Out of Range

TWENTY-ONE

Mary Seels looked up from her reception desk Tuesday morning as Joe entered the lobby carrying his briefcase and the Good Meat files. She said sternly, "You should be parking in the back, in Will's old spot. There's no need to use visitor parking. You're not a visitor."

"Okay," he said sheepishly, mounting the stairs to his office. At the top of the landing he stopped and looked down at her. She was hunched over paperwork, bent forward as if struggling under the weight of armor. He wanted to ask her about what she'd started to tell him the day before.

"Mary…"

"Not now," she growled.

He sat at his desk and looked around the office. He felt much better today. He had finally talked to Marybeth. He had slept through the night for the first time in three nights-except for that dream involving Stella Ennis that excited and shamed him when he replayed it in his mind.

Will's notebooks were still stacked on the desktop, and he rifled through them, not sure what he was looking for. There was unopened mail in the inbox. The huge topo map dominated the wall, seemed to lean on him, the outfitter camp pushpins looking like an unclasped beaded necklace. I need to get up there, he told himself. But there were other matters at hand. He rubbed his face and eyes, thought, Where in the hell do I start?

But all he could think of, as he stared at the notebooks, the files, the map on the wall, was Stella Ennis and that dream. He could see why someone would write a song about her. He was attracted to her, no doubt. Entranced would be a better word. A dark shroud of guilt, like a thun-derhead, had begun to nose over the mountains.

He needed to divert his thoughts and concentrate on something that was appropriate to the situation.

Thankfully, there was something else that rankled him. Something Sheriff Tassell had said, a throwaway line at the time that had struck Joe as slightly off. He'd forgotten about it, but it resurfaced after he had talked through the situation with Marybeth the night before.

He called the sheriff's office and got Tassell.

"Who was the medical examiner called to Will Jensen's house?"

He heard Tassell sigh. "I'm in the middle of another meeting with the Secret Service right now. Can I call you back later?"

"No," Joe said abruptly. "All I want is the name. It's a real simple question."

"Your tone is inappropriate," Tassell said.

"It probably is," Joe said. "But all I need is the name."

"What is the problem?" Tassell asked.

"There may not be one at all," Joe said. Then: "I thought you were in a meeting. That you didn't have time for this?"

"I don't have time," Tassell said. "But-"

"Sheriff, it's public information. I just wanted to save some time instead of looking it up."

Tassell sighed again. "Shane Graves. Dr. Shane Graves. He lives between here and Pinedale. We share him with Sublette County on account of neither of us needs him much."

"Thank you."

"Joe," Tassell said, "keep me informed if you find anything."

"I will," Joe said, thinking, Was that so damned hard?

Dr. Graves was at his ranch, and told Joe that the files and photographs were there also. Graves sounded refined, cultured, aristocratic, and not at all what Joe had expected.

"If I drive down, can I look at the report?" Joe asked.

Graves hesitated. "I'm busy all day, and I was kind of planning on spending the evening with my companion tonight. Is this an urgent request?"

"Yes," Joe said, figuring that anything that would take his mind off Stella Ennis and back to Will's suicide was urgent. "I've got to get up into the backcountry as soon as possible, and I'd like to wrap up as much as I can here before I go."

"Okay, then," Graves said unenthusiastically. "You can come tonight around six. I'll give you directions."

Joe wrote them down.

"I'll see you tonight, then," Joe said.

"You didn't say anything. I'm surprised," Graves said coyly.

"About what?"

"About my name. Graves. Most people comment on the fact that I'm the medical examiner and my name is Graves."

"I'm not that clever," Joe said. He was glad he hadn't said anything-he had assumed Graves was talking about his use of the word companion.

Joe spent the afternoon in the corrals, learning the personalities of Will Jensen's packhorses. There were two he really liked, a black gelding and a buckskin mare who reminded him of a horse he used to have. Both seemed calm and tough, and neither balked when he saddled them or put on the boxy saddle panniers that, when filled, would carry his gear. The horses looked well fed and in good shape. They would have to be, he thought, for where he would be taking them.

There were frequent delays along the highway south of Jackson, as Joe drove his pickup and followed a school bus dropping off children at the mouths of rural lanes. While stopped, he surveyed the homes splayed out across the floodplain valley below him, and was struck by the overall neatness. He was reminded that because Jackson was bordered on all sides by mountainous federal land, the valley itself was like a glittering island in a sea of ten-thousand-foot waves.

The bus made the turn at Hoback Canyon toward Pinedale, and Joe sighed and looked at his wristwatch. He would be late to Dr. Graves's.

Hoback Canyon, in the high copper wattage of dusk, pulsed with such color and raw physicality that it almost hurt to look at it. The road paralleled the curving Hoback River.

At a straightaway, Joe looked in his rearview mirror. The school bus was holding up a long procession of vehicles. He noted that most of the drivers were talking on cell phones or drumming their fingers impatiently on the steering wheels of their SUVs.

As the children from the bus trudged down their roads wearing backpacks and hemp necklaces and bracelets, he thought of Sheridan and Lucy, and of Marybeth. Would Sheridan, with her teenage angst and strong opinions, fare well here? He couldn't imagine it, just as he had trouble imagining them all staying in Saddlestring. Would Marybeth like it? he wondered.

Joe mulled over the possibility of Marybeth and Stella Ennis in the same town. Jackson, he thought with a sharp stab of guilt, wasn't big enough for both of them.