C. Box: Savage Run

The trees parted, and the huge gabled stone house came into view, and so did a ranch hand on a four-wheel ATV who was racing up the road as if intent on having a head-on collision with Joe’s pickup.

Joe braked to a stop and the ranch hand swung around the grill of the pickup and slammed on his brakes adjacent to Joe’s door, a roll of dust following and settling over them both.

The ranch hand was wiry and dark with a pockmarked and deeply tanned face. He wore a T-shirt that said “I Know Jack Shit” and a feed store cap turned backward. He squinted against the roll of dust and the bright morning sun and rose in his seat with his fists on the handlebars until he could look Joe square in the eye.

“Name’s Buster,” the ranch hand said. “State your business.” Only then did Joe notice the holster and sidearm that was tucked into Buster’s jeans.

“I’m Joe Pickett. I’m here on business to see Mr. Finotta. I’m with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.”

“I can see that from your truck and your shirt,” Buster said, raising himself a little more so he could see into the cab of Joe’s truck. Maxine, always kind to strangers, lolled out her tongue and panted.

“What do you need to see Mr. Finotta about?”

Joe masked his irritation. No need to antagonize a hand. He said simply, “Ten dead cows.”

This concerned the ranch hand. “Were they ours?”

“Yup,” Joe said, and offered no more.

Buster was puzzled in thought for a moment. Then he told Joe to wait in his truck while he went to tell Mr. Finotta.

Joe winced at the racketing sound of the ATV as Buster revved it and spun around the back of Joe’s pickup and on to the house. Disobeying Buster, Joe drove toward the house and parked against a hitching rack next to Finotta’s black Suburban.

The house was impressive and daunting. It looked to be constructed at a time when ranchers thought of themselves as feudal lords of a wild new land, and built accordingly. There were three sharp gables on the red slate roof and a two-story stone turret on the front corner. The building was constructed of massive rounded stones, probably from the bottom of the river, in the days when dredging didn’t require a permit. Huge windows made up of hundreds of tiny panes looked out over the ranch yard and beyond to the mountains.

When Buster opened the front door, Joe half expected the hand to bow and say something like “Mr. Finotta will see you now.” Instead, Buster nodded toward the interior of the house and told Joe to go inside. Which he did.

The foyer was decorated in pure mid-fifties ranch gothic. The chairs and couches were upholstered with dark Hereford red-and-white hides. The chandelier, suspended from the high ceiling by a thick logging chain, was a wagon wheel with 50-watt bulbs on each spoke. The dominating wall was covered with the brands of local ranches burned into the barnwood paneling, with tiny brass plaques under each brand naming the ranch.

Joe stopped here. He was taken aback by the fact that he had surveyed the room without taking notice of a small seated figure in the corner of it, shaded from the window by a bushy Asian evergreen tree.

“Can I get you something?” Her voice was scratchy and high. Now Joe could see her clearly. He was embarrassed by the fact that he had missed her when he entered because she was so still and he was so unobservant. She was bent and small and still, seated in a wheelchair. Her back was curved so that it thrust her head forward, chin out. She held her face at a forty-five degree angle, her eyes large but blank, her airy light-brown hair molded into a helmet shape by spray. One stunted arm lay along the armrest of her chair like a strand of rope and the other was curled on her lap out of view. He guessed her age as at least seventy, but it was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.” Joe said, removing his hat. “Thanks for the offer but I’m fine.”

“You thought I was a piece of furniture, didn’t you?” she asked in a high voice.

Joe knew he flushed red. That’s exactly what he was thinking.

“Don’t deny it,” she chided, letting out a bubble of laughter like a hiccup. “If I were a snake I could have bitten you.”

Joe introduced himself. She said her name was Ginger. Joe had hoped for more than a name. He couldn’t be sure whether Ginger was Jim Finotta’s wife or mother. Or someone else. And he didn’t know how to ask.

Jim Finotta, a small man, appeared in the foyer. Finotta wore casual pleated slacks and a short-sleeved polo shirt. Finotta was slight and dark, his full head of hair moussed back from his high forehead. His face was dour and pinched, foreshadowing the tendency of his mouth to curl downward into an expression that said “no.” Finotta carried himself with an air of impatient self-importance.

His $800 ostrich-skin boots glided over the hardwood flooring, but he stopped at the opposite wall under what appeared to be an original Charles Russell painting and spoke without meeting Joe’s eye. He nodded kindly to Ginger and asked her if she minded if he met with the “local game warden” for a minute in his office. Ginger hummed her assent, and Finotta smiled at her. With a nod of his head he indicated for Joe to follow him.

Finotta’s office was a manly classic English den with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled primarily with legal volumes. A framed fox hunting print hung behind the massive mahogany desk and a green-shaded lamp provided most of the light. A massive bull elk head was mounted on the wall in the shadows above the door. Finotta walked briskly around the desk and sat in his chair, clasped his small hands together, and looked up expectantly at Joe. He did not offer Joe a seat.

“You run cattle in the Bighorns near Hazelton Road?” Joe asked, feeling awkward and out of place in Finotta’s study.

“I run two thousand head practically the entire length of the Bighorns in both Twelve Sleep and Johnson County.” Finotta answered crisply. “We also feed another eleven hundred on our pastures for the summer months. Now how can I help you?” Finotta made no attempt to hide the impatience that colored his voice.

“Well,” Joe said his voice sounding weak even to himself, “there are at least ten of them dead. And there may be a human victim as well.”

Finotta showed no reaction except to arch his eyebrows in a “tell me more” look. Joe quickly explained what they had found the evening before.

When he was done, Finotta spoke with a forced smile. “The cows are mine but we aren’t missing any employees, so I can’t help you there. As for the cattle, those are-were-first generation baldy heifers worth at least $1,200 each. So I guess someone owes me $12,000. Would that be the Wyoming Game and Fish Department?”

Finotta’s question caught Joe by complete surprise. He hadn’t known how Finotta would react to the news that ten of his cows exploded-anger, confusion maybe-but Joe would never have guessed he’d respond this way. The state did pay ranchers for damages to property and livestock if those losses were the result of wild game, such as elk herds eating haystacks meant for cattle or moose crashing through fences. But he could not see how the department would be liable for the loss of ten cows in a freak explosion.

As Joe stood there, trying to think of a way to explain this, Finotta was drumming his fingers on his desk. The sound both irritated and distracted Joe.

“Joe Pickett. ” Finotta said, as if searching his mind for more information. “I’ve heard your name. Aren’t you the same fellow who arrested the governor a couple of years ago for fishing without a license?”