C Box: Blood Trail

“Joe,” Kiner said, “do you have any idea what’s going on with Pope? I’ve never heard him like this.”

“I have,” Joe said.

“So what’s up? Why in the hell is the director flying up from Cheyenne for this? Since when does he get personally involved in a case? And especially since you two avoid each other like the plague?”

“I was wondering that myself,” Joe said.

“There’s something going on here we don’t know about, that’s for damned sure.”

Joe nodded. “I agree.”

“Me too,” McLanahan said.

“What are you doing on our channel?” Kiner asked McLanahan. Joe held his tongue.

“Just remindin’ you boys who’s in charge of this investigation,” McLanahan drawled.

JOE WAS struck immediately by the three hunters waiting for them at the camp. They looked young, hard, fit, and intense, and they started walking up the rough two-track to meet the convoy of law-enforcement vehicles as soon as Joe cleared the rim and saw them. Many of the hunters Joe encountered were older and softer. These three reminded him of an elite commando unit on patrol. All three had their rifles with them and carried them naturally. Joe and Kiner pulled over so Sheriff McLanahan could take the lead.

The sheriff stopped and got out of his Blazer to meet the hunters. They introduced themselves as Chris Urman, Craig Hysell, and Jake Dempster. Urman appeared to be in charge, and Joe stood with Kiner and listened as the hunters described what had happened.

“Uncle Frank wanted to scout elk on his own this morning,” Urman, Frank’s nephew, told McLanahan. Urman was tall, with a long face and steady eyes. While he spoke he slung his rifle from one shoulder to the other with a fluid, well-practiced movement and without pausing. Joe thought, Military . “He said he’d be back by breakfast unless he got his bull. I made him take a radio so he could call in either way. He was supposed to be back here by oh-eight-hundred hours at the latest, and when he didn’t show up by oh-eight-thirty we tried to call him. Craig here said he heard a shot around oh-seven-thirty,” Urman said, gesturing to one of the other hunters, who stepped forward.

The hunter held out his hand, said, “Craig Hysell. I heard just one shot. I waited to hear a second but it never came. I thought it was from the east, where Frank went, but I couldn’t be sure because of the way sound echoes around up here.”

Joe noted the times in his spiral.

The third hunter, Jake Dempster, was dark, with a stern expression. “I didn’t hear it,” he said.

“So when he didn’t come in for breakfast you went looking for him,” McLanahan said.

“Yes, sir,” Urman said. “And we found him.”

“You didn’t see nobody else?”

“No, sir, we didn’t see anyone and we didn’t hear any vehicles. There’s only one road into this camp and nobody came down it until you just now. But there sure as hell was somebody out there. And for all we know, he still is.”

“Can we drive to the scene?” McLanahan asked.

“We’ve gotta walk. There’s no road.”

“Well,” McLanahan said, “lead the way.”

Urman turned crisply and started up a trail and his companions fell in behind him. Joe, Kiner, and McLanahan and his two deputies followed.

“WE JUST got back from Iraq,” Jake Dempster told Joe over his shoulder. “Wyoming National Guard. Chris’s uncle Frank invited us all to come here elk hunting when we got back. He was a good old guy. This is his camp. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for seven months. It’s the only thing that got me through some days when it was a hundred and forty degrees and I was sick as hell of dealing with those Iraqi knuckleheads.”

“Thanks for your service,” Joe said.

Dempster nodded. “We all saw some pretty bad stuff over there where we were stationed, near Tikrit. You know the stories.”

“Yup.”

“Yup.”

“But in two years over there in the world’s armpit, I never seen anything like this,” he said. “Shooting Uncle Frank was bad enough but what was done to his body afterwards is something else. If we catch who did it, you’re gonna see Chris go medieval on his ass. And me and Craig are going to help him. So I hope you guys catch whoever did it fast, because you’ll be doing them a favor.”

Dempster’s eyes were hard and clear. Joe said, “I believe you.”

“I gotta tell you something else,” Dempster said as they walked. “I realize it can’t be used as evidence or anything, but my buddies and I were talking last night how we felt like someone was up here watching us. I thought it was just me, so I kind of hesitated saying anything. But when Urman brought it up, both me and Craig said we’d felt the same thing yesterday while we were hunting.”

Joe knew the feeling. He’d had it. Sometimes it was a game animal watching him, sometimes a hunter in a blind. And sometimes he never learned what caused it.

“I got that same buzz once over in Iraq,” Dempster said. “We were on patrol and parked at an intersection one night. It was pure black because the lights were out. I could feel it on my neck when I looked outside the Humvee. Then one of our guys who had night-vision goggles opened up on an insurgent sniper up on a roof and took him out. The sniper had been sighting in on us on the street. That’s what it felt like yesterday, that someone was looking at me through a scope but I couldn’t see him.”

JOE ADMIRED hunters who hunted seriously and with respect not only for the animals they pursued but for the resource itself. Most of the hunters in Wyoming were like that, and they had passed their respect along to the next generation. While the numbers of hunters had declined over the years, it was still a vibrant local tradition. Good hunters considered hunting a solemn privilege and a means to reconnect with the natural world, to place themselves back on earth, into a place without supermarkets, processed foods, and commercial meat manufacturing industries. Hunting was basic, primal, and humbling. He had less respect for trophy hunters and thought poachers who took the antlers and left the meat deserved a special place in hell and he was happy to arrest them and send them there.

He valued those who shot well and took care of their game properly. This involved field dressing the downed animal quickly and cleanly, and cooling the meat by placing lengths of wood inside the body cavity to open it up to the crisp fall air. Back limbs were spread out and the game was then hung by the legs from a tree branch or game pole. The game carcass was then skinned to accelerate cooling, and washed down to clean it of hair and dirt. The head was often removed as well as the legs past their joints. It was respectful of the animal and the tradition of hunting to take care of the kill this way.

Over the years, Joe had seen hanging in trees hundreds of carcasses of deer, moose, elk, and pronghorn antelope that had been field-dressed, skinned, and beheaded.

This was the first time he’d ever seen a man hung in the same condition.

I WATCH them come over the ridge through my rifle scope. They come down the trail single file, like wild turkeys. I’m much too far away to hear their conversation but I find I don’t need to since their actions and gestures tell me what they’re thinking and saying to one another. I’m surprised there are so many of them so quickly, and I thank God I was finished and away from there before they showed up. I’m also grateful the soldiers decided to call law enforcement rather than to pursue me on their own. It could have gone either way, I know, when the three of them stood near the hanging body an hour ago and argued over what to do. Their leader, the tall one, wanted to come after me right then and there after discovering the body. It was obvious by the way he unslung his rifle and held it like the weapon it was, light in his hands and deadly. His friends calmed him down eventually and argued persuasively to call the authorities once they got back to their camp. I have nothing against the soldiers, and I fear their abilities and their young aggression. No doubt they’ve been well trained in tactics and strategy. Although it is my aim to elude them, there is always the chance thatthrough sheer will and physical ability they will run me down and force a confrontation .