Blood Trail, Page 4

  “Thanks for your service,” Joe said.

  Dempster nodded. “We all saw some pretty bad stuff over there where we were stationed, near Tikrit. You know the stories.”

  “Yup.”

  “Yup.”

  “But in two years over there in the world’s armpit, I never seen anything like this,” he said. “Shooting Uncle Frank was bad enough but what was done to his body afterwards is something else. If we catch who did it, you’re gonna see Chris go medieval on his ass. And me and Craig are going to help him. So I hope you guys catch whoever did it fast, because you’ll be doing them a favor.”

  Dempster’s eyes were hard and clear. Joe said, “I believe you.”

  “I gotta tell you something else,” Dempster said as they walked. “I realize it can’t be used as evidence or anything, but my buddies and I were talking last night how we felt like someone was up here watching us. I thought it was just me, so I kind of hesitated saying anything. But when Urman brought it up, both me and Craig said we’d felt the same thing yesterday while we were hunting.”

  Joe knew the feeling. He’d had it. Sometimes it was a game animal watching him, sometimes a hunter in a blind. And sometimes he never learned what caused it.

  “I got that same buzz once over in Iraq,” Dempster said. “We were on patrol and parked at an intersection one night. It was pure black because the lights were out. I could feel it on my neck when I looked outside the Humvee. Then one of our guys who had night-vision goggles opened up on an insurgent sniper up on a roof and took him out. The sniper had been sighting in on us on the street. That’s what it felt like yesterday, that someone was looking at me through a scope but I couldn’t see him.”

  JOE ADMIRED hunters who hunted seriously and with respect not only for the animals they pursued but for the resource itself. Most of the hunters in Wyoming were like that, and they had passed their respect along to the next generation. While the numbers of hunters had declined over the years, it was still a vibrant local tradition. Good hunters considered hunting a solemn privilege and a means to reconnect with the natural world, to place themselves back on earth, into a place without supermarkets, processed foods, and commercial meat manufacturing industries. Hunting was basic, primal, and humbling. He had less respect for trophy hunters and thought poachers who took the antlers and left the meat deserved a special place in hell and he was happy to arrest them and send them there.

  He valued those who shot well and took care of their game properly. This involved field dressing the downed animal quickly and cleanly, and cooling the meat by placing lengths of wood inside the body cavity to open it up to the crisp fall air. Back limbs were spread out and the game was then hung by the legs from a tree branch or game pole. The game carcass was then skinned to accelerate cooling, and washed down to clean it of hair and dirt. The head was often removed as well as the legs past their joints. It was respectful of the animal and the tradition of hunting to take care of the kill this way.

  Over the years, Joe had seen hanging in trees hundreds of carcasses of deer, moose, elk, and pronghorn antelope that had been field-dressed, skinned, and beheaded.

  This was the first time he’d ever seen a man hung in the same condition.

  4

  I WATCH them come over the ridge through my rifle scope. They come down the trail single file, like wild turkeys. I’m much too far away to hear their conversation but I find I don’t need to since their actions and gestures tell me what they’re thinking and saying to one another. I’m surprised there are so many of them so quickly, and I thank God I was finished and away from there before they showed up. I’m also grateful the soldiers decided to call law enforcement rather than to pursue me on their own. It could have gone either way, I know, when the three of them stood near the hanging body an hour ago and argued over what to do. Their leader, the tall one, wanted to come after me right then and there after discovering the body. It was obvious by the way he unslung his rifle and held it like the weapon it was, light in his hands and deadly. His friends calmed him down eventually and argued persuasively to call the authorities once they got back to their camp. I have nothing against the soldiers, and I fear their abilities and their young aggression. No doubt they’ve been well trained in tactics and strategy. Although it is my aim to elude them, there is always the chance that through sheer will and physical ability they will run me down and force a confrontation.

  Behind the soldiers are two men wearing cowboy hats with red shirts and patches on their shoulders. Game wardens. One is lean and wary and the other big and already out of breath. Behind the game wardens are members of the sheriff’s office.

  They stop about fifteen yards from where the body is hanging. I can tell by their physical reactions to the body how the sight affects each of them. The soldiers/hunters gesture to confirm what they’ve described, where they were standing when they found the corpse. One of the deputies turns away and looks up at the tops of the trees, gazing at anything other than what is in front of him. The other stares morbidly at the body, as does the sheriff, who looks perplexed. The big game warden has lost all his color and seems frozen and ineffectual, as if the life has gone out of him, his face frozen into a white mask. The lean game warden steps aside into the trees and bends over with his hands on his knees, is violently sick. The sheriff points at him and nudges his deputy, and the two of them exchange glances and smirk.

  I watch the game warden who threw up. When he’s done, he rises and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. He’s angry, but not at the sheriff for making fun of him. By the way he glares in my direction and at the forest and meadows he can see, I think he’s angry with me. For the briefest moment, I can see his eyes lock with mine although he doesn’t register the fact because he’s not sure I’m here. The crosshairs of the scope linger on his red shirt over his heart. I could squeeze the trigger and make the shot—it’s a long way but there is no wind and my angle is decent—but I won’t because it would give my position away. There’s something about the set of his jaw and his squint that tells me he is taking this personally.

  Of all of them, I decide he’s the one to worry about.

  WHEN HE FINALLY rejoins the others, I rise to my knees and use the trunk of a tree to get to my feet. My legs are tired from walking most of the night and they shake from the dissipating adrenaline that still burns through my thigh and calf muscles. I feel for a moment like sleeping, but I know I can’t.

  I move slowly in the shadows of the timber. A quick movement could startle a lurking animal or a nesting bird and give me away. Although it is cold, I stay away from anywhere the sun is filtering through the trees to avoid a sun-caught glint from my rifle barrel or scope. I cap my scope and sling my rifle over my shoulder. The spent cartridge is still in the chamber because I’ve learned not to eject it after firing and risk the possibility of it being found. I look around on the bed of pine needles where I lay to make sure I haven’t dropped anything. Then I nose my boot through the shape that’s still defined in the needles, erasing the impression of my body.

  I pick up the daypack, which now sags with weight.

  My bare hands, my clothes, even my face are sticky with blood. My concern isn’t the blood that is on me. The clothes will be burned and the blood will be washed off my skin and scraped out from beneath my fingernails. What worries me, always, is leaving a track, leaving a trace of myself.

  I know Edmond Locard’s Principle, the central theory of modern forensic crime-scene investigation: something is always left behind.

  And this time, like the other times, I have left something for them intentionally. What I don’t want to leave is something unintentional, something that can lead them to me.

  Before I leave the area for my long hike back, I use my binoculars to take a last look at the investigators. As I do, I see the lean game warden studying the ground beneath the hanging body and squatting to retrieve what I placed in the grass.

  AS A HUNTER I am looked down upon in Western society. I am po
rtrayed as a brute. I am denigrated and spat upon, and thought of as a slow-witted anachronism, the dregs of a discredited culture. This happened quickly when one looks at human history. The skills I possess—the ability to track, hunt, kill, and dress out my prey so it can be served at a table to feed others—were prized for tens of thousands of years. Hunters fed those in the tribe and family who could not hunt well or did not hunt because they weren’t physically able to. The success of the hunter produced not only healthy food and clothing, tools, medicine, and amenities, but a direct hot-blooded connection with God and the natural world. The hunter was the provider, and exalted as such.

  I often think that in the world we live in today, where we are threatened by forces as violent and primitive as anything we have ever faced, that it would be wise to look back a little ourselves and embrace our heritage. We were once a nation of hunters. And not the effete, European-style hunters who did it for sport. We hunted for our food, our independence. It’s what made us who we are. But, like so many other virtues that made us unique, we have, as a society, forgotten where we came from and how we got here. What was once both noble and essential has become perverted and indefensible.

  Here’s what I know:

  Those who disparage me are ignorant.

  Those who damage me will pay.

  And:

  A human head is pretty heavy.

  5

  THE TELECONFERENCE with Governor Spencer Rulon was scheduled for 7 P.M. in the conference room in the county building in Saddlestring. Joe sat waiting for it to begin at a long table with his back to the wall. In front of him on the table were three manila files brought by Randy Pope, a spread of topo maps, and, in a plastic evidence bag, the single red poker chip he had found in the grass near the body. The poker chip had been dusted for prints. None were found. Sheriff McLanahan had ordered food in from the Burg-O-Pardner—burgers, fries, coffee, cookies—and the room smelled of hot grease and dry-erase markers. Joe’s cheeseburger sat untouched on a white foam plate.

  “You gonna eat that?” Kiner asked.

  Joe shook his head.

  “You mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hungry,” Kiner mumbled as he unwrapped Joe’s cheeseburger.

  Joe shrugged. He had had no appetite since that morning and could not get the image of Frank Urman’s hanging body out of his mind. The photo spread of the crime scene tacked on a bulletin board didn’t help.

  McLanahan and his deputies occupied the other end of the table, digging into the box of food like hyenas over a fresh kill. On the wall opposite Joe were three television monitors and two stationary cameras. The county technician fiddled with a control board out of view of the cameras and whispered to his counterpart in the governor’s office in Cheyenne.

  Robey Hersig, the county attorney and Joe’s friend, read over the crime-scene report prepared by the sheriff. At one point he gulped, looked up, said, “Man oh man,” before reading on. It was good to see Robey again, but Joe wished the circumstances were different, wished they were on Joe or Robey’s drift boat fly-fishing for trout on the Twelve Sleep River.

  “Five minutes before airtime, gentlemen,” the technician said.

  Director Randy Pope paced the room, head down, hands clasped behind his back. Pope was tall and thin with light blue eyes and sandy hair and a pallor that came from working indoors in an office. He had a slight brown mustache and a weak chin and his lips were pinched together so tightly they looked like twin bands of white cord.

  “Pope is making me nervous,” Kiner whispered between bites. “I’ve never seen him like this before.”

  “Me either,” Joe said.

  “He’s not just passing through either,” Kiner said. “He got a room at the Holiday Inn. He’ll be here awhile.”

  “Terrific,” Joe said sourly.

  “I wish he’d sit down,” Kiner said. “He’s making me jumpy.”

  “Two minutes,” the technician called out.

  Pope stopped pacing and stood and closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. All eyes in the room were on him, but he seemed too preoccupied with his own thoughts to know or care, Joe thought. Joe found it difficult to work up the anger he once felt toward Pope now that his nemesis was in the room instead of barking orders or making innuendos over the phone. Since his arrival, Pope had surprised Joe with his lack of animosity at the crime scene, and Joe was equally pleased, puzzled, and suspicious.

  The director took his seat next to Kiner and gathered the files in front of him, then stacked them one on top of the other. Joe read the tabs on the files. The bottom one read J. GARRETT, the middle one W. TUCKER, the top one F. URMAN. He looked to Pope for some kind of explanation of the files but the director avoided meeting Joe’s eyes.

  “What’s with the three files?” Joe asked.

  “Not now, Joe,” Pope said out of the side of his mouth.

  “Why are you and the governor so directly involved in this case?”

  Pope shot Joe a look of admonition tinged with panic, and repeated, “Not now, Joe.”

  The middle monitor flickered, revealing the top of a desk and the State of Wyoming seal on the wall behind the desk. The technician brought the audio up as Wyoming Governor Spencer Rulon filled the screen and sat down. Rulon was a big man with a wide, expressive face, a big gut, a shock of silver-flecked brown hair, a quick sloppy smile, and eyes that rarely stayed on anything or anyone very long. Joe thought the governor had gained some weight since he’d seen him last, and his upper cheeks seemed rounder and ruddier. He wondered if Stella was there in the room, if she would appear on the screen.

  “Are we live?” Rulon asked. His voice was gravelly.

  “Yes, sir,” Pope answered.

  “Sheriff, we’d like to thank you for the use of your facilities.”

  McLanahan nodded, still chewing. “You paid for ’em,” he said.

  “There are benefits to being flush with cash,” Rulon said with a slight smile, referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars of energy severance taxes flowing into the state. “This is one of ’em.”

  Rulon’s eyes left the camera and shifted to his monitor. “I see we’ve got everyone here. Director Pope, Sheriff McLanahan, Robey, Joe Pickett. How you doing, Joe?”

  “Fine, Governor,” Joe said, shifting in his chair for being singled out. “Considering.”

  “Game Warden Phil Kiner is present as well,” Pope said quickly.

  “Okay,” Rulon said without enthusiasm. Joe could feel Kiner deflate next to him at the governor’s cool reaction to the mention of his name. Then: “What have we got here, gentlemen?”

  Pope cleared his throat, indicating to everyone in the room that he planned to take the lead. Joe wasn’t surprised.

  “Mr. Frank Urman’s body was found this morning about three miles from his elk camp. Urman was sixty-two. He owned a hotel and gas station in Sheridan. What we heard over the radio turned out to be true. He was killed and mutilated in a manner that suggests he was left to resemble a game animal.”

  Rulon winced, and Joe’s eyes wandered to the photos on the bulletin board.

  “The crime scene has been taped off and contained,” Pope said. “State and local forensics spent the afternoon there and they’re still up there working under lights. The body is being airlifted to our lab in Laramie for an autopsy. The scene itself was pretty trampled by the time we got there, I’m afraid. Mr. Urman’s nephew and his friends were all over the scene.”

  “Is it possible they had something to do with it?” Rulon asked. Before becoming governor, Rulon had been the federal district prosecutor for Wyoming, and Joe thought he easily slipped back into the role.

  “We haven’t ruled it out,” Pope said at the same time McLanahan said, “They didn’t do it.” The two exchanged glances.

  “Which is it?” Rulon asked.

  “They’ve been separated and questioned,” Pope said. “We’re comparing their stories and we will re-int
erview them later tonight to see if their recollection has changed any. But I’ve got to say we’d be real surprised if any of them had anything to do with the shooting. They’re all cooperating. They’re vets just back from Iraq, and they seem too angry with what happened to have had anything at all to do with the crime.”

  Rulon seemed to mull this over. “So you’ve got nothing?”

  Pope sighed and nodded. “Correct.”

  McLanahan said, “No footprints, no DNA, no fibers, no casing, no weapon, no motivation. Squat is what we’ve got. Squat. Not a goddamned thing.”

  “Do we know if the murder victim was targeted or random?” Rulon asked.

  “I’d say random,” Pope said quickly. “I think he was murdered because he was a hunter. The way his body was mutilated suggests the killer was sending us a pretty strong message.”

  “You’ve got a good grasp on the obvious, Director Pope,” Rulon said, letting an edge of impatience into his tone. “What else can you tell me? What steps are being taken to find the shooter?”

  Joe watched the blood drain from Pope’s face as the director seemed to shrink in size.

  “Governor,” Pope said, “you’ve got to believe me that we’re doing everything we can. The scene is being analyzed and we’ll start a grid search of the entire mountain tomorrow. We’ve got every single law-enforcement body in the county questioning everybody they locate in a fifty-mile radius from the scene up there to see if anybody saw anything like a lone hunter or a vehicle leaving the area. I’m bringing all of our agency crime-scene investigators up here to comb the Bighorns. APBs are out. We’ll find something, I’m sure. A footprint, a spent cartridge, something.”

  Rulon sat back, looking away from the camera at something or somebody in the room. Joe thought, Stella?

  “What about this?” Joe asked Pope, holding up the small evidence bag with the poker chip he’d found in the grass near the body. Joe had been examining it through the plastic. The chip was old, red, and had a faded stamp of a flower of some kind on one side. It was blank on the other. A residue of dark powder clung to the chip and the inside of the bag, but no print was found on it besides Joe’s.