C Box - Trophy hunt

"I gave you Robey's name, right? You'll have to call him for all of that," Joe said over his shoulder as he stepped out of the trailer.

"I need you to vouch for me," Garrett pleaded. "I beg of you, sir!"

Joe opened the door of his pickup, hesitating for a moment. Garrett stood near the front of his Airstream, palms out, pleading.

"I'll talk to them," Joe said. "I need to settle on exactly what I'm going to say."

"That's all I ask," Garrett said, his face lighting up. "That's all I ask."

He saw her in the heavy trees before he made the turn to leave the Riverside Resort and RV Park. It was a glimpse through the passenger window; amidst the tree trunks were her eyes, framed by dark makeup. Joe checked his rearview mirror. Cleve Garrett had returned to his trailer, and the front window of the Airstream was obscured by overgrown branches that reached down from the side of the lane. Garrett would not be able to see him. He stopped and got out. "Deena?" "Yes." He walked across the gravel lane into the soft mulch on the floor of the tree stand. She leaned against a massive old-growth river cottonwood trunk. She had no coat, and her face was even paler than he recalled from a few moments before. She hugged herself, her long, white fingers with black painted nails gripping opposite shoulders. He asked, "Were you trying to tell me something back there?" She searched his face with her eyes, trying to read him. "I guess so." Her voice trembled. "Maybe…" Was she cold or scared? he wondered. Joe stripped his jacket off and fitted it over her shoulders. "What year were you born, Deena?" he asked. As he suspected, he saw a twitch of confusion as she tried to do the math. Did she know that Gar- rett had said she was nineteen? Deena gave up, not even trying to lie. "Please don't send me back to Montana. There's nothing I want to go back to. There's nobody up there who wants me back." "What did you want to tell me, Deena?" Joe searched her face, looked her over. Beneath the cover of foundation was a road map of acne scars on both cheeks. A smear of shiny, black lip gloss dropped from the corner of her mouth like a comma. "I didn't hear very much of what you two were talking about," she said in a voice so weak he strained to hear it, "but I know there's more to Cleve than meets the eye. And there's less, too, I guess." She looked up and smiled hauntingly, as if sharing a secret. Unfortunately, Joe didn't know what she meant. "You don't understand, do you?" "Nope." She looked furtively over her shoulder in the direction of the Air- stream, as if calculating how much time she had. "Do you have an e-mail address?" she asked Joe. He nodded. "I'll e-mail you, then. I don't think we have the time to get into all of it here. I have an e-mail account Cleve doesn't know about." "Deena, are you being held against your will?" he asked. "Do you need a place to stay?" She grinned icily and shook her head. "There's no place in the world, in the cosmos, that I'd rather be than right here, right now. I'm no prisoner. Cleve will help make things happen, and I want to be here to see it. To experience it. The other stuff doesn't much matter." "What other stuff? And what will Cleve make happen?" She shifted away from the trunk she was leaning on, stepping back from Joe. "I can handle Cleve, don't worry," she said, smiling provocatively. "I can handle most men. It's really not that tough." Joe started to speak, but she held up her hand. "I've got to go. I'll e-mail you." He wrote his address on the back of a Wyoming Game and Fish business card and handed it to her. "Thank you for the coat," she said, before shrugging it off and turning back to the Airstream. As he pulled it back on, he could smell her inside of his coat. Makeup, cigarette smoke, and something else. Something medical, he thought. Ointment, or lotion, he thought. When he looked up she was gone.

As he crossed the bridge, Joe glanced over the railing. Jack, the retired guy, was fishing upstream near a sand spit. Not Ike was still down there, completing a long, looping fly cast into ripples that flowed into a deep pool. There were some big fish in the pool, Joe knew. Twenty-two- to twenty-four-inch browns, three to four pounds, big enough to be called "hogs" by serious fishermen. Not Ike looked up, saw Joe, and waved. Joe waved back and made another mental note to check out his license. Later, though, after he sorted out what had just happened in the Riverside Resort and RV Park. Later, when he could get back to being a game warden.

I bet Cam ten dollars I could get you to say three words tonight," Marie Logue told Joe between courses that evening at the Longbrake Ranch. "You lose," Joe said, deadpan. Marie at first looked disappointed, even a little shocked, then she shared a glance with Marybeth and both women whooped. Joe smiled. "He's been waiting for years to use that line," Marybeth laughed. "You offered the perfect setup. Calvin Coolidge said it first." "Good one," Cam said gruffly from across the table. "I'll have to remember that one." "It's not like you've ever had a problem talking," Marie said through a false smile. "Except to me. Lately, especially." Cam rolled his eyes and looked away, dismissing her. Uh-oh, Joe thought. They're not kidding. He noticed that Marybeth caught it, too. She had mentioned the increasing tension at Logue Country Realty to him recently, saying that despite Cam's success in listing ranches, homes, and commercial property, nothing was selling.

Dinner at the Longbrake Ranch had become a twice-monthly event since Missy had moved in with Bud. In addition to Joe and Marybeth and the grandchildren, Missy often invited a number of other people, all of them influential: ranchers, business owners, the editor of the Roundup, and state senators and representatives. Tonight, however, it was just the Picketts and the Logues. Missy was, Joe grdugingly admitted, an excellent hostess. It was something she was born to do and she thrived at it. The events typically began with drinks beneath the canopy of old cottonwoods out back or in the huge living room when it was cool or windy, then moved to the dining room for dinner and wine, and ended up with the men in Bud's cavernous study and the women in the living room. Missy moved graciously from guest to guest, asking innocuous questions, showing them the renovations she was supervising in the old ranch house, laughing at their jokes, discussing her wedding plans, urging them to top off their drinks. Her face assumed a luminescence that made her truly beautiful, if one didn't know any better, Joe thought.

Joe had made halfhearted attempts to get out of the dinners before but hadn't succeeded. Marybeth felt obligated to attend, she said, and made the case that it was important for their girls to have a good relationship with their grandmother. Joe suspected that Marybeth enjoyed the socialization and discussion, although she claimed it didn't matter that much to her. Sheridan and Lucy, Joe guessed, leaned more toward his point of view than their mother's. Rarely were there other children at the dinners.

May we be excused?" Lucy asked. She sat with Jessica Logue and Sheridan. She was asking on behalf of all three girls.

Marybeth looked to Marie, and both mothers nodded. Lucy and Jessica had not played with each other since they got in trouble and both were transparently pleased that the dinner had brought them together again.

"Should they go outside?" Marybeth asked Joe.

"They'll be within sight," Missy broke in, dismissing her daughter's concern. Then whispered: "Nothing has ever happened out in the open, honey."

"Stay close to the house," Marybeth called after them as the three girls thanked Missy for dinner before scrambling away from the table and out the front door.

"We're just going to see the horses," Sheridan called out as the screen door slammed.