Blood Trail - C. J. Box [101]
“Yup.”
“It also explains the poker chips. Only the men involved would know the significance of the poker chips.”
Joe nodded. “But that detail wasn’t released to the public. Only Randy Pope knew he was being sent a message.”
“But he wasn’t positive,” Nate said. “He was suspicious, but he wasn’t positive. So he invited his old friend Wally Conway up to the Bighorns with him, to see what would happen. And Wally got whacked.”
“Yup. Unfortunately, Robey was collateral damage.”
Nate shook his head. “Was Wally Conway dense? Didn’t he realize what had happened to his old hunting buddies?”
Joe shrugged. “He might have known. We don’t know what he discussed with Robey that night.”
Joe saw Nate’s hand drop and rest on the .454. “I don’t know who I hate worse,” Nate said, “Vern Dunnegan or Randy Pope.”
“You’re forgetting someone,” Joe said.
“Who?”
“The Wolverine. The killer.”
Nate shrugged. “Him, I can live with.”
“I can’t,” Joe said. His stomach churned. He remembered something Nate had said to him the first time they ever met, and he knew it was the core belief of Nate Romanowski. Nate had said he no longer believed in the legal system but he believed in justice.
It was a leap Joe couldn’t make, although there had been several times he’d stood at the precipice and measured the jump.
“SHENANDOAH FINALLY got herself straightened out,” Nate said, looking out the window, speaking as much to himself as to Joe. “Like always, she did it on her own, without anyone’s help. Eventually, she told her husband about what had happened. She named names. He hated hunters anyway, and now he knew the names of the hunters who had violated his very own wife, the way he’d been violated by his uncle but never told anyone but Shenandoah, who told Alisha, who told me. And Klamath made a plan.”
Joe said nothing, letting Nate go with it, mildly shocked at what Nate had revealed about Moore’s uncle. Finally, the burning flame behind Klamath’s obsession was clear.
“So it’s Klamath Moore after all,” Nate said.
AS THEY shot past Kaycee, Nate said, “To Chris,” and they drank another imaginary good-bye toast.
SOUTH OF BUFFALO, Joe speed-dialed the governor’s office. Again, Stella Ennis answered.
“Am I okay?” Joe asked.
“You’re okay as long as you get the killer,” she answered.
“I will, but the state may lose a game and fish director in the process. I’m going to use him as bait. Can the governor live with that?”
In his peripheral vision, Joe saw Nate turn his head and smile at him.
Rulon, who had been on the line all along, said, “Officially, you never made this call and I never got it. Unofficially, the answer is hell yes.”
Joe said, “What, is she on your lap?”
Rulon said, “Hell yes.”
Joe snapped the phone shut.
Nate said, “I like this plan so far, whatever it is.”
Joe thought, You won’t later.
“WHO ARE you calling now?” Nate asked, as Joe scrolled though the list of numbers on his cell phone while driving.
“The FBI in Cheyenne. I’m going to brief them on what’s going on.”
“Are you crazy? Klamath’s got an informer in that office.”
Joe said, “Exactly.”
“Ooooh,” Nate said.
JOE SLOWED and swerved the pickup into a designated scenic pull-out that overlooked a sweep of ranchland meadows rising up the foothills of the Bighorns.
Joe jumped out of the truck and took several deep breaths with his hands on his hips, trying to fight off nausea. When the turmoil in his stomach and soul were under control, he wiped moisture from his eyes and looked up. White shafts of afternoon sunlight poked through the cloud cover in a dozen places, making the vista look as if it were behind jail bars.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked from the pickup.
“Fine,” Joe said. “Something I ate.” Thinking, Something I’m about to do.
29
RANDY POPE’S state Escalade was parked in the driveway of Joe’s house and Joe pulled in behind it.
“Rude bastard,” Nate said, “using your driveway like that.”
Joe