Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 134, No. 5. Whole No. 819, November 2009

“For his lasting contribution to our craft,” the Short Mystery Fiction Society recently selected Clark Howard as the first winner of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement. Clark Howard’s honors in the field of the mystery story are many, but this award, which bears the name of his friend of thirty years, the late Ed Hoch, is (he told us) especially meaningful to him. The award will be presented at the Bouchercon Convention in Indianapolis in October.

Joe Kell was nervous, and he was sweating, sitting in front of the desk of Ben Axton, owner of Axton Hunting Expeditions, the largest big-game hunting firm in the Alaskan Interior.

Axton, a big bull of a man with a silver walrus moustache, got right to business as soon as Kell sat down. Rustling through some papers on his desk, he selected one and perused it. “Kell, I have a report on you here. I see that you’re still registered with the Department of Wildlife as a private game warden.”

“Yes, I am. Been licensed for twenty-two years,” Kell said. Although nervous, his voice was slow and even.

“You know why I sent for you?”

“Trespass problems, I reckon.”

“Not yet,” Axton said. “But I expect to have. Here, read this—” He handed a letter to Kell. It was an Inmate Release Notification form from the Anvil Mountain Correctional Center, advising that inmate Roy Sand was being released from custody on December third.

“That’s tomorrow,” Kell said, handing back the letter.

“Exactly.” Ben Axton leaned forward. “Let me tell you about Roy Sand. His family used to own a dairy farm down near Nulato. Father, uncle, older boy worked it. Father and uncle got killed in a car wreck, and the older boy, name of Roger, took over. Had his younger brother, this Roy, growing up to help him. Long story short, they couldn’t make a go of it, fell way behind in mortgage payments, and the bank here in Nome foreclosed on the property. Soon as that happened, I stepped in and bought the place. The land butted up to one of the boundaries of my private game reserve. It was a natural move for me.”

“I understand.”

“After the eviction, the older brother took his family — wife, two little girls, baby boy that was born retarded or something, I heard — and moved over to Kobuk, where he got a job working at another dairy farm. But the younger brother, Roy, went completely hog wild. Said that I’d stole their land, because I was on the board at the bank. He went out onto my reserve with a rifle and started killing mygame: four elk, four moose, six musk oxen. Skinned ‘em all and gave the meat and hides to a bunch of damned lazy Inuits outside town. The sheriff managed to stop him, but since as he was just a kid, just lost his home and all, the judge felt sorry for him and gave him three months in the county jail. Now I ask you, is that lenient or what?”

“That is sure enough lenient,” Kell agreed.

“Right.” Acton slammed a fist down on his desk. “Now, you’d think that time in jail would’ve taught the boy a lesson. But just as soon as he was released, he did the same damned thing all over again: got a rifle and this time he killed twenty-four of my game animals. Gave all the meat and hides to the Inuits, just like before. When he got caught this time, the judge gave him four years in Wildwood Reformatory. He served thirty months and they let him out on good behavior. Now you won’t believe this—”

“He came at you again,” Joe Kell said.

“Like a crazy man,” Ben Axton emphasized. “By then he was full-grown. He got himself a partner — some Inuit buck, we never did learn who — and they got an old pickup truck and started driving all over my game range, shooting everything in sight. The slaughter went on for a week. The Inuit community had enough meat for the whole damned winter. This time he sold the hides to a skins bootlegger down in Minto.”

“Sheriff catch him again?” Kell asked.

“Hell, no. The governor finally had to send some National Guardsmen in to catch him. The Inuit got away, but Roy Sand was tried and sentenced to seven years. He got sent up north to Anvil Mountain prison. Now, after he’s done four-and-a-half years, they’re turning him loose. Again.”

“And you think—”

“I don’t think nothing, Kell. I know!” Ben Axton clenched both fists on the desk. “That crazy son of a bitch is going after my game again just as sure as God made little green apples — and I want him stopped!” Calming down, Axton sat back and lowered his voice some. “I brought you up here because you’re the kind of man I need to stop him, Kell”

“What kind of man is that?” Joe Kell asked quietly.

Axton’s expression turned sly. “A man who knows the tundra and the wild like he knows his own face in a mirror, but who hasn’t had a decent job in three years. A man who’s had a problem with the bottle now and again. A man whose marriage might be on the rocks. A man who’s in debt up to his throat—”

“All right, I get the picture,” Kell raised a hand to stop Axton’s litany. “Appears you checked up on more than my private game-warden license. So just lay it out. What do you want me to do?”

“Catch him on my land,” Axton replied flatly. “With a rifle in his hands.”

“And?”

“Shoot him.”

“For how much?”

“Twenty thousand, cash. Half down.”

Pursing his lips, Kell reflected. He thought about his debts, increasing like flood water. He thought about Doris, his wife, whom he suspected was having an affair with someone. He thought about future game-warden jobs he might get with a good reference from Ben Axton of Axton Hunting Expeditions.

In the end, he did not have to think long.

“Deal,” he said, the word spoken like the crack of a judge’s gavel.

Roy Sand got out of his seat as the Northern Lights bus pulled into Kobuk. He took his paper-wrapped bundle of belongings from the overhead rack and was the first one off. Etta’s Cafe, on Yukon Street, served as the bus stop. Roy was relieved to see that there were no familiar faces in the booths lining the front windows. It was always embarrassing to him, seeing people again after just being let out of prison. Turning up the collar of his denim release jacket, he started quickly down Yukon Street toward a country road that led to where his brother Roger and his family lived. As he passed a boarded-up storefront, a voice spoke quietly to him from the doorway. “Hey, Roy, chimo —”

Turning, Roy saw the dark, smiling features of Tootega, an Inuit native with whom he had been friends since the reformatory. Tootega had pronounced the Inuit word chee-mo , and was moving his left hand in a circle over the heart area of his chest in greeting.

“Hey, Toot, chimo ,” Roy said back, moving his own left hand in the same fashion. Stepping into the doorway, he stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend, the formality of a handshake or a hug unnecessary. “How’d you know I was getting back today?”

“Your brother’s wife told one of her Inuit friends, and she told me.” Glancing cautiously up and down the street, Tootega pulled an unlabeled pint bottle from his hip pocket and handed it to Roy. Unscrewing the cap, Roy took a quick swallow, shuddering as the raisin-colored homemade liquor seared a path to his stomach.