'My guess is that we wouldn't be able to hunt out here anymore if someone thought there were endangered animals out here.'
'Damned right,' Jack said.
'Why'd you bring this up?' Joe asked. 'Do you know something?'
'No reason,' Jack said.
'Just bullshitting you,' added Hans.
'If you know something, you need to report it,' Joe said looking from one to the other. He couldn't tell whether he was being fooled with or not.
'And that's what we would do,' Jack assured Joe. 'Indeed we would.'
'Indeed,' Hans echoed.
***
It had been a strange interlude, Joe thought.
When they were done and the Scout was hosed down and cleaned, Jack and Hans offered Joe a cold beer from the cooler. He thanked them but declined, and he wished them luck for the rest of the day. He knew that if Hans and Jack didn't get their second antelope today, they eventually would, so he would see the Scout out in the break land every day until that happened. Hans and Jack had the patience of the retired, and they were both known as good hunters and good cooks.
Joe had no problem with hunters hunting for meat. He felt, compared with buying it at the supermarket in cellophane wrapped parcels, that hunting was basically more honest. He had never understood the arguments of people who opposed hunting on principal while eating a cheeseburger. He thought it was important for people to know that animals died in order for them to eat meat. The process of stalking, killing, dressing, and eating an animal was much simpler and easier to understand to Joe than having a cow killed by a sledgehammer-swinging meat-processing plant employee and having the eventual results appear as a small packet in a shopping cart. He appreciated people like Hans and Jack.
For Hans and Jack, hunting for meat was still a way of life and not really a sport. The greeting of 'Got your elk yet?' was as common as hello in the small mountain towns, and the health and size of game herds was a matter of much public concern and debate.
Joe figured this was why the murders in the elk camp were the talk of the town. The killing of three outfitters realized every hunter's nightmare: that out in the field someone may be hunting for them. No one had ever heard of such a thing happening before. Sure, there were accidental shootings and incidents of fistfights and threats--the kind of things that would inevitably happen when men (there were very few women in the elk camps) left their jobs for a week or two and got together in the mountains to hunt. But considering the number of guns and the gallons of alcohol available, deliberate killings during hunting season were incomprehensible to the people of Saddlestring.
And the more Joe thought about it, the more he realized that the killings were incomprehensible to him.
***
Feeling good about the day and the job he had done, Joe worked his way through the break land toward the road that would take him back into town. Vern Dunnegan had called him early that morning, before the funeral, and asked Joe to meet him at five in the Stockman's Bar. If it was like the old days, Vern would be in the last booth on the right, past the pool table. That was Vern's booth.
The Stockman'S Bar was a dark place where they served shots and beer under the dusty heads of local game animals and where the walls were covered with black-and-white photos of local rodeo contestants from the 1940s and '50s. No matter what day or hour it was, there seemed to always be the same number of patrons. Joe walked past a dozen men on stools, toward the pool table in the back. A hanging Coors beer lamp illuminated the green felt of the pool table and highlighted the side of Vern's face. Vern was in his booth, and he had company.
'You're early.' Vern said as a greeting, extending his hand toward Joe.
'Joe Pickett, this is Aimee Kensinger.' She was in shadow. Joe's eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark bar.
Joe took off his hat. 'We've met.'
'See, I told you that,' Aimee said to Vern.
Vern chuckled and gestured for Joe to sit across from him in the booth.
'Will you drink a beer with me?' Vern stated more than asked. 'Aimee's got to get going.'
'Oh, yes, I had forgotten about that,' Aimee said sarcastically. Joe liked her voice. As his eyes adjusted, he could see she was wearing some kind of fuzzy, black sweater and a thin gold necklace. She was smiling at him.
'I'll see you around, Joe Pickett.'
Vern stood and let her out of the booth. She tousled Joe's hair as she left, which embarrassed him. She was a beautiful woman, no doubt about that. Vern followed her as far as the bar and returned with four shots of bourbon and four mugs of beer on a tray.
'Happy hour,' Vern said. 'Two for one.' He downed a shot and chased it with beer.
'You're looking good, Joe. How's the pellet wound?'
Joe told him it was fine and took a long drink from a mug. The cold beer tasted good. The afterimage of Aimee Kensinger hovered next to Vern.
'She still likes me,' Vern said, smiling. 'Even though I don't wear the uniform anymore.' Vern threw another shot down his throat. 'She likes you, too.' He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Joe didn't respond. He didn't want to go there. Joe tried to gauge how much Vern had been drinking. This
