The Loop (51 page)

‘You government people can edit stuff in and out and have the pictures say whatever you want,’ he said. ‘We’re gonna make sure we got our own record.’

He clearly fancied himself as something of an artist and kept panning and zooming and changing angles so that he could film not only the necropsy but Dan filming it too. All he needed was a third camera and he’d have himself a film-within a film-within a film.

Calder hadn’t even said hello. His silence was deafening. When he’d called Dan at the office to tell him what had happened, he’d stuck to cold facts. The only thing he’d added was a warning to Dan not to bring Helen Ross. He didn’t want her on his property, he said. Dan had left a message on her voice mail, telling her.

Now Rimmer had the second calf skinned out on the tailgate of his truck. The teeth marks and hemorrhaging left no doubt that the first had been killed by a wolf or wolves.

Calder stood watching, with his arms folded. There was none of the crocodile charm he’d oozed on the two previous occasions they’d been summoned to his ranch. He looked pale and drawn and he had the dark rings under his eyes that most ranchers got during calving time. He kept clenching the muscles in his jaw. It was like a finger itching on a trigger.

Dan knew something was wrong when Bill Rimmer went quiet. There were teeth marks but almost no hemorrhaging. He was opening up the calf’s chest now.

‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘They certainly fed on this little fella too.’ He straightened up and shot a glance at Dan before turning to face Calder. ‘But they didn’t kill him.’

‘What?’ Calder said.

‘The calf was stillborn.’

Calder looked at him for a moment.

‘We don’t have stillborn calves,’ he said icily.

‘Well, sir, I’m afraid this one was. His lungs haven’t opened, I can show you, if—’

‘Get out of here.’

Dan tried to mediate. ‘I’m sure there’d be no problem getting full fall market price compensation for them both, sir. Defenders of Wildlife are very understanding—’

‘You think I’d touch their blood money?’

‘Sir, I—’

‘Now get the hell off my property.’

 

Luke almost got lost in the labyrinth of logging roads. He didn’t dare risk driving up past the ranch in case anyone saw him. The only other way was through the forest and it was a long time since he’d used it.

He had set off as soon as Helen got back and told him. It was midday and Kathy would be down at the big house, cooking lunch for the calving crew. But time was ticking away fast. She normally went home about three. He only had about half an hour.

At last he found the trail he was looking for. It was muddy and potholed and once he had to stop and haul a fallen tree out of the way. But at last he knew, from the lie of the land, that he was above Kathy’s house and he parked and went the rest of the way on foot.

From the top of the pasture there didn’t seem to be anyone around. There was a silver trailer and an old gray Chevy tucked away behind the barn. He knew neither belonged to Clyde and Kathy. When he got down to Prince’s grave, Maddie, the old collie, came barking around the side of the house, then recognized him and came, squirming and wagging her tail, toward him. While he bent down to make a fuss of her, he kept an eye out to see if anyone had been alerted by her hollering. Everything was quiet.

Just to make sure, he knocked on the kitchen door and called out around the barn. There was nobody there. He walked quickly around the back to the trailer and knocked on the door and when there was no reply he tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that it wasn’t the home of any carpenter. The smell alone told you. There was a wolfskin on the bed, though that didn’t mean much. Then he found the hidden cupboards. Two were packed with traps and wires and snares and things he’d never seen before. In another one he found bottles, all numbered but not named. He uncorked one and sniffed it. It smelled just like the stuff Helen had. Wolf pee.

Then he heard a car pulling up.

He quickly put the bottle and one of the snares in his coat pocket and put everything back as he’d found it. He stepped down from the trailer and tried to shut the door quietly, but it made a loud click.

‘Mr Lovelace?’

Luke froze and cussed under his breath. It was Clyde. He was coming around the barn.

‘Mr Lovelace?’

When he saw Luke, his face switched in an instant from friendly to hostile. Kathy appeared behind him, holding the baby.

‘Luke!’ she said.

‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Clyde said.

‘I w-wanted to see my sister.’

‘Oh, yeah? How did you get here, fly?’

Luke nodded up toward the forest. ‘I p-parked up there.’

‘You’ve got a nerve, snooping around other people’s property. ’

‘Clyde, for pete’s sake,’ Kathy said.

Clyde’s eyes flicked to the trailer.

‘You been snooping in there too?’

‘No, I j-just knocked. There’s n-nobody there.’

He felt himself flushing. When the hell was he going to learn how to lie properly?

Clyde nodded. ‘Is that so?’

Luke shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

‘Get your ass out of here.’

‘Clyde!’ Kathy said ‘He came to see me!’

‘Well? He’s seen you, ain’t he?’

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like—’

‘Shut up.’

Luke saw his sister flinch.

‘It’s okay, Kathy. I’ll g-go.’

He walked past them and gave Kathy and the baby as brave a smile as he could manage. She seemed close to tears and she turned and walked away. When he reached the dog’s grave, Luke started to run. And he didn’t stop till he’d got all the way back to his car.

It didn’t take him as long to get back to the cabin and when he arrived he saw Dan Prior’s car parked outside next to Helen’s pickup. Buzz came bounding through the mud to greet him.

From the tense silence, he knew as soon as he stepped inside that they had been arguing. Dan nodded to him.

‘Hi Luke.’

‘Hi.’

Luke looked at Helen. She seemed very upset.

‘Dan wants to kill the rest of the wolves,’ she said.

‘Helen, come on—’

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Or are we all supposed to call it, what was it? Oh yeah, “lethal control”.’

Luke looked from one to the other. ‘Why?’

Dan sighed. ‘They killed one of your father’s calves.’

‘So Dan’s going to let himself be bullied into doing exactly what your father wants: get rid of the wolves. No wolves, no way - all you have to do is shout loud enough.’

‘Helen, you just don’t understand simple politics do you?’

‘Politics!’

‘Yeah, politics. Let this thing get any worse and the whole wolf recovery program could get knocked back years! These wolves have had enough goddamn chances already. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war.’

‘That’s bullshit, Dan. You’re just letting Calder push you around. Remember what you said? About Hope being the real test? If you don’t take a stand against people like him, you’ll never win the war.’

‘Helen, you’ve just got to face it. Hope isn’t ready for wolves.’

‘You do this and it never will be. I don’t know why the hell you ever asked me to come here in the first place.’

‘You know something? I ask myself the same question.’

‘You used to have balls.’

‘You used to have brains.’

They stood glaring at each other. Luke reached into his pocket and brought out the snare and the bottle of wolf pee. He put them on the table.

‘Does this m-make any difference?’

 

Buck had driven right up as soon as Clyde called him. The two of them went straight to Lovelace’s trailer.

‘How long since you last saw him?’ Buck asked.

‘Must be near on three weeks. Kathy saw him going off on his snowmobile in the middle of the night. She’s been worrying about him because he’s never been gone that long before. She thinks something’s happened to him.’

If it had, Buck wasn’t going to grieve too much. It had taken the old fool a hell of a long time to kill a handful of wolves and cost Buck a small fortune. And still the damn things were killing cattle.

They checked inside the trailer. It didn’t look as if Luke had touched anything. If he had, he’d been real careful.

‘You’re sure he was in here?’

‘I think so.’

Buck thought a moment. For Luke to have come sneaking around, he must have had his suspicions. For all Buck knew, the boy might go right back, tell Dan Prior and in no time at all there’d be a bunch of feds coming up the driveway.

‘We’d better get rid of the trailer,’ Buck said. ‘And his truck too.’

‘What, burn them or something?’

‘Clyde, sometimes you’re so slow, I almost give up. No not burn them. Take them somewhere and leave them.’

‘Right.’ He paused. ‘What if the old guy comes back?’

‘Then we tell him where they are. Okay?’

They got busy at once. While Clyde tidied up and secured things inside the trailer, Buck walked over to the house to call Ray. He told him something urgent had cropped up with the wolf business and that he and Jesse would have to do an extra calving shift. Ray grumbled a little but agreed.

‘If Mr Lovelace has had an accident or something, shouldn’t somebody be up there looking for him?’ Kathy said.

‘Sure they should. I’ll have a quiet word with Craig Rawlinson about it. But, you know, sweetheart, we’ve got to be careful what we say. He was sorting out some coyotes for us, right? Don’t breathe a word about wolves.’

‘Dad, I’m not that stupid.’

‘I know that, sweetheart. You’re my top girl.’

He gave her a hug. He said he and Clyde were going to move the trailer out, just in case Luke had gone blabbing to his Fish and Wildlife pals. If anyone came while they were gone, she was to say she didn’t know a thing.

Back at the barn, Clyde had found the keys to the wolfer’s old Chevy and together they hitched it up to the trailer. They made sure they hadn’t left any of the wolfer’s things lying around, then took off. Buck drove the wolfer’s pickup, while Clyde followed in his own.

They dumped the chevy and the trailer at a big truck stop, some forty-five miles east of Hope. It would be awhile, Buck thought, before anyone noticed.

 

When Kathy first heard the cars, she thought it must be Clyde and her daddy come back from wherever it was they’d taken the trailer. But a few seconds later, through the kitchen window, she saw two beige-colored trucks she’d never seen before pull up across the yard next to her daddy’s. There were two men in each vehicle, all of them wearing hats. She suddenly felt very scared.

They all got out and two waited by their vehicle while the other two headed over to the house. Kathy went to the door and as she opened it, one of them, a tall man with a large mustache, showed her some ID. She was too flustered to read it.

‘Mrs Hicks?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m Special Agent Schumacher from US Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement Division. This here’s Special Agent Lipsky.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Kathy recognized them. They’d been at the wolf meeting last fall in the community hall. As Schumacher put his ID away, she caught a glimpse of a pistol holstered inside his jacket. She tried to look casual, forced a smile.

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘Ma’am, your husband would be Mr Clyde Hicks?’

‘That’s right.’

‘May I have a word with him, please?’

‘He’s not here right now. Is there something wrong?’

Kathy noticed how Agent Lipsky and the other two were all staring over toward the barn.

‘Ma’am, we’ve received information that someone’s been doing some illegal trapping work on Forest Service land, possibly involving the taking of animals listed as endangered.’

‘Oh, is that right?’

‘Yes, ma’am. And the informant had reason to believe the person or persons involved were operating out of here.’

‘Really?’ She tried a little laugh, but it came out all wrong. ‘I’m sure there’s some mistake.’

Then she saw Clyde’s car come over the ridge, followed by another that she soon recognized as Deputy Sheriff Rawlinson’s. Her daddy was sitting beside him. The agents turned and stood waiting.

As Clyde got out, Kathy could see the anger in his eyes and she prayed he wasn’t going to act like a jerk and get himself into trouble. She was thankful her daddy was there to take charge. She stood to one side while Agent Schumacher went through it all again.

Her daddy heard him out in silence. From the look on Craig Rawlinson’s face, he didn’t like the look of the agents either. Clyde tried once to interrupt but got himself a stern look that quickly shut him up.

‘I think someone must have gotten their wires a little crossed,’ her daddy said when Agent Schumacher had finished.

‘Have you had anybody staying up here lately, in a trailer?’

Her daddy frowned and looked at Clyde. ‘That old fella who was up here awhile back, sorting out those coyotes, he had a trailer didn’t he, Clyde?’

‘Yeah. Think he did.’

Agent Schumacher nodded, thoughtfully chewing his mustache.

‘Mind if we take a look around?’

Clyde erupted. ‘Yes, I damn well do.’

Kathy’s daddy put up a hand to silence him.

‘I don’t believe we can be of any further assistance to you Mr Schumacher. And I might add, that as a former state legislator, I take exception to any suggestion that I might be harboring a criminal.’

‘Sir, nobody has suggested that. We’re simply following up information received. Just doing our job.’

‘Well, it’s done. And I’ll thank you to leave.’

The agent reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. ‘Sir, this is a warrant that says I can search the premises.’