Stone Cold (24 page)

He nodded, and said, “I think I'm on their trail.”

•   •   •

A
N HOUR
AND TWO
C
OORS
and a double cheeseburger later, the south interior door of the saloon opened inward and three men shuffled in. Joe glanced at his watch—eight-thirty. It was a half-hour after the wild game–processing facility had closed to receiving, and the men were obviously employees just off the clock. They looked exhausted. Joe recognized two of them from when he entered the lot before nightfall as the workers who assisted the Michigan hunters with their deer. One large man with a full red beard still wore his blood-covered apron. Small bits of bone, like cracker crumbs, nested in his beard from sawing off limbs and cracking through pelvises
and rib cages. The red-bearded man and a second meatcutter took two adjacent barstools, and the third wandered Joe's way, looking for a place to sit.

Joe had empty barstools on both sides of him, and he nodded toward the approaching meatcutter that it was okay for him to have a seat. The worker nodded back, sat down on Joe's left with a heavy sigh. He was short and round, with thinning black hair and had the bulbous red nose of a drinker.

“Want a beer?” Joe asked, gesturing toward the five full cans and three whiskey shots sitting in front of him. “Guys keep buying rounds for the house and every time I look up, there's another one in front of me. I don't even want to try to drink 'em all.”

The worker looked over, assessing Joe's intentions.
Free beer from a stranger?
“Are you kidding?”

“Nope. Somebody back there came up with a rule where anyone who got his deer or elk today had to buy a round for the house. I was just sitting here minding my own business, and the drinks started piling up. Feel free to have one . . . or two.”

“Hell of a deal,” the worker said with a grin, and quickly drained half of a Coors in a long pull. “Damn, that's good after the kind of day I had.”

“Lots of work back there?” Joe asked.

“Jesus, you have no idea,” the man said, shaking his head. “I think we took in something like thirty deer and seven elk today. I'm worn out from lifting those things from the back of pickups and carrying quarters to the butcher tables, I'll tell you. I couldn't wait until closing time.”

“I'll bet,” Joe said as the worker finished the beer, crushed the
aluminum can as if pronouncing it dead, and started to reach for another.

He paused: “Are you
sure
?”

“I'm sure,” Joe said. “I'm going out early tomorrow and I don't want to be hungover.”

“I wouldn't come to work any other way.” The man laughed as he slid another beer toward him from Joe's collection.

His name was Willie McKay, he told Joe over the next half-hour and three beers. An unspoken deal was struck: he'd keep talking as long as Joe provided the free alcohol. It was a part-time job, he said, that supplemented the limits of his EBT card, and it was a good deal for him, tax-wise, because he and the other meatcutters were paid off the books in cash. He'd once been a logger, McKay said, before that industry went “all to shit.”

Joe brought the conversation back to the facility. He said, “I'm considering bringing my elk here if I kill it tomorrow. Between you and me, if it were you, would you bring game here to be processed? I'm real particular about how it turns out.”

“Shit,” McKay said, “I'd bring my kill here in a heartbeat, and I don't even hunt. You can't do no better than this place, I swear it.”

“What about keeping track of my elk?” Joe asked. “It wouldn't get thrown in with someone else's animal?”

“Not a chance in hell,” McKay said, slightly offended at the question. “Part of my job is to tag the quarters of every carcass that comes in. We make damned sure we never mix the meat—even the hamburger. You get back what you brought in, one thousand percent.”

“That's good to hear,” Joe said. “So your hours are from six in the morning to eight at night?”

“Long fucking day,” McKay said, sighing and reaching for Joe's last spare beer. He didn't feel the need to even ask anymore. As he did, Joe signaled the bartender for two more.

McKay said, “If you want one-inch steaks and chops, that's what you'll get. If you want the steaks butterflied, well, it'll cost you a little more in labor, but that's what you'll get. And if you want some of the trim ground into burger, sausage, or jerky, well, we make the best there is.”

“Is it just the three of you?” Joe asked, nodding toward the other two meatcutters who had set up a few stools down.

“Sometimes there's as many as seven,” McKay said. “We were supposed to have more help today, in fact, but the guys they hired didn't even bother to show up. That's why I'm so beat. What is it with young people anymore?” he asked. “Don't none of them have a work ethic at all? They'd rather play video games or jerk off to their iPads or whatever it is they do, because they sure don't want to work hard.”

Joe shrugged.

“Hey,” McKay said suddenly, as his new beer arrived, “you want to see the shop? You'll see I'm not blowing smoke.”

“You mean a tour?” Joe asked.

“Like that,” McKay said.

Not really,
Joe thought. But when he saw through the crowd of milling hunters that Bill Critchfield and Gene Smith had entered the saloon by way of the lobby, he said, “Let's go.”

“Now?” McKay asked, with the beer halfway to his mouth.

Critchfield and Smith seemed to be very well known among the hunters, and several stepped forward to shake their hands and tell them about their day—as if seeking approval from them. Joe realized why: most of the men in the room had booked their hunting trips
through the two local men who had access to Templeton's game-rich private land.

“Now,” Joe said to McKay, quickly turning on his stool so his back was to Critchfield and Smith. He didn't think they'd recognize him without his uniform shirt but couldn't afford to take any chances. “Bring your beer along. I'll pop for another one when we come back.”

“Hell of a deal,” McKay said, turning and dismounting from his stool. He hopped down with more energy than he'd shown when he entered the saloon, Joe thought, as if the beer had served as nutrition.

Joe kept his back to Critchfield and Smith as he followed McKay through hunters toward the south door. The red-bearded meatcutter raised his eyebrows as they passed by, and McKay said to him, “He wants a tour.”

“Don't mess anything up,” the bearded man said. “And make sure the lights are off and everything's locked back up when you leave.”

•   •   •

A
S THE
DOOR
wheezed shut behind them, Joe let out a long breath of relief.

The wild game–processing facility was larger than he had anticipated, and as clean and sterile-looking as advertised. Long stainless-steel counters ran along the side walls, and a stout steel table stood in the middle. A worn but spotless butcher block bristled with knives and cleavers, and an assortment of bone saws hung from hooks on the wall. It smelled of ammonia from being wiped down, and there was an absence of the metallic meat and blood smell in the air that lingered in similar shops Joe had experienced. The large accordion door to the receiving dock outside was closed tight and locked with a chain and padlock, Joe noted.

“What do you think?” McKay asked with pride as he lowered his beer.

“Impressive,” Joe said. “You guys seem to take a lot of pride in your work.”

McKay shrugged. “We don't have a choice, really. It gets crazy during hunting season sometimes. But somebody complained to Mr. T. himself, and he showed up here one night a couple of years ago and he ripped each one of us new assholes and fired the foreman. He said he wanted this room to look like a surgical suite in a hospital from then on, and we never know when he might pop in and start firing people—or worse—if we screw up.”

“That would be Wolfgang Templeton?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, he's the owner of this whole operation: the rooms, the restaurant, and the wild game–processing facility. Like I said, he pays in cash and he pays well. I don't want to lose this gig and neither do the others, so we keep the shop spotless.”

“What did you mean when you said
or worse
?” Joe asked.

McKay leaned close enough to Joe that Joe could smell his beer breath. He said, “Did you happen to notice those two guys who just came into the bar out there a minute ago? Guys wearing cowboy hats and acting like fucking lords of the manor or something?”

“I saw them,” Joe said.

“They work for Mr. T., running the guiding and hunting operation, and throw their weight around. I don't think Mr. T. knows what assholes they are.”

“Like how?” Joe asked.

“They're thugs,” McKay said, shaking his head. The alcohol had loosened his tongue. “It ain't unusual for them to take somebody outside and whip their asses if they think he ain't doing his job or if
he gives them any lip. That's one reason, I think, it's getting harder and harder to get new employees. The word is out that if you screw up, you might get your ass kicked.”

Joe shook his head in sympathy.

McKay said, “I keep my nose clean around those yay-hoos, I'll tell you.”

“Probably a smart plan.”

“You bet it is. Hey, do you want to see the whole plant?”

Joe figured Critchfield and Smith were likely still in the saloon, so he agreed.

•   •   •

H
E FOLLOWED
M
C
K
AY
through the refrigerated meat-hanging lockers while the cutter kept up a nonstop dialogue. Joe was astounded at the quantity of hanging skinned carcasses. There were so many, and they were packed together so tightly, that he couldn't wade through them without thumping his shoulder into meaty hindquarters, which bumped into adjoining quarters and set them all rocking slightly. The exposed meat and tallow had taken on a veneer like translucent wax due to exposure to air, but beneath the dry exterior the lean muscle had plenty of give. He noted the multiple tags on each carcass indicating who had brought it in, just as McKay had said.

As McKay explained the process, Joe noted another large steel door on the back wall. As McKay shifted his weight during his monologue, Joe could see a sophisticated keypad near the doorjamb behind him.

“What's in there?” he asked.

McKay paused and turned. “Oh, that room is reserved for the ranch.”

“What does that mean?”

“They don't want their beef mixed up with all this wild game,” McKay said. “So they hang beef in there.”

“And they need a keypad lock?” Joe asked.

“I guess they don't want none of the employees pinching any of it,” McKay said with a shrug.

“This place is quite an operation,” Joe said.

McKay finished his beer and crushed the can. “You still buyin'?” he asked.

“Yup,” Joe said.

•   •   •

H
E PAUSED
AT THE SOUTH DOOR
after McKay went through it to confirm that Critchfield and Smith had left. Then he bought McKay another beer, excused himself, and went outside.

Joe walked along the loading dock to the east side of the facility, re-creating in his mind where the freezer room was, and where the hanging lockers were located. There, on the other side of the stone exterior wall, was Templeton's private meat locker. There were no windows or openings to indicate what was there.

He squinted and rubbed his chin.

Sand Creek Ranch

With a pair of snips from his tool bag, Joe clipped the holding wires of the three taut strands of barbed wire on the steel T-post that delineated the western border of the Sand Creek Ranch. He'd strapped on a headlamp to be able to see what he was doing. The ATV idled in the trees behind him.

After flattening the loosened barbed wire to the ground with two downed logs, he climbed back on the four-wheeler and drove the vehicle over the top, then rolled the logs away. He loosely restored the fence behind him with baling wire he always carried with him.

Joe glanced around at the terrain and hoped he'd be able to find the entrance he'd created on his way out. There were no landmarks or characteristics to the endless pine forest all around him except for the faint old logging road he'd taken to approach the ranch from the west. He'd decided early on he couldn't risk driving through the entrance gate again where the closed-circuit cameras were located.

Over the years, Joe had rarely trespassed on private property. But the few times he'd had to—to find a wounded animal or rescue a hunter or fisherman—were the reason he always carried cutters and wire for a quick repair.

Nevertheless, his conscience nagged at him. There he was, out of uniform and trespassing on a private ranch without invitation and with only the vague authority of the governor of Wyoming—who would likely plead ignorance if Joe was caught or arrested. This was
after
he'd registered under a false name at a hunting lodge.

•   •   •

A
S HE
PICKED HIS WAY UP
the mountain on the ATV, he kept the speed low and his eyes wide open so he wouldn't overrun the pool of yellow light from the four-wheeler's headlights. The old road he was on hadn't been maintained and at times was blocked by brush and fallen logs. Several times, he looked ahead to see twin sets of green eye dots in the blackness ahead—deer or elk eyes reflecting back. For a mile or so, he followed fresh elk tracks and pellets on the two-track ahead of him until the herd eventually broke off and plunged into the forest.

He had no idea where the old road would end, but it was going where he wanted to go: east and up. Joe hoped that when he found the spine of the local Black Hills he'd be able to get his bearings, see below into the timbered valley, and possibly get a cell phone signal to check messages and communicate.

The department had never replaced the handheld GPS he'd left in his old pickup on the top of the mountain in the Bighorns, and until this moment, Joe hadn't missed it. Judging by the rounded peaks ahead under the star-washed sky, he
thought
he was headed in the
right direction. If he was correct, he should be able to see the ranch headquarters below him through his binoculars and get a better understanding of the layout.

•   •   •

W
HEN HE
CRESTED THE RIDGE,
a line shack appeared in his headlights so suddenly Joe didn't have the opportunity to kill the motor or douse his lights before he was upon it. Instinctively, he braked and froze while a swirl of dust from the knobby tires of the ATV curled through the beam.

Joe recovered from the surprise of seeing the structure fifty feet in front of him and snatched his shotgun out of the saddle scabbard. He dismounted and took several steps to the left into the trees and waited for the door of the shack to open or the curtains behind a window to rustle.

What would he tell the occupant about why he was there? Joe was a poor liar. He could only hope he'd be instantly mistaken for a lost hunter.

He cursed to himself as he pressed the slide release of his Wingmaster, ready if necessary to defend himself by racking in a 12-gauge shell filled with buckshot. He could feel his heart whump in his chest, and he tried to hear over the roar of blood in his ears.

Nothing happened.

The shack looked occupied: there was fresh lumber and building materials stacked on the side of it, there were tire tracks in the ground on the edge of the cut grass, and bright multicolored electrical wires were stapled to the exterior logs. A new galvanized tin chimney on the roof didn't even have soot on it yet, and it gleamed in the lights from his ATV.

After a few minutes of waiting, Joe cautiously approached his four-wheeler and shut it off and killed the headlights. Was it possible, he wondered, that whoever was inside hadn't heard him coming in the dead of night? He considered rolling the ATV back down the hill until he was far enough away to start it and retreat off the mountain, but instead he was drawn to the shack first. Did a Templeton ranch hand stay there? Was anybody home?

•   •   •

H
E MUTED
HIS HEADLAMP
down to a faint glow and carefully circumnavigated the structure while staying in the trees. There was no doubt the old cabin was under construction, but no way to tell from the outside if anyone was inside. He found no vehicles in the timber beside it, but he did see a crate-sized box raised on stilts just inside the tree line. There was rustling from inside.

Joe approached the construction and leaned into it. The front was open and covered with wire mesh, and when he twisted slightly on the lens of his lamp the three hooded falcons came into view. They were perched on dowel rods and facing him, aware of his presence. A redtail, a prairie, and a peregrine that looked startlingly familiar. He recognized the tooled leather hood and leather jesses from the last time he'd seen the bird in person.

“Nate,” Joe whispered.

And he turned back to the line shack.

Joe took a deep breath, approached the closed front door. He stood to the side of the doorjamb and rapped on it with his backhand knuckles, in case Nate instinctively grabbed his weapon inside and decided to fire through the door.

“Nate. It's Joe Pickett.”

There was no reaction from inside. He knocked again—harder—and said: “Nate. Let me in. We need to talk.”

Nothing.

Joe thought the likelihood of Nate blasting him was remote. Nate wasn't one to panic. Even so, he wasn't the kind of man to surprise, either.

Joe reached down and turned the knob. Unlocked. He pushed the door open and entered, using his headlamp to see inside like a Cyclops.

After thirty seconds, Joe had no doubt who lived in the line shack. Falconry gear—hoods, jesses, bells, lures—was scattered on the tabletop. Ancient books on falconry were stacked on a single bookshelf next to volumes on war, military tactics, and Special Operations. And in a small frame on the end of the bookshelf was a five-year-old photo of a young girl with a falcon on her arm. Sheridan, fifteen years old, grinned awkwardly at the camera with strands of her blond hair whipping across her face in the wind. The photo tugged at Joe's heart: both that it was a younger and more awkward Sheridan, and that Nate displayed it.

Joe took a deep breath and tried to regain control of his heartbeat and breathing.

He'd found him. But now what?

Nate was obviously gone, but who knew how long? His weapon and hat were missing, and there was no vehicle outside. Folded clothes on the bed indicated he was around, and fresh-skinned grouse marinating in the refrigerator indicated he was coming back soon.

His friend lived in his own world, Joe knew. Nate was prone to midnight sojourns, sitting naked in a tree for hours, and sometimes submerging himself entirely in a river or pond with a breathing tube
just to experience what it was like to be a fish. Nate didn't keep regular hours, and except for feeding and flying his falcons, there was no routine. He could show up at dawn, or within the minute.

Or he could be outside, watching silently to see what Joe was up to.

Now that he'd found Nate's location, Joe wasn't sure he wanted that conversation after all. If his friend was at Sand Creek Ranch, it confirmed to Joe that Nate was hooked up with Wolfgang Templeton. And if what the FBI suspected was true, the surveillance video from the Scoggins compound in Montana might turn out to be enough to place Nate at the scene. Kidnapping and murder were crimes Joe couldn't overlook.

He stood in the cabin for ten more minutes, running scenarios. He could slip out, wait, or set up an ambush. None felt right.

In the end, Joe extracted a single shotgun shell from his pocket and stood it brass-down on the table. Nate had once left a .50 round in Joe's mailbox to signal he was in the area. Nate would recognize the shell and know he'd been there, and draw his own conclusions.

Maybe, Joe thought, Nate would come to
him
.

•   •   •

A
T THE
EDGE OF THE CLEARING,
with the line shack behind him and an access road cut into the hillside below, Joe set up a short tripod and mounted his spotting scope. Lights from the ranch compound winked below. In the star- and moonlight, Joe could make out the silhouette of the lodge itself—it indeed resembled a country castle with turrets and peaked roofs—as well as an assemblage of outbuildings, barns, sheds, and guest cabins. The entrance road to
the compound was illuminated by soft yellow pole lights. The dark ribbon of Sand Creek itself serpentined through the valley floor.

Although he'd viewed the satellite photos of the ranch compound on Google Maps back in his cabin, the shots displayed on his screen had been taken in midsummer, when the main lodge and outbuildings were obscured by trees. Now that the leaves were clearing from the branches, he got a better idea of the layout.

He was no expert at night photography, but he was surprised by the clarity of the digital photos he took of the compound below under the lights. He doubted at that distance he'd be able to capture individuals, though, especially if they were moving. But he used the camera display and the long lens to zoom in on the vehicles parked on the side of the castle and snap uselessly away at them in the hope that a computer whiz at the state crime lab could determine license plate numbers.

More important, for Joe, was simply understanding the large scale and scope of the ranch headquarters itself. He'd been to many in the past, but never one as regal or elegant in design and construction.

Joe's ears pricked when he heard a shout from below, then a slammed door. Floodlights came on and illuminated the huge lawn in front of the castle and a paved circle drive Joe hadn't noticed previously in the dark. The back of the castle blocked his view from whoever had shouted and come outside, and he crawled the scope along the edges of the structure to try and catch a glimpse of who was there.

He could only hope that the reason for the sudden activity was not his presence above them at the line shack. Then, in his peripheral vision, he saw oncoming headlights flashing through the trees on the
road to the headquarters. Someone was coming, and it seemed whoever had hit the lights knew of their imminent arrival.

Joe rocked back from the camera and lens so he could see the whole of it. He caught a glimpse of a woman in a white shirt or jacket emerge on the lawn for a moment, gesticulating to people out of sight. He leaned in and rotated the focus ring and saw her clearly and briefly for a second before she walked out of view toward the front of the building, but it happened too quickly to take a shot. She was young, attractive, black—the woman Latta had mentioned. She waved her arms at someone with the authority of a woman in charge.

A long white SUV with the
SAND CREEK RANCH
logo on the front doors cleared the trees on the road and turned onto the circular driveway. Joe swung his lens over and shot several rapid photographs as the vehicle approached the castle and went out of view in front of it, blocked by the building. A few words of greeting—happy in tone—floated up from the valley.

Whatever was happening, whoever had arrived with such fanfare, couldn't be discerned. He checked the display on the camera and moaned. The shots of the vehicle under the floodlights were blurry and pixelated. From that distance and in the poor light, he couldn't tell who was in the SUV—or how many.

“I,” he said to himself in a whisper, “am a lousy spy.”

•   •   •

T
HREE-QUARTERS OF A MILE AWAY,
on the bank of Sand Creek on the valley floor, in a stand of thick river cottonwoods and red buckbrush, Nate Romanowski watched it all. He clutched a writhing burlap bag filled with pigeons he'd trapped in the loft of an unused barn farther down the river to feed to his birds.

He had no reason to expose himself, and had stopped cold when the floodlights went on in front of the castle. Instead, he'd stepped farther back into the shadows.

He'd watched as ranch staff poured out of the front door, directed by Liv Brannan. She made them stand shoulder to shoulder along the edge of the circular driveway like a scene out of an English drama. Seeing her in action caused a tug in his chest. As she assembled them, Wolfgang Templeton appeared. He was framed by the huge double doors and backlit from inside for a moment before he stepped outside on the portico.