Out of Range

SEVEN

Even though he should have been prepared for them, even though he had seen them dozens of times in photos, paintings, movies, on postage stamps, and in person, Joe still felt his heart skip a beat when the timber opened up on the road south of Yellowstone Park and the Tetons filled up the late afternoon vista. Mount Moran in particular, with its comma-shaped glacier of snow, burned bright in the cloudless sky. The dark, rounded shoulders of the Bighorns, his mountains, had been replaced by the glittering silver-white Tetons, which thrust upward like razor-edged sabers trying to slice open the sky. He felt like he was switching his comfortable horizon with a new, dazzling, high-tech model.

He wondered if he would ever get used to seeing those mountains without feeling a flutter in his stomach each time he looked. It was hard, Joe thought, not to be intimidated by the Tetons. There were no other mountains like them in the world; so new, sharp, and lethal that foothills hadn't yet had the courage to approach them. He wondered if Will Jensen had ever gotten used to them. How could something that dramatic ever really provide the comfort of familiar scenery?

Traffic south to Jackson through Grand Teton National Park was heavy, and Joe became part of a long parade of vehicles. The highway was choked with huge recreational vehicles helmed by older drivers who apparently thought the fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit was a challenge they wouldn't dare confront. He settled in, unable to pass because the exodus of tourist traffic in the oncoming lane was just as dense. Driving cautiously, he knew that the sighting of a moose, elk, or bear from the highway would instantly cause visitors to hit their brakes and, without pulling over to the shoulder, pour out of their vehicles with cameras and camcorders. On his left the ground rose in a gentle swell toward the Gros Ventre Mountains. On the raised flats, barely visible from the road, were old dude ranches. The movie Shane had been filmed on one of them, Joe remembered. It was the only movie he and his father had ever agreed on, maybe the only thing they had ever agreed on. Then he realized something that both scared and exhilarated him: This was his new district. As far as he could see in every direction, from the Tetons to the west, Gros Ventres to the east, Yellowstone Park to the north, to the town of Jackson ahead of him to the south, was his new responsibility.

Jackson was just a couple of hundred miles from Saddlestring, Joe thought, but it was a world apart.

The big new two-story state building had a parking lot in front for visitors and a private lot in back for employees of various agencies. Joe cruised through the staff lot, looking for a parking space, but they all appeared to be designated. The only open one he saw was marked for W. JENSEN. Even though there wasn't anywhere else available behind the building, he chose not to use it. Not yet. Instead, he wheeled around the front, parked between two RVs, and entered the building through the double doors.

In the lobby, tourists stood and rifled through a rack of brochures offering horseback rides, an aerial tram ride to the top of the Tetons, chuck wagon cookouts, white-water rafting, and other excursions, as well as accommodations.

A dark-skinned, wizened woman with coal-black hair peered over her gold-framed glasses at him as he approached her counter carrying his battered briefcase and day-pack. He nodded his hat brim to her, and she nodded back.

"Joe Pickett," he said.

She stood. She was not much taller standing than she had been sitting down. "Mary Seels. We expected you five days ago."

"Hello, Mary. I was helping my supervisor with a bear. You should have gotten word from dispatch that I'd be late."

She assessed him. He thought he saw a slight smile on her mouth, as if she were hiding her amusement. "I've heard about you."

He nodded again, not taking the bait, not saying, What have you heard? But he thought he already had her figured out, simply by the way she looked at him, with the same dispassionate sharpness of one of Nate's falcons, and by the way she projected her innate territoriality. Mary was the one who ran the place, he thought. She appraised him as if he had walked into the building hat in hand looking for the last bed in town, and she had the power to give it to him or turn him away.

"Will said you were a good guy," she said.

"I'm glad to hear that. I thought quite a bit of Will."

"If Will says you're a good guy, you're a good guy," she said, more to herself than to Joe. "I suppose you want to use his office?"

Inwardly, Joe cringed. He had not parked in Will's space because he felt he was encroaching.

"How many offices are in this building?" he asked.

She ticked her head from side to side like a metronome as she silently counted. "Twenty-some. We've got biologists, habitat specialists, fisheries guys, and communications people. Plus a library and a conference room. There's a corral out back. Will's four horses are kept there."

"Twenty offices," Joe repeated. "In my district I work out of my house. In a space about as big as your counter here."

"That's interesting," she said, her tone dismissive. "I hope you don't get lost here."

"Me too," he said.

There were a few beats of silence as Joe and Mary looked at each other.

"Are you going to move in or not?" she asked finally.

"Any empty rooms?"

"A couple. But they have the lousiest furniture, if they have furniture at all. People raid the empty offices for what they want all the time. You'll need a desk, won't you? A computer that works?" She was still testing him. "You know you want Will's office, so just take it."

He started to protest, but thought better of it. "Okay, ma'am."

"You can call me Mary," she said, again with that ghost of a smile, "but if you call me ma'am you'll get a hell of a lot better service around here."

He smiled at her.

"The office is upstairs," she said, and sat down to answer a ringing phone. "All of his files and records are up there. I'm sure you'll want to look at them."

"Yup."

Joe gathered his briefcase and pack from her counter and began to climb the wide stairs to the second floor. Mounted elk, deer, and bighorn sheep heads watched his progress with glass-eyed indifference, as if they'd seen the likes of him before.

"Hey, Joe Pickett," Mary called out from her desk.

He stopped on the top step and turned to her.

She lowered the phone and cupped her hand over the receiver. "You might have a call here in a minute. Someone is saying there are some people pitching a tent out in the middle of the elk refuge. You might have to go check that out and kick them off."

He hesitated. "Okay …"

"And you have several messages from your wife. She didn't sound very happy." Mary smiled for the first time. It was a smile of pity.

"She didn't get the dispatch message either," he said.

"Welcome to Jackson Hole," she said.

Will Jensen's nameplate was still in a fake brass slider next to the third door on the left. Joe hesitated, looking up and down the hallway, then cautiously opened the unlocked door and let it swing slowly inward. The mini-blinds covering the window were closed but bled laddered light. He waited a few beats before stepping inside. He couldn't help feeling voyeuristic, and a little ghoulish. Joe didn't want to be seen entering, didn't want anyone saying later that he had just barged into Will's old office like he owned the place. He reached inside the doorway, found the switch, and turned on the lights.

Joe's first impression was that Will had left the office planning to return to it. Papers fanned across the desk. An open can of Mountain Dew was on a coaster. A ballpoint pen, cap off and to the side, sat on the top of a large, thin spiral notebook. The fan on Will's computer hummed, indicating that it was sleeping and not turned off.

Joe stepped inside, leaving the door open, and dumped his briefcase and day-pack in the chair opposite the desk.

Overall, the room was spartan, the office of someone who rarely used it or couldn't get away from it fast enough. That fit with what Joe knew of Will and most of the other game wardens. Their actual workplace was outside, not inside. They used their desks with hesitation and profound regret, spending only as much time there as absolutely necessary between bouts in the field.

A cheap bookcase was a quarter filled with departmental memo binders and statute books. A retro Winchester Ammunition calendar was pushpinned into the wall. There were no personal photos, no drawings from his children. The only adornment was a framed, faded photo hanging on the wall, cocked slightly to the left, of the elk refuge in winter. Joe instinctively knew that Mary, or maybe Will's wife-but not Will-had put it there.

The left wall was dominated by a large-scale Forest Service map of the North Jackson district. Pins with tiny paper flags numbered 1 through 37 indicated where the licensed outfitter camps were located. The camps followed river drainages in a march toward Yellowstone.

Joe sat in Will's chair, still reluctant to settle in. The chair was uncomfortable, and was much older than the building itself. Joe wondered if one of the other employees had swapped out a chair at the news of Will's demise. He brushed the pen aside and looked at the spiral notebook. The red cover had a large "#10" written on the outside in black marker. Inside were entries scribbled in a tiny, cribbed block print.

10/02-0600. Rosie's / Box Creek / front country.

MI 567B Blk GMC / Rosie's / Call / Okay per Disp.

PA 983 Silver Ford 3/4 / HT / Rosie's / Call / Okay

per Disp.

WY 2-4BX Green Yukon / Rosie's / Call / Antlerless.

Citation issued.

1700-Turpin. 6b, 2s, 2 Wtbucks. Okay …

Joe quickly figured out Will's shorthand code. It was similar to the notes he kept in his own field notebooks. In translation, the notes said that on October 2 at 6 A.M., Will was patrolling Rosie's Ridge and the Box Creek front country in his pickup, checking on elk hunters. While he didn't see the hunters themselves, who had most likely left their vehicles and set up somewhere in the vast country to look for elk, Will noted their parked vehicles-a black GMC from Michigan, a silver Ford three-quarter-ton pickup with Pennsylvania plates, and a green Yukon with Wyoming plates. Will had called in each of the plates to dispatch and requested a cross-reference computer check to determine the name of the hunter and whether or not that hunter had obtained a permit from the department to hunt elk in the area. While the out-of-state hunters checked out ("Okay per Dispatch"), the Wyoming hunter had a license that only allowed him to hunt antlerless elk, which meant his particular season didn't open up for two more weeks. Will had located the Wyoming hunter, confirmed that he had violated regulations, and issued a citation.

Later in the afternoon, at 5 P.M., Will had patrolled through the Turpin Meadow campground at about the time that the first backcountry hunters were returning to their camps. The hunters had harvested six bull elk, two spike elk (yearling bulls), and two whitetail buck deer. All the kills had been clean and legal by properly licensed hunters, because no warnings or citations were noted.

Joe closed the notebook and sat back. The notes, once deciphered, presented a detailed account of his movements and actions. Using the notebook, citation book, and call-in record, a determined investigator could easily document what he did all day. Joe found that reassuring in his circumstances, since nearly everyone he encountered in the field was armed. The only game wardens who did mind, Joe knew, were the few with extracurricular activities like drinking while on duty or visiting lonely wives.

He reopened notebook #10 and scanned it. Since it was not yet October 2, it was from a previous year. On the last page with writing on it, in tiny script, he found where Will had written down the date of the year before. There were twenty or so fresh pages at the end of the notebook with no notes on them. Joe flipped back to page one, saw that the first entry was 01/02. So Will used a single spiral notebook for a given year.

He pushed back his chair and opened the desk drawers. They were remarkably empty, again the sign of a man who rarely used his office. But in the bottom left drawer he found a stack of new and used spirals exactly like the one on the desktop. Joe pulled them out and fanned them across the desk. The used notebooks were numbered 1 through 9, and were ragged and swollen with wear. The tenth he had already looked at. There were four unused notebooks, all clean and tightly bound. In the bottom of the drawer was a balled-up sheet of thin plastic, the original wrapper for the sheaf. Joe unwrapped the plastic and unfolded the paper band that had held the notebooks together. On the band it said there were fifteen to the package.

Which meant that the spiral for the current year was missing. Or in Will's pickup (where Joe kept his) or in Will's home. Joe opened his briefcase and slid all the notebooks into it. He would read them when he had the time, probably in the evening. What else would he have to do? He was determined to find #11.

Joe needed to call Marybeth and smooth things over. But as he reached for the phone, he felt more than heard the presence of someone in the doorway, and he looked up with a start.

"Are you here for the funeral tomorrow?" a man asked in place of a greeting.

Joe pushed back awkwardly from the desk because one of the rollers on the chair was damaged, and stumbled when he stood up. The man in the doorway was tall and thin with light blue eyes, sandy hair, and a pallor that came from working indoors in an office. He wore a tweed jacket over a turtleneck, and Wrangler jeans so new they were still stiff. The trendy hiking boots that poked out from his jeans looked like they had been taken out of the box only a few hours before.

Joe introduced himself and held out his hand. The man shook it languidly, and pulled his hand away quickly.

"Should I know you?" Joe asked.

"I would think so," the man said. "I'm Assistant Director Randy Pope. From headquarters in Cheyenne. You were supposed to be here Monday night."

Joe certainly recognized the name, even though he had never met Pope personally. Randy Pope was in charge of fiscal matters for the agency. Most of the memos that crossed Joe's desk concerning procedure, the wage and salary freeze, the abuse of overtime and comp time, the un-accountability of game wardens in the field, had been issued by Randy Pope.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Pope," Joe said, trying to sound friendly. "I'm late because I was helping Trey Crump out with a problem bear."

"The director is out of the state at a conference," Pope said, disregarding Joe's explanation. "He asked me to come to the funeral on behalf of the agency."

That explains your getup, Joe thought. This is how you think people dress in Jackson.

"You probably know I'm here to fill in," Joe said, feeling the need to explain why he was behind the desk in Will Jensen's old office.

Pope shifted his eyes from Joe to something over and to the right of Joe's head. "I heard about that," he said flatly. Clearly, Joe thought, Pope didn't approve of the arrangement. "We expected you earlier this week."

Joe patiently explained the hunt for the bear, saying he didn't know if the dispatcher forgot to forward the message or whoever got it didn't inform the office. Pope didn't seem to accept the excuse.

Joe had heard through Trey and others that Randy Pope desperately wanted to be named the next director. The current director was rumored to be short for the world, thanks to the pending gubernatorial election, and an opening would be likely. Directors were chosen at the discretion of the governor and the Game and Fish Commission, and historically had come from within the department, from the ranks of game wardens or biologists. To Joe's knowledge, there'd never been a director who came from the administrative side of the agency, the side that issued memos. Yet it was said that Pope had done his best to ingratiate himself with both gubernatorial candidates, as well as with the legislators who oversaw the department. He positioned himself as a man who was both within and without; a fiscally responsible insider who would curb rampant financial abuses as well as rein in the cowboys in the field. Joe had no doubt he was considered one of the cowboys.

Pope said, "Joe, do you realize what kind of trouble our agency is in these days?"

The question was out of left field, Joe thought. He shook his head.

"We're running deficits, bleeding red. We're being asked to take on more and more responsibilities by the state and the Feds, but our income streams are drying up."

This was no secret to Joe. Salaries had been capped and positions cut statewide.

"There are fewer hunters out there every year, Joe. It's no longer socially acceptable in many parts of the country to be a hunter. That means fewer hunting licenses are being purchased every year, which means less money for the agency to manage wildlife and everything else that has been thrown to us by the Feds-wolves, grizzly bears, endangered species … you name it. The only way to keep our division healthy is to practice sound fiscal management and good public relations. You never know when we'll have to go to the legislature for money."

"I'm aware of that," Joe said, not knowing where this was going.

"Are you?" Pope asked sharply.

"Yes."

Pope sighed. "I see everything, Joe. I'm the one who has to sign off on all of our expenses."

"Right."

"You don't know what I'm getting at, do you, Joe?"

"Nope," Joe said. But now he did.

"In the past six years, we've replaced two pickup trucks, a horse, and a snowmobile for you. Total losses, all of them. That's the worst damage record in the state."

Joe felt anger start to rise.

Pope continued, the cadence of his words speeding up until he was literally biting them off. "You arrested the governor. You got in the middle of a vital endangered-species issue. You pissed off one of the governor's biggest contributors- who later got killed in your presence. Let's see… what else?" Pope pretended to be pondering, then answered his own question. "That Sovereign thing up in the mountains, that was next. We are still working on repairing our relationship with the Forest Service over that one."

Joe crossed his arms and waited for him to finish.

"Last year you hit a guy with your third pickup, right?" Pope said. "You smashed in the grille and bent the frame. What did that cost?"

"A few thousand," Joe said.

"The actual cost was six thousand, seven hundred," Pope spit out.

"I've also lost two service weapons," Joe said. "One got burned up in a fire, and the other got blown up by a cow. Don't forget those."

That stopped Pope for a minute, threw him off balance. He recovered quickly and went on. "Now we've got a game warden who got boozed up and blows his head off. He's not our first casualty lately. An outsider, or a legislator, might just think we're an agency out of control."

Joe's ears burned, and anger swelled in his chest. He tried to stay calm. Joe said, "You're out of line, Pope. I don't know what happened with Will Jensen yet, but you need to watch what you say. Will was never out of control. He devoted his life to the department, and maybe that's what finally got to him. Maybe the pressure you and your kind put on him finally made him break. He lost his family, Pope, but he kept working for you."

Pope started to argue but Joe raised his hand to silence him.

"That guy I hit with my truck deserved to be hit," Joe said. "He was in the act of mutilating someone, and that was the only way to stop him. Everything you mentioned was justified. It was all investigated, and I received no reprimands from my supervisor or anyone else who mattered."

Pope's eyes bulged. "But can't you see how it looks? I'm trying to keep our costs down and improve our image. I'm trying to help this agency survive. You are not helping me very much."

Bitter silence hung in the air between them. Joe fought the urge to spin Randy Pope around and kick him out of the office, right in the seat of his brand-new jeans.

Joe said, "I don't figure it's my job to make you look good, Assistant Director Pope. I think I've got a higher calling than that."

Pope glared at Joe. His face was flushed, and Joe could see little blue veins like earthworms pulse at his temples.

"So," Pope said, sarcastically, "you have a higher calling. But you're in Jackson Hole now, Joe. If you fuck up here, everybody will know it. You've got to be more respectful here. That starts with showing up on time."

"You know what?" Joe said. "I'm already getting tired of hearing that."

"And if you screw up, you're gone. Count on it," Pope said. "If we do another round of budget cuts, you'll be the first to go if I have any say in it."

Pope spun on his heels and was gone down the dark hallway.

"See you at the funeral," Joe called out to him. Then he rubbed his eyes furiously. Will's funeral, yes. But maybe the beginning of his own career's funeral, he thought.

When his telephone rang it took a few moments to figure out which button to push to answer it. Finally, he stabbed a lighted button and raised the receiver.

"Joe, this is Mary."

"Hi, Mary."

"That situation I told you about? With the people pitching a camp in the middle of the elk refuge?"

"Yes."

"It's been confirmed."

"I'll be right down."

As he passed the counter with his day-pack and briefcase, Mary called out after him. "Your dispatch code is 'Jackson GF60,' Joe."

He paused at the door. "Okay, ma'am."

She smiled at him, warmly this time. "That's good. I like that."

He strode into the parking lot to his truck, stopped, turned, and went back into the lobby. Mary looked up.

"How do I find the road to get into the refuge?" he asked.

She pointed due north and gave him directions to the access.