In the clearing ahead, Joe could see a man wearing bulky camo clothing and squatting over a small fire with his back to him. A bulging pack hung on the branch of a dead pine, but there was no tent, horse, or ATV that Joe could see.
At the sound of Joe’s greeting, the man wheeled around and shifted his weight toward the pack. That’s when Joe saw the scoped rifle leaning against the dead tree.
“How’re things going?” Joe asked in a friendly tone. As he did, he pressured Toby’s right ribs with his leg so the horse would sidestep slightly and put a couple of trees between him and the man in the camp. That was another thing he’d learned long before: never approach a stranger head-on. Always come a little from the side so the scene was off-balance.
The man stood up slowly and turned toward Joe. His posture was tense, as if he were coiled up. Smoke from the small fire outlined his body.
Joe recognized him.
“Butch?”
“Joe?”
Butch Roberson looked to be equal measures startled, aggressive, and somehow regretful. As if he were resigned to what he would have to do next.
Butch was stocky and barrel-chested, with deep-set brown eyes, a three-day growth of heavy beard, and a wide bony jaw that made his head seem even larger than it was. He had black hair flecked with gray and a once broken nose that made him look like a fighter. He had a way of standing bent slightly forward with his arms stiff at his sides that suggested he would launch into an attack at any provocation. Until he opened his mouth, that is, and his soft-spoken tone belied the package.
Butch owned Meadowlark Construction in Saddlestring, a small company that built a few houses but mainly did renovations. He was Joe’s age, mid-to-late forties, and Joe knew him because Butch was the father of Hannah, Joe’s youngest daughter’s best friend on earth. He’d seen Butch mainly at Lucy’s plays and concerts, and the two had chatted at school functions and when one or the other was sent to pick up his daughter at the Pickett or Roberson home. But since Hannah had obtained her special learner’s permit and could drive a beat-up old sedan to the Pickett house herself, he’d seen less of her parents the past year.
Joe liked Hannah, and so did Marybeth. Hannah had recently expressed an interest in horses, and Marybeth was thrilled to have some help feeding and grooming in the corral behind their house.
Joe knew Butch to be a hard worker, a devoted husband and father, and an outdoorsman who lived to hunt and fish. In that respect, he wasn’t unusual at all in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming.
Because the only times they’d talked were at social functions related to their daughters, Joe found it awkward to find Butch hunched over a fire miles from the road.
Butch seemed to find it unsettling as well, Joe thought, because the look on his face was one Joe had never seen before.
Joe said, “What brings you up here?”
Butch seemed to be searching for the answer, and Joe noted the quick flick of his eyes in the direction of the rifle. Joe hoped it had been involuntary. Men confronted by game wardens in the wild often displayed tics and gestures that were uncharacteristic in the normal day-to-day. The innocent ones, the men who hunted and fished within the regulations and took pride in their ethics and sportsmanship, often displayed signs of nervousness and anxiety because they were disturbed at the possibility of being under suspicion. It was the boastful, overly friendly and outwardly confident backslappers, Joe had found, who were more likely guilty of something.
“Just scouting elk,” Butch said, finally.
Joe nodded. “Nothing wrong with that. Did you find ’em?”
Butch chinned over his left shoulder in a vague westerly direction. “Six-by-six and a six-by-seven and a dozen cows and calves,” he said, meaning bulls with six and seven points on their antlers.
“That’s encouraging,” Joe said, climbing down. “I need to get up here and do an elk trend count soon. But it’s good to hear that you found some.”
Butch nodded, but his eyes stayed hard on Joe’s face, like he was expecting another shoe to drop.
Joe grunted again as he stood on the ground. His lower back joined his knees and thighs in the pain parade. But he thought it important to dismount, get on Butch’s level, so he wouldn’t seem imperious by talking down to him.
“I didn’t see your rig anywhere on the Big Stream,” Joe said. “What did you do, walk here through the National Forest?”
“From the road,” Butch said, peering up and over Joe’s shoulder.
“That’s quite a hike.”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“Seven, eight miles?”
“I do twenty a day when I’m hunting,” Butch said without a hint of boastfulness. He was stating a fact. That was something Joe had noticed before when he talked to Butch, whether it was about hunting, or the snowpack, or roads that were still open into the mountains and break lands, or their daughters-no humor, no nuance. Butch was a serious man who didn’t use many words and who seemed to regard small talk as a waste of time and calories. In that regard, Joe found him a kindred soul.
Joe led Toby twenty feet toward Butch and tied the horse to a live tree. While he did, Daisy bounded forward, tail stiffly wagging from side to side, and snuffled Butch’s camo trousers. There was an etiquette about entering another man’s camp, and that was to keep a distance until invited inside. Daisy had broken the rule.
“Daisy,” Joe warned, dropping his voice.
“It’s fine. I like dogs. She hunt?”
“We’ll see,” Joe said. “I’m working with her until bird season, and then I’ll give her a go. Don’t let her eat what you’re cooking.”
“Just heating up coffee,” Butch said. “I already had lunch. You hungry?”
“No, but thanks for asking.”
“I know I’m not supposed to have a fire.”
Joe nodded. There had been an official fire ban since early that summer, placed there by the Forest Service due to the dead trees. The rule was hated by campers and hikers. Dozens of campsites had been closed in the area, and dozens more were rumored to be closed. Joe hadn’t said anything because the fire ban was federally enforced and not in his purview.
When Joe didn’t respond, Butch nodded, then stood there expectantly. Joe wanted to tell him to relax. Instead, he tried for common ground.
“When I left this morning, Hannah and Lucy were still asleep on the living room floor. They like to get out sleeping bags and watch movies, but I think they talk more than they watch,” Joe said. Lucy and Hannah were both entering the ninth grade at Saddlestring Middle School. They’d been friends since grade school and shared the same interests in drama, choir, and dance. Lucy never hesitated to tell Joe and Marybeth that she envied Hannah, who lived in town and could ride her bike everywhere. Unlike her, who was stuck in a state-owned Game and Fish Department house eight miles away from the action on a gravel road.
“Teenagers can sleep,” Butch said.
Joe laughed. “I’ve got three of ’em. Three girls, that is. You’re right-they can sleep.”
“That’s what they seem to do best,” Butch said, his face suddenly wistful. Then: “Hannah used to be my little buddy. I’d get her up before dawn and we’d go out and scout game or go fishing. She kind of lost interest in that when. .”
Joe looked up, waiting for the rest. But Butch had flushed and looked away. And Joe realized the rest of the sentence might have had to do with Lucy.
“Never mind,” Butch grumbled.
Joe let it go. He knew the feeling. His oldest daughter, Sheridan, had accompanied him often into the field when she was growing up. She’d announced once that she wanted to be a game warden herself, or a master falconer, or a horse trainer. That was before Sheridan had completed her first year at the University of Wyoming, though she had yet to declare a major. She could sleep, too, and that’s all she did on the days she wasn’t working as a waitress at the Burg-O-Pardner to earn money over the summer before starting her second year.