Stone Cold

8

Joe Pickett drove north on U.S. 85 with Daisy sleeping on the passenger seat and a huge crate filled with 150 full-grown ring-necked pheasants in the back. Daisy was exhausted because she’d spent the first hour and a half staring at them through the back window.

Delivering the birds was the excuse Director LGD and her management team had come up with for Joe to enter Medicine Wheel County without suspicion, once Rulon had briefed her on the special assignment. The northeast corner of the state had had a particularly harsh winter the year before that had annihilated the pheasant population, and it was necessary to supplement the Black Hills with birds so the hunters wouldn’t gripe. Jim Latta, the local game warden, was in charge of releasing the newcomers that had been raised at the state bird farm in Hawk Springs; thus, it would appear legitimate for Joe and Latta to link up. That was the idea, anyway, Joe thought. Latta was unaware of the real reason Joe was coming.

Director LGD’s brain trust had come up with two cover stories for Joe’s sojourn. The first was under a departmental directive to double the number of public walk-in hunting areas on private land by the next fiscal year. Joe had established several in his district by working with local landowners, but there were none yet in Medicine Wheel County. Joe would supposedly use his experience to help Latta to further the directive.

Unfortunately, the second cover story meant he had to drive his truck four and a half hours southeast, load the crate of nervous pheasants with the help of the state biologists, and turn north again, skirting the eastern edge of the state.

The landscape changed character as he drove, from flat farmland to arid steppe. There had been an unusual cold spell and early winter snows the week before that still lingered under overcast skies. Skeletal cottonwoods in the eastern valleys had lost their leaves but were furred with frost even in the late afternoon. It was stark and white and rolling in every direction, and there was little oncoming traffic once he passed Mule Creek Junction and continued north. A single mangy coyote loped parallel to the highway for a while, but then turned as if it were ashamed of something when Joe slowed down to look at it.

Joe had never seen the vast stretches of Mongolia, but he guessed they would look similar under the pall of early winter. He knew the area consisted mainly of huge ranches that were once multigenerational but were now under out-of-state ownership. Scattered, frost-covered Angus cattle watched him drive past with dullards’ eyes.

North of Lusk, he’d pulled over to the side of the highway to wrap a canvas sheet from his gear box around the crate of birds. He secured it with nylon straps. The wind was cold and icy, and he feared it would freeze the birds to death before he could deliver them. Daisy watched from the rear window with twin threads of drool stringing from her mouth to the top of the bench seat.

Ten miles later, the highway turned pink. He’d once heard the reason was because the early road crews had used burned underground coal for a base, but the pink wasn’t cheery or bright — just strange and otherworldly.

He noted how pockets of isolated pronghorn antelope blended in perfectly in the terrain with its swaths of snow on sparse brown grass. It was almost impossible to see them unless the entire herd moved at once, because they seemed to be a part of the landscape itself.

After he crossed Hat Creek, he looked around for miles without seeing a single structure, and he felt like he was alone on the surface of a distant uninhabited planet. The radio station he’d been listening to began to crackle with static during the newsbreak — something about notorious New York financier Jonah Bank’s disappearance after he failed to show up in court. It was one of those stories that seemed to consume the eastern media but had no impact or relation to anything in Joe’s world. He’d not followed the story closely except to note that in Wyoming there was an actual Jonah Bank that was a bank. He reached down and shut the radio off.

He felt a pang of guilt for being lifted up by the pure solitude, with the open road and a new assignment out ahead of him. For brief stretches of time, he pushed aside the stress generated by Erik Young and Dallas Cates and thought about a certain Wyoming rancher and what he’d learned about him.

All around him was white isolation and vistas stretched out as far as he could see.

He loved it.

Joe had opened the file Coon lent him at three-thirty that morning because he couldn’t sleep. He’d made coffee and sat at his desk in his tiny side office in his robe and had read through the pages in order, trying to make some kind of sense of them.

He found Wolfgang Templeton fascinating. What would cause a man who had it all — it seemed — to give up and move on when everything appeared to be going his way? And if the FBI speculation was valid, weren’t there hundreds of other lucrative opportunities available to Templeton that didn’t involve creating a murder-for-hire gig? Nothing Joe read about Templeton suggested recklessness or anarchy. In every way, the man seemed measured, honorable, and professional — an American success story. Joe liked those. He’d never envied successful people or wanted them brought down — unless, of course, they turned out to be poachers. Or worse.

As he thumbed through the file, he found a photocopy of a small story in Investor’s Business Daily about Templeton’s last days in finance. Coon had not mentioned it during their meeting. It was called “CEO’s Bitter Last Hurrah,” and it had appeared the week Templeton suddenly retired.

According to the item, quoting from an anonymous source on the inside of the firm, Templeton had called his senior executives and board of directors together for an emergency meeting, where he declared, “Our free enterprise system is broken and can’t be fixed.” The source said Templeton was angry and blamed the state of the economy on “untouchable elites” and “crony capitalists working hand-in-glove with corrupt politicians.” There was no point anymore, he said, of “competing fairly and with a well-tuned moral compass” because the deck was stacked. According to the insider, Templeton said he could no longer serve as chairman, but would “do the right thing” outside the system. He gave no clues what that meant.

Joe sat back and said, “Hmmmm.”

But there was obviously a reason why Wolfgang Templeton had chosen to relocate in the most remote and economically depressed part of Wyoming — and it certainly wasn’t because the cattle business was booming. If Templeton had a long-term reason for choosing Medicine Wheel County — and he might — Joe couldn’t figure out what it was.

Unless, of course, Templeton simply wanted to be left alone. There was nothing wrong with that, and Wyomingites tended to give new people the space they desired and not stick their noses where they didn’t belong. Joe felt a little uncomfortable doing exactly that on behalf of the governor.

Unless, of course, Templeton was a killer.

Coon’s case file didn’t reveal much more about the victims than Joe had been told.

Jonah Lamprecht had disappeared in Saint Louis in 2004.

Brandon Fonnesbeck had vanished off the coast of Long Island in 2008.

Henry P. Scoggins III had been abducted — or walked away — from his fishing lodge in Montana the month before.

Several threads connected them, but tenuously. All the victims were extremely wealthy and well connected, and ran with a certain elite international crowd. No traceable ransom demands were ever received by their families or loved ones. Most important, none of their bodies had ever been found. The only dubious connection was that the name Wolfgang Templeton had been brought up peripherally in each case.

Joe shook his head. It was weak, very weak. So weak that he would never take the circumstantial evidence in the file to his own county prosecutor, Dulcie Schalk. Dulcie would hand the file back and tell him she needed more. There were years between the incidents — as long as five between Fonnesbeck and Scoggins, which certainly didn’t lend weight to the idea of a busy hit man’s schedule.

But the FBI, with everything they had on their plates these days, had invested time and interest to build the file. They must have reasons beyond what Joe could see, he thought. It was possible Coon didn’t even know what the reasons were.

Joe wondered if there were additional disappearances of similar people that weren’t included in the case file — maybe even scores of missing persons where the name Wolfgang Templeton simply hadn’t come up. If the FBI’s suspicions were correct, there likely were, he thought. And if the whole thing was a wasteful fishing expedition…

But there was the DCI agent, whose name had been redacted from the incident report. The man had been sent to Medicine Wheel County to find out what he could about Templeton, and within a few days there had been a fire in his room that killed him.

And there was that photo of the man who could possibly be Nate.

There was a small sign vandalized by bullet holes that read ENTERING MEDICINE WHEEL COUNTY as Joe crossed the Cheyenne River. Within twenty minutes, the landscape changed once again. The flats began to fold into gently sloping hills and then fold again, as if they were a floor rug being jammed into a corner. The folds led into heavily wooded small mountains. The thick spruce that covered the hills was dark under the leaden sky — thus the name Black Hills — and sharp ravines knifed through the surface and chalky bluffs jutted out from the timber like thrust jaws.

It was beautiful and complex country, Joe thought, mountainous, but not severe and dangerous like his Bighorns. The terrain was oddly inviting and accessible, with wide meadows bordered by hillocks. The road itself changed from a straightaway into a winding pink road that hugged the contours of the foothills and sometimes plunged over blind rises.

He glimpsed some structures in the timber as he drove, mainly older houses tucked behind the first wall of trees. They were well situated but looked ramshackle and abandoned. The only homes he saw that were occupied were marked with collections of old vehicles and newer four-wheel-drive pickups scattered around their lots. Wood smoke curled from blackened chimneys and dispersed in the upper branches of the spruce trees before filtering into the close sky.

He didn’t slow to read the old markers on the side of the highway as he drove — he could do that later — but he was left with the impression of a place that had once been vibrant and filled with energy and ambition but now held only testimonials to failed enterprise. He did slow down, though, to let a clumsy flock of wild turkeys cross the road. They waddled like fat, drunk chickens.

Medicine Wheel district game warden Jim Latta said he’d meet him two miles south of Wedell, one of three small communities that still existed in Medicine Wheel County, the others being Medicine Wheel itself and Sundance on the far western border.

Latta’s green Game and Fish pickup was parked just off the highway on an old two-track trail at the bottom of a wooded grade. As Joe slowed to join him, Latta waved for him to follow.

The road was narrow and muddy, and twisted through the timber. At times, Joe couldn’t see Latta’s truck because the trees were so dense, but he knew the game warden was ahead of him because there were no other exit roads. Finally, after grinding up a sharp rise, he found Latta’s truck parked in a grassy opening and Latta himself climbing out and pulling on a green wool Filson vest identical to the one Joe wore.

Joe parked next to Latta’s truck and let Daisy out to romp and relieve herself.

Latta approached with his right hand extended and a sly smile on his face, and as Joe shook his dry and meaty hand Latta said, “Long time, Mr. Pickett.”

“It has been. When was it, the Wyoming Game Wardens Association dinner a few years back?”

“Seven years, I think,” Latta said. “That’s the last time I went.”

“Seven years,” Joe echoed.

“Time flies,” Latta said. “So, you brought me some birds.”

“Yup,” Joe said, clamping on his hat. “Let’s pull that canvas off so you can see ’em.”

Jim Latta was a few inches shorter than Joe, thick through the shoulders and chest, with a large round head, cherubic cheeks, and a gunfighter’s sweeping handlebar mustache. His eyes didn’t give much away as he spoke — he had the cop’s deadeye down to perfection — and his voice was surprisingly high for his bulldog features. His badge said he was warden number six, and he had ten years seniority on Joe. Although he’d no doubt moved from district to district around the state as Joe had in his early years, Latta had been in the Medicine Wheel District since Joe had been hired. Latta was a fixture in the northeast corner of the state, and rarely ventured out.

Joe climbed up in the back of his pickup after lowering the tailgate. The metal beaded moisture from a light combination of rain and snow, and the surface of the bed was slick under his boots.

While Joe unhooked the nylon straps, Latta said, “It pains me to say this, but we could save a whole lot of energy by just delivering these birds to about six local yahoos up there in Wedell. Those bastards will have ’em poached out of here by the end of the month.”

Joe shook his head to commiserate.

“In fact,” Latta said softly, “I think I see one of those reprobates now.”

Joe paused.

“Don’t look up there real obvious, but I think I see a four-wheeler up there to the southeast on that hill behind you. I’d guess he’s scouting so he knows where we release these damned birds.”

So he wouldn’t turn and obviously look at the potential poacher, Joe sidled to the side of the crate and used the mirror on the passenger side to see. He had to duck a bit before he got a bead on the man Latta had spotted.

Midway up the timbered hill behind and to the side of them, Joe glimpsed a man who appeared to be holding his head. No, he thought, the man was using binoculars.

“There’s an old logging road up there,” Latta said. “He’s probably standing on top of the seat of his four-wheeler so he can see us.”

“Do you know him?”

“Not sure. But it might be Bill Critchfield. He’s kind of the ringleader of the bunch. If it’s him, he’s probably poached more deer, elk, and birds in these hills alone than any other guy besides Gene Smith, who’s his best buddy. They live up in Wedell, but they spend a lot of their time down here.”

Joe said, “Have you ever caught him?”

“Twice,” Latta said wearily. “Caught him and Smith dead to rights while they were gutting out a dry doe on a sunny day in June, and another time with twenty dead pheasants in the bed of Critchfield’s pickup. Judge Bartholomew let them skate both times. You ever run into Judge Ethan Bartholomew?”

“Nope.”

“Good thing,” Latta said. “He has a way of making a game warden feel… kind of useless.”

“So what do you want to do now?” Joe asked while he folded up the damp canvas cover.

“Nothing to do,” Latta said. “Let’s release the birds and hope like hell they’ll take to cover in the canyons between here and Wedell before Critchfield and Smith wipe ’em out.”

Joe paused. “It’s that bad around here, huh?” He called Daisy in, and she bounded into the cab of his pickup.

“It’s a whole different world,” Latta said.

“Sounds like a plan. Not a good plan, but a plan,” Joe said. “I don’t like the idea of releasing these birds so they can be poached out. That just rubs me the wrong way.”

“Yeah,” Latta said with a shrug. “Used to bother the hell out of me, too. But we can’t take these birds home. My backyard isn’t big enough.”

It was meant as a joke, but Joe didn’t laugh.

Joe said, “Maybe we could set up surveillance and catch them in the act. With me here, you’ve just doubled your forces.”

Latta responded with a frown. “Yeah, and we can drag their sorry asses in front of Judge Bartholomew, who will say we entrapped them or some such bullshit. Naw,” Latta said, nodding toward the crate, “let’s let ’em go.”

“You’re the man in charge,” Joe said, shaking his head and leaning down to open the crate.

Daisy watched and whined as if tortured inside the cab of Joe’s truck while 150 pheasants shot out of the crate one by one like fireworks and soared into the dark timber on the north side of the meadow. Within three minutes, the crate was empty. Joe could see a few of the birds perching in the trees at the edge of the meadow, taking in their new surroundings.

“Good enough for government work,” Latta said, nonchalantly.

Joe was surprised Latta had chosen to release them all at once in the same place, and not disperse them throughout the drainage. But Latta was the local warden and he was running the show.

When Joe paused at the door of his pickup to take off his gloves before getting in, he heard a distant grinding and then a two-stroke motor fire up. The four-wheeler whined away in the trees.

“There goes Bill Critchfield back to tell his buddies so they can load their shotguns and charge up their spotlights,” Latta said with bitter resignation.

“Well,” Joe said, puzzled by what had just taken place, “I guess I’ll go find my motel and check in before it gets too late.”

“Where you staying?”

“The Whispering Pines Motel in Medicine Wheel,” Joe said.

Latta nodded but seemed troubled. “That’s the place that had a fire a month ago. Maybe you didn’t hear about it, but some poor guy from Cheyenne died in one of the cabins when it burned down during the night.”

Joe said, “Yeah, I heard about that. But I figure, what are the odds of the same place burning down twice?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Latta said. Then: “I live in Wedell. How about I buy you a beer at the Bronco Bar on your way to Medicine Wheel? Believe me, that motel won’t be full this time of year. In fact, you’ll probably be their only customer.”

“I could do that,” Joe said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Latta said, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the darkening timber surrounding them, as if looking for additional spies. “Maybe you can tell me why Cheyenne wants you to ride along with me up here for a couple of days. It ain’t like I don’t have a good handle on my district.”

Joe nodded. Latta was already suspicious. He had a right to be, Joe thought.

But Joe had some questions of his own.