Stone Cold (14 page)

“It was one damned thing after another, is what I'm saying,” Latta said, looking down at his hands grasping the bottle.

“All we got left up here,” he said, “is what was here in the first place, meaning big game and some damned fine habitat, and a few really bitter people who decided to stay.”

He looked up. “Only sixty people still live in the town of Medicine Wheel. About eight hundred fifty hang on here in Wedell. And Sundance, which used to be the smallest town in the county, has twelve hundred. Them Sundancers keep to themselves and pretend they aren't part of the rest of the county. So I doubt you'll find nine hundred more miserable, angry, or bitter people anywhere in the U.S. of A.”

“Where did the people go who left here?” Joe asked.

“All over. A lot of them headed to North Dakota the last few years to get in on that Bakken play. They were the smart ones.”

Joe asked, “What keeps those nine hundred people here if there's nothing for them to do?”

“They like it here.”

“How do they survive?”

“Hell,” Latta said, “transfer payments. They mostly live off the dole. Welfare, Social Security, you name it. There's a doctor over in Sundance who will write a letter for just about anyone, saying he's
disabled. Half the men get disability checks. I see a lot of these disabled guys up in the hills during hunting season, and it's just amazing what they can do: pack a quarter of an elk on their back, hike ten miles—it's just, well, you know. Quite a few of them are employed as hunting guides for a few months, and about fifteen work at a wild game–processing plant that's damned good—state of the art, in fact. Other than that, they do a whole lot of nothing.

“The thing is,” Latta said, “no one is ashamed of it. They all think they got dealt a bad hand from the companies, the state, and the Feds. They act like they're owed whatever they can scam. And they've been doing it so long it's a way of life.”

“We've got a few of them where I come from,” Joe said, thinking of Dave Farkus.

“Yeah,” Latta said, consumed with thoughts of his own that Joe couldn't penetrate, as if he had something he wanted to say but wasn't sure whether to say it.

“Like I said, the only thing going anymore is the hunting and fishing. There's plenty of that. I keep busy.”

Joe thought about the poachers Latta had mentioned, but chose to steer clear of the subject. Instead, he asked, “Why do you stay?”

“There's a couple bright spots,” Latta said, finally.

Joe looked around the bar, then said, “What bright spots?”

“I got a nice house here in Wedell. Did you see those old Victorians when you drove in?”

Joe nodded.

“I bought one of them at a fire-sale price ten years ago. Used to belong to one of the Wedell kids. I never thought I'd live in a house like that in my entire life. Six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a carriage house out back. I'll have to show it to you.”

“I'd like to see it,” Joe said, puzzled. It was against policy for a game warden to own his own house and not have it be provided by the state, much less a six-bedroom mansion—old or not.

“Plus, my daughter likes it here,” Latta said. “She has friends she wouldn't want to leave.”

“Your daughter?”

Latta looked up with a wistful expression and a hint of moisture in his eyes.

“My Emily,” he said. “Thirteen years old.”

“That can be a tough age,” Joe said. “I know.”

“Ain't nothin' bad about her, Joe. My wife couldn't stand it here, and when she left she didn't take Emily. She just packed the car and took off for Oregon and left me and a four-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy.”

Joe felt like he'd been punched. “Jim, I just can't imagine what that would be like. So your daughter is doing okay?”

“She is now,” Latta said, averting his eyes. “It was so damned tough when she was trying to walk and she'd keep falling down. My wife said she was uncoordinated—a slow learner. But it was MD. The doctors at the time said she wouldn't live past eighteen or twenty before her muscles got so weak she'd die of respiratory failure. But now they're saying she might live to forty. Forty!”

“That's great, Jim. What changed?”

“Emily got an operation over in Rapid City. She had scoliosis—sidewise curvature of the spine. Her muscles couldn't keep her sitting up in her wheelchair, and she was a goner. The surgery straightened her out and prolonged her life by twenty years. I fought with the state insurance company for years about the operation, and they kept saying they wouldn't pay for it. Then it finally happened.”

Joe smiled and glanced toward the bar to see if the drinkers were paying attention to Latta's sudden burst of emotion. They weren't. But Shawna looked over with sympathetic eyes, taking it all in.

Latta wiped roughly at his eyes with a bar napkin, and Joe didn't stare.

“Shit,” Latta said. “I didn't mean to get all gooey on you. It's just, when I talk about Emily, I just fuckin' lose it.”

“It's all right,” Joe said. “I've got daughters of my own. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in your shoes.”

“It wasn't easy. It still ain't.”

Joe said, “I'm glad the insurance company came through.”

Latta looked up sharply. “Who said they did?”

Joe was confused. “You said you fought them for years . . .”

“It wasn't them that came through. If it weren't for a damned good-hearted individual, it wouldn't be a good story at all.”

“That's great,” Joe said. “Who is the individual?”

“Mr. Templeton. He owns half this county.”

Joe felt a thump in his chest as he nodded. “I've heard of him. Good guy?”

“A goddamned saint. If it wasn't for him—” Latta began, but then cut himself off. “Enough about Emily,” he said roughly.

“I was asking about Mr. Templeton.”

Latta's deadeye cop stare returned, and he trained it on Joe long enough for Joe to feel uncomfortable again.

Latta said, “I hope he's not why you're up here, Joe.”

Joe could tell by Latta's tone that he was done talking for the night—that maybe he'd said more than he intended to. Since they'd be together over the next few days, Joe didn't want to push Latta out of his comfort zone. Yet.

“Well,” Latta said, sitting back and helping himself to a fifth beer while Joe still nursed his first, “I better get going. I've got paperwork to fill out for the new damned director, and Emily ought to be home.”

Joe nodded.

“Let's meet tomorrow for breakfast in Sundance at the Longabaugh at seven-thirty,” Latta said.

He slid clumsily out of the booth and stood up. He wobbled slightly but steadied himself in a well-practiced way. Jim Latta wouldn't be the first game warden he'd met who had a problem with alcohol. And given the circumstances of his life, Joe thought he could forgive the man.

“Yeah,” Latta said. “I'd like you to come see the house and meet Emily before you have to go back to the Bighorns in a few days.”

“I'll cover the beers,” Joe said.

“You don't need to do that.”

“Happy to.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Latta said, clamping on his hat.

“You okay to drive?”

Latta barked a laugh. “Shit,” he said. “I didn't even get
started
tonight.”

Joe watched the game warden lumber toward the door. Shawna watched him as well, but turned her eyes away when he got close. The door opened just as Latta reached for the handle, and the game warden stepped back to let two men wearing camo come in.

By the way they were dressed and the way they grinned with contempt at Latta, Joe guessed there was history between Latta and them as well, but no words were exchanged. Latta seemed to give them a wide berth. They stood, smirking, while Latta left the bar, then approached Shawna and asked for two six-packs of Budweiser to go.

Before leaving as well, Joe checked his cell phone. No texts or messages from Sheridan, but one from Marybeth:
Are you at your hotel yet?

Joe replied,
Not yet
,
will call soon
, and returned his phone to his breast pocket as he got to his feet.

•   •   •

T
HE TWO
MEN
were still standing at the bar when Joe approached Shawna to pay the tab. He could feel their eyes on him. Shawna thunked their six-packs on the bar, and the taller one said, “Put that on my tab.”

Shawna rolled her eyes as she turned to Joe and took his twenty-dollar bill. Before she could count out four dollars change, Joe said, “The rest is for you.”

She grinned, although it looked like work. “Thank you, mister. You're fine-looking
and
generous.”

Joe didn't know what to say.

“Damn,” one of the men in camo said, “the last thing we need around here is another damned game warden.”

Joe turned his head toward them. They were rough-looking men in their late thirties. The one who had spoken was dark, with weathered skin, a three-day growth of beard, and black curly hair sticking out from under his cowboy hat. The brim on his hat was folded straight up on the sides like he was some kind of 1950s Hollywood cowboy. He had light blue eyes. On the bar ahead of him were a pair of huge scarred hands. Joe pegged him for a logger or miner.
Former
logger or miner, based on what Latta had told him. The other man was taller, maybe six-foot-four. He was pale but also had outdoor
skin. He had reddish hair peppered with gray that licked at his collar. He could be considered handsome, Joe thought, in a redneck-surfer-dude-gone-to-seed kind of way.

“Just visiting,” Joe said.

“Well, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out,” the dark man grinned. The taller man stifled a laugh and looked down at his hands.

Joe stuck out his hand toward the dark man. “Joe Pickett.”

The dark man paused for a second, not sure whether to reach out. Joe watched his eyes. He was confused by Joe's gesture.

Joe thought:
Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith.
The taller one, Critchfield, confirmed it by introducing himself and his hunting partner.

Joe said evenly, “It looks like you're going hunting tonight, although it's already dark outside. What are you boys after?”

“Snipes,” Critchfield said. It was meant as a joke.

Smith still wouldn't look up, but his shoulders were trembling with laughter.

“Yeah, I remember going ‘snipe hunting' when I was twelve. A bunch of older guys took me up in the woods with my .22 and told me to sit there by a tree while they drove the snipes to me. Instead, they left me up there and went on a beer run. Good times,” Joe said. “I'm sure you have your licenses and wildlife stamps, so I probably don't even need to ask.”

Critchfield and Smith exchanged looks. They weren't intimidated by the question, Joe thought—they were trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Finally, Critchfield said, “Left mine at home.”

“Me too,” Smith said quickly.

Joe said, “So I guess you better run by your homes before you go out after those snipe.”

Critchfield squared his stance. He was bigger than Joe. He said, “You know what? I think maybe you ought to talk to Jim Latta before you start throwing your weight around here. He knows us, and he knows the deal.”

“There's a deal about hunting without licenses?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, there's a deal,” Smith said, from behind Critchfield.

Joe noticed that two of the three drinkers who had been in the bar all evening were standing and tossing bills down on the bar to cover their beers. Apparently, Joe thought, they didn't have running tabs.

Shawna had watched the exchange like a tennis fan watching a volley. She said, “Just keep me out of this and take it outside.”

“Nothing to take outside,” Joe said, pulling on his vest. He looked up at the two men. “Right, Bill and Gene?”

“Call Jim,” Critchfield said. “Then scoot back to where you came from.”

He heard Gene Smith whisper, “You asshole.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Joe said. “I'll see you around.”

“Better hope not,” Critchfield said.

To Shawna, Joe said, “And nice to meet you.”

Shawna looked back at him with dead eyes, but there was a slight tug of a smile on her face.

•   •   •

O
UTSIDE,
D
AISY WHINED
with recognition as he came through the door. The air was misty and cold, and there was a blue halo over the only streetlight in Wedell. Next to Joe's pickup was a muddy
Ford F-250 with a four-wheel ATV in the bed and another mounted on a trailer behind it. He glanced inside the cab as he approached his truck. Shotguns, boxes of shells, handheld spotlights.

After he climbed into his pickup, he glanced through the wet windshield at the Bronco Bar. Critchfield and Smith watched him through a window from opposite sides of the Fat Tire Ale sign. Critchfield was mouthing something, and Smith was nodding.

As Joe backed out, the lyrics of Hank Williams Jr. ran like a ghost soundtrack in his mind.

Medicine Wheel, Wyoming

The town of Medicine Wheel was seventeen miles north on a potholed county road, and it looked to Joe as if a strong wind might blow it away. There was a dilapidated gas station and convenience store—closed—on the entrance into town, and the only other business that seemed to be in operation was the Whispering Pines Motel, which was tucked away in a copse of trees on the top of a wooded rise a half-mile away from the town itself. It was easy to find because there were three brightly lit small signs on the sides of the road saying
WHISPERING PINES MOTEL: YOUR ROADSIDE
OASIS
,
WHISPERING PINES MOTEL: HOME AWAY FROM HOME
, and
WHISPERING PINES MOTEL: LIKE STAYING AT GRANDMA'S
.

Joe was curious to meet Grandma.

The facility had a single-level home that served as the office, flanked by eight small cabins, four on each side.
No,
Joe thought,
seven
cabins.
On the far east side was a small tangle of burnt framework. That's where the DCI agent had been.

The tiny office lobby had a counter with a key and a note that read:
FOR MR. PICKETT—Sleep tight and hit the bell if it isn't too late. Otherwise, check in tomorrow. Sweet Dreams, Anna B.
All of the
i
's were dotted with little hearts. The walls of the dimly lit lobby were smothered with country-themed kitsch—hand-painted farmers and their wives, doe-eyed cows with long lashes, lots of wooden signs with cute and precious sayings like
MY HEART BELONGS TO MY GRANDKIDS
,
IF YOU CLIMB IN THE SADDLE BE READY FOR THE RIDE
,
MY GREATEST BLESSINGS CALL ME NANA
,
I'M A QUILTER AND MY HOUSE IS IN PIECES
 . . .

Joe sighed, uncomfortable with the cuteness, and pressed a buzzer on the counter while he grabbed the key. He heard a chime ring in a back room, and waited for a moment.

“Mr. Pickett?”

“That's me.”

Anna B. emerged from the shadowed hallway with a wide grin and eyes that sparkled behind steel-framed glasses. She was doughy and round, and looked like a caricature of a country grandmother—tight silver curls, apple cheeks, an overlarge sweatshirt with hearts appliquéd on the front.

She dug out an old-fashioned registration form from a stack under the counter and handed it to Joe along with a pen with a taped plastic rose on it, apparently so Joe wouldn't have the urge to take it with him.

“Please fill out all the lines,” she said. “I've got you in cabin number eight. It's our coziest and roomiest, since your reservation said you'd be here for a week.”

“Thank you,” Joe said, filling in his name, address, and license plate number.

“Is it your first time here?”

“Yup,” Joe said.

“So what brings you to Medicine Wheel?”

“Business,” he said. “I'm with the Game and Fish Department. Helping out Jim Latta for a few days.”

“Oh,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her lips, “that poor, poor man. He's such a nice man. It's so
sad
about his family.”

“Yup, it is.”

“That little girl of his—she's
such
a pistol. She doesn't let a little handicap hold her back.”

He completed the registration form and handed it to her with his credit card. She rammed it through a manual slider with surprising determination, he thought.

While she did, he noticed a decades-old certificate on the wall behind her recognizing Anna Bartholomew as Medicine Wheel County Businesswoman of the Year in 1991.

“Are you Anna?” he asked.

“Why, yes.”

“Are you related to the judge?”

“He's my brother,” she said, with the smile still firmly in place. But her eyes were probing. “Do you know him?”

“Not yet,” Joe said.

“If you're around here, you'll probably run into him,” she said. “There aren't many of us left.”

He looked at his key. “What happened to cabin number one out there?”

“Oh,” she said, as if overcome by the question, “it burned to the
ground in the middle of the night. It was horrible, just horrible. It's so sad, because Mr. Thompson was in it at the time.”

“What caused the fire?” Joe asked.

She shook her head and waved away the dire implications of the question. “They still don't know for sure, but the investigators said he was smoking in bed. We have a strict rule about not smoking inside our units. You're not a smoker, are you?”

“No.”

“Well, good. It was so tragic what happened. Mr. Thompson was
not
a nice man, but he didn't deserve what happened to him . . .” She caught herself and shook her head. “I shouldn't say such a thing about him. I didn't know his heart, so I shouldn't say something not nice about him.”

Joe nodded.

“Just in case, we've had all our wiring updated and inspected since then,” she said, assuring him, “and everything is shipshape. The sheriff's department did a thorough investigation and determined we weren't to blame in any way. So there's nothing to worry about.”

“I wasn't worried.”

She paused as she separated his receipt from her original credit card form. “I see your ring. Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Children?”

“Three girls.”

“All girls,”
she said, practically singing. “That must be wonderful for you. Children are such a blessing. And wait until you have grandchildren! They are the most wonderful treasures. Do you have any yet?”

“Not close.”

“Yes, you do look too young. I have four,” she said. “Four little angels that
love
their nana.”

Joe smiled and chinned toward her many grandma items on the walls while she reeled off their names and ages. The oldest was twelve. She began to tell him about young Josh, and he listened for five minutes.

Finally, she reached across the counter and gave him a friendly swipe on his arm. “Oh, you don't care about hearing all about them. You're probably tired and want to get to your room.”

“Well . . .”

“It's okay,” she said. “I'm just happy you're here. You're our only guest tonight.”

“I see that.”

“This place used to be quite busy,” she said with a defensive edge to her voice. “We used to be filled with coal miners and loggers for most of the year. That's why every cabin has a kitchenette. But these days, with the economy and gas prices . . .”

“It's tough,” Joe said, working his way toward the door.

“Thank God for Mr. T.,” she said. “He sends a few of his hunters here from time to time—plus people who come here to meet with him about something. I know he doesn't need to do that, because he owns the largest hotel in the county, so I know he does it out of the goodness of his heart. Otherwise, I don't know what we'd do.”

“Mr. T.? Wolfgang Templeton?”

“Oh, yes, he's a wonderful man. Wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful
man.”

“I've heard he's generous,” Joe said, recalling what Latta had told him.

“He's our savior, almost. This county would just die without him.”

“That's quite a compliment,” Joe said.

“And every word is true,” she chirped. “You know, the day after the fire, he showed up here himself with rolls and coffee, and he had some of his men help clean up. Some of his maintenance people worked with the sheriff to make sure the wiring was good in all the rest of the cabins, and he never even sent a bill. I didn't even know him very well—not like my brother—but he said he'd heard about our tragedy and wanted to reach out. That's the kind of man he is.”

•   •   •

C
ABIN NUMBER EIGHT
had a long list of rules on a laminated piece of construction paper mounted over the desk and written in Anna B.'s hand. Joe tossed his bag into the spare room while the ancient electric heater under the window clicked and hummed and filled the cabin with the smell of burning dust and miller moths. He wondered how long it had been since another guest had used it.

While Joe poured two shots of bourbon from his flask into a cheap plastic cup, he tried to check his email only to discover that the motel—and possibly all of Medicine Wheel—had no Internet access.

He called Marybeth on his cell and they talked for twenty minutes. Marybeth had heard nothing from Sheridan, either, and was frustrated that the computers were down at the library most of the day and she'd not found out anything on Erik Young. April was still sulking in her room, and Lucy was at play practice. Rojo had a mysterious patch of hair missing from his forehead that must have come from scraping it against the corral door.

Joe told her about the pheasants, meeting Jim Latta, and the Whispering Pines Motel.

He said, “It's really . . . cute.”

“Would I like it?”

“Probably not,” he said, leaning back and looking around his room. The prints—old C. M. Russells—on the walls were decades old and faded.

Then he asked her to look up a couple of names and another item the next day when she went to the library, provided the network was back up.

“The names Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith,” Joe said. “I checked dispatch and they have no priors, but I'm wondering what else is out there. And see if you can find out what it costs to perform major scoliosis surgery.”

He felt guilty for even asking.

“That's an interesting list,” she said. Then: “Joe, you're keeping your distance, right? Like you promised?”

“Of course.”

•   •   •

A
LTHOUGH HE
WAS EXHAUSTED,
he couldn't sleep. The first night in a strange place was always a long one. When the heater kicked on to ward off the chill, it moaned to life and ticked furiously. When it was off, the silence outside was awesome, filled only with a slight breeze through the branches of the pines.

Twice he heard the crunch of gravel from tires on the road outside. When headlights swept through the thin curtains of his cabin, he sat up straight in bed. He'd brought several of his weapons into the room with him before locking his pickup, and he felt for where he'd propped his 12-gauge Remington Wingmaster in the corner near his bed. It was loaded with double-ought buckshot. But
whoever had driven into the motel alcove had turned around and left, as if doing a drive-through.

He wondered if it was simply a wrong turn or if someone was checking out where he was staying.

Then he thought about what it must be like to wake up to find the cabin burning up around him, and he got dressed.

•   •   •

I
T WAS
ONE IN THE MORNING
when Joe located the isolated logging road in the hills below Wedell. He made the turn into the dark timber and saw fresh tire tracks in the mud in the ruts ahead of him. Sleet sliced down through his headlights, and he switched them off in favor of his under-the-bumper sneak lights as he drove up the hill he had taken that afternoon with Jim Latta.

When he got to the top of the meadow, his precautions turned out to be largely unnecessary, because below in the trees there was a slaughter going on.

He stayed in the cab of the pickup but lowered the side windows. Down near the tree line was a hastily parked pickup with an empty trailer behind it. Inside the trees were the percussive blasts of shotguns and high whines from ATVs roaring around. Periodically, he saw the flash of headlights through the trunks as a four-wheeler spun around, and the red spouts from the muzzles of the guns. Once he saw the inverted teardrop shape of a rooster pheasant shoot out of the trees, only to explode into feathers and bounce along the grass like a kicked football. It landed near the parked truck.

There were shouts:
“Got you, you motherfucker! Ha!”

The only bouts of silence were when they had to reload.

Joe pulled out his cell phone and called Jim Latta's home number. It went straight to voicemail.

“Jim, Joe. I'm up here where we released those birds this afternoon and there's a firefight going on. I'm pretty sure I see Bill Critchfield's truck on the lower part of the meadow and I can hear four-wheelers racing around and plenty of gunshots. I figure these guys want to poach out all those pheasants while they're still bunched up.”

He paused. Then: “This is your district and I don't want to bigfoot, but I hate guys who do things like this. I'll wait here until two. Call me back if you want to hook up and make an arrest. Otherwise, I'll head back to town.”

A few minutes later, he left the same message on Latta's cell, then called in his location and situation to dispatch. The reception was scratchy, and he wasn't sure the night dispatcher understood him, but at least they'd have something to go on if he disappeared off the face of the earth.