ONE
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett stood on the edge of the tarmac with his hands thrust into the pockets of his parka and his gray Stetson clamped on tight against the cold wind. It was a week until his birthday and his leg hurt and the brisk chill made him feel all of his fifty-one years on the planet.
His first glimpse of the $65 million Gulfstream G650ER private jet was of a gleaming white speck high above the rounded, snowcapped peaks of the Bighorn Mountains to the west.
It was a cloudless mid-October morning, but it had snowed an inch during the night and the ten-mile-an-hour breeze cleared the concrete of the runway, rolling thin smoky waves of flakes across the pavement of the Saddlestring Municipal Airport. The timbered mountains had received three to five inches that would likely melt away in the high-altitude sun, but the treeless summits looked like the white crowns of so many bald eagles standing shoulder to shoulder against the clear blue sky.
“Cold this morning,” Brock Boedecker said.
“Yup.”
Boedecker was a fourth-generation rancher whose land reached up from the breakland plateau into the midpoint of Battle Mountain. He had a classic western look about him: narrow, thin, with deep-set eyes and a bushy black mustache, its tips extending to his jawline. It was the kind of weathered look, Joe thought, that had once convinced the marketing team at Marlboro to hire the local Wyoming cowboy who’d brought them horses for their ad shoot instead of the male models they’d flown out from Hollywood.
“Not quite ready for snow yet,” Boedecker said while tucking his chin into the collar of his jacket.
“Nope.”
“About a month early for these temps.”
“Yup.”
“It’s supposed to warm up a little later this week.”
“Yup.”
Boedecker asked, “Are you sure this is something we want to do?”
“Not really.”
“Damn. I feel the same way. Is there any way we can get out of it?”
“Nope.”
“I could do it without you,” the rancher said. “Hell, I do this all the time.”
“I know you could. But I wouldn’t feel right letting you down at the last minute. I’m the one that got you into this, remember?”
“How’s your leg?” Boedecker asked.
“Getting better all the time.”
It was true. The gunshot Joe had sustained was healing on schedule due to months of rehabilitation and physical therapy, but he still walked with a limp. On cold mornings like this, he could feel it where the rifle round had punched through his thigh—a line of deadness rimmed by pangs of sharp pain when he moved.
Boedecker sighed. It seemed like there was something he wanted to say, so Joe waited. Finally: “Well, them horses you ordered are all trailered up and ready. I’ll wait for you inside, I think.”
Joe nodded. He turned to watch Boedecker make his way toward the glass doors of the old terminal. The rancher wore a weathered black hat, a canvas barn coat stained with oil, and a magenta silk scarf wrapped around his neck. His back was broad. The scarf reminded Joe that cowboys, even the crustiest of them, always displayed a little flash in their dress.
“Thanks for helping me out with this, Brock,” Joe called out after him.
“You bet, Joe,” he answered with a wave of his hand. He paused at the door and looked over his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure I’d get here on time this morning. Did you know the sheriff has a roadblock set up so only authorized people can get to the airport?”
Joe said, “I heard about that.”
“I guess they were worried about a mob scene. That’s what the deputy told me. This guy is some big shot, huh?”
“That’s what they say.”
“I can’t say I support what we’re doing,” the rancher said. “I wish we weren’t doing it.”
“I know,” Joe said. Then: “It’s supposed to be a big secret, so I’d appreciate you keeping it between us.”
“Word’s already out,” Boedecker said.
“I don’t know how,” Joe said. The only reason he’d told Boedecker what he was about to do was because he’d needed to rent horses and tack from the rancher.
“I’m just not feeling too good about this guy,” Boedecker said.
Joe nodded his understanding. Up until the week before, he’d been in the same boat. His wife, Marybeth, had needed to explain to him who the man was, even though everyone—especially their three daughters—seemed to know all about him.
“Are you still convinced we’ll have ’em all back down by the time the cattle trucks show up? The horses, I mean?”
“Absolutely,” Joe said. “We’ll be back down by Friday.”
“Good, ’cause I loaded up my best mounts. Nothing but the best, you said.”
“Thank you,” Joe said with relief. “Did you remember to stop by our place and load Toby?”
“Yup.”
Toby was Marybeth’s oldest and most seasoned mount. He was a tall tobiano paint gelding who still displayed boyish enthusiasm, especially when he was taken away from the barn and corral and shown mountain trails.
“Any of these dudes ever been on a horse before?”
“They claim they have.”
“Those types always claim they have,” Boedecker said. He shook his head as he went inside.
Joe turned back to the west. The Gulfstream was now in profile, streaking left to right across the sky in order to make the turn and line up with the north-south runway.
He rocked back on his boot heels and tried to conjure a sense of anticipation, the feeling of excitement he used to feel as a younger man just prior to setting out into the mountains on an adventure. He’d toss and turn in bed the night before and be up hours before dawn to get ready, filled with a kind of primal joy.
Joe dug deep, but he couldn’t find it now.
* * *
—
He was dressed as he always was for a day in the field, in his red uniform shirt with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department pronghorn antelope patch on the sleeve and his J. PICKETT name badge over his breast pocket. Under his uniform shirt and Wranglers were lightweight wool long underwear and socks. He wore a dark green wool Filson vest under his olive-green uniform parka.
He’d been instructed not to wear his holster and .40 Glock semiauto weapon, or his belt containing handcuffs and bear spray. The lack of weight under his parka made him feel airy and incomplete.