Claws (3 page)

Four

Officer Brian Patterson accompanied the gurney with the body bag to the ambulance. The vehicle was parked between Mandy’s Chrysler minivan and Wade’s ten-year-old Chevy Silverado. Jackson and Angie Kuka watched Patterson talk to the emergency medical team and then tack toward the Jeep. Jackson was sitting sideways in the drivers seat, feet resting on the sill, while Angie stood beside the open door of the black SUV. The small radios they both wore on their shirts crackled with law enforcement chatter.

Jackson’s 10-74 call – officer needs assistance – to the county communication center in St. Anthony had brought all of the Buckhorn police, three Fremont County Sheriff vehicles, Ronnie Greathouse and one other State Police trooper, the ambulance, and the coroner. The area had been photographed, videotaped, sketched, secured, and processed for evidence by a county sheriff’s detective.

“Where do you want them to … where do they take Ed?” Brian asked Jackson in a calm voice. Brian had long lashes for a man and a soft, round face but was
semper fi
tough.

“The county prosecutor will want an autopsy,” Jackson said. Eileen Stevens, he knew, wouldn’t like that. He didn’t relish trying to explain to her that under the circumstances it wouldn’t much matter. “Take Ed to Madison Hospital, and we’ll have Morris pick him up.” Morris Mortuary had served Buckhorn for fifty years. Ed didn’t deserve to be a toe-tag among strangers, Jackson thought.

While Brian Patterson returned to the ambulance, Angie said, “Tucker already went to tell his aunt Eileen so you don’t have to … I mean, Tucker’s family and all.”

The “and all” meant that Ed and Eileen Stevens had raised Tucker Thule after his father died in a roadhouse brawl and shootout, and his mother, a few months later, dropped the eight-year-old off for a visit while she spent the weekend with a rodeo clown and never returned.

“Christ! I almost shot that boy,” Jackson said and then looked surprised to hear his thoughts spoken aloud.

“He’s fine.” Angie knew something but not everything about Colorado. She knew a little girl had been killed. She knew Jackson had left Fort Collins after it happened. She knew with that history, he was not just thinking about today. “Josh wasn’t shot, and he didn’t get eaten.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s fine.”

“Maybe not, but it means he’s alive.”

Jackson lapsed into another long silence before saying, “The gal from the county mental health office –”

“Becky Rebo.”

“Yeah. Let’s have her talk to Josh and Tammy.”

“What about you, Chief? You gonna talk to her too?”

A door banged, and Wade Placett came out of his house carrying a hunting rifle. Jackson didn’t bother to respond to Angie as he climbed out of the Jeep. He watched Wade approach them. At five-six, Wade was a few inches shorter than Jackson. He also was wider and more muscular. “How’s your family doing?” Jackson asked once Wade drew closer.

“Tammy wet herself again,” Wade told him. “And Josh, he won’t talk about none of it. Not even to Mandy.”

Jackson told Wade about his idea to involve Becky Rebo, and although Wade was skeptical, he didn’t say no. “You going hunting?” Jackson then asked, nodding at the rifle held in the crook of Wade’s arm. It was a Remington 770 Sporting Rifle with a black synthetic stock and a mounted scope. The 770 Sporting Rife was not fancy or glamorous, but slam in 7mm Remington Magnums 160 grain, and it could bring down any normal game in North America.

“Got a barley field to cut,” Wade explained. “But after today, I ain’t going nowhere without protection. That’s for damn sure.”

A few minutes later, Wade drove off. Once he was gone, Jackson said, “Officer Kuka, I’d like you to see what you can dig up on Ted and Dolly and Safari Land for us.”

“So you don’t think it’s a mountain lion?” Angie said.

“I think we better find out what we’re dealing with.”

Sixteen-year-old Shane Tapper slid the black Tacoma 4X4 X-Runner to a dusty stop. The pickup truck had an extended cab, chrome exhaust tips and running boards, black overfenders, hood scoop and matching bumpers, roof-top spot lights, eighteen-inch alloy wheels, and the biggest V-6 with manual transmission the Toyota dealer could deliver. Jesse thought it was simply a Hot Wheels for teenage boys. While the dust swirled, Shane pulled Jesse toward him and nuzzled her neck. “Know what you smell like?”

“If you say horseshit, you’re dead.”

“Cotton candy. Remember? Pink and sticky and …”

She felt his hand slide up her thigh. She was supposed to be excited. “Shane, don’t,” she said when his other hand brushed her breast. “Deborah might see us.”

“So? Bunch of guys probably touched her boobs all at once.” The joke was that the name Double-D Stables didn’t come from Deborah Dawson’s initials, but from her bra size.

It was probably funny to a ten-year-old, Jesse thought. “See you tonight, huh?” she said. She opened the door and scooted out. “I got this new shampoo from Missy. I bet that’s why my neck smells like cotton candy.”

“You use it anyplace else?”

“Is that all you ever think about?”

“Duh?” He smiled. He had sleepy gray eyes and an Elvis mouth. Being cute and popular and rich meant that a lot of girls were willing to do ‘whatever’ to be with him.

“Duh!” Jesse repeated. She shut the door, and Shane gunned the Tacoma. The rear end fishtailed. The dust it kicked up made Jesse cough. Shane always had to show off.

The Double-D Stables was known for its herd of small, sturdy pintos, a good trail horse, and Jesse stopped at a corral and gave each of the two pintos in there a carrot taken from her backpack. Afterwards, she went to the barn to begin mucking stalls. While she sat on the bench in the tack room and swapped out her riding boots for Wellingtons, she again read the notice on the wall. It offered three rules for how to train and care for horses:

It didn’t seem that different from dating, thought Jesse.

She slipped on soft leather gloves before grabbing the wheelbarrow and wheeling it to the first stall. A single horse can drop up to forty pounds of excrement a day. As Jesse grabbed a shovel and started scooping manure, she heard the farrier working outside the barn. In addition to the Double D’s herd of pintos, Touie, her dappled gray Arabian-Appaloosa gelding, was here getting shod.

Touie’s name had started out as Two-A, for Arabian-Appaloosa, but it soon became the easier Touie. Horses are creatures of habit, and the gelding had been off his feed since they had brought him over in the trailer. When the shoeing was finished, Jesse would ride him home. Home?

Touie lived at the half-section farm her dad owned. Jesse had her bedroom there but spent most of her time in town with her mother. Touie had the better deal, she felt.

One pile of manure was wet and heavy, and Jesse bent at the waist to fill the shovel. As she did, a white iPhone slid out of her pocket and plopped in the muck.

Jackson leaned against a locked metal gate that blocked the narrow dirt road to Ted and Dolly Cheney’s house. To the left of the gate was a large and garishly painted sign advertising Safari Land. It featured lions and tigers and a giant cat that looked a little like both.
Jackson had seen Ted’s cats once or twice but didn’t recall a monster cat. He always had figured the image was just an advertising gimmick. He dialed the phone number listed on the sign and got voice mail. He did not leave a message.

It occurred to Jackson that Ted and Dolly might be in town. A lot of country people did their grocery shopping, banking, and other errands on Saturday. He backed out of the turn off and pointed the Jeep toward Buckhorn.

Angie and Sadie were head-to-head when Jackson entered the station. Their conversation ended as soon as they saw him. He told Sadie to contact all the officers, including off-duty and reserve officers, and have everyone available report to his office. “Got anything yet?” he asked Angie.

“Working on it, Chief,” she said.

“Brian out on patrol, Sadie?”

Sadie nodded. It was clear she had been crying.

“Have him drive around town, cruise the parking lots of the stores and the banks. Tell him to look for Ted Cheney’s Dodge pickup and to call me if he sees it.”

Without saying anything about Ed, Jackson went into the small office he occupied as Chief of Police. He sat down at his desk and stared at the computer on it. He had to write a report about what had happened today, and there were a thousand things that he would rather do than relive
his actions of the past few hours. He could always relive his actions of a few years ago, he thought. So a thousand things better and one worse. He booted up the computer.

Angie opened the desk drawer with the file folder. A week ago she had found a provocative picture tucked in the drawer where she stored her gun while in the station. When she went home, the drawer was left empty and unlocked. The picture had been cut out of a magazine. It showed a large can of beans called Bush’s Best, and above it were two girls kissing. Not exactly subtle, thought Angie.

She always explained her lack of a boyfriend by telling people that he had been killed in Iraq, but the picture in her desk was her second ‘message’ in a month. Who in the office knew the truth? And how? Who would enjoy harassing her: Brian, Tucker, Skip, John? The reserve officers were three men and one woman. Maybe one of them? Sadie? Jackson? Neither of them, she thought. Whoever it was, she was pissed at the picture and at herself. She had let it distract and upset her all week.

Eight people squeezed into Jackson’s office while he went over the events of the day beginning with the phone call from Mandy Placett. He skipped the details of the
gore he had found. He told himself he was doing it to spare Tucker, but he knew it was really to spare him. When he finished, he asked for Brian’s report – nobody in town recalled having seen Ted or Dolly since Thursday – and after that he dismissed everyone except for Tucker Thule. “Close the door,” he said. Tucker did. “You doing okay?”

“I still can’t believe it, I guess.”

“I didn’t really plan for Sadie to drag you in for this, but I forgot to tell her.” Ed’s nephew didn’t say anything. “How’s Eileen doing?”

“About like you’d expect, I guess.” Tucker pawed the worn carpet. Although twenty-eight and experienced, also having served as an MP in the Army, Tucker still looked like a big kid. He had his father’s East European features. “I know Uncle Ed’s the one that hired me –”

“Ed hired me too.”

“I guess what I’m asking is if you’re gonna make any changes right off? I sort of heard you were.”

For the first time in hours Jackson remembered the town council meeting. How did Tucker know what had been decided there? “No,” Jackson said. “No changes.”

Someone tapped softly on his door. Jackson said, “Take some time off, Tucker. Whatever you need.”

Tucker thanked Jackson and opened the door and bumped chest to chest into Angie. She yelped and jumped back. Tucker laughed as he slipped past her.

Angie blushed and studied the papers on her clipboard for longer than necessary. She finally said, “I didn’t find much on Safari Land or Dolly, but Ted’s real interesting.”

Jackson nodded and waited for her to continue.

“Safari Land’s an Idaho LLC that was delinquent on fees until recently. Bank of Buckhorn holds the mortgage, and Ted and Dolly are still way behind on payments. I checked with Sharon Sheffield at Re-Max. She says they owe more than the place is worth unless they get their business going and make a profit. Electricity, phone, insurance, everything was overdue, but these all got paid up two months ago. The Cheneys found some money somewhere. Don’t know where.” She stopped and studied her notes.

“How much money we talking about?”

“I’d say a few thousand. Maybe as much as ten.”

The amount surprised Jackson. “Tell me about Ted.”

“Turns out he’s not the backwoods crazy dreamer everybody thought. He has a degree in genetics and worked for Monsanto. High earner, married, successful. Then the IRS got after him. He beat them twice, but the third time, they nailed him for tax fraud. Did a year in federal
minimum security. Wife left him, took the money and kids, and he came out of prison a different man.”

“Prison can do that,” Jackson said. “And Dolly?”

“Squeaky clean except for some traffic violations. Ted’s her third husband. She was a Grier until she married a man named Ryder, and then she married a Yow, and then Ted Cheney. No kids. That’s about it except … did you know Pamela Yow and Dolly, did you know they’re cousins?”

“Seems like Sadie told me that once.”

“But Pamela Yow, she’s always going on about Safari Land being a godless abomination and stuff.”

“You like all your relatives, Angie?”

Angie laughed.

“You say Dolly was married to a Yow?” asked Jackson.

Angie searched her notes. “Eddie Yow.”

“What’s the name of Pamela’s ex-husband?”

“Got me,” she said. “Want me to ask Sadie?”

“Naw. Forget it. We’ll talk to Ted and Dolly.”

Angie laid her report on the desk. “Anything else?”

Jackson leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, I’m going to need a new Deputy Chief of Police.”

“You asking me if I’d want it?”

“Only if you don’t let out a war cry.”

Five

It was mid-afternoon when Jackson got to the Split-Rail Café. He had not eaten since breakfast. He was anticipating a cup of coffee, a turkey sandwich, and time to think. Once he saw Iris and Dell seated in a rear booth, and Iris motioning for him to join them, he knew that the coffee and sandwich were the most he would get. Jackson greeted a few unemployed or retired local men, nodded to a pair of tourists poring over a map, and went to the counter. He gave Suzy Beans, a chubby Korean girl of nineteen, his order for the sandwich and coffee. He ordered turkey breast on dark rye toast, with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and bread and butter pickles.

“You want espresso, cappuccino, latte, Americano …?” Suzy asked with a bored voice. A year ago, Iris had convinced Jay and Janice Beans to add an espresso machine.

“Half-decaf, half-high octane. Black.” Suzy, who had been adopted at birth by the café owners, went off to get his non-espresso machine coffee order, while Jackson moved to the booth and sat beside Iris. “Guess you’ve heard?”

They both said they had.

“I still don’t believe it,” Iris said. “It feels so, so creepy. What we were talking about this morning.”

Jackson resisted any of a dozen comments that came instantly to mind. They weren’t easy to resist.

“I know mountain lions have attacked kids and small women,” Dell said, “but not a man with a gun.”

“I can’t say for sure what killed Ed.” When Suzy Beans brought Jackson’s coffee, he told her thanks.

“Sandwich’ll be right up,” Suzy said and then left.

“I hear it was one of Ted’s big cats,” Iris said.

Jackson didn’t say anything.

“I’ve hunted lions before, real lions,” Dell said. “When me and Dan went to Africa.” Jackson had seen the trophy heads and heard the stories of the safari that Dell and his younger brother, Dan, had gone on six years ago. Dan Tapper was now the lieutenant governor of Idaho. After November, he would most likely be governor. “If a lion or a tiger got loose from the Cheney place, I can kill it,” Dell added. “Go on safari right here in Idaho.”

Jackson sipped his coffee and then said, “Let’s hold off on a hunting party until I talk to Ted and Dolly.”

“What if it kills somebody else first?” Dell asked.

Iris grabbed Jackson’s hand, causing his coffee to slosh onto the table. “Jesse’s out riding that damn horse today.” Her voice was suddenly shrill. “We gotta find her. Stop her. She could be out in the woods with –”

Jackson was on his way out the door, cell phone in hand, before Iris could even finish saying, “– with that killer cat.” His daughter was at the top of his speed dial list. Her cell phone rang, and then a message said the call could not be completed due to … He hung up.

“You reach her?” Iris said, coming up behind him.

“Call Deborah. Have her go find Jesse, and tell her to stay put. Not go off riding. I’m on my way.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No,” Jackson said. “I’ll be faster by myself.” He didn’t stop to argue, hurrying to the Jeep.

“How could you let her do this?” Iris called out.

“Call Deborah now!” Jackson yelled. He jumped in, started the Jeep, eased into light traffic, and headed toward the Double-D Stables. On the edge of town he hit the lights and siren and floored the accelerator.

Jesse tugged at the Chukars’ cap she usually wore while working at the stables. A thick ponytail dangled out of the back of the baseball cap. When she wore a riding
helmet, her hair swung loose beneath it. Although her complexion was lighter than her mom’s, her shoulder length hair was the same deep, dark brown. Today, in her hurry to get out of Shane’s truck, she had forgotten the helmet. If her mom discovered her on horseback without it, she would ground her. Forever. She knew her mom would like that.

Forgetting the helmet was bad, but breaking her iPhone was a zillion times worse, Jesse thought. If her cell phone hadn’t fallen in wet horseshit and then been stomped on by a skittish pinto, she would call her mom now and delay her. Instead, she mapped a new route that went over evergreen and aspen hills, along the crop fields that lay beyond them, and then along the curling, willow-lined Big Tooth River. This route should assure her of reaching her dad’s farm before her mom came to get her.

Jesse gently scratched Touie along the crest and wiggled in the saddle. She hadn’t been riding enough since school started, and the specialized saddle felt unfamiliar. A variation of the English saddle, it was lightweight and designed so both horse and rider could endure long hours. The saddle even had metal rings for attaching the equipment she would need to compete in the Tevis Cup. The endurance race from the Lake Tahoe area across the Sierra Nevada range lasts a full day and covers one hundred miles of
high, hot terrain. Her goal was to enter next year’s race. No, she thought, correcting herself, her goal was to win it.

Although Arabian horses generally dominated the top endurance races, Jesse was sure her Arabian-Appaloosa mix would be better. Touie’s Arabian bloodline gave him size and stamina; his Appaloosa genes meant good sprint speeds and agility. Appaloosas also were loyal and unafraid to tackle trails, cows, or whatever. Jesse had never encountered
whatever
. If she did, she would trust Touie.

Somewhere in the distance Jesse heard the whip-whip-whip of a siren. She turned the horse away from the sound and headed toward a timbered hill. On the other side of it the land would flatten out and skirt the Placett farm.

Jackson killed the siren when he turned off the blacktop. He barreled through the Double-D Stables archway and down a gravel road that crooked for a half-mile before reaching the ranch house. Deborah Dawson was on her front porch when he pulled up. He had slowed the SUV and eased it to a stop to keep from covering her in dust.

Deborah was a tall, raw-boned woman with a mass of red curls atop a high forehead. Jackson didn’t know much about her other than she had moved from New York after a divorce and bought the riding stable. He knew Jesse liked her and
trusted her and he suspected confided in her. As soon as he saw Deborah shaking her head, he knew Jesse was gone.

“Your wife called. I mean your ex,” Deborah said, as Jackson hurried toward her. “I would have gone after Jesse, but Iris thought I should wait for you.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

“Maybe thirty minutes.”

“On Touie?” Jackson stopped at the porch steps.

Deborah nodded and said, “Uh-huh. Iris said there’s a monster cat loose and that Ed Stevens was … is it true?”

Jackson hurriedly told her about Ed.

Deborah’s tanned face turned ash-gray as she listened. “That poor man,” she murmured.

“I need to find Jesse. Any idea where she went?”

Deborah shook her head. “Home is all she said.”

“And there’s no real trail she’ll take?”

“No. Just through the hills and backroads.”

“Damn!” Jackson looked off toward the hills. Finally, he said, “You any good at tracking?”

Deborah frowned. “I was raised to score cheap theater tickets and elbow my way to the counter at Zabar’s. I can read a GPS and a compass. That’s it. But Armando’s not bad at tracking,” she said, referring to her Mexican ranch hand. “I’ll call him.” Deborah picked up a Motorola portable
two-way radio. “I got ATVs. Hate the things but guests love them. Or we can ride the pintos.” Deborah spoke into the radio. “Armando, you read me?”

“If Jesse cuts through the woods, she’ll come out at the Placett farm,” Jackson said. “Close to it anyway.”

Deborah nodded in agreement as her radio crackled and a man’s voice said, “Deborah, I was jus’ gonna call you.”

She pushed the transmit button. “Where are you?”

“Where the sheeps are grazing. Deborah, one of the sheeps, I think a ewe, I found it in the bushes.
Muerto
.”

“Somebody killed one of my ewes?”

“Some thing, not somebody,” Armando told her. “Killed and ate her.”

As Jesse came down off the last hill, she felt the gelding grow nervous and figured it was due to the hot dry wind that was blowing. Horses hate strong winds. Wind overloads their sense of smell. Ahead of her, a field of ripe barley slanted to the south, like thick golden hair combed to one side, while in a field farther away, someone was driving a combine. Suddenly, Touie balked.

“What’s wrong boy?” Jesse rubbed his neck.

Touie’s ears were pinned back flat. His nostrils flared, taking in scents. The horse backed up a couple of steps and gave a sharp snort. Jesse spoke softly, trying
to reassure him, but the gelding snorted again and fought to turn around. It wasn’t wind or farm machinery spooking him, she realized. It was the scent of something scary, and Touie didn’t scare easily. Jesse attempted to look ahead, to search for the source, but Touie kept turning and backing up. Jesse considered wolves, bears, snakes, and mountain lions as a possible threat. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to battle wills with a gelding standing sixteen hands and weighing over nine hundred pounds. Neither could she afford to waste time, not if she was going to reach the farm before her mom did. She had to convince Touie he was safe. But safe from what, Jesse wondered again?

Although Kali needed to consume twenty to thirty pounds of meat per day, and could gorge on twice that amount, she had not set out to hunt that afternoon. She had set out to search for her mate, a male liger, when she heard the prey approaching. Kali had heard the prey long before she saw them since a cat’s hearing is five times greater than humans at the upper range. Now, as she lay in a thatch of common sagewort and cheatgrass beside the trail, Kali felt not only hunger but also the excitement of the chase and kill. In captivity she had eaten a variety of roadkill animals, as well as poached deer and elk and
wolves, even cattle and hogs deemed unfit for human consumption, but horsemeat had been her favorite food. Kali licked her muzzle and watched the nervous prey.

A lion seldom begins a chase from more than fifty yards. A tiger, using stealth, often attacks from even closer. Despite not having hunted before yesterday, Kali had the instincts of both animals in her genes. These instincts informed her that the prey was aware of her presence and frightened and that she should retreat.

A moment later, Kali slipped off into a thick growth of yarrow. Once she was out of sight, she began to circle behind the prey, all the while keeping upwind.

Although he no longer smelled the cat, Touie backtracked a hundred feet before he finally stopped. Jesse dismounted and spent minutes rubbing his forehead while murmuring softly in his ear. She continued until Touie’s ears were relaxed and slightly tipped to the side and his neck was in a soft, lowered position. Only then did she mount the gelding again. Only then, having assured Touie that they were safe, did she nudge him with her heels and say, “Walk on.” Touie hesitantly headed toward home.