When the hunters saw him, he could tell from their body language that he had surprised them. They consulted with each other, heads bent together, as he approached them. He waved, eased the pickup to a stop, clamped his Stetson on, and swung out of the truck. Before he closed his door, he reached in and turned his headlights on full, bathing the hunters in white light. It was a tactic he had learned over countless similar stops; approaching armed men on foot with his headlights behind him.
Joe quickly sized up the men as elk hunters out for the archery season. Their faces were painted in green and black, as were the backs of their hands. Each carried high-tech compound bows with extra arrows at-tached by side quivers. Their eyes, in the headlights, blinked out from their face paint.
“Are you doing any good?” Joe asked pleasantly, although he’d noted that neither was spotted with blood from a kill.
“It’s too damned warm up here,” the taller hunter said. “It’s too dry for any stealthy movement.”
His voice sounded familiar to Joe, although Joe couldn’t place it. “See anything?”
“Cow and a calf this morning,” the shorter hunter said. “I missed her, damn it.”
The shorter hunter’s quiver was missing an arrow, Joe noticed. “Couldn’t find your arrow, I see.”
The shorter hunter shook his head. “Nope.”
“I hope you didn’t wound her,” Joe said. Although archery hunting was certainly more sporting to the prey than rifle season, too many inexperienced or overexcited hunters often wounded game animals and then lost track of them. He had seen too many crippled elk, deer, and antelope in the field with errant arrows stuck in them.
The shorter hunter started to speak. “I don’t think . . .”
“. . . He missed her clean,” the taller one interrupted, annoyance in his voice. “He just fucking missed her, all right?”
Joe was now close enough to see their faces and to recognize the taller hunter through his face paint.
“You again,” Joe said to Jeff O’Bannon, the belligerent fisherman he had met before on Crazy Woman Creek with his daughters. “I hope you’ve learned how to release a fish since then.”
O’Bannon’s eyes flashed. Joe thought they looked bigger behind the face paint.
“What’s this about?” the shorter hunter asked O’Bannon. “Never mind, Pete,” O’Bannon said through clenched teeth.
“Can I please see your licenses and conservation stamps?” Joe asked, still polite.
“You’ve already seen my stamp,” O’Bannon said. “Yup, but not the elk tag.”
O’Bannon rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly annoyed.
While the hunters set their bows aside and dug for their wallets, Joe waited with his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his Wranglers.
“Have you heard anything lately about those murders?” the short hunter asked, giving Joe his license.
“Like what?” Joe asked, checking it over. Pete was a state resident from Gillette. His license and stamp were okay, so Joe handed it back.
“Have there been any more sightings around here? Any more, you know, incidents?”
O’Bannon chuckled when he heard the question.
“Not since last week,” Joe said. “I’m sure you heard about that.”
“No little green men?” O’Bannon asked, smiling so that his teeth glinted in the headlights.
“Nope, just hunters.” Joe said, looking over the license. “You need to sign this,” he told O’Bannon, pointing toward the signature line.
“Jesus,” O’Bannon sighed, shaking his head “I knew you’d find something to hassle me over.”
I told you I would, Joe thought.
“I’m glad things are quiet,” Pete said. “I almost didn’t come over here to go hunting when I read about them murders. Jeff had to work hard to convince me to come hunting with him.”
Joe nodded, wondering how many hunters were thinking twice about traveling to his district.
“Jeff said he’d take care of those little green bastards if they showed up.” Joe had started to turn toward his pickup when he stopped.
“Really, how?”
He could see the blood drain from O’Bannon’s face, even through the face paint.
“Pete . . .” O’Bannon whispered.
“Show him, Jeff,” Pete said enthusiastically. “Show me, Jeff,” Joe said, raising his eyebrows.
O’Bannon didn’t move. Pete looked at Jeff, and slowly realized what he had done.
“Show me, Jeff,” Joe repeated.
“Shit, it’s for self-protection only. Self-protection!” O’Bannon said, raising his voice. “When people are getting cut up in the woods by something, it only makes sense!”
“Show me, Jeff.”
Sighing, O’Bannon pulled back his camouflage coat to reveal a heavy, stainless-steel revolver in a holster on his hip.
