Chapter Ten
Three Weeks Before
With Biscuit snoring on the seat beside him, Joe hummed down Antler Creek Road in his pickup, leaving a long wash of dust that looked like the rooster tail of a speedboat.
It was midmorning and the sky was leaden and close and snow flurries obscured the summits of the mountains that rose to his left.
When he reached the junction, Joe took the middle fork of the road and passed under an ancient wrought-iron arch that read Bucholz Cattle Company. Soon, there was a series of old tires hung on fence posts with Private—No Trespassing spray-painted in white along the sidewalls.
Joe scrolled through contacts on his cell phone and punched up the name Shelby Bucholz. The call was routed through the truck’s interior speakers via Bluetooth, and after five rings she answered. He’d learned not to call John Bucholz because the rancher never picked up.
“Hey there, Shelby,” he said. “It’s game warden Joe Pickett.”
“I can see that. What’s up?”
Shelby Bucholz had a high, grating voice that cut through fog, or in this case, a poor connection.
“I’m headed out your way. Are you at home?”
“Today?” Shelby asked in alarm. Then: “We’re sorting cattle out in the corrals.”
“Yeah, I need to talk with you today. Just a few minutes of your time. Is John there with you?”
“He is, but we’re pretty busy.”
“Great—I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“What’s this about?” she asked.
“It’s about a moose,” Joe said.
“Oh, that,” Shelby said with obvious disdain.
“We can talk about it when I get there,” Joe said before disconnecting the call. He didn’t want to give her the opening to delay his visit or try to reschedule it. There wasn’t enough time for that.
—
He’d received the call through dispatch in Cheyenne an hour before.
The reporting party, a hunter from Wisconsin, said that he’d wounded a bull moose in the willows near Antler Creek, but that the animal had broken into a run before he could finish it off.
The bull had loped from the public land through a barbed-wire fence onto private land, dragging yards of wire with it.
Eventually, the animal had disappeared into a thick stand of pine forest.
According to the RP, the geomapping app on his phone had said the private land belonged to John and Shelby Bucholz. When the hunter called the Bucholzes to ask if he could pursue the wounded game, the woman he spoke to—no doubt Shelby, Joe thought—had allegedly told him to “fuck off.”
The moose hunter was distraught, and said he was at a loss at what to do.
Legally, as Joe knew, the Bucholzes had every right to deny permission to the moose hunter to cross over onto their property. They even had the right to deny access to their ranch to Joe unless he could show probable cause or arrive with a warrant.
Ethically, though, Joe hated the idea of letting a magnificent creature slowly suffer and die while wrapped in barbed wire.
There weren’t that many moose in his district since the wolves had moved in, and standing by while the meat from a twelve-hundred-pound bull rotted simply disgusted him.
He hoped the ranchers would be reasonable with him.
—
The Bucholz Ranch wasn’t the largest landholding in the valley by a long shot, but it was geographically diverse.
Mountains occupied the western half of it, and the steepest slopes held elk, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black bears, and ptarmigan.
Preceding the foothills were rough badlands, a labyrinth of deeply cut and multihued draws and arroyos.
The valley floor, where the ranch headquarters was located, was lush with good grass and irrigated hay.
As Joe skirted the foot of the mountain on the way to the headquarters, something caught his eye through the passenger window.
He slowed down. There was an aircraft of some kind flying low in the distance, passing over the contours of the badlands.
It was noticeable because of its low altitude and bright colors against the dark sky. A helicopter.
Joe stopped his pickup and plucked a pair of binoculars from the console. Biscuit noticed the lack of movement, yawned loudly, and stretched.
The helicopter was painted red and yellow, and there was an anomaly about its shape, he noticed.
Instead of a rounded-off nose, there was a long pole of some kind sticking out from beneath the craft, like the stinger of a wasp.
At the tip of the pole was an oblong protuberance in the shape of a football.
The craft completed a long sweep of the badlands, then banked and continued on in the same direction from which it had come.
Joe was too far away to see the markings on the side, or to see who was piloting the helicopter.
Eventually, it flew too far to the south to see it clearly.
Joe knew that Lorne Trumley’s Crazy Z-Bar Ranch bordered the Bucholz property in that direction, and he wondered if Trumley was aware of the helicopter flight so near to his land.
He lowered the glasses and thought about it.
Some ranchers used aircraft to keep track of their cattle, but as far as he knew the Bucholzes didn’t have a plane or a helicopter.
Owning and flying an aircraft was expensive.
The rumor around Saddlestring was that the couple was in financial straits, and that they had outstanding debts everywhere from the feedstore to the large-animal veterinarian.
Joe recalled Sheridan telling him that they’d stiffed her as well.
—
Hunters sometimes illegally scouted game from the air, but using a helicopter out in the open like that seemed risky and unnecessary.
Joe jotted, “Copter, Bucholz Ranch, 10:03 a.m.” and the date in his notebook. It was to remind himself to ask the manager of the county airport about the aircraft. If there were reports of poaching or cattle rustling in the area, he might be able to provide a clue as to who was responsible.
He’d also ask Lorne Trumley. Joe enjoyed having coffee with the old rancher from time to time, and simply checking up on him. Since Trumley was in his eighties and lived alone on his ranch, Joe worried about him.
—
The ranch headquarters was a smattering of old buildings on the valley floor.
A massive barn dominated the collection, and like all of the structures it was painted white with a red roof.
The main ranch house was three stories without a large footprint, and it looked to be over a hundred years old, like the barn.
As he got closer, Joe noted that the landscaping had been overlooked for quite some time and that most of the buildings could use fresh paint.
A dust cloud hung over the corrals behind the barn, and Joe could see that the pens were packed with writhing cattle. It was that time of year, he knew, for cattle to be sorted and shipped to other pastures in warmer climates or to meat-processing facilities.
Four figures on horseback stood out as Joe neared the corrals.
The riders were within the pens, waving their arms or slapping their thighs with coiled rope to sort cattle.
John Bucholz was there, as well as Shelby.
Two hands Joe recognized were with them.
Both men were longtime tweakers who hung out in the parking lot of the Wet Fly Bar on the outskirts of town, haranguing patrons to throw a few dollars their way or buy them a drink.
They weren’t cowboys, although they’d obviously been convinced to help out with the gathering of cattle.
Apparently, Joe thought, the Bucholzes were desperate for temporary hired hands.
The mounted tweakers, who were dressed in baggy hoodies and sneakers, were visibly sweating, despite the chill.
Their riding style suggested they weren’t comfortable in the saddle.
They looked like they couldn’t wait to dismount and score a hit with whatever cash they were making that day.
Joe told Biscuit to stay inside the cab when he got out. He approached the corrals on foot. He rested his arms on the top rail. The cacophony of frenzied bleating and calling from the cattle was almost mind-numbing.
Shelby acknowledged him with a wave of her coiled rope, indicating that she’d be there soon. John did a quick tip of his hat brim, but turned back to the cattle.
While Joe waited, he surveyed the ranch from his vantage point.
Beyond the ranch house and two small structures that looked like they might have once been used by employees, the other outbuildings were weathered and in poor shape.
What had once been a proud ranch headquarters now looked to be in steep decline.
Windows were missing, roofs sagged, and brick chimneys were crumbling.
On the edge of the compound was a long line of vehicles parked next to each other. It was like an automotive history of the Bucholz place, with pickups, sedans, and SUVs dating back to the 1920s. The most recent auto was an International Harvester Scout from the 1970s.
Beyond the grounds itself, he noted several small log cabins tucked away in an ancient aspen grove about three hundred yards from the main ranch house. He wondered if the cabins had once been used by visitors or guests, or perhaps hunters.
That’s when he noted a movement through the window of the nearest cabin. A form passed from right to left and Joe caught a glimpse of a round white face. Then it was gone.
“So what can we do for you, game warden?” shouted John Bucholz over the noise from his animals.
Joe gestured toward his pickup while covering his ears with his hands. Someplace we can talk, he mouthed.
Bucholz nodded in agreement, then turned in his saddle and hollered, “Shelby, take a break.” When his wife turned her horse to join him, John pointed at his two temporary ranch hands.
“You two, keep sorting.”