“Are they gone?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Pope said.
“What the hell is wrong with him? What’s this ‘beat the devil around the stump’ crap?”
Joe said, “He thinks he’s a western character.”
“I have no patience with those types,” Rulon said, “none at all. There’s room for only one character in this state, and that’s me.”
Joe grinned, despite himself. And he thought he heard Stella giggle off-camera.
“Since they’re gone, let’s get to it,” Rulon said into the camera. “We received word about an hour ago that Klamath Moore is in the state. He plans to come up to Saddlestring with his entourage in tow. Apparently, he already knows about our victim and how he died.”
Randy Pope went white.
Joe had seen footage of Klamath Moore being arrested at anti-hunting and animal-rights rallies and being interviewed on cable-television news programs for several years. He was a bear of a man, Joe thought, who came across as passionate and charismatic as he thundered against barbarians and savages who slaughtered animals for fun. There was a documentary film on his exploits that had won prizes in England.
Randy Pope said, “That guy is a nutcase. He’s my worst nightmare. How’d he find out about Frank Urman so fast?”
“We’d all like to know that,” the governor said. “My guess is one of his followers has a police scanner and heard the whole thing today and tipped off the big man. But we can’t spend much time and energy finding out who tipped him off, because in the end it doesn’t matter. What does matter is how fast we can find the shooter and put him away so Klamath has to go home. The longer that guy stays here, the more trouble he’ll cause.”
“Hold it,” Robey said, realization forming. “Klamath Moore is the guy who—”
“He’s the guy who thinks hunters should be treated the same way he thinks animals are treated by hunters,” Rulon said. “He’s the main force behind most of the protests you hear about where hunters get harassed in the field or game animals get herded away from lawful hunting types. He sends his people into the hills in Pennsylvania on the opening day of deer season tooting kazoos and playing boom boxes. The media loves him because he’s so fucking colorful and politically correct, I guess.”
“Why is he coming here?” Robey asked.
Rulon said, “Think about it for a second. The only reason he’d come to Wyoming is to give aid and comfort to whoever shot Frank Urman and the two other hunters we know about.”
With that, Joe sat up. Now he knew what was in the two other files Pope had brought with him.
Pope sighed.
“Two we know about,” Rulon said. “There may be more for all we know. I’ve got DCI going over every ‘hunting accident’ that’s occurred in the last ten years. One to four people a year are killed during hunting season, and sometimes none at all.”
That was true, Joe knew. Most of the fatalities were the result of carelessness within a group of hunters, and often involved family members—hunters who mistook other hunters for game, hunters who didn’t unload their guns, or, the biggest killer of all, hunters climbing fences or crawling through timber when their gun went off and killed a companion or themselves. Rarely were there hunting accidents where the shooter wasn’t quickly identified, and most of the time the assailant confessed in tears.
“How long have you suspected this?” Joe asked Pope.
Pope shrugged. “We couldn’t be sure. We still aren’t, but today . . .”
“Whoever did that to Frank Urman wants us to know it,” Rulon said. “In fact, he wants the whole country to know it.”
Kiner said, “Jesus,” and sat back in his chair. Robey moaned and put his head in his hands.
“And it’s not only that,” Pope said. “This could kill us as an agency. It could just kill us. Hunting and fishing brings in over four hundred million dollars to the state. Licenses pay our salaries, gentlemen. If word gets out that hunters are being hunted in the state of Wyoming, we’ll all be looking for work. We’ll be ruined.
“Think about it,” Pope continued, as Joe and Robey exchanged looks of disgust. “Using our economic multiplier, we know that every elk is worth six thousand dollars to us. Every bear, five thousand. Bighorn sheep are twenty- five thousand, every deer is worth four thousand, and every antelope is three thousand. The list goes on. If hunters aren’t hunting, our cash flow dries up.”
“Try not to use that argument with any reporters, Randy,” Rulon said with undisguised contempt.
“So that’s what this is about,” Joe said. “That’s why you’re up here personally.”
“Of course,” Pope said. “Why else?”
“Well, an innocent man got killed and butchered, to start,” Joe said.
“Save me your sanctimony,” Pope spat, “unless . . .” Pope stopped himself. Joe had been braced and ready for Pope to light into him, to accuse him of insubordination, destruction of government property, playing cowboy—all the reasons he’d used to fire him in the first place two years ago. Joe wouldn’t have been surprised if Pope brought up the disappearance of J. W. Keeley, the Mississippi ex-con and hunting guide who’d come to Twelve Sleep County to get revenge and had never been heard from again—the darkest period of Joe’s life. But for reasons Joe couldn’t fathom given their acrimonious history, Pope bit his tongue.
“Unless what?” Joe asked.
“Nothing,” Pope said, his face red, his nose flared from internalizing his emotions. “This case is too serious to expose those old wounds. We need to work together on this. We need to put our past aside and find the shooter.”
