Trophy Hunt (22 page)

“Which really, when you think of it, isn’t very damned much,” Harvey said. “But at least I’ve got my guys running around all excited, instead of sitting there reading the
Pro Rodeo News.
”

Joe stood, shook hands, and opened the door. Before he left, he remembered one of the questions he meant to ask when he arrived.

“You said Stuart Tanner owned an outfit called Tanner Engineering?”

Harvey nodded. “Right, based out of Texas, but his family’s had a cabin up here for years, and he liked to stay there when his company was working in the area.”

“Do you know what Tanner Engineering was working on? Specifically?”

While Harvey shuffled through the file, Joe recalled something from the day before. Tuff Montegue’s brother had said Tuff worked for “Turner Engineering.” Could it have been Tanner Engineering? Joe felt a twinge.

Harvey looked up after going through the file. “We don’t have anything on what he was doing here,” he said. “You know, I feel kind of stupid that we haven’t really pursued this angle. To be honest, we’ve been sort of waiting for something to break in Twelve Sleep County.”

That sounds about right,
Joe thought.

“I’ve got to think about this,” Harvey said, as much to himself as to Joe. “If some bad guy killed and mutilated Stuart Tanner, did he also do all of the livestock? And the moose? And the cowboy? It doesn’t seem possible to me.”

Joe didn’t know what to say. But his mind was spinning.

B
ack in his pickup heading for Saddlestring, Joe called Marybeth at Logue Country Realty. “Are things okay today?” he asked. “Fine,” she said, sounding more cheerful than he would have
anticipated. “Except Marie is sick again. I haven’t seen her in three days. I’m starting to get a little worried about her, Joe. I asked Cam how she was doing, and he said he thought she’d be back in later this week.”

“So you talked with Cam, huh?” he asked, feeling a surge of anger.

“Of course I talked with him,” Marybeth said, admonishing Joe. “He’s my boss. Nothing was said about our conversation yesterday, and I think he’s a little ashamed of the whole thing. I’m not worried, Joe.”

“You’ll call me if something happens again, right?”

“Of course. But I can handle myself. I’m a big girl, and I’m smarter than hell.”

“That you are,” Joe said although he still felt like smashing his fist into Cam’s face.

“But that’s not the only reason why you’re calling, is it?” she teased.

Man, she knew him well, he thought. “I was wondering if you would have any time to do some research. It can probably be done on the Internet and with a couple of calls.”

“Is something happening, Joe?” She sounded intrigued.

“Maybe. But I’m not sure yet.”

“I can grab some time over lunch,” she said. “What do you need?”

“Do you have a pencil?”

I
t was late afternoon when the town of Saddlestring came into view. From the distance on the highway, it looked insignificant beneath the slumping shoulders of the Bighorn Mountains. Joe could see a few buildings poking out of young trees, the Twelve Sleep River as it serpentined through the valley and through the middle of town, and four shining ribbons of highway that intersected within the tree-choked community.

He had tried to let his mind work during the drive back, to process what he had learned in Cody. He tried to think of what they might be overlooking that was sitting there right in front of them.

This was giving him a headache. But maybe this new information would sort itself out, start to fit into proper places.

Then something occurred to him. It was obvious, if risky. It could move the new track of the investigation forward, or screw it all up forever.

He could simply call the number with the 910 area code, and see who answered. Fayetteville, he said to himself. What is in Fayetteville?

Joe pulled his cell phone from its mount on the dash and was reaching for his notebook to look up the number, when the phone trilled.

“Joe, it’s Trey Crump.”

Joe hadn’t talked to his district supervisor since before the task force was formed, although he had kept him up to date on the progress, or lack of it, via e-mailed reports.

“What’s up?”

“You’re not going to believe this, but I just got a call from the bear guys up in Yellowstone. Apparently, they just picked up a signal on our missing grizzly.”

Joe had a feeling what was coming.

“They tracked him to a location that’s literally in your backyard, so to speak. Just east of the mountains, in the breaklands. He appears to have stopped, because they said the signal is strong and not moving.”

Joe grabbed his notebook from the seat, and flipped to a fresh page.

“Do you have the GPS coordinates?” Joe asked.

“Got ’em. You ready?”

“Sure,” Joe said, scribbling.

A
s he shot through Saddlestring and out the other side toward the breaklands, Joe called Nate Romanowski. As usual, he got Nate’s unreliable answering machine.

“We located the bear,” Joe said. “If you get this, you’ll want to get right out to the BLM tract off Dreadnought Road. The bear is supposedly right in the middle of it, about six miles off-road to the north. Look for my truck.”

T
HE BREAKLANDS COUNTRY
beyond Dreadnought Road served as a kind of geological shelf before gradually rising into the foothills and then swelling into a sharp climb into the mountains. At first glance it looked flat and wide open, but in actuality it was deceptive terrain coursed through with deep draws of crumbly, yellow-white earth that created massive islands of grass-covered flats that were attractive to pronghorn antelope, mule deer, and ranchers. Before lamb and wool prices collapsed in the 1980s, the breaklands had been filled with sheep. Joe had seen photos from the forties and fifties on the wall at the Stockman’s Bar of sheep herds clipping the grass in the Dreadnought breaklands as far as the photographer could see. There were still a few bands of sheep in the area, tended by Mexican or Basque herders, but nowhere near the amount there had been.

Joe slowed his pickup on Dreadnought Road while watching the GPS unit on his console, and scanned the surrounding area for Nate Romanowski. He was wary of striking off-road as it approached dusk because
of the network of arroyos and draws that could cut him off, isolate him, or get him stuck.

Joe didn’t find a road, and realized he had gone beyond where he should have turned right. He stopped and studied a well-worn topo map of the area, trying to find if there was another approach—one with roads—to where the bear had been located. There was an old road of some kind that entered the area from the exact opposite direction but he estimated it would take close to an hour to get to it. His only choice, he concluded, was to go off-road.

On the floor of the pickup was a tranquilizer gun in its plastic case. The gun had a pistol grip and shot a single fat dart loaded with a debilitating sedative. The warnings on the box of darts said that the sedative was extremely concentrated, and designed for animals weighing over 400 pounds. The dosage was lethal to humans. Reversing down the empty county road for nearly quarter of a mile, he slowed, cranked the wheel so that the nose of the pickup pointed straight out into the breaklands, punched the four-wheel-drive high switch, and started crawling across the sagebrush in the dusk. His tires crushed sagebrush, and the sharp, juniper-like smell perfumed the chilling air. As usual, he kept both windows open so he could see and hear better. As the front tires bucked down and up through a hidden, foot-deep channel, he instinctively reached over with his arm to prevent Maxine from toppling from the seat to the floorboards before remembering Maxine wasn’t there.

T
wenty minutes after he had left the road, Joe glanced up and saw a pair of bobbing headlights in his rearview mirror. The vehicle was at least ten minutes behind him, and seemed to be using the same set of tracks that he had cut across the grass and brush.

Who could possibly be following him, or even know where he was? Maybe Nate got his message after all.

While he was watching the mirror instead of where he was going, his left front tire dropped into a huge badger hole and jerked the truck to a
stop. The steering wheel spun sharply left as the tire fell and twisted in the hole, and maps, memos, and other paperwork rained on him from where they had been wedged under rubber bands on his visor for safekeeping. The motor died. He picked up all the paper that had fallen on him and shoved it out of the way between the seats. He looked up and saw lazy dust swirling in his headlights, lit up with the last brilliant half hour of the ballooning sun.

Feeling his chest constrict, he checked his mirror. Because he had stalled out in a small dip in the terrain, he couldn’t see the headlights behind him. He turned in his seat, looked through the glass, but couldn’t see the vehicle.

Was it Nate? If Joe could see the headlights again, he could be sure. Nate’s Jeep had a recognizable grille and set of lights. It looked like an owl’s face.

He had a wild thought: what if it wasn’t Nate? What if someone had used the same frequency as the bear collar to alert the biologists and lure Joe out here? The frequency itself, though assigned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was available on the handheld radios favored by most hunters and fishers, even though use of it was discouraged.

Uh-oh,
Joe thought. Did he have time to unsheath his shotgun before the vehicle behind him caught up?

Then headlights cleared the wash and Joe instantly recognized the grille of Nate’s Jeep. Nate thrust his head out the window.

“Hey, Joe,” Nate Romanowski, the driver, said in greeting. “I got your message about the bear and came straight out.”

Joe sighed, relaxing. “Have you ever considered calling ahead, Nate? Have you ever thought about calling me on my cell phone or through my dispatcher and telling me that you’re planning to find me?” Joe said, his voice rising. “Have you ever thought about that, Nate? Instead of scaring the hell out of me by chasing me across the prairie?”

Nate didn’t respond right away, which was his way. Joe noticed that Nate was wearing his side-draw shoulder holster.

“So,” Nate said, a smile tugging on his mouth, “where’s your bear?”

T
hey left Nate’s Jeep in the ditch and, after working Joe’s pickup out of the badger hole, Nate and Joe sat side by side on the bench seat in Joe’s truck and churned forward through the prairie in the half-light of the last ten minutes of dusk.

“The bear might be out here,” Joe said, “but I don’t think the bear is the key to the mutilations.”

Nate shrugged. “This is one of those instances where reasonable people can disagree.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “Explain.”

Nate chuckled again, which sounded somewhat false.

“Things are happening with the investigation,” Nate said. “I can tell by your mood. You’re . . .
jaunty,
all of a sudden. A little excitable also, I’d say. If you give me the background I’ll be able to let you know if I’m still in the ballpark or not. But I’ve had a few thoughts lately and a few more dreams. I’ve talked to some Indian friends.”

Joe shot Nate a look. He knew Nate had contacts on the reservation. The mutual interest was falconry, which the Shoshone and Arapaho admired.

“So you need to tell me what’s going on,” Nate said.

Joe checked the GPS unit. They were close. So far, he was pleasantly surprised that they’d paralleled the worst draws in the breaklands, and hadn’t been confronted with any ditches that stopped their progress.

“Things are getting interesting,” Joe said, and told Nate about his confrontation with Barnum and Portenson, his interview with Montegue, and the meeting with Sheriff Dan Harvey.

“Okay,” Nate said, after listening carefully. “There is something here.”

“So what is it?” Joe asked.

Nate shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. But something ought to fit with something else. Tanner Engineering may be the place to start. But, Joe . . .”

“What?”

“Don’t dismiss what I said earlier. About the energy booms and the fact that the murders and mutilations seem to come when the ground is being
tapped. Or that the bear may be more than a bear. That bear is here for a reason.”

Joe waved Nate away, as if swatting at a fly. “Nate, let’s not even go down that road. It’s crazy.”

Nate clammed up, stung by Joe’s attitude. Silence hung heavily in the cab.

“Okay, Nate, I haven’t dismissed it completely,” Joe said, sorry he’d snapped. “But I still can’t see where it connects.”

They hit another badger hole, which pitched the pickup like a sailboat in a choppy swell.

Nate said, “It probably doesn’t. That’s my point. I feel like there are things happening on different levels of reality but all at the same time. We happen to be in the right place at the right time where different levels of conflicts are overlapping.”

“What?”

“You should open your mind a little.”

“Perhaps.”

Both Nate and Joe watched the GPS unit. They knew they were moments away from contact.

“What did you say that area code and telephone number was?” Nate asked, changing the subject. The pickup nose was pointed toward the sky, into a swirl of early-evening stars. When they broke over the rise Joe expected to see the bear. They were that close.

“Nine-one-oh something,” Joe said. “Fayetteville, North Carolina. Wherever that is.”

Nate laughed. “Here’s a guy in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, asking where North Carolina is.”

“We’re just about over the top,” Joe said. “Get ready for I don’t know what.”

“Nine-one-oh,” Nate said suddenly. “That’s the area code for Fort Bragg. The army base. I spent some time there. Forget Fayetteville, Joe. Think Fort Bragg.”

With that, Joe felt another door open. As it did, they topped the hill
and looked down on an immense flat basin that was lit up in the moonlight. He saw no bear. But in the center of the basin was a sheep wagon. There was no pickup next to the wagon, only a few white sheep, their backs absorbing the light blue moonlight. The sheep wagon was prototypical of the models that used to be found all over the Rockies: a compact living space mounted on wheels that could be pulled by a long tongue hitch and stationed amid the herds. It was the nineteenth-century precursor to the RV. There was a single door at the rear of the wagon, and a single window over the bunk-shelf near the front. A wood-stove chimney pipe poked out of the rounded top.

Joe stopped and checked the coordinates.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Joe said.

“What?” Nate asked.

“We’re here. This is where the bear boys said they caught the grizzly’s signal. Right here. But I don’t see anything besides the wagon and the sheep.”

Nate leaned forward, looking back and forth from the GPS display into the basin. “Unless I’m wrong,” he said, “our bear is inside that sheep wagon.”

Joe turned his head toward Nate. “This is really strange.”

Nate nodded.

“Do you have a lot of bullets for that gun?” Joe asked.

Nate arched his eyebrows. “I do. I just hope I don’t have to use them.”

Joe stopped the truck twenty yards from the sheep wagon. His headlights bathed the door, which appeared to be slightly ajar. There was no light from inside, and no curl of smoke from the chimney.

Nate spoke softly as Joe armed the tranquilizer gun under the glow of the dome light, twisting off the plastic cap from the needle, checking that the dart was filled with 4 cc’s of Telazol, inserting the dart into the chamber, and snapping the barrel down on the assembly.

Nate said, “I’ve read where the methods of working with bears is similar in concept to working with raptors. On a much bigger scale, of course, but it’s basically the same program of give-and-take, and mutual respect.”

Joe checked over the tranquilizer pistol and found the button which engaged the CO cartridge. He pushed the button and heard a short, angry hiss.

“Nate, are you saying you want to
train
the grizzly?” This was incomprehensible to Joe, not to mention illegal.

“Not at all,” Nate said emphatically, “I want to get inside his head, see what makes him tick. Find out what he’s thinking and why he came here. And who sent him.”

Joe looked at Nate, hoping to see a hint of a smile but Nate was dead serious.

J
oe’s heart raced as he approached the sheep wagon. Their plan was for Joe to go to the left side of the wagon, the side the door would open up to, and for Nate to take the right. Joe had the tranquilizer gun in one fist and his Mag-Lite flashlight in the other. Once in position, Nate was to slip a cord over the handle of the door and ease it open. Joe would shine his light inside. If the bear was in there, he would shoot it point-blank, aiming for a haunch or shoulder.
Don’t hit him in the head,
he told himself. If he missed, the dart could bounce right off.

So here he was, he thought, with his little dart gun and no place to run if things went bad. The sheep in the plain hadn’t even looked up to note their presence.

Nate was his insurance policy in this situation. Despite his earlier statements, Nate had agreed that if the bear turned on either one of them Nate would fire. From the other side of the sheep wagon, Joe heard the faint
click-click
of Nate’s revolver being cocked.

Joe heard no sound from inside the wagon as he stood next to it. No breathing, no rustling. He could smell a dank, musky odor—a bear.

He peered cautiously around the edge of the wagon and saw Nate slip the cord over the door handle. Slowly, the cord tightened and the door began to open. When a rusty hinge creaked, Joe nearly jumped out of his boots.

Then the door was fully open, and Joe pivoted around the side of the wagon and aimed his flashlight inside. The tranquilizer gun was held parallel to the flashlight.

The sheep wagon was empty.

“All clear,” Joe croaked, his voice giving away his fear.

Nate wheeled around the door and looked down the sight of his handgun into the wagon.

“The place has been trashed,” Nate said, easing the hammer down and holstering the gun.

Inside, in the naked white light of the flashlight, Joe could see that the table was splintered and the old mattress on the bunk was shredded, with rolls of foam blooming from the tears. The insides of the walls were battered.