Out of Range jp-5

by C. J. Box

  Joe thought about it. "Yup, pretty much," he said. "I've heard it said that the definition of a Wyoming vegetarian is someone who eats meat only once a day."

  He couldn't get her to warm up.

  "You have so much to learn," she said. "But I don't hate you because you're ignorant. Have you ever heard the saying 'An insect is a cat is a dog is a boy'?"

  "Nope," Joe said, a little disappointed that she hadn't even cracked a smile at his joke.

  "It means we're all interconnected. We're all life. There aren't degrees of life, there is only life. Eating beef or elk is the same as eating a child. There's no difference. It's all just meat."

  Joe winced.

  "Americans, on average, eat fifty-one pounds of chicken every year, fifteen pounds of turkey, sixty-three pounds of beef, forty-five pounds of pork," she said. She was getting into it, stepping toward Joe, gesturing with her hands in chopping motions. "Then there's lamb-lamb! — and veal. Out here these people eat even more red meat than that, like deer and the elk that will be fed and fattened at the place we're standing. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see all of those creatures every day, instead of murdering them for their flesh?" She talked as if she were quoting, Joe thought.

  He didn't want to get into the debate, but he had a question. "Isn't it different for a man to hunt his own food than to buy it wrapped in cellophane in a grocery store? And what about these elk? Would it be better if they starved to death in the winter? There isn't enough natural habitat for them anymore. They'd die by the thousands if we didn't feed them."

  Pi had obviously heard this argument many times before and didn't hesitate. "As for your first question, meat is meat. As I said, an insect is a cat is a dog is a boy. As for your second, we never should have gotten to this stage in the first place. If we weren't raising the elk for slaughter, and feeding them, we wouldn't have this problem."

  Joe nodded. "But we do have this problem. We can't solve it now by just saying we shouldn't have it, can we?"

  "Touche," she said, smiling. "You have a point, if a weak one. But I've accomplished what I set out to do here."

  "Which is?"

  "To get you thinking."

  Joe smiled back.

  "So, are you going to arrest us?" she asked.

  "Did Will arrest you?"

  "Many times. Once he arrested me up on Rosie's Ridge, in the middle of an elk camp. I dressed up like an elk with these cute little fake antlers"-she raised her hands and wiggled her fingers over her head to simulate cute little antlers-"and walked around the hunters going, 'Who killed my beautiful wife? Who shot my son? Who shot my baby daughter in the guts?'"

  "It was so cool," Birdy added. "She had those bastards up there howling."

  Joe stifled a grin. The way she told the story was kind of funny. "Yup, I bet they were."

  "I went a little too far with that one," Pi said. "It was too much too soon. The Wyoming legislature passed an anti-hunter harassment law after that, and Will was really angry with me. He said I wouldn't be accomplishing anything if I got myself shot, although I disagreed at the time. The movement needs a martyr. But I was too strident, I admit it. I even threatened Will, just so you know. I wrote letters to the editor about him, and put a picture of him on our website with a slash through it. I went a little overboard. He was just doing his job. So now we've scaled things back a bit. We need to work in incremental steps, to raise awareness."

  "Which is what you're doing here," Joe said.

  "Correct."

  Joe shrugged. "Okay," he said, and started to walk to his pickup.

  "Hey," Pi called out. "Aren't you going to arrest us?"

  Joe stopped, looked over his shoulder, said, "No."

  "But we're breaking the law," she said. Joe saw Birdy exchange glances with Ray. As Joe had figured from seeing the light camping tents and the three-season sleeping bags, the campers weren't really prepared or equipped to stay long. They wanted to be arrested in order to get more media attention. The shadow of the Tetons had already crept over the refuge, and it would freeze during the night.

  Pi looked desperate. "You're not just going to leave us out here, are you?"

  "Yes."

  "There are some real extreme hunter-types in town," Birdy offered. "You ever heard of Smoke Van Horn? He's crazy. He's probably heard of our sign out here. What if Smoke and his pals come after us tonight?"

  "I'm sure Pi here can reason with them," Joe said with a grin.

  Birdy looked at Pi. Ray looked at Birdy. Pi glared at Joe.

  "You're a bastard," she said.

  "That was harsh," Joe said, still smiling.

  "Pi…" Birdy started to say.

  "Why don't you throw the sign in the back of my truck," Joe said, "and kick some dirt in those holes. I'll help you pack up and I'll give you a ride to your car so you don't have to hike."

  Pi set her mouth, furious.

  "Pi…" It was Birdy again.

  "You are a bastard," she said again.

  Pi sat in the cab of the pickup, fuming, while Joe drove across the refuge toward the highway. Birdy and Ray were in the back, in the open, huddled near the rear window in light jackets. The sign and the camping gear were piled into the bed of the pickup. It was dusk, and Joe could smell the sweet, sharp smell of sagebrush that was crushed beneath his tires. He reached forward and turned on his headlights.

  "It's an interesting subject, animal rights," Joe said.

  "It's more than a subject for some of us," Pi answered.

  Joe ignored her tone. "I'm around animals all day long. Sometimes I wonder what those animals are thinking, if they're capable of thinking."

  "You do?" This surprised her.

  "How could you not?" he asked.

  She seemed to be trying to decide if she wanted to engage him, or be angry and refuse to talk to him.

  "In the end, it's all about meat," she said.

  "What?"

  "It's about meat. What we eat is what defines us. People are starting to wake up to that, even here."

  Joe said nothing.

  "Have you heard of Beargrass Village?" she asked, the words dripping with venom.

  "Nope."

  She looked over at him. "It's a whole planned community, and I hate it. For a few million, people can live in what they call a planned environment where meat is raised and slaughtered for their pleasure. They call it the Good Meat Movement."

  Joe remembered what Trey had said about it. "I heard something about it recently. Is it a serious thing?"

  "No, it's just a veneer," she said. "It's a way for rich people to feel good about themselves. That's what this valley is about, you know-rich people feeling good about themselves, and dominating the land and creatures that they feel are beneath them."

  "Bitter," Joe said.

  Pi snorted. "Yeah. You fucking bet I'm bitter. I'm bitter about a lot of things."

  Like factory farms, she said. She quoted verbatim from a book she was reading, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, by Matthew Scully:

  " 'When a quarter million birds are stuffed into a single shed, unable even to flap their wings, when more than a million pigs inhabit a single farm, never once stepping into the light of day, when every year tens of millions of creatures go to their death without knowing the least measure of human kindness, it is time to question old assumptions, to ask what we are doing and what spirit drives us.'"

  Then she asked, as they approached her car, "What spirit drives you, Joe?"

  He was glad the ride was just about over and he didn't have to answer that question.

  "We're here," he said.

  He helped them load their car. It was completely dark now, with a cold white moon. Their breaths billowed in the cold. Birdy started the motor in order to get the heater running. Ray sat in back, amid their packs and tents. Pi opened the passenger door to climb in.

  Joe said, "Pi, can I ask you something?"

  "What? It's cold, you know."

&
nbsp; "You told me you really went after Will Jensen."

  She nodded. "It wasn't just once either."

  "But later, you realized that you needed to tone down your act, and you forgave him because you realized he was just doing his job, right? That in a way he was trying to protect you from yourself."

  She looked at Joe suspiciously. "Yes."

  "Did you ever tell him?"

  Her eyes widened. She hesitated. Then: "No."

  "I was just wondering about that," Joe said, "since his funeral is tomorrow."

  "Pi, are you coming in or not?" It was Ray, finally speaking. "You're letting out all of the heat."

  Pi shot him a withering look and closed the door.

  "You think I should go to his funeral?"

  "It's not my place to say that," Joe said.

  "I'll give it some thought," she said.

  Joe told her good night and got in his truck and thought of Mary's "Welcome to Jackson Hole" greeting, seeing it for the double meaning she likely intended.

  As he swung onto the highway, he was struck by the realization that he had no idea where he was going to sleep that night. It was too late to ask anyone at the office who had the keys to the statehouse, since they'd no doubt gone home for the weekend. Regardless, he wasn't sure he would be allowed to stay there yet anyway, since it was a crime scene. Which meant he'd have to try to find a cheap motel to stay in.

  And he still needed to talk to Marybeth.

  NINE

  As Joe drove back toward Jackson, a Porsche Boxster convertible passed him like a shot, the blond-haired woman driver slicing in front of him to avoid an oncoming RV as Joe tapped his brakes to let her in. She shot a "Ta-ta!" type wave in appreciation and passed the next car in line. The Porsche had Teton County plates, so she was a local. A local maniac, Joe thought, watching her weave through traffic ahead. As the lights of town appeared, his stomach grumbled. He hadn't eaten all day.

  Joe sat alone in a raucous Mexican restaurant filled with tourists and locals out on Friday night. He blanched at the prices on the menu, knowing that the meal would exceed his state per diem. But because it was already late and he was starved, he didn't rise and leave. Instead, he ordered a Jim Beam and water from the helpful waiter who had introduced himself as "Adrian from Connecticut."

  He smiled when he found himself contemplating bean burritos and rice.

  "The vegetarian plate?" Adrian asked, swooping in from somewhere behind him.

  Joe shook his head. "Nope. I'm a flesh-eater."

  "Oh my," Adrian said, crumpling up his nose.

  Joe ordered another drink during dinner while he cleaned his plate and jotted down details from the ALN call-out in his notebook.

  As he finished and leaned back, full and feeling the effects of the bourbon on an empty stomach, Adrian arrived with another drink.

  "I didn't order this," Joe said.

  "Compliments of the Ennises," the waiter said with a flourish. "They're at the bar."

  Joe leaned to the side so he could see between the tables. The bar was in an adjoining room, darker than the dining room, through a rounded, Spanish-style doorway. A couple sat on stools with their backs to the opening. As he looked at them, they swiveled around.

  The man was short, compact, with a stern, wide-open face and short silver hair. He wore a jacket over well-tailored clothing. He looked like the kind of man who charged through a room, head bowed, shoulders hunched, expecting everyone to get the hell out of the way. The woman was ivory pale, with piercing dark eyes and full, dark-lipsticked lips. She was well dressed, in a thick turtle-neck sweater with a black skirt, black hose, and black high-heeled shoes with straps over her ankles. Because she rested her feet on the bottom rail of the stool, he could see the pale orbs of her knees where the hose tightened against them in the darkness. Her thick hair was haloed from a neon beer sign. Joe raised the new drink and mouthed, "Thank you."

  The man nodded back, businesslike. She smiled, slightly, and turned back to the bar. Then something happened that surprised Joe. She looked back over her shoulder at him, directly at him, full-on at him, and brushed aside a thick bolt of auburn hair, before turning away again. He felt a stirring inside.

  "Who are they?" Joe asked Adrian from Connecticut the next time he came by.

  Adrian made an exaggerated step back. "You don't know Don and Stella Ennis? My goodness."

  "I'm new here."

  "Then you need to meet them," Adrian said. "I don't even know where to begin."

  After paying the tab, which exceeded his per diem by eight dollars and made him feel guilty, Joe went into the bar. Don and Stella Ennis were no longer on their stools. He checked the booths at the side of the bar, wanting to thank them but reluctant to disturb their late dinner. He couldn't find them.

  Joe asked the bartender, "Did the Ennises leave?"

  The bartender, like Adrian, widened his eyes when he heard the name. "Are you the new game warden?"

  "Yes."

  "Mr. Ennis left you this." He pushed a fresh drink across the bar and handed Joe a business card. It read:

  DON ENNIS

  Developer, Beargrass Village

  Joe flipped the card over and found a handwritten message.

  "Welcome to town," it said. "I worked with Will. I'll be in touch."

  Joe took a sip of the drink, then pocketed the card and went outside. The night air, crisp and sharp, washed over him as he walked to his truck. He couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened. Had she really been looking at him that way? Had he really been looking back?

  Yes, he thought, on both counts.

  He needed to call Marybeth, but wanted his head to clear first. And he couldn't bring himself to call her while the image of Stella still lingered so clearly in his mind.

  Before finding a motel, Joe used a street map ripped from a telephone book to locate Will Jensen's home. It was on one of the old, narrow tree-lined streets near the base of Snow King Mountain, in a neighborhood created forty years before Jackson became the resort it was. Joe remembered the house vaguely from his single visit, and he parked his pickup on the street and looked at it in its dark stillness. Will's truck was still in the driveway. A massive old cottonwood, leaves already turned and crisp, obscured half the roof. The windows were black squares, dead like the eyes of the head mounts in the office building.

  Joe reluctantly climbed out of his truck and crossed the street. He tried to open Will's truck door but found it locked. He peered inside, could see nothing in the darkness. The only light was a faint blue vapor light on the corner and the hard stars and scythe of the moon. The keys for the truck, he assumed, would be somewhere in the office building, or with the sheriff, and he would get them tomorrow. Joe walked up the cracked cement walk, crunching dead leaves that were curled together like fists. Three red strips of crime-scene tape sealed the door to the jamb. A letter from the Teton County sheriff was taped inside the screen door, warning visitors that the house was sealed pending the investigation.

  What would it be like to live in a house where the previous occupant had shot himself in the head? Joe shivered and tried to shake off the thought.

  He found a cheap motel that honored state rates and checked in. The bedspread was green and thin, there was a single thin plastic cup and a bar of soap on the sink, and the television was locked to a stand and mounted to the wall so no one could take it. The tiny desk was just big enough to hold his briefcase.

  Sitting on the bed, he put the spiral notebooks in front of him. He would start with #1 tonight, maybe get through #2. Tomorrow, he would begin the search for #11, Will's last notebook.

  But first he needed to call home. He looked at his watch. It was 11:30, an hour past when they usually went to bed. He debated whether to possibly wake her, simply to tell her he had made it. Then he pictured Marybeth up and awake, maybe reading, upset he hadn't called, possibly worried that something had happened.

  He picked up the telephone. The line was dead. The recept
ionist, a sleepy woman with bloodshot eyes, must have forgotten to turn on his phone when he checked in. Should he rouse her? He decided not to. He pulled out his cell phone from his day-pack, then punched the speed dial button. Marybeth answered in four rings.

  "Joe?" He could tell she wasn't happy. She sounded tired, and there was an icy edge to her voice. "You were supposed to call when you got there."

  "I didn't get a chance," he said. His speech was slurred, as much from exhaustion as the bourbon. "I was too busy getting reamed by the assistant director and then I got called out."

  "It's nearly midnight."

  "I know," he said lamely.

  "Why didn't you call this afternoon, then?"

  "I told you. I hit the ground running over here."

  "I just fell asleep. What are you doing up?"

  "I just got in."

  His cell phone chirped. It was about to run out of battery power, and he needed to recharge it, he told her.

  "You sound like you've been drinking, Joe. And why are you calling me on your cell phone?"

  "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.