Free Fire - C. J. Box [31]
Unshaven men in camo coats and blaze orange hats milled on the wooden porch and around the cabins in back. Four-wheel drive vehicles and ATVs were parked wherever the trees were cleared. The air smelled of wood smoke, gasoline, and tallow. Field-dressed mule deer and elk carcasses hung in the trees, rib cages opened to the air to cool, the view inside the cavities red-white-red like split and flattened barber poles.
“Those yours?” Joe asked one of the hunters on the porch.
“The elk? Got ’em this morning.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Feel free.”
He couldn’t help himself; old habits die hard. The first thing he noticed as he inspected the hanging carcasses was that the elk were well taken care of. Hides had been removed, cavities scrubbed clean, tags visible. He searched for entrance and exit wounds and could see that only one of the animals had taken a body shot. The others, apparently, had been killed by bullets to the head or neck. Very clean kills. The hunters knew what they were doing and they took pride in their work. The elk were big and healthy, another good thing. The inch-thick layers of fat along their backbones, white and scalloped, was proof of the excellent habitat and resource management.
“Nice,” Joe said to the hunter who had accompanied him from the porch.
“Want to see the antlers?”
“Nah, that’s all right.”
Joe didn’t care about antlers, just that the herd was healthy and the job of harvesting done right.
“Good work,” he said, nodding.
“We take it seriously,” the hunter said. “If you’re going to take an animal’s life, you owe it to that elk to take responsibility.”
“Exactly.” Joe smiled.
Nodding at the rest of the hunters on the porch as he passed them, he reached for the door handle.
“Got your elk yet?” one of them asked.
“Nope,” Joe said pleasantly. In Wyoming, “got your elk yet” was a greeting as ubiquitous as “good morning” was elsewhere, but Joe was momentarily struck by it. For the first time he could remember, he was taken for a hunter and not the game warden. In the past, his arrival would have been met with stares, sniggers,or the over-familiar banter of the ashamed or guilty.
Inside, he bought water, jerky, and sunflower seeds because he had forgotten to pack a lunch. While he was paying for the items at the counter, a stout, bearded man in the saloon eyed him and slid off his bar stool and entered the store. Joe assessed him as the man pushed through the half-doors. Dark, close-croppedhair, bulbous nose, windburned cheeks, chapped lips. Watery, bloodshot eyes. A hunter who’d been at it for a while, Joe guessed. No other reason for him to be up there this time of year. The hunter had rough hands with dried half-moons of dark blood under his fingernails. Joe could tell from his appearancethat he wasn’t a member of the group out on the porch. Those men were sportsmen.
“Got your elk?” the man asked, keeping his voice low so the clerk wouldn’t hear him ask.
Joe started to shake his head but instincts kicked in. “Why do you ask?”
The hunter didn’t reply, but gestured toward the door with his chin, willing Joe to understand.
Joe shook his head.
Frustration passed across the hunter’s face because Joe didn’t appear to get it.
“Come outside when you’re through here,” the hunter said, sotto voce, and went out the door to wait.
While the clerk bagged his snacks, Joe shook his head. He knew what the hunter was telling him but had played it coy. Over the years, he’d learned that deception, unfortunately, was a necessary trait for a game warden. Not open dishonesty or entrapment—those ruined a reputation and could get him beaten or killed. But in a job where nearly every man he encounteredin the field was armed as well as pumped up with testosterone—and calling backup was rarely an option— playing dumb was a survival skill. And Joe, much to Marybeth’s chagrin, could play dumb extremely