by C. J. Box
While fixing signs and fence, he had seen no other people, which was how he wanted it. Instead, he stewed and thought about what had happened. He should never have challenged Hank without anything concrete to challenge him with. He had tipped his hand, lashed out because of the Miller’s weasel. Hank was much too experienced in trench warfare, and Joe came off like a rank private. Looking back, he thought of the look in Bill Monroe’s eye, a look of peeled-back hatred that still gave Joe the chills when he recalled it. And the humiliation of being beaten up hung over his head, darkening the sun. He was ashamed, humiliated, violated. The worst thing was when Lucy looked at him at the breakfast table and made a face similar to the one she had displayed when Maxine vomited a bag of jerky on the carpet. Or when Sheridan cocked her head to the side and asked, “Somebody beat you up? Jeez, Dad.” It didn’t help that Marybeth was quietly disdainful of what had happened, shaking her head and expelling a little puff of breath every time she looked at him.
EACH DAY SINCE the beating, Joe had called headquarters and asked for Randy Pope when his e-mails went unanswered. Joe wanted authorization to proceed on the 800-POACHER tip on Hank Scarlett. The director was out of state at a national conference in Cleveland, the receptionist said.
“They don’t have telephones in Cleveland?” Joe asked.
That morning, before leaving his house for the field, Joe called again and got a message on the receptionist’s phone saying she was “either on another line or away from her desk.”
“Joe Pickett here,” he said on her voice mail. “Again. Calling for Randy Pope. Again. Wondering if he realizes he has crossed over the line from bureaucratic micromanagement to obstruction of justice.”
Joe had also called the sheriff’s department throughout the week to check on the status of the investigation into Bill Monroe.
“That Bill done hit the highway” was how Sheriff Kyle McLanahan sized it up.
JOE GLANCED OVER at Sheridan as he drove. Her overnight bag and rolled-up sleeping bag were on the floor. She looked back with an expression that said, “What?”
“I’m taking you to the main ranch house, right?” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And there will be other girls there?”
“A few.”
“And the reason we’re going to the main ranch house, not Julie’s father’s house, is that she actually lives at the main house, right?”
Sheridan nodded her head, as if she were engaged in a competition and speaking would make her lose points.
“Sheridan, I’m not crazy about this idea,” Joe said.
“I know,” Sheridan said.
“It was one of Hank’s men . . .” He couldn’t say who beat me up.
“I know,” she said. “But I’ve never even seen Julie’s father, Hank, on Uncle Arlen’s side of the ranch.”
Joe cringed inside. He didn’t want his daughter to think he was scared of Hank, or Hank’s man, and it wasn’t just fright anymore. He knew he was capable of violence if he saw Hank or Bill Monroe again.
“I still don’t see why you couldn’t have had Julie to our house for a sleepover,” he said.
“Because she invited me and some other girls,” Sheridan said. “That’s how it works.”
Joe sighed. Recently, he had begun to encounter some of the same intransigent behavior from Sheridan that Marybeth had been dealing with for the past year. Sheridan was closemouthed, sullen, and, more often than not, sarcastic. Where had that little chatterbox gone? The one who verbalized everything? The little girl who once provided play-by-play commentary of her own life in wild bouquets of words? Joe had to admit that her moods hadn’t bothered him as much when they’d been directed at her mother. But now that they extended to Joe too he didn’t like it. He always had a special relationship with his older daughter. Deep down, he thought it was still there. But they had to get through this early-teen thing. At the recent parent-teacher conference, Sheridan’s English teacher, Mrs. Gilbert, asked him and Marybeth if they knew what was worse than an eighth-grade girl. They shrugged, and the teacher said, “Nothing on earth.”
“ARLEN WILL BE around the whole time, right?” Joe asked.
Sheridan did a quick eye-roll, so fast he would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. “Yes. And so will lots of employees. Not to mention Uncle Wyatt.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t mention Uncle Wyatt,” Joe said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “He’s kind of an odd guy, from what I can tell.”
Sheridan said, “I’ll avoid him. I always do.”
“What about her mother?” Joe asked. He’d heard that Julie’s mother, Hank’s ex-wife, lived in a small cabin on the ranch in order to stay involved in Julie’s life.
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“Sheridan,” Joe said, exasperated, “what do you know?”
Which really made her clam up.
Joe said, “Sorry,” and kept driving. He knew Marybeth had extracted enough information out of Sheridan to give the sleepover her stamp of approval. But he wanted to know the details too.
As he drove, the motor hiccupped and the check-engine light came on.
“What’s wrong with the truck?” Sheridan asked.
“It’s a piece of crap,” Joe said.
THE MAIN RANCH house was a lumbering stone castle of a home with sharp gables and eaves and the look of a building that belonged not in Wyoming on a river but on some country estate in England. Towering hundred-year-old cottonwoods shrouded the home on all sides, the spring leaves having burst out just that week. Joe approached the home from the east on a firm graded and graveled three-track that snaked through heavy trees. He could see assorted out-buildings through the timber; old sheds, a tall barn that was falling down, an old icehouse built of logs.
As they crossed a bridge over a little stream made manic by snowmelt, Joe saw what looked like an old chicken coop tucked away in an alcove facing the road, and noticed the windows had glass in them and the roof had a new set of shingles. It puzzled him that the Scarletts would maintain a chicken coop, and he was about to say so when Sheridan said: “That’s where Uncle Wyatt lives.”
Joe stopped the truck.
“Wyatt lives in a chicken coop?”
“That’s what Julie told me,” Sheridan said. “He keeps odd hours, so instead of waking everybody up all the time, he lives in there. I guess he doesn’t mind.”
Joe looked at his daughter. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Sheridan nodded grimly. She was of an age when the last thing she wanted to do was admit that her parents might be right.
“Julie’s my friend,” she said.
“We can still back out,” Joe said.
“No. I’m not doing that.”
ARLEN GREETED THEM in the ranch yard wearing an apron and cleaning his hands with a towel. There was a smudge of white flour on his forehead. He strode across the yard and stuck his hand out to Joe, who climbed out of his pickup. Julie was right behind Arlen, beaming at Sheridan and running around to her side of the truck.
“My God, your face,” Arlen said, booming.
Joe looked over. Sheridan and Julie were packing the sleeping bag and overnight bag into the house and chattering. He wanted to talk to Arlen but didn’t want the girls overhearing him.
For a few moments, Joe had forgotten about his injuries. After shaking Arlen’s hand, he reached up and touched his closed eye with the tips of his fingers. Now that Arlen mentioned it, his face hurt again.
“That’s what Bill did, eh?” Arlen asked, reaching out and cupping Joe’s chin in his big hand so he could look closely at the damage. Joe didn’t like another man touching him that way and turned away as if checking on Sheridan. That was something about the Scarletts that grated on Joe, he realized. These people thought they owned everything in the valley, even the game warden’s face.
“Guess they haven’t picked him up yet, huh?” Arlen said. “Does Sheridan know who did it?”
> “Nope,” Joe said. “Not by name.”
Arlen said, “When Bill Monroe showed up a couple of weeks ago he came to me first to ask for a job. My impression of him was that he was trouble with a capital T. I turned out to be right. I guess when I sent him on his way he drove up the road and Hank hired him.”
Joe nodded.
“I’m a pretty good judge of men,” Arlen said. “Hank’s got a couple of other new men over there I’d put firmly in the ‘thug’ or ‘cutthroat’ category. If I see Bill slinking around the ranch anywhere, I’ll call right away.”
“Arlen, let me ask you something,” Joe said. “How safe is it here right now? I mean, with the problems between you and Hank, and Hank’s new men? Do you feel okay about things?”
“Joe, it’s perfectly safe around here,” Arlen said, his voice low. “In fact, I’d wager it’s safer than just about anyplace I can think of. Safer than your own house, if you don’t mind my saying so. I heard about that little gift on your door . . .”
Joe felt his face flush when Arlen said it. He’d never liked the implication that he couldn’t protect his own family, and Arlen seemed to be implying that, if indirectly.
“Sure, Hank wouldn’t throw me a rope if I were drowning,” Arlen said. “But despite everything that’s wrong with that guy, and it’s a lot, he desperately loves his daughter. I don’t blame him, the girl is a gem. Hank still pines for Doris, his ex-wife. Doris is in the kitchen in there now, helping me bake some nice bread,” Arlen nodded toward the main house. “Hank wouldn’t let anything bad happen to his wife or his daughter and by extension, to her friends. He wants them to think he’s a good guy. He needs allies. He believes one of these days they’ll all come to their senses and move back to his place.” Arlen smiled at the absurdity of the notion.
“Besides,” he said, arching his eyebrows, “not every man on Hank’s payroll is loyal to Hank, if you know what I mean. If Hank was going to try something, I’d know about it well in advance.”
Arlen’s words had the ring of truth, especially that last bit of news. Arlen was a schemer, and he obviously had an informant in Hank’s camp.
“What’s the deal with Wyatt?” Joe asked, turning his head toward the road they had just come in on. “Sheridan said he lives in that chicken coop.”
Arlen laughed. “It’s much nicer than that, Joe. Wyatt’s got it all fixed up now. You make it sound like he’s sleeping in there with chickens. There are no chickens in there anymore.”
“Still . . .”
“It’s odd, I’ll grant you that,” Arlen said. “But Wyatt has always marched to the beat of his own drummer. The man just doesn’t sleep, or when he does, it’s for an hour at a time. He used to keep us up all night wandering around the house, puttering, doing his hobbies. Wyatt has a lot of interests, and almost all of them”—Arlen rolled his eyes, then settled them back on Joe—“stink. Everything Wyatt does stinks.”
Despite himself, Joe smiled at the way Arlen said it.
“He’s either making model planes and spacecraft, which smell of glue and oil paint, or he’s tanning hides or reloading bullets. Taxidermy is his newest obsession. Those chemical smells can get to you.”
JULIE AND SHERIDAN came back out through the front door with an adult woman in tow. She was dark and attractive, Joe thought, but there was something hard about her. Her eyes took him in. Her expression didn’t reveal what her conclusion was about him.
“I’m Doris Scarlett, Julie’s mother,” she said, extending her hand.
“Joe Pickett.” Her fingers were long and cool. She didn’t wear a wedding ring.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “We’re going to get these girls to bake some bread, and then some cookies. We thought we’d have a few more girls coming out, so we have more than enough dough to roll in there.”
“Lindsay, Sara, and Tori can’t make it,” Julie told Sheridan, who had caught what Doris had said about the other girls.
Joe wondered if the other parents were concerned about the situation at the Scarletts, or if it was happenstance that the other girls weren’t there. He thought, as he often thought: What would Marybeth do here? He decided Marybeth would proceed with what they’d already decided, that Sheridan could spend the night with her best friend. Arlen had assured Joe things were fine. And they appeared fine.
“Nice to meet you too,” Joe said to her. She smiled and nodded, and turned and went back into the house. Joe could tell the introduction was for his benefit, at Sheridan’s instigation, to assure him that things were okay, that she and Julie were well supervised.
Arlen said, “When Hank and Doris started having trouble, Mother let Doris and Julie move across the ranch to the guest house. Hank doesn’t like it one bit, but at least he can see his daughter from time to time. Mother really doted on that girl.”
Arlen stood there, something obviously on his mind, making it awkward for Joe to turn and go.
Arlen said, “Now I’ve got a question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Fire away.”
“I heard someone called and reported my brother Hank had committed some pretty serious game violations. That he had illegal mounts and species displayed at his house. Do you know anything about this?”
Joe thought: Now I know for sure who made the call. But he said, “I got the report. I’m waiting on authorization to proceed.” It embarrassed Joe to say that.
Arlen searched Joe’s face. “Authorization?”
Joe knew he was on thin ice as he proceeded, Arlen being a new Game and Fish commissioner. But why protect Randy Pope?
“You might have heard,” Joe said, as diplomatically as possible, “the agency director has assigned himself the job of being my immediate supervisor. He reserves the authority to okay my actions and duties.”
“And he hasn’t done so,” Arlen said, his voice cold.
“No sir, in this case . . .”
Arlen turned on his heel and walked back to his house. “Wait here,” he said over his shoulder to Joe. “I’ll be right back.”
Joe leaned back against his pickup, wondering what kind of trouble he’d just gotten himself in now.
SHERIDAN CAME OUT of the house to hug him good-bye. As he pulled her into him, he leaned down and whispered, “I can still take you home.”
She stepped back and raised her eyes to him. “Dad, I’m the only girl who showed up. I can’t leave. Don’t you understand?”
Joe looked at her, wanted to insist she get her things and climb back in, but he saw his growing daughter in an admirable new light.
“Then at least promise to call immediately if you need anything, okay?”
“That would be easier to do if I had a cell phone,” she said, her eyes triumphant.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Joe said, sighing.
Arlen appeared at a window on the second floor of the main house holding a telephone. He leaned out of the window, and gestured a thumbs-up to Joe.
“What’s that about?” Sheridan asked.
“Hank,” Joe said.
JOE SLOWED AS he cruised by Wyatt’s chicken coop. The place looked dark and buttoned down, the window curtains pulled tight.
His cell phone burred and he plucked it from its mount on the dash and said, “Joe Pickett.”
“Hold for Director Pope,” said Pope’s administrative assistant.
Joe smiled. That hadn’t taken long.
“Pickett,” Pope said brusquely, “I want you to proceed with that 800-POACHER tip as soon as possible.”
“Gee,” Joe said, “what’s the hurry?”
Silence. Joe could imagine Pope gritting his teeth, having just concluded his call from Arlen.
“Just get right on it,” Pope said.
“It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“What do you mean it will have to wait?”
“I’ve got to get home and write up my daily report,” Joe said. “My supervisor demands it by five P.M.”
“Oh, for God�
��s sake . . .”
“And you need to get me a new truck. This thing is ready to fall apart,” Joe said, looking at the temperature gauge, which was in the red. “I don’t think it’ll last the month.”
“Another truck!” he said, as if Joe were asking Pope to pay for it out of his own pocket instead of simply assigning another from the fleet. “We’ve had this discussion, I believe. You’ve damaged more government property than any other single game warden in the state, as you know. The damage case file we’ve got on you is . . .”
“I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up,” Joe said, tapping the phone against the side of his head before punching off.
His visit to Hank would need to wait, Joe said to himself, until his daughter was off the Thunderhead Ranch.
14
THE WORD THAT POPPED INTO SHERIDAN PICKETT’S mind that evening, as the Scarletts sat down to dinner in the old dining room of the main ranch house, was Gothic. Ranch Gothic. Not the kind of Gothic she was used to, like those black-clad Goths in school who painted their nails and lips black and looked amazingly silly in P.E., but the older definition of Gothic, the kind she’d read about in novels. Until now, that definition had always been beyond her grasp, because she’d never encountered it. She never thought there was anyplace in Wyoming ancient enough or sinister enough to be considered Gothic. Until now. An image of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations wearing her wedding dress and riding a horse across the meadow outside popped into Sheridan’s head. She almost giggled at the thought but she was too on edge.
A ROILING BUT invisible cloud seemed to hang in the air of the dining room and throughout the house. She imagined the cloud to be made up of violent past emotions. The whole place, she thought, could use a good airing out.