C. Box - Endangered

Joe shook his head. “You’re in a fantasy rodeo league?”

“Of course,” Rulon said, as if he were offended by the question. “Remember that name: Cody McCoy. Do some silent curses at him or something. Make a Cody McCoy voodoo doll and drop it into the dirt just before he rides. We can’t have him win the Shootout.”

There had been rumors prior to the last election that Spencer Rulon was going insane because of his erratic behavior. Joe hadn’t paid any attention to the rumors. Now he wondered if he should have.

“Well, go ,” Rulon said, exasperated.

20

Like many westerners, Joe liked to seek out pockets of the rural west in any urban environment. Finding members of his tribe provided comfort. Although Denver was geographically in the west and there were plenty of remaining frontier vestiges—the Black American West Museum, the Buckhorn Exchange restaurant, the National Western Stock Show—it was also a large metro area of more than two million people, with funky hotels, restaurants, professional sports teams, gangs, and hipsters smoking legal weed and drinking craft beer. It was the anti-Saddlestring, and the politicians who ran Denver didn’t like to play up its western roots.

The rodeo that Rulon had suggested offered a refuge, and Joe had nothing else to do before the federal lab opened in the morning. As soon as he bought his ticket and went inside the indoor National Western complex, he smelled familiar smells and encountered familiar-looking people. The men milling around the exhibition booths wore jeans, boots, and hats. Most left-side back Wrangler pockets showed Copenhagen chewing tobacco rings.

Unlike when walking around the 16th Street Mall downtown, he expected to meet someone he knew, and he did. The two brothers Stan and Dave Flitner ran the Lazy T Ranch outside of Saddlestring. They had a booth of their own and they were taking orders for bull semen in the hallway to the indoor rodeo arena.

“Look out!” Stan said in mock alarm when he recognized Joe. “It’s the game warden! Dave, hide those fish!”

“Ha-ha,” Joe said, shaking their hands. They both wore black hats because it was still technically winter. Within two months or so, they’d replace their felt hats with straw hats and summer would be official.

“What brings you down here?” Dave asked from behind the table.

“Just killing time,” Joe said. “I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Want to buy some bull semen?” Stan asked. “We’ll give you a ten percent discount on account of you’re local.”

“I’ll have to pass,” Joe said with a straight face. “I’ve still got a couple of gallons in my refrigerator.”

“That’s too bad,” Stan laughed. “Business has been kind of slow.”

—

THE CROWD INSIDE the arena was sparse, which was no doubt disappointing to the organizers of the event, Joe thought. Too much to do in Denver on a weekend, he guessed, as he settled into his seat. Still, those who were in the grandstands seemed to be hard-core rodeo fans by the way they cheered and applauded certain cowboys. They were probably in fantasy rodeo leagues, Joe thought.

While he watched the saddle bronc and bareback events, he followed the cowboys on the program.

The All-Star Shootout, he learned, was designed to attract only the top cowboys in each event. Unlike the PRCA circuit in the summer, where any cowboy with a PRCA card could pay an entry fee and ride, this was invitation-only. These were the names rodeo fans knew and followed, and Joe recognized a few of the top contestants.

As he read over the list of cowboys in the bull-riding section, he saw the name Cody McCoy. He didn’t issue a voodoo curse, but he again recalled what Lucy had observed. Since she’d been right about Wentworth’s desire for Annie Hatch, maybe she’d also been right about something else.

Lucy had said there was no way that April and Dallas Cates had gone their separate ways, even though Dallas—and Brenda—insisted on it. If April never regained consciousness, it might remain a mystery forever, one of those loose ends that would always nag at him.

Joe studied the names of the bull riders. They were from all over: Decatur, Texas; Terrebonne, Oregon; Donalda, Alberta, Canada; Waycross, Georgia; Oral, South Dakota; Winnemucca, Nevada; Los Lunas, New Mexico; Roosevelt, Utah; O’Brien, Florida; Stephenville, Texas.

Stephenville was where Dallas had moved to once he went professional.

Joe thought about it. These champion rodeo cowboys lived thousands of miles apart, yet they gathered together every weekend during the winter and practically every day in the summer at some rodeo or another. They traveled together, lived together, competed together. He thought there may very well be a couple of them, and maybe more, behind the chutes at that very minute who knew Dallas, and probably April as well. Maybe one of them could clear up the discrepancy.

He slapped the rodeo program against his leg and stood up. He was glad he was wearing his uniform.

—

IT WAS CALLED the “ready area” and it was located under the stands behind the chutes, out of view from the general public. Joe worked his way down there until he encountered a security guard who wouldn’t let him through.

The guard wore a blue uniform shirt and eyed him warily.

“I’m not supposed to let anyone back there if they don’t have a credential,” the guard said.

“This is my credential,” Joe said, pointing to the pronghorn antelope patch on his arm that said WYOMING GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT and then his badge over his breast pocket. “I just need to talk to a couple of guys.”

“What did they do?”

“They may know something about a situation I’m investigating,” Joe said, keeping it truthful but vague.

“Man, I don’t know,” the guard said, looking around.

“Here’s my card,” Joe said, handing it over. “You can see I’m legit. And if you need to call your supervisor over, go ahead.”

The man smiled. “I don’t even know who my supervisor is. I’m just a weekend rent-a-cop. The Nuggets aren’t playing today or I’d be at Pepsi Center, running one of the parking lots.”

Joe waited.

“Oh, okay,” the man said, stepping aside. “Don’t get me in any trouble.”

“I never promise that .” Joe smiled.

—

THERE WERE A DOZEN private dramas unfolding within the ready area as Joe approached. The atmosphere inside the chain-link barrier was electric and intense.

Cowboys sat on saddles on the concrete floor with one hand on imaginary reins and the other in the air, acting out a ride to come. Others slapped themselves across the face while they strode from one wall to the other like football players awaiting kickoff. Several stood with their eyes clamped shut, praying wordlessly.

As Joe entered, he stepped around a rodeo cowboy expertly taping his Wrangler jean legs around the shafts of his boots, and another tightening his riding glove by cinching a string of leather between his teeth.

He didn’t know where to start.

In the arena, the saddle bronc competition ended and the cowboys who had ridden in it streamed into the ready area. They acted differently from the ones waiting to ride because they were done . Some joked and patted others on the back, some scowled at getting bucked off, one cowboy bitched about his score and said he’d been jobbed by “that fat judge with the stupid mustache.” As the saddle bronc riders gathered up their gear, the bull riders filed out one by one. To a man, they seemed more wired and tightly wrapped than the bronc riders. Each cowboy had a friend or two with him who would help him out mounting the bull, getting set, and offering encouragement.