Sector C

by Phoenix Sullivan

  Even after they pulled up to the barn, Alfie couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to get out of the truck.

  Dan met them at the barn door. By the absence of Mr. Spalding, Donna pretty much knew what was coming. “Another one?”

  “’Fraid so. Thought you’d want to know, otherwise we’d have handled it ourselves.” Dan pointed her inside.

  Chad’s phone chimed. “It’s Mrs. Rourke,” he said, excusing himself to take the call.

  The cow they’d come to see was down. Not just too weak to stand on her own but laid out flat, her legs stiff and bouncing against the hay-strewn floor.

  “Are you going to want to open her up?” Dan asked.

  Donna had necropsied the first cow and calf, then another last week. None of them had told her anything she didn’t already know from dozens of necropsies across the county. “No need.”

  “I’ll be getting the truck then.”

  The truck with the winch, he meant. Donna nodded. He’d drag the carcass out to where he’d disposed of the others, away from live cattle and the hay fields, then he’d use a front-loader to dig up dirt to cover her over per county standards.

  Chad returned as Dan was walking out, and the vet tech held the cow’s head still while Donna injected the barbiturate into the jugular vein. She placed two fingertips on the cowlick in the middle of its forehead and massaged the cow gently while it died. Not that this cow would care; it was likely too far beyond feeling much of anything by that time. But it was a habit Donna had — a last act of compassion for these gentle animals whose lives were spent in the service of her kind. Then she put her stethoscope to its chest and listened to be sure heart and lungs were truly stilled.

  Dan arrived only a moment later, and he and Chad hitched the cow to the winch. The foreman gave Donna a stiff nod as he climbed back into his truck and started the slow drive to the makeshift burial mound.

  Donna looked around the empty barn. “How much more of this are we going to be doing, Chad? What the hell is it?”

  The young man scuffed his boot toe along the floor then kicked the cornerpost of one of the stalls. “Beats me.” Donna wasn’t sure if he was answering one or both of her rhetorical questions.

  “What did Mrs. Rourke want?” she asked as they walked back to her truck.

  “Who?”

  Donna looked quickly at her tech. For just a flash, Chad’s brow wrinkled in earnest confusion. He’d obviously heard her clearly enough. And he wasn’t joking with her. “Mrs. Rourke. She called just a few minutes ago.”

  Chad stopped mid-stride and his forehead wrinkled again as he searched for that elusive memory. He licked his lips. Then his eyes widened. “Oh yeah, Uncle Jim thinks he found the remains of the cat that’s been killing livestock up by Morris Hanes’ place. He wants you to go have a look. He needs someone to certify it was a natural death so no one gets in trouble for hunting out of season or has it counted against the state’s quota.”

  Donna nodded, understanding. While cougars weren’t exactly rare in North Dakota, they weren’t prolific either. One of the few states that even made cougar hunting legal, North Dakota set statewide limits during annual re-evaluations of the populations. This year, a total of eight animals statewide could be killed by hunters — and any animals that died of natural or accidental causes could not be counted against that limit. “OK, let’s go take a look. I think I need a break from dying cows and pigs anyway.”

  She opened the cab door and Alfie, who had stretched out along the length of the bench seat, slowly curled herself into the middle and whimpered.

  Donna reached out a distracted hand and patted Alfie’s head. “Yeah, well, I missed you, too, girl. Next time, get out of the truck.” She turned the ignition and headed for Jim Thompson’s farm.

  CHAPTER 13

  IN AN AREA OF LARGE, COMMERCIAL ranches, Jim’s place was an oddity. Retired from the railroad industry at 55, he and his wife, Charlene, had bought a modest 200 acres and now raised a few cattle, a handful of horses and a small herd of Nubian goats on about half that acreage. The rest — a series of hills and ravines and one stark white butte — he let be wild, an area he and Charlene could hike out to, bring their binoculars and simply nature watch. They were transplanted urbanites, knowing little about farming or animal husbandry when they’d arrived three years ago. They were learning fast, but most of their neighbors still considered them novices and dropped by often to offer them advice, wanted or not.

  Jim was also Chad’s uncle, younger brother to Chad’s now-deceased father, though the brothers had grown up far differently after Chad’s grandparents had divorced when Jim was eight. Chad’s father had stayed on the home ranch while Jim had followed his mother to Bismarck. It was obvious, though, once he’d returned, that Jim had never really left the rural life.

  When Donna drove up their driveway, a big red Rhodesian Ridgeback whuffed at them from the front porch, announcing their arrival. Jim came out the front door, waving toward them. “Don’t get out,” he called. “You’ll have to follow me out to the back 50.”

  Donna almost regretted making the stop when she realized they were going to have to go through three gates on the way toward wherever the cat was, with Jim having to get out of his truck each time to open and then close each gate before they could move on, and then they were going to have to do it all over again on the way out.

  “So much for a quick stop,” she muttered at the first gate, and Chad, seemingly back to his old self, grinned.

  Once they were through the third gate, they crawled along through the high scrub and weeds that grew along the base of the hills, Jim apparently looking for where he’d found the remains. At last he pulled to a stop and flashed his emergency lights, the signal he’d spotted the body.

  Stands of knee-high grass mixed with succulent broad-leaved weeds waved menacingly in all directions. Visions of chiggers swarming those thin, dry blades had Donna itching already. “Did we bring any DEET?” she asked hopefully.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” Chad made a show of opening the back window and rummaging in the trunk beneath it.

  Jim was out of his vehicle and motioning them over to a nondescript spot where the grass had obviously been trampled earlier. From her vantage, though, Donna couldn’t see anything that resembled an animal in the area. “Fine,” she muttered, as she tucked her jeans inside her socks. Not that it would help much. Tomorrow she’d likely be waking up to severe itching everywhere from behind her knees to around her waist to up and down her bikini line. “You can stay in the truck, if you want,” she told Chad in a tone that was at once magnanimous and petulant.

  “Nah, I don’t get to see too many cougars.” He opened his door and strode through the grass like a hero.

  Donna looked at Alfie, still curled up on the seat and making no move to leave the cab. Her tail thumped softly against the back of the seat. “Smart dog.”

  With a sigh of resignation, Donna swung herself out of the truck and picked her way over to where Jim stood, a long PVC pipe in his hands, pushing back grass from the cat he’d found.

  “Holy—” Chad had gotten there first. “What the hell is that?”

  That reaction was totally unexpected from her laconic tech. Donna hurried the last few steps and peered down. Two things were immediately obvious: It was one damn big cat — and it wasn’t a cougar. Coyotes and buzzards had been at the body and only some assorted bones, fur and the head, minus eyes, were left.

  “Looks kind of like a tiger that’s been in the sun too long, don’t it?” Jim said. “What do you think it is?”

  “It’s a tiger, damn straight.” Chad took the PVC pipe from Jim and prodded at the remains. “An albino?”

  “It’s nose is too dark. So are its stripes.” Donna slipped a pair of hemostats from her smock pocket and carefully lifted a flap of fur. “I think it’s a white tiger. Not as rare as an albino but rare enough.”

  “Especially out here.” Chad started to roll the head aside with the pipe. />
  “Wait!” Donna straightened back up and began snapping pictures with her phone, getting the remains from several angles.

  “You’ll report it as a natural death, right?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t see much reason to report it as anything else. Not that we have to worry about hunting limits on tigers around here. I would like to try to find out who it belonged to. It could be someone’s illegal pet that got away, I suppose. If so, we’ll never find its owner. But if it escaped from a refuge or a zoo, they may want to know what happened to it.”

  “How about that place up off of 85 — Triple A? Triple U? Triple Something. Don’t they have exotic animals? Someone told me they were running a research lab up there.”

  “I’ll check,” Donna promised. “Meanwhile, Chad and I’ll take the head with us and put it on ice while we see what we can find out. Chad, will you get a plastic bag for it, please.”

  “If no one claims it, can I get it back? If it ain’t too far gone, I could have it mounted and put over my fireplace. Wouldn’t that make a hoot of a conversation piece?”

  “Well, the Endangered Species Act says a private citizen can’t generally sell or even own pieces of dead animals if they’re endangered. But there are exceptions, and you could maybe get a permit for it from the Fish and Wildlife Service given the circumstances. In any case, Chad or I will get back with you and let you know what we find out. And I’ll email you the photos. Why don’t you kneel down next to the head and I’ll snap a couple of pictures. Chad, do you have that bag yet?”

  “Sorry,” Chad called from the truck. “I got back here and forgot what I was looking for.” He returned with a thick black plastic bag. “How much do we need?”

  “Just the head, I think. If I remember correctly, a tiger’s stripe pattern is as distinctive as our fingerprints. And anyone who’s reputable will have a head shot of the forehead fur of all their tigers.”

  Weather, insects and scavengers had begun their work already, and had almost made it impossible to gather the head without tufts of hair falling out or the skin pulling even farther away from the muscle beneath. But Chad, with a little help from the snip of Donna’s scalpel at last got the head clear of the rest of the remains and into the specimen bag. Along with a few cold packs to start chilling it down, it fit perfectly in one of the empty ice chests Donna carried in the truck for transporting various specimens from the field.

  “What about the bones?” Jim asked a bit plaintively. “Are they protected, too?”

  Several ribs and an entire foreleg were already missing, thanks to the coyotes or neighboring dogs. “Ground tiger bone is a popular ingredient in Chinese medicine, which is one of the practices the Endangered Species Act is trying to curb. So, yeah, the bones are protected, too. But Chad and I aren’t going to be taking any more of the body with us — and who’s to say another predator or two doesn’t come around and carry off a femur or maybe even the pelvis after we leave. I would just hope the predator is discreet about who they tell and doesn’t let any other predator come and cart any more of it away.”

  “Scout’s honor, doc.”

  In truth, though, Donna had a greater worry than whether Jim would be true to his word. As she trudged back to the truck through the tall — possibly chigger-infested — grass, she was much more concerned about just how much she would be itching come morning.

  CHAPTER 14

  SIX WEEKS TO PLAN, market and execute an event at Triple E would have been a tight deadline at any time. Scheduling a megahunt over two weeks, preparing accommodations and meals for over 100 clients, and finding the resources to handle nearly 450 trophies under current conditions in a remote area in Western North Dakota was a near-herculean effort. But panic, desperation and an undercurrent of fear were great motivators.

  Even so, such an operation could not go unnoticed in a county where relatives from out of town couldn’t visit without attracting attention. For nearly ten years, Triple E had been building its facilities and staffing its research and animal care departments under the strictest security. Walt Thurman had even negotiated a no-fly zone over the compound as part of the package when he had first approached county commissioners with plans for a new research facility. Thurman had not publicly disclosed the true nature of the private business, but rather had let speculation take its course. With the size of the compound being erected, some of the residents believed Triple E had something to do with researching new geothermal or solar energy capture techniques. And somewhere had been planted the idea that the name was short for Energy, Ecology and Economy. The large unmarked trucks carrying feed in and out could easily have been carrying equipment parts.

  Residents still raised an eyebrow whenever a private jet landed at Williston Airport, but with only one or two clients being entertained at the compound at any given time, activities managed to stay pretty much under the radar. The slow buildup and rollout of the company’s services had gone perfectly to plan. Then the executives had changed track, gearing up for and anticipating taking the company public in just a few months. It was going to be the businessman’s equivalent of thumbing their nose at the research community and blindsiding the competition all at once. Triple E employees had been riding a high of tension and excitement since the plan for going public had been announced. And even though the plan was to move the museum to an area already attracting millions of visitors each year, McKenzie County, North Dakota, would prosper from the fallout.

  While planning the “going public” party, Thurman had felt a pang of regret that Triple E wouldn’t be able to provide the area with advance notice that the sleepy little county was about to be awakened with a roar. Now that those plans had been canceled, his main regret was that there hadn’t been time to build at least one decent hotel to help house the influx of clients being invited to take part in the event Helen had decided to bill as Megahunt: The Last Shot.

  The promise of cut rates and a deeply discounted hunt in Sector C drew dozens of clients who had been slowly working their way through the Frequent Hunter program where dedicated hunters, unable to drop the millions of dollars needed to hunt Sector C exclusively, progressed through the other two sectors, hunting the menus of exotic and endangered game available. Each kill earned points they could later apply to gain access to the next sector, with a five-kill minimum in each sector needed to advance. For the chance to hunt Sector C years earlier than anticipated, the lure for these hunters was too great to pass up. Calendars were rapidly cleared and travel arrangements hurriedly made to accommodate the megahunt celebration.

  For the elite clientele who could afford to hunt Sector C by simply raiding the tip jar or for those with enough accumulated Frequent Hunter points to apply, the anticipation of Triple E opening its museum to the public appealed greatly to their Type A egos. Non-negotiable contracts stipulated that no animal remains linked to Sector C were to be removed from the compound. Instead, the trophies, mounted and staged, were placed in the onsite museum, with large placards announcing the names of the hunters who had bagged them.

  Like for the Sector itself, access to the museum was by invitation only, which served to keep the mystery of Sector C alive. For the monied, however, who could typically buy everything they wanted but who were summarily denied outright possession of their trophies — albeit by their own reluctant agreement — being able to soon brag to the world about their kills proved a sweet lure. And having the opportunity to erect another placard or two among those of their friendly rivals was sweeter still.

  By the time the first clients began to arrive in advance of their scheduled hunt times, hunters had been carefully matched to their animals, supplies had been stocked from local merchants, and the accounts manager, Chloe Glenhaven — who had decided to stay and take her chances with the rest of the executive board, especially after seeing the early response they’d gotten — had announced anticipated receipts totaling $39.4 million. Enough to keep the genetics department and research engine running until Triple E started pul
ling in money from the museum, and individual scientists and board members started splitting profits from lecture circuits and book deals.

  It looked as though Megahunt: The Last Shot would neatly accomplish everything Walt Thurman hoped it would. With skill and a bit of luck, it would provide the transition necessary for Triple E to pull a phoenix and come out the other side of their crisis in the strong, competitive position the founders had envisioned for their fledgling venture when the first bricks and timbers had gone up nearly ten years ago.

  All that had to happen now was for the brewing storm to hold off just a little longer.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE INVITATION WAS THE proverbial straw as far as Sylvia was concerned.

  First it was Charles demanding separate vacations so he could indulge in the one activity she had expressly asked him to refrain from. The flirting and the alcohol and the gambling she could — and had — turned a blind eye to. When the reward was a posh zipcode in Newport Coast, California, and the lifestyle to go with it, there was a lot she could pretend not to see. But his need to kill things was not one of them.