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Two large objects wrapped in brown sacking hung in a pine tree twenty feet off the dirt road. Two bull elk heads leaned against the base of the tree. A lone camp trailer, closed up as if no one were there, sat thirty feet from the pine with a fire pit between the camp trailer and hanging carcasses. There wasn’t a vehicle in sight.
Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Gabriel Hawke stopped his vehicle. He started to type the trailer’s license plate number into his computer. No signal. His right hand settled on his radio mic at his left shoulder. “Dispatch. This is Hawke. I’m about five miles from Coyote Springs on Forest Service Road forty-eight-sixty.”
“Copy.”
“I have a lone camp trailer and two elk hanging in a tree. Trailer license is Oregon- ...” He called in the number and scanned the area waiting for the dispatcher’s reply.
“The trailer belongs to Duane Sigler of Eagle, Oregon.”
Sigler. The man had a penchant for poaching. “Copy.”
Hawke turned off his vehicle and stepped out, putting his cap on his head. He tucked his head down in the fur-lined collar of his coat. The first of November in Wallowa County always had a bite in the air. At this elevation, three inches of snow covered the ground.
No one appeared to be in the camp trailer. There wasn’t the hiss of a propane furnace. No sound, no movement. He knocked on the door just in case someone was sleeping.
No answer.
He scanned the area. Two folding chairs leaned up against the trailer. Two elk, two people, that was okay. But then why were they out driving around if they’d already filled their tags?
The antlers were a three-point and a four-point. Either one would make a nice trophy of the hunt on a wall.
Hawke walked over. There were tags tied to the base of the antlers. Just as required. That was a good sign, considering one of the hunters liked to not play by the hunting rules.
He untied the string around one tag and opened it. The month and date hadn’t been notched out. Not a good sign. He glanced at the name on the tag. Duane Sigler. That matched the trailer license. He tied that tag back on and untied the other one.
Again, the tag wasn’t notched out. Benjamin Lange. Hawke stared at the name. The county district attorney wouldn’t be hunting with a known poacher, would he? It could be someone with the same name.
A glance at the address and he was pretty sure it was the district attorney. The D.A. lived on the west side of Wallowa Lake and that was the address listed.
Hawke replaced the tag and decided he’d wait for the hunters to return.
«»«»«»
Thirty minutes later as Hawke finished off a cup of coffee, Sigler’s pickup slowly drove up the road. There had been two pickups with hunters and a jeep come by while he waited. He’d talked to the people in each vehicle and wrote them down in his logbook.
The late nineties, faded red, Ford pickup crept up to the trailer. Two men stepped out.
Neither one was D.A. Lange.
Hawke slipped out of his vehicle after turning on his recording device.
“Morning. Looks like you’ve had a good season,” he said, motioning toward the elk hanging in the tree.
Sigler walked over to him cautiously. “Yeah. Bagged them yesterday. Season started two days ago. We’re legal.”
That the man was already on the defensive didn’t surprise Hawke. “I didn’t say you weren’t. Could I see your hunting licenses and tags?”
The other person with Sigler pulled his wallet out of his pocket. Sigler remained still. They’d had their share of run-ins over the years. The man never helped himself by cooperating.
Hawke took the other man’s hunting license, opened his logbook, and wrote down his name and address. Barney Price. His address was Gresham, Oregon.
“Can I see your hunting tag?” Hawke asked, handing the license back. The man headed to the elk with the D.A.’s tag.
Sigler’s lips pressed together and his face grew redder with each step the other man took back to them.
“Thank you.” Hawke unfolded the tag already knowing what he’d find. “Mr. Price, why didn’t you notch out the date you killed this animal?”
The man glanced at Sigler. “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“And why is the name Benjamin Lange on a hunting tag you put on your elk? Your hunting license states you are Barney Price.” Hawke held his gaze on the man, but kept Sigler in his peripheral vision.
Price faced Sigler. “You told me this wasn’t a problem. That the person who owned the tag sold it to you.”
Hawke put up a hand to stop the man’s outrage. “Mr. Price, hunting tags can’t be bought and sold among hunters. Only the person who puts in for the tag and purchases it can use it to shoot the animal defined on the tag.” He tucked his logbook back in his pocket. “I’m afraid you have violated several hunting regulations. The worst being you used a tag that isn’t yours and,” he glanced at Sigler, “you provided him with the tag.”
“Why you!” Price took a step toward Sigler. “I’m not paying any fines or going to jail. You are! And I’ll make sure everyone knows what an unethical hunting guide you are.”
Hawke stepped between the two men. “Take those elk down. You’ll help me put them in the back of my truck,” Hawke told both men.
Once the elk, heads and all, were stowed in the back of Hawke’s pickup, he cuffed the two men and put them in the back seat of his vehicle.
While they sat in the back glaring at one another, Hawke confiscated their weapons from Sigler’s pickup. He checked to see if they were unloaded. Price’s still had a cartridge in the chamber. He ejected that, shaking his head.
Stowing the rifles in the tool box in the bed of his pickup, he heard the two men arguing inside the vehicle but couldn’t make out exactly what was being said.
Hawke locked Sigler’s pickup and camp trailer, hoping the man had the trailer key in his pocket or in the pickup.
When he slipped in behind the steering wheel, both men stopped talking.
Hawke peered into the review mirror at Sigler as he started the vehicle. “How did you get a hold of D.A. Lange’s hunting tag?”
Sigler peered back at him. “Lange gave it to me. He said I could use his tag.”
Hawke chuckled. “The District Attorney knows you can’t gift tags.”
Sigler glared at him. “He gave it to me.”
“You might want to rethink that story on the way to jail.” Hawke put the vehicle in gear and headed back to Alder. Looked like there wouldn’t be any more time spent out here. By the time he booked these two and dropped the elk off at the local butcher, he’d have just enough time to catch D.A. Lange at work and ask him about “gifting” the tag to a known poacher.
«»«»«»
Hawke walked from the county jail next door to the courthouse in Alder, the county seat. He wanted to have a talk with D.A. Lange.
He walked up the concrete steps, admiring the original two-story courthouse built in 1909. The stone for the building had been cut at a quarry on the slope southwest of Alder. The lower level housed the court room and the county offices that took payments. Tax collector. Water Master.
Hawke walked up the narrow staircase to the offices on the second floor. He’d always thought it was interesting that the D.A.’s office looked out over the city park.
The receptionist, a young woman who had grown up in the area and stepped into her grandmother’s footsteps, pulled her gaze from the computer monitor on her desk. “May I help you?”
“I wondered if the district attorney would have a moment to speak with me.” He held his State Police ball cap in his hands.
“Just a moment, let me see if he has a moment, Trooper...”
“Hawke.”
She nodded and picked up the phone, pressing a button.
He’d given testimony at several of the attorney’s trials. He couldn’t say he disliked the man, but Lange didn’t have a personality that rallied people around him. He was a damn good D.A. He nearly always won his cases.
The receptionist replaced the phone. “If you can wait about fifteen minutes, he’ll be through with the meeting in his office.”
Hawke nodded and took a seat across from her desk. A magazine rack hung on the wall beside the chair. There was a hodge-podge of interests. Women’s magazines, athletic, food and nutrition, cars, and hunting. It appeared they wanted to keep anyone who had to wait entertained. What he didn’t see were the kind that gossiped about celebrities. After noting the types, he scanned the dates. Some were nearly three years old. It appeared they didn’t have a subscription to any of the magazines.
He pulled out his phone and popped one earbud in his ear. He’d downloaded Sigler’s recorded account of how he came to have the tag with D.A. Lange’s name on it. Hawke had worked enough with the district attorney to know he’d only believe what he heard.
As he was setting the recording to the section where the man named Lange, the Assistant D.A., Rachel Wallen, stalked out of the district attorney’s office.
“Terri, I’ll be out of the office until tomorrow morning.” Without even looking his direction the woman whipped into her small office, grabbed her coat and purse, and left.
Hawke stood. “She didn’t look happy.”
“She rarely is. The boss and her clash over everything. Not sure why he hired her.” Terri, the receptionist, picked up the phone again. “Do you still have time for the State Trooper?”
Her brown hair, piled on her head, bounced as her head did one nod. She replaced the phone and pointed to the office behind her.
Hawke stood and strode into the room.
District Attorney Lange wasn’t a big man. The top of his head came to Hawke’s shoulder and his frame appeared as if it would break in a strong wind. He did have a deep powerful voice that carried well in the courtroom.
Lange stood and reached across his desk with his right hand.
Hawke grasped the fine bones in his and released quickly.
“What brings you to my office, Trooper Hawke?” The man sat back down in his chair.
Hawke remained standing. “I ran across a poacher today. Duane Sigler.”
The D.A. nodded. “I know of him.”
“Just know of him?”
The man’s eyes narrowed behind his heavy-rimmed glasses. “Is that an accusation?”
“He had a bull elk tag with your name and residence on it and said you gave it to him.” Hawke didn’t imagine the flare of anger in the man’s eyes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lange shot to his feet.
Hawke held up his phone and hit the play button.
“Lange gave it to me. He said I could use his tag.” Sigler’s voice rang loud and clear.
“Even the District Attorney knows you can’t gift tags.” Hawke’s voice.
“He gave it to me.” Sigler’s voice held conviction.
D.A. Lange’s face was red. “I didn’t give that man a tag. I didn’t even put in for a tag this year. I didn’t have time last year so saw no sense in taking a tag from someone who did have the time to hunt.”
“I’m going to look into it.” Hawke said, pivoting and striding out of the room, down the hall and stairs, and across to the front door. The man’s desperation to make him believe he’d not even put in for a tag had Hawke wondering if the man protested too strongly.