don’t fall into place like they should. When you lay it all out, there are some wrong notes in the narrative.”
“What wrong notes?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I’ve got to think about it more, let it settle and see what rises to the top or sinks to the bottom. But something just doesn’t work right here. It all seems so neat while at the same time there’s something wrong.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Joe said, taking the exit for Kaycee.
“Neither do I,” Nate said. “But I get the feeling none of this has much to do with hunting.”
“That’s what
“Great minds.” Nate smiled. “Hey, I’m hungry. Pull over here.”
AS THEY entered the town of Kaycee, Joe and Nate both raised imaginary glasses and clinked them, said, “To Chris,” referring to the late, great singer, rodeo champion, and Wyoming icon Chris Ledoux, who died young and once lived there on a ranch outside the town limits. His family still did.
Nate and Joe pretended to toast and drink. It was something they did every time they drove by.
THE ONLY restaurant in Kaycee was closed, but Nate knew where the owner lived and directed Joe to a shambling log home in a bank of cottonwood trees outside the town limits. Nate got out and banged on the front door until a massive man threw open the door, ready to pound whoever was disturbing him. The fat, bearded man at the door was nearly seven feet tall and dressed in a wife-beater undershirt and thick leather gloves up to his elbows. Joe hung back while the man recognized Nate—a fellow falconer—and enthusiastically invited both of them into his home. The man pulled off the gloves he’d been wearing so his falcons could sit on his forearm while he groomed them, and started pan-frying two of the biggest steaks Joe had ever seen.
While they ate, Nate and the restaurant owner—he introduced himself to Joe as Large Merle—talked falconry and hunting. Joe looked around the house, which was dark and close and messy. Merle obviously lived alone except for his falcons, four of them, all hooded and sleeping, perched on handcrafted stands in the living room. The place smelled of feathers, hawk excrement, and eighty years of fried grease and cigarette smoke.
“D’you get your elk this year?” Large Merle asked Nate.
“No,” Nate said. “I was in jail.”
“Poor bastard,” Merle said. “And now you can’t go, since Governor Nut closed the state down. Man, if I could get my hands on the guy who shot those hunters I would break him in two.”
Large Merle eyed Joe for the first time. “You gonna find that guy?”
“We hope to,” Joe said.
“You better,” Merle said. “Or we’re going to do it for you. That’s why we live here. And it won’t be pretty. How’s your steak?”
“Huge.”
Merle smiled and nodded. One of his prairie falcons dropped a plop of white excrement onto his ham-sized forearm like a dollop of toothpaste being squeezed from a tube.
“Borrow your phone, Merle?” Nate asked.
“You bet, buddy,” Merle said, then turned back to Joe as Nate took the phone into the other room.
“I’ve heard of you,” Merle said, looking at Joe’s nameplate with narrowed eyes.
“Is that good or bad?” Joe asked.
“Mostly good,” Merle said, not expounding. “Me and Nate go way back. He’s the only guy know who scares me. Whoever that knuckle-head is killing hunters? He don’t scare me. But Nate scares me.”
Joe sat back and put his knife and fork to the side of his plate. He’d eaten half the steak and couldn’t eat any more.
Merle leaned forward. “Did Nate ever tell you about that time in Haiti? When the four drugged-out rebels jumped him?”
“No.”
Merle shook his head and chuckled, the fat jiggling under his arms and his chin. “Quite a story,” Merle said. “Especially the part about guts strung through the trees like Christmas lights. Ask him about that one sometime!”
Joe nodded.
“It’s a hell of a story,” Merle said, still chuckling.
BACK IN the Yukon, Joe said, “Don’t ever tell me about Haiti.”
“Okay.”
“Because I don’t want to know.”
“Okay.”
“It’s gone pretty well so far over the years with you not telling me what you do for a living. I think that’s best.”
“Since you’re in law enforcement, I’d agree.”
“And let’s not eat at Large Merle’s again soon.”
“I needed a big steak. Merle and I go way back.”
“So I heard. SO,” Nate asked, “how’s my girl?”
“Marybeth?” Joe asked, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck bristle.
