Free Fire - C. J. Box [37]
“Before we get started,” Ashby said, “I thought you might need some background on our job here and how we work. That way, we can save some time later.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Joe noticed Portenson had immediatelydrifted away and was studying the large-scale map of the park behind Joe’s head.
“Yellowstone National Park is a federal enclave,” Ashby said. “You are no longer in the state of Wyoming, or Montana, or anywhere else. This is literally the last vestige of Wyoming Territory, and we’re governed as such. There are two U.S. marshalsup here, just like the frontier days, and we’ve got a hundredrangers including four special investigators. Eric here is our top investigator.”
At that, Layborn leaned forward. Joe was still stinging from the “message” and fought the urge to ignore the man. Instead he acknowledged Layborn with a quick nod.
“Think of the park as a city of forty thousand people every given day in the summer and fifteen thousand people in the winter,” Ashby said. “But unlike a city, everyone is passing through, turning over. We’ll have over three million in the summer,a few hundred thousand in the winter. It’s a brand-new scenario every day, a whole new cast. Our job is to serve and protect these people and enforce the laws, but at the same time to protect the resources of the park itself. This place is like a church; nothing is to be disturbed. It’s a national shrine and no one wants to see harm come to it. It’s a hell of a tough job, unlikeanything else in law enforcement. Park rangers are the most assaulted federal officers of all of the branches because of the public interaction that comes with the job. No one has jurisdictionover us in the park, including your governor and the FBI,” he said, indicating Portenson.
Portenson, Joe noticed, appeared to be counting holes in the overhead ceiling tiles in boredom.
“Because we’re federal,” Ashby said, “we operate under two sets of laws—the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Criminal Code and Rules statutes—and we can pick and choose depending on the violation. Most violations are Class B misde-meanors,meaning six months in jail and/or a five-thousand-dollarfine. Half of the violations are ‘cite and release’—we give them a ticket and let them proceed. But the other half are the serious ones, and they include felonies, poaching, violations of the Lacy Act, and so on. Because of the transient nature of the population here, all sorts of scum pass through. Last year we nailed a child molester who’d brought a little girl into the park in his RV. On average, we make two hundred to two hundredfifty arrests a year and issue four thousand tickets.”
Joe raised his eyebrows. There was more action than he realized.
Layborn broke in. “Don’t be fooled by the numbers, Mr. Pickett. We aren’t just arresting tourists. Half of the arrests are of permanent residents—meaning Zephyr Corp. employees. I spend most of my time tailing those people. Some of them act like they left the law at home when they moved out here.” He said it with a vehemence that seemed out of place after Ashby’s sober recitation of facts, Joe thought.
Layborn continued even though Ashby admonished him with his eyes to stop.
“There are seven thousand Zephyr people. They come from all over the world to work in the park. Too many of them come to think they’re on the same level as we are. They forget they’re here because we allow them to be. They’re contractors for the Park Service, nothing more. They work in the hotels, change the bedding, cook, unclog the sewers, wrangle horses, whatever.Some of them are renegades. We used to call ’em savages—”
“Eric, please,” Ashby said, sitting up, cutting Layborn off. “We’re getting off track.”
“The hell we are,” Layborn said to Ashby. “If we got rid of the bad apples in Zephyr, we’d get rid of most of our crime.”
“That may be, but that isn’t why we’re here.”
“The hell it isn’t. The campers who got shot were Zephyr people camping in a place they shouldn’t have been camping.” He turned back to Joe. “See what I mean about their attitude? And you can only