Out of Range

FIVE

A traveler going from east to west over the Bighorn Mountains has three choices of routes: U.S. 16 through Ten Sleep Canyon and Worland, U.S.14 descending through Shell Canyon and Greybull, and U.S. 14-A, via the Medicine Wheel Passage and on to Lovell. Joe chose 14-A not only for the challenge of its switchbacks but for the view he would get when he broke over the top of the range and saw the vista of the Bighorn Basin laid out flat, brown, and endless. He chewed gum to help his ears pop as they clouded with elevation, and looked over frequently to check on Maxine, his Labrador, who he'd left at home until he could scope out his new district. Fine, gritty snow peppered his windshield at the ten-thousand-foot summit, the snow appearing from a virtually cloudless light blue sky.

His feelings were decidedly mixed. The memory of the morning with his young family stayed with him. Sheridan and Lucy had been dressed for school and scrambling along the countertop in the kitchen, assembling their lunches. Marybeth was preparing for a day of bookkeeping at the pharmacy. She wore khaki slacks and a sweater, her blond hair cut shorter than she had ever worn it. He liked it but still wasn't used to it. Joe had stood stupidly near the mudroom entrance, watching them. Their good-byes had been a little frantic because they could all hear the school bus lumbering down Bighorn Road. After the girls were on the bus and the doors were shut, Joe and Marybeth walked to his pickup, which was fully packed and ready to go.

"Call me often," she had said.

"As often as I can," he said, kissing her.

"In fact, call me when you get there. So I know you made it all right."

The scene was less than dramatic. So why did he feel that something seminal had happened? Why did he feel both guilty and elated?

As he descended the western slope, the snow vanished as suddenly as it had appeared and the temperature began to rise quickly. By the time he hit the flats, heat was shimmering on the old asphalt highway and roses were growing in boxes in downtown Lovell, which he left in his rearview mirror.

A squawk from his radio interrupted Joe's thoughts. He picked up the handset. It was dispatch calling with a message from Trey. The meeting place that morning would need to be changed. There was a bear problem.

Trey Crump was waiting for Joe in his pickup, which was parked in the trees at the culmination of a rugged two-track road, four miles from Dead Indian Pass. After Joe pulled up next to Trey's pickup, his supervisor got out of his truck and climbed in with Joe. Joe grasped the big man's hand.

Trey looked larger than he really was, with a squarish block of a head, a thick mustache going gray, and heavy jowls. A big belly strained against his uniform shirt. He was a terse man in aura and appearance, but his deep-set, compassionate eyes gave him away as the romantic he really was. Joe liked and admired Trey, but he rarely saw him in person. Trey wore badge number 4, meaning he had the fourth highest seniority within the division. Joe had recently received his new badge, moving from 52 to 44. Since there were only fifty-five full-fledged game wardens-and thirty-five trainees not yet assigned a district-Joe was proud of his new badge number. With Will Jensen's death, Joe would now be badge number 43. He felt more than a pang of guilt for even thinking about that.

Trey apologized for not meeting Joe for breakfast at the Irma Hotel in Cody, but said he had received a 5 A.M. call-out for a problem grizzly bear that had been breaking into cabins in the Sunlight Basin. The suspect bear was named Number 304, and he was well known in the area. That morning, the 450-pound grizzly had pushed down a steel-reinforced door, entered a cabin and dismantled it, ripping the cabinets from the wall and tossing a cast-iron stove from the kitchen into a bedroom.

"This is a bad situation," Trey said, his voice deep and filled with gravel. "I could use your help."

Joe could see the roofs of some of the cabins below in the heavy timber, and a culvert bear trap set up in a sundrenched meadow. The trap was designed on wheels so it could be pulled behind a vehicle to the problem area and baited with a road-killed deer or antelope. When the bear entered the metal opening and tugged on the bait, a heavy steel door crashed down and locked. The trap, with the angry bear in it, could then be hitched to a pickup and driven away to a remote location, where the bear would be released. Either that, or euthanized on the spot if the Interagency Grizzly Bear Management Team pronounced a death sentence on the animal.

Joe grimaced. He had had enough of grizzly bears the year before, when a runaway from Yellowstone had bee-lined for the Bighorns. He'd seen firsthand what an animal like that could do to a man.

"We're overwhelmed with bears right now," Trey said with a heavy sigh. "Three different call-ins came in just this morning. That's why I'm alone here-my bear guys are off on the other calls. They wanted to stay here to help me with 304 because we all kind of like the guy, and we hate to see him go."

For the first time, Joe noticed that Trey's scoped rifle was out and lying across the hood of his supervisor's truck on a pair of old coveralls.

"You've got to kill him, then?" Joe asked.

"That was our recommendation to the Feds," Trey said with resignation. "This is the fourth time 304's damaged property in the basin. No matter how far we take him away, he finds his way back. He's got no fear of humans anymore."

From a scanner in Trey's pickup, Joe could hear a low and steady pulsing tone. He knew from experience that the radio collar was transmitting the tone on 304. The bear was still in the area. They would sit and wait for it.

Joe scanned the ridges and slopes of the mountain basin, looking for movement. He saw none.

Trey said, "The sad thing is that 304 lived in these mountains for six or seven years without incident. One of the cabin owners left dog food out on his porch. 304 learned that he liked dog food and kept coming back. Pretty soon, the bear figured out that if he busted into the cabin he could find all kinds of things to eat. But it started with the dog food, and you know what they say."

"A fed bear is a dead bear," Joe said.

"Yes, goddamnit."

Night came. The sliver of moon was a surgical white slice in the sky. Joe and Trey sat silently in the cab of the pickup, listening to each other's breathing.

"Sorry to start out your trip like this," Trey said. "I bet you want to get over there."

"Not a problem."

"Joe, I've got to ask you something."

Joe grunted.

"After that incident last year, are you okay to work with me to get this bear?"

Joe turned to Trey and found his supervisor studying him. "I'm fine with it."

"Are you sure? Because if you aren't…"

"I said I'm fine with it, Trey."

Trey eventually moved from Joe's pickup to his own so he could sleep. Joe looked at his cell phone to see if he had a signal so he could call Marybeth and tell her about the change in plans. There was no signal. Instead, he checked in with dispatch and asked the dispatcher to advise Marybeth and the station in Jackson that he would be late arriving.

He tried to sleep. Cold crept into the cab from the doors and windows. The pulsing tone of the bear's collar served as a heartbeat for the stakeout.

At 2:30 there was a metallic clang from the dark meadow below. Joe sat up with a start, banging his head against the steering wheel. He looked over and saw that Trey had heard it too, and had turned on his dome light and unrolled his window.

As Joe opened his door, there was a roar from below that not only ripped through the silence but also seemed to roll through the earth itself.

"Sounds like we got him," Trey said. There was no joy in his voice.

Joe felt a shiver that raised the hair on his forearms and the back of his neck.