were the organs we just happened to test. The compound may intensify due to a traumatic or stressful death, or it could be that the presence of it is triggered by a virus or something. We’re still researching it, but quite frankly we aren’t getting anywhere. We have real work to do up here, as you know. I’ve got a breakout of pinkeye in our mountain sheep population right now. So we can’t be spending too much time or energy on dead cows, especially since the mutilations seem to have stopped.”
“They stopped in Montana, anyway,” Joe said.
“Now you’ve got ’em,” Avery said, his voice heavy. “Maybe you’ll get my friend Cleve Garrett as well.”
Joe grunted. “I’m still a little surprised that this is the first I’ve heard of it. I’d think those ranchers would be demanding some kind of action.”
Avery laughed, which Joe thought was an odd response. “I don’t get it,” Joe said, annoyed.
“At first, they wanted to call in the National Guard,” Avery said. “A couple of ’em were on the phone to the governor right away. Then they realized how it looked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cattle prices were at record lows at the time. Most of these ranchers barely scrape by as it is. They’re one bank payment away from losing their ranches. So they’re either trying to sell their spreads for big bucks to Hollywood celebrities, or selling their beef for a few pennies in profit. If word got out that the cattle are dying unnatural deaths, those landowners are shit out of luck. When they realized that, they pressured the governor not to do anything.”
“So, Dave, can I ask you something?” “Shoot.”
“What do you think this is? Not a scientific explanation, or your professional opinion. What does your gut tell you?”
Joe heard Avery take another sip of his drink. He heard another Chris LeDoux rodeo song.
“Joe, I don’t know what the fuck it is,” Avery said, his voice dropping, “but for a while there I was scared as hell.”
Joe asked Avery to contact him if he found anything unusual in the tissue samples. They talked for a few moments about game-management issues, and Avery reported what was happening in Montana with whirling disease in the rivers. Joe told Avery about confirmed findings of chronic wasting disease in mule deer in southern Wyoming. They agreed to keep in better touch.
Then Joe cradled the telephone and sat back.
He was still sitting there when Marybeth rapped on the door and opened it. She was in her nightgown; the short, black one he liked.
“Are you coming to bed?” she asked.
Joe looked at his wristwatch, surprised to see that it was 11:30. “I didn’t kiss the girls good night,” he said, alarmed.
“What have you been doing in here?” “Work. I talked to Dave Avery.” Marybeth smiled, rolling her eyes.
“I remember Dave being sober on his wedding day,” she said. “I realized I didn’t even know him. He was drunk almost all of college.”
“He’s a good biologist, though,” Joe said, “and a good friend.” “What did he say about the moose?”
Joe looked away, then back. “We may have a problem.” “What do you mean?”
“Are the horses in the barn or in the corral tonight?” Joe asked. Marybeth frowned. “They’re in the corral, why?”
“I think we need to start putting them in the barn at night,” Joe said, standing up and clamping on his hat.
8
Sheridan pickett stepped out of the shadowed gnarl of river-bottom cottonwoods. She looked up and searched the dull, gray sky in silence until she saw what she was looking for. She felt a small shiver of excitement, and dread. They were up there, all right.
As she had been instructed, she went no farther into the clearing. Behind her, on the other side of the thick old trees, was the Twelve Sleep River. The river was placid and low, the water in it clear and nearly still this late in the season. A rusted metal bridge spanned the river but was blocked off to vehicles, because it was old and unsafe. She had walked across it a half hour before, trying not to look down at the gaps between the wood planks where she could see the water. Her footfalls on the bridge seemed unnaturally loud as they crossed. Her breath came in puffs of condensation. It was a cold fall day, and the clouds that had pulled a blind over the wide-open sky looked like they could bring rain or even snow.
She was dressed warmly in jeans and her mother’s old, canvas barn coat with the corduroy collar and too-long sleeves. Her dad had insisted that she wear a pullover blaze-orange vest, since it was hunting season, and she did so, even though she felt a little like a human highway cone. A black headband held back her blond hair and had a dual use if she needed to pull it over her ears to keep them warm.
She waited, as she had been told to do. Before her was a clearing bordered by skeletal dark trees. Tall, khaki- colored grass furred the clearing, broken up by solitary sagebrush and a few young river cottonwoods. A lone, deep green pine—a perfect-sized Christmas tree, she thought— added the only real color. The tree was as out of place as she was, she thought. The clearing was eerily still. She felt a little scared.
The night before, she had the dream again. It was the same as before, with the mist pouring across the forest like water released from a small dam. But the dream continued on. This time, the mist stopped at the forest edge and proceeded no farther. There was something out there that stopped it, made it cautious. A standoff was taking place, but in the dream she couldn’t see what opposed the advance of the mist. Whatever it was had a solid presence, and it had traveled a long way to get there to mount a challenge. This time, she didn’t tell her dad about the dream.
After nearly a year of apprenticeship in falconry, which consisted mainly of the care and feeding of Nate Romanowski’s two peregrine falcons, and his almost whispered lectures concerning the philosophy of falconry, this was a special lesson. For the first time, Nate had brought her hunting. Hunting with falcons, Nate had told her, was
