C Box - Trophy hunt

He turned away, closing his eyes tightly and trying to breathe steadily. He heard Barnum snort behind him.

"Something the matter, Joe?" Barnum asked.

Then, damn it, Joe could no longer fight the wave of nausea and he threw up his morning coffee onto the soft ground.

Joe was there for most of the morning, keeping his distance as the hillside was photographed, measured, and tied off with yellow crime- scene tape wrapped around hastily driven T-posts. Additional deputies had arrived from Saddlestring, as well as a Wyoming highway patrolman who had heard the chatter on his radio.

Sheriff Barnum seemed more distressed than Joe had ever seen him, barking orders at his underlings and marching up and down the hillside with no apparent intent. Several times, he climbed into his Blazer and slammed the door to work the radio channels.

Bud Longbrake stood near Joe, leaning against the grille of his pickup. Longbrake was a large man, with wide shoulders, silver hair, and thick ears that stuck out almost at right angles from his temples. His face was weathered, his eyes sharp blue, his expression inscrutable. He wore a starched, white cowboy shirt and a silver belt buckle the size of a softball that celebrated an ancient rodeo win. Longbrake watched the procedures carefully but dispassionately, as if trying to guess the conclusions of the investigators before they announced them.

"I ain't never seen a body in that shape before," Longbrake told Joe after nearly an hour of silence.

"Nope."

"I've seen calves hamstrung and gutted by coyotes while they were still alive, and I've seen a damn wolf eat the private parts out of a calf elk while the elk bawled for his mama, but I never seen a man like that."

Joe nodded, agreeing. The EMTs were trying to slide Tuff's body into a body bag without any of his parts detaching. Joe looked away.

"I never knew a bear could do that to a man," Longbrake said.

It took Joe a moment, then he turned toward the rancher.

"What did you just say?"

Longbrake shrugged. "I said I never heard of no grizzly making cuts like that."

"Grizzly?"

"Didn't Barnum tell you?"

Joe kept his voice low so he wouldn't be overheard. "The sheriff has told me exactly nothing."

"Oh. Well, when I drove up here this morning in the dark I saw a big- ass grizzly bear feeding on something. Caught him in the headlights from a long way away. He looked up with a big piece of meat in his mouth. When I drove up here I found Tuff."

Joe was perplexed. This explained the horrible chunks of flesh missing from Tuff's legs, and maybe even his disembowelment. But…

"But how could a grizzly bear do that to his face?" Joe asked.

Longbrake shrugged again. "That's what I was talking about. I've never heard of such a thing. Maybe that bear just peeled it off. You know, like when you're skinning an animal."

Joe shivered thinking about it. For a second he imagined the two-and- a-half-inch teeth of a grizzly bear tearing back human skin, like peeling a banana. He quickly shook off the vision.

Longbrake shook his head, then squinted. "And Jesus, to get your balls bit right off by a bear like that. Poor dumb Tuff. He was probably glad that bear finished him off after he did that."

Joe didn't respond. What he had seen of the body, as quick as it had been before he got sick, didn't seem to fit the scenario Longbrake was suggesting. Tuff's face hadn't been chewed off by a bear. It had been removed. Joe thought of how clean and straight the cut was. Same with his genitals, Joe thought. They weren't ripped out. They were cut out. He felt a second wave of nausea and breathed deeply again, looking away. At least there was no more in his stomach to throw up.

There was a shout a hundred yards up the hillside, and Joe looked up. A deputy waved at Barnum from a spot nearly in the aspen trees. Bar- num sighed, tossed his cigarette aside, and started climbing. Joe fell in behind him.

"Excuse me, Bud."

"Sure."

Halfway up the hill, away from the others, Joe noticed that Barnum had stolen a look back at him to see if he was still there. Barnum was slowing down as he climbed, and Joe slowed as well. Not because he was wheezing, like Barnum, but because he didn't want to walk beside the man. It was that bad between them, Joe thought.

"Why are you following me?" Barnum didn't turn around.

"I want to see what your deputy found. Same as you."

Barnum climbed several more steps. When he spoke, his voice was strained with exertion. "I want you to stay the hell away. For once."

Joe had been waiting for that.

"Sorry, Sheriff, I'm involved whether you want me to be or not. That first moose is my responsibility and if Tuff's death is connected then I need all the facts."

"Save your breath," Barnum growled.

"And Bud back there was telling me he saw a grizzly bear this morning."

Barnum stopped suddenly and Joe nearly ran into him. Barnum turned slowly. His face was red. Joe didn't know if it was from the hike, or anger, or both.

"That's right, we've got a grizzly bear up here," Barnum hissed. "Your fucking bear. I don't need or want any goddamn bears in my county. I don't want any goddamn wolves, either. But you people keep chasing them here. Now we've got what looks like an outlaw bear killing my citizens. So what are you going to do about that bear, Pickett?"

Joe shook his head, incredulous at Barnum's twisted reasoning. "You don't really think a bear did that, do you?"

"What else? Fucking aliens? That's what my idiot deputy keeps saying."

Joe and Barnum stared at each other, neither speaking. Joe looked into the eyes of the old man, and it reminded him of half a dozen reasons why Barnum couldn't be trusted.

"Just stay the hell away, unless you want to bring me the head of that bear," Barnum said.

Joe paused, not breaking the stare. "I won't be staying away, and I won't be bringing you the head of a bear," he said.

Joe watched the veins on Barnum's temples pulse.

"Then fuck you, Pickett. You're useless." Barnum turned.

Joe followed.

The deputy was straddling a sharp rock that poked out from the ground.

The rock was granite, and green in color because of the lichen on it. It was green except for the spatter of dark blood on its surface.

"Don't touch it," Barnum told his deputy, a man named Reed. Joe liked Reed.

"I haven't," Reed said, clearly miffed that Barnum had felt the need to tell him something so obvious. "As soon as I found it I waved down to you. It sure took you a while to get up here."

"The sheriff and I were visiting," Joe said.

Barnum glared at him.

Deputy Reed said, "The way I figure it-based on the hoofprints up here-is that this is as far as Tuff got last night. As you can see, the prints stop right here. I figure the horse bolted and Tuff got thrown off, right on this rock."

Tuff's hat was crown-down in sagebrush to the left of the rock.

"Then how did he get all the way down there?" Barnum asked.

"Either he walked a ways or something dragged him down there," the deputy said.

"Like a bear," Barnum said.

"Maybe."

"But unlikely," Joe interrupted. "A bear would probably feed on him where he found him, or drag him into the cover up there on the mountain." Joe pointed at the aspens, and both Barnum and the deputy followed his arm. "It wouldn't be likely a bear would drag a body into the open and then start feeding on it."

Barnum didn't even try to hide his contempt. "So what do you think happened?"

Joe looked back. "I think the deputy's right. Tuff got thrown right here. My guess is that he somehow got up and started walking toward the lights of the ranch down there. Then something stopped him."

"The bear?" the deputy asked.

"Something," Joe said. "I don't think the bear came along until much later. Maybe just a few minutes before Bud Longbrake showed up this morning."