Joe Pickett

  A Mysterious Profile

  C. J. Box

  Joe Pickett

  Saddlestring, Wyoming

  2017

  When the official landline telephone rang in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner at the state-owned warden station that was also their home, everyone at the table moaned except Joe Pickett.

  “Don’t answer it,” April said through a mouthful as she glared at him. “Just don’t answer it.”

  All three of their girls were at the table. Both Sheridan and April were home on college break and Lucy was in her senior year at Saddlestring High School. Marybeth had been working since before dawn on the meal and she raised a wary eyebrow at Joe while sipping from a glass of wine.

  The raised eyebrow asked him, So what are you going to do?

  “Maybe it’s nothing,” he said.

  “It’s never nothing,” Marybeth responded.

  “It is hunting season,” Joe said, removing the napkin from his lap and pushing back from the table.

  “It’s always effing hunting season,” April said.

  “No, it’s not,” Sheridan said. “The seasons run from mid-August through the end of January.”

  “She said ‘effing,’” Lucy pointed out with a not-so-innocent glint in her eye. April glared at her. Marybeth looked away so she wouldn’t laugh.

  It wasn’t nothing.

  The Foreman of the Double Diamond Ranch, Clay Hutmacher, told Joe that one of his cowboys had found the fresh carcasses of three trophy elk on their landholdings two hours before. The culprit (or culprits) had shot the six-point bulls in a hay meadow, taken only the heads and antlers, and left the carcasses to rot. The blood around the bodies had not yet coagulated, so the crime had occurred within hours of its discovery. The cowboy recalled that on his way to the meadow he’d glimpsed an older red pickup with a topper speeding away in the distance. The pickup was dented and battered, he said, but he wasn’t able to clearly note the make, model, and license plate number of the truck. Hutmacher said to Joe that this wasn’t the first time a red pickup had been seen on their property, and he speculated that the owner of the vehicle had been scouting for elk. Then the foreman apologized for interrupting Joe’s Thanksgiving holiday.

  Joe hung up and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go,” he said.

  “I’ll keep your plate warm until you get back,” Marybeth said.

  “I’m sorry,” Joe said again. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “We might need you to get us a couple more bottles of wine,” April said as she topped off the glasses around the table except for Joe’s and Lucy’s.

  “You need to go easy on that,” Marybeth cautioned her middle daughter.

  “No more for me,” Sheridan said as she pushed away from the table as well. Then, looking up at Joe, she said, “Would you like some company?”

  She asked in a sly way, Joe thought. Like she had something up her sleeve.

  Joe glanced at Marybeth, who obviously had the same thought. “I don’t know…” Marybeth said.

  “I’ll stay in the truck,” Sheridan said, rolling her eyes. “I used to go on ride-alongs with dad all the time, remember?”

  It was true. Some of the most memorable interactions Joe recalled with his oldest daughter was when she accompanied him in the field. Sheridan had asked him probing questions about his job, the law, and local miscreants. They’d once been eyewitnesses to the birth of twin antelope fawns in the sagebrush, and Sheridan had gasped out loud when the fawns literally hit the ground running and vanished with their mother over the top of a ridge.

  She’d also forced him to listen to mixed compilations of current music that, with a few exceptions, hadn’t impressed him much.

  “What do you think?” Joe asked Marybeth.

  “As long as you both stay safe,” she responded.

  “Save me a glass of wine,” Sheridan said to April.

  “Fat chance, sister,” April replied. Lucy laughed at that.

  After Replacing his snap-button shirt with his red uniform shirt and clamping on his short-brimmed silver-belly Stetson, Joe buckled on his holster in the mudroom where Sheridan was waiting for him.

  She wore jeans, boots, and a puffy down jacket.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready.” She grinned.

  She gestured to the badge he’d pinned over the breast pocket of his red game warden shirt. “You’ve changed numbers,” she said. “When I left for college you were number nineteen.”

  He nodded. There were only fifty game wardens in the State of Wyoming and their badge number reflected their seniority. Joe badge was now number seventeen.

  “One guy retired and a lady warden got married and moved out of state,” Joe said.

  “Lady warden?” Sheridan said with a tone of disapproval.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She sighed and shook her head.

  They walked through the small front yard toward his green Ford F-150 pickup. It was cool and crisp outside but the sky was clear. Snow had already dusted the round-shouldered summits of the Bighorn Mountains. A red-tailed hawk called out as it cruised above the pine treetops.

  “We’re looking for a guy named Whip McIntire,” Joe said to Sheridan. “I’ve been after him for a couple of years but I haven’t been able to nail him on anything. He drives a 2005 red GMC four-wheel drive pickup with dents all over it. That sounds like the vehicle spotted at the ranch after they found the poached elk.”

  “Is Whip actually his name?” Sheridan asked with a grin.

  “Yup. His brother’s named Quirt. Old man McIntire had a flair for names, I guess. He was hoping for a couple of championship rodeo cowboys but he got two meth-head elk poachers instead.”

  “Whip and Quirt,” Sheridan repeated, saying their names slowly while shaking her head.

  “Whip’s got a place on Hazelton Road,” Joe said. “We might or might not find him there. Quirt lives with him.”

  “And then what?”

  Joe shrugged. “We’ll see if they can establish their whereabouts this morning. And we’ll look around for three elk heads.”

  “Cool,” Sheridan said. Then: “Why would they just take the heads?”

  “Because of the antlers,” Joe said. “There’s big money in heavy elk sheds, and these boys always need cash.”

  “I hate poachers as much as you do,” she said. “Let’s nail ’em.”

  “You’re staying in the truck,” Joe said. “Those two can be volatile.”

  “Gotcha.”

  As Joe drove down the county highway toward Saddlestring eight miles west, he noticed that his daughter had reached into her coat and pulled out a spiral notebook and had placed it on her lap.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “Notes.”

  “Notes for what?”

  “I need to turn in an essay next week,” she said. “Professor Cleveland gave us the assignment for over the break.” She opened the notebook to reveal all blank pages.

  “Ah,” he said. “It doesn’t look like you’ve started it yet.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “So what are you writing about?”

  After a pause, she said, “You.”

  He looked over at her with a grimace.

  “I’ve got questions,” she said.

  “Do we really have to do this?”

  “Only if you want me to pass my senior year,” she said. “Or do you want me to come back as a failed student who lives in your basement for the rest of her life?”

  Joe groaned. But he noted the gleam in her eye.

  Then: “So what is that you want to know? Game warden stuff?”

  “Well, not really” she said. “I pretty much know all of that, I think. I grew up with it.”

  “What, then?”

  “I realized a while back that I know you as my dad, but I’m not sure I know you.”

  “There’s not much to know. And what there is is boring.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “You should interview your mother instead,” Joe said. “She’s smarter and more interesting.”

  “I know her pretty well already,” Sheridan said. “We talk about things.”

  “She’s had a notable life,” Joe said, trying again.

  “Of course she has. I already know all about her growing up with Grandma Missy and moving from place to place with each new stepdad. I know more than I want to know about Grandma Missy, I think.”

  Joe chuckled at that.

  “But you’re kind of a mystery, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Not really.”

  “Dad, that’s not true,” Sheridan said. “You never talk about growing up or how you became the man you are. Don’t you think I might be interested?”

  Joe shrugged.

  “Seriously,” she insisted.

  Joe sighed. “Do we really have to do this?” he asked again.

  “Yes, we do,” she said.

  “Tell me about my grandfather,” Sheridan said.

  “George Pickett,” Joe said. “You met him but you were very young. You probably don’t remember him at all.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I’ve seen pictures but not that many. He looked kind of … crazy.”

  “He was,” Joe said. “He was probably the smartest man I’ve ever met when it came to certain subjects that didn’t matter to anyone else. He could tell you how a Geiger counter worked and when the next geyser would erupt in Yellowstone Park, but he couldn’t change a tire, balance a checkbook, or hold a job for very long. He liked gin.”

  “Is it true you drove around with his cremated remains in your truck for years?” she asked.

  Joe flinched. “I didn’t know where to spread them.”

  “When did you finally get rid of them? And where?”

  “Two years after he died,” Joe said. “I spread them along a boardwalk in Yellowstone, where he used to hang out with his Geyser Gazer friends. But don’t tell anyone that—it’s illegal to do that in a national park.”

  He noted that Sheridan was furiously scribbling. And likely ignoring his admonition.

  Joe said, “George was convinced that the Yellowstone super volcano would erupt at any minute and wipe out most of the people of North America. It gave him an excuse to live in the moment and remain shit-faced.”

  “What did you learn from him?” Sheridan asked. “There must be something.”

  “I learned not to spend my life sitting on benches in the geyser basin and drinking gin,” Joe said. “I learned how not to be a father.”

  “You never mention your mom,” Sheridan said. “My grandmother. Why is that?”

  “I don’t think I’m enjoying this,” Joe said.

  “Come on, power through it. I find this stuff really interesting. Everybody wants to know where they come from.”

  “Well,” Joe said, “that’s the thing. That’s why I don’t talk about this stuff very much.”

  “What’s the thing?”

  He sighed and, after a long pause, he said, “I think people put too much stock in where they came from—where their relatives came from, I mean. And who their ancestors were. I mean, just because someone finds out from one of those DNA tests that their great-great-grandfather came from Norway, does that mean they have Viking blood? That it might explain why they act the way they do or make them want to have a Viking funeral or something? It’s like those goofballs you see wearing kilts on St. Patrick’s Day when they’ve never stepped foot in Ireland. I just don’t see why it matters.”

  “That’s harsh,” Sheridan said. “You don’t think you’re shaped by your family?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said too many people take that stuff too far. When some doofus says they can’t help why they act the way they do because they’re Scottish or German or Native American, I roll my eyes and arrest them anyway.”

  “Okay, I get that,” Sheridan said. “So tell me about my grandmother.”

  “You’re not gonna stop with this, are you?”

  “No.” As she said it, she lowered her notebook to her lap but kept it open. And her pen was poised above the paper.

  “Her name was Katherine Pickett but everybody called her Katy,” Joe said in a monotone. “She and my dad drank pitchers of martinis until they were empty, and then they argued about something or other and hurled the pitchers at each other. It was like growing up with two overgrown teenagers who can’t decide if they love each other or hate each other’s guts. I know it was probably both.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was mean and she didn’t really like anyone she had to be around. Meaning George, me, or my brother Victor. She used to tell us boys that we ruined her life, as if of all the mothers in the world we’d gone out of our way to choose her.”

  “That’s awful, Dad.”

  “One night when I was in grade school she took the car and left us. I never saw her or heard from her for the rest of my life.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Joe said.

  “Wow.”

  “Yup.”

  “How could a mother do that?”

  “See,” Joe said. “That’s what I’m saying to you. Just because she up and left us, that doesn’t mean I was ever inclined to do the same to you and your sisters. I don’t even want to think about that.”

  “What about my uncle?” Sheridan asked. “Did you get along?”

  Joe nodded. “We did. We got along great. Victor was a good-looking boy—tall and athletic. I’d always pick him first when we formed teams at school. When I think about it now, I realize we kind of raised ourselves. George was around, of course, but he was always in his own world. The good thing about that was that Victor and I were like a couple of wild animals. We taught ourselves to fish, to hunt, to camp. We’d stay out in the woods for days and when we came home it was always interesting to see if George knew how long we’d been gone. Usually, he didn’t.”

  “You two didn’t go to town or stuff like that?” Sheridan asked.

  “Nope. We didn’t have any money or any way to get into town. Plus, the woods were more interesting. I remember when we found an old outlaw cave deep in the trees. It still had a hitching post outside it and old frying pans inside. We made that our second home and no one knew about it but us. We used to shoot birds and catch trout and cook them inside.”

  “Is that why you became a game warden?”

  Joe nodded. He said, “One night, Vic and I were outside in sleeping bags on an old trampoline we had. We used to do that a lot in the summer months. We were reading back issues of a magazine called Fur, Fish, and Game under a flashlight and I saw an ad. I can still remember every word in it.”

  Then he recited it verbatim:

  HOW TO BECOME A GAME WARDEN

  Don’t be chained to a desk, machine, or store counter.

  This easy home-study plan prepares you for an exciting career in Conservation and Ecology.

  Forestry and Wildlife men hunt mountain lions,

  parachute from planes to help marooned animals or save injured campers.

  Live the outdoor life you love.

  Sleep under pines.

  Catch your breakfast from icy streams.

  Live and look like a million!

  “Live and look like a million,” Sheridan repeated as she wrote it all down. “That’s great.”

  “It is,” Joe said. “Victor and I decided we’d become game wardens.”

  “But Victor died,” Sheridan said gravely.

  “He did.”

  “Is it true he committed suicide?”

  “Yup.”

  Then, so she wouldn’t have to ask, Joe said, “He got drunk and drove his car into the stone archway entrance to Yellowstone Park. I didn’t see it coming because I was in college at the time and I was too selfish to keep in touch with him.”

  “I’m sorry, dad,” she said.

  “At least I went on to live and look like a million,” Joe said with a faux sniff that made Sheridan smile sadly.

  “Do you know what’s inscribed on that stone archway?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “It says, ‘For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.’ Teddy Roosevelt had that built.”

  They drove through Saddlestring in silence. It was a ghost town with all of the businesses dark for the holiday and no traffic on the streets. Only the Stockman’s Bar was open. As Joe cruised by it, he slowed down.

  As he did, a reveler wearing a dirty straw cowboy hat pushed through the Stockman’s door and raised a can of beer and shouted, “Happy Thanksgiving, people!” to no one in particular. When the man saw Joe’s game and fish pickup on the street he retreated inside.

  “Are you looking for that red truck?” Sheridan asked.

  “Yup. It’s a red GMC. I don’t see it.”

  “Do you miss your brother?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Do you think about him?”

  “Sheridan …”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “This is sort of what I was saying earlier,” Joe said. “You don’t have to be shaped by your relations or your history or your environment. You can make choices to chart your own path. I sometimes wish I could have got that across to Victor. He always took things harder than I did.”

  “So you went to college,” Sheridan said after jotting down more notes. “The University of Wyoming in Laramie.”

  “You need a degree in wildlife biology or law enforcement to be a game warden,” Joe said. “Otherwise, I probably would have skipped it. I was thinking about joining the navy instead.”

 

1 2