“Okay,” Joe said. “It’s an official question.”
“If I don’t agree to see you as an authority, it ain’t official. You know, game warden, this place ain’t called Rampart Mountain for no reason. You know what a rampart is?”
Joe kept silent, knowing Camish would answer his own question.
“A rampart is a protective barrier,” Camish said. “A last stand, kind of.”
Camish shook his half of the Bible at Joe. “I been reading this. I’m not all that impressed, to tell you the truth. I can’t figure out what all the fuss is about. I find it to be an imperfect book.”
Joe didn’t know what to say to that.
“At least the first part has lots of action in it. Lots of murder and killings and sleeping around and such. Battles and things like that. Crazy miracles and folk tales—it keeps you entertained. This part, though, it’s just too soft, you know? You ever read it?”
Joe said, “Some.”
“I’d not recommend it. At least the second half. Instead, I’d read the U.S. Constitution. It’s shorter, better, and up until recently it was pretty easy to find.”
Caleb crawled backward out of the tent, stood up, said, “Damned if I can’t find it, officer. But there’s one other place I need to look.”
“Where’s that?”
Caleb gestured toward the forest behind him. “We got a couple caches back in the trees. I might have put my license in one of ’em.”
Joe said, “I’ll follow you.” Wanting to be rid of Camish and his commentary.
That seemed to surprise Caleb, and again the brothers exchanged a wordless glance that made Joe both scared and angry. They were communicating without words or recognizable cues, leaving Joe in the dark.
“Come on, then,” Caleb said. “But you’ll have to get down. The trees are too thick to ride through. There’s too much downed timber.”
Joe studied the trees behind Caleb. They were too closely packed to ride through. For a moment, he considered telling Caleb he’d wait where he was. But he wondered if he let Caleb go if he’d ever see him again. And he didn’t want to be stuck with Camish, who asked suddenly, “You ever hear of the Wendigo?”
Joe looked over. He’d now heard the word twice—once from Farkus, now from Camish Grim. “What about it?”
Again the stubby teeth, but this time in a sort of painful smile. “Just wonderin’,” he said.
Joe waited for more but nothing came.
Then Camish said, “So who owns these fish you’re so worked up about?”
“What do you mean, who owns them?”
“Exactly what I asked. These fish are native cutthroats, mainly, and a few rainbows that were planted years ago, right?”
Joe nodded.
“So who owns them? Do you own them? Is that why you’re so worked up?”
“I work for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department,” Joe said.
“Note that word fish. We’re the state agency in charge of managing our wildlife.”
Camish rubbed his chin. “So you own the fish.”
“Technically . . . no. But we’re charged with managing the resource. Everybody knows this.”
“Maybe,” Camish said. “But I like to get things clear in my mind. What you’re saying is that American citizens and citizens of this state have to go out and buy a piece of paper from the state in order to catch native fish in wild country. So you’re sort of a tax collector for the government, then?”
Joe shook his head, lost in the logic.
“So if you don’t own the fish and you didn’t put them here, what gives you the right to collect a tax on folks like us? Don’t we have any say in this?”
“I guess you can complain to the judge,” Joe said.
“Does the judge get his paycheck from the same place you do? Sounds like a racket to me. You’ve got me wondering who the criminal is here and who isn’t.”
Joe climbed down quickly and tied Buddy to a tree. He said to Caleb, “Let’s go.”
Caleb grinned. Same teeth as Camish. “Pissed you off, didn’t he?”
Joe set his jaw and made a wide arc around Camish, who looked amused.
JOE FOLLOWED Caleb Grim on a nearly imperceptible trail through the pine trees. The trees were so thick that several times Joe had to turn his shoulders and sidle through the trunks to get through. The footing was rough because of the roots that broke the surface. Not that Caleb was slowed down, though. Joe found it remarkable how a man of his size could glide through the forest as if on a cushion of air.
“So,” Joe said to Caleb’s back, “where are you boys from?”
“More questions,” Caleb grunted.
“Just being friendly.”
“I don’t need no friends.”
“Everybody needs friends.”
“Not me. Not Camish.”
“Because you’ve got each other.”
“I don’t think I appreciate that remark.”
“Sorry,” Joe said. “So where do you guys hail from?”
“You ever heard of the UP?”
Joe said, “The Union Pacific?”
Caleb spat. His voice was laced with contempt. “Yeah, game warden, the Union Pacific. Okay, here we are.”
The trail had descended and on the right side of it was a flat granite wall with large vertical cracks. Caleb removed a gnarled piece of pitchwood from one of the cracks and reached inside to his armpit. He came out with a handful of crumpled papers.
Joe tried to see what they were. They looked like unopened mail that had been wadded up and stuffed in the crack. He saw a canceled stamp on the edge of an envelope. When Caleb caught Joe looking, he quickly stuffed the wad back into the rock.
“Nope,” he said. “No license here.”
“Is this a joke?” Joe asked. “You didn’t even look.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
Joe shook his head. “If you’ve got a valid license, I can look it up when I can get to a computer. In the meanwhile, though, I’m giving you another citation. The law is you’ve got to have your license in your possession. Not in some rock hidden away.”
Caleb said, “You’re giving me another ticket?”
“Yup.”
He laughed and shook his head from side to side.
“There’ll be a court date,” Joe said, unnerved from Caleb’s casual contempt. “If you want to protest, you can show up with your license and make your case.”
“Okay,” Caleb said, as if placating Joe.
“And I’m going to write up both of you for wanton destruction of game animals. I saw all the bones back there. You’ve been poaching game all summer.”
Caleb said, “Okay.”
“So why don’t we get back,” Joe said.
Caleb nodded, shouldered around Joe, and strode back up the trail.
As Joe followed, he wondered if he’d been suckered, and why.
CAMISH WAS STILL on his seat on the log and he watched with no expression on his face as Joe emerged from the woods. A cloud had finally passed in front of the sun and further muted the light. While they were gone, Camish had started a small fire in a fire pit near his feet and had cleaned and laid out the trout Caleb had brought back.
“Guess what,” Caleb said to Camish, “he’s going to give us tickets.”
“Tickets?” Camish said, placing his big hand over his heart as if pretending to ward off a stroke.
Joe felt his ears get hot from the humiliation, but said, “Wanton destruction of game animals, for starters. But we’ve also got hunting and fishing without licenses, and exceeding the legal limit of fish.”
Again, Joe caught the brothers exchanging information through their eyes.
Joe wrote out the citations while the Grim Brothers watched him and smirked.
Caleb said to his brother, “You’re gonna get mad, but I told him we were from the UP. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Union Pacific? ’”
Camish laughed out loud and slapped his thigh.