“I’ve been good,” he said defensively. “I done what you said. I’ve been a model prisoner for the last year. See that guy over there with the full sleeves?” He nodded toward a dark man with a black mustache, a shaved head, and a swirl of tattoos that covered each arm to his wrist. The inmate wore red and was whispering into his wife’s ear while his two little boys wriggled around his legs.
Brenda looked over, then looked back.
“He stole my MP3 player from under my mattress. I know it was him. Two years ago, I would have ripped his throat out for what he done to me. But I let it go for now because I couldn’t prove it and I want to get out of here. Did you hear me? I let it go.”
“I’m glad,” she said.
“Now, what is it I have to do before you’ll take me back?” he asked.
“Don’t put it like that,” she said. “You know I love all my boys. But you also know that the most important thing in the world is to keep the family intact. We’ve all got to be working together or they’ll tear us down. The town, the county—they all hate us for what we are.”
Then she went on and on about how the community leaders refused to put up welcome signs on the outskirts of town that would read: Home of World Champion Rodeo Cowboy Dallas Cates.
He nodded. He’d heard it so many times from her over the years.
“So what is it I have to do?” he asked.
“Before we get to that, I’ve got a question for you,” she said. “Who loves their mama the most?”
19
This kind of thing has happened before,” Governor Rulon said to Joe in the governor’s capitol building office. “Remember the Canada lynx debacle in Washington state?”
“No.”
“Ah, a prelude to a story,” Rulon said. He was wearing a snap-button cowboy shirt, jeans, and scuffed boots. No one else was in the building on Sunday except for a security guard dozing at the lobby counter.
Joe had left his home well before the sun came up. He toasted the memory of Chris LeDoux as he passed Kaycee, and he thought of Nate. The four-and-a-half-hour drive had included all four seasons: summer in Kaycee, winter near Midwest, fall in Casper, spring outside of Chugwater.
He’d also been thinking about the call they’d received the night before from Nurse Reckling in Billings. She said that she’d overheard two of the doctors discussing the procedure for bringing April out of the coma. Reckling cautioned Marybeth about jumping to any conclusions, but promised she’d keep her posted. It was the first thread of good news they’d had on April’s condition since she was placed in the drug-induced coma.
Sheridan had decided not to go on spring break to Arizona with her friends but to come home instead. She wanted to see April. Marybeth told Joe that it just might be that the doctors would try to bring April back when the whole family could be at the hospital.
“That way,” she said, “we’ll all know at the same time if she’ll make it or not.”
He could tell by the look on her face that she was more than slightly terrified by the prospect.
—
RULON LEANED BACK in his chair, steepled his fingers, and said, “When I was U.S. Attorney, there was a big three-year study going on to determine if the rare and elusive Canada lynx existed in the forests of Washington. If the lynx could be proved to exist there, the Endangered Species Act would kick in and the feds would have to close all the roads, shut down the loggers, and seal off the forests to snowmobiles, skiers, four-wheelers, and on and on.
“Toward the end of the study period, with everyone holding their breath, there was an exciting discovery: Canada lynx hair had been found on three different rubbing posts. That proved that the lynx was there after all!
“Then somebody blew the whistle. It turns out that high-ranking U.S. Forest Service biologists had planted the hair samples on the posts. They’d gotten the hair from some zoo or a dead lynx and had planted it so it could be found. These biologists were true believers and they did it for their cause—to save the planet. How falsifying scientific evidence saves the planet is anyone’s guess.
“Hell,” Rulon said, slapping the desktop with the heel of his hand, “you got into a similar situation a couple of years ago with Butch Roberson and the EPA. This kind of petty crap by government bureaucrats shouldn’t be new to you.”
“It isn’t,” Joe said. “I just keep hoping that was a one-off.”
“Oh, Joe,” Rulon said almost sadly. “It’s inevitable that when there are hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats with endless budgets, who have no accountability and can’t be fired, that these things are bound to happen. They’re just people, although too many of them like to think that they’re special people with some kind of special insight. But when they have private agendas, watch out! That’s what I keep hollering at anyone who will listen.
“What about the fact that they allow wind and solar companies to kill thousands of eagles and other birds without punishment or fines, but they throw the book at an oil company or power plant if a bird dies in their vicinity? Where’s the fairness in that?”
Joe knew it was one of Rulon’s constant themes, and one of the reasons he’d won more than seventy percent of the vote for his reelection, despite the fact that he was a Democrat in a thoroughly Republican state.
“So what you’re telling me, Joe,” Rulon said, “is that this Wentworth guy slaughtered an entire lek of sage grouse so he could spend more time with Annie Hatch, the fetching yoga instructor. Is that your theory?”
Joe nodded.
“Can you prove it?”
“Not yet,” Joe said. “I need to check out the federal lab in Denver to see if the evidence box arrived there and what was in it. If it arrived intact, we should be able to match the tire tracks I photographed at the scene with the photos from Wentworth’s truck and the shotgun and the shells. If the box was tampered with, we know the chain of evidence and who tampered with it. And if it didn’t arrive at all, we know who supposedly sent it to them. I want to be at that lab when it opens tomorrow morning. I don’t want to call ahead and tip them off.
“But,” Joe continued, “judging by how Wentworth reacted yesterday, he might crumble and confess on his own. Especially if Annie Hatch puts pressure on him.”
“I’m really liking this,” Rulon said, grinning. “Keep digging, but keep what you find between us.”
Joe was puzzled.
“You know he did it,” Rulon said. “Now I know he did it. And this Wentworth guy sure as hell knows we know he did it. I want him to twist in the wind while you quietly build the case against him. Even when you have a solid case, I don’t want you to talk to him or confront him.”
“Why not?”
“Joe,” Rulon said, “you’re a good man. I’ll miss working with you when my term is over. One of the reasons I like you is that you don’t think like a politician. Your boss does, goodness knows, but you don’t.”
Joe wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult.
Rulon said, “With this in my pocket and at the ready, I have leverage against the feds if they decide to list the sage grouse as an endangered species. I can let them know through back channels that they better not rush to judgment. I’ll let them know that if they try to rush studies or suddenly come to conclusions that the plight of the sage grouse will shut down our energy sector, I’ll release the information that their own guy in the field killed an entire population of birds we tried to protect. I’ll reveal it in a press conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. I’ll wave your report around like I was McCarthy with his list of communists in the State Department!”