Bearbaiting poachers versus happy hikers. Shit, and it’s not just local, either. It’s national and international. I’m afraid he thought that just about everyone wanted a piece of him, or had a gripe with how he did his job. He never told me that, but all you have to do is read the papers to see what he was in the middle of.
“Jackson is unique, Joe,” Trey continued. “Everything there is ramped up. All of the different issues are hotter.
Jackson is Wyoming’s very own California, for better and worse. Things that happen there will eventually influence the rest of the state and beyond. Everybody knows that. It’s why the big wars start there. Whoever wins those wars knows that no one else will fight as hard anywhere else. It’s the front line.”
Joe let Trey go on, knowing how rarely the man went on.
Joe had been chosen as Trey’s confidant, and he accepted his role with little comment.
Trey looked up and locked eyes with Joe. “Will Jensen, in the end, must have been a very troubled soul. I ache for the guy.”
Joe said, “I’ve got to say that the last man I would have guessed to do this was Will.”
Trey nodded. “Me too. He was a goddamned rock for years. But something happened to him over the last six months. I don’t know what it was.”
Trey slumped forward for a moment, silent, then got out of the truck for a while and scoped the trees and meadow for a sign of the grizzly. The late afternoon sun cast shadows in the timber. Joe watched him, turning over in his mind what Trey had just told him.
“I wish 304 would come out where we can see him,”
Trey said, getting back in.
“About Will,” Joe prompted. “The last six months.”
Trey slumped against his seat. “Like I said, something happened to him. He didn’t send in most of his reports, for one thing. The one or two I got were sloppy as hell. He got arrested for DWUI, twice at least. I think there may have been other incidents where the local cops let him off. I even heard something about him getting physically removed from some bigshot party when he tried to start a fight.”
“Will?” Joe asked, shocked.
“Will. And I just found out his wife and kids moved out on him.”
“Susan left him?”
Divorce was rampant within the families of game wardens, Joe knew, worse than for police officers. It went back to the nature of the job, the remote, stateowned homes, the singlemindedness most game wardens brought to their jobs (Joe included), and growing outside pressure. Plus, when he first became a game warden, Joe had quickly learned that some women liked men in a uniform. He had always resisted them. But he knew he wasn’t perfect. Will Jensen, though, had been close to perfect. That’s why he’d been assigned to Jackson.
Trey said, “I kick myself now, because I should have seen it coming. I should have gotten my fat ass over the mountains and talked with him. Maybe I could have helped him.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Joe said. “Will obviously didn’t ask you for any help.”
“Would you?” Trey shot back.
Joe didn’t think very long on the question. “Probably not.”
Trey nodded triumphantly. “Of course you wouldn’t.
None of my guys would. Nobody talks about what’s going on in their heads.”
Joe noted that Trey, even in his concern, couldn’t say the word feelings.
“But something happened to Will during the last six months,” Joe said. “That’s pretty fast, when you consider it.”
Trey agreed. “I think so too. Unless he just bottled everything up and then it blew.”
As the sun notched between two peaks, Trey unfolded a map on the seat between them. There was still no signal from the bear.
“There are two districts out of Jackson,” Trey said, pointing with a stubby finger. “South Jackson, which extends down through the Hoback Mountains and curls up like an ‘L.’ The North Jackson District, Will’s old district, the one you’ll be covering, extends from town all the way up to Yellowstone Park and over to the Continental Divide.”
Trey stopped his finger on the staccato line indicating the Divide. “Right here, at Two Ocean Pass.”
Joe did the math. The North Jackson district was 1,885
square miles, most of it spectacular, roadless mountain wilderness.
“The biggest area in the district is accessible only by horseback,” Trey said. “It’s considered the most remote area in the continental U.S. This is where the elk come down out of Yellowstone on their natural migration routes, and also where the outfitters have established camps. There’s a state cabin up there owned by the department that you can base out of. You’ll have thirtyseven outfitters to look after, and some of them are the crustiest guys you’ll ever meet. Some of them are the most honorable men you’ll ever run across.
We have problems there with bear and elk baiting, salting mainly. I’m sure Will kept some files on them. You’ve heard of Smoke Van Horn?”
“Sure,” Joe said. Van Horn was the loudest, most cantankerous outfitter in Wyoming. Newspapers sometimes referred to him as the Lion of the Tetons. Van Horn had theories about game management, trophy hunting, and how the state and federal government were screwing up his wilderness through wrongheaded policies thought up and administered by incompetent bureaucrats. He loved to show up at public meetings and take over, accusing the department or any other authority present of mismanagement and gross neglect. He had even selfpublished a tome
