would need to get out of his vehicle. “Have you been listening on your radio?”
“Not really,” Joe said, a little ashamed he’d been so preoccupied on the eight-mile drive out.
“McLanahan’s up ahead, waiting for us,” Kiner said. “He knows the general area but doesn’t know where this elk camp is at. He needs for us to get there and show him.”
“Whose camp?”
“Frank Urman from Cheyenne. He’s the victim. You know him?”
“The name’s familiar,” Joe said. “I think I know the camp.”
“Good, because I don’t.”
Kiner said it without bitterness, which Joe welcomed. Throughout the first year Kiner took over, he hadn’t contacted Joe for advice or background on the district Joe had overseen for six years. Marybeth speculated that it was either misplaced pride or Kiner’s fear of displeasing Randy Pope by creating the impression he was close to Joe. Either way, it hurt. Joe tried to put himself in Kiner’s shoes, and when he did he understood the dilemma but still thought Kiner should have reached out. They had reconciled only after Sheridan slugged Kiner’s son Jason in the lunchroom at school and both sets of parents were called in for a conference with the vice principal.
“How many are up there?” Joe asked.
“Three,” Kiner said. “Related to the victim, from what I can tell so far. They sound really pissed off, so we need to get up there before they go after whoever shot the fourth guy.”
“Is it possible it was an accident?” Joe asked.
“It sure as hell doesn’t sound like one, but we won’t know for sure until we get there,” Kiner said, raising his eyebrows. “But from what I’ve heard, it sounds fucking horrible. In fact, I can’t even believe what they’re telling the dispatcher they found.”
“What?”
“Turn on your radio,” Kiner said while putting the pickup in gear and roaring off.
Joe sat for a moment, took a deep breath, and followed. He kept far enough back of Kiner’s dust cloud to look up at the looming dark mountains as they framed the valley. Fingers of fall color probed down the slopes and folds. The sky had turned from brilliant blue to a light steel gray as a film of cloud cover moved from the north, bringing, no doubt, a drop in temperature and possibly snow flurries. He turned on his radio beneath the dash and clicked it to the mutual aid channel. It was crackling with voices.
The dispatcher said, “Mr. Urman, I understand. But please remain where you are and don’t pursue anyone on your own. We’ve got units on the way.”
“That’s easy for you to say, lady,” the man Joe assumed was Urman said with barely controlled fury, “you haven’t seen what happened to my uncle this morning. And whoever did it is still out there.”
“Mr. Urman—”
“Somebody shot him with a high-powered rifle,” Urman said, “like a goddamned elk!”
Joe swallowed hard.
“Like a goddamned elk,” Urman repeated in a near whisper, an auditory hitch in his voice.
AS HE FOLLOWED KINER, Joe did a quick inventory of his pickup. He’d been practically living in it for the past month and it showed. The carpeting on the floorboards showed mud from the clay draws and arroyos near Lusk, the Little Snake River bottomland of Baggs, the desert of Rawlins, the Wind River foothills out of Pinedale. There was a gritty covering of dust on his dashboard and over his instruments. The console was packed with maps, notes, citation books. The skinny space behind his seat was crammed with jackets and coats for every weather possibility, as well as his personal shotgun, his Remington WingMaster twelve-gauge, his third since he’d become a full-time game warden. An M-14 carbine with a peep sight was under the seat, a Winchester .270 rifle was secured in brackets behind his head. The large padlocked metal box in the bed of the vehicle held evidence kits, survival gear, necropsy kits, heavy winter clothing, tools, spare radios, a tent and sleeping bag. Single-cab pickups for game wardens with all this gear was proof that whoever it was in the department who purchased the vehicles had never been out in the field.
Since he’d lost his district and been assigned to work “without portfolio” for the governor, Joe filled in across the state whenever and wherever he was needed. Since there were only fifty-four game wardens covering the ninety-eight thousand square miles of the state, he was constantly in demand. If a warden was sick, injured, or had extended duty in court or on assignment, Joe was asked to substitute. Because he was moving around so much, agency biologists had asked him to gather samples from big-game animals across the state so they could monitor the spread of chronic wasting disease. CWD was a transmissible neurological disease that attacked the brains of deer and elk and was similar to mad cow disease. From a few isolated cases in the southwest of the state, the disease seemed to be moving north and was turning into a significant threat to the wild game population. Joe was concerned, as were many others. Too many animals were showing positive results for CWD, although not yet in crisis proportions.
He never knew what his schedule would be from week to week. The requests came via third party or from the wardens themselves. They never came straight from Director Pope, who had chosen not to communicate directly with Joe in any way. Joe liked it better that way as well, but he never forgot for a moment that Pope had fired him and would do so again in an instant if he could find justification. Joe’s relationship with the governor was vague, and after the case in Yellowstone Joe wasn’t sure he could trust him. But Rulon had not given Joe any reasons to doubt his sincerity since then, other than his generally erratic behavior, a sign of which was hiring Stella Ennis as his new chief of staff.
The two trucks raced up the state highway, wigwag lights flashing. A herd of pronghorn antelope raced them for a while before turning south in a flowing arc toward the breaklands. Cows looked up but didn’t stop grazing.
They passed the entrance to Nate Romanowski’s place. Nate was an outlaw falconer with a mysterious background who’d made a pledge to protect Joe and his family after Joe proved his innocence in a murder investigation. Currently, Nate was in federal custody involving the disappearance of two men—one being the former sheriff—two years before. He’d asked Joe to continue to feed his falcons, which Joe did every day he could. Sheridan filled in when Joe was out of town, getting a ride to Nate’s old stone house from Marybeth. Nate’s trial had been postponed twice already. Joe missed him.
Farther up the road, Joe saw Sheriff McLanahan’s GMC Blazer and two additional county vehicles waiting for
