Chapter One Late March in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains wasn''t yet spring by any means, but there were a growing number of days when spring could be dreamt of. For Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, this wasn''t one of those days. This was a day that would both start and end with blood on the snow. At midday, he climbed out of the cab of his replacement green Ford F-150 pickup and pulled on coveralls and a winter parka over his red uniform shirt and wool Filson vest. He''d had the foresight to layer up that morning before leaving his house, and he was also wearing merino wool long johns and thick wool socks. He buckled knee-high nylon gaiters over his lace-up Sorel pack boots, then placed his hat crown-down on the dashboard and replaced it with a thick wool rancher''s cap with the earflaps down. On the open tailgate of his vehicle, he filled a light daypack with gear: water, snowshoes, camera, necropsy kit, extra ammo, ticket book, binoculars, sat phone. While he did so, he shot a glance at the storm cloud shrouding the mountains and muting the sun.
A significant "weather event" had been predicted by the National Weather Service for southern Montana and northern Wyoming. Joe didn''t question it. It felt like snow was coming, maybe a lot of it, and he needed to find an injured elk cow and put her out of her misery before the storm roared down from those mountains and engulfed him. The interstate highway had closed an hour before, as it so often did because of heavy snowfall, high winds, and vehicle crashes. The winter, thus far, had been brutal. Storm after storm since Christmas, and very little melting. The snowpack in the mountains was one hundred and fifty percent of normal, which was a relief after several years of drought, but getting through it had been cruel. During his lifetime in the Rocky Mountains, Joe had rarely been bothered by long winters, but this year was different.
He was getting tired of constant snow making everything he did more difficult. He was located fifteen miles from Saddlestring on a paved but potholed county road that ran east to west, parallel to the foothills. It was on that road that morning that a young male driver en route to a Montana ski resort for spring break had taken a shortcut from the interstate highway. He''d apparently been looking at the navigation app on his smartphone screen when he plowed into a small herd of elk crossing the road. The driver''s car was totaled and had been towed away. The driver himself was under observation at the Twelve Sleep County Medical Center for an injury sustained when he bounced his forehead off his steering wheel upon impact. Two elk had been killed in the collision. A third elk, the cow Joe was after, had been seen by a state trooper who had responded to the accident call.
On three good legs, the elk had somehow leapt over the fence beside the road and had last been seen limping away toward the mountains. Joe had heard about the incident over his radio while he''d been in another corner of his district looking for another problematic animal: a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound wolf that had gutted two yearling calves within sight of a rancher''s home. By the time Joe had responded, the wolf had gone and the rancher was furious. Joe had photographed the dead yearlings as well as the massive wolf tracks in the snow, and he''d opened up an official incident report that would be forwarded to his agency, who would forward it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The two yearlings had had their throats ripped out and they''d been disemboweled. The scene looked as if someone had dropped balloons filled with blood from a great height and they''d exploded on the hard-packed snow.
It was the fifth verified wolf kill of the current winter, and that was becoming a problem. Especially since there weren''t supposed to be wolves in the area at all. Joe knew that assumption was incorrect. He''d personally seen a big black alpha male and other wolves in the pack during the last decade. He usually saw them at times of danger or stress-so out of concern for the pack, he rarely mentioned seeing anything at all. The rancher had crossed his arms across his chest and blamed Joe personally for the the wolves, since Joe worked for the state, which is to say the government, and it was the government that had introduced wolves back into Wyoming in the first place. Joe had stood there and let the rancher blow off steam before speaking. "You know that was the feds, right?" he''d asked the rancher.
"Not us?" "You''re all the same," the rancher had said. "Bureaucrats paid with my tax money trying to ruin my way of life." "Actually, we aren''t. The feds reintroduced the wolves into Yellowstone Park. We''re doing our best to deal with them now as they spread across the state." The rancher pointed at his dead cattle. "And I must say you''re doing a hell of a job." Then he chinned toward Joe and asked, "New truck?" "Yup.
My last one was totaled. I''m getting used to this one." "You have to get used to a lot of new vehicles, don''t you?" the rancher asked. "Yup." "Maybe if you wouldn''t crash so many, it wouldn''t be such a big deal." "Maybe," Joe conceded. "You sound like my supervisor." "I''m glad the state is rich enough to keep you in new trucks.
" Joe was grateful when dispatch in Cheyenne called him away from the ranch to try to put the wounded elk out of her misery. *** It hadn''t been difficult to find the crash site. There were tiny squares of broken glass glittering like sequins on the roadbed, as well as a few bloody hunks of elk hair. The two dead elk had been rolled off the pavement into the ditch and large ravens had already found them. Joe wondered if any enterprising locals would take advantage of a new law allowing the harvesting of road-killed meat, but no one had arrived as of yet. Maybe the coming snow and the winter storm watch had discouraged them. Joe dug his cell phone out of his breast pocket and speed-dialed a man named Clay Hutmacher, who was the foreman of the Double Diamond Ranch on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. The "Double D," as it was called by locals, stretched out over twenty thousand acres and was adjoined by Bureau of Land Management and U.
S. Forest Service holdings. Hutmacher was a longtime local who guided fly-fishers in the summer and hunters in the fall. His twenty-five-year-old son, Clay Junior, had recently been spending time with Joe and Marybeth''s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Sheridan. Too much time, in Joe''s opinion, even though Clay Junior had done nothing untoward. Yet. Joe looked at every potential suitor of his three daughters with suspicion. It was up to the interloper to prove himself trustworthy.
Several had not. One had physically abused his middle girl, April, and had turned out to be rotten to the core, confirming Joe''s first impressions. "It''s Joe Pickett," he said when Clay Senior answered his phone. "I''m out on the state highway just west of the ranch. I wanted to get permission to cross over onto your property and kill a wounded cow elk that got hit by a car." Technically, all of the wild animals in the state were the property of the people of Wyoming. Nevertheless, it was required to obtain permission from local landowners to access private property. "I heard about that," Hutmacher said.
"Some guy from Florida looking at his phone. I hope he''s in critical condition." "Nope," Joe said. "I think he''s okay." "We ought to charge him for killing two elk and injuring a third one," Hutmacher said. Joe knew the man to be quite protective of the herd on the ranch, especially cows who could birth more animals to hunt. "Hey, you know who I''m looking at right now?" Hutmacher asked. "No.
" "Sheridan Pickett. Clay Junior invited her out. She''s a sweetie, Joe. You should be proud of her." "We are," Joe said. But he was tight-lipped. "Do you need to say anything to her while I''ve got you on the line?" Hutmacher asked. "Not really.
" "They''re watching falconry videos on YouTube," the foreman said. "It''s kind of cute," he sighed. Joe rolled his eyes and was glad Hutmacher couldn''t see him do it. Sheridan worked for Nate Romanowski''s bird abatement company and was close to becoming a master falconer herself. Joe knew Clay Junior had done a stint in the army and had been scheduled to graduate from an Ivy League university before the pandemic delayed all of his plans. As far as Joe knew, Clay Junior was unemployed at the moment, but he certainly had promise: local man, strong values, high school athlete, University of Wyoming graduate, military background. Still, Joe wanted to see more than promise before he softened his stance. Marybeth knew more about Clay Junior than Joe did, which was typical.
"Anyway, about that cow elk." Joe said. "Yeah, sorry. Go get her, Joe. Don''t let her suffer even a minute longer than necessary." "Thanks." "Good luck. Shoot straight.
And let me know if you can''t find her." "Will do." "And for God''s sake, Joe, get off the mountain before this storm hits." *** "Come on, girl," he said to Daisy, his yellow Labrador. Daisy bounded out of the cab and immediately walked away stiff-legged to check out the smells that came from the dead elk in the ditch. As she did so, she started to tremble with excitement. Daisy was g.