He jumped out of his truck to move a log that blocked the entrance. As he moved it, he noticed how simply it came up and swung to the side. None of its branches were embedded in the ground and the base of the log was cut cleanly, meaning it had been moved before. Perhaps many times.

Joe got back in his pickup and slowly drove into the middle of Eldon Cates’s elk camp.

—

WEATHERED GRAY CROSS POLES had been chained to the lodgepole trunks to hang game carcasses. Each had a rusty block-and-tackle assembly at the midpoint of the game pole.

Several square-shaped tent sites were aligned around a blackened fire pit. Broken glass winked within the pit, as did beer bottle caps. Metal boxes were stacked against the inside granite wall. They were locked and bear-proof.

It was a terrific location for an elk camp, he thought. No wonder Eldon kept it a secret.

The white Yarak, Inc. panel van was located against the thick wall of trees on the south edge of the camp. It didn’t look to be parked there as much as pushed there.

Joe approached it on foot with his shotgun barrel resting in the crook of his left arm. He noticed that both the front and back bumpers were practically wrenched from the van’s frame, probably from tow chains they’d used to pull the vehicle up the rocky road.

He photographed the van from several angles as he got close to it. Other than the bumpers, it didn’t appear to be damaged.

Joe took a breath before peering inside. He braced himself, hoping he wouldn’t find Liv Brannan’s body on the floor of the van. He exhaled his relief.

After pulling on a pair of leather gloves so he wouldn’t leave additional fingerprints on the surfaces, he opened the vehicle and shot the interior with his camera. He recognized the hoods and jesses hanging from the inside walls as Nate’s. Joe wondered what the Cateses had done with the falcons. He hoped they were still alive.

—

BACK AT HIS PICKUP, Joe tried again to see if he could raise a signal on his cell phone or radio. Nothing.

He dug his satellite phone from the back gear box and he tried to get a signal through the snowfall and tree canopy. It didn’t work, either.

It was oddly quiet within the elk camp. Snow floated straight down and muted outside sound. There was about three inches of snow on the ground now, but not enough to be concerned about. How beautiful it looked, he thought. Even the worst scenes could be improved by a layer of white snow.

Joe placed the shotgun muzzle down on the floorboard and marked the location on his GPS for later. He called Daisy back into the cab and hoisted himself behind the wheel. He performed a three-point turn on the grounds of the campsite to head back down the mountain. There was an hour of daylight left and he thought there was no reason he shouldn’t make it. Going down the switchback road would be faster than coming up. The only thing he had to worry about was not pushing too hard and sliding his tires off the rocks and the truck into the trees.

As he turned the wheel and pointed the nose of the pickup toward the slot, it suddenly filled with a pair of headlights that blocked the exit.

Joe recognized the pickup immediately by the steel pole and crossbeam in the bed: it belonged to Bull Cates.

—

IT HAPPENED FAST, so fast Joe almost didn’t have time to react.

Bull slammed his truck into park and bailed out with a semiautomatic rifle loaded with a large magazine, the driver’s-side door thumping the rock wall because it was such close quarters. He had to step back to close the door to give himself a shooting lane.

Joe considered flooring the accelerator of his own pickup in the hope that the head-on collision would knock Bull’s vehicle out of the entrance. But Bull’s truck was a three-quarter-ton four-wheel-drive, and Joe drove a half-ton Ford F-150. At best, he might push Bull’s vehicle back a few feet but he would probably injure himself in the process. Instead, Joe reached for his shotgun.

But Bull was faster. There was a sharp crack, a hole in Joe’s windshield at eye level, and searing pain on the right side of his head.

He flopped more than dove to his right, pinning Daisy to the bench seat.

Bull was firing as quickly as he could pull the trigger.

Round after round punched through the windshield and exited through the back. Slivers of glass were everywhere, on Joe’s clothing, in Daisy’s coat, all over the seat, on the floorboards. As he writhed, trying to get even lower, he saw bright red blood on Daisy’s head and shoulders, lots of it, but she didn’t seem to be hurt.

Then he realized the blood was coming from him. Nothing bled like a head wound.

Bull apparently leveled his aim and Joe felt the bullets thump into the grille of his pickup and actually rock it back and forth on its springs. A bullet caromed off the front hood into the shattered windshield and the entire plate of glass imploded and fell into the cab like a collapsed roof.

Joe tried to recall how long the magazine was on Bull’s rifle and tried to guess how many rounds he had left. He knew his truck had been hit at least twenty times, maybe more.

He reached up to the side of his head with his right hand and when he took it away it was covered with blood. He could actually hear it pattering on the fabric of the bench seat when it wasn’t pouring onto Daisy. Joe couldn’t tell how badly he was hit. His right eye socket was filled with blood and he wiped it clean with his shirtsleeve to clear his vision. He recalled once encountering a hunter who flagged him down because he said he had a terrible headache. Turned out he had shot himself in the head. He died before the EMTs could arrive.

Suddenly, the cab filled with acrid steam. He recognized the smell as fluid pouring from the radiator through bullet holes onto the hot engine. It stung his eyes and made Daisy whimper.

Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack.

The pickup jerked with every shot, and it was remarkable how fast the punctured tires deflated.

Then silence.

—

TWENTY SECONDS OF SILENCE. Snow fell inside the cab through the frame of the missing windshield.

Joe could only guess what Bull was doing. Approaching the truck? Reloading? Waiting for Joe to rise up and look around so he could finish him?

Although his ears were ringing from the rifle shots, Joe heard a metal-on-metal sound and then the distinctive snap of a bolt being engaged.

Reloading.

Daisy whimpered again and Joe realized he was crushing her. He repositioned himself so she could breathe more easily. As he did, slivers of glass tinkled from the seat to the floorboards.

“Hey, game warden, are you in there?” Bull called.

Joe didn’t respond.

“Good thing I took the long way home tonight and ran across them tire tracks in the snow. I followed them all the way here, but I didn’t think it would be you.”

The voice didn’t sound any closer. Joe imagined Bull was still near his own truck, probably still on the side of it, since he’d been able to reach into the cab for his second magazine.

“I told you I’d get even with you for taking away my livelihood,” Bull said. “I just never figured you’d come to me.”

After a beat, Bull said, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Joe didn’t raise his head. He held Daisy down with his right hand and searched through the broken glass on the floor for his shotgun. When he closed his hand around the grip, he felt the piercing bite of dozens of tiny slivers of glass in the flesh of his palm.

Because she didn’t like being confined, Daisy moaned.

Bull obviously heard it and mistook it as coming from Joe. He said, “What do you know? It sounds like you’re hurt. I thought I got you with that first shot.”

Joe pulled the shotgun closer to him.

“Since you seen that van, there was only one way this could go,” Bull said. His voice was growing louder. He was cautiously approaching Joe’s pickup. Joe could hear boots crunch in the snow.