C J Box - [Joe Pickett 01]

by C. J. Box

Homes were set back off of the road, and most were hidden by trees. There were no street signs, and driveways to homes were marked by brass plaques imbedded in the pavement with the owners' last names. When he saw the name Kensinger, he turned.

  Wacey's muddy green Ford pickup was parked at a rakish angle on the side of the massive two-level log home. Joe parked behind it and got out. His footsteps on the pavement were the only sound he could hear. Joe knocked on the door.

  The wide oak front door swung open, and Wacey stood in it and squinted at Joe with a sour expression on his face. Wacey was still thin and compact--a bull rider's body--and his mouth was hidden under a thick auburn gunfighter's mustache. The only thing he was wearing was his red chamois Game and Fish shirt.

  "Take your pants off and come on in, Joe," Wacey said in a whisper. "That's what I did." A slow full-face grin started near his corners of his blue eyes.

  Someone inside the dark house, a woman, asked Wacey what he was doing.

  "My colleague Joe Pickett from the Saddlestring District is here," Wacey said over his shoulder. "I'll just be a minute."

  Behind Wacey, in the gloom, Joe saw the form of a very white and naked woman pass. He heard her bare feet slap across the marble floor.

  To Joe, Wacey mouthed the name "Aimee Kensinger." Then: "She really does like us wardens."

  Despite himself, Joe smiled. Wacey was something else. Wacey had once told Joe that Aimee Kensinger, the trophy wife of Donald Kensinger of Kensinger Communications, had a thing for cowboy-types in uniform. Joe knew Wacey had been spending a lot of time of late at the Eagle Mountain Club. He also knew that Wacey's visits coincided with Donald Kensinger's business trips.

  Wacey stepped out on the porch and eased the door closed behind him. "What's going on?" Wacey asked. "I was right in the middle of something."

  Joe knew what. There was a wet stain on the front tail of Hedeman's shirt where his erection stretched out at the fabric like a tent pole. Hedeman followed Joe's eyes.

  "That's kinda embarrassing," Wacey said. "Guess I'm leakin' a bit. She'll make a guy do things like that when they aren't used to it."

  Joe Pickett told Wacey what had happened that morning. He confirmed that Wacey did know where Ote Keeley's elk camp was located on the Twelve Sleep Drainage.

  He told Wacey about the cooler, and Wacey seemed interested.

  "Ote Keeley. He was that guy ..."

  "Yup," Joe answered sharply.

  "When do we need to get going?" Wacey asked.

  "Right now," Joe said.

  "Right now."

  "I gotta call Arlene,". Wacey replied, referring to his wife.

  "Maybe you ought to do it from the truck."

  Wacey again started his slow, infectious smile. He winked at Joe and nodded his head toward the door. "She's gonna finance my campaign for sheriff," Wacey said in a conspiratorial voice.

  "And when it comes to sex, she'll try just about anything. She even shaved herself this morning. You ever mess around with a woman who is shaved clean as a whistle? It's weird. Sort of like a little girl, but not a little girl at all, you know? You just don't realize how big and ripe those lips are down there unless you can really see 'em."

  Joe nodded uncomfortably.

  Aimee Kensinger came out of the house wearing a thick white robe.

  Joe said hello. He had met her once at a museum fundraiser dinner Marybeth had taken him to, but he knew she didn't remember him. He hadn't been in his uniform.

  "Hello, officer," Aimee Kensinger said. It was a purr, a self conscious, very obvious purr. Joe was both alarmed and aroused. Aimee Kensinger had a wide-open healthy face framed by a bell of dark hair. Her feet were bare and her calves were trim. She wore no makeup, but her face was still flushed from whatever Wacey and she had been doing inside.

  "Forget it, babe." Wacey said gently to her, giving her a brotherly punch on the arm. "He's married."

  "So are you, honey," she said.

  "It's different with Joe, though," Wacey answered, shrugging as if he couldn't understand it himself.

  "Good for you," she said. Joe couldn't tell if she meant it or not.

  The Command Position that had been established at the Crazy Woman Creek Campground had quickly become chaos. The murder of Ote Keeley and the possibility of an armed camp of suspects had ignited the imagination of the entire valley. A crowd had formed in the campground including off-duty Saddlestring police officers, volunteer fire department members, the mayor, the editor of the weekly Saddlestring Roundup, even elderly officers of the local VFW armed with Korean War-era M-1 carbines. Two local survivalists had shown up in battle fatigues with specially modified SKS Chinese assault rifles and concussion grenades hung from web belts. Sheriff Barnum didn't mind the crowd; he reveled in it. His makeshift office was established in a stout-walled Cabella's outfitter tent. His desk was a card table. Someone (Joe guessed one of the Korean War vets) told him that when he sat at the table and smoked, he reminded them of General Ulysses S. Grant at Shilo . Barnum enjoyed the comparison and mentioned it to anyone who would listen.

  Joe Pickett and Wacey Hedeman saddled their horses and shook the hands of well-wishers while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to arrive. Joe had brought up his six-year-old buckskin mare named Lizzie. Joe felt like he and Wacey were star athletes of the local football team. Men clapped them on their shoulders and whacked them on the butt as they walked by. Many said they wished they were going along.

  McLanahan arrived armed for a small war, and the gear he had brought would have been fine if the three of them were setting off on a land offensive with four-wheel drives and transport trucks. Unfortunately for McLanahan, this was a designated roadless area of the national forest and the only access was by foot or horseback. In his Blazer and horse trailer, McLanahan had brought hundreds of pounds of bulky outfitter tents, sleeping bags, a propane stove, blankets, cast-iron skillets, Dutch ovens and frying pans, radio equipment and a chuck box filled with plates and utensils that weighed more than 150 pounds by itself. The back of the Blazer was stacked with guns--Joe imagined McLanahan cleaned out the gun cabinet in the sheriff's office. He saw several high-powered sniper's rifles with night-vision scopes, semiautomatic carbines loaded with armor-piercing shells, a couple of MAC-10 machine pistols, M-16 automatic rifles, and emiautomatic riot shotguns.

  "Typical Barnum overkill," Wacey had scoffed loud enough to be heard by the crowd in the camp. A few people laughed.

  "Supporters," Wacey whispered to Joe.

  Barnum had ordered the three horsemen to "take as much as they could," and McLanahan had loaded down the canvas panniers while Joe and Wacey stared at each other in puzzlement. Barnum made it clear that he was assuming command of the operation and that the two Game and Fish officers were subordinate to the county sheriff, which was officially true in this circumstance. He "strongly advised" that both equip themselves with more firepower. Both had sidearms--Joe had his never-fired-in-anger-and-once-swiped-by-Ote-Keeley Smith & Wesson357 Magnum revolver, and Wacey had his 9mm Beretta semiautomatic. Finally, Wacey was persuaded to strap to his saddle one of the carbines in a scabbard.

  Both had pitched in to help McLanahan, who was a boyish-looking former college ROTC officer, to load the panniers on the two packhorses so they could finally leave.

  Barnum scoffed when he saw that, instead of digging into the county arsenal, Joe was taking his personal Remington Wing master .12-gauge shotgun, which was primarily a bird-hunting weapon. If he had to take a shotgun, Barnum said, at least it should be one of the short-barreled riot guns from the truck. Joe explained that he had had the shotgun since his teens and he was comfortable with it. Joe was known as an excellent wing shot when it came to game birds or, occasionally, clay targets. Strangely, he could rarely hit a target if it was stationary, only if it was moving or flushing from the underbrush. He had the ability to hit a fast-moving target by instinct and reaction, and he never really aimed. If he aimed, he missed. Joe had failed his initial pistol test an
d had barely passed on his second (and last) attempt. While he was fully capable of bagging his limit of three pheasants with three well-placed aerial shots, he was unable to punch holes in the outline of an intruder on the firing range.

  Barnum finally persuaded Joe to at least load his shotgun with magnum double ought buckshot shells so if he had to be could "knock down a house." But Joe thought how odd it was to be loading the shotgun he had used since boyhood for ducks and pine grouse with shells designed solely to kill a man. But he did it, and he filled one pocket of a saddle bag with a dozen extra rounds.

  Barnum briefly took Joe and Wacey aside while they waited for Deputy McLanahan to secure his panniers. "Guess who is on the way to observe this rodeo, boys?" Barnum asked them. Joe and Wacey exchanged glances but neither knew.

  "Vern Dunnegan!" Barnum clapped Joe and Wacey on their shoulders. "Your mentor. He called and left a message with the dispatch."

  "Why is Vern here?" Joe asked. Wacey shrugged. "He was in the area and heard about it on the radio, I suppose," Barnum said. "So don't screw up, boys. Not only will the entire valley be watching, but Vern will be watching, too." There was sarcasm in Barnum's voice.

  Most of the gear, including the chuck box, they left with Barnum and the bustle of people and equipment. As they finally mounted and had turned their horses to the trailhead, they could hear Sheriff Barnum, flanked by the two retired Korean War vets from the VFW post, on his radio trying to track down his missing helicopter.

  "How close are we?" Joe asked Wacey as he nosed his horse through the silent pocket of aspen. In timber this thick, it was best to let Lizzie pick her own way through. He just pointed her in the general direction, which was behind and to the left of Wacey. Wacey was a few yards ahead, and he reined in his mount and leaned to the side of his saddle.

  "Coupla hours," Wacey said, also in a murmur.

  "That's what I was worried about." Hedeman nodded. They would not make it to the outfitters'

  elk camp in daylight, even though getting there before dark had been the purpose of the trip.

  Joe walked his horse abreast Wacey's palomino. Two aspens as thin and round as baseball bats stood between them. The grove was heavily timbered, and black roots curled up through a carpet of lemon-colored leaves.

  "And here comes the reason why," Wacey grumbled.

  It was hushed in the middle of the trees, the light was dappled and muted, but they could hear the clinking of Deputy McLanahan and his packhorse skirting the grove on the outside. McLanahan had fitted the packhorse with hunting panniers, and the bulging canvas bags were so wide that he couldn't follow Joe and Wacey into the grove. Joe and Hedeman caught a glimpse of the deputy down a narrow chute in the trees; it was clear that McLanahan was much less of a horseman than Joe on his worst day.

  "When I'm elected I'm going to fire his butt before I even order business cards," Hedeman whispered, looking down the chute where McLanahan had passed.

  Joe didn't respond. There was no need to.

  They Waited for Deputy McLanahan in the clear of a saddle slope that was bordered on each side by juniper pine. Commas of snow from that morning lay in long pools of shadow cast by boulders and trees. Groves of aspen were bright yellow with fingers of crimson coursing through them. The evening sun made the colors intense, almost throbbing. Joe thought of the contrast of the last few hours. At Crazy Woman Creek, he had seemed crowded by admirers and he felt like a member of a powerful force. Here, in the cool darkening stillness of the Bighorns, he felt tiny and insignificant.

  "I'm gonna be real sore tomorrow," bellowed McLanahan as he approached.

  Joe noticed Wacey shift his weight sharply in his saddle, a familiar sign of irritation.

  "When you're sneaking up on somebody, you might consider keeping your voice low," Wacey hissed as McLanahan approached. "It's an old, sly Indian trick. We're assuming that the people we are sneaking up on have ears mounted on each side of their head."

  Deputy McLanahan, clearly angry, started to say something but caught himself. Wacey was not fun to argue with.

  "You're slow and we're late," Wacey continued in the low hiss. "We aren't going to get there with any light. We're going to have to cold camp up here and go into the outfitters' camp at dawn to see if we can catch anyone."

  McLanahan's jaw was tight, and his eyes glistened. Joe felt sorry for the deputy. Much of the delay had been the deputy's fault but Hedeman was pressing the point.

  "Starting late ain't my fault. Barnum read me a list of supplies to bring that was as long as your arm," McLanahan finally said, and his voice caught.

  "The hell it ain't," Wacey answered, turning away and nudging his horse forward.

  "Don't worry about it," Joe assured McLanahan. "Let it go."

  "He don't need to say that," McLanahan answered, his bottom lip trembling. "Not that way."

  Don't cry, for God's sake, thought Joe. He clicked his tongue, and the buckskin walked. He left McLanahan alone to compose himself, and he wondered what was with Wacey. Wacey seemed uncommonly irritable. He hoped it didn't have to do with the fact that the success or failure of this venture would likely become an issue in the future sheriff's race against Barnum.

  They Picketed their horses by the blue light of fluorescent battery lamps and spread out sleeping bags tight against a granite bluff. They were close enough to the elk camp, Wacey said, that a fire was out of the question.

  Marybeth had made a half-dozen ham sandwiches, and they ate them in the dark. McLanahan passed around a pint of Jim Beam bourbon, which seemed to improve Hedeman's mood, at least a little.

  "I missed my son's football practice tonight," McLanahan said unexpectantly.

  "I'm the defensive line coach."

  "You have a son?" Joe asked. McLanahan was just too young for that, he thought.

  "Well, he's not actually my son." McLanahan sounded a bit sheepish. "He's the son of my fiancee. We're livin' together. She's been married a couple of times before. She's quite a bit older."

  "Oh."

  Wacey snorted. "What in the hell does that have to do with the price of milk?"

  "First practice I missed," McLanahan said. "Twelve Sleep plays Buffalo on Friday. Home opener."

  "The mighty Buffalo Bison, our nemesis," Hedeman said sarcastically. Then: "Why don't you go find your radio and tell Barnum where we're at and what we're doin'. All those folks down there will want a report so they can spend the rest of the evening second-guessing us. Let him know we'll move on the elk camp before dawn tomorrow."

  McLanahan nodded and wandered away to dig through his panniers.

  "Jesus," Wacey complained after McLanahan was gone. "Havin' him on the payroll is like havin' two good men gone."

  "Take it easy on him," Joe said.

  Wacey grunted and chewed his sandwich. "I'll be interested to find out what was in that cooler Ote had with him."

  "Yup."

  "I suppose it coulda been anything," Wacey continued. "Of course it might not mean a goddamn thing in the end, I guess."

  Joe nodded. Then he reeled off the number of ranch houses between Crazy Woman Creek and the Pickett home that Ote Keeley could have gone to for help.

  "There was a reason he came to our house," Joe said. "I just don't know what it could be."

  "You're gonna send that cooler and those shit pellets to Cheyenne to get it checked out?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then we'll know," Wacey said.

  "Then we'll know," Joe echoed.

  "Could be nothin'," Wacey said.

  "Could be one of those things we just never know, and the only guy who knows is stupid, dead Ote ."

  "Maybe Ote was bringing you a couple of beers," Deputy McLanahan said from the dark as he approached.

  "Maybe that's what was in that cooler. Maybe he thought you guys would pop a couple and forgive each other."

  "Excuse me, McLanahan," Wacey said. "Did you get Barnum?"

  McLanahan told Joe and Wacey that he had talked with Sheriff Bar
num and told him of their status. He said Barnum had located the helicopter and the earliest it could get back up to Saddlestring was tomorrow afternoon. There had been no sightings as yet of the other two outfitters, Kyle Lensegrav or Calvin Mendes.

  "Guess who else was down there at command central?" McLanahan asked, the light reflecting off his teeth.

  Neither spoke.

  "Vern Dunnegan!" McLanahan's voice was a mix of excitement and awe.

  Joe noted that Wacey had looked sharply at him to check his reaction. Joe didn't flinch.

  "Vern says, 'Be careful, boys. Make me proud.'"

  "What's Barnum say?" Joe asked.

  "Barnum says, 'Don't fuck up and make me look bad.'" McLanahan laughed.

  Vern, like Barnum, was a kind of legend--the most popular and influential game warden ever in the area, as well as a force in the community. The kind of guy who had coffee with the city councilmen at 10 each morning in the Alpine Cafe and who was not only tougher than hell on poachers and game violators but was also known to fix a few tickets and let a few locals off the hook. Even though he was primarily a state employee, Vern always like to think of himself as an entrepreneur. He boasted that he had 31 years of business experience. Vern was always involved with something in town, whether it was the local shopper newspaper, a video store, satellite dishes, or a local radio station. Vern always owned a share and had a partner or two. For whatever reasons, the partners always left town and Vern ended up with the enterprise. Then he sold it and moved on to the next venture.

  Some said he was a good businessman. Most said he was nakedly greedy, and he systematically looted each company until the partners left out of disgust and fear. Vern Dunnegan had cast a big shadow. So big, Maryberh had said, that Joe had yet to see much sunlight in the Twelve Sheep Valley as far as the community went. Vern had supervised both Wacey and Joe, and he had tutored them both in the ways of the field. No one knew more about the ways and means of poachers and game law violators--or about the vile side of humans out-of-doors--than Vern Dunnegan.

  It was Vern's shadow that had probably prevented Joe from being notified that morning about the incident in the campground at Crazy Woman Creek. Vern had resigned six months earlier to go to work for a large energy company as a field executive in "local relations," whatever that was. The rumor at the time was that Vern had more than tripled his salary.