by Robin Lamont
“No, ma’am. I hear people call hunting a recreational sport, and that’s just an affront to me. Football is a recreational sport. Hunting is … a way of life. At least when it’s done right.”
“And it’s your way of life?”
“Oh, I enjoy a good hunt. But if you ask me who I really am, I’d have to say a trapper. It’s pure and keeps me close to the land. You’ve got to know your animals, where they’ll go for food and water, you got to know how to track them, you’ve got to think like them. And of course, there’s an art to setting a trap right.”
“I’ll bet it takes a lot of skill. I’d love to see what you do sometime.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Some people find it tough to watch,” he cautioned.
“I’m a big girl. And I used to do some hunting with my dad.” It wasn’t a total lie. One of her foster fathers had been into shooting squirrels.
“So you’re not all lovey-dovey about animals and that crap?”
“Who, me? Come on, cowboy.”
He started up the ATV and fifteen minutes later, they came to a stretch of road that ran parallel to a stream. Cash pulled up next to a wide thatch of tall, wheat-like grass growing by the water. He got off and began combing through his gear.
“We’ll check some traps,” he said. From one of the containers he took out a bucket filled with tools that included an odd-looking hammer, a long-handled trowel, and plastic jars labeled with different scented baits. He pulled on a pair of gloves and with bucket in hand, walked down the road a few feet, sighting a particular tree to his left, a rock to his right. Satisfied that he’d found the spot, he stepped carefully toward the stream, looking for tracks. “Follow exactly in my footsteps,” he warned. “And stop when I tell you to.”
Jude’s stomach turned over. She’d asked for this, but the prospect of finding a trapped animal was unnerving. No other way, though, to get him to trust her and possibly learn something new. After a few feet Cash motioned for her to halt. She peered over his shoulder, but didn’t see anything.
“This is called a Double Dirthole Set,” he explained. “I put a little beaver meat or gland lure into each hole and bed my trap right here.” He carefully brushed away some leaves to reveal a coil spring trap. “I’ve got a couple more a little further down. No one’s been over here, yet. But they’ll come.”
“How do you know?” asked Jude.
“This is a good corridor. You’ve got tracks and scat along the ditch here, tracks coming over from the field.” Straightening up and surveying the scene, he added confidently. “Oh yeah, they’re a’ coming.”
He threw a handful of dirt over the trap and moved on to the nearby sets to make sure they hadn’t been triggered or moved. Jude breathed a sigh of relief as they backtracked to the vehicle. Before putting his tools away, Cash withdrew a small notebook with lined paper, flipped to the current date and made a few notations.
“What’s that?” asked Jude.
“A field diary. A good trapper records where he sets his traps, how often he checks them, and what you catch.”
“How very organized you are.”
“We have to keep them, especially now.”
“Why now?”
“There’s some kind of animal rights crazies running around busting up traps.” He shook his head at the wrongness of it. “We use government issue traps that have serial numbers on ’em, and I have to account for any that go missing or get destroyed. That’s the part of working for Uncle Sam I could do without – the paperwork.”
Sensing an opening, Jude commiserated, “I don’t envy you there. I hate paperwork. Gee, you have to write down everything? Including who you take on your field trips?”
Cash winked at her. “Well, there are a few things we don’t make note of.”
“Like girls,” she said coyly.
“Like girls … and other things.”
“What other things?”
He snapped shut the lid on one of the storage boxes and looked up at her. “You’ve got real pretty hair, did anyone ever tell you that?”
“You’re changing the subject,” teased Jude. “How come? You don’t want your boss to know how often you come up empty?”
“Listen, I have the best catch rate of anybody around here,” responded Cash defensively. “No, we just keep the paperwork to intended targets.”
“What are intended targets?” asked Jude, wide-eyed.
“I’m looking to trap coyote here, but sometimes some animal or other will go after the bait and wander into a set. It happens.”
“And you don’t have to record that?”
“Technically, yes, we’re supposed to report the non-target takes … trash catch. But hardly anyone does. It would look bad, a lot of people wouldn’t understand.”
“What do you do with the trash catch?”
“Throw it someplace where other predators will get it or bury the damn thing.”
“And your supervisor doesn’t find out?”
Cash scoffed, “Are you kidding? He’s the one telling us to do it. I knew someone who actually got in trouble for writin’ down the non-targets in his field diary.”
“Get out of here,” said Jude in mock disbelief.
“Yup.”
Feeling as though she’d pushed enough for the moment, she donned her helmet and chimed, “Okay, where to now, cowboy? This is very intriguing.”
They got back on the ATV and rumbled down the dirt road. This time, Jude clasped her hands around Cash’s waist, hoping it would encourage him to keep talking. “So what happened to the guy?” she called over the engine noise.
“What guy?” asked Cash over his shoulder.
“The guy who got in trouble?”
“They told him that if he liked to do paperwork so much, they’d find a nice place for him in the Boise office.”
“A fate worse than death, right?”
“For me it would be, yeah.”
Jude laughed. “Where is he now?”
“Dead,” shouted Cash. “I told you about him. He’s the guy who was murdered.”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t know being a perfectionist was so dangerous.”
“Perfect had nothing to do with it, darlin’. Eberhardt wrote everything down. It was some kind of obsession with him. Maybe because he was so damn proud of himself or thought he was a better trapper than everyone else and he wanted the numbers to prove it. It’s like if he didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen. Guy was an asshole like that. He could have lost all of us our jobs.”
The wheels in Jude’s head began to whirr. Cash had just confirmed what Walt Kincaid told her was happening back when he worked for Wildlife Services. Agents were not reporting the non-target animals they caught. Moreover, they were being directed by their supervisors to Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up. But Eberhardt had been the renegade. For whatever twisted reason, he insisted on recording everything he trapped. Did that obsession have anything to do with his death? Clearly, the brass at Wildlife Services had every reason to keep lawmakers and the public from learning of this callous disregard for wildlife. A more immediate question came to mind: where was Eberhardt’s field diary now?
Cash had stopped the ATV and gotten off to check more sets. Jude became aware of him waving to her from a field across the way. He wanted to show her something. A sense of impending dread washed over her. She closed her eyes, wanting to make it all go away – the role-playing with Cash and the miserable, rusted-out traps waiting for an unsuspecting paw.
He called her over, a wide grin on his face. And Jude steeled herself, trying to paste a cheery expression on her own as she made her way into the field.
“Don’t get too close,” he warned.
When she saw why, Jude’s worst fear was realized. On the other side of a downed cottonwood
tree, a coyote was caught in a leg-hold trap, and he was alive. At the sight of humans, he tried to pull back, his eyes wild and frightened. But the trap held his right front leg immobile in its vice-like grip. Jude saw it had cut down to bone, and the flesh around the wound was ripped raw. Blood was smeared across his snout from trying to chew off the trap.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” said Cash. “And don’t get any closer ’cause he’ll bite you.” He left Jude and the coyote staring at one another.
The coyote was small and looked entirely spent, his ribs showed through his gray and white coat. His big ears, one of them minus a chunk in its pointy tip, were twitching with nervousness. Why did Jude think he was just a young one? He tried to flee again, but buckled immediately and collapsed on the ground, his front leg stretched out as far as it would go. His fur was matted with mud, saliva and blood. The prairie grass around him was worn down to the dirt from his thrashing and was littered with pieces of bone and gristle. Jude remembered something that Lisbet had told her: often the pack would rally around their injured member. They couldn’t free him, but they could bring him food. The pack was gone now.
“I’m so sorry, little one,” whispered Jude, her heart breaking. “I’m so sorry for what they’ve done to you.”
The coyote glared back at her, and she kept silently repeating, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” She wasn’t aware that her lips were moving until Cash was beside her.
He carried a thick, heavy bat in one hand and had a revolver tucked into his belt.
“What are you going to do?” asked Jude.
“I’m going to dispatch him. Stand back.”
Before Jude could open her mouth, he had struck the coyote on the snout with the bat. The animal fell over on his side, stunned. Then Cash set his boot on the coyote’s throat.
“Stop!” Jude screamed.
Cash hesitated.
“Stop! What are you doing?”
“This is how it goes, girl,” he said over his shoulder. “Might be able to save the pelt.”
The coyote’s back legs twitched. He was still alive. “Please, can’t you just shoot him?” she asked, trying to rein in her hysteria. “Don’t let him suffer any more!”
Eyeing her distrustfully, Cash stepped away. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “I thought you were all into learning about traps.”
Jude swallowed. “Well, I … this isn’t right.”
“Fine,” said Cash. “You do it.”
There was a glint of more than challenge in his eyes. She’d seen the same look when he’d found her in the hangar at Tripp’s ranch. He was questioning who she was. He held out his .22 revolver. “You do know how to shoot, right? I imagine your dad taught you.”
“Yes.” Her voice cracked.
“Then go ahead.”
She did in fact know how to shoot, but wished she didn’t. He was testing her, and the coyote was suffering terribly. Taking the revolver by the grip, she leveled it and drew back the hammer.
“Go closer,” said Cash with some irritation. “Get him through the eye or put a bullet in his ear. It won’t make such a big mess.”
Jude stepped toward the coyote as he was regaining consciousness. He didn’t have much left, but he lifted his head weakly. Her hand began to shake and she could feel ice cold sweat dripping down the back of her neck. Inside she was howling, I can’t do this. Help me somebody! Don’t make me do this! Cash’s stare was like a laser, opening up a red hot hole in her cover, in all she had worked for. He was waiting. She looked one last time into the coyote’s eyes. He was waiting for her, too.
Jude squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 18
John Tripp pulled up the collar of his leather jacket to stave off the wind at the back of his neck. His companion Bud Grimes, state director of Wildlife Services, unconsciously mirrored the gesture. The two men ambled along the fence that separated them from a herd of heavy-bellied ewes grazing on isolated patches of brown grass.
“How was Houston?” asked Grimes, glancing at the rancher for a telltale sign about whether his news was good or bad. “Did you get a chance to speak to Olander?”
“I did, as a matter of fact.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s still planning to hold up the transparency bill.”
Grimes breathed a sigh of relief. After a series of articles in a California newspaper about the missing $12 million from Wildlife Services’ operating budget, a member of the House Agriculture Committee had proposed a “transparency” bill aimed at making the agency more accountable for its spending. The bill had been sent to a subcommittee on livestock and rural development. Scott Olander was the chair and he wasn’t letting it come up for a vote.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable, though,” Tripp cautioned. “It’s a political land mine and Olander is sticking his neck out trying to protect your agency. At the ALEC conference in Houston, a lot of members want to play up how badly the federal government manages our grazing lands, among other things. If more shit comes out about Wildlife Services, they’ll throw you both to the wolves … pun intended.”
“You’re telling me Olander would let the transparency bill go through just to make the federal government look bad?”
“What I’m saying is you better damn well find Eberhardt’s field diary. If it lands in the wrong hands – Walt Kincaid or one of those animal activist types – you’ll be swinging in the wind all on your lonesome.”
Grimes removed his hat and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m working on it,” he said.
“Did you speak directly with Chief Ramey?” grilled Tripp.
“Of course, twice. I even went to his office. It never surfaced,” replied Grimes. There was a hint of defensiveness in his tone.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said it was protocol, for our record keeping.”
“Go back and see him again,” instructed Tripp. “Somebody must have found it.”
“I can’t do that, John. If I go back a third time to ask for one agent’s field diary, Ramey’s gonna start wondering why I want it so bad.”
Tripp shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped closer to the fence to watch his sheep.
“What about the FBI?” asked Grimes, nervously fingering his thick handlebar mustache. “Maybe the local cops missed it when they went through Craig’s apartment. The agents from Boise were in there after the cops. Maybe they have it.”
“They would have come around by now,” said Tripp brusquely. “Are you sure the cops even looked for the diary?”
“Of course. Ramey knows how our agents work. He thought it might have given them a timetable of Craig’s activities before he was killed.”
Tripp kept his back to Grimes. “You’re in potential big trouble, my friend,” he threw over his shoulder.
The Wildlife Services director quickly covered the distance between them. “You think I don’t know that?” he challenged. “Maybe he hid the damn thing or got rid of it. That’d be the best thing … we just let sleeping dogs lie.”
Tripp pointed to one of his white, thick-coated dogs as large as any of the ewes. The Great Pyrenees was commonly used as a guard dog to keep predators away from the sheep, and now this one had come within a stone’s throw of the fence to investigate the two visitors. “My dogs don’t lie down or sleep while they’re on the job,” declared the rancher. “If they do, they might get themselves ripped to shreds by predators, along with my sheep.”
“Is that a threat?” challenged Grimes.
“Nope. Just a fact.”
“Glad to hear that ’cause I believed Craig when he told me that I’m not the only one named in his goddamn notes,” said Grimes hotly. “You are, too, John.”
“Hey, easy does it. This will all sort itself out,” replied Tripp easily.
The Great Pyrenees eyed the men for a moment longer, then trotted off back to his job.
* * *
Colin took one look at Jude’s ashen face and knew something was terribly wrong. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Ask her,” replied Oliver, who stood with his arms folded and legs planted in a wide stance, seemingly ready to cut off her retreat.
Seeing Colin’s hesitation, Jude realized that he still didn’t trust her. She hung her head and muttered, “Jesus, Colin, I only wanted … to be with someone who understands. “Something happened and I needed a friend. You want to check me for a wire? Go ahead. On second thought, fuck it. Come on, Oliver, take me back.” She wheeled around and began marching to the car.
“Jude, I’m sorry,” called Colin. “Stay.”
Oliver widened his eyes and gave Colin a look that did more than hint at his misgivings about Jude. “She’s an undercover, dude,” he reminded his friend. “Probably a good actress.”
“Go to hell, Oliver,” Jude shot back.
“It’s okay,” said Colin. “It’s all okay. Jude, please stay.” She stopped and shoved her hands in her pockets, staring at the ground.
Oliver motioned with his head at the Taurus. “She brought her dog. Not a smart move, if you ask me.” Then he explained as if Jude wasn’t there, “She found me at the bookstore and said she had to see you. I didn’t want her making a scene, so I said to meet me at Albertson’s like before, but I didn’t know she was going to bring her dog.”
“It’s all right,” Colin said.
“A big dog like that’ll draw attention.”
“I couldn’t leave him,” said Jude quietly.
“Where’s Laurel?”
“In Saint Claire. She won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Colin straightened. “All right, go on back. I’ll text you if I need you.”
“But you’ve only got the cycle,” Oliver objected. “How you gonna get her and the dog–”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Okaaay,” murmured Oliver, looking between Colin and Jude.
“Goodbye, Oliver. And you can let the dog out now.”