Free Fire

“Sheridan, I want to tell you that the governor offered me a job today. I’m going to be a game warden again, sort of.”

Her first reaction was a mixture of joy and desperation. She was thrilled that her dad had gotten his job back because, well, that’s what he was: a game warden. The game warden, as far as she was concerned. She had been with him many times while he worked, and she knew how dedicated he was.

Sheridan remembered when she had been an apprentice falconer to Nate Romanowski. Nate had been given a prairie falconthat had been hit by a car. The bird was either aggressive- likely to bite or strike out-or moody, sulking for days in the mews and refusing to eat. It was her opinion that the bird should be set free, that it would never be any good. Nate proved her wrong by taking the bird out and working with it, letting its naturalinstincts reemerge. The falcon soon became swift and efficient,eager to fly, hunt, and return to Nate. “He just needed a job,” Nate told her. “He needed to do what he was born to do. Falcons, like some people, need to do things. They can’t just exist.”

“Does that mean we have to move?” she asked.

“Not this time,” he said.

“So will that ass Jason Kiner go away?”

Her dad seemed confused for a minute. He said, “No. Phil Kiner will still be the Saddlestring game warden. I won’t really have a district. I’ll sort of be working freelance.”

“Like a secret agent or something?”

He smiled. She could tell he liked that characterization but didn’t want to admit it. “No, more like I’m on loan for special projects.”

She felt good about this news, but didn’t want to show it too much because that would betray the embarrassment she’d kept hidden since he lost his job.

“Sheridan,” her dad said, “I know it’s been tough on you with me being out of work and all.”

“You’re the ranch foreman,” she said quickly. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“The governor said the same thing. But we both know it’s bothered you. With Jason Kiner saying things and all. It’s botheredme.”

She couldn’t deny it outright. She said, “Dad, it doesn’t matter. .”

But he waved her off. “Don’t say it. It’s not necessary.”

She found herself beaming.

“So you’re back,” she said.

He grinned. “I’m back.”

Her dad, she thought, needed to do things.

Joe stumbled over something in the dark kitchen of their home and nearly crashed to the floor. He righted himself on the counter, turned on the light, and beheld Lucy’s project. Three cardboard boxes marked PAPER, GLASS, and METAL. On each, she had written “To Be Recycled.” And beneath the writing, she’d drawn a stylized globe with a word balloon reading “Save me.”

“Save me from falling on my face,” Joe grumbled, and moved the recycling boxes into the mudroom so no one else would trip over them.

He dialed the governor’s residence in Cheyenne. Spencer Rulon listed his number in the telephone book, something he never tired of announcing to his constituents.

Voice mail: “This is Gov Spence. Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you. I’ll only return calls to my constituents. If you aren’t from Wyoming, you need to call your governor.”

Joe said, “Governor, Joe Pickett. I accept the job. I do need to get a little more information, though. Like whom I work with in your office, how you want me to stay in contact. .”

The governor picked up. He’d obviously been listening.

“Don’t call me again,” he said brusquely.

“But. .”

'Chuck Ward will be in touch with you. Deal with him for everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t call me sir.” Joe could hear the governor smackinghis receiver with the palm of his hand, or hitting it against the wall. “This is a bad connection. Who did you say was calling?”

Joe went into the bedroom with a vague sense of unease after his conversation with the governor. He set the feeling aside when Marybeth shut off the lights, came to bed, and started kissing him with an intensity and passion that surprised and delighted him.

He turned toward her and soon they were entwined. With each movement, the old bedsprings squeaked.

When they were through, she said, “I feel like I need a cigarette,” although she had never smoked.

“How about another glass of wine?”

“No, I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m jazzed up,” he confessed.

“You haven’t been jazzed up in a while.”

“Thanks to you.”

She smiled and stroked his jaw. “Good night, Joe.”

“I’m going to read for a few minutes.”

“What, the file?”

He nodded.

“Not too long,” she said, and rolled over.

He knew about the crime in general. What he didn’t know until he read the file were the specifics. He read over the incidentreports filed by the national park rangers, as well as clippingsfrom the West Yellowstone News, the Idaho Falls Post-Register, the Bozeman Chronicle, the Billings Gazette, the Casper Star- Tribune, and a long feature in the Wall Street Journalthat summarized them all. It was the worst crime ever committedin Yellowstone National Park. But that was only half the story.

On July 21, a West Yellowstone lawyer named Clay McCann parked his car at the Bechler River Ranger Station in the extremesouthwest corner of the park, checked in with the ranger at the desk of the visitor center, and hiked in along the trail that followed, and eventually crossed, Boundary Creek. Later that morning, he returned to the center and confessed to shooting and killing four people in a backcountry campsite.

Investigating rangers confirmed the crime.

The victims were found near the bank of Robinson Lake, two miles from the ranger station. All were pronounced dead at the scene, although the bodies were airlifted out to the Idaho Falls hospital.

Jim McCaleb, twenty-six, was a waiter in the Old Faithful Inn and a five-year employee of the park’s concessionaire, Zephyr Corporation. Zephyr ran all the facilities and attractions in the park under contract to the government. McCaleb was shot four times in the torso and once in the back of the head with a large-caliber handgun. His body was found half-in and half-out of a dome tent.

Claudia Wade, twenty-four, managed the laundry facility near Lake Lodge. Wade’s body was in the same tent as Mc-Caleb’s. There were two shotgun blasts to her back, and she’d been shot once in the head with a handgun.

Caitlyn Williams, twenty-six, was a horse wrangler at Rooseveltfor Zephyr. Williams’s body was sprawled over the campfire pit with a shotgun blast to her back and a single large-caliberwound to her head.

Rick Hoening, twenty-five, was a desk clerk at the Old FaithfulInn. His body was located twenty yards from the others in the campsite, near the trail. Investigators speculated that he’d been the first to encounter the gunman and the first one killed. He’d been shot three times with a handgun, twice with a shotgun, and, like the others, had an additional single shot to the head.

Wade, Williams, and Hoening were also Zephyr Corp. employees.All four victims listed their original home addresses in St. Paul, Minnesota-the Gopher State-although they lived in Gardiner, Montana, or within the park at the time of their murders.The forensic pathologist in Idaho Falls noted that while each had sustained enough wounds to be fatal, the single shots to the head were likely administered after the initial confrontation.

They were the coup de grace, fired close enough to leave powder burns and guarantee that no one survived