“Sorry I’m late,” Joe said, adjusting the volume down on the universal access channel of the radio. “It’s been another busy morning.”
“No problem,” Brueggemann said, buckling in. “What’s going on? Aren’t we going up to check on those elk camps?”
“Not today.”
“What’s going on?”
Joe chinned toward the radio. “Haven’t you been listening in? I thought you did that.”
Brueggemann’s face flushed red. “Girlfriend problems,” he said. “I’ve been on my phone all morning with my girl in Laramie.”
“Does she go to the university?” Joe asked, pulling out of the parking lot onto the street.
“Fifth-year senior. She kind of misses me, I guess. But she doesn’t have to make it so hard on me because I’m not there, you know? She’s used to being in contact with me twenty-four/seven.”
Joe grunted. He didn’t know, but he really wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the details. His mind was racing from what he’d heard from Deputy Reed that morning.
Brueggemann got the message that Joe didn’t want to hear about his personal life. He said, “So what’d I miss out on?”
“A guy from the reservation is missing,” Joe said, nodding toward the radio. “A well-known guy named Bad Bob Whiteplume. I know him a little, but I knew his sister very well.”
“You mean like he was kidnapped?”
“No. Missing.”
“Doesn’t that kind of thing happen all the time?” his trainee asked.
When Joe shot him a look, Brueggemann flushed again and said, “I didn’t mean anything by it. Sorry. I just meant I’ve heard those folks tend to come and go more than … others.”
“You sound like the sheriff’s department. Did you learn that growing up in Sundance?” Joe asked.
“You know what I mean,” Brueggemann stuttered.
Joe said, “It’s an odd deal. There’s all kinds on the res, just like there’s all kinds here in town. His sister, Alisha, was one of the best people I’ve ever met, God rest her soul.”
“She died?”
“Not that long ago,” Joe said. “It was an accident. The guys who killed her were after someone else and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“This missing-persons case,” Brueggemann said. “What does it have to do with us?”
Joe cruised down Main Street, nodding hello to the few shoppers out on the sidewalk. “In normal circumstances, nothing,” he said. “But if you’ll recall, we had a triple homicide here a few days ago. Sheriff McLanahan has his hands full with that, and he’s apparently not getting anywhere finding the killer. He’s got FBI and DCI people here bumping into each other, and the voters are getting pretty antsy. And in the middle of all that, this doctor sets up camp and starts demanding a full-scale investigation to locate Bad Bob.”
Brueggemann shook his head, confused.
“If you haven’t noticed,” Joe said, “we don’t have a lot of law enforcement bodies around this county. When something major happens, everybody gets pressed into the effort. Highway patrol, local cops, brand inspectors. And game wardens.”
The trainee grinned. “So we’re gonna be part of the investigation?”
“Bet they didn’t tell you this part in game warden school,” Joe said.
“There isn’t any game warden school,” Brueggemann said.
“I know.”
It took forty minutes to get to Bad Bob’s Native American Outlet. On the way there, Brueggemann peppered Joe with questions about cases, investigative methods, Game and Fish violators, and landowner relations in Twelve Sleep County. They were the kinds of questions Joe had once asked of his mentor, Vern Dunnegan, when he’d been a trainee. While Vern loved to talk and tell long stories about the characters in the district, Joe kept his answers short and clipped. He didn’t have the paternalistic contempt for the locals Vern had.
While they drove, Joe noticed Brueggemann had his phone out and was furiously tapping keys. When his trainee saw Joe look with disapproval, he said as explanation: “Texting my girl.”
“Ah,” Joe said. “Maybe you can tell her you’re working. We’re at work.”
“I’ll do that,” Brueggemann said, his face flushed from being caught. After he pressed send, he slipped the phone back into his uniform pocket.
“You remind me of my daughters with your texting,” Joe said, realizing how old he sounded. And realizing how young Brueggemann was.
As they turned off the highway toward the reservation, there was a late-model black pickup off to the south in the middle of a sagebrush-covered swale. Joe instinctively pulled off the gravel road, put his truck into park, and raised his binoculars. After a full minute, he lowered them to the bench seat and pulled back on the road.
“Hunters?” Brueggemann asked.
“Yup.”
“Are we going to check them out?”
“Nope.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I know ’em,” Joe said. “The biology teacher at the high school and his son. They’ve got deer licenses and habitat stamps. I talked to them a few days ago, and I know they’re clean and legal. This is a general deer area, so they’re not trespassing. And they haven’t shot any game.”
Brueggemann shook his head. “How do you know they haven’t?”
“Clean truck,” Joe said. “No blood on it.”
“Oh,” Brueggemann said, obviously not entirely convinced.
“Like every newbie,” Joe said, “you want to roust somebody. I used to be like that. Most of these folks are solid citizens. They’re meat hunters out to fill their freezers. Most of them have been hunting for years, sometimes for generations. They pay our salaries, and the money from licenses goes to habitat management and conservation. Even the majority of the violators are just a little stupid about rules and regulations or trying to feed their families. Times are tough. Some of these men feel bad about being unemployed. They’d rather take their chances with the game warden than stand in line for government cheese. So I don’t roust ’em just to roust ’em.”
“That’s a question I have,” Brueggemann said. “What do you do when you catch someone red-handed with a poached deer and you know he was going to take it home to his family?”
“Are you asking if I ever use discretion?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Joe thought about how he should answer the question. Then: “Yeah, I do. But I never let them off entirely if they broke the law. I’ll give the guy a ticket for the poached deer, but I might look past other violations he committed at the same time. You can really build on the charges in just about every situation, and you’d be correct. Or you can make a point that one time and go a little easy on the guy. It’s different, though, if the violator is after a trophy or doesn’t have a starving family at home. In that situation, I lower the boom on ’em.”
Brueggemann smiled. “I heard you once issued the governor a ticket for fishing without a license. Is that just an urban legend, or what?”
Joe said, “Nope.”
“You really did that?”
“Of all people, he should have known better.”
“I can’t believe they let you keep your job.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah,” his trainee said. “I think I’d have given the guy a warning or looked the other way. I mean, who cares if he pays a hundred-dollar fine? It wouldn’t mean anything in the end, anyway, and maybe I’d have a friend in high places.”
Joe looked over at Brueggemann for as long as he could before turning back to his driving. “Really?” Joe asked. “I think I should have lost my job if I didn’t give him a ticket.”