As McKay explained the process, Joe noted another large steel door on the back wall. As McKay shifted his weight during his monologue, Joe could see a sophisticated keypad near the doorjamb behind him.
“What’s in there?” he asked.
McKay paused and turned. “Oh, that room is reserved for the ranch.”
“What does that mean?”
“They don’t want their beef mixed up with all this wild game,” McKay said. “So they hang beef in there.”
“And they need a keypad lock?” Joe asked.
“I guess they don’t want none of the employees pinching any of it,” McKay said with a shrug.
“This place is quite an operation,” Joe said.
McKay finished his beer and crushed the can. “You still buyin’?” he asked.
“Yup,” Joe said.
He paused at the south door after McKay went through it to confirm that Critchfield and Smith had left. Then he bought McKay another beer, excused himself, and went outside.
Joe walked along the loading dock to the east side of the facility, re-creating in his mind where the freezer room was, and where the hanging lockers were located. There, on the other side of the stone exterior wall, was Templeton’s private meat locker. There were no windows or openings to indicate what was there.
He squinted and rubbed his chin.
21
With a pair of snips from his tool bag, Joe clipped the holding wires of the three taut strands of barbed wire on the steel T-post that delineated the western border of the Sand Creek Ranch. He’d strapped on a headlamp to be able to see what he was doing. The ATV idled in the trees behind him.
After flattening the loosened barbed wire to the ground with two downed logs, he climbed back on the four-wheeler and drove the vehicle over the top, then rolled the logs away. He loosely restored the fence behind him with baling wire he always carried with him.
Joe glanced around at the terrain and hoped he’d be able to find the entrance he’d created on his way out. There were no landmarks or characteristics to the endless pine forest all around him except for the faint old logging road he’d taken to approach the ranch from the west. He’d decided early on he couldn’t risk driving through the entrance gate again where the closed-circuit cameras were located.
Over the years, Joe had rarely trespassed on private property. But the few times he’d had to — to find a wounded animal or rescue a hunter or fisherman — were the reason he always carried cutters and wire for a quick repair.
Nevertheless, his conscience nagged at him. There he was, out of uniform and trespassing on a private ranch without invitation and with only the vague authority of the governor of Wyoming — who would likely plead ignorance if Joe was caught or arrested. This was after he’d registered under a false name at a hunting lodge.
As he picked his way up the mountain on the ATV, he kept the speed low and his eyes wide open so he wouldn’t overrun the pool of yellow light from the four-wheeler’s headlights. The old road he was on hadn’t been maintained and at times was blocked by brush and fallen logs. Several times, he looked ahead to see twin sets of green eye dots in the blackness ahead — deer or elk eyes reflecting back. For a mile or so, he followed fresh elk tracks and pellets on the two-track ahead of him until the herd eventually broke off and plunged into the forest.
He had no idea where the old road would end, but it was going where he wanted to go: east and up. Joe hoped that when he found the spine of the local Black Hills he’d be able to get his bearings, see below into the timbered valley, and possibly get a cell phone signal to check messages and communicate.
The department had never replaced the handheld GPS he’d left in his old pickup on the top of the mountain in the Bighorns, and until this moment, Joe hadn’t missed it. Judging by the rounded peaks ahead under the star-washed sky, he thought he was headed in the right direction. If he was correct, he should be able to see the ranch headquarters below him through his binoculars and get a better understanding of the layout.
When he crested the ridge, a line shack appeared in his headlights so suddenly Joe didn’t have the opportunity to kill the motor or douse his lights before he was upon it. Instinctively, he braked and froze while a swirl of dust from the knobby tires of the ATV curled through the beam.
Joe recovered from the surprise of seeing the structure fifty feet in front of him and snatched his shotgun out of the saddle scabbard. He dismounted and took several steps to the left into the trees and waited for the door of the shack to open or the curtains behind a window to rustle.
What would he tell the occupant about why he was there? Joe was a poor liar. He could only hope he’d be instantly mistaken for a lost hunter.
He cursed to himself as he pressed the slide release of his Wingmaster, ready if necessary to defend himself by racking in a 12-gauge shell filled with buckshot. He could feel his heart whump in his chest, and he tried to hear over the roar of blood in his ears.
Nothing happened.
The shack looked occupied: there was fresh lumber and building materials stacked on the side of it, there were tire tracks in the ground on the edge of the cut grass, and bright multicolored electrical wires were stapled to the exterior logs. A new galvanized tin chimney on the roof didn’t even have soot on it yet, and it gleamed in the lights from his ATV.
After a few minutes of waiting, Joe cautiously approached his four-wheeler and shut it off and killed the headlights. Was it possible, he wondered, that whoever was inside hadn’t heard him coming in the dead of night? He considered rolling the ATV back down the hill until he was far enough away to start it and retreat off the mountain, but instead he was drawn to the shack first. Did a Templeton ranch hand stay there? Was anybody home?
He muted his headlamp down to a faint glow and carefully circumnavigated the structure while staying in the trees. There was no doubt the old cabin was under construction, but no way to tell from the outside if anyone was inside. He found no vehicles in the timber beside it, but he did see a crate-sized box raised on stilts just inside the tree line. There was rustling from inside.
Joe approached the construction and leaned into it. The front was open and covered with wire mesh, and when he twisted slightly on the lens of his lamp the three hooded falcons came into view. They were perched on dowel rods and facing him, aware of his presence. A redtail, a prairie, and a peregrine that looked startlingly familiar. He recognized the tooled leather hood and leather jesses from the last time he’d seen the bird in person.
“Nate,” Joe whispered.
And he turned back to the line shack.
Joe took a deep breath, approached the closed front door. He stood to the side of the doorjamb and rapped on it with his backhand knuckles, in case Nate instinctively grabbed his weapon inside and decided to fire through the door.
“Nate. It’s Joe Pickett.”
There was no reaction from inside. He knocked again — harder — and said: “Nate. Let me in. We need to talk.”