Joe looked back. “I think the deputy’s right. Tuff got thrown right here. My guess is that he somehow got up and started walking toward the lights of the ranch down there. Then something stopped him.”
“The bear?” the deputy asked.
“Something,” Joe said. “I don’t think the bear came along until much later. Maybe just a few minutes before Bud Longbrake showed up this morning.”
The deputy nodded, mulling it over. He looked to the sheriff for confirmation.
“That’s a goddamned horseshit theory,” Barnum scoffed, shaking his head. “The bear did it.”
Barnum turned and started to trudge down the hill.
Joe called after him, “Did a bear kill my moose and mutilate it? Did a bear kill and mutilate a dozen cows?”
Barnum waved his hand over his head, dismissing Joe with the gesture. This time, Joe didn’t follow.
“The sheriff wants it to be a bear real bad,” the deputy whispered. Joe grunted.
“Because if it isn’t a bear, we’ve got a very, very bad situation here.”
When Joe returned to his truck, the ambulance was pulling away with the body. The deputies remained, scouring the scene. During breaks they drank coffee and speculated on what had happened. Joe overheard the word “aliens” from Deputy McLanahan. Another deputy suggested a satanic cult. A third advanced a theory involving the government.
Joe looked around for Barnum and finally saw the sheriff sitting in his Blazer with the door closed and the windows up. Barnum looked like he was yelling at someone on his radio.
“Did you hear?” Bud Longbrake asked, as Joe passed by him. “Hear what?”
Longbrake nodded his hat brim toward Barnum’s Blazer.
“They found another body. In Park County, about fifty miles away.” Joe froze. “Who was it?”
Longbrake raised his palms. “Didn’t get a name. Some older guy. They found him by his cabin.”
“Mutilated?” Joe asked. “That’s what I hear.”
PART TWO 11
Gentlemen,” County Attorney Robey Hersig said, “let’s convene the first-ever strategy meeting of the newly formed Northern Wyoming Murder and Mutilations Task Force.”
Sheriff Barnum said, “Jesus, I hate that name.”
It was 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, four days after Tuff ’s body and the body of Stuart Tanner had been found. There were seven people seated around an oval table in the Twelve Sleep County courthouse, in a room usually used for jury deliberations. The door was shut and the shades were pulled.
Joe sat at the far end of the table from Robey Hersig, and for an instant they exchanged glances. Hersig, Joe thought, already looked slightly frustrated and the meeting had barely begun. Hersig and Joe were friends and fly- fishing partners. When the governor said he wanted a representative from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department on the task force, Hersig had fought for Joe’s inclusion, much to Joe’s, Barnum’s, and even the gov-ernor’s objections. The governor wanted a biologist on the task force, for forensic and scientific expertise, and Barnum wanted anybody but Joe— just because. Joe had told Hersig he preferred to work on his own, but a call to Joe from his district supervisor Trey Crump made it clear he would be the G&F’s representative on the task force.
The task force itself was Governor Budd’s response to calls to his office in Cheyenne from both the statewide news media and business interests in Twelve Sleep and Park Counties, where the murders had taken place. Brian Scott, who did a statewide radio broadcast out of KTWO in Casper, had begun a tongue-in-cheek “Mutilation Moment” update on his morning show, where he breathlessly read the body count of wildlife, cattle, and humans and contrasted it with the lack of response from the governor’s office. With his reelection campaign looming in less than a year, the governor reacted to the pressure quickly, announcing the creation of the task force. He did so after his chief of staff called Robey Hersig and Hersig confessed that the Sheriff ’s Department was stymied in their investigation. Knowing Barnum, Joe assumed that the sheriff viewed the formation of the task force as a personal slap in the face.
As Hersig circulated agendas and manila folders, Joe surveyed the room. In addition to Joe, Hersig, Barnum, McLanahan, and the Park County Sheriff Dan Harvey, there were two men from the outside whom Joe had met before: Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) agent Bob Brazille and FBI Special Agent Tony Portenson. Seeing Portenson again made Joe’s mouth go dry.
While Brazille was affable behind a jowly, alcoholic face, Portenson was dark, pinched, and had close-set eyes and a scar that hitched up his upper lip so that it looked like he was sneering. Portenson had already been seated when Joe entered the room, and had offered no greeting. Instead, he’d stared at Joe as if they shared a conspiracy.
“As you all know, Governor Budd has promised a swift resolution and justice in regard to these crimes,” Hersig said by way of introduction. “It’s our job to make that happen. I’ve given you each a file of what we’ve got so far, and I hope you’ll take a moment to review it with me.”
Joe had already begun. In the file were copies of the incident reports written by the Sheriff ’s Department on the Hawkins cattle as well as on Tuff Montegue’s body. His own preliminary necropsy report on the moose was in the file as well, and Joe was a little surprised that Hersig had obtained it from headquarters without mentioning this to him. There were dozens of pages of crime-scene photos that had been printed out in color and black-and-white, as well as maps of Twelve Sleep and Park Counties with circles drawn where the crimes had occured. A preliminary autopsy report was included from Park County on the body found there, as well as the autopsy report on Tuff Montegue. Both bodies had been shipped to the FBI laboratories in Virginia for further examination. Clippings from both local and national papers on the murders and cattle mutilations were also in the file.
It came as no surprise that the autopsy and necropsy descriptions were very similar, whether of the moose, cattle, or men. Skin had been removed from faces. Tongues, eyes, and all or part of ears had been removed. Udders were removed from female cattle. Genitals were gone, and anuses had been cored out. Cuts were described as “clean and made with surgical precision.”
The exception, Joe noted with a start, was in the autopsy report for Tuff Montegue. In his case, the cut on Tuff
