His trainee’s silence became uncomfortable. Finally, Brueggemann said, “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking when I said that.”
“No,” Joe said, “you weren’t. I’ve got a job to do out here, and I do it.” After a moment: “I know this will come across as old-school, but I hope you approach this job the right way. It’s easy to be cynical. That’s the way a lot of young people think about the world. I know that because I’ve got three kids of my own and I see glimpses of it from them at times. But I really do believe there’s nothing wrong with doing your best and doing the right thing. Just because you have a badge and a gun doesn’t mean you’re any better than these folks. If it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have a job.
“I screw up sometimes,” he said, “but I’d rather screw up trying to do the right thing than looking the other way. And what good does it do you if your friend in high places knows firsthand that you’ll compromise your oath? Tell me that?”
“Jeez,” Brueggemann said, looking away. “You don’t need to get so hot about it. I said I was sorry.”
A few miles later, after minutes of silent tension, Brueggemann said, “I don’t want to get you all riled up again, but there’s something I’m curious about.”
“What’s that?” Joe said, tight-lipped. He was surprised at himself for getting angry so quickly, and he knew exactly why it had happened. He was also surprised that the reason for his outburst was the next thing to come out of Brueggemann’s mouth.
“This Nate Romanowski guy, the one the sheriff asked you about. Do you know him pretty well?”
“Well enough, I guess.”
“How? I mean, from what I heard yesterday at the garage, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with. He seems like the kind of guy you’d want to arrest.”
Joe knew he was boxed in. He said, “I’m not going to talk about it right now.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“I’m just curious,” his trainee said.
“You can stay curious for a while,” Joe said so sharply that Brueggemann flinched.
A few minutes later, after he’d cooled down, Joe said, “It’s not just you I find so annoying. I’m trying to work some things out in my own mind right now.”
“I’m glad it’s not just me,” his trainee said, in a way that made Joe grin.
Joe nodded toward a low-slung building that emerged from the cottonwoods on the right. Two sheriff’s department vehicles were parked out front. “We’re here.”
Sheriff Kyle McLanahan looked distressed. Deputy Sollis stood next to him, his face a mask of deep feigned sympathy for his boss. Both looked up as Joe parked his truck and got out. Neither looked excited to see him.
“We’re in the middle of an investigation here,” Sollis called out.
“Looks like it,” Joe said, strolling up. Luke Brueggemann was a few feet behind Joe, hanging back. “Looks like you’ve got a lot going on by the way you’re standing around with purpose next to gas pumps.”
McLanahan said, “Unless you’ve got something you can tell us to help out, I’d suggest you move on down the road, Game Warden.”
“Deputy Reed filled me in on what was going on this morning,” Joe said. “I know you’re shorthanded until the state boys and the Feds show up.”
“He did, huh?” Sollis asked, as if Joe and Mike Reed’s conversation was proof of some kind of collusion.
Joe said, “Yup. You guys have a lot on your plate right now, and there’s two of us available.”
The sheriff snorted a response.
Joe ignored him and looked around. There was very little that stood out about the scene, Joe thought. The convenience store was still, the we’re closed sign propped in the window. Bad Bob’s blue Dodge pickup was parked on the side of the building where it always was, meaning he hadn’t driven it away. Two battered Dumpsters had been turned over behind the building and the contents inside scattered across the dirt. The concrete pad housing the gas pumps was dusty but not stained with blood.
Joe said, “I was wondering if you’d talked to the folks at the school. They seem to know everything that’s happening on the res.” He was thinking in particular of Alice Thunder, who had her finger on the pulse of the community and was supposed to be gone, according to Nate.
“We really don’t need your help with real police work,” Sollis said. “Aren’t there some fishermen you can go out and harass?”
“Not many,” Joe said. “Most folks are hunting by now.”
Joe was struck by McLanahan’s demeanor. He was usually blustery and sarcastic, roiling the calm with quaint and colorful cowboy sayings. But he looked gaunt, and the dark circles under his eyes were pronounced. This whole thing — the murders, the disappearance of Bad Bob, the upcoming election — was getting to him, Joe thought. There were many times in the past when Joe would have paid to see the sheriff in such pain. But for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, this wasn’t one of them.
Joe said, “Bob is kind of a renegade. He might show up.”
“You think we don’t know that?” McLanahan said. “Do you think we want to …” But he caught himself before he finished the sentence.
“Get a move on, the both of you,” Sollis said. “We’re busy here, and you’re interfering with a crime scene.”
“A crime scene, is it?” Joe said.
“You heard him,” McLanahan growled. Joe noted that when the sheriff was truly angry, the West Virginia accent he once had and now suppressed poked through.
“Hey,” Luke Brueggemann said to the sheriff, gesturing toward Joe. “He’s just trying to help. He spends a hell of a lot more time out here than you people do, and he’s a lot more effective. Maybe you ought to listen to what he has to say.”
Joe raised his eyebrows in surprise. Sollis glared and squared his feet as if bracing for a fight. McLanahan turned his attention from Joe to the trainee.
“Who in the hell are you?”
“Name’s Luke Brueggemann.”
McLanahan let the name sit there. After a moment, he shook his head and said to Joe, “Get him out of here. He ain’t no older than my grandson, and even stupider, if possible.”
Joe hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and rocked on his boot heels. He nodded and said, “I guess you’re right. We’ve got fishermen to harass.”
He turned and put his hand on Brueggemann’s shoulder as he walked past. Brueggemann gave Sollis a belligerent nod and the sheriff an eye roll before turning and walking with Joe toward their truck.
“What was that about?” Joe whispered.
“They piss me off,” Brueggemann said. “They’ve got no good reason to act like that.”
“The county sheriff has jurisdiction in his county,” Joe said. “We can assist if asked, but he can say no.”
“That guy needs a lot of help, if you ask me. And I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about.”
“Welcome to game warden school,” Joe said, a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.
As he opened the door to his truck, McLanahan called after him, “And you can tell your friend Nate we’re going to find his ass and put him away.”
Joe and Luke Brueggemann stood in front of the counter in the principal’s office of Wyoming Indian High School, waiting for the principal, Ann Shoyo, to conclude a phone conversation. She held a slim finger in the air to indicate it would be only a few more seconds.
She was native, well dressed, and attractive, with a long mane of jet-black hair that curled over her shoulders. He noted the pin on her lapel, a horizontal piece that had a red wild rose on one side and a flag with parallel red and black bars on a field of white on the other side. The pin represented the two nations on the reservation: the rose was the symbol of the Eastern Shoshone, and the flag was the Northern Arapaho.