The Longabaugh was located on Main Street, across from the post office, and was the only business on the block open that early in the morning. Mud-splashed pickups were parked outside, and Joe had chosen a corner booth next to the kitchen bat-wing doors with his back to the wall so he could observe the patrons and greet Latta when he showed up. When Joe arrived at seven, the place was filled with road crew workers en route to a highway construction project on I-90—men who wanted big breakfasts of chicken-fried steak, three eggs, and gravy to drown it all in. There was plenty of grumping about the weather and their bosses before they all got up and left en masse with box lunches at seven-thirty.
While he waited, Joe checked his phone — no calls or messages from Sheridan — and read about the history of Longabaugh on the back of the menu. Harry Longabaugh was a fifteen-year-old Pennsylvanian who had come west in 1887 in a covered wagon as far as Sundance, where he decided to steal a horse, saddle, and gun from a local ranch. He was caught immediately and arrested. During his year-and-a-half jail term, he’d adopted the name the Sundance Kid.
After the construction crew left, locals filtered in. A young, dirty couple in their late twenties or early thirties took the largest table in the center of the room and situated three children under six in the other chairs. The kids were loud and wild, and the mother cursed at them to shut up. The father wore a battered Carhartt barn coat and he took it off to reveal a black heavy metal T-shirt and sleeve tattoos. He was obviously not in a hurry to get to work that morning, Joe thought.
When two of the boys threw packets of jam at each other from a container on the table, the father reached over and swept the condiments away from their reach with his arm, lit a cigarette, and looked away.
“Still waiting?” the waitress asked Joe. She was heavy, with pink hair, and she wore cargo pants and a hoodie. There was a small silver hoop in her left nostril that Joe found hard not to fix on.
“A few more minutes,” he said.
“Waitin’ on Jim Latta?” she asked, nodding toward Joe’s red uniform shirt.
“Yup.”
“He’ll be here,” she said. “He comes in most days. You want to order while you wait?”
He ordered the Wild Bunch — three eggs, bacon, and toast.
There was the old iconic photograph of Harry Longabaugh, Butch Cassidy, and the Wild Bunch over the counter of the café. In it, the Sundance Kid wore a suit, tie, handlebar mustache, and bowler hat. Joe wished idly that criminals still chose to dress well, but thought: Nobody did anymore.
He was reaching for his phone to check on Latta when the game warden entered the café. Latta nodded to Joe in a brusque manner and said to the waitress, “The usual, Steffi.”
He sat heavily in the opposite seat and leaned forward toward Joe. Latta’s eyes were bloodshot and hooded, and a hundred tiny veins were visible on his nose and fleshy cheeks. He looked like he’d got about as much sleep as Joe had.
“I got your messages this morning,” Latta growled.
“I was wondering,” Joe said.
Latta shook his head, almost in sorrow. “I wish you wouldn’t have gone up there.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Joe said.
“This is my district, goddamnit.”
“I know that.”
“Then what in the hell were you doing?” Latta asked, angry and pleading at the same time.
“My job. Our job.”
Joe drew out his phone and brought up the camera roll. “Here,” he said, handing it over to Latta. “I’ve got ’em in the act. Scroll through there and you’ll see their truck, the license plate, and some dead birds. You can even see hatchery bands on one of their feet if you zoom in. The time stamp nails down when it happened.”
Latta frowned as he scrolled through the shots. He grumbled about having trouble figuring out the features of the phone to zoom in on individual shots. He complained that his thumbs were too big for the modern world.
“That’s Critchfield’s truck, isn’t it?” Joe asked.
Latta grunted an assent, then put the phone down in front of him.
“Jesus, Joe,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. “Next time you can’t sleep, why don’t you play solitaire or jerk off like everybody else?”
Joe chose not to reply.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to go back up there last night?” Latta asked.
“I tried,” Joe said. “You didn’t pick up.”
Latta said, “Shit, you stirred up a damn hornet’s nest.”
Joe was puzzled. “I did?”
The game warden turned his deadeye cop stare back on. “You left your card on their windshield.”
Joe nodded. “So you heard about that already? What, did they call you? Is that why you’re late this morning?”
“Never mind that,” Latta said. “This is my district and I deal with things in my own way. I don’t need you around here pissing in the pool.”
“Sorry you feel that way,” Joe said through tight jaws.
Before Latta went on, the waitress delivered their plates. Both had the Wild Bunch in front of them.
“I’ll try to smooth things out,” Latta said, “but in the meanwhile, I don’t need any more of your goddamn help, okay?”
“Smooth what out?” Joe asked.
A gust of cool air blew through the café as two men entered. One was obviously the sheriff, judging by his beige uniform. The sheriff had narrow shoulders and a potbelly, and wore black squared-off boots. He had a sunken, weathered face and looked bemused, and he held his gaze on Joe for a beat longer than necessary. The other wore a tie and slacks and a long gray topcoat. Both men glanced their way as they entered — two redshirts were always a curiosity in hunting country — but settled into a booth across the room. The older man in the topcoat had a large square head, silver hair, and a serious expression on his face. When Joe nodded a hello, the sheriff looked quickly to his companion as if he hadn’t seen it.
Joe noticed Latta had seen them enter as well, and the game warden’s face seemed to have drained of color.
“Who are they?” Joe asked as he stabbed the yolk of an egg with a point of his toast.
“Sheriff R. C. Mead and Judge Bartholomew,” Latta said in a low tone, not wanting to be overheard. “Don’t stare at them.”
“So that’s Judge Bartholomew,” Joe said. “I met his sister last night. I see the resemblance.”
Latta said, “Let’s eat and get out of here. You and me have to talk.”
Joe nodded and ate. He was starving. He didn’t even look up when a packet of jam thrown by one of the dirty boys hit him in the leg.
“Had to meet the physical therapist at the house before I could get going this morning,” Latta said through a mouthful. “That’s why I’m late.”
Joe thought: It took you a while to come up with that one.
After they’d paid their tab, Jim Latta left the restaurant with his head down the same way he had left the Bronco Bar the night before. He said he’d meet Joe outside. The fact that Latta didn’t acknowledge the judge or the sheriff said more, in a way, than if he had, Joe thought.
On his way toward the door, Joe skirted the table with the family and intentionally neared the booth with the sheriff and judge. Neither raised his head to acknowledge him.
As he passed, Sheriff R. C. Mead said to the judge, “And there he goes, off to enforce the game regulations for the great state of Wyoming.”
Joe paused next to them and looked over. The judge seemed to be fighting a grin.
Mead said to Joe, “If you find somebody out there engaged in major criminal activity — like with too many mourning doves in their coat pocket or something — you make sure to call 911 so I can call up our SWAT team, you hear?”