McCain smiled and went back to an article about hunting snow cocks in Nevada. He was going to do that someday. He wondered if Jack could handle the tough terrain and extremely high elevations. Then he thought, “To heck with Jack, I wonder if I can handle them.”
The next morning, with the possibility of hiking the craggy peaks of the White Mountains of Nevada fresh on his mind, McCain went extra hard during his workout. Jack, well, he just lay on McCain’s bed and watched.
Chapter 7
The next week of work was going by quickly. He’d had to appear in court for a couple of poaching cases that he and Hargraves had worked together. One involved a father-son duo who had decided they wanted to get into the bear bladder business and had set up several bear-baiting sites up in the Ahtanum, west of Yakima. A disgruntled hunter had come upon two of the illegal baits and had informed the folks in the WDFW office about it.
Hargraves and McCain had taken turns sitting on the sites, and after a couple days, in wandered one LeRoy Johnson Jr. Short, at about five foot seven, overweight by thirty pounds and slightly balding, Johnson had arrived with a rifle and set up in a ground blind that had been placed near a fifty-gallon drum baited with apples, week-old donuts and used French fry oil.
When Hargraves had enough video of the man checking out the drum and sitting in the blind with his rifle pointed out the window, he went over and had a little chat with him.
“Can I see your hunting license and bear tag?” Hargraves asked the potential poacher.
“I got a license, but no tag,” the man said. “I used my tag already.”
“I see,” said Hargraves. “You realize that you can only shoot one bear a year, and it is against the law to keep hunting bears after you’ve filled your tag?”
“Yeah, but Daddy said I needed to keep coming out here. I shot three bears so far, and Daddy, he’s shot four.”
Upon hearing that, Hargraves asked to see Johnson’s rifle, placed handcuffs on the man, and escorted him back to his truck. As Hargraves took the younger Johnson back down toward town, he radioed McCain, and after telling him about the situation, asked him to meet him at the Johnson’s house in Tieton.
“You might wait out of sight until I get there,” Hargraves said. “We wouldn’t want to tip off the old man and have him start hiding bear parts under the house or anything.”
“Roger that,” McCain replied.
As it was, the old man had already hidden a bunch of the parts around their twenty-acre property. He denied having shot any more bears than the one he was allowed and called his son an idiot.
LeRoy Johnson, Sr. was a carbon copy of his son. Or technically, the younger Johnson was a carbon copy of the old man. He had the same round face, thinning hair, and was roughly the same height as his son but not carrying as much weight. He wore blue overalls, a striped logger’s shirt with the sleeves torn off and a trucker style cap that said “PETA—People Eating Tasty Animals” above the bill.
“You can tell that Junior weren’t blessed with a whole lotta brains,” he said. “He likes to hunt, so I let him.”
“So you don’t mind us looking around then?” Hargraves asked the elder Johnson.
He told the officers he had no problem with that, and after they found nine freshly severed bear paws in the garage, one over the two-bear limit unless one of the Johnsons had shot a five-legged bear, they decided to bring Jack in to do some sniffing around. By the time the yellow dog had searched the entire property they found evidence, by way of five bear skulls, buried here and there. With the two that the Johnsons claimed they took legally, that made seven, just like Junior had said.
“He may not be the sharpest hook in the tackle box,” Hargraves said to McCain, “but he does know how to add up dead bears.”
It turned out Johnson Sr. had been selling the bladders and other bear parts to a buyer who was selling the stuff on the black market. Like deer antlers, bear parts were a hot commodity, used in different areas of the world for medicinal purposes. The last McCain had heard, a bladder was worth about $1,500 to the person selling it to the black-market traders. The Johnsons had made over ten grand with their little poaching enterprise.
As he sat in court, waiting to testify in the case of the State of Washington versus LeRoy Johnson Sr. and LeRoy Johnson Jr., McCain typed out a text: Did you hear about the Oregon Duck who won a gold medal at the Olympics? He liked it so much he had it bronzed. McCain added a little smiley face emoji and pushed send.
The Johnsons were found guilty. They both lost their hunting rights for five years. They also had all the rifles in their possession confiscated, and each received a $5,000 fine. Finally, Johnson Sr., as the ringleader of the two-man operation, was sentenced to nine months in jail to begin serving immediately.
A few days later, McCain was doing an early morning check on some anglers down at a couple of the popular gravel pit fishing ponds along I-82 near Donald when he got a call on the radio.
“Can you get up to the county jail as soon as possible?” the dispatcher asked.
“10-4,” McCain responded. “What’s up?”
“There’s been a jail break,” the dispatcher said. “They are asking for help from WDFW.”
When McCain arrived, he counted thirteen cop cars, light bars
