“Why don’t you throw the sign in the back of my truck,”
Joe said, “and kick some dirt in those holes. I’ll help you pack up and I’ll give you a ride to your car so you don’t have to hike.”
Pi set her mouth, furious.
“Pi . . .” It was Birdy again.
“You are a bastard,” she said again.
Pi sat in the cab of the pickup, fuming, while Joe drove across the refuge toward the highway. Birdy and Ray were in the back, in the open, huddled near the rear window in light jackets. The sign and the camping gear were piled into the bed of the pickup. It was dusk, and Joe could smell the sweet, sharp smell of sagebrush that was crushed beneath his tires. He reached forward and turned on his headlights.
“It’s an interesting subject, animal rights,” Joe said. “It’s more than a subject for some of us,” Pi answered. Joe ignored her tone. “I’m around animals all day long.
Sometimes I wonder what those animals are thinking, if they’re capable of thinking.”
“You do?” This surprised her. “How could you not?” he asked.
She seemed to be trying to decide if she wanted to engage him, or be angry and refuse to talk to him.
“In the end, it’s all about meat,” she said. “What?”
“It’s about meat. What we eat is what defines us. People are starting to wake up to that, even here.”
Joe said nothing.
“Have you heard of Beargrass Village?” she asked, the words dripping with venom.
“Nope.”
She looked over at him. “It’s a whole planned community, and I hate it. For a few million, people can live in what they call a planned environment where meat is raised and slaughtered for their pleasure. They call it the Good Meat Movement.”
Joe remembered what Trey had said about it. “I heard something about it recently. Is it a serious thing?”
“No, it’s just a veneer,” she said. “It’s a way for rich people to feel good about themselves. That’s what this valley is about, you know—rich people feeling good about themselves, and dominating the land and creatures that they feel are beneath them.”
“Bitter,” Joe said.
Pi snorted. “Yeah. You fucking bet I’m bitter. I’m bitter about a lot of things.”
Like factory farms, she said. She quoted verbatim from a book she was reading, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, by Matthew Scully:
“ ‘When a quarter million birds are stuffed into a single shed, unable even to flap their wings, when more than a million pigs inhabit a single farm, never once stepping into the light of day, when every year tens of millions of creatures go to their death without knowing the least measure of human kindness, it is time to question old assumptions, to ask what we are doing and what spirit drives us.’ ”
Then she asked, as they approached her car, “What spirit drives you, Joe?”
He was glad the ride was just about over and he didn’t have to answer that question.
“We’re here,” he said.
He helped them load their car. It was completely dark now, with a cold white moon. Their breaths billowed in the cold. Birdy started the motor in order to get the heater running. Ray sat in back, amid their packs and tents. Pi opened the passenger door to climb in.
Joe said, “Pi, can I ask you something?” “What? It’s cold, you know.”
“You told me you really went after Will Jensen.” She nodded. “It wasn’t just once either.”
“But later, you realized that you needed to tone down your act, and you forgave him because you realized he was just doing his job, right? That in a way he was trying to protect you from yourself.”
She looked at Joe suspiciously. “Yes.”
“Did you ever tell him?”
Her eyes widened. She hesitated. Then: “No.”
“I was just wondering about that,” Joe said, “since his funeral is tomorrow.”
“Pi, are you coming in or not?” It was Ray, finally speaking. “You’re letting out all of the heat.”
Pi shot him a withering look and closed the door.
“You think I should go to his funeral?”
“It’s not my place to say that,” Joe said.
“I’ll give it some thought,” she said.
Joe told her good night and got in his truck and thought of Mary’s “Welcome to Jackson Hole” greeting, seeing it for the double meaning she likely intended.
As he swung onto the highway, he was struck by the realization that he had no idea where he was going to sleep that night. It was too late to ask anyone at the office who had the keys to the statehouse, since they’d no doubt gone home for the weekend. Regardless, he wasn’t sure he would be allowed to stay there yet anyway, since
