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By Root 990 0

them and returned to the original crime scene. Remembering his guilt for not immediately identifying himself when Lothar stepped out into the meadow cradling his automatic weapon, and wondering if his choice to remain silent was tactical—as he thought at the time—or cowardly resulting in Lothar’s death. Thinking of Robey’s lack of response on the radio and failure to respond to Joe’s periodic three-shot signaling, the first indication that something tragic had happened to his friend. Then finding Wally Conway’s dead body and Robey bleeding out next to his slumping pickup at the same time Phil Kiner and Deputy Reed arrived twenty minutes too late to provide backup. Picturing the garish image of Wally Conway’s face in the beam of a flashlight, his mouth open, the bright red poker chip next to his extended purple tongue. And the shocking realization that of the four of them who’d been on the mountain just two hours before, he was the only one still alive and unhurt, and that everything they’d done was misguided and stupid and epically wrong; that Robey, his friend and colleague and fishing partner since he’d been in Saddlestring and one of the most honest and good-hearted men Joe had ever known, in all likelihood wouldn’t survive the morning.

“YOU SHOULD get yourself cleaned up, Joe.” County coroner Will Speer stood before Joe and looked down through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with pained sympathy in his eyes. Speer had a light brown thatch of hair and a graying mustache, and wore an open white lab coat.

Joe sat up, blinking, momentarily confused. He hadn’t heard Speer walk down the hall and didn’t know how long he’d been half-sleeping, suffering through the nightmares. Joe could smell himself: dried sweat and mud, with flowery bloodstains on his Wranglers and the sleeves of his red uniform shirt, half-moons of black blood under his fingernails that wouldn’t wash out. “Maybe so,” Joe said, nodding toward the ICU entrance, “but I think I’ll wait until I hear about Robey.”

Speer nodded. That he didn’t volunteer words of encouragement was not lost on either of them.

“Does Nancy know?” Speer asked.

“She was in Casper at a meeting,” Joe said. “She’s on her way here.”

“I bet that wasn’t an easy conversation.”

Joe shook his head. “Nope.”

“Let’s hope things calm down out there,” Speer said, gesturing vaguely with his chin in the direction of the mountains. “I only have three drawers down in the morgue and they’re all full. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.”

It took Joe a moment to figure out what Speer meant. “Frank Urman, Lothar, and Wally Conway,” Joe said. Meaning if Robey didn’t pull through, Speer wouldn’t know where to put his body.

“At least we were able to reunite Mr. Urman’s head with his body,” Speer said with bitter humor.

Joe winced. He’d forgotten about the hysterical cell phone call he’d received from Randy Pope as he, Kiner, and Reed drove down the mountain with all the victims. At the time, Joe cradled Robey in his arms, hoping the makeshift compresses they’d fashioned would stanch the flow of blood from the entrance and exit wounds in Robey’s chest and back. Pope had screamed about finding the head mounted in his room, saying, “Now this is personal !” like the tagline to an action movie. Joe had said, “I’m busy right now,” and closed his phone.

It was clear now to Joe what the killer had been doing between the time he shot Frank Urman and when he returned to the crime scene—mounting Urman’s head on a plaque in Pope’s hotel room. The savagery of the act was incomprehensible, and Joe did his best to shove it aside for later when he could better process the information.

“I suppose you heard,” Speer said, “the governor closed all hunting and access to state lands and he’s asking the Feds to do the same.”

Joe hadn’t heard, but he wasn’t surprised. Pope and the governor’s worst-case scenario had materialized. Joe was numb and completely unmoved by the news, although he knew what kind of uproar was likely to erupt statewide. All he cared about now was what was happening on the other side of the