Stone Cold

9

The downtown of Wedell was a single block of slumped and decaying storefronts, most of them boarded up. The only paved street was the old state highway that halved the few remaining businesses — a dollar store, a convenience store, a gas station with twenty-four-hour pumps, the ancient post office, a craft store/rock shop/hardware store, and the Bronco Bar, which was situated in the dead center of the block. Unpaved residential roads spurred off the old highway and led to a mishmash of double-wide trailers, clapboard homes, and a few two-story brick Victorian houses that towered over the rest of the community, looking like royalty that got off at the wrong stop.

Hard pellets of snow bounced off Joe’s pickup hood and windshield as he pulled in next to Jim Latta’s vehicle in front of the saloon. There were few other cars or trucks on the street, and no pedestrians. The pending darkness and the low cloud cover made Wedell seem particularly gloomy, although the neon Coors and Fat Tire Ale signs in the windows of the bar looked inviting.

He told Daisy to be patient, and followed Latta inside. Three patrons, all men wearing ball caps and muddy boots, sat at the long bar that ran the length of the room. They had bottles of beer in front of them, and they were all watching the Speed Channel as if they had money riding on who would win the three-month-old Pure Michigan 400 NASCAR race being replayed on the screen. All three glanced over at the two game wardens in their red uniform shirts, and their looks held just long enough to confirm that none of them were in trouble. When they were assured Latta and Joe weren’t looking for them, they shifted back to the race.

The bar itself was typical, Joe thought: dusty elk, bear, deer, and pronghorn antelope heads on the walls, yellowing Polaroid shots of drunken patrons from years before thumbtacked to the rough-cut timber walls, a hand-drawn poster above the bar mirror with the details of a raffle for a .270 Winchester rifle to benefit the local Gun Owners of America chapter. An old sign with frontier-style writing read:

A jukebox in the corner played Hank Williams Jr.’s “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

The woman behind the bar, who had big blond hair and an overfull figure and a wide Slavic face, said, “What can I get you, Jim?” to Latta.

“I’ll have a Coors Light,” he said, slipping into the farthest of two booths from the bar itself. To Joe, he said, “I’m watching my girlish figure.”

“Make it two,” Joe said to the bartender.

She plucked bottles from a cooler behind the bar and twisted off the caps. As she did, the sleeves of the black long-sleeve Henley she was wearing slid back to reveal Popeye-sized forearms from opening a lot of beer bottles in her career, Joe guessed.

Joe sat across from Latta. They were far enough away from the bar and the NASCAR race was loud enough that they wouldn’t be easily overheard.

The bartender came out from behind the bar with four bottlenecks gripped between the fingers of her right hand and hanging down like sleeping bats. In her left she had a plastic basket of bright yellow popcorn. Her shirt read DON’T FLATTER YOURSELF, COWBOY, I WAS LOOKIN’ AT YOUR HORSE, and she wore a silver buckle the size of a dinner plate.

“Happy hour,” she said, placing the four beers down on the table with a thud. To Latta: “As if you didn’t know.”

Latta grinned. “Shawna, this is Joe. Joe, this is Shawna.”

By the way Latta and Shawna exchanged looks, Joe guessed there was some history between them. He said, “Nice to meet you.”

“No problem,” she said, as if the pleasure was all his. She assessed Joe with a practiced eye from his boots to his hat. Her eyes caught on his wedding ring and hung there for a long second before regaining momentum and proceeding up his arm to his face. By the time she met his eyes she’d dismissed him.

“Shawna here was the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association barrel-racing champion of the world back in 1997,” Latta said.

“Back when I was younger and weighed less than my horse, anyway,” she said. “Give me a holler if you boys need a reride on them beers.” She didn’t look back over her shoulder at Latta as she returned to the bar and her high-backed stool to watch the conclusion of the race.

“Quite a charmer,” Joe said, sipping his beer. He hadn’t expected a glass, and it was the kind of place where they didn’t even ask.

“We kind of had a thing a few years ago after my wife left. You know what you hear about barrel racers in the sack? Well, it’s true,” Latta said with a defensive grin.

“I didn’t mean to insult her or you,” Joe said quickly.

“You didn’t,” Latta said. “She’s pretty rough around the edges. I get that.”

Joe didn’t know Latta was divorced. In fact, he didn’t know much about him at all. There were fifty-two game wardens in the state, and they were a different lot, Joe knew. Some kept in touch with other game wardens and worked shoulder to shoulder with them, some closely followed the goings-on at headquarters and reported back, and some kept completely to themselves. Latta kept to himself. Divorce was a common casualty within the profession, mainly due to wardens’ long hours, remote postings, and poor pay. Joe had expected Latta to make departmental small talk and ask him about their new director, LGD, and the changes coming at the agency, but he didn’t.

“So,” Latta said, slipping on his stoic law enforcement game face so smoothly Joe felt a tug in his gut, “why are you here? They should know by now I’m not looking for any help. I’ve been doin’ my job up here for twenty-three years without once getting written up. But I do my own thing. I don’t even like trainees breathing down my neck. If they got a problem with me or the way I’m doing my job, they should tell me direct. They shouldn’t send you up here to spy on me.”

Joe said, “I’m not here to spy on you.”

Latta probed into Joe’s eyes for a tell. Joe let him.

“So why are you here?”

“LGD has a burr under her saddle when it comes to game wardens creating more public access with walk-in areas on private land. She knows there aren’t any up here; I guess she thought I could help you out.”

Latta looked away. So there was something Latta was hiding or suspecting, Joe thought. He didn’t have enough information or familiarity with Latta to guess what it was.

“Now I feel kind of stupid,” Latta mumbled. “I thought… well, it’s pretty well known you’ve done some work on the side for the governor, Joe. You don’t exactly have a low profile, with all the stuff you’ve gotten involved in over the years. So when I hear the famous Joe Pickett is coming to shadow me for a couple of weeks, well…”

Joe thought, Famous Joe Pickett. He couldn’t even comprehend the words.

Instead of letting Latta speculate further and maybe get closer to the truth, Joe said, “Back there when we released those birds you said this place is a whole different world. What did you mean by that?”

Latta paused, then finished his first beer and set it aside. He reached for the second. “I guess every district is unique in its own way. I bet you’ve got plenty of war stories to tell about yours.”

“I do,” Joe said, “but we aren’t talking about my district right now.”

Latta grinned sheepishly, caught at trying to divert the question in a clumsy way. He said, “Well, have you been up here before?”

“Just to pass through.”

“It’s a tough place to live,” Latta said. “In some ways it’s got all a certain kind of man could ask for. In other ways, it’s got nothing at all.”

Joe waited for a moment, and said, “You’ll have to unpack that for me.”

“It’ll take a little while,” Latta said, looking over in an attempt to get Shawna’s attention. “In fact, it’s going to take another round.”

“None for me,” Joe said.

“Shawna,” Latta boomed, “we need a reride.”

“There was a time when Medicine Wheel County looked like it was gonna be in the big leagues,” Latta said, leaning forward toward Joe across the table. “We’re talkin’ turn of the last century. There was a big-ass gold-mining operation up here, and coal mines that employed hundreds of people. You passed most of those old places on the road you came on today. The owners of the gold mine were named Eric and Maïda Wedell. They were one of the richest families in the state at one time and the town of Wedell was a big shit. Now look at it.”

Joe recalled the historical plaques he hadn’t stopped to read.

Latta said, “This place at one time was booming. Gold, copper, coal, oil — there were even two big-time lumber mills and a hell of a logging industry. There are old logging roads everywhere in the hills. Copper was a big one. All three of the towns grew like crazy — Medicine Wheel and Wedell were rivals, trying to be the biggest. Sundance was the smallest of the three towns in the county then. If you look at the old newspapers, which I’ve done, you’ll see that Medicine Wheel had an opera house and an orchestra, and Wedell right here used to have a dance hall where they brought in big-time entertainers from California and New York. Hell, they had Lily Langtry and Houdini right here in this town at one time. Medicine Wheel had a morning paper and an evening paper — one for Republicans and one for Democrats.

“I mean, what did you see when you drove here today?” Latta said. “Pretty mountains, streams, wildlife out the wazoo. The weather isn’t as severe as where you live, and the wind doesn’t blow like it does in Cheyenne, Casper, or Rawlins. Some people might say these mountains don’t compare to the Bighorns, the Winds, the Tetons, or the Snowy Range, and they don’t. These are nice gentle mountains. You won’t fall off a cliff here or die from exposure, and we don’t have all the damned wolves and grizzlies that will chew your ass off. This is paradise compared to them places. Tourists used to come through here on their trips between Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone. Rich guys from the Midwest used to build second homes here because it was just so damned scenic and mild.”

Four more beers arrived, just as Joe had finished his first. Latta thought nothing of it, and grasped his third by the neck.

“Take it easy, cowboy,” Shawna cautioned as she returned to the bar.

“You know me,” Latta said.

“And that there’s the problem,” she countered. One of the patrons at the bar guffawed and turned quickly away.

Latta ignored her and the patron. He told Joe, “Medicine Wheel County in 1920 had a population of seventy thousand folks — bigger than Cheyenne or Casper or any other damned place in Wyoming. There was even an effort to move the state capitol from Cheyenne up here. Of course, the Union Pacific Railroad ran Wyoming then, and they nixed the idea. But the old-timers around here still hate Cheyenne for that.”

Joe smiled. Old small-town rivalries ran deep.

“I think that’s where it started,” Latta said, lowering his voice as if he feared being overheard. “They lost that fight with Cheyenne and the people here took it personally. They went around with a chip on their shoulder, and they were convinced the deck was stacked against them. Then damn if they didn’t turn out to be right.

“First it was copper. The owners of the mine and mill diversified into Montana and South Dakota and got so overextended their credit got cut off by the banks. The copper mines closed in the 1920s, followed by the gold mines in the 1930s. The coal mines were underground, though, and they seemed untouchable. Even when the companies learned they could strip-mine millions of tons of coal around Gillette a hell of a lot cheaper than digging it out of the mountain here, the coal mines kept chugging along. There are third-generation coal miners around here, and they are a tough bunch of hombres. But the EPA shut ’em down five years ago. The Feds put new clean-air regulations up and the power plants couldn’t afford to finance new scrubbers, I guess. The coal from here was too expensive to burn, and the low-sulfur coal from Gillette won out. All them mines shut down within a year, and folks were dropping off their house keys at the bank on the way out of town.”

Joe clicked his tongue in sympathy. It was a familiar story.

Latta said, “The tourism economy died when the interstate highway system routed I-90 north of here so the tourists could shoot right through the top of the county and not pass through these towns anymore.

“Then the only rail spur that could transport lumber from here east went belly-up ten years ago and the mill closed. That shut down the loggers. You know what loggers are like, don’t you? Loggers log. They can’t do nothing else. They’re used to months of downtime when the weather is bad and then balls-to-the-walls work when the snow melts. But when the good weather rolls around and they can’t go into the woods — damn. They get grumpy.

“It was one damned thing after another, is what I’m saying,” Latta said, looking down at his hands grasping the bottle.

“All we got left up here,” he said, “is what was here in the first place, meaning big game and some damned fine habitat, and a few really bitter people who decided to stay.”

He looked up. “Only sixty people still live in the town of Medicine Wheel. About eight hundred fifty hang on here in Wedell. And Sundance, which used to be the smallest town in the county, has twelve hundred. Them Sundancers keep to themselves and pretend they aren’t part of the rest of the county. So I doubt you’ll find nine hundred more miserable, angry, or bitter people anywhere in the U.S. of A.”

“Where did the people go who left here?” Joe asked.

“All over. A lot of them headed to North Dakota the last few years to get in on that Bakken play. They were the smart ones.”

Joe asked, “What keeps those nine hundred people here if there’s nothing for them to do?”

“They like it here.”

“How do they survive?”

“Hell,” Latta said, “transfer payments. They mostly live off the dole. Welfare, Social Security, you name it. There’s a doctor over in Sundance who will write a letter for just about anyone, saying he’s disabled. Half the men get disability checks. I see a lot of these disabled guys up in the hills during hunting season, and it’s just amazing what they can do: pack a quarter of an elk on their back, hike ten miles — it’s just, well, you know. Quite a few of them are employed as hunting guides for a few months, and about fifteen work at a wild game — processing plant that’s damned good — state of the art, in fact. Other than that, they do a whole lot of nothing.

“The thing is,” Latta said, “no one is ashamed of it. They all think they got dealt a bad hand from the companies, the state, and the Feds. They act like they’re owed whatever they can scam. And they’ve been doing it so long it’s a way of life.”

“We’ve got a few of them where I come from,” Joe said, thinking of Dave Farkus.

“Yeah,” Latta said, consumed with thoughts of his own that Joe couldn’t penetrate, as if he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t sure whether to say it.

“Like I said, the only thing going anymore is the hunting and fishing. There’s plenty of that. I keep busy.”

Joe thought about the poachers Latta had mentioned, but chose to steer clear of the subject. Instead, he asked, “Why do you stay?”

“There’s a couple bright spots,” Latta said, finally.

Joe looked around the bar, then said, “What bright spots?”

“I got a nice house here in Wedell. Did you see those old Victorians when you drove in?”

Joe nodded.

“I bought one of them at a fire-sale price ten years ago. Used to belong to one of the Wedell kids. I never thought I’d live in a house like that in my entire life. Six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a carriage house out back. I’ll have to show it to you.”

“I’d like to see it,” Joe said, puzzled. It was against policy for a game warden to own his own house and not have it be provided by the state, much less a six-bedroom mansion — old or not.

“Plus, my daughter likes it here,” Latta said. “She has friends she wouldn’t want to leave.”

“Your daughter?”

Latta looked up with a wistful expression and a hint of moisture in his eyes.

“My Emily,” he said. “Thirteen years old.”

“That can be a tough age,” Joe said. “I know.”

“Ain’t nothin’ bad about her, Joe. My wife couldn’t stand it here, and when she left she didn’t take Emily. She just packed the car and took off for Oregon and left me and a four-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy.”

Joe felt like he’d been punched. “Jim, I just can’t imagine what that would be like. So your daughter is doing okay?”

“She is now,” Latta said, averting his eyes. “It was so damned tough when she was trying to walk and she’d keep falling down. My wife said she was uncoordinated — a slow learner. But it was MD. The doctors at the time said she wouldn’t live past eighteen or twenty before her muscles got so weak she’d die of respiratory failure. But now they’re saying she might live to forty. Forty!”

“That’s great, Jim. What changed?”

“Emily got an operation over in Rapid City. She had scoliosis — sidewise curvature of the spine. Her muscles couldn’t keep her sitting up in her wheelchair, and she was a goner. The surgery straightened her out and prolonged her life by twenty years. I fought with the state insurance company for years about the operation, and they kept saying they wouldn’t pay for it. Then it finally happened.”

Joe smiled and glanced toward the bar to see if the drinkers were paying attention to Latta’s sudden burst of emotion. They weren’t. But Shawna looked over with sympathetic eyes, taking it all in.

Latta wiped roughly at his eyes with a bar napkin, and Joe didn’t stare.

“Shit,” Latta said. “I didn’t mean to get all gooey on you. It’s just, when I talk about Emily, I just fuckin’ lose it.”

“It’s all right,” Joe said. “I’ve got daughters of my own. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be in your shoes.”

“It wasn’t easy. It still ain’t.”

Joe said, “I’m glad the insurance company came through.”

Latta looked up sharply. “Who said they did?”

Joe was confused. “You said you fought them for years…”

“It wasn’t them that came through. If it weren’t for a damned good-hearted individual, it wouldn’t be a good story at all.”

“That’s great,” Joe said. “Who is the individual?”

“Mr. Templeton. He owns half this county.”

Joe felt a thump in his chest as he nodded. “I’ve heard of him. Good guy?”

“A goddamned saint. If it wasn’t for him—” Latta began, but then cut himself off. “Enough about Emily,” he said roughly.

“I was asking about Mr. Templeton.”

Latta’s deadeye cop stare returned, and he trained it on Joe long enough for Joe to feel uncomfortable again.

Latta said, “I hope he’s not why you’re up here, Joe.”

Joe could tell by Latta’s tone that he was done talking for the night — that maybe he’d said more than he intended to. Since they’d be together over the next few days, Joe didn’t want to push Latta out of his comfort zone. Yet.

“Well,” Latta said, sitting back and helping himself to a fifth beer while Joe still nursed his first, “I better get going. I’ve got paperwork to fill out for the new damned director, and Emily ought to be home.”

Joe nodded.

“Let’s meet tomorrow for breakfast in Sundance at the Longabaugh at seven-thirty,” Latta said.

He slid clumsily out of the booth and stood up. He wobbled slightly but steadied himself in a well-practiced way. Jim Latta wouldn’t be the first game warden he’d met who had a problem with alcohol. And given the circumstances of his life, Joe thought he could forgive the man.

“Yeah,” Latta said. “I’d like you to come see the house and meet Emily before you have to go back to the Bighorns in a few days.”

“I’ll cover the beers,” Joe said.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Happy to.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Latta said, clamping on his hat.

“You okay to drive?”

Latta barked a laugh. “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t even get started tonight.”

Joe watched the game warden lumber toward the door. Shawna watched him as well, but turned her eyes away when he got close. The door opened just as Latta reached for the handle, and the game warden stepped back to let two men wearing camo come in.

By the way they were dressed and the way they grinned with contempt at Latta, Joe guessed there was history between Latta and them as well, but no words were exchanged. Latta seemed to give them a wide berth. They stood, smirking, while Latta left the bar, then approached Shawna and asked for two six-packs of Budweiser to go.

Before leaving as well, Joe checked his cell phone. No texts or messages from Sheridan, but one from Marybeth: Are you at your hotel yet?

Joe replied, Not yet, will call soon, and returned his phone to his breast pocket as he got to his feet.

The two men were still standing at the bar when Joe approached Shawna to pay the tab. He could feel their eyes on him. Shawna thunked their six-packs on the bar, and the taller one said, “Put that on my tab.”

Shawna rolled her eyes as she turned to Joe and took his twenty-dollar bill. Before she could count out four dollars change, Joe said, “The rest is for you.”

She grinned, although it looked like work. “Thank you, mister. You’re fine-looking and generous.”

Joe didn’t know what to say.

“Damn,” one of the men in camo said, “the last thing we need around here is another damned game warden.”

Joe turned his head toward them. They were rough-looking men in their late thirties. The one who had spoken was dark, with weathered skin, a three-day growth of beard, and black curly hair sticking out from under his cowboy hat. The brim on his hat was folded straight up on the sides like he was some kind of 1950s Hollywood cowboy. He had light blue eyes. On the bar ahead of him were a pair of huge scarred hands. Joe pegged him for a logger or miner. Former logger or miner, based on what Latta had told him. The other man was taller, maybe six-foot-four. He was pale but also had outdoor skin. He had reddish hair peppered with gray that licked at his collar. He could be considered handsome, Joe thought, in a redneck-surfer-dude-gone-to-seed kind of way.

“Just visiting,” Joe said.

“Well, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out,” the dark man grinned. The taller man stifled a laugh and looked down at his hands.

Joe stuck out his hand toward the dark man. “Joe Pickett.”

The dark man paused for a second, not sure whether to reach out. Joe watched his eyes. He was confused by Joe’s gesture.

Joe thought: Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith. The taller one, Critchfield, confirmed it by introducing himself and his hunting partner.

Joe said evenly, “It looks like you’re going hunting tonight, although it’s already dark outside. What are you boys after?”

“Snipes,” Critchfield said. It was meant as a joke.

Smith still wouldn’t look up, but his shoulders were trembling with laughter.

“Yeah, I remember going ‘snipe hunting’ when I was twelve. A bunch of older guys took me up in the woods with my .22 and told me to sit there by a tree while they drove the snipes to me. Instead, they left me up there and went on a beer run. Good times,” Joe said. “I’m sure you have your licenses and wildlife stamps, so I probably don’t even need to ask.”

Critchfield and Smith exchanged looks. They weren’t intimidated by the question, Joe thought — they were trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Finally, Critchfield said, “Left mine at home.”

“Me too,” Smith said quickly.

Joe said, “So I guess you better run by your homes before you go out after those snipe.”

Critchfield squared his stance. He was bigger than Joe. He said, “You know what? I think maybe you ought to talk to Jim Latta before you start throwing your weight around here. He knows us, and he knows the deal.”

“There’s a deal about hunting without licenses?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, there’s a deal,” Smith said, from behind Critchfield.

Joe noticed that two of the three drinkers who had been in the bar all evening were standing and tossing bills down on the bar to cover their beers. Apparently, Joe thought, they didn’t have running tabs.

Shawna had watched the exchange like a tennis fan watching a volley. She said, “Just keep me out of this and take it outside.”

“Nothing to take outside,” Joe said, pulling on his vest. He looked up at the two men. “Right, Bill and Gene?”

“Call Jim,” Critchfield said. “Then scoot back to where you came from.”

He heard Gene Smith whisper, “You asshole.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Joe said. “I’ll see you around.”

“Better hope not,” Critchfield said.

To Shawna, Joe said, “And nice to meet you.”

Shawna looked back at him with dead eyes, but there was a slight tug of a smile on her face.

Outside, Daisy whined with recognition as he came through the door. The air was misty and cold, and there was a blue halo over the only streetlight in Wedell. Next to Joe’s pickup was a muddy Ford F-250 with a four-wheel ATV in the bed and another mounted on a trailer behind it. He glanced inside the cab as he approached his truck. Shotguns, boxes of shells, handheld spotlights.

After he climbed into his pickup, he glanced through the wet windshield at the Bronco Bar. Critchfield and Smith watched him through a window from opposite sides of the Fat Tire Ale sign. Critchfield was mouthing something, and Smith was nodding.

As Joe backed out, the lyrics of Hank Williams Jr. ran like a ghost soundtrack in his mind.