C. Box - Endangered

Years before, prior to the national decline in the sage grouse population, Joe had accompanied outlaw falconer Nate Romanowski to this very sagebrush bench. At the time, Nate flew a prairie falcon and a red-tailed hawk. Joe and Nate served as bird dogs, walking through the brush to dislodge the grouse while the raptors hunted from the air. Grouse defended themselves against the falcons by flopping over onto their backs and windmilling their sharp claws, but the raptors got them anyway, in an explosion of feathers.

Joe wondered if he’d ever hunt with Nate again, and not just because of the sage grouse problem. With a half-dozen serious allegations hanging over his head by the feds, Nate had agreed to turn state’s witness against his former employer, a high-society killer for hire. Nate had not touched base with Joe, or Marybeth, or their daughter Sheridan in months. Joe had no idea if Nate’s long-ago pledge to protect the Pickett family still held. And Joe was still angry with him for getting mixed up in a murder-for-hire operation, even if the targets richly deserved killing.

—

JOE SHOOK HIS HEAD to clear it, and looked at the carnage. Half a year after being named “Special Liaison to the Executive Branch” by Rulon himself, in the middle of Joe’s own five-thousand-square-mile district, he’d discovered the site of the wanton destruction of twenty-one rare game birds whose deaths could bring down the state of Wyoming.

That’s when the call came. And suddenly he was no longer thinking about birds.

—

THE DISPLAY SAID MIKE REED.

Reed was sheriff of Twelve Sleep County, and had been for two years. He was a personal friend of Joe’s and had cleaned up the department, ridding it of the old cronies and flunkies who had been collected by the previous chief, Kyle McLanahan. Reed was a paraplegic due to gunshot wounds he’d received in the line of duty and he traveled in a specially outfitted van. His injuries had never prevented him from getting around or performing his job.

Reed’s voice was tense. Joe could hear the sound of a motor in the background. He was speeding somewhere in his van.

Reed said, “Joe, we’ve got a situation. Are you in a place where you can sit down?”

“No, but go ahead.”

“I’m running out to meet my deputy on Dunbar Road. He responded to a call from a couple of hunters this morning. They claimed they found a victim in a ditch.”

Joe knew Dunbar Road. It was south of Saddlestring, an obscure county road that ended up at a couple of old reservoirs in the breaklands. It was a road to nowhere, really, used only by hunters, anglers, and people who were lost.

“The victim is a young woman, Joe,” Reed said. “She was found by Deputy Boner.”

Joe felt himself squeezing his cell phone as if to kill it.

“My deputy thinks she looks a lot like April. He says he knew April from when she worked at Welton’s Western Wear, and it might be her.”

Joe’s knees weakened, and he took a step back. April was their eighteen-year-old adopted daughter. She’d disappeared the previous November with a professional rodeo cowboy and they’d only heard from her two or three times. Each time she called, she said not to worry about her. She was, she said, “having the time of her life.”

Because she’d turned eighteen, there was little Joe or Marybeth could do, except encourage her to come home.

“She’s alive?” Joe asked, his mouth dry.

“Maybe. Barely. We’re not sure. It might not be her, Joe. There’s no ID on her.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the backseat of my deputy’s cruiser,” Reed said. “He didn’t want to wait for the EMTs to get out there. He said it looks touch and go whether she’ll even make it as far as the hospital.”

Joe took a quivering breath. The storm cloud was moving down the face of the mountains, the snow blotting out the blue-black forest of pine trees.

“Whether it’s April or not,” Reed said, “it’s a terrible thing.”

“Mike, was she in an accident?”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Reed said. “There was no vehicle around. It looks like she was dumped there.”

“Dumped?” Joe asked. “Why didn’t she walk toward town?”

“She’s been beaten,” Reed said. “Man, I hate to be the one telling you this. But my guy says it looks like she was beaten to a pulp and dumped. Whoever did it might have thought she was already dead. Obviously, I don’t know the extent of her injuries, how long she’s been there, or if there was, you know, a sexual assault.”

Joe leaned against the front fender of his pickup. He couldn’t recall walking back to his truck, but there he was. The phone was pressed so tightly against his face, it hurt.

March and April were usually the snowiest months in high-country Wyoming, when huge dumps of spring snow arrived between short bursts of false spring. The last week had been unseasonably warm, so he was grateful she hadn’t died of exposure.

Joe said, “So you’re going to meet your deputy and escort him to the hospital?”

“Roger that,” Reed said. “How quick can you get there? I’m about to scramble Life Flight and get them down here so they can transport her to the trauma center in Billings. These injuries are beyond what our clinic can handle. Can you get there and . . . identify her?”

“I’m twenty miles out on bad roads, but yes, I’ll be there,” Joe said, motioning for Daisy to leap down from the bed of the truck and take her usual spot on the passenger seat. He followed her in and slammed the door. “Does Marybeth know?”

Marybeth was now the director of the Twelve Sleep County Library. She’d be at the building until five-thirty p.m., but she was known to monitor the police band.

“I haven’t told her,” Reed said, “and I asked my guys to keep a lid on this until I reached you. I thought maybe you’d want to tell her.”

Joe engaged the transmission and roared down the old two-track.

“I’ll call her,” Joe said, raising his voice because the road was rough and the cab was rattling with vibration. Citation books, maps, and assorted paperwork fluttered down through the cab from where they had been parked beneath the sun visors. “We’ll meet you there.”

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Reed said with pain in his voice. “But keep in mind we don’t know for sure it’s her.”

Joe said, “It’s her,” and punched off.

—

HE CALLED MARYBETH’S CELL PHONE. When she answered, he slowed down enough so that he could hear her.

“Mike Reed just told me they’re transporting a female victim to the hospital,” he said. “She was found dumped south of town. Mike says there’s a possibility the girl could be—”

“April,” Marybeth said, finishing the sentence for him. “How bad is she?”

“Bad,” Joe said, and he told her about the Life Flight helicopter en route to the hospital from Billings.

“I’ll meet you there,” she said.

Before he could agree, she said, “I’ve had nightmares about this for months. Ever since she left with that cowboy.” Joe thought, She can’t even say his name .

Joe disconnected the call, dropped his phone into his breast pocket, and jammed down on the accelerator. Twin plumes of dust from his back tires filled the rearview mirror.

“Hang on,” he said to Daisy.

Then: “I’m going to kill Dallas Cates.”

Daisy looked back as if to say We’ll kill him together.

2

After what seemed like the longest forty-five minutes of his life, Joe arrived at the Twelve Sleep County Hospital and found Marybeth in the emergency entrance lobby. Sheriff Mike Reed was with her, as was Deputy Edgar Jess Boner, who had found the victim and transported her into town.