“Thank you,” Nate said.
“Thank you for calling the Stop Poaching Hotline,” she said, obviously reading from a screen.
When Nate hung up the phone, he looked up to see Bad Bob coming around the corner of the store holding a lever-action rifle. Bad Bob was shaped like a barrel and had a wide oval face pocked with acne scars. His hair was black, and it glistened from the gel he used to slick the sides down and spike the top. He was wearing a Denver Broncos jersey, baggy trousers, and unlaced Nike high-tops. When he saw Nate, he said, “Jesus!” and jumped back and raised the rifle.
Nate didn’t reach up for his weapon. He said, “Bob, it’s me. Put the rifle down.”
“You fuckin’ scared me, man,” Bob said. “I heard something and I was going out back to see if them bears were in my Dumpster again. I’ve been asking the tribe for some bear-proof garbage cans for months, and they keep saying they’ll bring some, but here we are and I still got damn bears.” He patted the rifle. “I’m gonna smoke one if I catch him and make me a bearskin rug.”
Bad Bob was Alisha’s brother. Nate hadn’t seen him since her death.
“I’m sorry about your sister, Bob,” Nate said.
Bad Bob lowered the rifle and lowered his voice. “Yeah, she was always too good to be true, you know.”
Nate didn’t respond to that. Bob was Alisha’s older brother, and they’d had a strained relationship and rarely spoke to each other. Alisha had left the reservation after high school, got a degree, married, and moved comfortably in Denver social circles. After her divorce, she’d returned to the res on a mission to try and help the students move up and out. She believed in entrepreneurship and individualism, and fought against a group mentality. Bob, on the other hand, rarely ventured off the res and gave talks encouraging the tribes to secede from the union. But he never mailed back a government check, either. The convenience store had been passed down from an uncle who died of cancer, and it had become Bob’s headquarters. The sign in front lured white tourists into the store so Bob could insult them face-to-face.
Bob said, “I heard that the couple of guys who did it are taking the dirt nap.”
“They are,” Nate said.
Bad Bob nodded with satisfaction. “So what are you doing here, man? I thought you left the country.”
“I’m passing through,” Nate said. “Just using your phone before I leave.”
“Why don’t you come in? I got some coffee on, and there’s some wine getting passed around in there.”
“No, thanks,” Nate said. “I’ve got to go. But I’ve got one question for you.”
Bob leaned the rifle against the brick wall of his store and walked forward and slumped against Nate’s Jeep and looked down at his shoes. “You want to know when you’ll be getting some of that loan back, I know. But times have been really tough around here. When there’s all that unemployment out there outside the res, you can imagine what it’s like inside. Shit, I run credit accounts for all these mooks until government check day and then I just hope they’ll come in and pay off their tabs.”
“It’s not that,” Nate said. “I was wondering if you or any of your friends have seen a guy.” He described “Bob White.”
Bad Bob took a long time answering. “I think he might have got gas last week,” he said. “At least it sort of sounds like him, man. All you white people look alike to me.” Bob grinned.
“Not now,” Nate said impatiently. “Was it him?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. He pulled out front, gassed up his rig, and left. We didn’t have a conversation, really. Oh — he asked how to get to the school.”
Nate nodded. It would have been the same day the man met Alice Thunder.
“What was he driving?”
Bob rubbed his chin. “I’m trying to remember. Oh, yeah, It was a nice rig, one of these crossovers; part luxury car and part SUV. An Audi Q7. First one I’ve seen on the res. It was dark gray or blue.”
“Plates?”
“I don’t remember, but I think if they was out-of-state I would have noticed. But maybe not.”
“Anybody with him?”
“Naw,” Bob said. “He was alone. But I do remember he had a bunch of shit piled in the backseat. Gear bags or luggage or something. Nobody could have sat back there because there wasn’t room.”
Nate asked, “How did he pay?”
“Cash,” Bob said. “That I remember. Not many people pay in cash these days, they all use cards. But he peeled some twenties off a roll and I gave him change. That I remember.”
Nate nodded. Then, “Bob, we didn’t have this talk. You never saw me tonight.”
Bob looked over, wanting to hear more.
“That’s all. Forget I was here.”
“All right,” Bob said with hesitation.
“And forget about the loan,” Nate said, restarting his Jeep.
“Thanks, man,” Bob said, stepping away from the Jeep. It was perfunctory. As far as Nate knew, Bob had never repaid a loan, and he didn’t expect him to start now.
A few hundred yards up the reservation road toward the mountains and Hazelton Road, Nate saw a sow black bear in his headlights and swerved to miss it. In the red glow of his taillights he watched her amble down the faded center stripe of the asphalt en route to Bad Bob’s Dumpster.
8
Crazy Woman campground was empty except for two travel trailers full of elk hunters in the farthest reaches of the campsite. Nate could hear the hunters whoop from time to time, and he hummed along with old country music emanating from one of the closest RVs. Because of the possibility of being seen by any of the hunters if they chose to go for a walk in the dark, he moved his Jeep out to Hazelton Road, drove a mile away from the entrance of the campground, and backed it deep into the trees on an old logging road and waited.
It was nearly midnight when he saw a glimpse of distant headlights coming down the road. Just as suddenly, the lights doused. Joe, he thought, had hit his sneak lights as he got close to where the poacher had been reported. Sneak lights were mounted under the bumper and threw a dim pool of light out directly in front of the vehicle so potential violators couldn’t see him coming up the gravel road.
It was a cool, clear night and the stars were brilliant. The only sound was the occasional eerie and high-pitched elk bugle from the wall of thick trees on the rising mountains behind him. Upper Doyle Creek tinkled lightly on the other side of the road, deeply undercutting the grass banks on its circuitous route to the Twelve Sleep River.
Joe was almost upon him before he realized it. Nate saw the dull orb of light from beneath the front of the pickup, got a whiff of exhaust and heard the low rumble of the engine, and there he was, creeping along the gravel road, windows open so he could hear shots.
“Joe,” Nate said aloud.
The pickup braked to a stop. “Nate? Where are you?”
Nate fished a mini-Maglite flashlight out of his vest and swept it along the road in front of him until the light reflected from the headlights of his Jeep in the brush.
“This way,” he said, stepping aside.
As Joe turned off the gravel road and rumbled by Nate, his friend said, “There are no poachers, are there?”
“No.”
Nate used his flashlight to see ahead as he led Joe deeper into the trees to the edge of a small clearing. He jabbed the beam of light on a fallen tree trunk and said, “Have a seat,” while he kicked enough grapefruit-sized rocks free from the soil to make a small fire ring. Nate bunched a handful of dried grass in the center of the ring, lit it with a match, and started feeding the flames with dried pine needles and twigs.