JOE SPENT THE morning doing game warden things, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d left before dawn with Daisy in the cab of his pickup and a sack lunch. For four hours, he checked hunters for proper licenses, had cups of coffee at elk camps with guides angry that their clients had canceled at the last minute, and tried to calm down nervous landowners. All anyone wanted to talk about was the grizzly bear attacks, and Joe didn’t blame them.
There was no news from Jennie Gordon.
*
WHEN HE RECEIVED a call from dispatch that a hunter on the hotline had excitedly reported that he and his buddies had “killed the beast,” Joe pulled over to the side of the Forest Service road and opened his notepad.
“Could you please repeat that?” he said.
The dispatcher had a tinny voice, and she said, “The RP claims that they encountered the target grizzly bear this morning and that they killed it and took the carcass back to their camp. They’re going to remain there until you arrive and provide confirmation.”
Joe’s heart leapt. “What’s their location?”
“Crazy Woman Campground.”
“Let them know I’m about fifteen minutes away.”
“Ten-four.”
*
JOE SPED ON the well-maintained gravel road and shot by the sign identifying the campground. It wasn’t difficult to identify the reporting party, not only because they were the only hunters camped there, but because of the way the three men were acting: fist-pumping, howling at the sky in joy, and slapping each other on their backs.
He parked next to a four-wheel-drive SUV with Illinois plates and told Daisy to stay put. The camp consisted of the vehicle, a battered camper trailer, an ATV, and the standard Forest Service picnic table and raised firepit. Two of the men turned to him, one with his arm around the other’s shoulder. The third beamed and approached Joe as he climbed out of his pickup.
“We fucking got him,” the man announced. “We got him this morning down by the creek.”
The hunter had a pudgy frame and a full red beard. He was dressed in bloody camo and a blaze-orange stocking cap. The two men behind him were also in full camo clothing, one a dark-haired beanpole with thick black-framed glasses and the other a wiry bald man with a shoulder holster and a fixed-blade knife that hung from his belt to his knee.
“I’m game warden Joe Pickett. Are you the reporting party?”
“Name’s Buck Lewis,” the bearded man said, “and I’m the one who killed the beast and called your office.” As he said it, he raised his chin and puffed out his chest.
“Show me,” Joe said.
“This way,” Lewis said, turning on his heel.
Joe waited until all three hunters grouped and strode toward a copse of lodgepole pine at the back of the campsite. He remained five paces behind them, a precaution he’d learned from years on the job. Stay far enough back and to the side so that he could keep a close eye on them and so they couldn’t easily jump him.
“We’ve been up here elk hunting for four days,” Lewis said over his shoulder as he walked. “Haven’t hardly seen nothin’ worth shooting at. It makes sense to me now—those elk are smart. They don’t want to be in the same area as a killer bear on the loose.
“So we were hunting the creek,” the man continued, “and I heard a crashing in the trees up ahead of me. I was jumpy—who wouldn’t be?—when I saw him up around a bend. I didn’t wait for him to charge and tear me a new one, so I shot him right here.” As he said it, Lewis cupped himself with his right hand under his left armpit. “Got him in the lungs or heart. He roared and tried to run off, but I blasted him two more times and he went down. Scariest damned thing I ever experienced.”
As they entered the stand of trees, Joe could see the outline of a heavy teardrop-shaped form hanging from a crossbeam. The hunters had obviously dragged it to their camp from the creek with the ATV he’d observed, then hoisted it by its back legs into the air with a chain.
“Is there some kind of reward or something?” Lewis asked.
Joe put his hands on his hips and sighed. He studied the bear and recalled once again how much a hanging bear carcass resembled that of a heavily muscled man. Blood dripped from the red-stained teeth into a dark puddle on the pine needles below.
“No reward, I’m afraid,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “But I will be writing you a citation for killing a female black bear without a proper license.”
“A black bear?” Lewis said, his shoulders slumping. “How in the hell am I supposed to know that?”
“He’s a she,” the tall skinny hunter said to his bald buddy. “What the hell did we do?”
“We didn’t do anything,” his buddy replied. “Buck gets all the credit.”
“Well, shit,” Buck said.
“Sorry to ruin your morning,” Joe said as he drew his ticket book out of his back pocket. “But you need to know what you’re shooting at. This bear is half the size of a mature grizzly, and there’s no hump on her back.”
“Well, shit,” Buck said again.
*
AN HOUR LATER, with the confiscated dead black bear in the bed of his pickup, Joe wound his way to the top of a rock promontory with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the foothills and Bighorn Mountains and parked. He felt a little sorry for Buck Lewis and his friends, as he always did when he cited someone for being ignorant instead of malicious. The three Illinois hunters had been cooperative if remorseful, and they’d helped him load the carcass into his vehicle. Lewis had asked about good places to eat in Saddlestring, since he didn’t feel like hunting anymore.
“You’ve sort of ruined it for me,” he told Joe.
“You ruined it for yourself,” the bald hunter said.
“Yes, I did,” Lewis lamented. “Shit.”
*
JOE CLAMPED A spotting scope to the open window of his truck and scoped the timber for a while before feeding Daisy dry dog food in her travel bowl on the brown grass surface and pouring her water out of a gallon jug he kept in the bed of his pickup.
It was a fine fall day, crisp and clear, full of sun and very little wind. The air was perfumed with pine, lowland sagebrush, and slightly decayed aspen leaves from where they’d fallen. Eleven miles in the distance he could see the wooded curves of the Twelve Sleep River. Beyond that, the town of Saddlestring twinkled in the sun and appeared in the valley like a handful of broken glass scattered on the prairie.
He’d filled his briefcase with material about grizzly bears, and as he ate his sandwich and apple, he read. Although he knew a lot about the traditional species in his district, grizzlies were a new thing. Joe thought if he were better acquainted with them, he might be able to get a handle on what was going on and what might happen next.
Jennie Gordon had provided Joe with a compendium of her studies and observations boiled down to bullet points.
Some items he read out loud to Daisy, who appeared to listen to him:
“‘The Ursus arctos horribilis are omnivores that hibernate five to seven months each year and emerge in April or early May …’
“‘Grizzlies are variable colors from blonde to nearly black and they have a pronounced muscular hump on their backs …’
“‘Males weigh from four hundred to seven hundred and fifty pounds, females from two hundred and ninety to four hundred pounds. Males live up to twenty-two years, females up to twenty-six …’
“‘On average,’” he read, “‘females have two cubs per litter, but they can have as many as four. The mother cares for the cubs for two years …’
“‘Grizzles can run up to thirty-five miles per hour …’
“‘The bite force of a grizzly bear is one thousand, one hundred and sixty pounds per inch. That compares to a hippo at one thousand, eight hundred PSI, an alligator at two thousand, one hundred and twenty-five PSI, or a human at a measly one hundred and sixty-two PSI …’
“‘Our best estimates are that there are at least one thousand, one hundred grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and at least seven hundred in the State of Wyoming …’
“‘Bear attacks on regular prey or livestock are unique in that they kill with bites along the spine. Human injuries are usually to the head and face, although there are often defensive wounds on the hands and arms as well if the person fights back.’
“‘Grizzles become quickly “food-conditioned,” meaning that once they enjoy the taste of human food they will actively continue to seek it out …’
“‘The bears “know” they’re not supposed to attack a human and they’ll usually try to steer clear. But once they’ve attacked in a predatory fashion, their natural resistance to doing it again may decrease …’
“‘We average over two hundred confirmed conflicts between grizzly bears and humans annually …’
“‘Bears can smell scents for several miles …’
“‘The home range of a grizzly bear can stretch as far as six hundred square miles, and some are known to roam even farther. Young males tend to be more adventurous …’
“‘Mature grizzlies tend to have two- to four-inch claws and up to three-inch teeth …’”
Joe shook his head and repeated, “Three. Inch. Teeth.”
Then he lowered the study to his lap and shivered.
*
AFTER DEPOSITING THE black bear in a specially designated county landfill, he drove down the promontory to continue his tour of elk camps on the western side of the forest, when the phone in his breast pocket vibrated with an incoming call. The screen read: Nate.
It was rare for Nate to call him, or for Nate to use his phone at all. For reasons Joe didn’t quite understand, Nate was suspicious of cell phones and was convinced that a shadowy federal agency was always listening in. Because of that, Nate tended to be maddeningly vague at times.
“Hey there,” Joe said.
There was a long pause. Nate was prone to them.
“Nate?” Joe finally asked.
“I’m up in the hills looking at a situation develop that you might want to check out.”
“What kind of situation?”
“It’s a distance away. But there’s an older gentleman who appears to be staking out an outdoor toilet in a public campground,” Nate said. “I think you know him.”
“What? What are you talking about? Who is this guy?”
“You’ll probably want to check this out for yourself,” Nate said.
Joe sighed. “Okay, where are you?”
“Remember that cliff face by Staghorn Creek that Sheridan and I scouted last year looking for falcon nests?”
“Yup.”
“I’m up on top of it. The situation I told you about is down below me in the campground. I’m watching it through binoculars.”
“Got it,” Joe said. “I’m probably twenty minutes away.”
“Do you know the road to get up here?” Nate asked. “It’s a crappy old logging road the Forest Service tried to block off to the public. Well, I cleared it on the way up.”
“Please don’t tell me things like that,” Joe said.
Nate chuckled and punched off.
*
NATE HAD, IN fact, pushed aside downed trees that had been placed across the old road and had cut through other logs with a chain saw. His friend had also flattened two ROAD CLOSED: NO ACCESS signs placed along the old two-track by the Forest Service. Joe rolled his eyes as he passed them.
He said to Daisy, “And Nate wonders why the feds are always after him.”
*
JOE FOUND NATE’S location on the rim of the cliff. His dented-up Jeep was parked between two large boulders and there was a pile of items heaped on the ground that Nate used for scouting falcon nests: climbing rope, harnesses, and other climbing gear. Joe still felt a chill from the year before when he’d witnessed Sheridan rappelling down the sheer cliff face like a spider setting mesh bow net traps near nests to capture live falcons.
Nate was sitting on the edge of the cliff with his feet dangling over the side and his broad back to Joe. He’d shed his jacket to the side and Joe could see that Nate was wearing his shoulder holster with his massive five-shot .454 Casull revolver strapped across his midsection.
“I’m not going to sit there beside you,” Joe said to Nate as he approached warily.
Nate had no fear of heights and wasn’t bothered by the fact that below his climbing boots there was a straight two-hundred-foot drop to the rocks of the Staghorn Creek.
Instead of responding, Nate handed his Zeiss binoculars over his shoulder to Joe, who took them.
“Down there,” Nate said, pointing toward the gravel parking lot of the Forest Service campground about a half mile away. Campsites extended from it into the timber in every direction.
Joe took the glasses and carefully focused in. There were two vehicles in the parking area: a muddy newer-model F-350 ranch truck and a white Range Rover. The Range Rover was parked haphazardly by a brick outhouse, and both front doors were agape. The F-350 was about fifty yards away from the outhouse. Its driver’s-side door was hanging open.
Joe recognized both vehicles. “Uh-oh,” he said. “I’m glad you called me. The Range Rover belongs to the Mama Bears and the pickup looks like the ranch truck driven by Clay Hutmacher.”
As Joe said it, Hutmacher appeared from behind the outhouse, where he’d previously been out of view. The rancher circled the facility and seemed to be shouting at it. He was too far away for Joe to hear any of the words.
Hutmacher had a lever-action rifle in his right hand, the weapon upturned with the barrel resting on his shoulder.
“Who are the Mama Bears?” Nate asked.
“Grizzly bear activists from Jackson. I met them last week.”
Nate moaned and said, “Hell, if I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have called you and just let Clay finish them off.”
“Again, please don’t tell me things like that.”
“Are you going down there?”
“Yup.”
“Take it easy on Clay,” Nate said, leaning back on his hands and peering over his shoulder. “He’s kind of a blowhard at times, but he’s lost a son and he’s probably a little out of his head.”
“I’m well aware,” Joe said. “I just hope he hasn’t hurt or threatened anyone.” Then: “Thanks for calling me. Let’s pray this ends in a good way.”
Nate agreed and Joe returned the binoculars. “I’ll be watching,” Nate said. “And if you get into any trouble down there, things will get Western real fast.”
Joe squinted at the distance between the cliff and the campground. Clay Hutmacher looked like an ant from that distance. Could Nate actually make a kill shot from there?
“I’ve done it before,” Nate said, as if he’d heard Joe’s thought.
As Joe turned toward his pickup, Nate said, “Come by my house when this is all over, Joe. I’ll pour you a bourbon. I have a theory about this bear you’re chasing.”
“Is it different from your last theory?”
“It’s more nuanced.”
Joe couldn’t dismiss his friend. Nate often had insights into wild predators and prey that were unique to him and him alone. He’d also shown the ability to summon certain creatures at certain times that Joe couldn’t explain using logic.
“I’ll come by,” Joe said.
Nate chinned toward the campground situation below and said, “Don’t do anything stupid, Joe.”
*
“HOLD ON,” JOE said to Daisy as he shot down the slope. She braced herself by placing her front paws on the dashboard.
There was no way to drive directly to the Staghorn Creek campground except to backtrack and take the Forest Service road that skirted the mountain. Other older roads through the national forest had also been blocked by felled logs and dirt berms to deny easy access.
The old logging road was rougher going down than it had been coming up, and Joe cursed as he cut a turn in the timber too tightly and a pine branch smacked his passenger mirror and flattened it to the side of his pickup. He tapped on the brakes to regain control. Time, he thought, wasn’t on his side.
Finally, he shot past the upended NO ACCESS signs and fishtailed onto the Forest Service road toward the campground.
“Take it easy, Clay,” he whispered as he drove. “Take it easy …”
Bouncing in and out of ruts that had been created since the fall rains, Joe cleared a hill and plummeted down the other side. Ahead of him, through densely packed lodgepole pine trees, he caught glimpses of the white Range Rover, the F-350, and the blond-brick outhouse in the center of the clearing.
Clay Hutmacher stood facing the metal door of the women’s toilet. He was bent forward at the waist and shouting. Hutmacher turned when he heard Joe’s pickup enter the clearing and squinted at the unwanted encroachment. Joe registered both pain and anger in his face. He looked exhausted and desperate.
Joe parked behind a large wooden sign posted with campsite rules and regulations and swung out of his pickup. He envisioned the scenario that had likely developed in front of him:
The Mama Bears had been chased into the campsite, had exited their vehicle, and fled to the sanctity of the outdoor toilet with Hutmacher in pursuit. The women had scampered to the facility in such a hurry that they hadn’t even closed the doors of the Range Rover. Hutmacher had likely found the toilet door locked when he tried to open it, and he’d circled the facility, yelling at them to come out.
Joe stepped cautiously around the campground sign with his hands up, palms showing. “Clay, what’s going on here?”
“Joe, I don’t need your help.”
Hutmacher, who never appeared outside without his hat, was hatless. His hair was matted and wild and his eyes were rimmed with red. He held the Winchester down at his right side with the muzzle pointing toward the gravel between him and Joe.
Then Hutmacher swung the rifle toward the outhouse and pointed at it with the barrel. “They’ve been bushwhacking me,” he said. His words slurred and Joe recognized that Clay had been drinking hard—probably for days. “They’ve been fucking around with me, torturing me until I finally snapped. Now it’s their turn.”
“Slow down,” Joe said, approaching with caution. “Slow down and tell me what the problem is.”
“These two rich ladies have no business here,” Hutmacher said. “I’ve been hunting the bear that killed my boy, since you folks can’t seem to do it. Every night I set traps, and every morning I find them sprung. The sticks they use to trip them are still in the jaws. My trail cams are all disabled, and when I’m stalking that grizzly on the Double D, they shoot fireworks in the air to scare him off. Two nights ago, they let the air out of the tires on my truck so I couldn’t get off the place when I wanted to.
“Not only that, but my phone won’t stop ringing from assholes all over the country calling me to tell me to forgive the bear. Someone posted my profile and private number online! I don’t even look at my phone or email anymore, because it’s full of messages and emails from these fucking environmentalists telling me what to do.
“So I laid a trap for them last night,” Hutmacher said, his eyes growing wild. “I set some snares down by the river and camped out all night in the trees to see what would happen. And what do you suppose happened?”
“You tell me,” Joe said.
Hutmacher pumped the rifle toward the outhouse for emphasis and said, “I wake up and see these two old lunatics tiptoeing through the trees to trip the snares. One of them does it while the other one records it on her phone so they can show their social media followers what big heroes they are.”
“They were trespassing on the Double D?” Joe asked.
“Damned right,” Hutmacher said. “And I chased them all the way here. Now they’re barricaded in this shitter and it’s time to face the music. I want them to come out.”
From inside the outhouse, either Lynn Fowler or Jayce Calhoun shouted, “We are not old lunatics. How dare you?” Then: “Game warden, is that you?”
“It’s me,” Joe said.
“He’s crazy. It stinks in here. He said he’d throw us in the pit!”
“Head first,” Clay added with a maniacal grin.
“Let’s all calm down,” Joe said. “Clay, please put the rifle down on the ground.”
Hutmacher started to argue, but then dropped his head, apparently defeated. His eyes pleaded to Joe for understanding, and Joe nodded. Then Hutmacher lowered the rifle.
“That bear killed my boy,” he said. “They just don’t understand that, or they don’t care. All they’ve done is torture me for days. There’s something seriously wrong with them. They need to go back among their own kind in Jackson Hole. This is no place for them and their lunatic ideas.”
Joe approached the ranch foreman and placed his hands on his shoulders and slowly turned him around. Hutmacher offered no resistance as Joe pulled the rancher’s hands behind his back and placed handcuffs on his wrists. He didn’t cinch the cuffs too tightly. Joe could smell whiskey on Hutmacher’s breath since he was so close to him.
Joe said softly to Hutmacher, “It’ll be okay. I’ll get you someplace where you can sleep it off, Clay.” Then to the outhouse, “You can come out now.”
“Has he been arrested?”
“He’s detained,” Joe replied.
“Detained,” Hutmacher echoed, more to himself than Joe. “I’m the one detained,” he said with sadness. “It just ain’t fair.”
The bolt was thrown inside the women’s restroom and the door opened an inch. Joe could see Lynn Fowler’s eye appear in the crack.
“Are you sure he won’t hurt us?” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
The door opened the rest of the way and the Mama Bears appeared. They looked disheveled and shaky.
“It was horrible in there,” Jayce Calhoun said, wiping her eyes. Then to Joe, “All we were doing was trying to give Tisiphone a fighting chance to survive, after all she’s been through.”
“Enough about Tisiphone,” Joe barked. It startled both women. “We don’t even know if that was the bear or where it went. This man lost his son and you’ve been harassing him on private land. It’s a game to you, but it’s not a game to him.”
“You don’t need to use that tone,” Fowler sniffed.
“See what I’m dealing with?” Hutmacher asked.
To the Mama Bears, Joe said, “I’m going to get Clay in my pickup and take him into town. Then I’m going to come back here and cite you both for trespassing, vandalism, and harassment. We also have a law against interfering with the lawful pursuit of wildlife, which is what this grizzly is.
“Then,” he said, “I suggest you both get in your Range Rover and go home. Your game is over, and believe me when I say that this is for your safety, too. You two aren’t exactly the most popular folks in Twelve Sleep County right now.”
The Mama Bears were speechless.
*
AFTER CALLING INTERIM sheriff Elaine Beveridge and alerting her that he’d be bringing Clay Hutmacher in to the county jail, Joe turned to his friend in the passenger seat to discuss the potential charges against him. Joe’s job provided him with plenty of discretion, and he had no intention of throwing the book at Hutmacher.
In response, Hutmacher snored loudly, his head slumped forward with his chin on his chest. A string of saliva ran from his bottom lip to his belt buckle.
“Sleep it off,” Joe said.
Right then, Marybeth called. He punched her up and his eyes got wide when she said, “Dulcie’s dead. Dulcie. That grizzly bear got her, Joe.”