Claws

by Ozzie Cheek

  “Of course I came. I’ve been to their house and gotten to know Mandy and her children, and I feel –” Katy stopped as suddenly as if she had used up her word allotment for the day. Her eyes dampened. “I just spoke to Mandy. She invited me to this – this whatever it is.”

  Without an actual body, no procession to the cemetery was planned. Wade’s remains would be buried quietly and privately. Instead, people would gather at the grieving widow’s house to eat, drink, and offer condolences. “It’s a country thing,” Jackson said. “Sort of like a wake.”

  “In Botswana they don’t say a person is dead. They say someone is ‘late’. I know it refers to the departed, the late so-and-so, but I think of it meaning that the person will show up any moment but just hasn’t arrived.”

  “Never thought of that. But like you said, things work differently in Africa. Good and bad, truth and –”

  “Ask me, Jackson. You want to.” Katy paused, but Jackson said nothing. “Okay then, I’ll just tell you. I did not know about the court ruling or ARK coming here today.”

  Jackson studied her face and her body posture.

  “Stan didn’t tell me about it, because I didn’t tell him about Kali being pregnant.” Katy shuffled her feet as she spoke. She had on black spike heels. “I knew if I told him, he’d rush up here to capture Kali and the cubs. And I was right. When he found out, he came running.”

  “And how’d he find out if you didn’t tell him?”

  “A man named Eagle Cassel.”

  Oh hell! Jackson had told Stilts Venable about Kali, and Stilts must have told Eagle. “Eagle Cassel?”

  “He’s letting ARK set up their cages on his land. I guess he found them motel rooms somewhere too.”

  Jackson nodded. He knew that one of Eagle’s cousin’s owned a little motel on the highway about twenty miles north. “So now you and Stan can team up to find Kali.”

  “Stan’s mad at me,” Katy said. “Besides, he told me he already had some big plan, and it didn’t include me.”

  “What plan?”

  She shrugged. “Some way to get the baby ligers.”

  “Which nobody has even seen yet.”

  That’s not true, she thought. She had found a dead cub, and she knew Kali likely gave birth to more than one. Whatever she told him now about Kali, Jackson might not believe her; even if he did, he wouldn’t forgive her. But if she didn’t say anything … “Jackson,” she said, “I –”

  “Great! You’re still here.” Jesse appeared from behind a pickup. She had on a black pencil skirt, charcoal gray sweater, and pumps that had a reputation. Jackson thought she looked fifteen going on twenty-five.

  She smiled and Jackson said “Wow!” and then Jesse said, “Daddy, Shane won’t go to Mandy’s house so can I ride with you?” Jesse had babysat the Placett kids for the past few years, whenever Wade and Mandy had a night out.

  “Your mother’s not going?”

  “With Dell.” She screwed up her face to let the world know what she thought of riding with them.

  “I have to stop by the police station first, Jesse.”

  “Ride with me,” Katy said. “I’d like the company.”

  Jesse smiled and said, “Sure. Great. Just say when.”

  The police radio in Jackson’s Grand Cherokee squawked.

  “How about now?” Katy said, and then looked at Jackson and added, “We’ll finish talking later, okay?”

  Jackson watched them walk off together. Did he believe Katy? He wanted to. That was the problem.

  There were two-dozen vehicles including his Ford 350 parked along the road leading to the Placett farmhouse. Jackson got lucky and found a spot close in when a big Dodge Ram pulled out. He noticed Dell’s Escalade parked next to the house, one tire in a flowerbed.

  Jackson exchanged hellos with a group of men standing around smoking, saw Jesse and Katy talking together beside the house, and then he heard yelling from inside.

  As he climbed the steps, he heard Mandy saying, “I can’t handle seeing either of you right now.”

  Dell said, “We’re both so sorry, Mandy.”

  Nobody paid attention to Jackson as he eased inside.

  “Everybody’s sorry today, Dell.” Mandy looked daggers at Iris. “Sorry comes cheap at funerals.”

  “Mandy,” Jackson said, drawing closer. “This isn’t going to help you or your children.” He caught Dell’s eyes and tilted his head toward the door.

  “What’s wrong, mommy?” Josh said, coming up to her. Josh tried to wrap his short arms around Mandy’s hips but settled for what he could grab onto. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything,” Mandy said. She rubbed her son’s head, but she looked at Jackson. “I never expected much from those two.” She snorted something between a laugh and a scoff as Dell nudged Iris out the door. “But you should have stopped them. Stopped this crazy lion hunt plan.”

  “I know,” Jackson said.

  “You told me we’d be safe.”

  “I know.” He reached out and touched her arm.

  “Leave me alone!” she shrieked.

  Josh burst into tears and flung himself at Jackson, his small fists pummeling Jackson’s thighs and belly and even his groin. “Leave mommy alone! Leave mommy alone!”

  “What do we do now?” she said, peeling her son off Jackson and pressing him against her. “What do we do now?”

  A few minutes later Jackson walked out of the house, stood on the porch beside Jesse and Katy, and watched Dell and Iris maneuver through traffic and drive off.

  “Why is she being so mean to you and mom?” Jesse asked.

  “Because she hurts more than she can endure,” Jackson said. He peered off in the distance at a cloud of dust moving rapidly toward them. Through the dust he could make out the swirling lights of a Buckhorn police car. Jackson felt like the man in this movie he once had seen where the same things happen to him over and over, the day repeating.

  What now? Oh Christ! What now?

  When the Dodge was close enough, he saw Tucker Thule behind the wheel. Tucker killed the swirling lights and slammed the cruiser to a stop. Jackson hurried to the car as Tucker climbed out, saying, “Chief, they found him.”

  Jackson felt his stomach drop. “Little Eric?”

  “No, no. Ronnie. They found Ronnie Greathouse.”

  Thirty

  Vehicles lined the county road near Brown’s Creek. Fewer than half were police cars. Skip Tibbits was the first officer Jackson saw when he arrived. He was clearing a spot for an ambulance, while Deborah Dawson and Armando Diaz wrangled eight skittish pintos out of the way. Skip’s team, the group using Deborah’s horses to search the area for little Eric Stutz, had found the body. Jackson left his Jeep at the end of the line and walked back to where people were gathered below the two-lane asphalt.

  On the hillside three men wrestled a mangled Harley-Davidson half-buried in dirt and weeds. Some thirty feet away, other people surrounded a body. In addition to Skip and Tucker and search volunteers, Jackson spotted two state troopers and the state police detective Jessup had sent to town a day earlier. Judy Gatwick was mid-thirties and built like a fireplug. Jackson had met her briefly and arranged for her to talk to Tucker. Gatwick and everyone else wore surgical masks or some other facial covering to lessen the smell. Despite the strong odor, there wasn’t enough body left to fill a baby’s casket. Jackson wouldn’t have known he was looking at the body of Ronnie Greathouse if Gatwick hadn’t shown him the driver’s license and State Trooper identification that had been found nearby.

  “Judging from the skid marks,” Gatwick told Jackson and Sheriff Midden, who arrived a moment after Jackson, “he lost control of his bike, and the crash either killed him or he laid out here until some animals did the job.”

  Gatwick took photos and measurements, and after the coroner officially pronounced the obvious, the body was removed. Tucker Thule watched the removal and wept. Earlier, Jackson had seen him off in the bushes vomiting. He spoke with Tu
cker now and sent him back to town. Then he saw the country sheriff beckoning him and joined him.

  Paul Midden was leaning against his white Chevy SUV. It had a big county sheriff’s star on both front doors. Midden informed Jackson that he had brought in a team of search dogs and their handler from Atomic City, but the dogs didn’t pick up any scent of Eric Stutz except in the campground. He asked, “Now, what’s that suggest to you?”

  Jackson thought about it for a moment. “That Eric left there in a vehicle that was parked close by.”

  Midden bobbed his head. “We’ve broadened the Amber Alert. Checking motels and convenience stores in a fifty-mile radius. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Not much else to do,” Jackson said, “except start looking for a fresh grave.”

  “There’s a lot of woods to cover ’round here.”

  “Eric’s parents, they were hunting the day he went missing. Might be a good to start wherever they were.”

  Midden groaned and spat tobacco juice. “Aw, hell.”

  After Midden left, Jackson called the police station. He told Sadie Pope what he wanted. He waited while the dispatcher/secretary dug around in his desk for an address book and found Gary Peterson’s phone number. Jackson’s former neighbor in Fort Collins, and the man responsible for Jackson becoming a policeman, was now a homicide detective with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He also had become a born again Christian and anytime they talked, he eventually tried to convert Jackson. Still, Gary Peterson was the best contact Jackson had in Colorado.

  Peterson was at home when Jackson reached him. Once they caught up on families and careers, Jackson outlined the details of the Eric Stutz case and asked Peterson for his help. “I was thinking I might get in one last fishing trip before snow,” Peterson said. “Now you’ve given me an excuse to go fly fishing in the mountains. There’s that butcher shop I like up in Kremmling too.”

  Iris flagged down Jackson as he circled the downtown square. He pulled over and lowered the window on the driver’s side. Iris was too short and the Jeep too high for her to lean in the window, but she did her best.

  “I heard that lions killed Ronnie Greathouse.”

  Jackson nodded. “State boys are handling it.”

  “This injunction puts all of us in more danger.”

  Jackson thought, it was really you and Dell who made it more dangerous when you sent the troopers home. But all he said was, “Maybe you can stop it. You’re a lawyer.”

  “And you’re Chief of Police, so you could make life inconvenient for these ARK people.”

  “What exactly should I do, shoot them?” he asked.

  “That’ll work for me.”

  “Unless they break the law, I can’t bother them.”

  “Trespassing. Speeding. Unlawful assembly. You can think of something. If you don’t, other people will.”

  “Vigilante justice?” said Jackson. “So we’re back to the wild, wild west?”

  “We never left it,” Iris said and walked off.

  Jackson still wore his blue funeral suit when he entered the police station. He planned to change before paying a visit to Stan and his ARK crew, but the moment he saw Major Jessup and Detective Gatwick, his plans changed. Jackson offered them something to drink, since he badly needed a cup of coffee, and then they went into his office.

  “Any thoughts about what happened?” Jessup said.

  In his mind Jackson ticked off the body count: Ted, Dolly, Ed, Wade, and now Ronnie. “I think if the killing keeps up,” he said, “I’m going to wear out my dark suit.”

  For a while they talked about Ronnie Greathouse. Then they talked about the lion hunt and what the court ruling would mean. Jessup ended a rant against the Colorado judge by saying, “I can send a few troopers to help. Best I can do without going upstairs.”

  “Thanks. We could use some help.” Jackson paused. “But you didn’t come here just to offer me troopers.”

  “Not exactly.” Jessup sipped the tea he had made from Sadie’s personal stash. “We think we’ve deciphered some of Greathouse’s notebook.”

  Jackson nodded and waited. A moment later Jessup handed him a slip of paper. A line of initials ran down the left side of the paper. “No names?” Jackson said.

  “Thought you might be able to figure out who some of these people are by their initials.”

  “You’re sure the letters refer to people?”

  “Nope,” Jessup said. “But it seems likely.”

  Gatwick piped up. “I might know one of them.” She said the name of a man she identified as a truck driver in Rexburg. “His name came up in a case I handled.”

  Jackson stared at the list: F. B. could be Fred Bulcher or Fern Bruce or Frank Brotherton … and T. T. could be Tim Thunder or Terri Tomms or … Tucker Thule. Fred, Ronnie, and Tucker. Christ! “I’ll check into it,” Jackson said. “Let you know if I come up with anything.”

  The state cops left, and the afternoon faded into sundown by the time Jackson was free of duties and phoned Katy. His call went to voice mail. He left her a message. Then he went into the break room and turned on the TV. He ran through the channels looking for news about the lion hunt or the search for Eric. He knew Sheriff Midden would be talking to the press as soon as he had something.

  He didn’t find Midden on television, but he did find Eric’s parents. Rene wore a nice dress and heavy makeup, and Rodney sported a fresh haircut. They made a tearful plea to the public and offered a $10,000 reward for any information that led to finding their son. They thanked an anonymous donor for the money and provided their contact information for anyone who wanted to send donations so that they could increase the reward. “Sis-boom-bah!” muttered Jackson. He was reminded of a couple of hustlers in the 1990s that used a pulpit to fleece people. It took him a minute to recall the names: Jim and Tammy Baker. He shut off the TV.

  That’s when the call about the fire came in.

  Eagle Cassel’s doublewide sat above a dirt road a mile off State Highway 34. Jackson parked behind a lone fire truck and Tucker’s cruiser. Half a dozen vehicles were scattered along the road. The ARK trucks were in a field across from Cassel’s house trailer on an acre of timberland that Cassel also owned. The smaller of the two trucks, the one that had once had been a U-Haul, looked like a piece of burnt toast. The fire was out but the engine block still gasped with smoke and steam. The larger truck and the ARK van had been moved a safe distance away.

  “What’ve we got here?” Jackson asked the fire chief.

  “Arson.” Hank Dow was a veteran fireman from Boise.

  “Somebody torched it?”

  “Yep.” The fire chief spat. “Eagle’s family was gone and these bunny-lovers, they were in town having a party.” Dow grinned. “Careless of them to leave like that.”

  “Let me guess,” Jackson said. “You can tell where the fire started and how it was done, but you can’t find a single clue to the identity of the arsonist?”

  Dow spat again. “Professional job. Nobody local.”

  “Thanks, Hank,” Jackson said and walked over to Stan Ely and his small band of merrymakers. Stan was livid and demanded police protection. Jackson listened to him patiently and then gave him the name of a private security firm in Idaho Falls. “I can’t spare any officers to watch your operation,” he told Ely.

  Jackson also talked to a small woman that he at first mistook for a boy and large man that he might have mistaken for Jerry Garcia had he not known that the rock idol was dead. The rest of ARK’s crew was at the motel.

  “I told’em they should’ve expected trouble,” Tucker told Jackson a few minutes later.

  Jackson led Tucker away from the others. “How’d you get here so fast?” he asked.

  “I don’t live but five miles away.”

  Tucker was off duty. He was dressed in civilian clothes. Jackson thought he smelled gas on Tucker, but he also smelled smoke and other scents he couldn’t identify.

  “Well, sinc
e you’re here, get the preliminary report from Hank,” Jackson said. “Then I want the truck towed to town and impounded. I’ll have somebody else examine it.”

  “Impounded? But we don’t have an impound lot.”

  “We do now,” Jackson said.

  Thirty-One

  When Stan Ely showed up at her front door, Iris barked, “What the hell do you want?”

  “Same thing you want,” Stan replied.

  “You got a lot of nerve coming here,” Iris said, but she stepped aside and let Stan enter. “Anyway, I’m in a hurry. There’s a gym full of pissed-off hunters waiting to shoot me if I’m late.” While she spoke, Iris walked through the living room and into the dining room where a bottle of tequila and a shot glass were on the table.

  “I wouldn’t mind a drink,” Stan said. He sat down. “Tequila will do fine.” Thirty minutes later, Stan left in his dark green Ford van. He followed Iris’s sporty Cadillac to the Buckhorn High School gymnasium.

  The gym wasn’t as packed as on Monday, but even so, a few hundred people had come. None of them looked happy to be there. The moment they saw Stan Ely, the gym filled with boos and shouts. Iris quickly hustled Stan to the stage where Dell and most of the town council were seated.

  Iris asked for quiet and repeated her words in the microphone until the crowd settled. Once they did, she said, “Now, I know everyone here is as angry as I am.” This time she talked through the groans and jeers. “You all think you’ve been cheated out of a chance to win the prize money. And I know you want your thousand dollars back.” This brought another uproar. “You’ll get it too.”

  The crowd jeered and yelled out “when?”, and Iris waited for them to be quiet again before she continued.

  “Or you could trade your lion hunting license for a chance to win a new and bigger prize.”