C Box - Trophy hunt

After dinner, talk turned to the mutilations and the death of Tuff Montegue. Bud Longbrake questioned Cam Logue about the economic effects the crimes had had on the valley, particularly in regard to land values.

"We can only pray it's temporary," Cam said. "But it's reduced land values and home values at least twenty percent, by my guess. Twelve Sleep County is radioactive."

He shook his head. "In one case, I've got a willing seller and a willing buyer, but the buyer has decided now to hold out a little longer for a price reduction. The sellers are battling among themselves whether to reduce the price a little or not. Meanwhile, nothing is happening."

Bud smiled knowingly. "I think I know the ranch you're talking about. Those crazy sisters. They'd be rich if their daddy hadn't sold the mineral rights to the place. Nobody ever used to think that much about it. Everyone figured if there wasn't oil on their land-and there never was-that selling the mineral rights was just free money from suckers. I hear the plan is to put two thousand CBM wells on the land."

Cam nodded vaguely. He obviously felt uncomfortable talking about the specifics of the ranch or the terms. But Bud liked to needle and pry, and was good-natured about it.

"It's been crazy," Marie said, shaking her head.

"Marybeth mentioned that on top of everything else you have company right now," Missy said to Cam and Marie.

Cam laughed and ran his hand through his thick, blond hair. "Yes, it's not exactly the best time in the world to have my whole family here for a visit."

"It never is," Missy cooed sympathetically. This from the woman who camped out in his house for a month and a half before moving in with Bud Longbrake, Joe thought sourly.

As the talk turned back to more mundane topics, Joe's thoughts drifted away from the table. He kept replaying the morning at the Riverside Park and his conversation with Cleve Garrett. He still could not shake his discomfort. The point Garrett had made about the differences in the deaths of Tuff Montegue and Stuart Tanner had eaten at him all afternoon. Yet again, nothing seemed to make sense or connect as it should.

Joe?" Marybeth said, her voice breaking into his thoughts. "Bud is talking to you. Are you going to answer his question?"

Joe looked around and realized that Missy had paused in midserve of dessert and was looking at him expectantly. Cam and Marie were silent, waiting for the answer to the question that Joe hadn't heard. The conversation, which a few moments before had been lively and flowing around him, had died. He could hear the clock tick in the next room. Marybeth looked exasperated, as she often did when he lapsed into what she called "Joe Zone." It particularly annoyed her when he did it in front of Missy because Marybeth thought it made him look ignorant.

Joe cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. "What was the question?"

The three girls lined up outside of the corral looking at Bud Longbrake's horses in the last moments of dusk. They leaned forward and rested their arms on the rails, peering inside at a dozen stout ranch horses. Roberto, the remaining ranch hand, broke open bales and tossed hay to them over the fence. Sheridan cocked a foot on the bottom rail. She found the grumm- grumm sound of horses eating extremely soothing.

Sheridan said, "I heard Grandmother Missy say that Mister Bud brought all of his horses in from the mountains and put them in the corral because of the aliens."

Lucy looked up at her with wide eyes. "Did she really say 'aliens'?"

"Yes, she did. I heard her tell Mrs. Logue that."

"Man, oh, man."

Behind them, in the ranch yard, the sensor on the light pole hummed and the light clicked on as the sky darkened. Although it really didn't make sense that it could get colder from one moment to the next simply because the sun dropped behind the mountains, Sheridan gathered her coat closer around her. It had to do with the altitude and the thin air, her dad had told her.

Jessica said, "If we're going to be out here, maybe we should have bought those aluminum-foil hats those boys were selling in the cafeteria."

"What are you talking about?" Sheridan said, and Lucy laughed. They told Sheridan about the caps. Then they said they thought it was unfair that their parents had not allowed them to play together after school for the last week because of their visit to the "haunted shack." Sheridan needed to see it, Lucy said. The shack would scare her, as it did them. Maybe they would see who lived there.

"It's probably a poor homeless guy," Sheridan said.

"Or…" Jessica said, pausing dramatically, "it's the Mutilator!"

"Jessica!" Lucy exclaimed. "Stop that. You're acting like Hailey, trying to scare everyone."

Jessica giggled, and after a short pause, Lucy joined in. Once their giggles had stopped, the two girls changed the subject to a mutual friend's upcoming birthday party. While they chattered, Sheridan watched the horses in the corral. Something seemed wrong. She knew from their own horses that once the hay was tossed out the horses were single-minded about eating for the next few hours until it was gone. It was odd, she thought, that the horses hadn't settled into their eating routine, but continued to mill about in the corral. They ate for a few minutes, then shuffled restlessly.

"Don't the horses seem nervous?" she asked.

Lucy and Jessica had been in deep conversation about things that had happened in school that day, and how Hailey Bond had gone home sick.

"What about them?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know anything about horses," Jessica said. "Ask me about something I know about, like piano lessons."

Sheridan dropped it. "Girlie girls," she said, dismissing them.

But she was sure that something was wrong in the corral. One of the horses, a dun, broke from the herd and rushed toward the girls, stopping short just in front of them and causing all three to step back momentarily. The dun faced them, his nostrils flared and his eyes showing wild flashes of white. His ears were pinned back. Then just as suddenly, the horse relaxed and bent his head down for a mouthful of hay.

"What did she want?" Jessica asked Sheridan.

"He's a he," Sheridan said. "He's a gelding, do you know what that means?"

"No."

"Then I won't tell you. But I don't know what he wanted. Horses shouldn't do that when they have dinner to worry about. Something's wrong."

Tuff could be a pain in the ass," Bud Longbrake said over a snifter of after- dinner brandy in his study, "but no one deserves to die like that."

Cam murmured his agreement and sipped his own drink. Joe had passed on the brandy and poured bourbon into his glass.

All three men were now in the book-lined study.

"Most employees can never be counted on," Bud said. "Loyalty lasts as long as the next paycheck. They all feel like they're owed a damned living, like they're entitled to it. That's why I like hiring guys like Roberto, who know they're getting a hell of a fair shake. But Tuff worked here at least five times over the years. Twice I fired his ass, but the other three times he quit to do something else. He was a surveyor's assistant for a while, then a cell phone customer cervice rep. Imagine that-a cowboy service rep.

"Then after being a fake mountain man in Jackson Hole for a while, old Tuff was back in this very office with his hat in his hand, begging for his old job back. Now he's gone."

Joe had looked up sharply as Bud talked; something had tripped a switch.

"Bud, did you say Tuff worked with a surveyor?"

"Yup. Why?"

"I'm not sure," Joe shrugged. "It's just interesting." Joe noticed that Cam Logue was looking him over closely, apparently trying to figure something out. He met Cam's eyes, and Cam looked away. "Tuff did lots of things," Bud said, laughing. "Did I tell you the story he told me about trying to lift some woman at a chuck-wagon dinner theater for tourists? When he was playing a mountain man?" While Joe listened, he refreshed the ice in his glass from a bucket on Bud's desk. The curtains on the window were open, and it was dark outside. It was getting late. He could use this as a reason to move Marybeth on, he thought. There was school tomorrow, after all. Outside, he could see his daughters and Jessica Logue in the dim cast of the yard light. "Something's definitely weird with the horses," Sheridan said to Lucy and Jessica, interrupting their debate over who was the cutest boy in the sixth grade. It was getting too dark to see individual horses in the corral but the herd was a dark, writhing mass. Occasionally, a horse would break loose like the dun had earlier, charge and stop abruptly, and she could see its shape against the opposite rails. But, like the dun that had bluff-charged them, the stray would inevitably return to the herd. The footfalls of the horses were distinct, and muffled in the dirt, as was the sound of them eating. "Maybe it's the Mutilator," Jessica said. "Stop it," Lucy said sharply. "I'm not kidding." "I agree," Sheridan said. "Knock it off." "I'm sorry," Jessica said in a near whisper. Then, from the corner of the corral, within the dark herd, a horse screamed.