field dress all four animals and to deliver the extra animal to the Round Home, a halfway house in Saddlestring that fed and housed transients and local alcohol and drug addicts. More than half of the Round Home population consisted of Indians from the reservation, and they preferred wild game meat.

Throughout what remained of the morning, joe moved from camp to camp, stopping periodically to survey the landscape through his spotting scope. He liked working outside, in the break lands and in the mountains. He liked working outside and coming home and taking a shower before dinner. When he went to sleep most nights, he was physically tired. He knew there were not many jobs left like his anywhere in the world.

Joe vividly remembered, as a 10-year-old, when it first came to him that being a game warden was the thing he wanted to do. He and his younger brother, Victor, had been sleeping outside in the backyard like they did most nights in the summer--in sleeping bags spread out on the trampoline. The stars were bright, and there was a light night breeze. Inside the house, his parents were yelling, fighting, and drinking, which was not unusual for a Friday night. Outside in his sleeping bag, young Joe Pickett read the latest issue of Fur, Fish, and Game magazine under a flashlight. He couldn't wait until the magazine was delivered every month, and he read it from cover to cover, even the advertisements in the back that sold animal traps and urine lures and do-it-yourself boats. Victor slept next to him in his sleeping bag, or at least Joe hoped he did. It was worse than usual with his parents that night. Inside, there had been a loud crash of glass, and he had heard his father scream "Goddamnit, woman!" and then his mother was crying and his father was consoling her. It went back and forth like this a lot, only usually it wasn't this loud.

While he read and hoped his little brother slept, he heard the clattering rattle of ice in a shaker. His father was the last of the great martini drinkers, and this was the eighth time he had heard the shaker that night. The hollering and crashing was punctuated by periods of silence marked by ice rattling in a shaker, as if both parties had agreed upon time-out while they refueled. Joe knew the neighbors had probably heard the commotion as well. His flashlight was dimming but he hadn't finished reading yet, so he climbed down from the trampoline and tried to sneak through the house to his bedroom where he kept fresh batteries. He didn't want to be seen and he didn't want to see his parents, but he stepped on broken glass in his bare feet in the kitchen and trailed bloody footprints down the hall carpet, all the way to his room. On the way back outside, with two D batteries in his pajama pockets, he met his mother in the hallway. She was drunk and sentimental, the way she sometimes got, and she rained sloppy kisses on him (which he preferred, considering that if she were sober, he'd have gotten a violent rage and open-handed slaps because of what he had done to the carpet) and guided him into the bathroom.

While she tried to pull slivers of glass from his feet (she said she was sorry for breaking the glasses on the floor earlier), he watched her and winced. Her makeup was smeared with tears, and a cigarette danced in her mouth as she talked. It reminded him that she thought of herself as an early sixties hipster.

Because she was in such bad shape, she tended to drive the slivers deeper into his foot with the tweezers before regaining her balance enough to pull them out. He told her he was okay even though he wasn't, and he bandaged his own feet while she went out to rejoin his father and the pitcher of martinis

With new batteries, the flashlight glowed white and strong and he lay on his stomach in his sleeping bag and wished he lived somewhere in the mountains, anywhere other than where he was. It was then that he read the advertisement in the back of the Fur, Fish, and Game magazine:

HOW TO BECOME A GAME WARDEN

Don't be chained to a desk, machine, or store counter. This easy home-study plan prepares you for an exciting career in conservation and ecology. Forestry and wildlife men hunt mountain lions, parachute from planes to help marooned animals, or save injured campers.

Live the outdoor life you love. Sleep under pines. Catch your breakfast from icy streams. Live and look like a million!

Under the text was a photo of a rugged and smiling proto game warden in a six-point hat holding up what appeared to be a bobcat. The game warden had indeed looked like a million.

"I want to be a game warden," Joe had said aloud.

"Me, too," Victor mumbled from deep in his sleeping bag, surprising Joe.

"I want to go where you go."

Joe reached in Victor's sleeping bag and found Victor's hand. They shook on it.

The next day, Joe sent in his five-dollar fee. It had set him on this course.

Victor never followed. Ten years after that night, while Joe was in his second year of college and Victor Pickett was a senior in high school, Victor broke up with his girlfriend, got drunk, and drove his car into the massive stone arch to Yellowstone National Park's north entrance. It was three in the morning, and he was going 110 miles per hour. No one ever knew why Victor had traveled for two hours to get to Yellowstone to do what he did. Joe could only speculate that it had something to do with a vicious emotional brew of alcohol and violence and the dream escape from both that a place like Yellowstone seemed to offer.

***

Joe parked his truck on a hilltop that allowed him to see most of the break land, and he ate his lunch and drank coffee. He mounted his spotting scope on his window and left the radio on. The sun had burned off the early morning damp and the day was warm, dry, and cloudless. From this vantage point, Joe watched as a scenario developed far below him. A large herd of nearly 80 pronghorn antelope were spread out along the top of a plateau, warily eating grass and moving east to west. To the west, snaking along a four-wheel drive road, was a single white vehicle. The occupants of the vehicle were below the rim of the plateau where they could not be seen by the herd. From the movements of the antelope, Joe could tell they had not yet noticed the white vehicle.

Chewing on a chicken salad sandwich, Joe focused on the white truck through his spotting scope. He recognized the vintage International Scout and the two older hunters who were driving it. Joe watched as the hunters stopped their vehicle and slowly walked up the side of theplateau. It took nearly a half an hour for the hunters to get to the top. Once there, they hunkered down behind a reef of tall sagebrush to take aim.

Joe leaned away from the scope and watched the herd in its entirety. The herd, as a single unit, suddenly jerked to life and rocketed east along the plateau, each animal trailing a thin plume of dust. Then the delayed sound of two heavy shots, one a definite hit, washed up to him over the distance. He lowered his eye to the scope again and could see at least one downed antelope in the distance. One of the hunters was now walking toward it, and the other was going back to get the Scout.

Joe washed down the last of his sandwich with coffee, then started the pickup and began to move over the hill. The herd was now a long way away, still running fast. He could no longer make out individual animals, just a rapidly retreating white cloud of dust. Pronghorn antelope were the second fastest mammals on earth--only an African cheetah could outrun them.

By the time Joe drove his pickup over the rim of the plateau, the hunters had completely field-dressed the pronghorn and were in the process of attaching the back legs of the animal to a hook tree. He recognized the men as Hans and Jack, a retired ranch hand and retired school teacher from Saddlestring. Hans now ran a janitorial business part-time, cleaning downtown commercial buildings such as the drugstore and the video rental store. Hans and Jack had hunted together for more than 30 years, and they had developed antelope hunting into an annual craft. Their Scout was a customized traveling meat-processing plant. The older they got, the more refinements they made to compensate for their age and the more their appreciation for taking care of and eating game meat grew. First it was the old freezer they packed with ice that filled most of the bed of the small pickup.

They had learned to cool down the meat as soon as possible to prevent any spoilage from the warm days of September. Then they had added the winch and the crane to elevate the carcass from the ground in order to skin it and further cool it out. They showed Joe their newest invention, a five-gallon gravity based water tank with a hose that they could use to wash and scrub the carcass down once it was skinned. Joe watched as the hunters quartered the animal into sections and rotated each section on the winch to the icebox. Hans' movements were getting shakier with each year, Joe noticed, and Jack kept his distance when both of them were skinning with their knives.

Then Hans asked Joe a strange thing. "You ever heard anything about endangered species being found up in the mountains, Mr. Pickett?"

"What?" Joe asked, suddenly paying more attention to what the two old men were saying.

"Hans," Jack said, eyeing his partner.

"Just wondering." Hans said with a bemused, holier-than thou expression on his face. Hans and Jack exchanged glances, and went back to their work. Joe waited for more that finally came.

"It'd probably be best for everyone if nothing was ever found," Hans said, looking up at Joe.

"My guess is that we wouldn't be able to hunt out here anymore if someone thought there were endangered animals out here."

"Damned right," Jack said.

"Why'd you bring this up?" Joe asked. "Do you know something?"

"No reason," Jack said.

"Just bullshitting you," added Hans.

"If you know something, you need to report it," Joe said looking from one to the other. He couldn't tell whether he was being fooled with or not.

"And that's what we would do," Jack assured Joe. "Indeed we would."

"Indeed," Hans echoed.

***

It had been a strange interlude, Joe thought.

When they were done and the Scout was hosed down and cleaned, Jack and Hans offered Joe a cold beer from the cooler. He thanked them but declined, and he wished them luck for the rest of the day. He knew that if Hans and Jack didn't get their second antelope today, they eventually would, so he would see the Scout out in the break land every day until that happened. Hans and Jack had the patience of the retired, and they were both known as good hunters and good cooks.

Joe had no problem with hunters hunting for meat. He felt, compared with buying it at the supermarket in cellophane wrapped parcels, that hunting was basically more honest. He had never understood the arguments of people who opposed hunting on principal while eating a cheeseburger. He thought it was important for people to know that animals died in order for them to eat meat. The process of stalking, killing, dressing, and eating an animal was much simpler and easier to understand to Joe than having a cow killed by a sledgehammer-swinging meat-processing plant employee and having the eventual results appear as a small packet in a shopping cart. He appreciated people like Hans and Jack.

For Hans and Jack, hunting for meat was still a way of life and not really a sport. The greeting of "Got your elk yet?" was as common as hello in the small mountain towns, and the health and size of game herds was a matter of much public concern and debate.

Joe figured this was why the murders in the elk camp were the talk of the town. The killing of three outfitters realized every hunter's nightmare: that out in the field someone may be hunting for them. No one had ever heard of such a thing happening before. Sure, there were accidental shootings and incidents of fistfights and threats--the kind of things that would inevitably happen when men (there were very few women in the elk camps) left their jobs for a week or two and got together in the mountains to hunt. But considering the number of guns and the gallons of alcohol available, deliberate killings during hunting season were incomprehensible to the people of Saddlestring.

And the more Joe thought about it, the more he realized that the killings were incomprehensible to him.

***

Feeling good about the day and the job he had done, Joe worked his way through the break land toward the road that would take him back into town. Vern Dunnegan had called him early that morning, before the funeral, and asked Joe to meet him at five in the Stockman's Bar. If it was like the old days, Vern would be in the last booth on the right, past the pool table. That was Vern's booth.

The Stockman'S Bar was a dark place where they served shots and beer under the dusty heads of local game animals and where the walls were covered with black-and-white photos of local rodeo contestants from the 1940s and '50s. No matter what day or hour it was, there seemed to always be the same number of patrons. Joe walked past a dozen men on stools, toward the pool table in the back. A hanging Coors beer lamp illuminated the green felt of the pool table and highlighted the side of Vern's face. Vern was in his booth, and he had company.

"You're early." Vern said as a greeting, extending his hand toward Joe.

"Joe Pickett, this is Aimee Kensinger." She was in shadow. Joe's eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark bar.

Joe took off his hat. "We've met."

"See, I told you that," Aimee said to Vern.

Vern chuckled and gestured for Joe to sit across from him in the booth.

"Will you drink a beer with me?" Vern stated more than asked. "Aimee's got to get going."

"Oh, yes, I had forgotten about that," Aimee said sarcastically. Joe liked her voice. As his eyes adjusted, he could see she was wearing some kind of fuzzy, black sweater and a thin gold necklace. She was smiling at him.

"I'll see you around, Joe Pickett."

Vern stood and let her out of the booth. She tousled Joe's hair as she left, which embarrassed him. She was a beautiful woman, no doubt about that. Vern followed her as far as the bar and returned with four shots of bourbon and four mugs of beer on a tray.

"Happy hour," Vern said. "Two for one." He downed a shot and chased it with beer.

"You're looking good, Joe. How's the pellet wound?"

Joe told him it was fine and took a long drink from a mug. The cold beer tasted good. The afterimage of Aimee Kensinger hovered next to Vern.

"She still likes me," Vern said, smiling. "Even though I don't wear the uniform anymore." Vern threw another shot down his throat. "She likes you, too." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Joe didn't respond. He didn't want to go there. Joe tried to gauge how much Vern had been drinking. This certainly didn't seem to be his first shot of the afternoon, judging by how flushed his face was. Vern had always been a hard drinker, and there had rarely been a night after work when Vern didn't suggest they stop for one or two. But since Vern had returned, Joe had yet to see him without bourbon within his grasp.

"Have you given what we talked about any thought?" Vern asked.

Joe nodded.

"Well?"

"I need to discuss it with Marybeth," Joe said. "We really haven't had a chance to talk it over yet."

Vern's eyes never left Joe's. "She's a smart woman," Vern said. "She'll steer you in the right direction. D'you want me to talk to her?"

"That won't be necessary." Joe felt a twinge of resentment toward his former boss. Vern obviously thought he could talk Marybeth into making Joe take the job. Vern thought he could talk anybody into anything. Usually, he could. Vern was a highly intelligent man and very persuasive. But for a reason Joe couldn't quite articulate, he found himself resisting the job offer.

"I know one thing," Joe said, drinking at the beer.

"I know I won't be ready to make any big moves until these outfitter

murders are finally solved."

Vern sat perfectly still. He looked at Joe with disbelief.

"What in the hell is there to solve, Joe?" Vern asked, his voice low and tight. "Clyde Lidgard shot three local white trash outfitters, and you guys shot him. Case closed."

"There are too many unanswered questions," Joe said quickly. "Why did he do it? Why was he up there? Why did he stay there if he did it? Why did Ote Keeley come to my house? What was in that cooler? In my mind, there are a lot of things that have to be answered."

Vern sat perfectly still with a look of outright contempt on his face, his eyes boring a hole in Joe. Although he felt his resolve weakening, Joe looked back and did not flinch. He steeled himself against Vern, determined to not let him talk him out of continuing the investigation.

"Joe," Vern said, his voice barely over a whisper. "Let's you and me take a couple of minutes and talk about the real fucking world." Vern bit off the last three words with a vehemence that caught Joe completely off guard and unnerved him. "I don't know the answers to those questions, and I frankly don't give a shit," Vern hissed.

"Murders are messy. When the killer is shot before he can talk, there are all kinds of loose ends. This is not an exact science--you should know that by now. These things aren't always wrapped up neatly. Sometimes when it's too neat, an innocent man goes to prison, but usually the guy is scum and should be in there anyway. Don't beat yourself up trying to put every piece together. Forget about it and move on with your life, Joe."

Joe thought about what Vern said. And he thought about Vern. There was an urgency there Joe couldn't understand and hadn't expected.

"What about the cooler Ote brought to my house?" Joe asked. "What was in it?"

Vern brought his hand down on the table with a wet slap. "Again, who the fuck cares?" Vern asked, reaching over and taking one of Joe's shots.

"Let it go."

"I talked to a couple of hunters today who asked me if I knew anything about an endangered species being found in the mountains," Joe said. "They wouldn't elaborate, and I don't know if they were kidding or not."

"Who were they?" Vern asked. He knew everybody.

"Hans and Jack."

"Fuck 'em," Vern said, dismissing them. "Coupla gossipy old hens."

"I don't know about that," Joe said. "I always thought they were all right."

"Joe..." Vern sighed. "I've got an obligation to find out and report on it," Joe said. "You know that."

Vern sneered back. "An obligation to whom?" he asked. "The Wyoming Game and Fish Department? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? The Sierra Fucking Club? The president of the United States?"

"Vern," Joe reasoned. "You know what we're supposed to do if we find something like this. Or even suspect it. And what if it's tied to the outfitter murders in some way?"

Vern rolled his eyes. He used to do the same thing when he thought Joe had said something incredibly naive. "You know, Joe, what I'm about to say will shock you," Vern said. "But I know good men who have found an endangered species on their land and shot it and buried it without a second thought rather than announce it to the world. I know a rancher over by Cody who cornered some kind of wolverine-type creature that he knew was supposed to be extinct. He blew that little sucker away and fed the pieces to his dogs. That rancher knew that if he had reported it, he would have been kicked off of his own land so that a bunch of bark-beetle elitists could claim they were saving the world."

One of the men from the stools at the bar weaved near their booth as he made his way toward the bathroom. Vern leaned across the table to Joe and kept his voice down.

"Do you realize what would happen to this valley if it got out that there might be something in the mountains? Even if it was nothing more than a silly rumor started by a couple of gossipy old hens? Even if there was no more to it than a couple of future Alzheimer's candidates blabbering into the wind? Or even if you, as the game warden, announced that you thought there was something up there?

"Think of the people who work in the lumber mill," Vern said. "Think of the logging truck drivers, the cowboys, the outfitters, the fishing guides. They'd be unemployed while the Feds roped off the entire valley for the future. Environmentalists from all over the country would move in with their little round glasses and sandals and start giving press conferences on how they're here to protect the innocent little creatures from the ignorant locals. Whether or not anything was ever found up there, the environmentalists would keep things tied up in the courts for decades just so that they can tell their members they're actually doing something with their dues.

"Third-generation ranchers would lose their ranches. Support people--teachers, retailers, restaurant owners--would lose their jobs or move on eventually. All because Joe Pickett, master game warden extraordinaire, suspects that there might be some rare thing in the mountains.

"Half the people in this town would hate your guts," Vern said. "Some would lose their jobs. Your cute little girlies would catch all kinds of horrible crap in school. They would bear the brunt of it, Joe, and it would all be your fault."

Joe found himself breaking his gaze with Vern and looking down at the table, but thinking, Inter West Resources and their pipeline wouldn't do too well either.

Vern continued, "It might be different if the endangered species laws either made any sense biologically or if they weren't just political mind games. But neither is true. Listen."

Vern went on to recount how there were more than 950 plants and animals listed as either "endangered" or "threatened" and an additional 4,000 species that were candidates for future listings. And how 20 years and billions of dollars later, fewer than 30 species have come off the "endangered" list. He said the laws were hypocritical, that species considered "cute," like wolves and grizzly bears, fared better than species that were ugly to human eyes, and no rational scientific basis was used. He said he had looked at the numbers and figured out that more than $190 million had been spent on bald eagles, northern spotted owls, red cockaded woodpeckers, grizzly bears, West Indian manatees, Florida scrub jays, and whooping cranes. Then he spoke in broad, global terms and stated that at least 99 percent of all species that had ever lived on earth had become extinct naturally, without man's "interference." Mass extinctions had happened since the dawn of time. Snail darters, Colorado squawfish, spotted owls, and Mount Graham red squirrels wouldn't be missed by anyone or anything.

"Animals die, Joe," Vern said. "Species go belly up. It happened before the first fish crawled on land and figured out lungs, and it will continue to happen. What gives us the right to be so arrogant that we think we can control what lives and what dies? We aren't as almighty as we like to think when it comes to affecting the real world, the natural world. All of the nuclear bombs on earth have about one ten-thousandth the power of the asteroid that slammed into the planet and killed all of the dinosaurs. What humans can do to change the planet is puny. We're deluding ourselves if we think we're so fucking smart that we can either save or create a species. How do we know that by saving some little dickey bird that we aren't preventing a new and improved dickey bird from evolving? Who do we think we are?" Vern asked.

"Who the hell are we to take on God?"

Joe sat back. He felt as though he had been pummeled.

Vern noted the reaction and, obviously thinking he had persuaded Joe, drank the last shot of bourbon and smiled. "Speaking of God," Vern said. "Have you ever heard of the God Squad?"

Joe shook his head no. "It's a real thing. I didn't make this up. It's composed of the secretary of interior, the secretary of the army, the secretary of agriculture, and a couple of other guys. It is their job, when it comes down to the nut cutting, to decide which species live or die in the national interest. Can you believe the incredible arrogance of that?"

Joe and Vern finished their beers in silence. As Joe got up to leave, Vern reached out and held his arm. Their eyes locked. "There is an offer on the table, Joe. The window of opportunity for that job offer is starting to close. If you choose not to take advantage of it, you will be making a mistake."

Joe was unsure whether he was being advised or threatened.

"I'll let you know, Vern," Joe said. "Seems like there are a lot of things I need to decide."

"You'll do the right thing," Vern said, patting Joe on the hand. "You're a good man, Joe, and you'll do the right thing."

***

Sheridan and Lucy named the largest creature the first one they had seen Lucky, the smaller, brown creature Hippity-Hop, and the long, thin creature Elway. They decided the animals were a family, and a happy one. Lucky was the dad, Hippity-Hop was the mom, and Elway was the son. The names, they thought, matched their personalities. And boy, could they eat.

They ate everything. Not only would they emerge from the woodpile for Cheerios, but they would stuff bits of hot dog, luncheon meat, and vegetables into their cheeks. The only thing they didn't seem to like were jelly beans, and that upset Lucy because she had a whole plastic purse full of them.

During dinner, Sheridan had learned to hide bits of food in her napkin to take out to the backyard later. Lucy ate all of her dinner, but she would gladly sacrifice her snack because she wasn't much on sweets. Together, while Mom was clearing dishes or talking on the telephone or visiting with Grandmother Missy, Sheridan and Lucy would ask to play in the backyard (the wish was always granted) and then go feed the secret pets.

Lucky, Hippity-Hop, and Elway weren't silent after all. They could chirp and chatter and make a trilling sound like a muted baby's rattle when they were annoyed or playful. Sheridan sometimes thought the animals were so loud that there was no way Mom or Grandmother Missy wouldn't hear them, but they never seemed to.

Lucy would eventually give the secret away, Sheridan thought. She was just too little to keep her mouth shut. Just that evening after dinner Lucy said she wanted to go outside and "feed Lucky." Sheridan explained that Lucky, along with Elway and Hippity Hop, were their imaginary pets. Mom complimented Sheridan for playing so nicely with her little sister. Grandmother Missy beamed at them both.

When the creatures were done eating or didn't emerge from the logs, Lucy wanted to "play animals" with Sheridan. Sheridan went along, which meant Lucy pretended she was one of the creatures and Sheridan was feeding her. Sheridan would throw imaginary food on the grass and Lucy, a good mimic, would replicate the creatures as they picked up the food in their claws and stuffed it into their cheeks.

Sheridan knew it wouldn't last. Something would eventually happen. It always did. But while the creatures were alive and playful, and while they just belonged to Sheridan (and Lucy), she would enjoy it. Having the secret and seeing those little faces pop out of the woodpile was a wonderful treat--and something she looked forward to every afternoon on the bus ride home.

While it lasted, it was magic.

***

Joe Went back to the break lands before sunrise. He drove there in a heavy, wet mist and had to use the four-wheel drive to get to the top of his lookout hill.

The day broke wet and dark, and the rain increased. The clouds were low and filled the sky, and the water pooled on the slick bentonke clay of the plateaus or created chocolate brown ponds or streams that foamed through draws. The valley was socked in, and from what he could see through his spotting scope, the antelope hunters had stayed in their camps. The roads had already deteriorated and were either marble-slick or mushy, depending on the terrain. He decided to get out of the area while the option was still available. On the way back he winched out a crew of hunters stuck in a ditch and followed them down to the main road.

Once he reached home, Joe left his boots and yellow slicker in the mudroom, put his hat crown down on his desk, and called Game and Fish Headquarters in Cheyenne and asked for the Wildlife Biology Section. He told a technician about the package he had sent them and asked whether the contents had been examined yet. He was asked to hold.

From his chair, he could smell coffee from the kitchen, and he could hear the murmuring of Marybeth and her mother at the table.

At last a man identifying himself as the chief biologist came on the line. Joe had heard of him but had never met him. Joe listened to him and felt his scalp twitch.

"What do you mean you don't have it?" Joe asked.

"Exactly that," the biologist said, the righteous annoyance of a higher rank apparent.

"No one here has seen it or recalls receiving it. How did you send it to us?"

Joe described the small box wrapped in brown paper and tape.

"You sent it regular mail? Not UPS? Not Federal Express? Not registered mail?"

the biologist fired at Joe. "So there's no receipt. You sent it so there was no way to trace it?"

Joe felt his temper rise. He kept his voice low and even.

"I called ahead and was instructed to send it by mail," Joe said. "I was told that in these days of limited state budgets, we were to avoid extravagances like Federal Express."

"Who told you that?" the biologist asked flatly.

"I think it was you," Joe said. The voice sounded the same. "I called you the day I found it."

There was a long, frustrated sigh over the telephone. "Well, we don't have it."

"Can you look again? It's important," Joe said.

"Nothing I've had examined has ever been lost before, either from there to here or from here to there." There was a long silence. "Sure, we can look. But no one here recalls getting it."

He asked Joe to confirm the address he sent it to and the section. He asked Joe if he had put enough postage on the parcel.

Joe started to answer when the biologist asked him to hold again because he said someone might have found it. Joe sat back in his swivel chair with the receiver up to his ear. He recalled how the boys in Cheyenne often felt about the wardens in the field and vice versa. Vern had warned him about it years ago--how the agency directors sometimes felt that field wardens would go native and forget they were state employees, that the wardens would start to think of themselves as advocates for local ranchers or hunters or boosters. Some of the Cheyenne brass thought of the field wardens as prima donnas out there with their fancy trucks, guns, and badges. Like they were local celebrities rather than subordinates. But the resentment could be mutual. Joe had never placed a call to headquarters before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m." knowing that anyone he needed to talk to would only be in during those hours. He might start the day by patrolling the Bighorn break lands at 5 A.M." but things were different in Cheyenne. Biologists got paid the same whether they found a package or didn't find it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sheridan and Lucy playing in the living room. Lucy was being a dog or something and was raising up on her hind legs for an invisible treat that Sheridan was giving her. It was cute. Marybeth had said the night before that the girls seemed to be doing extremely well and that the Ote Keeley incident had not seemed to upset them. Marybeth said both girls had spent the last two days playing near the woodpile in the backyard and never even mentioned what had happened there. She said Sheridan, Miss Emotional, had even been consistently sunny. Marybeth said she was beginning to feel that maybe there would be nothing to worry about after all.

"Nope, sorry," the biologist said as he came back to the telephone. "We found a package and opened it, and it was a piece of a dead eagle a warden sent us from Ranchester to see if it had been shot."

Joe cursed under his breath. The biologist agreed to call him if the package ever showed up.

***

Joe walked into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Marybeth and Missy were sitting at the table and stopped talking when he walked in, confirming that they had been talking about him. He filled his cup and turned and leaned against the counter. Marybeth looked radiant, and she smiled at him. Missy was smiling, too, and she looked at him with a kind of detached respect he had not seen from her before. Neither was about to ask him about the job offer or what he thought about it. Yet. They were both trying to gauge his mood.

Lucy crawled into the kitchen on all fours and propped up on her haunches near the table with her mouth open. Missy fed her a piece of a waffle from a plate. Joe guessed this routine had been going on most of the morning.

"There's your treat, little doggie," Missy said.

"I'm not a doggie," Lucy said over her shoulder as she scooted back into the living room to be with her sister.

"I don't know what's going on, but the girls are being angels," Marybeth told Joe.

"Maybe their grandmother brings out the best in them."

Joe laughed, and Missy gave Marybeth a look. The telephone rang in the office, and Joe excused himself to answer it. There was silence on the other end after Joe identified himself. The barely perceptible hiss in the line indicated it was long distance.

"You don't know me." It was a woman's voice.

"I work at headquarters in Cheyenne." Her voice was steady, but nervous. She was barely audible.

Joe reached behind him without looking and closed the office door. It was now quiet in the room. He sat down at his desk.

"You called about a package today," the woman said.

"I saw it come in Tuesday and it went to Game Biology. Then it disappeared."

"What do you mean it disappeared?" Joe asked.

"It disappeared."

Joe thought about it, saying nothing. The woman again said that it had disappeared. She clipped her words, and he could sense the caution in her voice, as if someone might walk in on her any minute.

"Who are you?" Joe asked.

"Never mind," she said. "I've got two kids and a husband who's out of work. I'm a state employee with benefits. I need this job."

"I've got a couple of kids, too," Joe said. "And another one on the way."

"Then you had best just forget about that package," the woman said sharply, not wanting to establish any kind of common interest. "Just forget about it and go on with your life."

Joe frowned. It was the second time he had received that advice. While she talked, he slid open his desk drawer. The other envelope, the one with the last few pieces of scat, was still there.

She paused briefly, then continued. "Let me put it this way: anything you send us will get lost."

"Why are you doing this?" Joe asked. There was a hint of exasperation on the other end of the phone.

"I don't know," she said. "I just felt that I had to. I have to go now."

"Thank you," Joe said but she had already hung up.

Joe thought about what to do. Still holding the receiver, he sifted through his desk until he found his old address book and then dialed his friend Dave Avery.

Joe and Dave had gone to college together and Dave now worked as a game biologist for the Montana Fish and Game Department in Helena. After they had caught up (Dave had divorced but was engaged again), Joe asked him if he could send him a sample for an independent analysis.

"Where was it found?"

"My backyard."

"And my Wyoming colleagues can't decide what squeezed it out?"

"There's some dispute," Joe hedged. He didn't want to go into the story of the lost sample. There wasn't any need to.

"Sound's like you're challenging me," Dave said. "Name That Shit."

"I am," Joe said, forcing a laugh. Dave agreed to take a look at it, whatever it was, and to keep both the sample and the results in confidence.

Joe sat back in his swivel chair. He thought about what the woman at the lab had told him. He wondered how he could go about finding out who she was and if he even should. He believed she had told him the truth about the missing sample. He wished she hadn't, because things had suddenly become a lot more complicated.

***

The tires Of Joe Pickett's pickup made a sizzling sound as he drove through the wet streets of Saddlestring to the county sheriff's office. It was still raining, and there were very few people out on the streets. Those who were out were scurrying from one door to another holding their hands on top of their heads. Joe thought how strange it was that the rain had continued throughout the day. Rain was a rarity this time of year; in fact, it was a rarity, period.

Wyomingites, Joe had observed, didn't know what to do when it rained except get out of it, watch it through the window, and wait for it to go away. The same people who chained up all four tires and drove through horizontal snowstorms and bucked snowdrifts just to go have lunch in town during the winter had no clue what to do when it rained. A few ranchers stretched plastic covers, sometimes referred to as "cowboy condoms," over their John B. Stetsons but few people owned umbrellas. Fewer yet would let themselves be seen with an umbrella open because it would appear urban and pretentious, and the only rain slickers he ever saw were rolled up neatly and tied to the backs of saddles, where they generally remained. But Joe liked rain and wished there were more of it.

Vern had been right. Saddlestring was dying. A decade ago the coal mines in the county were operational and the Twelve Sleep Oil Field was pumping, but now both were silent. Only a reclamation crew still worked at the mine, and the oil wells had since been capped, waiting in vain for the price of a barrel of oil to rise.

Even the agricultural jobs had shrunk as out-of-state wealth bought local ranches for tax write-offs and in some cases took them out of production. Cattle prices were the lowest in a decade. A quarter of the storefronts on the main street were boarded up. In the past five years, the population of the town had decreased by 30 percent. Houses were available in all parts of town, and the prices were cheap. Saddlestring's one radio station had announced it was going off the air as of the first of next month. Unemployment was high and getting higher. Vern's pipeline would pump not only natural gas but new blood and dollars back into the community.

Saddlestring was a classic western town borne of promise due to its location on the railroad, but that promise never really played out. In the 1880s, a magnificent hotel was built by a mining magnate, but it had faded into disrepair. The main street, called Main Street, snaked north and south and had a total of four stoplights that had never been synchronized. The two-block "downtown" still retained the snooty air of Victorian storefronts designed to be the keystones of a fine city, but beyond those buildings, the rest of Main Street looked like any other American strip mall, punctuated by gun shops, sporting goods stores, fishing stores, bars, and restaurants that served steak.

Joe entered the sheriff's office and hung his jacket and hat on a rack.

"Still raining?" asked Deputy McLanahan from his desk behind the counter. Joe said it was and asked if Sheriff Barnum was available. Wendy, the receptionist/dispatcher, eyed Joe coldly, long enough to remind him that she still didn't like him after their telephone conversation on Sunday. But then she relented and buzzed Barnum on the intercom, saying "Game Warden Joe" was here to see him.

Sheriff Bud Barnum sat behind a desk stacked with mountains of paper and mail. He was sipping from a large white foam cup that he appeared never to put down. Although Barnum's office was good sized, there were stacks of magazines and documents everywhere, and the untidiness of it gave Joe a claustrophobic feeling. There was a single, brown Naugahyde chair across from Barnum's desk, and Joe moved a few pieces of unopened mail from it and sat down.

Barnum sipped loudly from his cup. Joe could smell the strong coffee.

"You ever been to that new coffee place down the block?" Barnum asked. Joe nodded that he had. Marybeth liked to meet him there for coffee and oversized muffins when he took a morning break.

"It's a pretty good place," Barnum said quietly. "The people who own it are a little goofy, though. It's kind of a hippie establishment. They moved here from California, and she doesn't wear makeup or shave her legs, which I don't understand the significance of. He was some kind of computer engineer before he sold his stock and moved out here. All their food is vegetarian."

To Joe, Barnum looked very tired. His pallor was grayish, and there were bags under his eyes.

"They've got all these different kinds of coffee these days," Barnum said, looking at the big foam cup. "This is Ethiopian JabaJava. All my life I thought there was only one kind of coffee and that it came out of a big red can with a little Mexican or Colombian farmer on it. Then all of the sudden there are a hundred kinds of coffee. They feature a new kind of special coffee every day in that place. I've been trying a different one every day to try and make up for all of those years I was sheltered. I don't know why it is that alcohol and tobacco are now bad, but jolts of caffeine are suddenly good. It is beyond me, and it makes me feel old."

He handed Joe the cup for Joe to try it. To be polite, Joe had a sip. Barnum had a disarming and likable way about him. Joe nodded.

"Pretty good, eh?" Barnum said. "Who'd a thought there could be coffee from Africa? Plain old American coffee just isn't good enough for us anymore, I guess."

Joe felt awkward. Then he came right out with it: "Can I ask you a question about the outfitter murders?"

"Pertaining to what?" Barnum asked, sitting a little straighter in his chair, his heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Joe. Joe started to answer, but Barnum spoke again. "First I need to know whose camp you're in," Barnum said.

"Whose camp?"

"Wacey Hedeman's or mine," Barnum said. "The guy who is running against me. Your pal."

"I'm neutral," Joe said truthfully. "I don't have a position on that."

Barnum's expression never changed. Joe had no idea what Barnum was thinking. It was unnerving.

"Stay that way," Barnum warned.

"I intend to," Joe replied.

"I'm going to lose the election," Barnum said flatly. "I've been around long enough to know this is the last one, even if no one else realizes it."

Joe had no idea how to answer that. He couldn't imagine Bud Barnum not being the sheriff of Twelve Sleep County. Clearly, Barnum couldn't either.

"I don't know what the hell I'm going to do after that," Barnum said. "Maybe the governor will give me a job, but then I'd have to move to Cheyenne. Probably I'll just stay here and drink a lot of coffee."

Joe lamely suggested that there was still a month and a half until the election and that anything could happen in that time. Barnum nodded wearily.

"You had a question."

"I'm wondering what the status of the investigation is."

"The status of the investigation," Barnum mimicked, his expression theatrically perplexed, "is obvious. The state crime-lab ballistics has proven that all three Mississippi yahoos were shot with the same nine millimeter semiautomatic pistol at close range, and that pistol was found on Mr. Clyde Lidgard by Deputy McLanahan and yourself and Mr. Hedeman. Lidgard is in critical condition in the Billings hospital, having never regained consciousness, and the doctors up there say every day that he won't live through the night but he has so far. Unless Mr. Lidgard regains consciousness and tells us a story that is different from what we already know, the case is all but closed."

Joe waited for more. No more was coming. "So when Clyde Lidgard dies, the investigation ends," Joe said.

"Unless there is some kind of new evidence to open it back up," Barnum said. "Simple as that."

Joe nodded. "His trailer was searched?"

Barnum's tone was mildly sarcastic, "It was searched both by the sheriff's office and by the state boys. Nothing could be found that either implicated or exonerated Lidgard. The report is in the file if you want to read it over. Lidgard was a strange bird, and his trailer was a strange place. He liked to take a lot of pictures with his Kodak Instamatic. There are thousands of photos out there. He also liked to collect pictures of Marilyn Monroe, including that first-ever Playboy magazine with her in it. That magazine's probably the only thing Clyde owned that was worth anything. If that magazine is still out there, it will amaze me because more than likely it ended up in the briefcase of one of the state investigators. But aside from the magazine, everything that was in the trailer is still in the trailer, and the unit has been sealed and locked."

Joe took it all in and waited for Barnum to finish. "Do you mind if I take a look on my own?" Joe asked.

Barnum again resumed the perplexed look. Then he smiled slightly as if Joe amused him.

"You going to do some investigating?"

"Just curious."

"Can I ask why?" Barnum said, his eyebrows arching.

Joe shrugged. "I guess I'm taking this whole thing a little personal because Ote Keeley died in my yard. This whole thing has affected my family."

"What's there to solve?" Barnum asked. "In my twenty-odd years of experience dealing with things like this, I've come to the painful and sometimes unpopular conclusion that many times things are exactly what they seem to be."

"Maybe so," Joe said. "But I need to convince myself."

The sheriff studied Joe for what seemed an inordinate amount of time.

"Go do what you need to do," Barnum finally said. "Lidgards trailer keys are in the file. Just don't take or disturb any of the evidence, because we might find a next of kin who wants some of that crap out there."

Joe thanked him and stood up.

"Joe," Barnum said, as Joe reached for the doorknob, "shouldn't you be out there in the woods catching poachers or counting gut piles or whatever it is you boys do?"

That stopped Joe and turned him around. "Yes, I should be," Joe said quietly. He did not say what he was thinking, which was, Shouldn't you be out there following up every last possibility instead of sitting here on your butt, drinking coffee and worrying about the election?

***

Joe got a copy of the crime report and the trailer keys from Deputy McLanahan.

"Depressing, ain't he?" McLanahan asked Joe. "This is a really fun place to work these days. When I try and make a joke or even smile about something, he tells me to quit trying to act like Jerry Lewis."

Joe nodded and got his jacket and hat.

"Jerry Lewis," McLanahan echoed as Joe stepped outside. It was still raining.

Written with a felt-tipped marker, the cardboard sign on Clyde Lidgards trailer read: Anyone caught vandalizing or attempting to enter these premises will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by order of the Twelve Sheep County Sheriff's Department.

The rain had caused the letters on the sign to blot and run, and there were several long rivulets of black running the length of the door. It was dark inside the trailer, the heavy rain only allowing a meager amount of light to filter in through the grimy louvered windows. Joe searched for the light switch but discovered that the electricity had been cut off. It smelled musty, and there was the sharp stench of rotting food from the refrigerator and garbage. He decided to check them last, on his way out, because he guessed that the smell would be overpowering once he opened the doors. Joe drew his flashlight from his belt and turned it on. He felt wary and voyeuristic standing in the middle of the dead man's home. The investigations Joe conducted were usually done outside, more often than not over the carcass of a game animal shot and abandoned. In the trailer, Joe felt closed-in. He believed that he didn't know Clyde Lidgard well enough to be in his home. Plus he had no idea what he was looking for in the trailer. The trailer was small and filthy, years of grit coating the floors and counters.

He stood near the kitchen table in the middle of the trailer, trying to decide where to look first. He shone his flashlight around the room, exposing a hallway that branched off of the room he was standing in. All the doors were wide open, the result, Joe guessed, of the sheriff's search. At the end of the hall, Joe could just make out the foot of a bed in a large bedroom. There were two rooms off of the hallway. One led to a tiny bathroom and the other to a small room that appeared to have been used for storage.

Joe started down the narrow hallway, and his holster caught on an exposed nail. He stepped back and unbuckled his cumbersome belt and put the holster on the table. He kept his flashlight. Joe stepped inside the bathroom. Old Marilyn Monroe pictures, puckered from steam, covered the walls and ceiling. The staples that secured the pictures were rusty. Shelves against the corner were filled with dozens of brown, prescription drug bottles. Most of the bottles were dusty and hadn't been used in some time.

Joe read the labels and saw most had been prescribed by doctors at the local VA hospital. The most recent had been filled by Barrett's Pharmacy in Saddlestring. Joe recognized the names Thorazine and Prozac but knew little about either drug.

The small bedroom was filled with boxes, clothes, and junk. So much had been haphazardly piled into the room for so long that the room couldn't really be entered without taking boxes out. Joe shone the flashlight into several of the closest boxes and found them filled with envelopes of photographs. As Sheriff Barnum had said, there appeared to be thousands.

Joe then entered Lidgard's bedroom and found that the twin bed nearly filled all of the floor space. Joe had to turn sidewise and shuffle around the bed to look around. There were a couple of yellowed posters of Marilyn Monroe stapled to the wall along with an army photo of a younger Clyde Lidgard and a calendar from Lane's Feed and Grain in Saddlestring. The sheets on the bed were not beige as he had first thought, but were white sheets so dirty they appeared beige. There was a stale smell in the room.

Joe slid back the closet doors. Lidgard had a surprising quantity of clothing--they completely filled the closet rack--but none of them looked to have been worn for years. Dust covered the shoulders of the shirts and jackets. On the shelf above the clothes, Joe saw a dozen boxes for .30-.30 rifle cartridges. The price tags on the boxes ranged from $8.50 to $18.00, indicating they had been purchased over at least 20 years.

Joe reached up to find that the older boxes were empty but for whatever reason Lidgard had chosen to keep them. Judging by the photographs, junk, pill bottles, and cartridge boxes, Lidgard had been an obsessive collector of things. Joe stood on the end of the bed to make sure he had seen everything on the shelf.

The heavy coat of dust was tracked with recent finger smudges, and Joe assumed they had been left by the other investigators. But Joe didn't see what he was looking for.

Joe closed the closet and drew a small notepad from his shirt pocket.

"Lidgard's trailer," Joe wrote. "No nine millimeter cartridges."

It took Joe several trips to bring out all of the boxes of photographs from the junk room to the kitchen table where the light was better. It appeared that the thick envelopes full of photos were not really arranged in any manner. But in general, the top envelopes contained more recent photos than those at the bottom of the boxes.

Joe took out the newer sets of photographs, looked at them, and was careful to return them into the proper envelopes. The most recent photos had been developed at Barren's Pharmacy, the same place Lidgard filled his prescriptions.

If Joe had hoped that the photos would reveal anything other than the fact that Lidgard was a poor if prolific photographer, he was quickly disappointed. The photos were generally of bad quality, and of mundane and inane things. Lidgard apparently carried his camera with him everywhere and from his car window took a lot of photos of things that only Lidgard could explain. Most were crooked, with a left-hand tilt to them. There were trees, lots of photos of trees and bushes. Joe squinted to see if there was anything in those trees and bushes, but he could not find anything of note. There were landscapes: sagebrush, foothills, mountains, the river valley. Sometimes there would be a photo of a part of Clyde Lidgard. There were several pictures ofLidgard's shoes taken as he apparently just stood there and shot down. There were a couple of photos of Lidgard's unfocused face as he held the camera away from him at arm's length and triggered the shutter. Joe studied Clyde Lidgard's face for any kind of clue, but what he saw was a dark, pinched, almost tortured scowl obscenely lit and shadowed by the flash. There was an eerie photo of Lidgard taken into the bathroom mirror with the flash obscuring most of the frame. There were pictures of the cabins Lidgard looked after in the mountains and photos of buildings in downtown Saddlestring. There were two entire rolls taken of snowdrifts. In one of the winter pictures, Joe could discern a herd of elk traipsing across the plains in the far distance, the animals no larger than flyspecks. And occasionally there were unfocused photos ofLidgard's shrunken penis.