Bluetick Revenge (26 page)

Before I left, Scott led me downstairs to his “war room.” This room contains more telescopes, microscopes, radios, computers,
maps, and electronic gadgets than any other basement in America. It also contains Scott’s two gun cases, so I picked out a
shotgun and a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a scope. I loaded both before heading back up to Nederland.

I
WAS ASLEEP
but nevertheless conscious of the fact that I was dreaming about snakes. When I was a kid, I had frequent terrifying nightmares
about snakes. Now, in my forties, such dreams are rare.

The dream woke me up and I figured I might as well empty my bladder. Then I heard it. Just as I started to put my feet on
the floor—the unmistakable warning of a coiled rattlesnake. I pulled my feet up and stood on the bed. My heart was racing.
We’ll never know for sure, but I believe that in those few seconds I let loose with one of best examples of spontaneous cursing
in the history of the English-speaking peoples.

I stood for a minute so my eyes could adjust to darkness. The dogs, who had both been sleeping beside me on the bed, were
alert now. I commanded them to stay, then retrieved a flashlight from the bedside table. I aimed the light beam at the snake,
then scanned the room to see if he had brought any friends. I didn’t see any. Slowly I began to regain my composure.

It’s just one fucking snake, I thought. I can jump toward the bedroom door and get out of the room without ever getting into
snake range. Then I’ll get a rake or something from the garage and kill the damned thing.

I saw no other snakes on my way to the garage. I would have seen them if there had been any, because I had turned on every
light in the house on my way to the garage. I found an iron rake with a long handle. I also found a shovel I could use to
chop the snake in half. I had no experience with this, but Dad had always told me the secret to success was to use the right
tool for the job. I grabbed Scott’s shotgun on the way back up to my bedroom. Now I had three tools.

I flicked on the overhead light in my bedroom. The dogs were on the bed barking. Mr. Snake was still there, quite content
to lie coiled on my carpet. The only reason I didn’t shred the thing with the shotgun is that I didn’t want to have to clean
up what would surely be a bloody mess. Carefully I made my way around the snake to one of the bedroom windows. I opened the
window as much as it would open.

I began to slide the pronged end of the iron rake toward the snake. He didn’t like that and made that clear. I caught part
of his underbelly on the prongs of the rake and lifted him up. I walked to the open window and flung him out, down onto the
frozen ground below.

I supposed he would die from the cold, and that was okay by me. He shouldn’t have been in Nederland in the first fucking place,
and he certainly shouldn’t have been in my bedroom. But I’m not a herpetologist and I wasn’t absolutely sure he would die
from the cold. What if it had been a female? Would the land surrounding my home be infested with baby rattlers next spring?
I put my flip-flops on, walked downstairs, took the shotgun out on to the back deck, located the rattler on the snow, and
fired two shells right at it.

I looked at the clock in the kitchen. Two-seventeen a.m. I downed a few swigs of Jack Daniel’s to calm my nerves and started
a methodical check of my house for snakes. When I was satisfied that there were no others, I took the Jack Daniel’s and Scott’s
shotgun to my recliner, then leaned back to think it through.

Contrary to popular belief, rattlesnakes can live at this altitude. But it’s extremely rare; you’ve got a better chance of
meeting a Republican at a Planned Parenthood meeting than you have of finding a rattler at 8,236 feet. I had never encountered
one above six thousand feet. And they hibernate in the winter. So this was not a case of a confused rattler that just wandered
into my expensive mountain home. Someone had put the snake there, either to kill me or to fuck with me. I intended to find
out who. Then I would kill him or find a way to fuck back.

The phone rang. It was Glen, Nederland’s police chief. “We had a report of gunfire in your area,” he said, “and you naturally
came to mind. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “You don’t need to send anyone.”

“Good. There’s nobody to send except me. What happened?”

“I took a couple of shots at an animal that got too close to the house, that’s all.”

“Mountain lion?”

“Rattlesnake.”

“In January?”

“In my bedroom.”

“You think Bugg had something to do with it?”

“He’s the obvious suspect,” I said. Bugg, someone associated with Bugg, or perhaps Skull or one of his local contacts.

“This is getting out of hand. You want me to go up and interview him?”

“He’s out of your jurisdiction,” I said.

“The crime took place in my jurisdiction.”

“I appreciate the offer, but don’t do anything. Let me think it through.”

I said good night to Glen, again assured him that everything was fine, and leaned back in my recliner. Eventually I fell asleep.

I woke up around nine with a mild hangover from the Jack Daniel’s. I walked into the kitchen, poured some orange juice, then
swallowed four Motrin. I checked all the doors and windows to see if there was any sign of forced entry. Nothing. Whoever
did it had a key or was very good with locks.

After I’d had some coffee, I got dressed and walked the few hundred yards over to the home owned by my aging hippie neighbors,
Luther and Missy. The dogs came with me.

Missy answered the door wearing something with half moons on it that was either a dress or a nightgown. A dog I failed to
recognize was at her side. At any given time Luther and Missy usually have three or four dogs and a couple of houseguests.

“Hi, Pepper,” she said. “Come on in. Do you want some herb tea?” I stomped my boots on the steps to get the snow off them,
then entered the home, leaving Buck and Wheat to play outside. Then I noticed that another woman, much younger, lay asleep
on the sofa. She was covered by quilts, but her feet were sticking out from the covers and I could see she was wearing orange
hunting socks. “That’s our daughter,” Missy explained. “She goes back to college in a few days.”

“Luther around?” I asked.

“He’s in Rapid City for a week,” she said. Luther plays in a rock band named the Stress Monsters, so he’s on the road a lot.
They’re actually damn good, and I don’t know why they haven’t ever become more than a regional band. I guess there could be
worse jobs than touring the American West and playing great music.

I sat down at their kitchen table and Missy handed me a cup of herb tea. Red Zinger, I think. She sat down opposite me. I
heard soft flute music in the background.

“Did you hear those gunshots last night?” she asked.

“That was me,” I said. I did not elaborate.

“I’m sensing tremendous tension in you,” she said. Missy is into a lot of new age mysticism.

“I’m dealing with some bad people,” I said. “Did you or Luther see anything unusual at my house recently? I had to go up to
Alaska for a few days.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“I’d appreciate it if you and Luther would let me know if you see anything strange around here during the next few weeks.
If anything strikes you as funny or out of place, just pick up the phone. Don’t be afraid that you might be making something
out of nothing.”

“Sure,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“It’s not healthy for you to carry so much tension,” she said. “Your aura is the color of mustard. Why don’t you let me lead
you through a guided visualization to help you relax?” What the hell, I figured. Why live in a hippie town if you can’t take
advantage of its resources?

She turned up the flute music and lit some jasmine incense and some candles. I closed my eyes and listened as she began to
speak in a calm and somewhat monotonous voice. I don’t know how long I was “out,” but I felt much more relaxed when I left
Missy and walked back to my home with Buck and Wheat.

I looked at the dogs and said, “Do you guys notice any difference in the color of my aura?”

* * *

Later that I night was watching old fights on ESPN Classic. I was watching the first Ali-Spinks fight, one of my favorites.
Ali was without question the greatest, but on that night in 1978 the 197-pound Spinks pushed Ali around the ring like an unrelenting
bull and pulled off a stunning upset.

I tried calling Jayne when the fight was over, but there was no answer. I thought about calling Kendra Carlson but decided
against it. I would have been doing it for all the wrong reasons.

The dogs started barking and I saw Missy walking toward my front door with her daughter. I invited them in.

“This is Allison,” Missy said.

I extended my right hand and said, “Pepper Keane.” They sat down on my couch. “Can I get you something to drink?” I asked.

“Herb tea,” Missy said.

“Beer, if you have any,” Allison said.

I made a cup of peppermint tea in the microwave for Missy, then pulled two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale from the refrigerator,
handed one to Allison, and sat down in my recliner.

“You’re home from college?” I said to Allison.

“Just for a few more days,” she said.

“Where do you go to school?” I asked.

“Cal Tech,” she said. You could have knocked me over with a rabbit sneeze. I would have bet money that any child of Missy
and Luther attended Berkeley. Or maybe the School of Arts at NYU.

“What are you studying?”

“Nuclear engineering.” Another shocker. Luther and Missy take great pride in heating their home entirely with solar panels
and a wood stove.

“Top ten percent of her class,” Missy added.

“I’m impressed,” I said.

“Don’t be. I have a photographic memory. It just comes naturally.”

“Tell him,” Missy said to her daughter.

“Mom says you wanted to know if there had been anything strange at your house in the past few days.”

“Yeah.”

“A few days ago I went jogging with our dogs and I saw a pickup truck on the road in the front of your house. There were two
men unloading something from the back of the truck. One was very big and the other was taller than average height and skinny.
It was a black nineteen ninety-four Dodge Ram fifteen hundred with Bridgestone tires and a dual exhaust. It had Wyoming plates.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Would you like to know the license plate number?”

“I would like that very much,” I said.

M
ANY PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
are former police officers. I had never been one and consequently did not have as many contacts in law enforcement as some
others. But I had a few. Glen was the obvious choice, but I didn’t want to put him in the position of having to do something
illegal. In a town where one-third of the voters have dreadlocks and smoke pot, his job was tenuous enough. He couldn’t afford
to get caught doing something questionable.

My second choice was a police lieutenant in Walla Walla, Washington. I had met Dick Gilbert a few years back in connection
with another case. Like me, he had been a Marine. He was a chain-smoker, but if he hadn’t died from lung cancer yet, he would
probably run the Wyoming license plate number for me.

“Pepper Keane,” he said. “I haven’t heard from you in a while. You must want something.”

“Just want you to run a license plate number. And maybe a criminal history on whoever owns it.”

“Anything else I can do for you today?”

“If you feel like it, you can send me a box of those Walla Walla sweet onions. I love those things.”

“Give me the plate number,” he said.

It was a beautiful Thursday morning. Unusually warm for January. Warm enough to run in shorts as long as I kept my upper body
warm. I put on a T-shirt, then put a sweatshirt over it. The dogs looked at me, each hoping to be the chosen one. Taking both
was out of the question—trying to control both took all the enjoyment out of running. Anyhow, since I was going to have to
run with the Glock in my hand for the foreseeable future, taking even one dog was not practical.

I headed up to Ridge Road. Once you get there, it offers about two miles of level road and a great view of Barker Reservoir.
There is little traffic on it, and since I was carrying a loaded handgun, I figured that was a good thing. I know of at least
one runner up here who carries a handgun whenever he goes running, but in his case it’s for protection from mountain lions.

The red message light was flashing when I returned home. It was Gilbert, and his message just said, “Call me.”

I dialed his direct number. “What are you involved in?” he asked.

“Somebody put a rattlesnake in my bedroom a few nights ago. This license plate number might tell me who did it.”

“The truck is registered to a company called Wind River Locksmiths in Lander, Wyoming.”

“Yeah.”

“I called Lander PD and learned that Wind River Locksmiths is a trade name used by an ex-con named Monte Corliss.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Monte is sometimes known by the nickname ‘Mongoose.’“

“That’s right. And he has a very impressive criminal history. It’s so long that I decided to scan it and e-mail it to you.
You should have it already.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do. I don’t know what you’re into, but this guy looks like bad news. Be careful.”

I looked through my copy of Bugg’s address book and found a Wyoming phone number with “M.C.” written next to it. I dialed
the number. The man on the other end of the line just said, “Locksmiths.” I told him I had dialed the wrong number, and hung
up. Now I could connect Bugg with Mongoose even without Karlynn’s testimony.

I checked my e-mail and reviewed Mongoose’s criminal history, which included a number of federal firearms convictions. He
was thirty-seven years old, six feet tall, and 175 pounds, which was consistent with how Missy’s daughter had described him.