Winterkill Read online

  After he’d eaten, he stepped outside into the deep snow. The sun had begun to soften it, and it crunched slightly as he high-stepped through it. Rocky Mountain winters were nothing like most people perceived, he thought. In the foothills and flats, the snow didn’t stay on the ground all winter like it did in the Northeast or Midwest. It snowed, blew around, then melted, then snowed again. The mountains were a different situation.

  He thought he heard the sound of a motor in the distance. He stopped and cocked his head. He was too far from the highway to hear traffic, so the sound of a motor usually meant someone was either lost, stuck, or coming to see him. The rushing sound of the river was loud this morning, and he didn’t hear the sound again.

  In the shack, or “mews,” where the birds were, strips of light caught swirling dust mixed with crystals of ice. The peregrine falcon and the red-tailed hawk perched on opposite corners of the mews on dowel rods. They were motionless. A slash of sunlight striped their breasts.

  Romanowski pulled on a welder’s glove and extended his right arm. In a leather hawking bag slung from his belt, two pigeons struggled. The hawk stepped from the dowel rod and gripped the weathered leather of the glove. Romanowski raised his arm and studied the bird, turning it slowly to see the tail feathers. They were still broken off evenly, but were regrowing. In two months, the hawk would once again be in the air. It was a much-changed bird from the one he had found crumpled on the side of the highway, stunned and still from bouncing off of the windshield of a cattle truck. The hawk had eaten well and filled out, and its eyes had regained their cold black sharpness, but it wasn’t out of danger yet. For the first six weeks, while it recovered, Romanowski had kept the leather hood over its eyes to keep the bird calm. Dark meant calmness. Only recently had he begun to remove the hood for short stretches of time. At first, the hawk had reacted poorly, screeching hysterically. But now the bird was getting used to the light, and the outside stimuli.

  He dug for a pigeon with his free hand and brought it up flapping. Nate trapped the pigeons in barns and on top of old stores in downtown Saddlestring. He stuffed the head of the pigeon between his gloved fingers while the hawk watched, very intent. When the pigeon was secured, the hawk bent down and took the pigeon’s head off.

  The hawk ate the entire pigeon—feathers, bone, and feet—his gullet swelling to the size of a small fist. When the pigeon was gone and the hawk’s beak and head were matted with bloody down, Romanowski put the bird on a perch outside the mews. The peregrine now stepped up to his fist.

  Romanowski took the falcon out into the dry cold. Jesses—long leather straps attached to the bird’s legs—were wrapped in Romanowski’s gloves. The other pigeon lay motionless in the hawking bag.

  The peregrine had not yet focused attention on the sack; it had locked its eyes on something beyond the stone house and through the triad of formidable cottonwoods, out toward the sagebrush plains. Perhaps, Romanowski thought, the peregrine heard a motor too.

  Romanowski released the peregrine, who flapped loudly upward until it caught a thermal current near the river. The bird circled and rose, soaring up in a tight spiral. He watched the falcon until it merged with the sun.

  He reached down into his bag and pulled out the pigeon. He tossed it into the air, and the bird flapped furiously downriver for the cover of the trees.

  Romanowski’s eyes moved from the falcon to the pigeon and back.

  At the altitude of a thousand feet, the peregrine tucked its wings, contracted its talons, rolled onto its back, and dropped head-first like a bullet. It cut through the air in a wide, daredevil arc, slicing across the fabric of the light-blue Wyoming sky. Sensing this, the pigeon increased its speed, darting from bank to bank, close to the surface of the water.

  The peregrine, feet tight like fists, connected from above with a sound like a fastball hitting a catcher’s mitt. The pigeon exploded in blood and feathers. The peregrine caught air a few inches above the river, pitched up, and dived again quickly to snatch the largest chunk of the pigeon before it hit the water. Then the peregrine settled gracefully on a narrow sand spit and devoured the dead bird.

  Pigeon feathers floated down softly all over the water and swirled downriver on the way, eventually, to the town of Saddlestring.

  Romanowski whistled in awe, and rubbed his forearm until the goose bumps flattened.

  Romanowski heard the sound again, and this time he saw what was making it. He cupped his hands around his eyes to shade them against the glare of the snow, and saw the top of a snowplow on the flat, and a procession of other vehicles behind it. The fleet shimmered in the distance.

  “Here we go,” he said aloud.

  Seven

  Upon orders from the sheriff, the snowplow stopped short of the final sagebrush crest that rose between the road and the river. Joe saw the snowplow veer to the left, off of the road, and the brake lights of the sheriff’s Bronco light up. Then, doors were flying open and heavily armed men were pouring out of the vehicles into the deep snow. Barnum walked back from his Bronco and stopped at the rental DCI Yukon to gather everyone around him.

  Joe Pickett dug for his shotgun behind the seat. It was a new model, slicker and lighter than the old WingMaster he’d bird-hunted with until recently. That shotgun, like his side arm and pickup, had been replaced after they were destroyed a year ago during his flight through Savage Run. He and Marybeth were still scouting for a new horse to replace Lizzie.

  As he quietly closed his pickup door, Joe felt oddly removed from the rest of the unit. He was a game warden, after all, not an assault-team member. He was used to working alone. But the sheriff had jurisdiction now, and Joe was in a mandated support role.

  Joe looked around him at the DCI agents and the deputies from the sheriff’s department. Although he assumed they had all received some kind of training, this situation was well beyond what he or any of them was used to. The police-blotter column that ran every week in the Saddlestring Roundup consisted of small-time domestic disputes, dogs without tags chasing sheep, and moving violations. This was no SWAT team. The men were doing their best, though, Joe thought, to look and act as if they were big-city cops on another routine raid. Given the pent-up aggression they no doubt had and their general lack of experience, Joe hoped the situation would stay under control. He had seen Deputy McLanahan empty his shotgun at tents and pull the trigger to hit Stewie Woods in a cow pasture. How much restraint would he use when confronted with a brutal murderer?

  Once again, he thought of how he had found Lamar Gardiner—sitting among the elk carcasses and stuffing cigarettes into his rifle. No one could have anticipated Gardiner’s state of mind, or his subsequent actions. If Joe had had a secure location in his vehicle, or if he’d had backup, this could all possibly have been avoided. But Joe hadn’t had either of those things. He was expected to bring lawbreakers to jail, but wasn’t exactly equipped for it if they were hostile or resisted arrest. Nonetheless, what had happened in the mountains had triggered this chain of events. He felt guilty, and responsible. And he wanted, and needed, to see this thing through, even though this was the last place he wanted to be. Only when he was convinced that Nate Romanowski had killed Lamar Gardiner, and that Romanowski was in custody, would Joe’s conscience let him rest.

  It was the day before Christmas, after all, and the place he should be was home. Instead, he loaded six double-aught buckshot shells into his shotgun, racked the slide, and approached the group of officers who were clustered around Barnum.

  “Spread out not more than twenty feet from each other and form a skirmish line as we approach,” Barnum said. “I want Agent Brazille on the left end and I’ll be on the right. I want this Romanowski perp to think a thousand men are advancing on him. As we approach the cabin, Brazille and I will close on it and flank it from both sides in a pincer movement. I want everyone in the line to move from cover to cover, but keep moving forward. Imagine you’re kick-returners in football. No lateral movements. Keep advancing up the middle
toward that cabin.”

  Barnum sounds impressive in these kinds of situations, Joe thought. This was Joe’s first raid of this kind, however, so he couldn’t compare Barnum’s orders or plan to anything he had experienced before. Watching the DCI agents, Saddlestring police officers, and sheriff’s deputies loading and checking weapons, he was reminded of Barnum’s theory of addressing every situation with overwhelming firepower, which they certainly had.

  “I’ll take the point, if you want,” Deputy McLanahan offered, slamming the clip into a scoped M-16 semiautomatic rifle. As if for maximum effect, McLanahan worked the bolt as well, sliding a cartridge into the breech.

  “No way, McLanahan,” Barnum said, sounding tired. “We don’t need cowboys.”

  Joe watched McLanahan carefully, noting the sting as McLanahan’s eyes narrowed in embarrassment and anger.

  “No firing unless it’s in self-defense,” Brazille interjected, eyeing McLahanan as well as his own men.

  “I’ve heard he has some kind of big fucking handgun,” McLanahan said. “If he goes for it—the party’s over.”

  Barnum and Brazille exchanged worried glances. “If he goes for his big gun,” Barnum said, “we turn him into red mist.”

  Joe grimaced. “Red mist” was a term prairie-dog hunters used when they hit the indigenous rodents with high-powered rifle bullets and the impact reduced the animals, literally, into puffs of spray.

  “I’ve got some questions for him when you’ve got him in custody,” Melinda Strickland said, speaking for the first time since they had arrived.

  Again, Joe wryly noted that although Strickland seemed to want to be in charge of something, she had no apparent experience with tactics or strategy. And she seemed more than willing to stay out of danger.

  “That’s fine,” Barnum agreed. “But please stay back here since you’re not armed.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Strickland chortled.

  Oddly, Joe Pickett thought of his children as he approached the stone house in the skirmish line. He thought of his girls getting ready for the Christmas Eve church service; trying on dresses and tights, asking Marybeth what she thought of their outfits, furtively checking out the brightly wrapped presents under the tree. It was a Pickett family tradition that, after a supper of clam chowder and a trip to church, the children could choose one present to unwrap. Except for Lucy, the girl with style, it was a catastrophe if the present they chose turned out to be clothing. Sheridan, especially, wanted games or books to tide her over until Christmas morning. April claimed she wanted a toaster oven. (She wasn’t getting one.) She had explained that she used to warm up her own meals when she was with her mother and father, and would like to be able to do that again. Marybeth had assured her that there would be plenty to eat, but April didn’t seem to completely understand.

  Joe shook his head to clear it knowing he needed to focus on the situation at hand. He snapped his shotgun’s safety off, and tried to keep the recommended distance between himself and two DCI agents as they neared the crest. A stand of cottonwoods crowned by snow provided the only “cover” he could see.

  He approached the crest as he would if he were hunting or patrolling—inch by inch. He saw the snow-covered roof of the stone house, then the ragtop of the Jeep. Above them was the bloodred rim of the wall on the other side of the river.

  Then he rose far enough to see a surprising, and jarring, sight: Nate Romanowski stood in plain view near a clapboard shed. The suspect stood tall and ready, with both hands empty and away from his body. He was facing the skirmish line, as if waiting for them to come.

  Joe stared at Romanowski, and was impressed—and intimidated—by his size and his calm. Romanowski stood stock-still, but Joe could see the man’s eyes move from deputy to deputy at they approached. Joe didn’t see alarm or threat in Romanowski’s demeanor, just that steely calm.

  In his peripheral vision, Joe saw both Barnum and Brazille appear from the sides with their weapons drawn. Romanowski saw them too, and leisurely raised his hands.

  Then the skirmish line broke and they were on him, a half-dozen high-powered weapons trained on the breast pocket of Romanowski’s coveralls. Brazille held his pistol to the suspect’s temple with one hand and ran his other hand over Romanowski’s person, checking for weapons. When he got to the empty hip sack, he jerked it away to the ground. Barnum barked an order, and the suspect put his hands behind his head and laced his fingers together.

  The skirmish line stood erect and began to crowd Romanowski. Joe lowered his shotgun and followed. Two of the DCI agents peeled off and walked toward the stone house.

  “You want to confess now or wait until you get into my nice warm jail?” Barnum asked, his voiced raspy.

  Romanowski sighed deeply, and looked straight at the sheriff.

  “I’m just surprised that they sent the local yokels,” Romanowski said. “Do you think there are enough of you?”

  Sheriff Barnum didn’t know what to make of Romanowski’s comment. Neither did Joe. They looked toward Brazille, who shrugged.

  Joe tried to read Nate Romanowski. The man certainly didn’t display any fear, which seemed unnatural—and suspicious—in itself. Joe realized with a chill that he had no trouble picturing Romanowski drawing a bow and firing two arrows into an unarmed Lamar Gardiner, then walking up and drawing a knife across his throat while his victim watched him, wild-eyed.

  “I understand you’re a bow hunter,” Barnum asked.

  Suddenly, from inside the mews, there was a rustling noise and a screech. Deputy McLanahan turned on his boot heels and, his M-16 on full auto, blasted a solid stream of fire at the structure, which heaved and collapsed in on itself in a cloud of dust and feathers. The smell of gunfire was sharp in the air and the thundering echoes of the shots washed back from the bluffs. The snow was scattered with steaming brass shell casings.

  “Nice job,” Romanowski hissed through clenched teeth. “You just killed my red-tailed hawk.”

  Miraculously, the hawk was unharmed. Squawking with an annoyed reep-reep-reep chorus, the bird extricated itself from under fallen boards and hopped to the top of the new pile. With several heavy flaps of its wings, it clumsily caught air and began to rise.

  McClanahan started to raise his weapon and Joe reached out and caught the barrel.

  “What are you doing, McLanahan?” Joe asked, annoyed.

  “Leave it be,” Barnum said to his deputy who, with a scowl at Joe, relaxed and swung his rifle back to Romanowski.

  A DCI agent tumbled from the stone house, clearly alarmed by the gunfire. He righted himself, and looked to Brazille. “We’ve got a compound bow and a quiver of arrows in there. And this . . .” He held up a leather shoulder holster filled with a massive, long-barreled stainless-steel revolver. This, Joe guessed, was the “big fucking handgun” that McLanahan had mentioned earlier.

  This guy is no complete innocent, Joe thought. He had never seen a handgun as large.

  Melinda Strickland, who had been far behind in the raid, now strode into the gathering.

  “Do you hate the government, Nate?” Melinda Strickland suddenly asked Romanowski. Elle Broxton-Howard was at Strickland’s shoulder, scribbling notes on a pad.

  Romanowski seemed to think about it for a minute. Then he turned toward her slightly—not quick enough to elicit a reaction from the trigger-happy team—and said, “All of a sudden I don’t have any idea what we’re talking about.”

  Joe studied Romanowski. What he saw, for the first time, was confusion.

  “What I do know is that you people came onto my property with firearms and tried to kill my recovering falcon,” Romanowski said, his calmness eerie and out of place. “Who is the Barney Fife in charge of this outfit?”

  As a response, McLanahan stepped forward and slammed Romanowski in the mouth with the butt of his rifle. Romanowski’s head snapped back, and he stumbled. But he didn’t lower his hands. Despite the slash of burbling crimson and bits of broken teeth on his lips,
Romanowski sneered at McLanahan.

  Joe had taken a step toward McLanahan again, but Barnum had flung his arm out to stop him. Joe couldn’t believe what the deputy had just done.

  “You people have no idea what you’ve just gotten yourselves into,” Romanowski warned, his voice barely perceptible.

  “Neither do you,” Melinda Strickland said, her face hard.

  “Hit the son-of-a-bitch again,” she ordered. And despite Joe’s shout to stop it, McLanahan did.

  Eight

  Joe was pleased to see that the plow had come down Bighorn Road that day as he drove home. It had cut a single lane through the drifts, and massive flagstone-sized plates of wind-hardened snow had been flung onto both sides of the cut, making the edges look jagged and incomplete. He smiled slightly to himself, thinking how disappointed the girls would be that they would have to go to church after all.

  But, he thought, I need to go to church, even if they don’t. He needed to leave the blood, gore, and violence of the last few days behind him. The Christmas Eve service wouldn’t wash him clean, but it might, at the very least, change the subject to something better and more hopeful. The apprehending of Nate Romanowski left a sour taste in his mouth. Although from the outside, it might look like a highly successful investigation and arrest—hell, they identified the killer and captured him all in the same day, and in miserable conditions—to Joe things seemed tainted. His mind melded the death of Melinda Strickland’s little dog with the rifle-butt beating of Nate Romanowski. He couldn’t get the image of Romanowski’s face pulled tight with confusion out of his mind. Given the eyewitness testimony and the discovery of what appeared to be the murder weapon, there was no reason to think that Romanowski wasn’t the killer—except that something in Romanowski’s face bothered Joe. It was as if the man had expected to be arrested, but for something else. Or, Joe thought, as if Romanowski thought he had a perfect alibi but no one was biting. Something . . .