The force of the explosion hurled Joe back toward the corrals, where he smashed full force against the fence.
Through slitted eyes and with the dead silence of instant deafness, Joe watched as pieces of Jim Finotta, the cow, Stewie Woods, and bromegrass turf rained from the sky for what seemed like hours.
38
THE DREAMS JOE HAD in the hospital were not good dreams. In one, they were once again climbing out of Savage Run Canyon with Charlie Tibbs and his long-range rifle on the opposite rim. Only, this time, Stewie was the target. One shot ripped Stewie's left arm off at the socket, but he kept climbing one-handed. Stewie kept making jokes, saying he was happy he still had his right hand because without that he would have no dates anymore. Joe was scrambling to the top, ahead of Stewie, his muscles shrieking, contracting, in terrible pain. Another shot hit Stewie in the thigh, breaking the bone, leaving his right leg useless. A third hit Stewie square in the back and exited out the front, his entrails now blooming from a hole in his stomach like a sea anemone. But he just kept climbing behind Joe, joking that he no longer had the guts for this sort of thing.
***
JOE'S PROBLEM WAS that a large piece of the cow--either the head or a meaty front shoulder--had hit him hard enough in the chest to crack his sternum and break his collarbone. He couldn't remember actually being hit. Marybeth told him that when she had reached him near the fence, he had been vomiting blood The EMTs had suspected a much more serious injury at first as well, because he was spattered by gouts of blood and it was difficult to discern if the source was internal or external. Marybeth rode with him in the Twelve Sleep County ambulance, holding his hand, wiping his face clean.
Although neither injury required a cast, his doctor decided to keep him for rest and observation at Twelve Sleep County Hospital for three days. He had lost fifteen pounds since Sunday, and was dehydrated enough to require an IV.
Outside the hospital window, cottonwood leaves rattled in the summer wind. Daylight was lengthening. Joe could smell and feel a long summer coming.
While he was in the hospital, Joe was interviewed by the Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the FBI, the Game and Fish Department, and an officer from the Washington, D.C." Police Department who was in charge of the investigation into the death of Rep. Peter Solito. He told them all the same story the truth. When they asked him questions about the motivation behind the Stockman's Trust or Stewie Woods, Joe said he wasn't the person to ask and that he wouldn't speculate. Trey Crump came and Joe went into great detail about the long march through the Bighorns, about Savage Run. In turn, Joe asked about the events of the day when Trey Crump discovered his disabled pickup and the black Ford.
News of the stockman's trust and what they had done was strangely muted. It was a scandal few really cared about, because it was too murky and too complicated to grasp. No one knew, or was willing to admit, who the executive board members were. Inquiries went nowhere, because a search of Finotta's home and office revealed no list of membership, no past meeting minutes, no record of incorporation. A run of Finotta's phone records showed that all of the participants in the conference call had apparently called him, so there were no clues in Finotta's outgoing calls. The Stockman's Trust, apparently, had long ago reorganized without a centralized hierarchy--a perfect model of the nonstructural organization Stewie had wanted to emulate. Although he tried, Joe was unable to positively identify the voices that were on the telephone, even when the FBI asked him to listen to tapes of various nationwide wiretaps. As far as the various law enforcement agencies were concerned, Jim Finotta was the president of the board of executives and Jim Finotta had been blown to vapor by an exploding cow. Further investigation, as far as Joe knew, would go nowhere.
Just as the Stockman's Trust had gone into dormancy after the hanging of Tom Horn at the turn of the last century, the new Stockman's Trust had seemed to recede into silence once again, at the turn of this century The Stockman's Trust had arisen, won their brief war, and had vanished.
SHERIFF BARNUM HAD come, hat in hand, to see Joe the day before he was released. They exchanged pleasantries while Joe eyed the sheriff wanly Barnum stared at the tops of his own boots and mumbled that it was unfortunate he had been out of town when Joe rode up to the cabin.
"According to Trey Crump, you were with him the day he found my pickup and the burned-up cabin," Joe said gently Barnum nodded, looking up above the dark bags under his eyes.
"You volunteered to stay there while Trey circled around the mountain in the helicopter."
Barnum nodded again.
"So how did Charlie Tibbs ride back, get in his truck, unhook his horse trailer, and drive to Jim Finotta's place without you seeing him?"
Joe watched Barnum think, watched the tiny veins in his temples pulse. Barnum had lowered his eyes again, and stood still. Joe could hear Barnum's nicotine-encased lungs weakly suck breath in and push it back out.
"You saw Charlie Tibbs ride back out of the mountains, didn't you?" Joe asked, nearly whispering. "He was badly wounded, but you saw him coming back toward his truck, didn't you? And when you called Jim Finotta, you both agreed that you ought to get away fast, so you would have no contact with Tibbs and plenty of deniability"
Barnum coughed, looked around the room at everything except Joe.
"I can't prove it, and you know that," Joe said. "Just like I can't prove you're a member of the Stockman's Trust, unless you admit it to me."
Barnum shuffled his boots on the hard linoleum floor, then briefly raised his eyes to Joe. Joe detected an almost imperceptible quiver of Barnum's lower lip. Then the sheriff clamped on his hat, turned, and reached for the knob on the door.
"Sheriff?" Joe said from the bed. "I know now that you're a man who will look the other way" Joe lowered his voice and spoke calmly but with a hint of malice: "Someday we need to have a conversation."
Barnum hesitated, his back to Joe, then let himself out of the room.
***
THE BIGGEST FOCUS of attention was on Stewie Woods. Old-line environmental activists now had themselves a mythic, noble, butt kicking martyr. One Globe exceeded all of its records for fundraising. A photo of Stewie's pre-explosion face was now used on their stationery, envelopes, business cards, website, and on the cover of their magazine. He was being touted as the "Environmental Movement's Che Guevara." A move was afoot to rename Savage Run the "Stewie Woods/Savage Run National Wilderness Area." It was a losing effort, using Stewie's name, but it gave the group a new cause to rally around. Politicians and others who objected were called "environmental racists" and targeted for future vitriol. Joe smiled bitterly when he read about it, knowing that in his last days on earth, Stewie considered himself an outcast from the organization he had founded, promoted, and lived for. Now One Globe had taken Stewie back. He was good for business.
39
At home, Joe placed the battered Cheyenne doll on top of the bookcase. Both April and Lucy said they wanted to play with it, and Joe let them after they promised to be gentle. But they preferred their Barbies, choosing nice clothes, long hair, and massive breasts over featureless leather, and Joe later found the doll on the floor and put it back on the bookcase.
After a fried chicken dinner, Joe's welcome-home request, he and Marybeth cleared the dishes and the girls went out to play.