Dave snorted. He was animated. No doubt he had already had a few beers that evening.
"You know why, Joe. That scat had a little of everything in it. Pine nuts, vegetation, traces of cartilage, even some elk hair. It could be a fox or something, but it's way too small for that. You win this game. I can't guess that shit. I thought I could name that shit in three notes, maybe less. But I'm baffled. Boggled. Blown away."
For Joe, this confirmed he was on the right track.
"Ever hear of a Miller's weasel?" Joe asked.
"A what?" Dave asked. Then he laughed, unconvinced. There was a long silence.
Dave Avery was well versed in both the current and former species of the region.
"You're not kidding, are you?" Dave asked. "Did you actually see any?"
Joe told him what had happened, where he found the samples, and what he suspected. Dave kept saying "Jesus Christ" as Joe talked. "Do you know what you might have here?" Dave said when Joe was through.
"If the Feds find out, it'll get wild."
"That's the least of my worries right now." Joe said. "Now will you do me a favor for the time being?"
Dave said he would.
"Do a couple of more tests to make sure neither of us is wrong. Then lock up those samples and the analysis. Don't tell anyone what you've got or what we discussed. Just keep it under wraps for a while until I can sort things out down here."
Dave asked how long it would be before Joe got back to him. "Three days."
***
Thirty miles north of Wakman and 20 miles south of Kaycee, Joe turned off of the highway onto a little-used ranch access. His tires bounced over ruts until he cleared a rise where he knew he couldn't be seen from the highway.
Joe killed the engine and swung out of the truck. There was just enough light that the sagebrush looked cottony. A jackrabbit bounded away from the road with tremendous leaps, looking twice its actual size in the headlights. Behind him, the hot engine ticked.
He stroked the checkered grip of the new revolver and raised it. He thumbed the hammer, and the action worked smoothly, rolling the cylinder. He aimed down the long barrel at the now distant rabbit and squeezed the trigger. The .357 roared and bucked violently in his hands and a two-foot explosion from the muzzle left an afterimage in his vision. A plume of dust exploded in front of the jackrabbit, and the animal reversed direction and now bounded right to left.
Joe fired, then fired again. He kept squeezing the trigger until he realized it had clicked three times on empty cylinders. A half a mile away, the jackrabbit had hit overdrive and was streaking toward the mountains.
With his ears ringing and half-blind from the concussive reports of the big pistol, Joe stumbled back to his pickup to reload.
***
Vern Dunnegan was not in his room or in the lounge at the Holiday Inn, but Joe saw his black Suburban on Main Street in front of the Stockman's Bar. Joe parked beside it. As the front door closed behind him, Joe squinted down the length of the dark narrow room through cigarette smoke and saw Vern sitting in the back booth just as he had a few days before. Vern was alone, hunched over and staring down at a tall glass of bourbon and water that he held between his hands.
As Joe approached, Vern looked up and in that instant something passed quickly over Vern's face--perhaps a mixture of both surprise and anger. Joe barely had a chance to register the look before it was replaced by a huge, overdone grin. Joe sat down heavily in the booth and ordered a beer when the barmaid approached.
"You're up awfully late," Vern said, studying Joe carefully from behind his smile.
"I just got back from Cheyenne," Joe said. "That's one hell of a long drive."
"It's a two-and-a-half six-pack drive." Vern chuckled. "A drive I made many, many times. It looks like you might have had a few yourself to make the hours more bearable. Gotta be careful on the highway," Vern said, smiling paternalistically "Some of those patrolmen would like nothing better than to give a ticket to a fellow state employee and get you in all sorts of trouble."
Caught, Joe nodded. A drunk like Vern who had tried to hide it for years could be very perceptive when it came to identifying someone else who'd been drinking, Joe thought.
"You just missed Wacey," Vern continued. Vern was now in command. Whatever had passed across his face when he looked up and saw Joe was now well hidden.
"We were having a little celebration."
Joe looked puzzled.
"Barnum announced today that he's dropping out of the sheriff's race," Vern said. "He's going to retire."
"You're kidding," Joe replied. He wondered what had made Barnum come to that decision. With Barnum out, Wacey was assured of winning the Republican primary in a couple of weeks. And in Twelve Sleep County, winning the Republican primary was the same as winning the general election. There were only a handful of Democrats, and few of them even bothered to vote anymore.
"So ole Wacey was pretty excited and we had a few drinks to celebrate," Vern said.
"I bet he was," Joe agreed. "Strange that Barnum dropped out."
Vern shrugged. "These things happen. Maybe he thought he was going to get whipped."
Joe recalled the conversation he'd had with Barnum earlier that week. Barnum had certainly acted as if he had already been defeated. But Joe hadn't understood it then, and he didn't understand it now. He had noticed no grounds-well of support for Wacey Hedeman in the community--and very little dissatisfaction with Barnum. It seemed to Joe that voting against Sheriff O. R. "Bud" Barnum was like voting against the Bighorn Mountains.
"Politics," Vern said, as if the word alone summed up the conversation. "Stranger than fiction."
Joe sipped his beer. He wished he hadn't been drinking on the ride home. He wished his head was more clear.
"So what brings you down to the Stockman's Bar when it's obviously past your bedtime?" Vern asked.
Joe looked up. "I guess I want to accept that job you offered me with Inter West," Joe said.
"I got suspended today."
Vern frowned melodramatically. "Suspended? You? That doesn't even seem possible."
Joe had a feeling that it wasn't as much of a surprise to Vern as Vern made it out to be. They were now playing some kind of game with each other. But in this kind of game, Joe was an amateur and Vern was All-Pro.
Joe told Vern what had happened. Vern shook his head and rolled his eyes at the right places. Joe thought for a moment that maybe Vern hadn't known. No, Joe amended, Vern knew. There were still plenty of people in Cheyenne that owed Vern a favor and could have tipped him off.
"So I want to work with you," Joe finished.
"Why don't you fight it?" Vern asked. "It sounds like a ridiculous overreaction by the department. You should be able to win it at your hearing."
"I don't have the time or money to go against them and I need to support my family," Joe said truthfully. "I'm not sure I have the determination I need. I guess I'm not really sure I want my job back at all if this is what they're capable of."
Vern drained his drink and ordered another for both of them. "What does Marybeth say?" The tone of the question was not kind.
"I haven't talked to her about it yet," Joe said, flushing just a bit from the implication. "I came straight here."
"Joe," Vern said after the drinks had been delivered. "We seem to have some kind of misunderstanding here."
"What do you mean?"
Vern chuckled in his most kindly way, as if he were sharing the embarrassment for both of them.
"Joe, I don't think that I ever actually offered you a job. If I remember correctly, I just asked if you might be interested in something with Inter West I believe I said I was 'testing the waters." Don't you remember that phrase?"
"I do remember it," Joe said, trying to understand what was going on and where Vern was headed. He still wanted to trust Vern, but Vern's statement that there wasn't a job waiting for him at Inter West had left him shaken and wary.