“It’s gonna be damage-control mode. Luckily, we’ve had a little experience with that lately,” he said, almost wistfully. “How this plays out will be a reflection on me and my administration, since I hired you and tried to squirrel you away where you wouldn’t do any more damage. If this story gets out . . .”
“It’s not a story,” Joe said, gritting his teeth. “It’s the truth. It’s what happened. I’m in a hospital bed because of those brothers.”
“That sheriff of yours calls you a fabulist,” Rulon said. “We won’t be able to keep him quiet.”
“No,” Joe agreed.
Rulon paused. “Okay, then. I’ve got two calls I need to return. They both have to do with you. The first is from Chuck Coon at the FBI. He says he wants to be briefed, but I think he may know something about those brothers that he doesn’t want to reveal. As you know, the feds always have something going on behind the scenes.”
Joe grunted. Governor Rulon was getting more and more disparaging of the federal government all the time. Joe used to think he did it to gain popularity with his constituents. In a state where more than 50 percent of the land was owned and managed by federal bureaucracies, the battles between locals and Washington were fierce. Rulon had recently been quoted in national newsmagazines calling the government “thieving, blood-dripping vampire jackals” and “jackbooted fascist thugs.” Joe was beginning to think Rulon believed every word he said.
“I’ll have my staff talk to Coon,” Rulon said. “We may find out something that way that could benefit us. I’m curious he called, to be honest. I’m guessing he did it on behest of his apparatchik superiors.”
Joe found it interesting that Coon had called as well.
Rulon said, “And then I have a harder call to return. It’s the kind of call I hate to make because it makes my stomach churn. Maybe I should have you do it.”
Joe said, “Who, sir?”
“Diane Shober’s parents. Somehow, they found out about your story. They want to find their daughter and bring her home.”
Joe felt his stomach clench.
“Look,” Rulon said. “I’m officially placing you on administrative leave until we can get a handle on all of this. So go home and close the curtains and don’t answer the door or the phone. The media can be tricky bastards and blunt objects, and I don’t want you talking to them. That’s an order. Stay inside and don’t come out until you hear from me or my chief of staff. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.” Joe swallowed. “But . . .”
“No buts except that one you’ve got in a sling. I’m not hanging you out to dry because you’ve never lied to me, even when I wanted you to. Right now, though, we’ve got to go to ground until we can figure out the best course of action.”
Joe said, “I never got to thank you for letting me go home.”
“Oh, this is thanks enough.” The governor snorted, and laughed bitterly at his own joke. “And welcome home. It looks like you’re going to be seeing plenty of it in the next few days.”
Rulon punched off, and Joe lowered the phone to his lap, looked back up at the blank television screen, and clearly saw the abyss this time.
13
ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, ON THE opposite side of the range where Joe Pickett had ascended days before, Dave Farkus crept his pickup along an overgrown two-track through the timber toward his fall elk camp. The afternoon was warm and still, the last gasp of summer, and the insects in the tall grass hummed and jumped with the manic passion of the soon-to-die. Farkus ran his windows up to prevent grasshoppers from jumping inside. Grasshoppers bugged him.
He’d had a bad day so far, but there were signs of improvement. Being in the mountains on a nice summer day was always an improvement over just about anything.
He’d spent most of the day in Encampment, where he’d had a miserable lunch with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Ardith. Ardith had fled Baggs two months before and driven over the top of the mountains to Encampment, population 443 before she arrived to make it 444, where she worked as a bartender at the Rustic Pine Saloon, serving beers and microwave popcorn and pizzas to loggers, tourists, and fishermen. He’d been disappointed to find her not despondent. Farkus had never really liked her, but it disturbed him mightily that she didn’t like him. He wasn’t even sure he wanted her back. But if she did, he could leave. At least then the fellows would think it was his idea, not hers.
And even though he’d taken the day off, driven all the way over the top, delivered a stack of mail as well as her Book-of-the-Month and Fabric-Swatch-of-the-Month packages, she said she had no intention of ever coming back. The divorce paperwork was filed and wouldn’t be recalled. It was a matter of days before it was official and she’d be free, she said.
He’d even presented her with a Styrofoam cooler filled with packages of deer, antelope, and elk steaks as well as a pair of goose breasts, several mourning doves, and a young sage grouse he’d poached. Her so-called appreciation still rang in his ears.
“How romantic,” she’d said. “The gift of meat. It’s just so . . . you.” He’d wanted to tell her about his role in the big doings on the mountain, how he’d been the last man to see and talk to the game warden before he rode his horses up there. And he wanted to tell her his theory about what had happened. He was proud of his theory. But she said her shift started at one p.m. and she had to go.
“Don’t forget the cooler,” he’d said as she gathered herself up. As she did, he looked at her closely and determined she’d lost a few pounds and the blouse she wore was new and fairly tight across her breasts, meaning she probably had a boyfriend. The poor sap, he thought. He wondered if she did things with him she’d refused to do with Farkus.
“I don’t really need all this meat,” she said. She made an “Ooof ” sound as she grasped the handle of the cooler and hefted it from the tabletop. “It’s a lot of heavy meat, all right.”
He said, “Heavy like my heart.”
She looked back at him, smiled crookedly, said, “And just as f rozen.”
SO HE BOUGHT a twelve-pack of Keystone Light at the Mangy Moose because Ardith didn’t work there, and he’d drunk six of them on the way up. In the bed of his Dodge pickup were canvas Cabela’s outfitter tents to be unfolded and put up, cooking stoves to be assembled, an eating table to be unfolded, and grates for the fire pit.
Fall couldn’t come soon enough, he thought. Fall was his favorite season. Fall meant elk hunting, and elk camp, and the camaraderie of the boys. He could do what he excelled at—hunting, cooking over a fire, resuming his only true love affair with the outdoors—and discard the things he hated or was poor at, like being married to Ardith, working for the energy company, or running his household.
Farkus’s objective was to “claim” the camp by establishing it before other elk hunters could do the same thing. It wasn’t a problem with the locals. They all knew where Dave Farkus and his party camped. But every year there were more and more hunters from places like Cheyenne and Casper, and more out-of-staters who didn’t know or appreciate a damned thing about tradition or heritage. Officially, he and his buddies had no real ownership of their camp. The site was a nice opening in a stand of aspen with enough room to park 4 x 4s and ATVs. It had flat spots for the tents and a couple of old-growth pines within walking distance for hanging a meat pole. The forest was public land, and reservations weren’t taken by the U.S. Forest Service—nor permits issued. But elk hunters didn’t like setting up camp next to other hunters, and no one had ever moved into the area once the season started and the camp had been established. So the idea was to get up into the mountains before any other party could get there and stake out their traditional site. This year, it was Farkus’s turn to be the scout.