Blood Trail - C. J. Box [13]
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.