C. Box - Out of Range

The town of Jackson was dark and still in the predawn of Sunday morning. Joe was groggy. He had been unable to sleep after being woken up and falling out of bed, and had spent the rest of the early morning hours going through Will's boxes, searching in vain for the missing notebook or anything else that would give him a better idea of what happened. He dressed, showered, and drove downtown, his thoughts sluggish and opaque. As his head cleared slightly, he realized he was hungry. He found a restaurant called The Sportsman's Cafe that would open at 5:30 A.M., according to the sign on the door, so for the next half hour he walked around the town square, his boots clumping on the frosted wooden sidewalks, his breath condensating in translucent white puffs. He studied the elk antler arches at the corners of the square, the antlers themselves turning white with age.

The stores facing the square were designer clothes shops, specialty outlets, art galleries, fly-fishing stores, The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, which boasted saddles instead of bar stools, and restaurants that would explode his state per diem like a charge of C-4. He stopped briefly at

Wildwater Photography, the business Birdy owned, and looked at the displays in the window. There were photos of happily screaming families bound up in life vests, smashing through rolls of whitewater, and another display of action shots of individual skiers. All of the subjects, Joe thought, looked like they were having the time of their lives.

He wished he were. He could not account for the slight residue of fog that still hung in his brain and hoped it was simply a combination of lack of sleep, hunger, and simple disorientation. Somehow, though, it felt like more than that. He tried not to let it alarm him. There hadn't been enough time to adjust, and he couldn't wallow in his loneliness. A game warden was dead, and Trey had given him an assignment. But first what he really needed was a big breakfast.

He entered the restaurant as soon as the proprietor unlocked the door and opened it. The man stood to the side to let Joe in and said, "Usual table, Will?"

"I'm not Will," Joe said.

The proprietor was short and thick with a bristly salt-and-pepper beard, a potato-shaped nose, and a toothpick in his mouth. He wore a stained apron over a Henley shirt and held a coffee mug. He looked dumbfounded.

"Of course you aren't," the man said after a long moment, his face flushing. "I don't know you at all."

"Joe Pickett. I'm the new guy."

"Ed," the man said, putting his coffee on an empty table so he could shake Joe's hand. "I own this place, at least for now."

Joe shook Ed's hand and chose a table by a steamed-over window near the batwing kitchen door. "I'm really hungry, Ed."

"Then you'll want the Sportsman's Special," he said. "Country fried steak with gravy, three eggs, hash browns, toast. How do you like your meat and eggs?"

"Medium rare and over-easy," Joe said. "And coffee."

"Of course."

Joe sat and unbuttoned his green Game and Fish jacket, sipped ice water and coffee, and listened as Ed cooked and filled the silence with the angry sound of sizzling food. A radio in the kitchen played scratchy country music. The Sportsman's Cafe seemed out of place among the art galleries and specialty shops Joe had looked into earlier. The inside was steamy and dark, with the wall nearest the rest-rooms covered with flyers for local horse sales and team penning events. A feed store calendar was tacked up behind the counter. The heads of elk, deer, antelope, and a pre-Endangered Species Act grizzly bear stared out from the walls. The menu, printed on a single laminated page, consisted of traditional American big breakfast fare- eggs, pancakes, waffles, patty sausages.

Joe looked up from the menu as Ed came by to refill his coffee. "You won't find any blintzes on it," the older man said, "or anything with sprouts. There's nothing on that menu with hollandaise or bearnaise sauce either. The only sauce I make is God's own sauce-gravy."

"Gotcha." Joe smiled in solidarity.

After Joe had downed a cup and a half of strong coffee, Ed brought out the platter. Joe ate with barely controlled aggression, and sat back only after swiping the plate clean with toast. There was nothing special about the food, except that it was perfect, Joe thought.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Ed said as he brought the coffeepot and the bill to the table. "Will Jensen used to be the first guy in the door about three days a week. I saw the cowboy hat and the jacket, and, well…"

Joe smiled. "I understand."

Ed arched his eyebrows. "You even chose his table."

At first, that disturbed Joe. Then he thought about it, and it made sense. The table he'd chosen was nearest the kitchen, so he would know who was behind him and also be able to see who entered the restaurant. Through the window, he could note the license plates of the vehicles that arrived in the sliver of a parking lot, and would be able to check vehicles that were likely hunting rigs. That Joe had chosen the table without thinking about it seemed natural, as it probably had for Will. Still, though …

"Will was a big fan of the Sportsman's Special," Ed said, beaming. "He even took his eggs and meat the same way."

"I'll be darned," Joe said, with a pang of disquietude.

"There will be quite a few hunters in here any minute," Ed said. "We're the only place open this early."

Joe looked at the bill. Breakfast cost more than it would have in Saddlestring, but it wasn't as expensive as he'd feared.

"You said something about owning this place for now," Joe asked. "What did you mean by that?"

Ed made change from a bulging pocket on his apron. "The lot is worth five times what the business is worth because I'm close to the square and I've been here a long time. I'm proud to say we've fed thousands of hunters and fishermen over the years-men who want big breakfasts. But the offers have been coming for the last ten years, the price is right. Some guy from Seattle wants to open up an Indonesian restaurant in Jackson, and he likes the location."

"Indonesian?" Joe asked. "Where's a guy going to get breakfast?"

Ed shrugged. "Don't know. Besides, this place doesn't fit anymore, and neither do I."

When Joe stepped out of the Sportsman's Cafe, he saw Smoke Van Horn coming up the wooden sidewalk with three other men. It was obvious to Joe from the look of them-heavy winter coats, crisp jeans, massive high-tech boots, an odd assortment of headgear-that they were Smoke's hunting clients.

"It's the FNG!" Smoke boomed, forging ahead of his customers and extending his bear-like hand to Joe. "How're you doing this great morning?"

"Fine, Smoke."

One of Smoke's clients, a tall man with a thin mustache and a three-day growth of beard he must have started before he left home, asked, "FNG?"

Joe knew what was coming.

"Fucking new guy." Smoke laughed. "Meet my com-padres, Joe. Everybody's from Georgia."

Smoke introduced the three men to Joe and they all took turns crushing his hand.

"Go on inside and grab a table," Smoke told them. "I'll be right behind you after I talk to the game warden. In fact, I brung you something."