“Someone called our tip line,” Wentworth said.
“Who?”
“It was anonymous.”
“Male? Female? Age? That area up there where I found the birds isn’t a place where someone would just happen by.”
“I can’t give you any of that without authorization,” Wentworth said, looking over the top of his hipster glasses. “But we need you to take us up there to Lek Sixty-four.”
“Really?”
“We don’t want to get lost. You can guide us there.”
“There you go again,” Joe said. “Giving me another order I’m going to ignore.”
“Please, Joe?” Hatch pleaded.
Joe paused by his gate and looked over his shoulder at her. He said, “Not tonight. I’ve got a personal situation going on and I need to be home with my daughter.
“I’ll give you precise directions if you want, but I’m surprised you don’t know where it is. Believe me when I tell you there isn’t much more to find up there, and by the time you locate the site, it’ll be dark and snowing.”
“Let us decide that,” Wentworth said.
Joe turned and went to his truck and found his topo map of the benchland foothills. He spread it out on the hood of his truck and circled the location, then handed the map to Hatch.
“I’ll need that back when you’re through,” he said.
“I’ll return it,” she said with a smile.
Joe looked toward the Bighorns. They were obscured by storm clouds.
“You might want to wait until tomorrow,” he said.
“We heard you the first time,” Wentworth said. Then: “C’mon, Annie. Let’s go do the game warden’s job for him.”
“You do that,” Joe said, and turned to the house.
“Joe, is everything okay?” Hatch asked.
“Nope, it isn’t,” he said, and went inside.
—
LUCY SAID, “They’re in love,” when Joe entered the mudroom and kicked off his cowboy boots. She was sitting on the couch with their Lab/corgi mix, Tube, in her lap. Since Sheridan and April had left the house, Tube had become Lucy’s dog.
“What?”
“They’re in love, those two. Or at least he’s in love with her. I was watching them through the window. What are their names?”
Joe told her, then said, “Lucy, they just work together.”
“Are they single?”
Joe said, “I don’t know. Annie Hatch is. I’m not sure about Wentworth. I saw a wedding ring on his finger when I first met him, but I don’t think he has it on now.”
Lucy nodded smugly. She had a gleam in her eye. She said, “He’s definitely not wearing it now.”
“How do you know he’s in love with her?” Joe asked, a bit flummoxed by his youngest daughter.
“Didn’t you notice their body language? She’s nice and friendly, but he’s very protective of her. He acts like he wants everyone to know he’s in charge. And when she put her hand on his shoulder, it calmed him down immediately. That wouldn’t happen if they just worked together.”
“I never would have noticed,” Joe said.
“No kidding,” Lucy said.
If Lucy was correct, Joe thought, it helped explain the almost religious fervor the sage grouse twins brought to their jobs. They’d been brought together by a single mission: to save a species. They spent hours and days together and they came from a certain bureaucratic mind-set. It made sense, and he wondered why he’d never noticed it before.
“Why didn’t you tell them about April?” Lucy asked. “I’m sure they’d understand.”
“It just didn’t seem right,” Joe muttered.
“They’ll know soon enough,” she said. “The word will get out.”
He nodded. Of course she was right. And the information would have wiped the smirk off Wentworth’s face.
Still, though . . .
—
“HEY,” Lucy said to Joe as she ate a slice of pizza at the dining room table, “I want to show you something.”
She’d been browsing on her iPad while Joe skimmed the weekly Saddlestring Roundup. She turned the iPad in his direction.
“What are we watching?” Joe asked. He could see she’d already queued up a YouTube video.
“It took me about ten seconds to find Dallas Cates’s ride.”
Joe was suddenly interested. Lucy started the video. It was titled “Dallas Cates Riding Bushwhacker at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.” The date the video had been posted was three days before, but he knew that didn’t necessarily mean it was when it was taken.
It was an amateur video, shot by someone standing behind the chutes with a shaky handheld camera phone. There was no narration.
It began with a shot of Dallas buckling on the mandatory flak vest, then pulling his cowboy hat on tight. His face was grim and determined and practically set in stone. Then he turned and mounted the chute where Bushwhacker stood waiting.
The crowd sounds were loud in the background and there were snippets of conversation nearby. It was shoulder-to-shoulder behind the chutes: contestants, stock contractors, cowboys who were there to help their friends and offer advice. The visual swooped around at times as the videographer was jostled, and there were brief shots of the astrodome roof, the crowd, and dirt on the floor. Then the videographer managed to secure a good location right next to the chute itself.
The announcer said, “Now, folks, you can turn your attention to chute number two, where the world champion bull rider from two years ago, Dallas Cates of Saddlestring, Wyoming, and Stephenville, Texas, prepares to go mano a mano with Bushwhacker, the 2014 Bull of the Year.”
Joe and Lucy exchanged glances.
“Watch this close,” she said.
Dallas Cates lowered himself down on the back of the bull. He jammed his gloved right hand through the rope and used his left hand to pull his fingers through farther. The camera jostled again, and for a moment the screen was filled with overhead lights. Then it settled back on Dallas. He was hunched forward on the back of the bull, his left hand already poised in the air.
Someone shouted, “Ride ’im, Cates!”
The announcer said, “Dallas Cates enters this go-round at number two in the world and number three in the standings. A good ride on this bull will vault him to first place! Folks, Dallas Cates is eight seconds away from shocking the world.”
Behind the chute where Cates was mounted, a rodeo official pulled back hard on the flanking strap. The official would release it the moment the gate was thrown open.
Cates broke his concentration for a moment and glanced over at the stands. The camera followed, and there, for no more than a second, was April. She flashed a smile at Dallas and offered him two thumbs up.
Then Dallas turned back to the task at hand and nodded to the men outside the gate waiting for the signal to open it. Dallas had a certain something, Joe noted as he watched. He had a presence about him, real charisma. As much as Joe hated him, he couldn’t take his eyes off the man. No wonder the jeans company chose him as a spokesman, he thought.
Almost imperceptibly, Cates nodded to the men in the arena that he was ready.
Bushwhacker and Dallas exploded into the arena in a whirling combination of twists and bucks. The crowd went wild. Although the videographer missed part of it, Dallas Cates was thrown forward on the front shoulders of the bull, then rocked back. The cowboy flew through the air and landed flat on his back in the dirt behind the bull.
While the announcer said, “Dallas Cates gets Bushwhacked in two-point-eight-seven seconds!” the bull wheeled and lowered its head and charged Dallas, who scrambled backward like a crab.
Bullfighters dressed as clowns swooped in a second too late to distract the animal, and the bull either hooked or head-butted Cates with enough power to send him airborne again. There was an audible gasp from the fans, but despite the unreliable camerawork, Joe could see Cates roll to his feet and scramble up the chute boards to safety.