Free Fire - C. J. Box [32]
The bearded hunter was not on the porch when Joe went outside,but was waiting for him near a cabin at the side of the building. Joe shoved the sack of snacks into his coat pocket as he walked down the length of the wooden porch onto a well-wornpath. As he approached the hunter, he wished the .40 Glock Nate had given him wasn’t disassembled in a duffel bag in his Yukon.
The hunter studied Joe with cool eyes and stepped on the other side of his pickup and leaned across the hood, his blood-stainedfingers loosely entwined, the truck between them.
The hunter raised his eyebrows in a greeting. “You might be a man who’s looking for an elk.”
“Think so, huh?” Joe said, noncommittal.
“Me and my buddies jumped ’em this morning early, down on the ridge. They was crossing over the top, bold as you please.”
Joe nodded, as if to say, “Go on.”
“That’s the thing about elk hunting. Don’t see nothing for five straight days, and all of a sudden they’re all around you. Big herd of ’em. Forty, fifty. Three of us hunting.”
Joe glanced behind the cabin, saw three big bulls hanging from the branches, their antlers scraping the ground, hides still on, black blood pooling in the pine needles. Despite the distance,Joe could see gaping exit wounds on the ribs and front quarters. Even in the cold he could smell them.
“Yeah, three good bulls,” the hunter said, following Joe’s line of sight. “But my buddy went a little crazy.”
“Meaning,” Joe said, “there are a few more killed down there than you have licenses for.”
The hunter winced. He didn’t like Joe saying it outright.
“At least four cows if you’ve got a cow permit,” the hunter whispered. “A spike too. That’s good eating, them spikes.”
Spikes were young bulls without fully developed antlers. Cows were female elk. Five extra animals wasn’t just a mistake, it was overkill. Joe felt a dormant sense of outrage rise in him but tried not to show it.
He said, “So a guy could drive down there with an elk tag and take his pick?”
The hunter nodded. “If a guy was willing to pay a little finder’s fee for the directions.”
“How much is the finder’s fee?”
The hunter looked around to see if anyone could hear him, but the only other people out were back at the building.
"Say, four hundred.”
Joe shook his head. “That’s a lot.”
The hunter grinned. “How much is your time worth, is what I think. Hell, we’ve been up here five days. You can go get you a nice one without breaking a sweat.”
“I see.”
“I’d go three seventy-five. But no less.”
“Three hundred and seventy-five dollars for a cow elk?” Joe said.
Again, the hunter flinched at Joe’s clarity. Again, he looked around.
“That’s the deal,” he said, but with less confidence than before.Joe’s manner apparently created suspicion.
Joe glanced down at the plates on the hunter’s pickup. Utah. He memorized the number.
“Would you take a check?” Joe asked.
The hunter laughed unpleasantly as his confidence returned. “Hell, no. What do you think I am?”
“I’ll have to run back to Dayton to get cash from the ATM,” Joe said. “That’ll take me an hour or so.”
“I ain’t going anywhere. Them elk aren’t either.”
“An hour, then.”
“I’ll be in the bar.”
Joe leaned across the hood and extended his hand. The hunter took it, said, “They call me Bear.”
Joe said, “They call me a Wyoming game warden, and I’ve got you on tape.” With his left hand, he raised the microcassette recorder from where he always kept it in his pocket. “You just broke a whole bunch of laws.”
Bear went pale and his mouth opened, revealing a crooked picket fence row of tobacco-stained teeth.
“Killing too many elk is bad enough,” Joe said. “That happensin the heat of battle. But the way you take care of the carcasses?And charging for the illegal animals? That just plain makes me mad.”
Joe called dispatch in Cheyenne on his radio. He was patched through to Bill Haley, the local district warden.
“GF-thirty-five,” Haley responded.
“How far are you from Burgess Junction, Bill?”
"Half an hour.”
Joe told him about the arrest.
“His name is Carl Wilgus, goes by Bear,” Joe said, reciting the