Claws Page 11

  “I got two quarter-horses out to pasture,” Jackson said. “And my daughter’s gelding, but he’s with the vet. Couple dozen head of Angus. But everybody has animals.”

  “Well, the good news is the cats won’t likely roam very far. Not if there’s food and shelter right here.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Jackson said.

  “I can help you bring your horses in. Your cattle probably should be penned and guarded or put in the barn.”

  “My barn’s not big enough, and I can’t guard them.”

  “I’d hate to see your horses get hurt.”

  Jackson nodded. “Me too, and I’ll go find them as soon as I can, just not today. My job is to protect people. Right now, my animals are on their own.”

  He started to fold up the map, but Katy stopped him. She tapped a finger on a darker green area. “What’s this?”

  She was pointing to the westernmost sliver of Yellowstone National Park to the northeast. He told her about the west entrance and said, “I don’t even want to think about the mess if these cats got loose in the park.”

  “Then I should get started.”

  “Where?”

  “This goat farm. Last place we know cats were seen. Can you come up with somebody to go hunting with me?”

  Jackson recalled what Major Jessup had said about the two troopers he had left in town. “I think I might.”

  The Roberts twins were waiting for Katy when she arrived at the Wagner goat farm. She had met both men on Monday morning while briefing the State Police hunters, but she had met many other people too, so she hadn’t really talked to them. Now, she asked them about their hunting background and heard about their military experience. They had never hunted big cats, but nobody she was likely to meet in Buckhorn had, except for Dell, and she guessed Dell’s brother, whom she was likely to meet on Tuesday.

  When Katy asked to see their guns, they showed her sniper rifles and Glock handguns. Neither weapon was suitable for hunting lions, as the twins well knew. Dwight still was laughing at their joke as he produced a Remington 770. His cartridges were lighter than Katy liked, but it was a good rifle and could bring down a lion if the shots were well place. Bill had borrowed a .458 Lott and loaded it with 500-grain cartridges. It was overkill, but Katy preferred for them to have too much firepower than not enough. The Roberts twins will do fine, she thought.

  The twins were both skilled hunters and adept at tracking. Even so, Katy led the way, and the men fell in step behind her. Between the scat and the blood, none of them had a problem following the trail. After crossing half-a-mile of fields, they reached a hill spiked with black limbless trees that looked like candles on a witch’s cake. Cheatgrass covered the ground, choking out most native plants. Sumac and rabbit brush and a few flowers sprouted up here and there. It was unusual territory for lions, which prefer open, grassy plains, but Katy looked for signs anyway. She found fresh blood clinging to the cheatgrass and pointed it out. “They went up hill.”

  “Shit!” Dwight said. “I was afraid of that.”

  They climbed the hill single file. Katy took the point and Bill the rear. All three hunters were in good shape for walking, but they went slowly and stopped often to examine the trail and to scout for lions.

  After slogging through grass and brush for an hour, they came to a valley between two hills where the land flattened. Water from an underground source trickled through irrigation ditches. The land was being farmed.

  “I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Dwight said, eyeing the remains of a marijuana field harvested a week or two ago.

  “We’re on public land here,” Bill added.

  “You get a lot of pot farms?” Katy asked.

  “Our fair share,” Bill said. “Meth labs too.”

  For a moment they all stood and eyed the half-acre. There was little left except for a few wilted plants.

  “Let’s keep going,” Katy said. They did, walking rapidly through the pot farm. Despite the drought, the ground beneath them was soft, even squishy. Once they crossed the marijuana farm, they waded into yarrow, rabbit brush, silver sagebrush, and a clumped, tall grass that Katy didn’t recognize. They slowed the pace and moved eyes-alert and body-tense without speaking. Halfway through the valley, Katy signaled to stop. She squatted and took out a hunting knife and speared a piece of goat hide. Flesh still was attached to the underside of the hide. The flesh was bloody and wet. Wet meant recent.

  Katy raised her gaze and looked into a pair of amber eyes. The male lion was forty feet away and low to the ground. He was crouched and locked in on her. Before Katy could say anything to alert the twins, the grass and brush parted revealing a golden-brown blur. Katy swung around the .375 and fired. She only got off a single shot. By the time the lion fell over, his tongue was licking her boot.

  Seventeen

  By Monday evening the streets were jammed with SUVs, pickups, campers, vans, and rental cars. Five media trucks emblazoned with initials also rolled into town. To handle the traffic Jackson called in half his reserve officers and John Plaides as well. His budget was being beat to hell. In addition to traffic snarls they dealt with two fights and three fender benders early that evening. The last fight resulted in an arrest. Jackson and officer Plaides cuffed the drunks to desks in the station until a deputy sheriff could pick them up. Jackson was getting coffee when Bill Kenny, a reserve officer, informed him that Iris was on television. The Idaho Lion Hunt was national news.

  After watching Iris’ interview, Jackson worked out a schedule to have two reserve officers cruise the town at dawn and at sundown, when big cats were most on the move. The last thing he wanted was lions and tigers in Buckhorn.

  He had not talked to Katy since she called to tell him about killing the lion near the Wagner goat farm, so after cruising the downtown area and surrounding streets one more time, he drove to the Sportsman Motel. The lights were off in Katy’s room. Jackson didn’t see his truck in the parking lot, and he was about to drive away when Missy Yow stumbled out of a nearby motel room and vomited. In the seconds the motel door was open, Jackson heard loud hip-hop music and saw a few teenagers inside the room.

  He got a bottle of water out of the Jeep and crossed to where Missy was retching. He waited for her to finish and then gave her the water. “You gonna be okay?”

  “Oh god!” she said when she recognized who had asked the question. “I’m so sick. Uh, stomach flu I guess.”

  “Nasty stuff, stomach flu.” Jackson went to the door. “Take some aspirin. Might help the hangover.” He opened the motel door and found a dozen teenagers gathered in the room. He spotted Shane, Buzz Phelps, Grace Lake, and two other kids he recognized as Jesse’s friends, as well as some kids he didn’t know well or at all. He smelled pot and saw two cases of beer. Grace turned off the boombox and the room got quiet. Then the bathroom door opened.

  Jesse came out smiling and talking. “What’d everyone get so –” She stopped when she saw her father.

  Christ! Jackson thought. “Whose room is this?”

  After a long silence a tall curly-headed boy who looked about seventeen spoke up. “Mine, sir.”

  Jackson didn’t know him. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Justin Sable. I’m … I’m his cousin.” He pointed to Buzz Phelps. A junior at Buckhorn high, Buzz was Missy’s boyfriend. “My dad, he’s coming from Utah tomorrow for the hunt but he had to rent the room today or lose it so …”

  “We got two people dead and one missing and others in the hospital, people some of you kids have known all your life. I should bust you just for being callous.” Jackson paused. “So listen up, all of you. I’m going to look the other way. When I turn back around, I expect to see any dope you got tossed on the bed.” There were two queen beds in the room. “The dope and the beer stay here. You don’t. You got thirty minutes to get home.” Jackson turned away as small amounts of loose pot, some joints, and tabs of Ecstasy were dropped on the bed before the kids scampered out. When Shane tried to
leave, Jackson said, “Not you.”

  “Daddy,” Jesse said. She hadn’t moved.

  “You stay, Jesse. And you, Justin.” Jackson gathered up the drugs and told Shane to follow him. “I’m going to ask you something,” Jackson said when they were standing in front of the motel room. “And I want you to tell me the truth.” Jackson waited until Shane had nodded. “You and Jesse getting high in there like the others?”

  Shane shuffled his feet before saying, “Well, I, uh, I smoked a little weed, but not Jesse. She never has, I don’t think. And she doesn’t like beer.”

  “Jesse’s been through a lot these past few days, so I want you to cool it with her for a while.”

  “You mean like break up? Stop seeing her?”

  Jackson shook his head. “Shane, I know what’d happen if I said that. I’m just saying, might be good to cancel your social plans until … until things are normal.”

  Minutes later, he let Shane leave. Then he talked to Justin Sable. He told the boy he was under house arrest and wasn’t to leave the motel room unless it was on fire. Jackson stuck crime scene tape across the door to further impress Justin and told Jesse he would take her home.

  “Can’t I just go to the farm with you?”

  “Not without telling your mom.”

  Her face dropped. “Everything?”

  Jackson didn’t answer, and when they reached Jesse’s home in town, she started to bail out before the Jeep rolled to a stop. “Hang on a minute,” Jackson said.

  “Dad, Mom will kill me if –”

  “Close the door,” Jackson told her. Jesse shut it softly. He opened the glove box and took out the condom Iris had given him. “Your mom found this in your dresser.”

  “She searched my room? God!”

  “Fifteen is kind of young, Jesse.”

  “This is like so creepy.”

  “Are you and Shane –?”

  “NO! We’re not … I mean, I’m still … I’m not. God!”

  Jackson indicated the condom in his hand. “Then what’re you doing with this condom and a dozen more?”

  Jesse hesitated. “Do you have to tell Mom?”

  “You’re really not in a position to bargain, Jesse.”

  Jesse waited and Jackson waited and then she said, “I’m hiding them.” Jackson waited longer. “For Missy and Buzz. They used to keep them at school, but the principal started doing locker checks, even in the gym and stuff. And Missy’s mom, she’s like really strict, and so are Buzz’s parents. They all go to the same church.”

  “Give the condoms back to them.”

  “Please don’t tell Mom.”

  “No promises,” Jackson said and then smiled. “But I think it can wait a few days.”

  As Jackson returned to the police station he thought about how easy it was for kids to get liquor and drugs even in rural Idaho. The pot he knew about already. Rob Piccard, a young man who had returned badly messed up from Afghanistan, was the local supplier. Jackson figured that as long as amounts were small, it was safer for the kids to buy pot from Piccard than to go out of town where they might encounter more serious criminals.

  When Jackson reached Justin Sable’s father in Utah, the man raised all kinds of hell. He didn’t want Jackson talking to his son, a minor, without him being present. Reed Sable said he’d be in Buckhorn the following morning.

  Katy returned to her motel room after having dinner at Palomino’s Bar & Grill and called Stan Ely. She asked him about the status of the injunction.

  “We hit a snag,” Stan said. “Our paperwork won’t get filed ’til tomorrow. But I still hope we’ll get to argue it on Wednesday and get the judge to rule.”

  “Look, I think it’s great you’re doing this.”

  “Then go public with your support. It would help.”

  “With the injunction? I don’t see how.”

  “With me trying to raise money.”

  If Stan arrived before she could capture Kali or any cubs Kali might have had already, Katy was certain he would want the rare liger cubs for his animal rescue ranch in Colorado. He would be a competitor. An injunction to end the hunt would help her, while Stan raising money to rush to Idaho would not. “Let me think about it,” Katy said.

  Jackson slept fitfully on Monday night, his sleep dream-filled. He was up and in town early on Tuesday. He didn’t wear his uniform but took the dark blues and some black dress shoes to change into later that morning.

  The day didn’t start well. Within two minutes of meeting Reed Sable, Jackson disliked him. Maybe it was because Sable tried to blame the local kids for the booze and drugs? Maybe it was because Sable asked Jackson if he was Mormon? Maybe it was because Sable was an investment banker? Or maybe Sable was simply easy to dislike?

  Still, there was no reason to drag it out. Jackson had gotten the information he wanted from Justin Sable: the pot was local, the “X” came from Seattle, and the beer was purchased by Grace Lake, a senior, using a fake ID. It had come from a store in Idaho Falls. Grace already had turned in her fake ID and agreed to do community service.

  “Justin won’t be charged with anything, Mr. Sable. I’ll leave any punishment up to you.” Before Sable could say anything more to irritate him, Jackson stood, shook hands, and wished Sable and his son good luck on the hunt.

  Iris showed up at his door not long after Sable left. She wore a black dress with black pumps and had toned down her usual bright lipstick for something barely noticeable.

  “Why is Annie Oakley shooting lions before the hunt even begins?” she asked.

  “Annie Oakley? Where’d that come from?”

  “She didn’t buy a license.”

  “And Katy’s not going to. She’s helping me.”

  “I bet she is.”

  “She helped Dix and Anita Wagner too. Dix will be fine, in case you didn’t know.”

  Iris shifted to a friendlier tone. “Dan Tapper wants to meet her, so make sure she comes to the lunch.”

  Jackson nodded. “I’ll pass the invitation along.”

  Iris hesitated. “You talk to Jesse yet?”

  “Not yet,” he said, lying. “But I will. Soon.”

  “The lion hunt is going to work,” Iris said as she walked off. “Don’t be late for lunch. And bring Annie Oakley.”

  The door had barely closed on Iris when Jackson heard the helicopter. Last night, news helicopters had buzzed the area so often that he had contacted Boise and the FAA. Once he did, the flight path had been restricted. Nobody wanted to risk the choppers scaring the cats and causing them to scatter. The no-fly-rule over the town, thought Jackson, must not apply to the lieutenant governor.

  Eighteen

  Dan Tapper knew the governor would give him hell for borrowing the Black Hawk from the Idaho National Guard. He also knew that stepping out of a military chopper dressed in hunting gear made a bolder statement than arriving by car. Besides, as acting-governor, it was Dan’s job to deal with emergencies, and he figured lions and tigers terrorizing Idaho qualified. While Dan waited for the blades to cease their thwap-thwap-thwap, he watched Dell and Iris, heads lowered, come forward to greet him. Iris’ hair whipped around wildly. She wore a black dress and held the bottom of it with one hand while she waved with the other. Her dress still ballooned up, showing Dan a lot of thigh.

  A moment later Dan stood in the doorway, waved, and smiled at the reporters his campaign manager had alerted. Then he stepped down and hugged Iris, who said, “Welcome to the Idaho Lion Hunt, Mr. Acting-Governor.”

  “Quite an entrance,” Dell said without smiling. Dell had swapped his western suit for a sober blue pinstripe.

  “I’ll need to change for the funeral,” Dan said.

  “I like your outfit,” Iris told him. “Very bold.”

  “And I like your dress,” Dan said with a smile before looking past them. “I see Fox News here so I should say a few words. A good Republican network, they like me.”

  When Jackson got to the Methodist church late Tuesda
y morning, he was wearing his blue uniform, a black armband, and an ankle holster with a .38 revolver. His cell phone was set to vibrate. Half the town was there already and more were arriving as he parked in a spot Brian Patterson was guarding for him. Other drivers weren’t as lucky.

  On his way into the church Jackson greeted Dan Tapper, spoke to Iris and Dell, and hugged his daughter, who then split off to be with her friends, including kids from the motel room party. The nature of Ed’s death, coupled with the public hunt, had attracted the media; the media and Dan Tapper’s presence had brought out a number of State Police troopers. All Buckhorn officers were present except for Angie Kuka. After the service Brian would relieve her so that Angie could attend the burial at the cemetery.

  Jackson endured the hymns and the sermon, but when Becky Rebo, the psychologist sent to visit the Placett children, and also the best singer in the county, warbled Merle Haggard’s Sing Me Back Home, and sang it as slowly and soulfully as possible, Jackson felt the weight of regret dragging him under and struggled to stay afloat.

  Jackson had recovered by the time he served as a pallbearer. Then he drove alone to the cemetery west of town. As soon as the burial ceremony was over, he left like everyone else so that the family could have the final moment alone to say goodbye to Ed. He leaned against his car and except for nodding to people and muttering a few soft hellos, he spent his time thinking about how lucky he was to have known Ed Stevens. He was so lost in thought that he at first did not hear Eileen Stevens say his name.

  “Jackson,” she said again. The group that accompanied Eileen, including Tucker and his wife, waited in a tight cluster a short distance away. “Thank you so much. It’d mean a lot to Ed, knowing you and the others are all here.”

  Jackson hugged Eileen. “I don’t know what to say, Eileen. If I hadn’t sent Ed out there –”

  “He’d have gone anyway,” she said. “Ed did exactly what he thought a good lawman should do. He always told me you’re just like him.”