Winterkill (8 page)

U
pon orders from
the sheriff, the snowplow stopped short of the final sagebrush crest that rose between the road and the river. Joe saw the snowplow veer to the left, off of the road, and the brake lights of the sheriff’s Bronco light up. Then, doors were flying open and heavily armed men were pouring out of the vehicles into the deep snow. Barnum walked back from his Bronco and stopped at the rental DCI Yukon to gather everyone around him.

Joe Pickett dug for his shotgun behind the seat. It was a new model, slicker and lighter than the old WingMaster he’d bird-hunted with until recently. That shotgun, like his side arm and pickup, had been replaced after they were destroyed a year ago during his flight through Savage Run. He and Marybeth were still scouting for a new horse to replace Lizzie.

As he quietly closed his pickup door, Joe felt oddly removed from the rest of the unit. He was a game warden, after all, not an assault-team member. He was used to working alone. But the sheriff had jurisdiction now, and Joe was in a mandated support role.

Joe looked around him at the DCI agents and the deputies from the sheriff’s department. Although he assumed they had
all received some kind of training, this situation was well beyond what he or any of them was used to. The police-blotter column that ran every week in the Saddlestring
Roundup
consisted of small-time domestic disputes, dogs without tags chasing sheep, and moving violations. This was no SWAT team. The men were doing their best, though, Joe thought, to look and act as if they were big-city cops on another routine raid. Given the pent-up aggression they no doubt had and their general lack of experience, Joe hoped the situation would stay under control. He had seen Deputy McLanahan empty his shotgun at tents and pull the trigger to hit Stewie Woods in a cow pasture. How much restraint would he use when confronted with a brutal murderer?

Once again, he thought of how he had found Lamar Gardiner—sitting among the elk carcasses and stuffing cigarettes into his rifle. No one could have anticipated Gardiner’s state of mind, or his subsequent actions. If Joe had had a secure location in his vehicle, or if he’d had backup, this could all possibly have been avoided. But Joe hadn’t had either of those things. He was expected to bring lawbreakers to jail, but wasn’t exactly equipped for it if they were hostile or resisted arrest. Nonetheless, what had happened in the mountains had triggered this chain of events. He felt guilty, and responsible. And he wanted, and needed, to see this thing through, even though this was the last place he wanted to be. Only when he was convinced that Nate Romanowski had killed Lamar Gardiner, and that Romanowski was in custody, would Joe’s conscience let him rest.

It was the day before Christmas, after all, and the place he should be was home. Instead, he loaded six double-aught buckshot shells into his shotgun, racked the slide, and approached the group of officers who were clustered around Barnum.

“S
pread
out not more than twenty feet from each other and form a skirmish line as we approach,” Barnum said. “I want Agent Brazille on the left end and I’ll be on the right. I want this Romanowski perp to think a thousand men are advancing on him. As we approach the cabin, Brazille and I will close on
it and flank it from both sides in a pincer movement. I want everyone in the line to move from cover to cover, but keep moving forward. Imagine you’re kick-returners in football. No lateral movements. Keep advancing up the middle toward that cabin.”

Barnum sounds impressive in these kinds of situations,
Joe thought. This was Joe’s first raid of this kind, however, so he couldn’t compare Barnum’s orders or plan to anything he had experienced before. Watching the DCI agents, Saddlestring police officers, and sheriff’s deputies loading and checking weapons, he was reminded of Barnum’s theory of addressing every situation with overwhelming firepower, which they certainly had.

“I’ll take the point, if you want,” Deputy McLanahan offered, slamming the clip into a scoped M-16 semiautomatic rifle. As if for maximum effect, McLanahan worked the bolt as well, sliding a cartridge into the breech.

“No way, McLanahan,” Barnum said, sounding tired. “We don’t need cowboys.”

Joe watched McLanahan carefully, noting the sting as McLanahan’s eyes narrowed in embarrassment and anger.

“No firing unless it’s in self-defense,” Brazille interjected, eyeing McLahanan as well as his own men.

“I’ve heard he has some kind of big fucking handgun,” McLanahan said. “If he goes for it—the party’s over.”

Barnum and Brazille exchanged worried glances. “If he goes for his big gun,” Barnum said, “we turn him into red mist.”

Joe grimaced. “Red mist” was a term prairie-dog hunters used when they hit the indigenous rodents with high-powered rifle bullets and the impact reduced the animals, literally, into puffs of spray.

“I’ve got some questions for him when you’ve got him in custody,” Melinda Strickland said, speaking for the first time since they had arrived.

Again, Joe wryly noted that although Strickland seemed to want to be in charge of something, she had no apparent experience with tactics or strategy. And she seemed more than willing to stay out of danger.

“That’s fine,” Barnum agreed. “But please stay back here since you’re not armed.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Strickland chortled.

O
ddly,
Joe Pickett thought of his children as he approached the stone house in the skirmish line. He thought of his girls getting ready for the Christmas Eve church service; trying on dresses and tights, asking Marybeth what she thought of their outfits, furtively checking out the brightly wrapped presents under the tree. It was a Pickett family tradition that, after a supper of clam chowder and a trip to church, the children could choose one present to unwrap. Except for Lucy, the girl with style, it was a catastrophe if the present they chose turned out to be clothing. Sheridan, especially, wanted games or books to tide her over until Christmas morning. April claimed she wanted a toaster oven. (She wasn’t getting one.) She had explained that she used to warm up her own meals when she was with her mother and father, and would like to be able to do that again. Marybeth had assured her that there would be plenty to eat, but April didn’t seem to completely understand.

Joe shook his head to clear it knowing he needed to focus on the situation at hand. He snapped his shotgun’s safety off, and tried to keep the recommended distance between himself and two DCI agents as they neared the crest. A stand of cottonwoods crowned by snow provided the only “cover” he could see.

He approached the crest as he would if he were hunting or patrolling—inch by inch. He saw the snow-covered roof of the stone house, then the ragtop of the Jeep. Above them was the bloodred rim of the wall on the other side of the river.

Then he rose far enough to see a surprising, and jarring, sight: Nate Romanowski stood in plain view near a clapboard shed. The suspect stood tall and ready, with both hands empty and away from his body. He was facing the skirmish line, as if waiting for them to come.

Joe stared at Romanowski, and was impressed—and intimidated—by his size and his calm. Romanowski stood stock-still, but Joe could see the man’s eyes move from deputy to
deputy at they approached. Joe didn’t see alarm or threat in Romanowski’s demeanor, just that steely calm.

In his peripheral vision, Joe saw both Barnum and Brazille appear from the sides with their weapons drawn. Romanowski saw them too, and leisurely raised his hands.

Then the skirmish line broke and they were on him, a half-dozen high-powered weapons trained on the breast pocket of Romanowski’s coveralls. Brazille held his pistol to the suspect’s temple with one hand and ran his other hand over Romanowski’s person, checking for weapons. When he got to the empty hip sack, he jerked it away to the ground. Barnum barked an order, and the suspect put his hands behind his head and laced his fingers together.

The skirmish line stood erect and began to crowd Romanowski. Joe lowered his shotgun and followed. Two of the DCI agents peeled off and walked toward the stone house.

“You want to confess now or wait until you get into my nice warm jail?” Barnum asked, his voiced raspy.

Romanowski sighed deeply, and looked straight at the sheriff.

“I’m just surprised that they sent the local yokels,” Romanowski said. “Do you think there are enough of you?”

Sheriff Barnum didn’t know what to make of Romanowski’s comment. Neither did Joe. They looked toward Brazille, who shrugged.

Joe tried to read Nate Romanowski. The man certainly didn’t display any fear, which seemed unnatural—and suspicious—in itself. Joe realized with a chill that he had no trouble picturing Romanowski drawing a bow and firing two arrows into an unarmed Lamar Gardiner, then walking up and drawing a knife across his throat while his victim watched him, wild-eyed.

“I understand you’re a bow hunter,” Barnum asked.

Suddenly, from inside the mews, there was a rustling noise and a screech. Deputy McLanahan turned on his boot heels and, his M-16 on full auto, blasted a solid stream of fire at the structure, which heaved and collapsed in on itself in a cloud of dust and feathers. The smell of gunfire was sharp in the air and the thundering echoes of the shots washed back
from the bluffs. The snow was scattered with steaming brass shell casings.

“Nice job,” Romanowski hissed through clenched teeth. “You just killed my red-tailed hawk.”

Miraculously, the hawk was unharmed. Squawking with an annoyed
reep-reep-reep
chorus, the bird extricated itself from under fallen boards and hopped to the top of the new pile. With several heavy flaps of its wings, it clumsily caught air and began to rise.

McClanahan started to raise his weapon and Joe reached out and caught the barrel.

“What are you doing, McLanahan?” Joe asked, annoyed.

“Leave it be,” Barnum said to his deputy who, with a scowl at Joe, relaxed and swung his rifle back to Romanowski.

A DCI agent tumbled from the stone house, clearly alarmed by the gunfire. He righted himself, and looked to Brazille. “We’ve got a compound bow and a quiver of arrows in there. And this . . .” He held up a leather shoulder holster filled with a massive, long-barreled stainless-steel revolver. This, Joe guessed, was the “big fucking handgun” that McLanahan had mentioned earlier.

This guy is no complete innocent,
Joe thought. He had never seen a handgun as large.

Melinda Strickland, who had been far behind in the raid, now strode into the gathering.

“Do you hate the government, Nate?” Melinda Strickland suddenly asked Romanowski. Elle Broxton-Howard was at Strickland’s shoulder, scribbling notes on a pad.

Romanowski seemed to think about it for a minute. Then he turned toward her slightly—not quick enough to elicit a reaction from the trigger-happy team—and said, “All of a sudden I don’t have any idea what we’re talking about.”

Joe studied Romanowski. What he saw, for the first time, was confusion.

“What I do know is that you people came onto my property with firearms and tried to kill my recovering falcon,” Romanowski said, his calmness eerie and out of place. “Who is the Barney Fife in charge of this outfit?”

As a response, McLanahan stepped forward and slammed
Romanowski in the mouth with the butt of his rifle. Romanowski’s head snapped back, and he stumbled. But he didn’t lower his hands. Despite the slash of burbling crimson and bits of broken teeth on his lips, Romanowski sneered at McLanahan.

Joe had taken a step toward McLanahan again, but Barnum had flung his arm out to stop him. Joe couldn’t believe what the deputy had just done.

“You people have no idea what you’ve just gotten yourselves into,” Romanowski warned, his voice barely perceptible.

“Neither do you,” Melinda Strickland said, her face hard.

“Hit the son-of-a-bitch again,” she ordered. And despite Joe’s shout to stop it, McLanahan did.

J
oe was pleased
to see that the plow had come down Bighorn Road that day as he drove home. It had cut a single lane through the drifts, and massive flagstone-sized plates of wind-hardened snow had been flung onto both sides of the cut, making the edges look jagged and incomplete. He smiled slightly to himself, thinking how disappointed the girls would be that they would have to go to church after all.

But,
he thought,
I need to go to church, even if they don’t.
He needed to leave the blood, gore, and violence of the last few days behind him. The Christmas Eve service wouldn’t wash him clean, but it might, at the very least, change the subject to something better and more hopeful. The apprehending of Nate Romanowski left a sour taste in his mouth. Although from the outside, it might look like a highly successful investigation and arrest—hell, they identified the killer and captured him all in the same day, and in miserable conditions—to Joe things seemed tainted. His mind melded the death of Melinda Strickland’s little dog with the rifle-butt beating of Nate Romanowski. He couldn’t get the image of Romanowski’s face pulled tight with confusion out of his mind. Given the eyewitness testimony and the discovery of what appeared to be the murder weapon, there was no reason to think
that Romanowski wasn’t the killer—except that something in Romanowski’s face bothered Joe. It was as if the man had expected to be arrested, but for something else. Or, Joe thought, as if Romanowski thought he had a perfect alibi but no one was biting.
Something
 . . .

Joe wanted a sense of massive relief that this was over, that the murder investigation was complete, that the thing he had started had finally ended. But he didn’t feel that way.

Maybe I’m asking for too much,
he thought. Maybe these things just weren’t as neat and clean as he hoped they would be. His experience pointed in that direction, after all. Maybe this was a hangover of success, and tomorrow he would see it all in a different light.

He needed to put it out of his mind, at least for a while. And he needed to go to church.

W
hile
they dressed, Joe told Marybeth about what had happened during the day. She listened intently.

Moments before, Marybeth had entered the living room where the girls were playing, clapped her hands sharply and announced, “Ladies, we are going to church.”

Sheridan was silent, but glared at her mother. April had moaned. Lucy had begun to chatter about what she would wear.

“So we might have wrapped this thing up,” he said now. “Like a Christmas present to Saddlestring.”

Marybeth paused a beat. “Why don’t you sound convinced?”

He saw his own bitter smile in the mirror.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I need to sort it out in my mind, I guess.”

She nodded, but kept her eyes on him. He had tried to sound upbeat, but she always read him correctly. He could see her reflection watching his.

“That poor little dog,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yup.”

“Do you think it was deliberate?” she asked.

“That’s my suspicion. Either she wanted to punish the dog by making it run behind the Sno-Cats, or to leave it up there, or to set the stage for what happened. I just don’t know.”

“She might have let that dog in the Sno-Cat if you or someone had said something,” Marybeth said. “Maybe out of shame, if nothing else.”

Joe whistled. “I don’t know, darling. I don’t think anyone knew the dog was out. And she doesn’t seem the type who feels shame.”

Marybeth shook her head. “At least now she’ll go back to wherever she came from.”

“Let’s hope,” Joe said, admiring his wife in her dress. “You look like ten million bucks, you know.”

I
n
a tie and his unfashionable topcoat, Joe Pickett herded his children into the aged minivan after the Christmas Eve church service. Missy, dressed to the nines in black formal wear and pearls she had packed for Jackson Hole cocktail parties, joined her grandchildren in the backseat with a sigh. Marybeth slid into the passenger seat.

The service had been good, Joe thought. Surrounded by his family while the songs and message washed over him, he felt partially cleansed of the scene of unnecessary savagery he had witnessed earlier in the afternoon. Lamar Gardiner or no Lamar Gardiner, there had been no reason for McLanahan and Barnum to beat Nate Romanowski. He said a prayer for Mrs. Gardiner, and a little prayer for the dead dog, but he felt self-conscious doing it.

Sheridan was seated directly behind Joe in the van.

“How about two presents, just in case the first one is clothes?” she asked.

“Sheridan has a point,” April said from the back.

Joe grunted as he started the motor. The influx of bodies into the car steamed all of the windows. The night was clear so far, although snow had once again been predicted, and the moon was framed by a secondary halo.

If it came to a philosophical debate, he knew he would lose on passion points. He was inclined to let them open everything. Just as he was inclined to back Marybeth.

“It’s tradition. One present on Christmas Eve,” Marybeth interjected, turning in her seat. “And besides, you need clothes.”

“But I don’t
want
clothes,” Sheridan whined.

“Me neither,” April added sourly.

“I do,” Lucy squealed, cutely. Missy laughed.

“We
know
!” Sheridan shouted. “And maybe you expect some pearls like Aunt Missy’s.”

Joe said nothing. His mother-in-law liked to pretend she was not a grandmother, but an aunt. She suggested that the girls call her “Aunt Missy” in mixed company. Joe thought it was ridiculous. This was a sore point. Sheridan had obviously picked up on it.

“Let’s all be kind to each other,” Marybeth said, in her most calming tone.
“It’s Christmas Eve.”

It worked. Joe felt Sheridan give up her debating points and settle into her seat. Marybeth was amazing, Joe thought.

They drove through Saddlestring with the heater on high and the defroster at full strength. The girls pointed out the good decorations and dissed the poor ones.

After they had cleared the town limits, Joe sped up. They passed the feed store, the Saddlestring Burg-O-Pardner (the lighted outdoor sign beckoned:
ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTERFEST FREE WITH PURCHASE OF SAME
), and the Mini-Mart. But it was the unusual number of parked cars at the First Alpine Church of Saddlestring that made Joe slow down and look.

“I’ve never seen so many cars at
that
church since we moved here,” Marybeth said.

Neither had Joe, and he often passed the church on his way home from work. The number of parked vehicles—more than thirty—was unusual in itself, but it was the license plates that caught his attention. There were campers, vans, battered four-wheel-drives, and SUVs from Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, Georgia, Michigan, and Wyoming. The small parking lot was filled with them, and late arrivals had lined up bumper to bumper along the entrance road.

“I’m pulling over,” Joe announced. He wanted to check this out, even if it wasn’t his business. As expected, his children responded with a collective moan.

Marybeth gave him a look. “Joe, you can take the night off.”

“Wait,” Sheridan suddenly said from the backseat. “It’s all of those cars we saw in front of the school.”

Joe shot a glance in the rearview mirror at April, to gauge her reaction. Her eyes had suddenly grown very large. But she said nothing.

“It’ll just be a minute,” he said.

Marybeth started to say something—Joe knew it was going to be a “be careful” admonition—but caught herself for the sake of the children and her mother.

“Don’t be long,” she said instead, turning to comfort the children, and especially April.

Joe left the van’s engine running and the heater on, and walked down the middle of the road that led to the church. It had started to snow, and the moon was now blocked by swift-moving storm clouds.

The First Alpine Church of Saddlestring was a small structure made of logs with an adjoining double-wide trailer that served as living quarters for the “unconventional” Reverend B. J. Cobb and his wife, Eunice. The Reverend Cobb normally served a small congregation of Twelve Sleep County’s survivalists and the dispossessed. These were the people who had chosen Saddlestring because it was the end of the road—people who built bunkers, stockpiled weapons and food, and reported sightings of black helicopters to the sheriff’s department. Normally, even on Christmas or Easter, there were not more than a half-dozen cars at the church. The tiny congregation provided so little income that the Reverend Cobb supported himself and his wife by working full-time as a certified welder. Eunice was the Welcome Wagon lady, who met with new residents and gave them coupons to local retail stores.

The footing was icy. Large flakes wafted through the air and settled into vague cotton-ball shapes on the ice. The three steps to the front door were slick, and Joe steadied himself on the handrail as he climbed them. The church was heated inside by a stove; the sweet smell of woodsmoke hung in the air.

He stopped at the door, his fingers around the elk-antler handle. He could hear the Reverend Cobb finish a passage with a flourish. When Eunice began to play the electric piano—the church was too small and poor for an organ—he opened the door and stepped inside. A harsh mixture of woodstove heat, candlewax, and body odor assaulted him. Eunice
was playing
Silent Night
. Most of the congregation sang in English, but a few were singing the words in poor German.

Stille Nacht! Heil’ge Nacht!

Alles schläft, einsam wacht . . .

The rough-hewn pews were packed with visitors wearing big, weathered coats. Their backs were to him. He recognized no one except for the Cobbs, and two locals, Spud Cargill and Rope Latham, who co-owned a company called Bighorn Roofing. He had recognized their identical white Ford pickups outside—the ones with the company logo of winged roofing shingles on the doors. Joe suspected them of poaching, but had never caught them in the act.

As the congregation began the second verse, Reverend Cobb noticed Joe standing in the back. Still singing, the minister skirted the row of pews and greeted Joe with a handshake.

Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh’

Schlafe in himmlisher Ruh’

Reverend B. J. Cobb was a blocky ex-Marine who had served in Vietnam. He had short-cropped silver hair and a big jaw. His wife, Eunice, was just as short and just as blocky, with a mat of iron-gray curls on the top of her head. She had also been a Marine.

“Can the Lord, or this humble servant help you, Mr. Pickett?”

Joe surveyed the wall of turned backs and heavy coats.

“Maybe both of you can,” Joe said. “Who are all these people?”

The Reverend Cobb smiled, and shrugged happily. “They’re here to worship and celebrate Christmas. Who am I to question that?”

Joe looked sharply at Cobb.

“I don’t know them all yet,” Cobb confessed. “I was happily surprised when they showed up for services.”

Joe felt a pair of eyes on him and looked over Cobb’s shoulder. A big, bearlike man had turned slightly in the back row. The man had a massive head with deep, soft eyes and
fleshy lips. His expression was alert, but somehow calming. The man looked Joe over carefully, and Joe looked back.
He must be the one Sheridan described as their leader,
Joe thought. The man turned back to his hymnal.

“They’ve established a camp in the forest on Battle Mountain,” Cobb said. “They all drove down tonight.”

“You’re kidding,” Joe said, alarmed. “In the national forest?”

“That’s what they told me. I haven’t visited it yet.”

“That sounds like trouble in the making,” Joe mumbled.

Cobb smiled sweetly. Despite Cobb’s unique take on things, Joe liked the man.

“I might give you a call in a few days,” Joe said, thanking Cobb and shaking his hand good-bye. “Merry Christmas.”

“And a merry Christmas to you, Joe Pickett,” the reverend said.

Joe turned toward the door but paused before he opened it, feeling eyes on him again. He wondered if the big man had once again turned, to make sure Joe was leaving.

Slowly, Joe looked over his shoulder. The big man still had his back turned, and was singing. Then Joe saw her.

Because she was small, she couldn’t see him over the congregation, so she had to lean out into the aisle. Her face was thin and pinched, her eyes so hard and cold that Joe shuddered.

The first time he had met Jeannie Keeley was at her husband Ote’s funeral. She had walked up to Joe, pulling April behind her like a rag doll, and said: “Aren’t you the mother-fucking
prick
who wanted to take my Otie’s outfitting license away?”

And now she was back.

A
fter
making three piles of Santa’s gifts for discovery in the morning, and after eating the cookie and drinking the milk left for Santa by Lucy (with plenty of telltale crumbs), Joe and Marybeth said good night to Missy. She acknowledged them by raising her pinkie finger above the rim of her just-filled wineglass. That annoyed Joe, who was still on edge from seeing Jeannie Keeley.