Joe shrugged. Smoke was getting more animated as he talked, and louder. Joe saw the flashes of eloquent rage Smoke was known for, the rhetoric he used at public meetings to dominate discussions and make himself the scourge of agency officials.

"I'd like to bring a couple of those Beargrass jokers up here and let 'em shoot an elk, gut it, and hang it up in the trees. 'This is how we get meat,' I'd say."

Joe conspicuously looked at his watch, trying to signal an end to the evening. It was late and he was tired. Smoke ignored him.

"When I tell people what I'm telling you, they laugh at me," Smoke said. "They didn't used to, but they do now. They act like I'm something out of another century, some kind of throwback. I am, I guess."

Smoke drained his cup and poured another before Joe could object.

"I'm a goddamned arachnidism," Smoke said.

"You're a spider?"Joe asked, knowing Smoke meant anachronism.

"I don't mind being feared or hated," Smoke said, lowering his head, "but I hateto be fuckin' laughed at."

Smoke's silence was striking after all of his loud talk.

"I'm sorry," Joe said.

"About what?" Smoke finally asked, his voice soft for the first time since he had arrived at the cabin.

"For the spider joke," Joe said. "I knew what you meant."

Smoke almost imperceptibly nodded his woolly head.

"You know I saw you today, putting those salt blocks down," Joe said.

Joe thought he sensed a sudden, cold calmness in Smoke's demeanor. Maybe it was the way he was gripping his cup.

"I thought somebody was watching me," Smoke said.

"I've got pictures of it."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Joe glanced quickly at the shotgun in the corner. Two steps, and he could grab it.

"I was thinking of riding into your camp and arresting you tomorrow," Joe said. "But I don't think either one of us wants me to do that in front of your hunters and guides."

Smoke sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. "No, I wouldn't want that."

"We could do it tonight," Joe said. "It's not like I was planning to drag you in chains into Jackson. I'll write you up, give you the citation, and we'd go to court eventually."

Smoke shook his head. "That'd mean my outfitter's license and my reputation, Joe. You might as well shoot me on the spot."

Joe couldn't argue with the first part. "Smoke, you knew what you were doing."

"Yes," the outfitter said, a spark in his eyes, "I knew it. But I bet you didn't know who else used salt in that same meadow for years."

"I'm confused."

"You sure as hell are," Smoke said, again leaning forward, the color returning to his cheeks. "Your own Game and Fish Department. For twenty years, they put salt blocks out to lure the elk out of Yellowstone so they could be shot. For years before that, the Forest Service did it. At the time, it was considered good management."

"Really?"

"Really. It wasn't until a few years ago, when some crusaders like Pi Stevenson decided it was unfair, did salting become a crime."

Joe said nothing.

"You want me to take you out tomorrow on horseback and show you all the salt sets in this wilderness? Not only the ones put there by outfitters, but natural salt licks in the ground? Elk need salt. It's good for them. Salt blocks don't attract any game that isn't already there. All salt does is help group them up in one place, so a dude can get a clean shot and cut down the odds of wounding an elk and losing track of it in the timber. Besides, what if a hunter shoots an elk that just showed up at a natural salt lick? What about that?"

"That's different," Joe said. "Putting salt blocks out isn't natural."

Smoke's cup exploded with a pop from his tightened grip. Joe felt drops of Wild Turkey hit his face. Smoke's voice rose as he talked. "Neither is feeding hay to ten thousand goddamned elk so tourists can look at 'em on the elk refuge, Joe! Neither is letting the herd explode in numbers in Yellowstone because there are no natural predators left, or introducing a species of gray wolf in the state that never actually lived here. Neither is building a goddamned private village so rich people can raise their own 'pure' food that's the result of hundreds of years of genetic engineering!"

Joe pushed his chair back and stood up. The shotgun was within reach. "I'll make a deal with you, Smoke. If you destroy the salt sets and give me your word you'll never do it again, we'll pretend this conversation never happened."

Tracing his finger through the spilled whiskey on the table, Smoke said, "I can't do that, Joe."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think what I did is wrong. It's all a big game, just like everything these days. It's a big game set up to get rid of people like me."

"Then I need to write out the citation," Joe said, his voice wavering.

"I ain't going to quit my way of life, Joe," Smoke said, looking up. "Not because of a set of rules that don't make biological or scientific sense. I won't let you take my life away from me."

"I gave you a choice I shouldn't have given you," Joe said.

"And I appreciate that," Smoke said. "Don't think I don't. It shows you're the fair man I thought you were, just like Will. But my decision is made."

Joe felt his heartbeat in his ears as he pulled his citation book out of his panniers and wrote out a ticket. In his peripheral vision, he was aware of both Smoke's position at the table-slumping back, both hands on the table where he could see them-and the shotgun propped up in the corner.

"I'll trust your word if you say you'll get rid of that salt set."

"I know that, Joe. I appreciate your trust. But it ain't going to happen."

Shaking his head, Joe tore out the ticket and handed it to Smoke. Smoke took it, slowly wadded it up into a ball, and dropped it on the table into the pool of whiskey.

"That won't change anything," Joe said, feeling sudden malevolence emanate from Smoke's person the way the odor of horses and wood smoke had earlier.

"I ain't going to let you do this," Smoke said, rising almost sadly from the table. "I got no place to go."

Joe said, "It doesn't have to be this way, Smoke."

"Yeah, it does."

Joe stood with the back of his hand brushing against the barrel of the shotgun while Smoke retrieved his coat, gathered the bottle, and lumbered out the door without another word.

He brewed coffee to help him stay awake and read through the pages of the last spiral notebook. The door was bolted shut, and a heavy gun case was pushed against it. The shutters were closed so no one outside could look in and see him. The horses had been moved closer and picketed at the front and back of the cabin so Joe could hear if they sensed someone approaching. The shotgun, still loaded with slugs, was on the table where he read. He could not recall ever being as scared. When a squirrel suddenly chattered from a tree outside, Joe was up with the shotgun pointed at the door, his heart thumping.

Even the things he read in the notebook, as terrifying and revealing as they were, could not make him tear his mind away from the threat of Smoke outside. Will's notebook was a journal of the madness that had engulfed him. The ex-game warden's writing changed from cribbed, guarded comments to large block letters, with sections underlined so violently that the paper had ripped. Then the handwriting changed again, to outright loopy. The content changed from reports and observations to Will's innermost thoughts and fears. What scared Joe was imagining Will, a man as guarded and reserved as anyone he had known, turn into something else. The last entry was from three weeks before: