Trophy Hunt

by C. J. Box

  “We thank you for that,” Joe said, deadpan.

  “I was thinking of selling the place anyway, you know? Moving back and forth to Texas with my minis is getting to be a drag. I might look for somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona, where it doesn’t get so damned cold, you know? And where it isn’t spooked. Problem is I’m not sure I could sell the place for what I’ve got into it, you know? I hear land prices are in the toilet, thanks to what’s going on. I went to list the place at Logue Country Realty and the realtor there said appraisals are coming in at 20 percent lower than what they should be. Fire-sale prices, damn it.”

  Joe kept quiet. Thompson didn’t seem to need a response in order to keep talking.

  “When I saw that crop circle I thought to myself, why me? Why now? Why my ranch? But now when I hear that there was another mutilation last night, it all seems to make sense,” Thompson said, talking fast. “Do you think it’s all related?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said.

  Thompson shot Joe a perturbed look. “Aren’t you on the task force?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you intrigued by my discovery, then?”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know yet whether I’m intrigued. I haven’t seen it.”

  “Well, it’s just over this hill.”

  They cleared the hill and Joe stopped his truck.

  “Voilà!” Thompson said, sweeping his hand as if presenting what was behind door number three.

  Joe looked. Below them, on a sagebrush flat, was a perfect circle cut into the buffalo grass. Joe estimated that it was eighty feet in circumference. Joe rubbed his jaw, ignoring the look of triumph on David Thompson’s face.

  “Just like I told you, eh?” Thompson said.

  “It’s a circle, all right,” Joe agreed.

  “A crop circle.”

  Joe continued to size up the scene. “Don’t you need crops for a crop circle?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I was just kidding.”

  “I,” Thompson said slowly, “am less than impressed with your investigative technique, Mr. Pickett. Maybe I should have waited for the sheriff.”

  Joe arched his eyebrows. “Maybe. But let’s go down there for a closer look.”

  He eased the pickup down the hill and parked it on the left side of the circle. Joe and Thompson climbed out. While Thompson leaned against Joe’s pickup, Joe paralleled the ring on the outside, studying it. The ring cut through the buffalo grass turf to bare ground. It did not look singed on the edges, or ripped out. There were no pieces of broken-up turf along the edges. He was reminded of the ring of moisture a sweating, cold drink made on a countertop. He walked a full rotation around it until he was back at the truck.

  Thompson looked expectant, his eyebrows raised as if to say, “See? What did I tell you?”

  Joe turned, looked again at the circle, squinting.

  “When was the last time you used that road we just took?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, a few months, I suppose.”

  “Are you sure? Can you remember the last time you came down here?”

  Thompson’s eyebrows fell a little. “Why are you asking me this?”

  Joe stuffed his hands into his Wranglers and rocked back a bit on his bootheels. “I’m trying to establish how long this thing has been here.”

  “I told you about that premonition I had . . .”

  Joe nodded. “But that doesn’t mean that because you just found this thing it was made last night. You see, if you look close at the dirt in the ring you can see that it’s been weathered. There’s old pockmarks from rain in it. This circle has been here quite a while—at least a month, and probably longer than that.”

  Thompson looked puzzled for a moment, obviously doubting himself, then rebounding, as Joe knew he would.

  “What difference does it make if the crop circle was made last night or a month ago? It’s still a damned crop circle.”

  Joe shook his head. “Don’t you have caretakers who live here in the winter when you’re in Texas?”

  “A woman stays here,” Thompson said impatiently, trying to figure out where Joe was going. “Heidi Moos. She stays in the guest house and watches over the place.”

  “I know Heidi,” Joe said. She was an attractive, dark-haired woman who had moved to Wyoming from Alabama. “She moved here with her horse a few years ago. She’s a horse trainer, right? I mean real horses.”

  Thompson puffed up. “I resent that, mister. Miniatures are real horses.”

  Joe raised his hand, palm up. “Calm down, that’s not what I meant. I should have said ‘full-sized’ horses. My point is that she’s a horse trainer. This is the only flat ground on this side of the hill. It’s the best place to set up a portable round pen. You know what a round pen is, right?”

  “Of course I do,” Thompson said. “I’ve got one by my corral.”

  “My guess is that Heidi set up her round pen right here last winter and spring,” Joe said, soldiering on. “I’ve seen how horses running in a controlled circle eventually cut right through the turf like this. I’ve got a couple of these ‘crop circles’ next to my own corral, where my wife, Marybeth, works our horses.”

  Thompson’s face was red. “That’s how you want to explain it away?”

  “Yup.”

  “You think I’m overreacting? That what we’re looking at is where Heidi set up her round pen?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well for Christ’s sake,” Thompson said, shaking his head. “No wonder you people haven’t figured out these mutilations yet, if this is how you work. . . .”

  “Why don’t we call Heidi?” Joe said. “And ask her where she set up her round pen?”

  Thompson stared, his eyes boring into Joe. He clearly was not a man who was used to being questioned.

  Joe thought about David Thompson’s so-called crop circle—round pen—as he drove down the highway toward the turnoff to Nate Romanowski’s house. David Thompson was not stupid, and, despite his faults and his miniature horses, he was a serious man. Yet the atmosphere in Twelve Sleep County was now such that when Thompson saw a ring on the ground he didn’t think “round pen,” he thought “crop circle.”

  This thing was warping the mindset of the valley, Joe thought. Football practice was being held indoors. Out-of-state hunters had cancelled $3,000 trips with local outfitters. A public meeting that was supposed to be held at the Holiday Inn by the Wyoming Business Council had been switched to Cody. Livestock was being housed in barns and loafing sheds. Schoolchildren were wearing aluminum foil over their caps as they walked to school.

  Despite the CBM activity, Saddlestring was being squeezed economically. Residents had assumed a siege mentality, of sorts, and tempers flared more quickly. Marybeth had told him of a fistfight in line at the grocery store.

  The task force was getting nowhere. There had not even been another meeting, because no one had anything to report.

  But for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate, Joe thought that there was an answer to what was happening. Whatever the answer was, it was just sitting there, obvious, waiting for Joe or someone to find it. He just hoped it could be discovered before any more animals, or people, died.

  19

  AS JOE RUMBLED DOWN the rough dirt road that led to Nate Romanowski’s stone cabin on the bank of the Twelve Sleep River, he searched the sky for falcons. The sky was empty.

  Nate’s battered Jeep was parked beside his home, and Joe swung in next to it and turned off his engine. “Stay,” he told Maxine, and shut the door. If let out, she would have been drawn straight to the falcon mews, where Nate kept two or three birds, and she would upset them by sniffing around.

  Joe knocked on the rough-hewn door, then opened it slightly. It was dark inside, but it smelled of coffee and recently cooked breakfast. Joe called for Nate but got no response. This wasn’t unusual, because Nate often went on long treks on foot or horseback in the rough breaklands country surrounding his house. Joe
checked the mews, then the corral. No Nate.

  Nate Romanowski had a habit of vanishing for weeks at a time. He took clandestine trips to surrounding states—Idaho, mostly—although he sometimes went overseas. Joe and Sheridan fed his birds while he was gone. Nate told Joe little about the purpose of his journeys, and Joe didn’t ask. He was involved in things Joe didn’t want to know about, and their short history together already had too many skeletons in the closet as it was. Their relationship was unusual, but oddly comfortable, Joe thought. Nate had pledged his loyalty to Joe in exchange for proving his innocence in a murder, and that was that. Joe hadn’t asked for the pledge, and was a little surprised and awed that Nate had remained steadfast, even extending his protection to Joe’s family. Joe and Marybeth never discussed what they knew about Nate Romanowski—his years with no record when he worked for a mysterious federal agency, the murder of two men sent to find him in Montana, the death of a corrupt FBI agent, and his involvement in Melinda Strickland’s suicide the winter before. Sheridan worshipped the man, and was learning falconry from him. Sheriff Barnum, his deputies, Agent Portenson—even Robey Hersig—feared Nate, and were suspicious of Joe’s friendship with him. That was okay with Joe.

  With the strange things that had been happening in the valley, Joe looked for Nate with a niggling feeling of dread forming in the back of his mind. The image of the defaced horse at the Longbrake Ranch had not yet left him. It bothered him more than anything he had seen, including the remains of Tuff Montegue.

  “Nate!” His shout echoed from the deep red wall on the other side of the river. It was still, and the echo returned twice before it faded away.

  He thought he heard a faint response, and he stood and listened. The sound had come from the direction of the river.

  “Nate, are you down here?” Joe called as he walked. He scanned the near banks and followed the river downstream until it S-curved out of sight, but saw no one. He cocked his head and looked up—something he had never felt the need to do before—and saw nothing unusual in the clear blue sky.

  When he looked down he saw it. A thin plastic tube broke the surface of the river in a calm back eddy ten feet from the bank. As he approached the water he could make out a dark form below the water, and long blond hair swirling gently in the current like kelp. Nate was underwater, breathing through the tube.

  Joe shook his head and sat down on a large curl of driftwood. He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. He noticed that in the hollow of the log was Nate’s massive .454 Casull handgun in its holster, within quick reach if Nate needed it.

  “Nate,” Joe said, “do you have a minute?”

  Nate tried to talk through the tube. It came out in a nasal gibberish. This was the sound Joe had heard earlier when he called.

  “Should I come back?”

  After a beat, the water puckered and Nate sat up, breaking the surface. He looked at Joe through strands of wet hair that stuck to his face. Nate was wearing a full-body wet suit that gleamed in the morning sun. He removed the tube with two fingers as if taking a cigarette from his mouth.

  “Should I even ask?” Joe said.

  Brushing his hair from his face, Nate grinned, fixing Joe with his hard-eyed stare. Nate had an angular face with a bladelike nose separating two sharp, lime green eyes.

  “It’s amazing what you can hear under the surface,” he said. “I’ve been doing this since the river warmed up. I thought it would be relaxing, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. The river looks calm but things are happening in it all the time.”

  Joe just nodded.

  “It’s like being one with the earth, as stupid as that probably sounds,” Nate said. “When you’re below the surface, you’re out of the air and wind and everything is solid, connected to some degree. That’s why you can hear and sense so much.”

  His eyes widened. “I’ve heard river rocks dislodging and rolling down the bed of the river in the current. They sound a little like bowling balls going down a lane. I hear fish whooshing by, going after nymphs. I heard you drive up, get out, and walk around. If I concentrated, I could even hear your footsteps from underneath walking toward the river.”

  Joe thought about it. It wasn’t something he would want to do, but this was Nate.

  “Pretty cool,” Nate said.

  Nate brewed more coffee in his house while Joe told him everything that had happened with the murders and mutilations. Nate listened in silence, but was obviously paying attention. He served two large mugs and sat down across from Joe.

  They were on their third cup when Joe finished.

  Nate leaned back and laced his fingers together behind his head. He stared at the ceiling, his mouth set. Joe waited.

  “I think you’re thinking too much like a damned cop,” Nate finally said. “You’re letting the events steer you. You need to get out of your cop mode and look at everything with a fresh eye, from a completely different angle.”

  “What angle would that be?” Joe had expected something like this from Nate, although he had hoped for more. Like an answer. Or at least a theory.

  “I think you’re assuming that everything is connected. That’s a logical, coplike approach. But maybe everything isn’t connected. Maybe there are a bunch of different things going on, and they just happen to be culminating around us.”

  “You sound a little like Cleve Garrett,” Joe sighed.

  Nate’s eyebrows shot up. “Just because he’s a weirdo doesn’t mean he might not be on to something. But from what you told me, I disagree. Cleve Garrett is trying to attribute it all to one thing, aliens or whatever. What I’m saying is that maybe the connections really aren’t there. That there are different threads running.”

  Joe sat up, tingling with recognition. This was what he had been speculating. “From what you’ve heard, can you pick out any of the threads?”

  “Maybe. When was the last time there were credible reports in this area about cattle mutilations?”

  “Thirty years ago,” Joe said. “In the early and mid-seventies.”

  “What was going on then?”

  “I don’t know. Gas lines, recession, Jimmy Carter.”

  Nate smiled coldly. “But what was going on here, on the land around us?”

  Joe thought, and he felt another glimmer of recognition. “Oil and gas development gone wild,” he said. “It was the last big energy boom.”

  “Right,” Nate said. “At least until today. It was a little like what we’re seeing now, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Joe confessed.

  “Of course not. You’ve been thinking like a cop. You need to think bigger, look at everything fresh.”

  “There are a lot of roughnecks here,” Joe said. “They come in from all over the country to work the CBM wells and lay the pipe. The last time there were this many people around was the last time this area had a boom.”

  Nate said, “Right. I bet that makes you wonder if any of them were here before, doesn’t it? Or maybe—and I already know what you’ll think of this angle—somebody or something gets mad whenever we start drilling into the ground.”

  Joe moaned. “That’s too screwy, Nate.”

  “It’s fresh thinking, is what it is,” Nate countered.

  Joe was silent for a moment. “Anything else?”

  Nate solemnly shook his head. “I’m worried about the bear. I had a dream about a bear the other night.”

  “What?”

  “In my dream, the bear was sent here for a reason. He has a mission,” Nate said, narrowing his eyes and whispering conspiratorially.

  Wincing, Joe looked away. What was this? First Sheridan had ominous dreams, and now Nate. Was it something in the air? Had the two of them discussed this?

  “So what are you saying, Nate?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s just that I have a feeling that the bear plays a central role somehow. Like I said, I dream about this bear.”

  Joe said not
hing. Nate simply thought differently than anyone Joe had ever met. To Nate, anything was possible.

  “One other thing,” Nate said. “Have you considered the possibility that the two human murders have nothing to do with the cattle and animal mutilations?”

  “Actually, yes I have,” Joe said.

  “Have you pursued it?” Nate asked.

  “Barnum and Portenson are in charge of the murders.”

  “And you trust them?”

  Joe drained his mug and stood up. His head was spinning.

  As he walked out to his pickup, Nate followed. “I’ve got a special connection with that bear because of the dreams. I would like to meet the bear, get into his head,” Nate said. “Will you call me if there are any more sightings?”

  Joe said that he would. He didn’t even pretend to understand what Nate was talking about.

  “Start fresh, is my advice,” Nate said as Joe climbed into his truck. “Fuck Barnum and Portenson. They’re cops. They either want an easy explanation or they want the whole thing to just go away.”

  Joe started the engine and Nate leaned into the pickup, filling the open driver’s-side window. “Call me if you need some help. Backup, or whatever.”

  “The last time I did that you cut off a guy’s ear and handed it to me,” Joe said.

  Nate was right about one thing, Joe decided. Although a couple of the things he threw out seemed unlikely—a bear on a mission, for example—what Nate had said about thinking differently made some sense.

  Joe plucked his cell phone off of the dashboard and speed-dialed Robey Hersig’s office. Hersig was in.

  “Robey, Joe.”

  “Hey, Joe.” Hersig sounded tired.

  “Anything of note from the task force?”

  There was a long sigh. “Your notes from your interview with that Garrett guy have been quite a source of amusement, as you might have guessed.”

  Joe thought about telling Hersig about the e-mail from Deena, and decided against it for the moment. He hadn’t decided how he should reply and he needed to reply, to keep her talking to him. Although he hoped she’d cool it with the digital photos of herself.