Free Fire jp-7 Read online

  The hunter studied Joe with cool eyes and stepped on the other side of his pickup and leaned across the hood, his blood-stainedfingers loosely entwined, the truck between them.

  The hunter raised his eyebrows in a greeting. “You might be a man who’s looking for an elk.”

  “Think so, huh?” Joe said, noncommittal.

  “Me and my buddies jumped ’em this morning early, down on the ridge. They was crossing over the top, bold as you please.”

  Joe nodded, as if to say, “Go on.”

  “That’s the thing about elk hunting. Don’t see nothing for five straight days, and all of a sudden they’re all around you. Big herd of ’em. Forty, fifty. Three of us hunting.”

  Joe glanced behind the cabin, saw three big bulls hanging from the branches, their antlers scraping the ground, hides still on, black blood pooling in the pine needles. Despite the distance,Joe could see gaping exit wounds on the ribs and front quarters. Even in the cold he could smell them.

  “Yeah, three good bulls,” the hunter said, following Joe’s line of sight. “But my buddy went a little crazy.”

  “Meaning,” Joe said, “there are a few more killed down there than you have licenses for.”

  The hunter winced. He didn’t like Joe saying it outright.

  “At least four cows if you’ve got a cow permit,” the hunter whispered. “A spike too. That’s good eating, them spikes.”

  Spikes were young bulls without fully developed antlers. Cows were female elk. Five extra animals wasn’t just a mistake, it was overkill. Joe felt a dormant sense of outrage rise in him but tried not to show it.

  He said, “So a guy could drive down there with an elk tag and take his pick?”

  The hunter nodded. “If a guy was willing to pay a little finder’s fee for the directions.”

  “How much is the finder’s fee?”

  The hunter looked around to see if anyone could hear him, but the only other people out were back at the building.

  "Say, four hundred.”

  Joe shook his head. “That’s a lot.”

  The hunter grinned. “How much is your time worth, is what I think. Hell, we’ve been up here five days. You can go get you a nice one without breaking a sweat.”

  “I see.”

  “I’d go three seventy-five. But no less.”

  “Three hundred and seventy-five dollars for a cow elk?” Joe said.

  Again, the hunter flinched at Joe’s clarity. Again, he looked around.

  “That’s the deal,” he said, but with less confidence than before.Joe’s manner apparently created suspicion.

  Joe glanced down at the plates on the hunter’s pickup. Utah. He memorized the number.

  “Would you take a check?” Joe asked.

  The hunter laughed unpleasantly as his confidence returned. “Hell, no. What do you think I am?”

  “I’ll have to run back to Dayton to get cash from the ATM,” Joe said. “That’ll take me an hour or so.”

  “I ain’t going anywhere. Them elk aren’t either.”

  “An hour, then.”

  “I’ll be in the bar.”

  Joe leaned across the hood and extended his hand. The hunter took it, said, “They call me Bear.”

  Joe said, “They call me a Wyoming game warden, and I’ve got you on tape.” With his left hand, he raised the microcassette recorder from where he always kept it in his pocket. “You just broke a whole bunch of laws.”

  Bear went pale and his mouth opened, revealing a crooked picket fence row of tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Killing too many elk is bad enough,” Joe said. “That happensin the heat of battle. But the way you take care of the carcasses?And charging for the illegal animals? That just plain makes me mad.”

  Joe called dispatch in Cheyenne on his radio. He was patched through to Bill Haley, the local district warden.

  “GF-thirty-five,” Haley responded.

  “How far are you from Burgess Junction, Bill?”

  "Half an hour.”

  Joe told him about the arrest.

  “His name is Carl Wilgus, goes by Bear,” Joe said, reciting the license plate number. “Cabin number one. Five extra elk, Wanton Destruction, attempting to sell me an elk and the location.You can throw the book at him and confiscate his possessionsif you want. We’ve got him down cold, on tape, telling me everything.”

  While Joe talked on the mike, Bear was handcuffed to the bumper of his pickup, embarrassed and angry, scowling at him.

  “You going to stick around?” Haley asked. “Grab a burger with me?”

  “I’m here just long enough to give you the tape and turn him over,” Joe said. “I’ve got a meeting to get to in Yellowstone.”

  “I heard you were back,” Haley said. “How’s it going, Joe?”

  “Outstanding,” Joe said.

  “We’re all trying to figure out what’s going on with you. Did Pope give you a district?”

  “Nothing like that,” Joe said, not wanting to explain the situationfurther.

  “What are you up to, then?”

  Joe thought. “Special projects,” he said, not knowing what else to say. Special projects sounded vague yet semiofficial.

  “Well, welcome back.”

  “Thanks, Bill.”

  “See you in a few.”

  “GF-fifty-four out.”

  “Fifty-four? They gave you fifty-four? For Christ sake.”

  The speed limit through the Wapiti Valley en route to the East Entrance of Yellowstone dropped to forty-five miles per hour and Joe slowed down. He checked his wristwatch. If he kept to the limit and didn’t get slowed by bear jams or buffalo herds, he should be able to make it to the park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs by 3:30 P.M., enough time to locate Del Ashby and get the briefing.

  As he drove on the nearly empty road, winding parallel to the North Fork of the Shoshone River, Joe thought again about the murders and how they’d taken place because the circumstancesof the crime bothered him. All those shots, multiple weapons. That’s what jumped out. Most people reading the reportswould come to the conclusion the park rangers apparently had, that the crime had been committed in anger, in passion. Joe wasn’t sure he agreed with that assessment, despite all the blasting.Just because Clay McCann fired a lot of shots didn’t mean he had gone mad. It might mean he wanted to make sure the victimswere dead. Most of the wounds Joe read about could have been fatal on their own, so they were well-placed. There was nothing in the reports to suggest McCann had shot at the victims as they stood in a group, or peppered the shore of the lake with lead. Just the opposite. Each shot, whether by shotgun or pistol, had been deliberate and at close range. Although there were no facts in the file to suggest McCann was anything other than what he was-an ethically challenged small-town lawyer-Joe couldn’t help thinking the murders had been committed by a professional, someone with knowledge of death and firearms. Since McCann’s biography didn’t include stints in any branch of the military and didn’t include information that he was a hunter, Joe wondered where the lawyer had received his training.

  Joe had spent most of his life around hunters and big game. He knew there was a marked difference between the way Bear and his friends killed those elk and the way the men on the porch hunted. Bear and his friends were clumsy amateurs, firingindiscriminately at the herd and finding out later what fell. In contrast, the men on the porch were careful marksmen and ethical hunters.

  Simply pointing a long rod of steel (a gun) and pulling the trigger (Bang!) didn’t instantly snuff the life out of the target. All the act did was hurl a tiny piece of lead through the air at great but instantly declining speed. The bit of lead, usually less than half an inch in diameter, had to hit something vital to do fatal damage: brain, heart, lungs. To be quick and sure, the bullethad to cause great internal damage immediately. Rarely was a single shot an instant kill. That only happened in the movies. In real life, there was a good chance a single jacketed bullet would simply pass through the body, le
aving two bleeding holes and tissue damage, but not doing enough harm to kill unless the victim bled out or the wounds became infected. Pulling the triggerdidn’t kill. Placing the bullet did. McCann had placed each and every shot.

  In a rage, a man like Clay McCann would much more likely start pointing his weapons and shooting until all his victims were down and consider the job done. But to have the presence of mind to walk up to each downed camper and put a death shot into their heads after they were incapacitated? That was pure, icy calculation. Or the work of a professional. And if not a pro, someone who had reason to assure himself that all his victims were dead, that no one could ever talk about what had happened,or why it happened. Vicinage and jurisdiction aside, the murders had been extremely cold-blooded and sure.

  Joe couldn’t put himself into Clay McCann’s head on July 21. What would possess a man to do what he did with such efficientsavagery? What was his motivation? An insult, as McCannlater claimed? Joe didn’t buy it.

  At the east entrance gate, the middle-aged woman ranger asked Joe how long he’d be staying. Until that moment, he hadn’t really thought about it. He was thinking that he was glad he had never had to wear one of those flat-brimmed ranger hats.

  “Maybe a couple weeks,” he said.

  “Most of the facilities will be closing by then,” she said. “Winter’s coming, you know.”

  “Yes,” he said, deadpan.

  He bought an annual National Park Pass for $50 so he’d be able to go in and out of the park as much as he needed without paying each time. While she filled out the form, he was surprisedto see the lens of a camera aiming at the Yukon from a small box on the side of the station.

  “You’ve got video cameras?” he asked.

  She nodded, handing him the pass to sign. “Every car comes in gets its picture taken.”

  “I didn’t realize you did that.”

  She smiled. “Helps us catch gate crashers and commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles aren’t allowed to use the park to pass through, you know.”

  “I see,” he said, noting for later the fact about the cameras.

  He listened to her spiel about road construction ahead, not feeding animals, not approaching wildlife. She handed him a brochure with a park road map and a yellow flyer with a cartoon drawing of a tourist being launched into the air by a charging buffalo. He remembered the same flyer, the same cartoonish drawing, from his childhood. He could recall being fascinated by it, the depiction of a too-small buffalo with puffs of smoke coming out of his nostrils, the way the little man was flying in the air with his arms outstretched.

  “Are you okay?” she asked because he hadn’t left.

  “Fine,” he said, snapping out of it. “Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Not that you’re holding up traffic or anything,” she said, gesturing behind him at the empty road.

  7

  The law enforcement center for the park service,known informally as “the Pagoda,” was a gray stone buildinga block from the main road through the Mammoth Hot Springs complex in the extreme northern border of the park. Joe turned off the road near the post office with the two crude concrete bears guarding the steps. Mammoth served as the headquarters for the National Park Service as well as for Zephyr Corp., the contractor for park concessions. Unlike other small communities in Wyoming and Montana where the main streets consisted of storefronts and the atmosphere was frontier and Western, Mammoth had the impersonal feel of governmentalofficialdom. The buildings were old and elegant but government’s version of elegance-without flair. The architecture was Victorian and revealing of its origin as a U.S. Army post before the National Park Service came to be. Elk grazed on the still-greenlawns across from the Mammoth Hotel, and the hot springs on the plateau to the south billowed steam that dissipatedquickly in the cold air. When the wind changed direction, there was the slight smell of sulfur. A line of fine old wood and brick houses extended north from behind the public buildings, the homes occupied by the superintendent, the chief ranger, and other administrative officials, the splendor of the homes reflectingtheir status within the hierarchy of the park.

  In the height of summer, the complex would be bustling with traffic, the road clogged with cars and recreational vehicles, the sidewalks ablaze with tourists with bone-white legs and loud clothing. But in October, there was a kind of stunned silence afterall that activity, as if the park was exhausted and trying to catch its breath.

  Joe parked the Yukon on the side of the Pagoda. It wasn’t well marked. The Park Service didn’t like signs because, he supposed, they looked like signs and the park was about nature,not people trying to go about their business in the world outside the park. He circled the building twice on foot before deciding that the unmarked wooden door on the west side was, in fact, the entrance.

  The lobby was small and dark and he surprised the receptionist,who quickly darkened the screen of whatever Internet site she had up. She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Don’t get many visitors, eh?” he said.

  “Not this time of year,” she said, chastened, guilty about whatever it was she had been looking at and obviously blaming Joe for making her feel that way. “May I help you? Do you know where you’re at?”

  “I’m here to see Del Ashby. My name is Joe Pickett.”

  “Del is off today,” she said.

  “Excuse me?”

  She nodded toward a whiteboard on the wall. It listed the names of ranking rangers, with a magnetic button placed either “in” or “out.” Del Ashby was marked “out.” So was the chief ranger, James Langston, who Chuck Ward had said would also be in the meeting.

  The receptionist started going through papers from her in-box.It took a moment for Joe to realize he had been dismissed.

  “Hold it,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting with them at four. Can you check to see if they’ll be there?”

  She gave him a withering look, but put the papers down and huffed away, pointedly closing the door behind her desk so he couldn’t follow.

  While he waited, trying not to become frustrated with the situationthat seemed to be developing, he studied another whiteboardon the wall above her desk. Painstakingly, in intricate detail, someone had drawn a multicolored flowchart of all the park rangers in Yellowstone, starting with James Langston at the top, Del Ashby under him, and a spiderweb of divisions and units including SWAT, interpretation, and other units. He counted about a hundred park rangers assigned to law enforcement,more than he would have guessed.

  The door opened and a short, wiry, intense man came through, head down as if determined to cross the room as efficientlyas possible. He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

  “Del Ashby,” he said, firing out his hand.

  “I thought for a minute my information was wrong,” Joe said, flicking a glance at the receptionist, who smoldered behindAshby.

  “It’s my day off,” he said. “I had to come in just for this, so I hope we can get to it and get out.”

  Joe nodded.

  “We’ve got a conference room upstairs,” Ashby said. “The others are already there.”

  “The chief ranger? James Langston?” Joe asked.

  “Nah, it’s his day off.”

  “Doesn’t he live just a block away?” Joe asked, recalling the stately line of old brick homes.

  Ashby turned and his expression hardened. “Not everyone will come in on their day off, like me. But don’t blame Chief Ranger Langston; he’s a busy man. He’s got a lot on his plate, you know.”

  Joe nodded noncommittally. The chief’s absence told Joe how seriously his presence and the meeting itself was being taken by the park administration. Nevertheless, he was grateful Ashby was there.

  Ashby turned and hustled through the door. Joe followed. While they climbed the stairs, Joe looked at his watch. Three-fifty-five. Right on time.

  Ashby stepped aside in the hall so Joe could enter a windowlessroom with a large round table crammed into it. Two men and a woman stood as Jo
e entered. Ashby shut the door behind them.

  “This is Joe Pickett,” Ashby said, “from Wyoming governor Rulon’s staff.”

  Joe didn’t take the time to consider the introduction-his staff, huh? Is that what Chuck Ward had told them? — but leaned across the table to greet the others. The atmosphere was instantly tense and uncomfortable and Joe surmised quickly that no one really wanted to be there. He recognized Special Agent Tony Portenson of the FBI out of the Cheyenne office. Portenson rolled his eyes at Joe as if to say, Here we are again. Then he smiled, which always looked like an uncomfortable sneer on him, like he was trying it out for the first time.

  “No need to introduce us,” Portenson said to Ashby. “We know each other from way back.”

  “Hi, Tony.”

  “I thought I’d gotten rid of him for good,” Portenson said in a way that didn’t reveal if he was joking or not. “But here he is again, like a bad penny. Wherever I go I seem to run into Joe Pickett and then something goes wrong.”

  Joe knew Portenson had been seeking a transfer out of Wyoming for years. He hated the state, its people, the quality of crimes he was in charge of. While the rest of the FBI was reshapingitself into a counterterrorism agency, Portenson had to oversee cattle rustling, crime on the Wind River Indian Reservation,and other mundane, career-advancement roadblocks. He’d complained mightily to Joe about it.

  Portenson said, “What in the hell is going on now? You’re working for the governor of Wyoming?”

  Joe nodded, not sure how much to reveal. He hadn’t expectedsomeone from his past to be in the room, especially not Portenson, who had made it a life’s goal to send Nate Romanowskito prison.

  “Sort of,” Joe said.

  “I’ve heard Rulon is a loose cannon, a damned maniac. He and the director have been going at each other for two years, ever since the election,” Portenson said. “The guy-Rulon-is power-mad, is what I hear. He thinks the Bureau should march to his orders. He probably thinks the same thing about the Park Service.”

  With that, Portenson looked around the room, having quickly established Joe as an agent for someone who threatened everyone in it.