Trophy Hunt

“It wasn’t like that,” Joe said lamely.

Cam leaned across his desk, thrusting his face forward. “I know what it’s like, Joe. I remember what you people are like, and I don’t forget. I remember you all looking down at the ground when we left this place. You wouldn’t even say good-bye when I stood there with my stupid parents as they drove around this town and canceled their utilities, and their post office box, and got the transcripts from my school.”

We didn’t even live here then, Joe said to himself but not to Cam. Joe simply watched and listened.

“You people never even thought about me at all, trying to go to a school in South Dakota that was half-Indian and half-white and all fucked up. If anything, you wondered about my brother, the genius, the future doctor who would make my parents so proud. You wanted to be able to tell people you remembered when he was a student here, going to sixth grade when he should have been in third grade, winning all of those science contests. If only you knew . . .”

Suddenly, Cam stopped.

“Talking too much,” Cam said, more to himself than to Joe.

He lumped back into his chair, staring at something over Joe’s head, looking drained.

“I’m truly sorry, Cam.” No response.

“I screwed up,” Joe said. “I came up with a conclusion and tried to find facts that would fit it, instead of the other way around.” Putting his hat on his head, Joe stood up.

Cam still sat there, eerily drained, his concentration elsewhere. “Cam?”

Joe thought that Cam was somewhere deep inside of himself now. What had he done?

“CAM!”

Thankfully, Cam Logue seemed to snap back to the present. He blinked rapidly, then his eyes settled on Joe.

“I’ll be going,” Joe said. Cam nodded. “Okay.”

Joe started to turn, then stopped himself. “Do you have any ideas on what’s happening, Cam? With the mutilations and the murders? We obviously don’t even have a clue.”

Cam shook his head wearily.

“We’ve got bears, aliens, all sorts of bad ideas,” Joe said. “Hell, somebody even claims he saw a couple of figures out in the alley behind your office a while back.”

Joe was surprised that Cam’s face blanched again, as it had when he first saw Joe.

“Who said that?” Cam asked.

Joe shrugged. “That’s not important. My point was about all of the crazy theories.”

“Tell me who said it.”

“Cam, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now. I’m sorry I took up so much of your time.”

Cam stared at Joe and set his mouth.

“I really am sorry about all of this, Cam.”

n his pickup, Joe thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. He had been so wrong, he thought.

He called Hersig, who answered anxiously.

“You should take me off the task force,” Joe said morosely. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

“Dry hole?” Hersig asked.

“Wrong county, even. Not even close.”

Hersig sighed. “We’re going to have to mend some fences with the business community after this.”

“Worse than that, Robey, I’ve got to tell Marybeth.”

oe found her in her tiny back office at Barrett’s Pharmacy. She looked up expectantly as he came in.

“I was wrong about Cam.” “Tell me.”

He did, her face hardening as he spoke.

“Why did you come down on him so tough, Joe?”

He shrugged. “I thought it was the best way. I thought I could shock him into saying something.”

“Well, I guess you did that all right.”

He shook his head and stared at the tops of his boots. “I feel terrible.” “Don’t.”

He looked up, puzzled.

“It sounds like a hell of a performance,” she said. “I know, I just thought if I laid it right out . . .”

“No,” she said, shushing him. “Not by you. By Cam. There’s something there, Joe. I just know it. There’s no good reason why Cam and Marie wouldn’t have told me about getting back the ranch. They know I’d keep it confidential, and what difference would it make anyway? Marie and I shared everything, Joe. We talked about both you and Cam, and we talked about our children and our aspirations. Believe me, if Marie knew about Cam’s plan to buy back that ranch, she would have told me about it. When Cam told us together about the ‘secret buyer,’ he was misleading Marie as well. Why would he go out of his way to do that?

“So, he’s lying to you. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a realtor wanting to buy property. Realtors do it all the time.”

Joe felt a wave of relief for a moment. “But I sabotaged your career.”

She smiled. “If I wanted a career, Joe, I’d have it. And I’d be damned good at it. Even now, without the Logues, my small business is chugging along. I just need to keep it small, I know now. More flexible. I’ve got to think about Sheridan, and Lucy, and you.”

“Marybeth, I . . .”

“It’s just another setback. No one said this would be easy.” Joe felt awful. “I wish I were as tough as you are,” he said.

She smiled again, and pinched his cheek. “You’re better than tough, Joe. You’re good. I’ll stick with good.”

30

His mind and emotions on edge , Joe spent the rest of the morning patrolling the breaklands and foothills close to town, checking hunters for licenses. He did his job mechanically, his thoughts elsewhere. The few hunters in the field were clean, and in every camp someone asked him about the mutilations. He found himself getting irritated with the entire subject.

Throughout the morning, he checked messages on his cell phone and home telephone, hoping to hear from Hersig, Ike, or Sheriff Harvey.

He decided to push things along, if for no other reason than to see if anyone pushed back, or panicked. He’d start at the county clerk’s.

ke Easter, Millie, and the two other clerks were assembled around a conference table covered with dozens of old file boxes and stacks of files that smelled of age and dampness when Joe entered the county clerk’s office.

If his reception that morning was cold, this time it was something out of the Ice Age. The three clerks and Ike had hard scowls and dirt-smudged clothing.

“There he is,” Millie said as Joe let the door wheeze shut behind him. “Here I am,” Joe said, looking at Ike. “Find it?”

Ike looked harried. Joe suspected that Ike had been abused for most of the day by his clerks as they searched the archives.

“Good timing,” Ike said to Joe, raising a file into the air. “I’ve got something for you, but it’s kind of a puzzlement.”

Joe followed Ike into his office.

“Thanks for your hard work,” Joe told the clerks as he passed them. “We really appreciate this.”

Millie held his gaze for a moment, then rolled her eyes heavenward. Ike fell into his chair and pushed the file across the desk to Joe. Joe noted that the tab on the file said “Overstreet” and was followed by the physical coordinates of the tract.

“Take a look,” Ike said.

Joe opened the file. Inside was a clean copy of a deed and title originally made out to Mr. Walter Overstreet in 1921. An amendment was added in 1970, when additional acreage—the Logue property—was added to the document. Joe thumbed through the paperwork, then looked up at Ike for some kind of interpretation.

“Everything’s there and in perfect order,” Ike said. “Except for two things. One, there’s no record of the OG&M. It should have been attached to the document. Second, it’s a duplicate of the original deed.”

Joe shook his head. “What’s that mean?”

Ike shrugged. “As far as the OG&M lease goes, that could just be an error. We find plenty of those in these old files. It’s not that big of a problem, because I can request a copy from the state easy enough . . .”

“How soon?”

Ike looked at his watch, mumbled “they’ll kill me,” before calling Millie on the intercom and asking her to contact Cheyenne ASAP and have them fax a copy of the lease to the office. Joe didn’t even turn around to see what kind of furor Ike’s request had set in motion.

“What else?” Joe asked.

“Look at the deed in your hands, Joe.”

Joe did. He saw nothing unusual about it. It had been typed, probably with a manual typewriter, on a deed form decades before. He looked at the dates and description and could see no alterations.

“It’s a clean copy of the original,” Ike said. “It’s all pretty and nice. It’s not a carbon copy, which is what they used in those days. It’s a modern machine copy.”

Joe felt a twitch in his scalp. “So somebody made the copy recently.” “That’s what it looks like to me. The copy was made while it was still in the archives, for some reason, and the file was put back in the old box. We probably wouldn’t have ever even noticed it if we weren’t looking for this particular file on this particular day.”

Joe looked up. “How many people had access to the archives, then?” Ike raised his eyebrows. “All of us. The sheriff ’s deputies who transferred them. The old county clerk, of course. And the new owners of the old county clerk’s home, where the files were kept.”

“Cam Logue,” Joe said. “And the sheriff.”

“Maybe,” Ike said, “but there’s no crime here. There’s nothing wrong with making a copy of a deed.”

“What about taking the mineral rights lease terms?” Joe asked.

“Also not a crime,” Ike said. “Why do you ask?”

As Joe got up to leave, he asked Ike to call him on his cell phone as soon as the fax from Cheyenne showed up. Ike followed him to the door.

Joe thanked the clerks again, and one of them actually smiled back. “Joe, can I ask you a favor?” Ike said.

“Of course.”

“It’s going to take me a while to get the office cleaned up after all of this.” He gestured to the table and the boxes. “I was going to give George a ride home from where he’s fishing on the river. Would you mind taking him to the house?”

“Not a problem, Ike. I’m headed that way now.”

Ike smiled, and looked over at his shoulder at the clerks, as if assessing the threat before returning to battle.

31

Mary beth didn’t go to work at Logue Realty that afternoon, assuming she was no longer employed, and she felt guilty about it.

She hated to leave a job unfinished, even if it were for someone like Cam.

When she was through for the day at Barrett’s Pharmacy, she used the telephone on the desk to call Logue Country Realty, and she asked for Cam. The temporary receptionist said Cam was out for the rest of the day.

“Is he on his cell phone?” Marybeth asked.

“He didn’t say anything about that,” the temp said. “He seemed a little mad about something, so I didn’t even bring it up.”

“Can you please put me through to his voice mail, then?”

After fumbling with the telephone system, the temp figured it out. Marybeth listened to Cam’s recorded greeting, then spoke softly.

“Cam, I talked with Joe about what happened and I’m sure we’ll both agree that it’s best if you find another bookkeeper. I just hope this won’t affect the friendship between Lucy and Jessica. I hope we can both be better parents than that.”

Marybeth paused. “And I hope Marie and I can still be friends. But you don’t need to give this message to her. I’ll go see her myself.”

She hung up. After all, Marybeth thought, she now had the after-noon off.

Marybeth bought a quart of chicken noodle soup from the Burg-OPardner and chocolates from Barrett’s Pharmacy and drove through downtown to the Logues’. This time, she anticipated the pickup and camper with the South Dakota plates, and swerved around it and parked near the front door. The house, she thought, looked lifeless, even though she knew there were people inside.

Carrying the bag with the soup and the chocolates, she rang the doorbell. She didn’t hear it chime hollowly inside the house.

After a minute with no response, she rang it again. It was strange, she thought. She didn’t hear rustling inside, or footfalls in response to the bell.

She knocked and waited, then knocked again hard. Nothing.

Putting the bag down on the front step, she walked around the front of the house to the side. The garage door was closed, so she couldn’t see if Marie’s car was there. Maybe, Marybeth thought, Marie had taken her fatherand mother-in-law somewhere for lunch. But Marie was supposed to be sick.

Maybe Marie was at the doctor’s office, Marybeth reasoned, and for a moment her mood lightened. But if Marie went to the doctor, would she have taken her in-laws with her?

Puzzled, Marybeth found an envelope in the glove compartment of her van and scribbled a note to Marie, saying she was sorry she missed her and hoped she was feeling better. She wrote, “Please call me when you can.” Marybeth left the note with the soup and chocolates on the front porch.

As she returned to the van, Marybeth took a last look at the house. Upstairs, in the second window to the right, she thought she saw a curtain move.

Marybeth stood stock-still, not breathing, and stared at the window. She felt a chill, despite the warm fall afternoon. But the curtain didn’t move again, and she wondered if she had imagined it in the first place.

Then she had another thought: maybe Cam had already talked to Marie, told her what Joe had accused him of. Maybe, she thought with unexpected shame, Marie didn’t want any part of Marybeth Pickett anymore.

32

The wyoming game and fish department had a successful program where the department leased land from ranchers in exchange for allowing public access for hunters. Joe had negotiated most of the deals in his district the spring before, and it was his responsibility to keep the “walk-in areas” clearly marked. Unfortunately, the brutal winter before had damaged and knocked down a number of the signs, and as he patrolled he was constantly finding the upturned signs. When he found them, he rewired them to posts from a roll of baling wire in the back of his truck.

He was twisting the wire tight on a walk-in sign when he heard his cell phone ring in his pickup. He leaned inside the cab and plucked the phone from its holder.

It wasn’t Hersig, Ike, or Sheriff Harvey. It was Agent Tony Portenson. “I tried your office but you weren’t there,” Portenson said as a greeting.

He sounded weary, reluctant. “I’d rather this conversation was on a landline so it was more secure.”

“You FBI guys are a little paranoid, aren’t you?” Joe asked. “Listen,” Portenson said. “We might have something.”

“Go ahead. Thanks for getting involved.”

“Fuck that,” he said. “I just want to get this thing over with so I can go home. Get transferred, maybe. I hope.”

“Anyway . . .” Joe prompted.

“Anyway, the Park County Sheriff ’s Office asked me to help them track down this Fort Bragg cell phone guy, as you know. It wasn’t easy, and it should have been. This is what we’re good at, you know.”

Joe listened and watched the shadow of a single cumulous cloud move slowly across the sagebrush saddle in front of him.

“I had to call in the big guns in Washington to put pressure on the army down there to break through the wall at Fort Bragg. They just didn’t want to talk. But we found out some interesting things. Just a second here . . .”

Joe heard papers being shuffled in the background.

“L. Robert Eckhardt was an army nurse. A real good one, according to his early evaluations. He was a combat guy. He was deployed in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Philippines. But he didn’t go to Iraq. You want to know why?”

“Yes,” Joe answered impatiently.

“This is why the army didn’t want to talk to us,” Portenson continued. “Eckhardt was suspected of being involved in the ‘surgical mutilation’ of enemy combatants. That’s what it says here, ‘surgical mutilation.’ Some doctor was accused of it, and Eckhardt was his assistant. The whole incident was kept way under the radar, I guess, like a lot of things are in the war. It was an internal army investigation, and there’s no press on it at all. These guys, the doctor and Eckhardt, were pulled out of the Philippines and sent home to Fort Bragg a year and a half ago to face court-martial.”

Joe stared the cloud as he considered the information. “Does the report say what the mutilation consisted of ?”

“No. Just ‘surgical mutilation.’ But that’s where we might have a connection. Eckhardt and the doctor went AWOL before trial. They’ve been missing for six months. The army is pissed off about it, and they’re still looking for these guys. They don’t want to go public with it, and neither do we. But when we told them about Eckhardt’s cell phone call reporting the body in the woods they went ape-shit. They’re sending a couple of military cops to Wyoming as soon as they can get ’em here.

“Of course, it’s possible that somebody has Eckhardt’s cell phone, but that seems real unlikely. The army guys asked if the caller had a speech impediment, because Eckhardt has one, but I didn’t know what to tell them. Anyway, we’re running down other calls made from that number now, and we’ll see if we can make any sense of them.”

Joe watched the cloud move up the hillside, felt it envelop him as it passed over, sensed the five-degree temperature drop. “The Park County dispatcher had trouble making out what the 911 caller said.”

“That’s interesting,” Portenson said. Joe’s mind was racing ahead.

“Joe, you still there?” Portenson asked. “I’m here.”

“We need to have an emergency task-force meeting. I already told Hersig and he’s clearing the decks for seven o’clock tonight.”

Joe didn’t respond.

“Joe, can you hear me?”

“Yup, I’m thinking.” He paused for a moment, then: “Do we have a name on the doctor Eckhardt’s involved with?”

“Hold on . . .” Portenson said. Joe could hear him thumbing through the pages again. “. . . Okay, here it is. His name is Eric Logue, Dr. Eric Logue.”

“Logue? Ah, Jesus . . .” Joe pushed off the sign he had been leaning against, Eric Logue’s name ricocheting through his head. In his subconscious a series of formerly random bits of information stopped flying around and began to pause, align, and connect. It was as if the tumblers on a lock were falling into place, finally releasing the hasp.

A doctor.

Surgical mutilations.

Cam said his brother was a surgeon.

L. Robert Eckhardt. Bob. The name on the army jacket Sheridan said she saw on the transient who had yelled at her.

Bob. Nurse Bob. A speech impediment. The dispatcher telling Harvey that she had trouble understanding the caller.

Nurse Bob: Nuss Bomb.

“Joe, you still there? What’s going on?” Portenson said. “Agent Portenson, let me ask you something,” Joe said. “Go ahead.”

“If your parents came to visit you at an inconvenient time and you were telling somebody about it, would you say, ‘it’s not exactly the best time in the world to have my whole family here for a visit’?”

Portenson sighed. “What in the hell does that have . . .”

“The whole family,” Joe said. “Would that be the phrase you would use if your parents were visiting? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say my folks, or my parents?”

“I guess so,” Portenson said, sounding perplexed and annoyed.

“Me too,” Joe said. “But when Cam Logue was at dinner and the subject came up, he said the whole family. Maybe it was just a mistake, but it doesn’t sound right. But maybe he really did mean his whole family— including his brother.”

“You’ve fucking lost me,” Portenson said. “Who’s Cam Logue and why should I care what he said at your little dinner party?”

“Just stay by the telephone for the next few minutes,” Joe said. “I’ve got to make another call.”

“What are you . . .”

Joe hung up, then hit 1 on his speed dial. While he waited for Marybeth to pick up, he paced back and forth in front of his pickup.

When she answered, he immediately knew something was wrong by her tone.

“Are you okay?”

She paused. “I’ve been better.” “Did I do it?” he asked.

“No, Joe. Why do you always think it’s you?”

“Because it usually is. Anyway, do you have a second for something urgent?”

“Yes.”

“Cam’s brother is a doctor, right?”

Marybeth was clearly puzzled by the question. “Yes.” “Where?” Joe asked.

“Do you mean what state? I’m not sure. Marie mentioned a couple of times that he was overseas . . .”

“Was he an army doctor?”

She paused again. “Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.”

Joe smacked the hood of his pickup with his free hand. “What’s his name?”

“Eric. Dr. Eric Logue,” Marybeth said. “Why are you asking? What’s happening?”

Joe stopped pacing. “I don’t have time to explain right now—and I’m not even sure how this all connects yet. But whatever you do, Marybeth, stay away from Cam. I think either he or his brother are somehow mixed up with the mutilations. If you’re at the office, pack up and leave now.”

She laughed sadly. “You don’t need to worry about that, Joe. I’m at home. But I just got back from the Logues’ house and no one answered the door.”

“Thank God you’re all right,” Joe said, feeling a little of the pressure that was building vent out.

“I’m worried about Marie, though,” Marybeth said. “I don’t know where she is . . .”

Joe called Portenson back: “Does the report give any background information on Eric Logue? Does it say where he grew up?”

“Why does that matter?” Portenson asked, irritated. “I can’t find anything here. It may be in the report somewhere but I’ll have to look.”

“Find out where he grew up,” Joe said urgently. “And if they won’t give it to you or you can’t find it, try to confirm that Dr. Eric Logue was stationed in the same places Eckhardt was.”

“I’m not doing jack-shit until you tell me what’s going on here,” Portenson barked. “You’ve already screwed my career once, Joe—now, what is so important about where Eric Logue grew up?”

“Cam Logue’s a realtor in Saddlestring,” Joe said. “He grew up here and just moved back to open up a business. I think our Dr. Eric Logue is Cam Logue’s brother. I’m not sure how it all connects but there’s something here. Look, I’m out in the field now but we’ve got to talk to Hersig about this immediately—definitely before tonight’s task-force meeting. Then I can explain things better to both of you.”

“I’ll call Robey right now,” Portenson said. “Stop whatever gamewarden crap you’re doing and head back to town so we can go see Robey.

And keep your phone on—I’ll call you as soon as I talk to him.”

oe was rolling toward town when his cell phone rang.

“Robey’s stuck on the phone with the governor,” Portenson said without preamble. “The governor called for an update on the task force’s progress.”

“Do we know how long this is going to take?” Joe said.

“Robey’s secretary said she didn’t think he’d be off any time soon but she’d ‘pencil us in’ for five,” Portenson said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

Joe looked at his watch—it was almost three-thirty. “We need to nail down Eric Logue,” he said. “The more information we can bring Robey, the better.”

“I already talked to the FBI. We should have something any minute.” “Try to get photos of Eckhardt and Eric Logue, and let me know as soon as you’ve got something. See if you can find out where Cam Logue is right now as well. If Eric is his brother then we’ll need to pick Cam up for questioning immediately.”

“Who died and appointed you an FBI agent?” Portenson spat. “I know how to do my job. Just make sure you’re at Robey’s by five—I’ll take care of everything else.”

oe tossed the phone on to the seat next to him as he drove toward Saddlestring, his anxiety building. He wasn’t quite sure what to do to fill the time before the meeting with Hersig. He considered going to Porten-son’s office to wait for the FBI’s information on Eric Logue but Portenson was clearly not in the mood to have Joe hanging over his shoulder. Joe thought about going over to Cam’s office but quickly dismissed that idea. After that morning fiasco, he wouldn’t be surprised if Cam never spoke to him again.

Joe was almost across the bridge that would take him into Saddlestring, debating whether he had enough time to go home and change out of his work clothes, filthy from fixing the signs, when he remembered Ike’s request to pick up Not Ike. He slowed his truck and scanned the river but he could see only one fisherman and he didn’t look like Not Ike.

Joe pulled off the bridge and parked his truck. As he jogged down the riverbank, he recognized the fisherman as Jack, the retired schoolteacher and the only man in town who rivaled Not Ike for fishing hours.

“Hey, Jack, have you seen Not Ike?”

Jack was tying on a streamer fly. The glare of the sun on the water behind him made Joe squint.

“He was down under the bridge until about an hour ago,” Jack said. “He yelled down to me and said he caught three fish.”

Joe smiled.

“He caught a ride somewhere, though,” Jack said. “He hasn’t come back.” “Do you know who picked him up?”

Jack shook his head. “Didn’t recognize him. But he was driving a bigass truck and pulling a trailer behind it. Big silver trailer, with some kind of writing on it.”

Joe froze. “Did it say ‘Dr. Cleve Garrett, Iconoclast Society, Reno, Nevada?’ ”

Looking up from his fly, Jack shrugged. “Could have, I’m not sure. But I’ve never seen it around here before. I saw the guy driving though, and I swear I’ve seen him before.”

Joe took an involuntary step backward. It made no sense—why was Garrett back in Saddlestring? And why would he stop to give Not Ike a ride somewhere? Then something clicked in his head, a sick pit of worry growing in his stomach.

“You okay, Joe?”

But Joe had turned and was running up the riverbank toward his pickup. As he threw open the pickup door, he called down to Jack, “Which direction were they going?”

Jack pointed to the west, toward the mountains.

Joe jumped into the cab, cranked the wheel, and did a screeching U-turn back onto the bridge, nearly taking out the railing with his bumper.

33

Joe accelerated on bighorn road , grabbing his radio as he drove. “Cleve Garrett has kidnapped a man named George Easter, aka Not Ike Easter,” Joe shouted into his radio microphone after switching to the mutual aid channel. “Everyone out there watch for a Suburban towing an Airstream trailer . . .” he described the vehicle, the trailer, and Not Ike as best he could.

It took a few beats before the radio traffic became fevered, with comments, questions, and location reports coming in through the central dispatcher from Saddlestring police, sheriff ’s deputies, and the highway patrol. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, everyone wanted more details. Deputy McLanahan complained that he was just done with his shift and headed for dinner at the Burg-O-Pardner. He asked how to spell “iconoclast.”

Joe’s cell phone rang immediately, as he expected it would.

It was Hersig, and he was distraught. “What in the hell is going on, Joe? What are you doing? Everyone’s in a damned uproar because of something you just broadcast.”

“A man matching the description of Cleve Garrett lured Not Ike out of the river and took him someplace,” Joe said. “He was last seen headed toward the mountains.”

“Cleve Garrett?” Hersig shouted. “CLEVE GARRETT? What about Eric Logue? I got a message from Portenson about him.”

“I don’t know!” Joe yelled back angrily. “Maybe it was Garrett all along!” “Jesus Christ,” Hersig said. “How do we know Not Ike wasn’t just get-ting a lift to another fishing spot upriver?”

“Because,” Joe said, “things are starting to fall into place, and not in a good way. None of us—especially me—took Garrett seriously, because of all his goofy theories. But the fact is that he was in Montana when the first cattle mutilations were reported. When the cattle were mutilated in Saddlestring, he was here too. No one else we know of was around when and where both sets of crimes were committed—except Cleve Garrett. And Garrett pulled up stakes and vanished, so he was obviously trying to get away fast. I couldn’t figure out why, before, and assumed it had to do with Deena. Now I’m thinking he must have thought we were closing in on him, that I was closing in on him.”

“But if that’s all true, why would Garrett come back to Saddlestring and risk getting caught?” Robey said. “Why grab Not Ike, of all people?” “Not Ike told us how he’d seen somebody, a couple of men, in an al-ley behind Logue Realty. He called them ‘creepylike.’ Remember from the report?”

“Now I do. I didn’t put any stock in it.”

“Me either, damn it,” Joe said. “But I’m thinking that Not Ike was the only living person who may have actually seen the bad guys. Maybe he could identify them.”

Hersig paused. “Who would know about what he said besides us?” “Cam Logue would know,” Joe said.

“How in the hell would he know?” “Because I told him about it in his office.” “Oh no . . .”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “There must be a connection between Cam and Garrett. I don’t know what it is yet but it’s the only explanation I can think of.

“Not Ike said he saw two people in the alley by Logue Realty— Garrett was one of them and Cam Logue was probably the other. Cam must have called Garrett after I left his office and told him.” Joe mentally kicked himself for being so stupid. If something happened to Not Ike because of him, he’d never forgive himself.

“Calm down, Joe,” Robey said. “Just stay focused, all right? We don’t even know for sure that Cam’s involved. Not Ike could have told the same thing to others and probably did. This morning you told me Logue wasn’t part of all this, and now suddenly you’re convinced he’s in cahoots with Garrett?”

“Forget what I said, Robey,” Joe said heatedly. “I may be wrong but if I’m not then Not Ike’s life is in danger. You’ve got to send someone out to pick up Cam right away. He may know where Garrett is heading. Hell, for all we know he could be running now, too.”

“Who do you want me to send, Joe? Finding Garrett and Not Ike is everyone’s number-one priority,” Hersig said. “Barnum and his deputies and basically all other law enforcement within twenty miles of Saddlestring are already out looking for Garrett. I’m not going to call one of them and ask that they turn around to go pick up a respected local businessman who may or may not be involved in this whole thing.”

Joe gripped the phone so tightly that he thought it would break. “I don’t care who you send—call the goddamn highway patrol if you have to. Someone’s got to be around. Cam’s involved in this one way or the other and we can’t risk losing him like we did Garrett.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hersig snapped. “But I’m not making any promises.”

“Funnel everything through the dispatcher,” Joe said. “I’ll keep the radio on and report in if there’s anything to report.” Hersig clicked off without answering.

oe tried to tie it all together. Garrett’s involvement puzzled him. He had been so focused on Cam Logue that he had paid scant attention to Garrett. Deena had provided Joe with a reason to dig more deeply into Garrett’s motivations, but Joe hadn’t done it in time to stop what was happening now.

Something else clicked in, regarding Cleve Garrett. Garrett was a publicity hound. He wanted the attention in order to advance his crackpot ideas on aliens and conspiracies. But maybe Garrett was darker, more twisted. Maybe Joe’s lack of credulity was the motivation for Garrett to step up his crimes?

And where in the hell did Cam Logue fit into all of this? Joe wondered. He had to be part of this. How else could Garrett have known about Joe’s conversation with Cam? Garrett had left before Joe confronted Cam. Were they in contact?

Despite the bungling of the rest of the task force, Joe had been the closest to the killer all along and he hadn’t seen it. There might still be another explanation—he hoped so—but he doubted it. If this played out the way it seemed to be headed, it was his fault for not preventing another murder. He cringed as he drove.

“Man, oh man, oh man,” Joe said aloud.

He grabbed his cell phone from the dash, speed-dialed Nate Romanowski’s number. For once, Nate answered.

“It’s Joe.”

Nate was excited. “Joe, I haven’t talked to you since we found the bear. Well believe it or not . . .”

“Nate! I really need your help!” “Go ahead.”

“How fast can you grab your weapon and meet me on Bighorn Road? I’m heading west toward the mountains.”

“Ten minutes.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

As Joe screamed over the hill, he saw Nate climbing out of his Jeep and pulling on his shoulder holster. Joe slowed to a roll, and Nate swung into the cab of the pickup.

Without actually stopping, Joe eased the pickup back onto the Bighorn Road and the motor roared. “It’s Cleve Garrett,” Joe said.

“Really?” Nate whistled. “I guess it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.” “No,” Joe said sourly. “I guess it shouldn’t be. But I think Cam Logue is involved somehow, maybe others as well.”

While they drove, Nate pulled his weapon, checked the five-shot cylinder, and shoved it back into his shoulder holster.

“Consider yourself deputized,” Joe said, looking over at Nate. Nate said, “I didn’t know game wardens could deputize anyone.”

Joe shrugged. “We probably can’t. So I’ll deputize you in the name of the Murder and Mutilation Task Force.”

“Cool,” Nate said. “As long as you undeputize me later.” Joe nodded.

“Remember when I told you about what it was like under the calm surface of the river?” Nate asked, his eyes wide, “how there is a whole different world, with noise and chaos?”

“Nate, what does this have to do with . . .”

“Just listen for a minute, Joe,” Nate said. “I’ve come to believe that there are different levels of consciousness and being. There are whole worlds out there with their own different versions of what reality is, and their own sets of natural laws. Sometimes, the laws are broken and things spill over from one level to the next. When that happens, we hope that something from that level is sent to fix the mess or all hell will break loose.”

Joe was speechless. “Nate . . .”

“I know,” Nate said. “We don’t have time for this. But the bear is with me now, at my place. We’re communicating.”

The radio crackled. It was Wendy, the dispatcher.

“A fisherman just reported seeing a vehicle and trailer matching the description of the suspect’s vehicle and trailer at a public-access fishing campground.”

Joe and Nate exchanged glances, and Joe snatched the microphone from its cradle.

“This is Joe Pickett, Wendy. There are six public-access campgrounds on the Upper Twelve Sleep River. Can you tell me which one?”

There was a pause, then: “The fisherman says he saw the unit in question at the Pick Pike Bridge campground.”

Joe knew which one she was talking about. It was the last public-access fishing location before the start of the national forest. It was small, with four or five spaces, and was located in dense woods. The only facilities there were a pit-toilet outhouse and a fish-cleaning station near the water. Because of the way it was tucked into the heavy timber near the river, it was a good place to hide out. He had ticketed more over-limit fishermen there than any other place on the river, because the fishermen assumed no one would see or catch them.

“I’m fifteen minutes away from there,” Joe said to Wendy. “Are there any other units in the vicinity?”

“Sheriff Barnum is rolling now,” she said.

“That’s right,” Barnum barked, breaking into the transmission. “Secure the exits and wait for the cavalry.”

Secure the exits? Joe looked at Nate. “Sheriff, there’s one road into that campground from the Bighorn Road, but there’s at least four old twotracks that go to it from both sides of the river. That makes five exits.”

“Then use your best judgment, goddamit,” Portenson broke in from another radio. “I’ll take it from here, Sheriff. Follow me.”

Joe was relieved that Portenson was taking charge.

hey topped a sagebrush covered hill on a two-track road, and the river and campground were laid out below on the valley floor in front of them.

Joe slowed the pickup to assess the layout. The Twelve Sleep River, its surface reflecting dusk gold, rebounded in a loopy sidewise U from a cliff-face upriver before it turned and disappeared from view into thick river cottonwoods. The campground was under the canopy of trees where the river bent.

As Joe had described to Barnum, roads that looked like discarded dark threads through the sagebrush came in and out of the bank of trees, offering multiple entrance and exit points.

If Garrett’s truck and trailer were down there in the trees, they couldn’t be seen from above. To locate them, they would need to be on the valley floor, in the trees or in the campground itself.

Joe had made the decision not to wait for Portenson and Barnum. If Not Ike was being carved up by Cleve Garrett, Joe wanted to stop it as quickly as he possibly could. I’ve already screwed this thing up enough, he thought. I couldn’t live with knowing I was sitting on top of a hill while Not Ike was being tortured.

Joe asked Nate, “Are you ready?”

Nate said, “Of course.”

At home, Marybeth was making spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner when the telephone rang. She was greeted with silence on the other end, although she thought she could hear breathing. “Hello?” she said again.

Nothing. Marybeth put the spoon on a plate and was about to hang up when someone said, “Marybeth?”

It took a moment for Marybeth to recognize the caller. “Marie? Is that you?”

Marie hesitated, then spoke softly. “I got your note. That was very nice of you. But it was too late, too late.” Marybeth knew there was something dreadfully wrong by the soft, vacant quality of Marie’s voice.

“Marie, are you okay?”

There was a wracking sob, then a beat while Marie seemed to be collecting herself.

“No, I’m not okay,” Marie said, her voice breaking. “I’m not okay at all. Cam’s gone, and I’ve done something horrible. They took him.”

“Who took Cam? Marie, what are you telling me?” She recalled her conversation with Joe, his admonishment to stay away from Cam.

But Marie couldn’t answer because she was crying too hard, and she finally barked out “I’ll call you back,” between wails, and hung up.

Marybeth found herself staring at the stove but not really seeing anything. She realized that she was suddenly trembling.

Where was Joe? He needed to meet her at the Logues’ right away.

34

As they leveled out on the river valley floor and crossed a small stream before entering the trees, Joe punched off his cell phone and squelched the volume of the radio to a whisper. Both windows were open in the pickup, so he and Nate could get a better sense of the surroundings. Joe drove slowly, keeping the sound of the motor at a minimum. He wanted to enter the campground as quietly as he could.

They passed a brown Forest Service sign nearly obliterated by years of sniping and shotgun blasts that read pick pike campground.

Inside the trees, it was dark and it smelled damp, with an edge of forestfloor decay. Pale yellow cottonwood leaves blanketed the soft black earth. Small splats of sun pierced through the wide canopy of trees and formed starbursts on the surface.

Nate gestured toward the two-track in front of them, and mouthed, “Fresh tracks.”

Joe nodded. He had seen the tracks as well, noting that they were so new that the peaked impression of the tire treads was still sharp.

Nate had his .454 Casull in his right hand, the muzzle pointed toward the floor. Joe’s .40 Beretta was on the seat next to his thigh. Joe’s palms were icy with apprehension, his breath was quavery and shallow. He found himself clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt.

Before turning toward the campsites, the road passed a rusting metal fish-cleaning station near a boat takeout point on the riverbank. They were past it when Joe sniffed the air and eased to a stop. There was a smell that didn’t belong, he thought.

He opened his door as quietly as he could, and approached the station. Nate did the same, but walked toward the bank of the river. The fishcleaning station was old and simple; a flat metal work area perched on angle-iron legs. The cleaning area could be washed clean by a river-water faucet. Usually these things smelled bad, he knew, but the normal odor was of fish guts, fish heads, and entire rotting skeletons if the fisherman filleted the trout and left the rest. The problem with this station was that it didn’t smell like that at all, he realized. Instead, there was the pungent odor of ammonia bleach.

Indeed, the metal cleaning counter was scrubbed clean. In the center of the counter was a drain hole. The drain led to an underground pipe that discharged into the river itself.

Either the station had been used by unusually sanitary and obsessive fishermen, he thought, or it had been used for another purpose.

His stomach clenched.

Joe looked up to see Nate gesturing at him furiously to come over to where he stood at the water’s edge.

As Joe walked over, he had a sickening premonition of what he might find. Nate bent down and pointed toward the discharge pipe several inches below the surface of the river. A long white ribbon of some kind had caught on an underwater twig and undulated in the flow. Nate reached into the water and pulled the ribbon free, stretching it across both of his hands so they could look at it.

It was human skin. White human skin. On the bottom of the ribbon was a dark blue stencil of some kind, a series of three consecutive horizontal lines. Through his horror, Joe realized what they were.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “That’s the top of some lettering, T-E-E.” He looked up at Nate. “From the word ‘ABDUCTEE.’ It’s from Deena.

She had it tattooed across her abdomen. The son of a bitch skinned her.”

Now, Joe was angry. Everything he had been feeling previously—

frustration, embarrassment, outright fear as they descended into the trees—channeled into rage.

“Let’s find him and take him out,” he said over his shoulder to Nate as he strode to the pickup. Tilting the bench seat forward, Joe drew his shotgun from its scabbard. It was still loaded with double-ought buckshot shells.

Nate followed. “Joe, calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Joe said through clenched teeth. He was thinking of Deena, of Not Ike, of Tuff Montegue and Stuart Tanner, of the circus of humiliation and depravity Cleve Garrett had brought into his valley.

“Let’s talk about this for a second,” Nate said. Joe racked the pump.

“We need a strategy,” Nate said. “So take a breath.”

leve Garrett’s Airstream Trailer was still attached to his pickup and it was pulled into the fifth and last space in the campground. It looked like a big, slick metallic tube in the dark trees. Behind the trailer, through thick stands of willows, the river flowed wide and shallow.

Joe cranked the wheel of his truck to block the road, and turned off the motor. Garrett could not drive out of his site now, and there were too many thick trees all around for him to use an overland escape route.

The blinds were pulled down tight on all of the trailer windows, and Joe wondered if he had been either seen or heard by the occupants inside. Joe and Nate slid out of the cab. As they had planned, Nate pushed his way into the brush and vanished within it to take a position behind cover near the front of Garrett’s pickup. This way, Nate could cover Joe as well as see if anyone inside tried to escape out the back of the trailer.

Joe stood behind his pickup, keeping it between him and the trailer. He had switched his radio to PA and the mike cord stretched across the cab and out the open window.

When he assumed Nate was in position, he keyed the mike. “Cleve Garrett, come out of that trailer now.”

He watched the windows carefully, saw one of them near the front shiver as someone looked out.

“IF YOU HAVE ANY WEAPONS, LEAVE THEM INSIDE. OPEN THE DOOR AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, PALMS OUT.”

The front window blind shot up. Joe crouched down and raised the stock of the shotgun to his cheek. He put the bead on the front sight to the window. A face appeared, pressed against the glass.

“Joseph?” Not Ike mouthed. “Joseph?” His words were silent on the outside.

Not Ike looked confused but okay, Joe thought with a rush of relief. Garrett probably had a gun at Not Ike’s head, shoving the big man’s face into the glass.

Not Ike was mouthing something through the glass. Joe could read it: Creepy like guys, Joseph.

A louvered pane near Not Ike’s head was being cranked open. Joe hoped Nate had a better angle on the window from where he was hidden in the brush. Maybe, Joe thought, Nate would be able to see Garrett inside and fire if Garrett lowered his gun or was distracted.

“Joseph, that’s you, isn’t it?” Joe could now hear Not Ike.

“It’s me,” Joe said, talking into the mike so that Garrett would be sure to hear him as well. “Plus about twenty officers more on the way. The trailer is surrounded.”

There was a beat and Not Ike’s face was pulled from the window. Maybe Garrett would speak now, Joe hoped. Maybe Garrett would try to make a deal. “Nobody needs to get hurt,” Joe said, willing confident gentleness into his voice. “No one needs to get hurt at all. Just leave any weapons inside and come out.”

There was movement inside the trailer, and it rocked slightly.

With a metallic click, the door burst open. Joe swung the muzzle of his shotgun to it, saw the door slam against the outside of the trailer, saw the doorframe filled with Not Ike. Garrett was behind Not Ike with his forearm around the big man’s throat and a pistol pressed into his ear. Because Garrett was much shorter, all Joe could see of him were his eyes over Not Ike’s shoulder.

“We’re coming out,” Garrett shouted.

Not Ike stepped out of the trailer, Garrett pressed tightly behind him. Not Ike took several steps forward, grinning at Joe as if he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Joe didn’t lower his shotgun. For a brief, electrifying moment, Garrett’s and Joe’s eyes locked.

“Let him go,” Joe said, close enough now not to need the microphone. “Lower the gun and drop it into the dirt.”

Garrett looked furtively to his side.

“I don’t see anybody else,” Garrett said. “Where’re your troops?” “They’re out there,” Joe lied, thinking: Nate, where are you?

Garrett pushed Not Ike forward another few steps toward Joe. The pistol was jammed into Not Ike’s ear, tilting his head slightly to the side. Joe could see that the hammer was cocked. Not Ike looked strangely serene, Joe thought. Somehow, it made the situation seem worse.

“We’re going to walk right up to you,” Garrett said, his voice gaining confidence. “And we’re going to take your truck out of here. You are going to lower that shotgun and step aside.”

Yes, I was, Joe thought. He had no other choice. Unless . . . Nate?

Then the door to the trailer filled with someone else, something else, something unspeakably horrible.

It was Cam Logue, with most of his face peeled aside. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, and his head slumped forward, his arms limp. He was being held up from behind by a big, dark man with a beard, wearing a bloody camouflage jacket.

“Oh, my God,” Joe heard himself whisper. Why is Cam here and what have they done to him?

The man behind Cam Logue moved out of the trailer. He appeared to be carrying Cam, keeping him vertical with one arm wrapped tightly around Logue’s chest. In the other hand was a scalpel, which was pressed against Logue’s throat.

“You din’t fo’get about me, did you, Doc?” the man asked Garrett. His speech was garbled and slurred. The man’s poor speech and the camo jacket clicked in Joe’s mind. It was Nurse Bob, Joe realized.

“Of course not,” Garrett said to Nurse Bob, not looking around. To Joe: “It’s a messy business, this.”

Joe was stunned, unable to process the horrific scene in front of him. Nothing made sense.

BOOM.

The left half of Nurse Bob’s head disappeared, blood and pieces of flesh splattering the side of the trailer with a sickening, wet sound, while his body toppled over backward like a felled tree. Cam Logue fell forward, released from the man’s grip, landing facedown on the ground.

Instinctively, Joe straightened up and moved to his left behind the truck to get an angle on Garrett. Garrett had wheeled Not Ike around toward the sound of the shot, and Joe could see Garrett clearly now. But Garrett still had the pistol jammed into Not Ike’s head.

“Who did that?” Garrett screamed, stealing a glance toward Cam’s prone body.

“DROP THE WEAPON!” Joe shouted.

But Garrett didn’t. Instead, he began backpedaling, pulling Not Ike along with him. Garrett backed up until he was nearly at the trailer again, but veered toward the rear of it. Not Ike was starting to panic now, because he didn’t know what was happening.

“Joseph!”

Garrett backed into the reedy brush behind the trailer, and before he was gone the last thing Joe saw were Not Ike’s arms flailing.

Then he heard a splash.

Joe and Nate followed.

“You didn’t tell me there would be two of them,” Nate said. “Nobody told me there would be two of them either,” Joe muttered.

“Or that Cam would be with them.”

Nate said nothing.

They found Not Ike in the river, sputtering but unharmed. Cleve Garrett was gone.

“I’ve got him,” Nate said, leaving Joe and Not Ike in the river and wading toward the opposite bank.

35

For the next three hours , as night came and the campground filled with vehicles and men and the crime scene lights went up, Joe Pickett was in a kind of fog. He was lucid enough to recognize that he was in mild shock. He dully recounted the details of what they had found in the campsite to Portenson, Hersig, and Sheriff Barnum. As activity whirled around him, he stayed out of the way, observing things as if he had no connection to any of it.

Hersig came over to Joe at one point and told Joe that they’d found a duffel bag with some personal items in the trailer that confirmed that the man Nate shot was Robert Eckhardt, the army nurse accused of mutilations who had gone AWOL. The phone number of the cell phone in the man’s bag matched the phone number Deputy Cook and Sheriff Harvey had pulled off their Caller ID. Hersig said they were going to run the man’s prints through the computer to prove his identification. The extent of his injuries would make a visual ID impossible.

Joe watched as Cam Logue’s body was hustled onto a gurney and loaded into an ambulance, followed by Nurse Bob’s, and as Barnum put together a team of deputies to cross the river and track down Cleve Garrett.

Remarkably, Deena was still alive. The EMTs brought her out from the back bedroom of the Airstream. She was naked except for the bandages wrapped around her belly and legs and a thin white sheet the EMTs had tucked around her. She was conscious, sleepy-looking, probably drugged, Joe assumed. As they carried her on a stretcher toward ambulance number three, she rolled her head to the side and smiled faintly at Joe.

One of the EMTs, whom Joe recognized from the Tuff Montegue crime scene, told a deputy that Deena had spoken to him when they found her inside.

“She said Garrett was experimenting on her, taking off strips of skin. She said she didn’t mind all that much, but she was angry when he screwed up her tattoo. Can you imagine that?”

Deputy Reed came out of the trailer holding a bundle in dark cloth, and someone shined a flashlight on it as the bundle was opened. Steel surgical instruments glinted in the light. Joe recalled Lucy and Sheridan saying something about seeing “silverware” on a cloth in the shack behind the Logues and that the man who chased them away had “Bob” stenciled above the pocket on his jacket. So did the man with half a head who had been zipped up in a body bag an hour before, he thought with a shiver.

“How did this Nurse Bob guy get hooked up with Cleve Garrett?” Hersig was asking Portenson. “Why in the hell did they go after Cam Logue and Not Ike?”

Portenson shrugged and cursed.

“Joe, do you know?” Hersig asked him. Joe shook his head.

“He’s in bad shape,” Portenson said, looking at Joe with some sympathy. “I don’t think he’s ever seen a man’s head blown off before.”

“Not only that,” Hersig said, “but did you see Cam Logue? Jesus, I’m going to have nightmares for years after that.”

“You did good,” Portenson said to Joe. “You probably saved the lives of two people.”

Hersig stood near Joe, shaking his head and staring out into the dark trees. “I’m confused,” Hersig said as much to himself as to Joe. “Why was Cam here? How did this Nurse Bob character get involved with Cleve Garrett? Or was he involved with Cam somehow? It wasn’t just a coincidence, no way.”

Hersig looked at Joe. “So was it Cam all along? Was Cam working with Cleve Garrett? Did he know Nurse Bob through his brother or what? I thought Cam hated his brother?”

Joe barely followed what was being said. He waited for the sound of Nate’s gunshot from across the river. The shot never came.

hortly after, Nate appeared beneath one of the spotlights, looking for Joe, causing the deputies who were milling about to stop and stare. Nate certainly had a presence about him, Joe noted.

“I lost his track in the dark,” Nate declared to everyone. “Shit,” Barnum cursed. “Did you see my deputies?” “They’re coming in right behind me,” Nate said.

Nate searched the crowd, saw Joe standing by his pickup, and started over. Portenson stepped in front of Nate, cutting him off.

“I understand you were the shooter. There may be charges filed, and we’ll need a statement from you.”

Nate looked at Portenson coldly. “Charges?” “I deputized him,” Joe interrupted.

Portenson shook his head. “What in the hell does that mean?” Nate shrugged, and stepped around Portenson.

“We still need a statement, mister.”

Nate said, “You’ll get one. Right now, I’m going to get Joe home. I’ll come in to your office tomorrow.”

Portenson approached Joe warily. “The identification came through in the middle of all of this. The doctor who escaped was the same Eric Logue who had grown up here. We should have photos of Nurse Bob and Eric Logue on the computer when we get back. Washington is send-ing them out. But how in the hell everything connects is beyond me right now.”

Joe shrugged. His movements were a beat behind his thoughts.

oe and Nate left Hersig, Portenson, and Barnum, who were having a discussion about how quickly they could coordinate helicopters and dogs to pursue Cleve Garrett.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Nate asked. “I’m fine.”

“I couldn’t get an angle on Garrett, or there would have been two bodies back there.”

Joe nodded. The images of Cam Logue and Nurse Bob’s exploding head played on a continuous loop just beyond the hood of his truck.

“So Cam Logue is dead?” Nate asked, after minutes of silence. “Yup.”

“So I saved a dead guy?”

“You didn’t know that. Neither did I at the time. That was a hell of a shot.”

Nate repeated, “I saved a dead guy.”

Joe looked over. “Nate, are you okay?”

“Okay is the wrong word to use after you kill somebody, Joe. I guess I’m ...I don’t know what. You could say I have some degree of job satisfaction, I guess.”

oe remembered his cell phone and switched it on as they turned onto the blacktop of the highway.

The display read: you have 1 message.

Marybeth, thought Joe. She’s probably worried as hell.

He punched in the numbers to retrieve the message, and held the phone to his ear.

It was Marybeth all right, but her voice was hushed and urgent.

“Joe, where are you? I’m with Marie, at her house. It’s a terrible scene, and I’m scared for her. Can you please get here as fast as you can?”

He suddenly floored it, and the engine howled. “What’s going on?” Nate asked.

“I don’t know.”

36

Mary beth’s van was parked in front of the Logue home on the circular drive, and Joe’s headlights swept across it as he pulled in. The van was empty except for a small, blond head in the backseat. Joe’s heart raced, fearing it was Lucy or Sheridan.

He braked, leaving the shotgun in the truck, and slid the van door back. The interior light went on and he looked at Jessica Logue, sitting in the center of the middle seat with her hands on her lap. Her face was stained with dried tears.

“Jessica, what are you doing?”

“Mrs. Pickett asked my mom if I could come out here,” Jessica said, looking at her hands. “My mom said I could.”

“They’re inside?” Jessica nodded.

Joe reached in and patted her shoulder. “Stay here, then. I won’t be long.” He started to shut the door.

“Mr. Pickett?”

“Yes?”

She looked up at him. “I hope you can help my mom.” “I’ll try, honey.”

Nate stood in the dark behind him.

“I think you should stay out here,” Joe said. “I don’t know what the situation is inside. Maybe you can watch through a window, and if things aren’t under control, well . . .”

“I’ll be ready,” Nate said. “Is the little girl going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

joe knocked on the front door, and tried to see through the opaque curtain beside it. There was dim light inside, from a room on the right of the hallway, but he couldn’t see Marybeth. He knocked again, and saw a dark form step into the doorway.

“Joe, is that you?” It was Marybeth.

He tightly closed his eyes for an instant—she was all right—then answered her.

“Are you alone?” she asked. “Yes,” he lied.

“Is it alright if Joe comes in?” Marybeth asked someone inside the room.

His hand was already turning the knob when she said, “It’s okay to come inside, Joe.”

He stepped in and shut the door behind him. The hallway was dark. Why didn’t Marybeth come to him, he wondered. Was someone threatening her inside?

Jesus, he thought. What if it’s Garrett?

He quickly reached for his pistol but stopped when Marybeth, almost imperceptibly, shook her head no. Joe paused and pointed outside and mouthed “Nate.” She met his eyes and blinked, indicating that she understood.

His boots sounded loud on the hardwood floor, in the still house, as he walked toward Marybeth. As he neared her, she turned her head inside the room and said, “Marie, Joe’s coming in now.”

“Okay.”

Marybeth stepped back and Joe entered. He took in the scene quickly. The room was dark except for two low-wattage desk lamps. Book-lined shelves covered the opposite wall. A television set and stereo occupied an entertainment center, but both were off.

Marie Logue leaned with her back against an upright piano. She had a glass of red wine in one hand and a semiautomatic pistol in the other. Her eyes looked glazed, her expression blank. There were dried tear tracks down her cheeks, like her daughter’s.

Across from Marie, in two overstuffed chairs, sat an old couple. They looked shriveled and flinty, and both peered at Joe from behind metalrimmed glasses. The man wore suspenders over a white T-shirt, and the woman wore an oversized sweatshirt. The woman’s hair looked like curled stainless-steel shavings.

“Joe, I don’t believe you’ve met Marie’s motherand father-in-law before,” Marybeth said with a kind of exaggerated calmness that signaled to Joe that the situation was tense. “This is Clancy and Helen Logue.”

Joe nodded.

“This is Joe, my husband.”

Clancy Logue nodded back, but Helen stared at Joe, apparently sizing him up.

“I was just about to kill them,” Marie said from across the room, deadpan. “Marybeth is trying her darndest to talk me out of it.”

Joe looked at her.

“I bet I can get you to say three words now,” Marie said, her mouth twisting into a bitter grin.

Marie, do you mind if I fill Joe in on what we’ve been discussing?” Marybeth asked, still with remarkable calm.

Marie arched her eyebrows in a “what the hell” look, and took a long drink of her wine. Her eyes shifted from Joe to Clancy and Helen as Marybeth told the story.

“Marie learned last week that Cam has been trying to buy the Over-street Ranch in secret. That the secret buyer he told us about was Cam himself. Apparently, the only people he told about it were his parents. He told them that he was going to buy back their old ranch but that they weren’t welcome on it. But there was another reason, other than nostalgia, why Cam wanted the ranch. Am I doing okay so far, Marie?”

“Perfect,” she said.

“As you know, Joe, the Logue home used to serve as an archive for the old county clerk. Cam liked to go through the old files, to learn about the history of property in the area, he told Marie. But apparently he found the file for the Overstreet Ranch, and discovered that the mineral rights lease signed by their father was for fifty years. That meant that the rights would revert back to the landowner in two more years. The Overstreet sisters didn’t know that. They thought the mineral rights were sold forever.”

“And Cam would get the royalties on all of that coal-bed methane development,” Joe said.

Marie clucked her tongue.

“Were you aware of this scheme?” Joe asked her.

“Well, no. I didn’t find out about that part of it until this morning, when he confessed it to me. I was so damned mad at him. You think you know somebody . . . I’m ethical, Joe,” she pleaded. “Marybeth knows that. That’s why I refused to come to work. I would never take advantage of those two old sisters that way. Cam knew it too, which is why he didn’t tell me.”

And Stuart Tanner knew it, Joe thought. Tanner found it out when he researched the property. Tanner likely had it in the file he delivered to Cam Logue that day.

Marybeth turned back. “Well, Clancy and Helen decided to come and visit Cam. According to Marie, when his parents found out he was going to try to get the ranch back, they wanted to live there, too. No one except Cam knew about the mineral rights yet. Clancy and Helen thought it would be a good place to retire.”

“Damned right,” Clancy said defiantly. “The boy does something right for once in his life, and he didn’t want to share it.”

Joe shot a look at Marie. Her eyes were narrowed on Clancy.

“Please,” Marybeth said. “Let me tell the story.” Clancy snorted, but sat back.

“Marie was telling me that Cam has a brother, Eric. He’s a doctor with the army and he had some really severe problems a couple of years ago, some kind of breakdown. Eric was accused of deliberately hurting some patients. . . .”

“It wasn’t deliberate,” Helen broke in.

“Oh, shut up,” Marie warned, raising the pistol and looking down it at Helen. Helen clamped her mouth tight, but her eyes smoldered.

“He may have hurt his patients because of his sickness,” Marybeth said cautiously, searching for words that wouldn’t inflame either party. “Anyway, Eric’s friend, a male nurse, came with Clancy and Helen in their truck. You may have seen it parked outside. The camper shell with the locks on the outside of it?”

Joe nodded. Jesus.

“That’s how they brought Eric’s friend here. Under lock and key.”

Joe looked at Clancy and Helen now. They didn’t look like monsters. They looked like near-indigent retirees.

“Apparently, the nurse got away from Helen and Clancy. He may have been living on the property, in that shack our girls found, but we don’t know that for sure yet.”

Joe was confused. “Why did you bring him out here?” Clancy and Helen exchanged glances.

“You might as well talk,” Marie told them in a singsong voice. “Or I’ll just have to start blasting away.”

Helen cleared her throat. “Bob showed up at our house in South Dakota unannounced. He said he was looking for Eric. Our son asked that we bring him here.”

“Cam asked that?” Marie said incredulously. “Not Cam,” Helen said. “Eric.”

“What?” Marie’s face was getting red. “Marie, please be calm,” Marybeth said.

“Eric wanted you to bring that piece of filth to our home?” Marie’s voice rose into shrillness. “Where your granddaughter is?”

“Bob’s not that bad,” Clancy interjected. “Hard to understand him when he talks, though.”

“Besides,” Helen added, “he stayed out back and never bothered anyone. He just kept to himself.”

Maybe you ought to shoot them, Joe thought.

“Anyway,” Marybeth said, trying to get control of the conversation, “Eric and Bob showed up here today. They took Cam with them.”

“Eric was here?” Joe blurted.

Joe knew that something must have shown in his face, because both Marybeth and Marie picked up on it.

“Do you know where Cam is, Joe?” Marie asked. Joe looked at her.

“Oh, my God, do you know where he is?”

“I’m very sorry,” Joe said. “Cam is gone. We were too late to save him. Nurse Bob is dead too. We think he may have participated in killing Cam.”

Marie gasped, seemed to hold her breath, then let out a gut-wrenching wail that sent shivers up Joe’s forearms. Marybeth stepped back and covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide.

In mid-scream, Marie turned and raised the pistol, pointed it at Helen, and before Joe could lunge across the room and grab it, Marie pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber. Joe grasped the pistol with two hands, and Marie let him take it from her. She ran across the room to Marybeth, who held her.

Letting out a long breath, Joe checked the gun and saw that Marie hadn’t racked a shell into the chamber from the magazine. Then he looked at Helen. Her expression hadn’t changed from before, when Marie pulled the trigger. Her eyes were dead, black, reptile eyes, masked by the face of an old woman.

“They got Cam?” she asked. “Yes.”

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“Too bad Marie didn’t know how to load a gun,” Joe said. “That’s uncalled for,” Helen hissed back.

Then Joe froze, and it was as if the room was spinning around him while he stood. On a shelf behind Helen and Clancy were a set of framed photos. The photos were of Cam and Marie’s wedding, Jessica, and a couple he assumed was Marie’s parents. But there was a single framed picture in the middle that seemed to grow larger and sharper as he stared at it.

The photo was of Helen and Clancy and a much younger Cam. Standing next to Cam, a head taller, was Cleve Garrett.

Joe leaned over Clancy and Helen, snatched the photo from the shelf, and shook it in front of them.

“Why is Cleve Garrett in this picture?” he shouted.

Clancy looked at Joe like Joe was crazy. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said. “That’s Eric. Our son Eric. The doctor. The surgeon.”

Then Joe recalled Nurse Bob’s last words: “You din’t fo’get about me, did you, Doc?”

37

Cleve garrett was dr eric logue . Dr. Eric Logue was Cleve Garrett. And despite the search teams, the helicopters, and the dogs, neither was found. The closest they came to him, three days after the shootout, was the discovery of a crude, abandoned lean-to campsite fourteen miles due west from the river. The camp was in the mountains, in a stand of aspen. They found the remains of a small, sheltered campfire and a half-eaten fawn. The investigators determined that the last occupant of the shelter had likely been Garrett/Logue because the fawn’s haunches— and face—had been removed. Another trophy.

Following the discovery, the search was intensified. Governor Budd authorized the use of the Wyoming National Guard, and for a week they walked the west face of the Bighorns in concentric circles. No other camp, or track, was found.

Garrett/Logue knew the terrain like someone who had grown up there. Because he had.

he day after Cam Logue’s funeral, Marie and Jessica had stopped by the Pickett house on Bighorn Road. According to Ken Siman of Siman’s Memorial Chapel, it was the largest funeral in Saddlestring in a decade. Marie was on her way out of town. Marybeth had agreed to let Jessica stay with them until Marie got settled in Denver, which delighted Lucy. Marie told Marybeth they would live in Denver to be near her parents. Cam’s life insurance, she said, would take care of her and Jessica for years. Both women embraced and cried, saying their good-byes. Joe and Sheridan stood un-comfortably by, trading glances.

“I think it was finding those files,” Marie said, looking to Joe as if he had asked her the question. “They brought it all back to him. I think he was trying to get revenge on his past.”

Joe nodded. “Is it possible that Eric was trying to help him? By driving land values down so he could buy the ranch back?”

Marie stared at the floor. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he knew Eric was here until that morning. I really don’t.”

She looked up. “I don’t want to think that. So I won’t.”

As the days passed into weeks, Joe found himself thinking more about Cam Logue and less about Eric. It hurt to think about Cam. He felt more and more sorry for the man, and how things had gone. Cam was the product of cruel, twisted, unloving parents. Parents who had produced two children; one an outright miscreant and the other an emotional orphan. Despite that, Cam had tried to make something better of himself and his own family. He was a hard worker, and as far as Joe knew, Cam was a good husband and father until the end. Much like Joe himself, whose parents specialized in alcoholism, neglect, and lack of direction, Cam had been driving without a road map. Cam needed Marie for structure as Joe needed Marybeth. Under her guidance, Cam had participated in the community, won awards and accolades, received deserved admiration. His doubts, frustrations, and outright fears were kept well hidden. Unfortunately, Cam had likely not shared his fears with Marie, who might have been able to help him. In the end, he didn’t so much betray her as allow deeply imbedded inclinations to reemerge.

Cam was guilty of greed, of trying too desperately to provide a better place and a better life for his wife and daughter than he’d had growing up. He was not a criminal by nature, or an unchecked, unprincipled entrepreneur. He had succumbed to his desire to make things right, to try and reclaim and rewrite his past. But his past came roaring back, driving a battered old pickup with South Dakota plates.

Joe thought he had glimpsed the true Cam Logue that day in the real estate office when he confronted him. What he had seen wasn’t the cocksure businessman, but someone who was unsure and bitter, someone who was deep into a scheme and situation that he never should have pursued.

Trey Crump had called Joe with startling and disturbing news.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Trey said. “You were right about that bear collar. It was older than hell, and the bear guys said it had been out of inventory for thirty years. We have no idea how it showed up in that sheep wagon.”

Joe digested this, his mind swimming. “It showed up there because it came off the bear, Trey.”

“The bear guys say no way, Joe. No way a bear wandered around for thirty years without emitting a signal, and then showed up in your district. The only thing they can figure out is that the sheepherder must have found it somewhere along the line.”

Joe remembered the trashed trailer, remembered the smell of the bear inside of it.

“Not a chance,” Joe said, confused.

Trey cleared his throat. “This is where things start to get really weird, Joe. The thing is, the rogue grizzly bear that came out of Yellowstone was killed by some idiot roughneck over by Meeteetse a month ago. That bear never made it to the Bighorns.”

“WHAT?”

“The guy shot him, skinned him out, and crushed the radio collar. We never would have known except that the idiot took the hide to a taxidermist in Cody to get a rug made. The taxidermist called me, and the roughneck confessed everything this afternoon. We even found the decomposed body and what was left of the collar.”

Joe was stunned.

“There was a bear here, Trey. I saw the tracks. I saw what he did to the body of a dead cowboy.”

“Must have been another bear, I guess,” Trey said unconvincingly.

Joe fought against telling Trey about the bear Nate had been “communicating” with. If he told his supervisor, both Joe and Nate could be faced with federal charges.

The telephone was silent on both ends for two full minutes before they hung up.

Joe stared out his window, confused. A thirty-year-old bear collar? A bear that had vanished off the face of the earth for three decades had suddenly reappeared?

“Nah,” Joe said out loud, deliberately shutting off that line of inquiry.

God, he needed a beer.

Coments later, as Joe was about to head to the kitchen, Nate called.

Joe said, “You’re just the man I want to talk to.” He heard Nate chuckle.

“I just heard some interesting news,” Joe said. “They found the missing grizzly. It never got here.”

“That is interesting,” Nate said slyly. “But we both know there was a bear.” “Yes,” Nate said. “I guess we do.”

“And I remember there was something you were starting to tell me just before we went out to the campground. We never finished that conversation.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Maybe we should finish it now,” Joe said.

Nate was prone to long silences, and he lapsed into one now. Joe waited him out.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Nate said, “if I knew there was a grizzly still around here and told you about it, you would be duty-bound to report the discovery, correct?”

“Correct,” Joe said. “Grizzlies are on the endangered species list and they fall under the authority of the department.”

“That’s what I thought.” Another long silence. “Nate?”

“I’ve learned so much. Not all of it is comfortable. But in the end, it gives me hope.”

“Why is that?”

“There are bigger things than us out there, on other levels. Luckily, they take care of their own.”

“Nate . . .”

“All I can say right now is you need to trust me on this, Joe. It’s fascinating, this experience. You’ll be the first to know what happens, I promise.”

Joe sat back, thinking, recalling things Nate had said.

In my dream, the bear was sent for a reason. He has a mission. That bear may be more than a bear.That bear is here for a reason.

We happen to be in the right place at the right time where conflicts on different levels are overlapping.

You should open your mind a little.

Using FBI resources, Agent Portenson tracked the path of Eric Logue from his years in the army to his escape in North Carolina to the Riverside RV Park.

Associates in the army confirmed Eric’s downward spiral from exceptionally talented surgeon into madness. He was wealthy as well, having in-vested in technology stocks early and selling just before the bubble burst. Eric first showed signs of paranoia and obsession with paranormal phenomena while in the Philippines. He had been suspected of drug use, along with Nurse Bob. When his patients began emerging from surgery with wounds and grafts not related to the procedure, he was put under a full-time watch. After a suspected Filipino enemy combatant with a minor leg injury died from massive blood loss after being operated on by Dr. Logue, an inquiry was launched that resulted in his court-martial.

While in custody, guards reported that Eric claimed he was in contact with aliens and had regular nighttime visitations with them. Eric said he had been instructed by his contacts to collect samples for them. The guards suspected that Eric’s delusions were an attempt to get the charges dismissed due to mental incapacity. Then, while being transferred to another facility, Eric escaped.

He had purchased his name in New Orleans, from a man who specialized in new identities. The pickup and trailer came from a dealer in Birmingham. There was no Iconoclast Society, no wealthy benefactor who financed the research. There was only Eric, so filled with messianic self-confidence that he was practically above suspicion.

Deena had been interviewed by Hersig while she recovered in the Twelve Sleep County hospital. Afterward, he’d called Joe and recounted the conversation.

Deena had met “Cleve” in Helena, and she knew nothing of his past and she really didn’t care to hear about it. He had never mentioned having a brother. What she knew was that he had been sent to her at the exact time she needed him most. He knew things that she hoped to learn, and was in contact with other beings on an intimate basis. He was their human conduit. At least that’s what he told her, and she saw no reason not to believe him.

If it really was Cleve who did the mutilations, she said, he was simply following orders.

Yes, she had agreed to let him experiment on her. She saw it as no different than getting tattooed or pierced. She was a little pissed off at him, though, when he cut off the top of her ABDUCTEE tattoo.

And yes, she knew Cleve disposed of her skin at the fish-cleaning station. He had told her that.

She had slept through most of the trouble in the trailer the day of the shoot-out, she said. Cleve had given her some medication for her pain, and it knocked her out. The noises from the front of the trailer were awful, in an otherworldly way, but she had thought at the time that she was dreaming.

Despite everything, she said, she still loved Cleve Garrett. And more important, she still believed in him.

Hersig’s voice was shaky as he told Joe the story. When he was through, he said, “I think I need to go take a shower.”

Sheriff Barnum claimed not to have any idea what Cam had been up to in regard to the CBM rights on the ranch, although he admitted be-ing interested in buying his retirement home there. Joe believed him, but also knew that Barnum had sat by quietly during the course of the investigation, as land values plummeted. He had not revealed his real estate interest to the rest of the task force, and he secretly benefited from the perception that the valley was “spooked.” This led Joe and Hersig to speculate that Barnum may have had perverse motivation not to solve the crimes quickly, but they had no solid evidence of that.

Nevertheless, word got out within the community about the land deal that never was, and Barnum’s interest in it. There was even talk among the coffee drinkers at the Burg-O-Pardner about launching a recall petition on Sheriff Barnum. As far as Joe knew, the action wasn’t followed through. But there was no doubt that Barnum’s reputation had taken a beating, and that he would stand little chance in the next election. Not that it mattered much, Barnum declared in the Roundup, because he had planned to retire anyway. It had been a good twenty-six years, he said.

For the twentieth time since the shoot-out, Joe sat lost in thought in his office. All but one big-game hunting season had ended, and winter was on the way. Paperwork was piled up in his in-box, and he’d missed three straight weekly reports to Trey Crump. The mutilations had, of course, stopped. Portenson had gone back to Cheyenne. The Murder and Mutilations Task Force had been disbanded for lack of purpose.

But for Joe, there was unfinished business. The case was still open, and not just because Eric Logue was still at large. There were still too many questions.

Nate Romanowski had all but disappeared. His only communication with Joe was a terse message left on the answering machine: “Joe, I was right. That bear is here for a reason. He’s just a vessel, an agent. He’ll be here only as long as he has to be.”

In the end, as the search for Dr. Eric Logue lost both hope and urgency, the only workable scenario they could give any credence to was this:

Eric had been a boy in the mid-1970s, when the first rash of cattle mutilations in the West was news, so the concept wasn’t foreign to him. Perhaps that was when his fascination and obsession with a paranormal answer to the crimes was first implanted.

Eric Logue, in his sickness, had come to believe that his mission was to kill and disfigure living beings and collect trophies. He believed that others were telling him to do it, or he had somehow convinced himself that he was pleasing the owners of these voices through his acts. He used his experience as a surgeon, as well as his tools, to do it. His first disciple in his mission was Nurse Bob, who had problems of his own.

Using his new identity and the cover of the fictitious Iconoclast Society, he returned to the Rocky Mountain West, first to Northern Montana, then to Wyoming. He had a reason to be where the mutilations were discovered, after all. He said he was studying them.

The mutilations in Montana, from Eric’s perspective, had gone very well. No one suspected him. What didn’t go well, though, was that the officials in charge of the investigation treated him like he was a crank. They didn’t take his theories seriously, and didn’t welcome his knowledge or advice. There were a few converts, Deena being the primary one, but overall, he was disappointed.

He realized that cattle and wildlife weren’t enough. He needed to up the ante. He needed some help, so he asked Nurse Bob to rejoin him in Saddlestring. No one had recognized him from his youth there.

Eric and Nurse Bob started with animals, as they had in Montana. Then, on the single night in Twelve Sleep County, they had split up, with one of them going after Stuart Tanner and the other Tuff Montegue. Eric took Tanner, Nurse Bob took Tuff. This explained why Tanner’s death was similar in style to the cattle mutilations. Nurse Bob, who was not as experienced in technique, had done a crude job on Tuff.

Nate’s thought was that while Eric stayed with Tanner’s body, his presence discouraged predators from moving in. Meanwhile, Nurse Bob left Tuff ’s body to the bear while he drove to pick up Eric. Once they were together again, Nurse Bob used his cell phone to report Tanner’s body.

This is where the scenario began to fall apart, as far as Joe was concerned. There was still no explanation for why Eric came “home” to Saddlestring, or whether there had been any contact with Cam. If not, why had the murders obviously helped Cam’s land deal along? Joe couldn’t accept coincidence as an explanation.

They must have been in contact, Joe thought. Either Cam had asked Eric to use the cover of the cattle mutilations to kill Stuart Tanner, or Eric had somehow taken it upon himself to help out his brother. Either way, they must have communicated at some point. Otherwise, how would Eric have known to target Tanner?

The method and aftermath of the mutilations themselves, whether animal or human, still didn’t produce a logical explanation. How had Eric actually killed the animals and mutilated them without leaving tracks or evidence? What had he done to the bodies to prevent predation?

What explained the feeling in the air Joe experienced when he first found the dead moose?

What scared Maxine so badly that he was now the proud owner of the world’s only all-white Labrador?

The last part of the scenario was just as troublesome. What had driven Eric and Nurse Bob to confront Cam in his home, and to kidnap him? Why did they pick up Not Ike? And why had Eric and Nurse Bob killed and mutilated Cam?

And the biggest question of all: Where was Eric Logue?

Joe was still distracted when he and Marybeth cleared the dinner dishes from the table. He had scarcely heard the dinner conversation, with Lucy, Jessica, and Sheridan talking about their day in school.

As he filled the sink with water, Marybeth said, “You’re thinking about Eric Logue again, aren’t you?” He looked at her.

“We may just never know, Joe. We’ve discussed it to death.”

“I didn’t think it was possible to discuss anything to death,” he said, taking a jibe at her.

“Very funny.”

He washed, she dried.

Lucy and Jessica laughed in the next room at something on television. Joe looked over his shoulder at them. They had changed out of their school clothes. They liked to dress alike, much to Sheridan’s consternation. Tonight, they both wore oversized green surgeon’s scrubs.

“Why are they wearing those?” Marybeth asked, suddenly alarmed, knowing whom the shirts once came from.

She raised her voice. “Both of you girls go change clothes right now. I thought I told you to get rid of those.”

Both girls looked back at Marybeth, obvious guilt on their faces. They had forgotten.

“Sorry, Mom,” Lucy said as she skulked to her room. “Sorry, Mrs. Pickett,” Jessica said.

Then it was as if Marybeth’s legs went numb, Joe saw, the way she suddenly reached for the door jamb to keep herself steady.

“What?” Joe asked, puzzled.

Marybeth looked at Joe. Her expression was horrifying.

“What?”

“Oh, no,” she said, looking pale. “Marybeth . . .”

She turned to him and whispered, “Joe, Marie didn’t throw out those scrubs. She let Jessica keep them and wear them.”

“So?”

“Think about it, Joe. A woman wouldn’t keep something like those scrubs around her house unless she had a reason. Marie had to know they were there. She washed them for Jessica, and folded them up for her, probably dozens of times.”

Joe said, “Go on.”

“Why would Marie keep those in her house? Clothes that would remind her husband of the brother he hated? Why would she keep a picture of Eric on her mantel? And now that I think about it, you were more surprised that Eric had come to their house after Cam that day than Marie was.”

Joe felt a hammer blow square in the middle of his chest. “Marybeth, do you know what you’re saying?”

Instead of answering, Marybeth stepped forward to intercept Jessica as she walked toward the bedroom to change. Marybeth dropped to her knees so she could look at Jessica eye-to-eye. She placed her hands gently on the little girl’s shoulders.

“Jessica, how long have you had those shirts?” Jessica stopped and thought. “A while.”

“How long?”

Jessica was surprised at Marybeth’s tone. “A couple of years, I guess. I don’t remember exactly.” “Who gave them to you?” “Uncle Eric.”

Joe watched Jessica carefully. There was fear growing in her eyes. Marybeth asked, “Jessica, was your uncle Eric at your house a couple of years ago? Before you moved here?”

Her eyes were huge and she was on the verge of tears. But she nodded. “Your dad and your uncle Eric didn’t get along very well, did they?” “No.”

“Your dad even asked you to get rid of those hospital scrubs when he saw you wearing them, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“But your mom said you could keep them, as long as you never wore them around your dad, right?”

Jessica nodded. “I think they’re cool to wear.” “I understand.”

Jessica looked over Marybeth’s shoulder at Joe. Joe knew that Jessica couldn’t determine if she was in trouble or not.

“No one’s angry with you, Jessica,” he told her. “Just answer Marybeth’s questions.”

Jessica nodded. “My mom said I could keep them as long as I didn’t wear them around my dad, and I never did.”

Marybeth asked, “Your mom and uncle Eric were good friends, weren’t they? They talked a lot on the telephone when your dad wasn’t there, right?”

Joe took a deep breath, feeling a shroud of dark horror engulf him. When Jessica nodded, Joe didn’t even want to see Marybeth’s reaction.

But Marybeth remained calm, at least outwardly.

“Okay, honey,” Marybeth said, standing. “You can go change now.” Jessica didn’t move.

Joe and Marybeth stared at each other, neither wanting to say anything in front of Jessica. Jessica watched them both, and her eyes filled with tears.

She looked at Marybeth. “My mom’s not coming back, is she?”

38

Three days later , Marie Logue was at the New Orleans International Airport, checking in for a flight to Milan, when she was surrounded by a dozen special agents from the local office of the FBI. The name she was using was Barbara Grossman, and she had a Louisiana driver’s license and a four-year-old passport to prove it. Unfortunately for Marie Logue, the FBI had, on videotape, the footage of the transaction taking place between Marie and the same man who had sold Eric Logue his Cleve Garrett identity papers.

Portenson was exuberant and cocky when he called Joe and told him what had happened. He said he had thought it through once Joe tipped him off about the relationship between Marie and Eric Logue, and he figured out that Eric had probably told Marie about the location of the identity thief in New Orleans. Portenson figured that Marie would eventually go there herself, for her new documents. Portenson said his colleagues in New Orleans had arrested the identity thief earlier in the week and had made a deal for leniency with him if he would help them set her up, including the placement of video cameras in his office over a bar on Bourbon Street.

“We want to interview her tomorrow, and we’d like you to be here, since you know her,” Portenson said.

“I thought I knew her,” Joe corrected. “Whatever. We want you there.” “New Orleans?”

“I’ll fax you the address for our field office, and we’ll make you a reservation at a hotel nearby. If you take the commuter flight that leaves your little podunk airport in two hours, you can connect in Denver. You can be here tonight.”

“I don’t think I have the budget to . . .”

“We’re covering your expenses, Joe. I already got approval for it.”

oe Pickett landed in New Orleans at midnight, in a rainstorm of biblical dimensions. His Stetson got soaked through in just the time it took him to climb into a taxi at the airport.

Despite the rain, there were throngs of people moving on the sidewalks downtown. Some carried umbrellas, but most just got wet. He checked in at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter.

As he stood at the front desk, dripping, the flinty blond clerk found his reservation and said, “Are you really from Wyoming?”

“Yup.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever actually met anyone from there before.” “Now you have,” he said.

There was a message on the voice mail in his room from Portenson saying to be at the FBI field office on Leon C. Simon Boulevard by 9 a.m. “We’ll brief you on what we’ve got so far, and then we’ll go in and see her,” he said. “So don’t party too hard on the Quarter tonight.”

Joe called Marybeth to tell her that he had arrived safely, then tried to sleep. He couldn’t. The unfamiliarity of it all—Marie Logue, mutilations, New Orleans—kept him awake.

At two in the morning he put on his wet hat and went outside into the rain. The streets were still crowded with people. He walked down Dauphine Street and then Bourbon, and a reveler from a balcony above him called him “Tex” and threw him a beaded necklace.

t was still raining in the morning when he arrived at the FBI field office. The security guard found his name on the computer, gave him a guest badge, and sent him into the back offices.

Portenson was waiting with a bookish woman he introduced as Special Agent Nan Scoon. Scoon had been the leader of the team that arrested Marie at the airport.

Portenson said, “When we brought her in, she had $8,000 in cash on her and records that indicate that she transferred $1.3 million—the rest of the insurance money—to accounts in the Caymans. That’s what she had spent her time doing after she left your place.

“The calls she made to your wife supposedly to check on her daughter were from all over the country. Not one actually came from Denver, where her parents do live. We interviewed them and she never even showed up there.”

Joe whistled. “You did some good work.”

“I know,” Portenson said, “I’m a fuckin’ genius. But the great thing is that we built the case on her while we waited for her to show up here, and last night we dropped it on her like a ton of bricks. First-degree accessory to three murders, child abandonment, conspiracy, racketeering, and fifteen other counts. She was playing it straight at first—she kept insisting she was Barbara Grossman—but we dropped those charges on her like the Mother of All Bombs. And after a little crying jag, she cracked. She gave us a little at first, fishing around for a deal. When she saw she wasn’t going to get one, she started yapping. My guys down there said that by the time she was through, it was like she was bragging about it, all full of herself.”

“So she’s willing to talk?” Joe asked.

“That’s why we brought you down here, cowboy.”

Joe didn’t recognize her at first when they entered the spartan interview room. Marie was now blond, and she wore fashionable, black-framed glasses. She had added a beauty mark to her upper lip. When she saw Joe, her eyes widened behind the lenses.

“Hello, Marie,” Joe said, sitting across the table from her. Portenson and Scoon took the other chairs.

Agent Scoon signaled for the tape to roll, and briefed Marie on her rights. As she had done the day before, Marie waived the right to have an attorney present.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said curtly, looking at Joe.

“So who actually found the file in the basement?” Joe asked.

“Moi,” she said, and her eyes sparkled. “Cam might have seen it before, but it didn’t connect with him the way it connected with me. He was a little slow in that regard. Cam was a fairly weak guy, basically. He looked to me for guidance.”

Joe grunted. In retrospect, it didn’t surprise him all that much. As he had thought earlier, Cam was driving without a road map. But Marie was the one providing directions.

“Then those mutilations came,” she said, “and that’s all everyone was talking about. We liked the idea that the land values were sinking, but we worried about whether we could afford the Timberline Ranch anyway. That’s when I started pushing Cam so hard to get out there and get more listings. I rode him hard, thinking that if even one of the ranches sold we would have the down payment on the Timberline.”

While she talked, she drew invisible patterns on the tabletop with her index finger.

“That’s when poor old Stuart Tanner showed up with his file. We didn’t figure that Tanner would research the deed and find the same thing I did. So when Cam told me that we needed to forget about buying the place and move on, I played my hole card.”

“You called Eric,” Joe said.

“Right. We’d kept in touch for years.” She batted her eyes coquettishly. “He’s been smitten with me, like forever. We’d had a relationship years before that Cam never knew about. I moved on but Eric kept a torch. Even when he started getting sick he never lost his feelings for me. He said he’d do anything for me. Then he’d talk like a nut about his obsession with aliens. I let him go on and on about that. So when I called him and asked him for a favor, he came. Eric and his buddy Bob did Tanner and Montegue. Eric did it to please me, which was kind of sweet when you think about it.”

Joe felt his stomach curdle, but tried to stay calm and ask his questions. “Why did they choose Tuff Montegue?”

She shrugged. “He was just there, I suppose. But Eric was clever in a devilish kind of way. He told me that they intentionally messed up the job on Montegue. They did it to draw attention away from Tanner, and as you know, it worked. Your task force would have been working the wrong angle on that one until hell froze over, if it weren’t for you, Joe.”

Joe said nothing. He was thinking. Most of the pieces had finally fallen into place. But there were still problems.

“So Cam didn’t know about his brother being there?” Joe asked.

“I think he assumed he was somewhere close. He told me he thought it was just a matter of time before the family was back together, now that his parents were there. He dreaded the prospect.”

“Did he know Nurse Bob was living in a shack on your property?”

“I didn’t even know that. I thought he was living somewhere out in the woods.”

“What about Cam’s parents? Did Cam know they were coming? Did you?”

Marie laughed sourly. “That was as big of a surprise for me as it was for Cam when they showed up. I knew about Bob coming, of course, but I had no idea they were bringing him. Old Clancy and Helen really threw a kink into things.”

“Did you tell Eric to kill his brother?”

Marie reacted with shock. “Of course not. Of course not. I was gen-uinely shocked when you told me what happened. I just wanted Eric to put a little spine into Cam, because Cam was wavering on me.”

“Why was he wavering?”

“You spooked him,” Marie said, smiling at Joe. “That meeting you had with him shook him up. When he found out you were checking out the deeds at the county clerk’s, he told me we needed to forget the whole damned thing. But I had no intention of giving up.”

Joe was chilled by her. She was so matter-of-fact, and actually a little charming. Poor Cam, Joe thought. He’d married a manipulator.

“I never saw it,” Joe confessed. “I never even considered you.” “You weren’t the only one,” she said.

“I kept wondering why they went after Not Ike,” Joe said, “but now I know. It’s because I told Cam that Not Ike said he had seen somebody in the alley behind the real estate office. When Cam told you the story, you panicked and called Eric.”

She leaned forward and fixed Joe with her eyes. “I don’t panic,” she said. “Do you know where Eric is?”

“Absolutely not,” she said adamantly. “I swear it. I haven’t been in contact with him since that morning. I hope you find him, and I hope he hangs or whatever they do to killers in Wyoming. Joe,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “He killed my husband, remember? As far as I know, he’s still out there.”

“You mean in Wyoming?”

“As far as I know,” she repeated. Then she looked to Agent Scoon, as if she was exasperated with Joe.

“Don’t you think I’d give him up in a heartbeat if I knew where he was? Eric’s location is the only thing I’d have to make a deal with. You people have me on so many charges, at least if I knew something I’d be able to, you know, negotiate a little.”

It did make sense, Joe conceded to himself. Damn it.

“So it was all about money,” Joe said sadly. “All about getting the CBM leases.”

She turned on him. “Of course, Joe. Why would there be any more to it? You’ve got these rubes all over the state becoming instant millionaires, just because they own mineral rights. It’s not like they earned their money by being virtuous, or working hard. Why not Cam and me?

“What did you expect? That we were going to just bump along all of our lives living paycheck to paycheck like you and Marybeth?”

That stung, and he blinked.

“Cam was okay with that kind of existence, but I never was,” she said. “When it’s raining money, you can either put on your raincoat or get the buckets out. You better think about it too, Joe. You’ve got your family to think about. Marybeth wants more, Joe. She deserves more. Don’t think we haven’t talked about it, either.”

Joe sat in silence, staring at her. “Stop staring,” she snapped.

“Never once have you asked about your daughter,” he said. “Not once have you even mentioned her.”

Marie smiled. “That’s because I know she’s in good hands.”

They left Marie in the interview room. Joe and Portenson stood in the hall, shaking their heads at each other.

“Couple of things,” Joe said. “If Marie called Eric to come and get Stuart Tanner, then Eric could not have done the cattle mutilations.” Portenson moaned. “Why don’t we forget about the dead cows for now.” “Because I can’t.” Joe didn’t bring up the moose.

“Jesus Christ.”

“It means that somebody or something else mutilated the animals,” Joe said. “It had nothing to do with Eric, or Marie. She used the mutilations for cover to do in Tanner. But she didn’t have anything to do with them in the first place.”

Portenson sounded almost physically pained. “Joe . . .” “Don’t tell me it was birds, Portenson.”

After a long silence, Portenson said, “Okay, I won’t. But I don’t see where it matters anymore. The mutilations have gone away. We’ll never find out who did it, and frankly, since we’ve got Marie, I really don’t care anymore. We’ll find Eric. It’s just a matter of time.”

“One more thing,” Joe said. “Jessica Logue.” “Oh, man . . .”

“Are her grandparents okay? The ones in Denver? Can they take her?” “This isn’t my department.”

“I know. But you talked to them. Do they seem like normal human beings? Not like Clancy and Helen? Or Marie?”

“They seem normal.” “Are you sure?”

“I didn’t give them a psychological test, or anything. Come on, Joe . . .” “I’m serious.” Joe said, raising his voice. “It’s important. We’ve seen too many people screwed up by bad parents. I can’t let Jessica go there unless I’m sure she’ll be okay. If it’s not, we’ve got to find a normal uncle and aunt. There’s got to be somebody.”

Portenson sighed, “Okay, okay. I’ll make your case. We’ll send some people over there, and do some checking. But please understand that this isn’t what the FBI does . . .”

Joe thanked him before he could recant.

n the plane back, Joe sat in his seat and furiously rubbed his face with his hands. He hadn’t seen it, hadn’t suspected. And even though one part of the investigation was concluded, there was still more. The whole sordid case left a bad taste in his mouth. It always came down to the family, he thought.

Marybeth listened as Joe recounted the interview, watching him. She shook her head sadly.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “She fooled everyone.”

Marybeth came over and sat on Joe’s lap. Her eyes were moist. “We talked about everything, Joe. She told me about her dreams. I told her about mine. Now I find out that her dreams were things she made up for my sake. I feel horribly duped, and angry.”

He held her. “Sometimes, darling, we see what we want to see. Remember Wacey Hedeman?”

Wacey had been Joe’s closest friend until he betrayed Joe. Four years before, Wacey had shot Marybeth and threatened Sheridan. It still hurt when Joe thought about it. Wacey had twenty more years to go at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins.

“Thank you for trying to find the best family for Jessica,” Marybeth said softly. “I wish we could keep her, I really do. But after what happened to April, I just can’t make the commitment.”

Joe nodded. “I knew that. It’s okay.”

They sat like that for a half an hour, each with their own rumination, holding each other.

Eric Logue is still out there, he thought, and so is whatever mutilated the cattle.

She thought, We’re back to where we started.

39

Winter storm clouds were nosing over the top of the Bighorn Mountains and the air was cold and lifeless when Nate Romanowski pulled on his jacket to check his falcons in the mews. Joe Pickett was bringing Sheridan out later that morning, for her first falconry apprenticeship lesson in a while. Nate’s special project had concluded, more or less successfully, and it was time to fly his birds again. It had been too long, nearly two months.

On mornings like this, in the quiet of an impending storm, sounds carried farther. It would be a good morning to submerge himself in the river and listen, Nate thought. But the water was getting too cold for that. He needed a winter wet suit.

From inside the mews, he heard his peregrine squeal and flap his wings wildly, and Nate stopped before opening the door. He had put a leather hood on the bird the night before, specifically to keep the falcon calm. Something had alarmed the bird. There was something wrong. . . .

The blow to his head came from above, from the roof of the mews. He hadn’t thought to look up.

Nate knew what was happening, he knew why it was happening, but there was nothing he could do about it. His limbs wouldn’t respond and he couldn’t even open his eyes. The heavy blow had temporarily paralyzed him, disconnected his brain from his body. He lay on his back in the dirt near the door of the mews.

Even worse, someone was on top of him, pinning him down.

He felt the deep slice of a blade behind his ear, felt it draw down across his jaw, the sound like a liquid swish, then a jarring scrape of metal on bone that sent a shock throughout his nervous system. It reminded him of how amplified things sounded when he was underwater. He felt the air on exposed tissue as the flesh on his face was pulled aside, and it felt cold.

Eric Logue.

Sheridan had been searching the sky for falcons and lazily eating a banana for breakfast as they drove to Nate Romanowski’s stone cabin on the bank of the river, when she lowered her gaze and saw the two forms on the ground near the mews.

“Dad, what’s that?”

Joe took it in quickly, saw it for what it was, yelled, “Hold on tight!” and jammed the accelerator into the floor.

Through the windshield, Joe saw Eric look up at the sound of the approaching pickup. Eric was wild looking and filthy, with shredded clothing, a scraggly beard, and stiff, tumbleweed hair. He was on top of Nate’s prone body with his knees on either side of Nate’s head. Joe saw blood and Nate’s lifeless, pale hand flung out to the side of him.

As Joe bore down on the mews, Eric stood up, looked quickly at his unfinished business on the ground, then turned and started running toward the river, loping toward it like some kind of heavy-limbed animal.

Sheridan braced herself on the dashboard of the truck, her eyes wide, as Joe drove by Nate and pursued Eric. The distance between Joe, Eric, and the river closed at once, and Joe saw Eric shoot a panicked glance back over his shoulder seconds before Joe hit him.

The collision dented the grille and buckled the hood of the pickup, and sent Eric flying toward the river where he hit the water with an ungainly, flailing splash. Joe slammed on his brakes, and the pickup fishtailed and stopped at the water’s edge.

Joe and Sheridan scrambled out, with Maxine bounding behind them. “Jeez, Dad . . .” Sheridan said, her face white. “I mean . . . wow.”

Joe concentrated on the surface of the river. The water was dark and deep, the surface blemished only by ringlets that spread from the center of the violent splash. Eric had sunk like a rock, but Joe wasn’t sure he had hit Eric hard enough to kill him outright. He wished Sheridan hadn’t been there to see it.

ate was breathing and his eyes were open when Joe and Sheridan got to him. The cut on the side of his face was deep, and bleeding profusely, and a flap of his skin was folded back and raw. Joe knelt and put it back, seeing that Eric had been interrupted before he could sever any arteries or do fatal damage. “Ouch,” Nate said weakly.

“Stay down,” Joe said, still shaky. “Don’t sit up. I’m calling the EMTs right now.”

Sheridan stripped off her hooded sweatshirt and dropped to her knees to compress the cloth against his wound.

Joe ran back to his truck and keyed the mike.

He completed the call and was told to expect the ambulance within twenty minutes.

“That’s a hell of a long time,” Joe said angrily.

“They’re on their way,” Wendy the dispatcher snapped back. “You are quite a ways out of town, you know.”

He looked back toward the mews. He could see Nate and Sheridan talking to each other. Nate was going to be okay, Joe thought, although he would have quite a scar on his face.

For the first time since they’d arrived, Joe took a deep breath. He realized that his hands were shaking and his mouth was dry.

He looked at the river, at its deceptive, muscular stillness. On the other side of the river, a high red rock face was dotted with tenacious clumps of sage. Then down river, where the channel began a slow bend away from him, he saw Eric Logue dragging himself out of the water on the other bank.

Eric pulled himself into a clump of willows, got to his hands and knees, and crawled out of sight into a small red rock fissure.

“Stay with him until the EMTs get here,” Joe told Sheridan, checking his loads and racking the pump on his shotgun. He had given her his first aid kit so she could use a sterile compress, as her sweatshirt was now heavy with Nate’s blood. “You’re doing a good job, honey.”

Sheridan looked up, concerned. “Where are you going?” “Down river.”

Nate was watching him warily. He started to sit up. “Nate, stay down,” Joe said.

“Joe, you should know something. We’ve been waiting for Eric Logue to show up. We knew he would.”

Joe hesitated.

“They’re both vessels,” Nate said. “Eric Logue and the bear. It’s not even their fight, but you have to let it play out. It has to end here.”

Joe looked at him, then at Sheridan.

“The next time you have a dream about bad things coming,” Joe said to his daughter, “I’ll listen.”

She nodded, her eyes wide. “It’s about time,” Nate said.

A quarter of a mile beyond where Joe had seen Eric emerge from the river, there was an old footbridge that had been built by a Hungarian hard rock miner named Scottie Balyo in the 1930s. Scottie had used the bridge to work a secret seam of gold somewhere in the foothills. The bridge was no longer safe, due to rotten and missing slats, but Joe labored his way across it by straddling the planks themselves and keeping his boots on the outside rails. The frame sagged and moaned as he went across, but it held. On the other side, he stepped down into soft, wet sand.

He kept to the sand as he crept downriver, walking as quietly as he could. As he neared the willows he had seen Eric crawl into, he turned and scrambled up the loose wall of the bank so he could see the fissure from above.

Never again, Joe thought, would he discount a dream Sheridan had. Like Nate, she was connected to this thing in a way that was real, if incomprehensible. Perhaps it was intuitiveness born of her age, that preteen angst that allowed her to tap into events that were occurring on another level, as Nate had described. Sheridan had seen the evil coming, and tracked it.

With Nate, it was his preternatural animal sense; his interaction with the natural world around him, that drew him to the bear. Joe couldn’t explain either circumstance, and didn’t want to. But it was there, had been there, and if nothing else he would now open his mind, if only a little, to accept it.

The fissure was narrow where Eric had entered it, but it widened into a brush-choked draw. The floor of the draw was dry now, in the winter, but in the spring it served as a funnel for snowmelt from the mountains into the river. The soft sand was churned up down there—Eric’s track. Joe couldn’t yet see him, but he couldn’t imagine that Eric had gotten very far.

Joe heard him before he saw him; a low, sad moan from farther up the draw.

“Cleve?” Joe called. “Dr. Eric Logue?” The moaning stopped.

“Joe Pickett,” Joe called. “I’m going to arrest you.”

“You’re going to kill me!”

Joe dropped into the draw. “Maybe so,” Joe said.

When he found him, Joe was surprised to see that Eric had managed to stand up, using the help of an emerged root on the side of the draw as a handhold. He was bent forward, obviously in great pain. His head was slightly lowered, but his eyes locked on Joe as he approached. A thread of bloody saliva strung from his lips to the sand.

Joe kept his shotgun pointed at Eric’s chest. Joe was a notoriously bad shot, but he figured even he couldn’t miss with a shotgun at this distance.

Eric still held the scalpel in his right fist, which rested on his thigh, but he didn’t threaten Joe with it. It was almost as if he had forgotten it was there.

“I’m really busted up inside, man,” Eric groaned, never taking his eyes off of Joe. “I’m not gonna make it.”

“Probably not,” Joe said.

Eric coughed, and the cough must have seared through him, because his legs almost buckled. “It hurts so bad,” he groaned. He coughed again, then spit a piece of what looked like bright red sponge into the sand between his feet. Lung, Joe knew, having seen the spoor of lung-shot big game animals many times before. Eric’s ribs had probably broken and then speared his lungs when the pickup hit him.

“Think you can walk across that bridge?” Joe asked.

Eric just stared at him. Then: “Why don’t you just shoot me? It’s okay.” Joe squinted, trying to determine if Eric was playing games with him. “Pull the trigger, you coward,” Eric said.

“Why?”

Eric coughed again, then righted himself. “I’m really sick, man. And they’re through with me.”

Joe felt his scalp twitch. “Who is through with you?”

Eric tried to gesture skyward, but his arm wouldn’t work. “They are. I thought there would be some kind of payoff, but they just used me. No one told me the other side would send something after me.”

Behind Eric was a dark wall of Rocky Mountain junipers. Joe thought he saw movement in the lower branches, but decided it must have been the cold wind. The wind did strange things in draws like this.

“Tell me,” Joe said. “We know about Stuart Tanner and Tuff Montegue. But why did you kill your brother?”

Eric’s face twisted painfully. “It was Bob. Bob did that. I guess Cam tried to get away, and Bob whacked him on the head. Then Bob figured he’d mutilate him to make it look like the others. I wasn’t in the room when it happened.”

“You were carving on Deena in the other room at the time, I guess,” Joe said.

“Who cares about any of this?” Eric said. “You got me. So shoot, you bastard. Give me some peace. Or I’ll come over there and start cutting on you.”

“What made Tuff Montegue’s horse throw him?”

Eric twitched. “Bob said it was just dumb luck. Bob said he must have spooked the horse as he moved from tree to tree.”

“Why the animals?” Joe asked, gripping the shotgun tighter. “Why did you mutilate the animals?”

Eric shook his head. “I didn’t hurt any animals. Except for that stupid horse on that ranch, and I messed that up.”

“What?” Joe asked, perplexed.

“I know who did it, though,” Eric said, coughing. His eyes shined. He took a clumsy step toward Joe now, and raised the scalpel. “They did it.”

Again, Joe saw a shiver in the junipers. This time, he knew it wasn’t the wind. It was something huge, something big-bodied.

“They’re gone now,” Eric said, wincing but still lurching forward. “But they’ll be back. And if you think I’m scary . . .”

The grizzly bear, the one Joe had once been chasing, the one Nate had made his obsession, blasted out of the junipers and hit Eric Logue in the back with such primal force and fury that it left Joe gasping for breath. The bear had waited, and Eric Logue had finally come.

Joe watched as the grizzly dragged Eric’s wildly thrashing body into the shadows.

Sheridan still dreamed vividly, and one dream in particular stayed with her, subtly growing in meaning until she would later look back on it as the end of something. In that dream, one of many that took place the night after Eric Logue attacked Nate Romanowski, the roiling black clouds were back. This time, though, the tendrils of smoke or mist leached from the ground and low brush and rose upward, as if being withdrawn. The black horse-head snouts of the thunderheads rolled back, eventually clearing the top of the Bighorn Mountain, leaving big, blue sky.

She believed there had been a battle. The battle took place in plain sight, in front of everyone, but few could see or sense it. She wanted to believe that the battle was between good forces, with the bear as the agent, and evil, embodied by some other kind of beings who had recruited Eric Logue and Nurse Bob. Perhaps the good forces had engaged her dad and Nate as temporary foot soldiers as well. But she would never know that.

It was remarkable to Sheridan how little the incidents—the cattle, wildlife, and human mutilations—were talked about. It was as if everyone in the Twelve Sleep Valley collectively wished that nothing had happened. But they had. Men had died. Maxine would forever be changed from seeing something that had scared her white. A family, the Logues, was destroyed.

Even when the e-mail came to her father from someone named Deena, who had written to him from somewhere in South America where more mutilations had subsequently occurred, her father didn’t want to discuss it. Sheridan wouldn’t have even known about the e-mail if she hadn’t heard Nate try and broach the subject with her dad.

“Too many holes in the earth,” Nate had said. “Maybe something was released into the atmosphere that drew in a force like putrid meat draws in flies.”

Her dad had said, “Or maybe not,” in that dismissive way he had, and changed the subject. When Nate tried to steer him back, her dad told Nate, “I don’t want to talk about something we’ll never have the knowledge to understand.” Then: “Nate, I hate woo-woo crap.”

Nate said, “I know you do,” and smiled, the edges of his new scar twisting his mouth slightly.

She was with her dad later that fall when he slowed his pickup on the bridge to call out to Not Ike Easter, who was fishing in the river. Not Ike hollered back, laughing. Sheridan asked her dad what Not Ike had said.

“He said he’s caught three fish.” Then he smiled as if he were content, as if things had finally returned to normal.