by C. J. Box
"I tried to call from my motel, but the phone wouldn't work."
"Where are you staying?"
Joe looked up. What was the name of it? Jesus ... One of those old western television series names.
"You don't know?"
"The Rifleman," he said finally, feeling stupid.
"Okay ..." There was an edge of suspicion in her voice, and Joe didn't like it.
"Marybeth, I couldn't call earlier, all right? I'm sorry. There's a lot going on here and I got wrapped up in it. I'll call tomorrow and we can catch up, okay?"
"I'm wide awake now, Joe," her voice hostile.
His cell phone blinked off. He cursed and stared at it as if that would make it come back on. The charger was in his truck, and he started to get up, but stopped at the door. He wasn't exactly sure where he'd put it, and looking for it would take a while. He was tired, and resentful of her again. What was she accusing him of? Didn't she know he had a job to do? Why was it necessary to pile on the guilt? He got lonely, just like she did. All he wanted was for her to say she loved him, she missed him, and that everything was going to be fine.
He sighed. He'd call tomorrow, when he had some time, when he'd gathered his thoughts. Maybe before the funeral.
He picked up notebook #1 and began to read. Soon, the writing began to swim off the page.
JOE AWOKE TO the sound of gunshots. He sat up quickly, disoriented for a moment. He glanced around, remembering where he was, surprised that he was still dressed and the bedside lamp was on. The opened notebook was on his lap.
No, it wasn't a gun. It was something on the other side of the motel room wall. Joe stood, rubbing his eyes. He looked at his watch: 4:45 A.M. He heard rustling in the next room, then another bang. The sound was coming through his closet. He opened the closet door, where he'd hung his uniform shirt and jacket on hangers that couldn't be removed from the rod.
He sighed, knowing now what had happened. Someone in the next room was packing up their clothing from the closet. Because the hangers couldn't be taken off the rod, as each piece was removed the rod swung back and banged into the wall.
Cheap motels, Joe thought. State-rate motels. Marybeth probably imagined him in someplace much finer. Maybe he should call her now and tell her how great it was.
He shook his head, ashamed at his thoughts, while he gathered up the notebooks and papers on the bed and stowed them neatly in his briefcase. He brushed his teeth, folded his clothes, turned off the light, and crawled into bed.
That's when something about Will's office hit him. Will Jensen was a meticulous man, from what Joe knew about him. His notes were precise, detailed, well reasoned. His office was spare and utilitarian, without a single frill or anything personal in it. Will was known for his even temper, his calmness. He was probably like Joe, who even when flustered or bad-tempered couldn't just forget about something and move on until everything was neat and in order. It didn't fit that Will, contemplating his own suicide, would rise from his desk in his office with papers scattered and a half-drunk can of Mountain Dew on his desk, his computer still on, and go home and end it all. Wouldn't Will have at least cleaned up a little, knowing what he was going to do?
TEN
On Friday morning, ex-Twelve Sleep County Sheriff O. R. "Bud" Barnum was seated at his usual place in the Stockman's Bar when he saw the stranger. The tall man stepped inside, let the door wheeze shut behind him, and stood there without moving, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness inside. It was eleven in the morning. Barnum didn't know the man, which in itself meant something. Barnum knew everybody.
Rarely did someone simply happen by Saddlestring, Barnum knew. The town was too out-of-the-way. It wasn't conveniently en route to anywhere. The ex-sheriff had studied strangers coming into his town for over thirty years. He could usually size them up quickly. They tended to fall into categories: outdoorsmen, roughnecks, tourists, ranch hands looking for work, junior sales representatives stuck with a bad, far-flung territory. This man wasn't any of those. Something about him, the way he moved and the fact that he seemed supremely comfortable in his own skin, Barnum thought, was menacing.
The tall man was in his late fifties or early sixties, with a shock of gray hair and a chiseled face. He was slim with broad shoulders, and Barnum noted how the stranger's dark brown leather coat stretched across his back as he found a stool and sat down. The man had a flat belly, which to Barnum was a physical characteristic he mistrusted. Cop, Barnum thought, or military. He had that ramrod-straight, no-nonsense air about him. Barnum wondered if the tall man felt the same thing about him sitting there. Barnum knew he looked like a cop, and always had. His mother once told him he looked like a cop when he was born. She said that even as a baby he had those suspicious, penetrating eyes, and the jowly, hangdog face that seemed to say, in cynical resignation, "Now what?"
Barnum had been reading the Saddlestring Roundup and drinking coffee. He hated both the local newspaper and the bitter coffee, but this is what he did now that he was retired. It was part of his routine. He still began each morning at the Burg-O-Pardner, as he had when he was sheriff, drinking coffee, catching up on local news and gossip, and eating rolls with the other local "morning men." The morning men at the Burg-O-Pardner were the men who owned most of Saddlestring and much of the county. Most were retired now as well, but still had local business interests. Guy Allen owned the Burg-O-Pardner and had the majority share of the Stockman's. Just that morning, Guy had been talking about the weather in Arizona, how pleasant it was. He'd be leaving soon, going to his home in Arizona, as winter moved into Wyoming. So would half of the other morning men. Barnum, who still lived full-time in Saddlestring and probably always would, got quiet during discussions of Arizona weather. Any chance he'd had of buying a winter place somewhere warm had disappeared when a bad land investment the previous year had taken his pension, and the ensuing scandal had cost him his job and his reputation. All that was left of his career was a solid gold
Parker pen his deputies had chipped in for. The pen was inscribed: TO SHERIFF BARNUM FOR 28 YEARS OF SVC. "svc" meant "service," McLanahan had explained, but the in-scriber ran out of room on the pen.
He was acutely aware of how differently the morning conversations flowed since he was no longer sheriff. The men used to listen to him, to defer, to stop talking when he spoke. They would nod their heads sympathetically when he complained. Now he could see them glancing at one another while he spoke, waiting for him to finish. Sometimes, the mayor would cut him off and launch into a new topic. He was just another retired old bastard, taking up their time. The kind of old fart Barnum used to glare at until the interloper would pick up his coffee cup and go away.
When the morning men broke up around 9:30, Barnum walked down the main street and set up shop here, in the Stockman's, where he would remain most of the day and some of the night. If people needed to talk to him, they knew where he would be. If someone came into the place before he got there and took his seat, which was the farthest stool at the corner of the bar where the counter wrapped toward the wall, the bartender would shoo the customer away when Barnum walked in. That's Sheriff Barnum's office, the bartender would say.
Barnum didn't stare at the tall man who had come into the bar. Instead, he shot occasional glances at him over the top of the half-glasses he needed to wear to read the paper. The tall man ordered coffee, and as he sipped it he looked around the place, taking in the ancient knotty pine and mirrored back bar, the mounted big-game heads that stared blankly down at him, the black-and-white rodeo photos that covered the wall behind him. The Stockman's was a long, narrow chute of a room with the bar taking up over half of it and some booths and a pool table at the back near the restrooms. A jukebox played Johnny Cash's "Don't Take Your Gun to Town."
As the bartender refilled the stranger's mug, the man asked him something in a muted voice. Barnum couldn't hear the exchange over the song on the jukebox. Then the tall man stood and nodded at Barnum. Barnum nodded back.
"Cute little town you've got here," the tall man said, making his way toward the bathroom.
"It doesn't look like a place that can eat you up and spit you out, does it?" Barnum asked.
The tall man hesitated a step, looked curiously at Barnum, then continued.
As the restroom door shut, Barnum slid off his stool, walked the length of the bar, and stepped outside. The cold sunshine blinded him momentarily, and he raised his arm to block out the sun. The tall man's late-model SUV was parked diagonally in front of the bar. Barnum circled it quickly, noting the Virginia plates, the mud on the panels probably from back roads, the fact that the back seat was folded down to accommodate duffel bags, hard-sided equipment boxes, and a stainless steel rifle case as long as the SUV floor. He walked back into the bar and assumed his seat.
Barnum raised a finger to the bartender, a half-blind former rodeo team coach named Buck Timberman. Buck had been a big-time bullrider but had retired after a bull stepped on his head and crushed it, resulting in brain damage. He still wore his national finals belt buckles, though, rotating them so he wore a different one each day of the week. Barnum liked Timberman because Buck was staunchly loyal, even stupidly loyal, and he still referred to Barnum as "Sheriff."
"Changeover time," Barnum said, thrusting his coffee cup forward.
"It's only eleven-thirty," Timberman said, looking at his wristwatch. "You've got a half hour before noon."
"So it's one-thirty Eastern," Barnum growled, "which means we've wasted an hour and a half of drinking time."
Timberman frowned while he drew a beer and poured a shot. "Why Eastern time?"
"Our new friend here is used to Eastern," Barnum said. "Didn't you notice how he said 'here'? He said 'here' like JFK. He's from Boston or someplace, but he's got Virginia plates and a lot of outdoor gear in his rig. Judging by the dirt on that car, I'm guessing he didn't fly and rent, he drove out all the way."
"I ain't seen him in here before," Timberman said, taking the coffee cup and replacing it with the draft and the shot.
"Nope," Barnum said. "He was asking you something a minute ago. What was it?"
Timberman looked over Barnum's shoulder to make sure the tall man wasn't coming back yet. "He's got an interest in falconry. He asked me if I knew of anybody around here who might have birds available. He also asked me if we have a range where he can sight in his hunting rifle. And he wanted to know where the bathroom is."
WHEN THE TALL man returned he found a shot of bourbon and a glass of beer next to his coffee cup. He looked toward Timberman, who pointed to the ex-sheriff.
"Cheers," Barnum said, raising his shot glass and sipping the top off.
"Thanks are in order," the man said to Barnum, tentatively raising his whiskey, "but it's pretty early in the day."
Barnum said, "It's never too early to treat a visitor to some cowboy hospitality."
The tall man sipped half of his shot, winced, and chased it with a long pull from the beer, never taking his piercing brown eyes off Barnum.
"Who says I'm visiting?" the tall man asked.
Barnum tipped his head toward Timberman. "Buck here said you were asking about falcons."
"So much for the famed confidentiality of the bartending profession," the tall man said evenly. In his peripheral vision, Barnum could see Timberman suddenly look down at his shoes and shuffle away.
"I asked him," Barnum said. "What he told me will be treated with confidence."
The tall man's eyes narrowed. "And who are you, exactly?"
"I used to be the sheriff here," Barnum said.
"To a lot of us," Timberman interjected, "he'll always be our sheriff."
Barnum humbly nodded his thanks to Timberman.
The tall man seemed to be thinking things over, Barnum observed, trying to decide if he was going to say more or take his leave.
"I might be able to help you out," Barnum said.
The tall man turned to Timberman, and the bartender said, "You ought to ask the sheriff."
While the tall man pondered, Barnum closed his newspaper, folded it, and put his reading glasses and gold pen in his shirt pocket.
"Let me ask you this," Barnum said. "Are you looking for a falcon, or are you looking for a particular falconer?"
The tall man's face revealed nothing. "I don't believe we've actually met."
"Bud Barnum. You?"
"Randan Bello."
"Welcome to Saddlestring, Mr. Bello."
Bello picked up his shot and beer, walked down the length of the bar and sat down on a stool next to Barnum. Timberman watched, then went to the far end of the bar to wash glasses that were already clean.
"I'm looking for a falconer," Bello said, speaking low and looking at his reflection in the back bar mirror and not directly at Barnum.
"I know of a guy," Barnum said to Bello's face in the mirror. "He's got a place by himself on the river. Carries a .454 Casull. Is that him?"
Bello sipped his beer. "Could be."
Barnum described Nate Romanowski, and let a half-smile form on his mouth. "If he's the one, he's been a thorn in my side since he showed up in my county. Romanowski and a game warden named Joe Pickett. I've got no use for either one of them."
Bello turned on his stool and Barnum felt the man's eyes bore into the side of his head.
"So you can help me," Bello said.
At the end of the bar, Timberman made a loud fuss over cleaning some ashtrays.
"I can't think of anything I'd rather do," Barnum said, surprised that his bitterness betrayed him.
"I see."
Barnum said, "I understand you're looking for a place to sight in. There's a nice range west of town with bench rests. I could make a call."
"Let me buy the next round," Bello said.
ELEVEN
In Jackson, the funeral service for Will Jensen was being held in a log chapel built to look much older and more rustic than it actually was. Joe sat in the next to last row wearing the same jacket and tie he had worn for the wedding of Bud Longbrake and Missy Vankueren. His clothes were wrinkled from his suitcase. He had arrived a half hour early, to observe the mourners as they arrived, after calling home to find no one was there. There was a dull pain behind his eyes from the bourbon the night before and a practically sleepless night. It was cold in the chapel, and he welcomed the throaty rumble of a furnace from behind a closed door near the altar, indicating that someone had turned up the thermostat.
A brass urn sat squarely on a stand atop a red tapestry in front of the podium. Damn, Joe thought, there wasn't much left of Will, just his ashes in the urn and a framed photo of him in his red game warden uniform. In the photo, Will was saddling one of his horses and turning to the photographer with a loopy smile on his face. Who knew what was so funny at the time? Joe wondered. On the other side of the urn was a framed photo of the Jensen family—Will, Susan, his two sons wearing ill-fitting jackets and ties. The photo looked to be a few years old to Joe because the boys appeared to be the same age they had been when he saw them in the Jensen house for the first and only time. In the photo, the family looked stiff but happy. All those ties made Will, and the boys, uncomfortable, he guessed.
JOE HAD SPENT the morning in the office, reading through the first three spiral notebooks and halfway through the fourth. Patterns were emerging. During the deep winter, in January when the notebooks all began, Will spent a good deal of time in the office, writing up reports on often-controversial policy issues that he was required to comment on, and visiting with local ranchers, outfitters, and the Feds. Spring was consumed with more reports and comments, but also preparations for the summer and fall, working with his horses, repairing tack and equipment, signing off on outfitter camp locations, and making recommendations for season lengths and harvests. During the summer months, he was out in the field nearly every day, checking licenses of fishermen on the rivers and lakes, doing trend counts of deer, elk, and moose, or horse-packing into the backcoun-try to check his remote cabi
n and repair winter damage. Fall, as Joe suspected, was a whirlwind of activity once the hunting seasons started and opener after opener arrived. The pattern in the fall was the lack of a pattern, and at first Joe thought Will was flying by the seat of his pants, dashing from place to place. Will patrolled the front country and backcountry seemingly at random, covering his district in a way that seemed haphazard. One day he would be in the southeastern quadrant in his pickup, the next he would be on horseback in the northwestern corner—where he might be gone for days. But then Joe saw the logic in it, and admired the way Will worked.
The only way a single game warden could be effective in nearly nineteen hundred miles of rough country was to be as unpredictable as possible, to keep his movements erratic. If he patrolled in a systematic way, sweeping from north to south or methodically along the river bottoms, the poachers and violators could anticipate his location and change their plans to avoid him. But by moving from here to there, front country to backcountry, changing his itinerary and location, they would never know when and where he might show up. Joe had no doubt the hunters and fish-ers—and especially the professional outfitters—shared information about Will's whereabouts. If they didn't know when he'd be patrolling the outfitter camps, and from what direction, they'd have to be ready for him at all times, meaning proper licenses, good camp maintenance, and adherence to rules and regulations.
Joe had experienced the "familiarity" of hunters and fishers before, and had learned to be friendly but closed-mouthed about his intentions. Over a beer at the Stockman's Bar or with his family at a restaurant or function in Saddlestring, someone occasionally sidled up to him in all apparent innocence and asked him about his day—where he'd been, if he'd seen game, where he might be going tomorrow. Although the questions were often just conversation, sometimes they were more than that.
He'd learned not to say anything.