Claws Page 8

  “I think YOU should go to Idaho.”

  “Uh, Janet, I’m on a book tour. Two more weeks.”

  “You know I can cancel the remaining tour.”

  “I know if I suggested it, you’d go ballistic.”

  Janet laughed and drummed her perfect red nails on the steering wheel. “Just think about it a minute – giant cats stalking people in America. Not India or Africa. America! This thing could go viral, and if it does, oh god, the publicity would be great for sales. Besides, nobody has ever hunted ligers before. You’d be the first.” She paused and smiled at Katy. “I smell a new book in this.”

  Janet didn’t usually attend book tour events outside the east coast, and Katy knew Janet was doing her a big favor by being here. “Well, let me think about it, okay.”

  Janet spent another ten minutes convincing Katy that she should go to Idaho immediately. Katy did not tell her that she had booked a flight before even leaving the hotel.

  Jackson was still in his office Sunday evening when he got the phone call. He had intended to contact Katy again, but her offer to come to Idaho surprised him, and he hesitated. When he did, Katy said, “I’m sorry. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you’d want my help.”

  “Want it and need it,” he said. “But without talking to the town mayor, I’m not sure how much we can pay.”

  “In Africa if a village has a man-eating lion or rogue elephant or some other dangerous animal terrorizing them, and if you’re the closest professional hunter, you have to drop everything and go kill it. It’s your duty.”

  “But Idaho’s a long way from Africa.”

  “Not if you have lions and tigers killing people. Anyway, the point is you don’t have to pay me.” Katy then told Jackson her flight schedule and that she had failed to get a connecting flight from Utah to either eastern Idaho airport late on a Sunday night. “I’ll rent a car and –”

  “Don’t. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “In Salt Lake City? Isn’t that kind of far?”

  A drive to Salt Lake City and back would take most of the night. “It’ll give us a chance to talk. Give me a chance to learn as much as I can about lions and tigers.”

  “Learn about me, you mean,” Katy said.

  “That too,” Jackson said with a chuckle. After they ended the phone call, he thought about the drive to Utah for a few minutes, and then he called out, “Brian.”

  “He’s gone,” Tucker said, appearing in the doorway.

  “Tucker? What are you doing here?”

  “Brian’s little girl, she’s sick. So I came in to give him a break. We were going to tell you, but you’ve been on the phone. Brian’s afraid it’s swine flu.”

  “Swine flu? What’s next, plague of locusts? A burning bush?”

  “You shouldn’t blaspheme,” Tucker said. “Chief, sir.”

  “Probably not. Anyway, thanks for helping out.” Tucker nodded as Jackson asked, “Eileen managing okay without you?”

  “She’s at the funeral home now,” Tucker said. “She said Uncle Ed, he left something for you.”

  “She say what?”

  “No. Just that his funeral is gonna be Tuesday.”

  “I’ll let everyone know.”

  Once Tucker left, Jackson phoned Angie Kuka. Ten minutes later, she entered his office.

  “What’s up, Chief?” Angie asked.

  “You,” Jackson said. He handed her a memo that he had written while waiting. “You’re now the Deputy Chief. I’m going to Salt Lake, so you’re in charge until I return.”

  “What’s in Salt Lake City?”

  “A woman who’s a lion hunter.”

  Angie’s mouth hung open in surprise.

  “An ISP major named Jessup will be arriving with some hunters tonight. He’ll be in touch with you.

  Angie glanced behind her at Tucker. “You know, not everybody’s going to like me being promoted.”

  “Everybody doesn’t have to. Just you and me.”

  Twelve

  As far as anyone knew, including wives, the men at Jerry and Marcy Umfleet’s log-kit house were playing cards Sunday night, although no cards were out on the kitchen table. Marcy, a stout woman in a short skirt, the lone female present, was handing out cold Budweiser when Ronnie Greathouse said, “Let’s get started.” Ronnie had swapped his state trooper uniform for jeans and a t-shirt with Jesse James’ image on it. Ronnie had both a swagger and a voice that commanded attention, and the others had ceded the leadership role to him after Ted Cheney quit.

  “What about Tucker?” Jerry asked.

  “Running late. He had to work,” Ronnie said. “Probably just as well given what happened to his uncle.”

  Apart from Ronnie and Jerry, a non-union plumber, only Fred Bulcher, owner of a sand and gravel business, and Joe Kennet, a truck driver from Rexburg, had shown up for the meeting of the Knights of the Golden Circle.

  “I wanna know who let them goddamn cats out,” Ronnie said. Everybody looked at everybody else but nobody spoke up. “Goddamnit, we said we’d send Ted a warning!” bellowed Ronnie. “We said we’d let ONE of his cats out to show him we mean business. A warning to keep his trap shut. But we didn’t say do it right now.” A month earlier Ted ridiculed the small group – they never had more than eight members – and then resigned. “So who screwed it up? Who opened the goddamn zoo doors and killed Ted? I know one of you did.”

  The three men claimed innocence and tossed out wild theories about how Ted’s cats got free. When Ronnie tired of listening to them, he described the plan to bring in the state police hunters. He advised everyone to lay low until the ISP had left. Eventually, they discussed other topics, including a plan to replace Chief Hobbs with Tucker Thule. Jerry reported that the Aryan Brotherhood would back their efforts to defeat the Jew county prosecutor in the upcoming election. Fred was dismissive of Jerry’s plan. He believed change came through violence. Burning out the baby killers in Rexburg had been their biggest moment so far, although among friends they also had taken credit for a murder there. “Revolution spills blood,” Fred argued.

  By the time Tucker arrived, the meeting was nearly over. As soon as the men began popping fresh beers and telling jokes about mud people, dykes, beaners, and ragheads, Ronnie left. Usually he would have joined in, but tonight he had better things to do.

  The night was cool so he zipped his leather jacket before firing up the 2006 Custom Fat Boy. He decided not to wear a helmet. He had photochromic sunglasses for riding at night. He had bought the bike in Pensacola, Florida and ridden it across country. That had been the best week of his life. Pearl black with chrome wheels, the Harley-Davidson had been a pussy magnet from day one, which he knew made it even stranger that he was on his way to see a woman who rode a wheelchair instead of a motorcycle.

  After Maryann Fedder’s accident, her dad had installed a separate door with a ramp that led directly into her ground floor bedroom. The door would be unlocked now and Maryann in bed watching television or reading. At first Ronnie was simply curious about sleeping with a crippled woman. Then he discovered that he truly liked Maryann, and he kept returning to see her. Now he was the backdoor man. The thought made Ronnie laugh. Backdoor man! He wondered if Maryann had done it that way before? Maybe tonight!

  Jackson studied a photo of Katy while he waited in the baggage claim area. This late at night there were few other people. After a while he laid the photo on the seat beside him. He stretched his legs, clasped his hands behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

  To be a policeman, he thought, was to spend each day pushing a boulder up hill knowing that it will naturally roll down again. Although his job was to maintain order, disorder was inherent in life. It simply was a matter of whether we created it or whether disorder found us. There was both rape and Katrina. There was murder, and there was 9/11. There was assault with intent, and there was whatever you call a monster cat that kills a dying man looking to fly-fish his way into that gentle night. His real job, J
ackson decided, was to maintain a myth of order.

  When he heard the announcement for the arrival of the flight from Denver, Jackson got up and went to the men’s room. As he came out he nearly ran over a young woman pushing a wobbly baby stroller. A wheel was bad, and he offered to look at it. The woman wore the old-fashioned long dress of the conservative Mormon sects clustered in southern Utah. She stammered a shy “thank you” but declined his help. He watched her leave, struggling with the stroller. She reminded him of the few traditional Muslim women he had seen in Colorado, the invisibly caged.

  Jackson took out Katy’s photograph again, but he didn’t need it to recognize her. Katy was smaller than he expected and thin too but without looking starved. She moved with the grace of someone who had learned posture by walking with a book on her head. Although most of the other women wore clothes designed for a gym instead of an airport, Katy was dressed in a loose pants and jacket outfit and nice shoes suitable for traveling. She wheeled a sage green carry-on with a computer bag riding piggyback. The strap of a small purse angled across her body, emphasizing her breasts. She spotted him now and smiled.

  “Miss Osborne,” he said, going up to her.

  “Katy,” she told him and smiled again.

  They shook hands. “I’m Jackson Hobbs.”

  “I know,” she said. “From the TV, remember?” Jackson forgot that he was still holding Katy’s photograph until she took it out of his left hand. In the photograph she was on safari and carrying a large caliber rifle. “I tend not to travel with my elephant culling gun,” she said. “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

  “Not too much,” he said. “We waiting for luggage?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’ve been on the road over a month.”

  They continued to make small talk while they waited for Katy’s luggage to arrive, and when it did Jackson lifted a large Briggs & Riley roller bag off the conveyor.

  Twenty minutes later they were in the Jeep and leaving the Salt Lake City airport. They drove north on Interstate 15 toward Pocatello, some two and a half hours away.

  As soon as they settled into the drive, Katy asked Jackson questions about Safari Land. He told her some of what Angie had dug up on Ted and Dolly Cheney and then said, “They were living in Buckhorn when I arrived, five years ago. It wasn’t called Safari Land then. It wasn’t called anything. Just another abandoned farm going to seed. At the time I think they had a couple of lions and tigers and some Great Northern wolves too. Not sure what else they were keeping there. I heard they were trying to breed the wolves with Huskies. Anyway, about four years ago they got rid of the wolves and started bringing in more and more big cats. I’m not sure where they got them.”

  “A failed circus, overcrowded zoo, dumb people trying to raise a lion or tiger in their yards,” Katy said.

  “So not that hard to come by?”

  Katy nodded.

  “I was out there maybe three years ago with my daughter, Jesse, and then again about a year or so back. The Cheneys wanted to open a safari park. Take you on a protected drive while the animals roamed free. But they could never get all of the permits they needed and then –” Jackson glanced over at Katy. She had been quiet for the last few minutes. She was asleep. “Oh hell,” he said.

  Kali and Shaka heard the motorcycle when it was two miles away, but they paid little attention to it. Raised in captivity, the ligers were familiar with machine noises. Anyway, they were too hungry to concern themselves with the noise. They had followed the wolves into the hills, but with Kali moving slower than usual, failed to catch them. Now, Kali was leading them toward a distant chicken coop.

  The ligers crossed a creek where the water was lowest and climbed up a steep bank. At the top of the bank was a paved road, hard beneath their paws. They were halfway across the road when they saw the bright headlight.

  Ronnie still was thinking about the meeting at the Umfleet house as he rounded the bend before the bridge over Brown’s Creek. Fred had been the instigator in turning the guys against Ted Cheney. He had told them that somebody in town was talking to the law about the militia group. Fred wouldn’t reveal how he knew this. He claimed that there was somebody high up that backed the KGC but couldn’t be seen as part of it. Fred cast suspicion on Ted. Ronnie doubted if any part of Fred’s tale was true, but he was glad to be rid of Ted Cheney. Ted was difficult; Fred, he could handle.

  As soon as Ronnie crossed the bridge, his light beam illuminated the animals. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. Two monster cats stood as still as statues in the middle of the road. Ronnie slammed the brakes and swerved to miss the animals. The Harley-Davidson went into a slide. He rode the slide off the asphalt and clung to the handlebar when the bike caught air. The Fat Boy flew over a steep bank and came down front-wheel-first on a bushy hillside. Ronnie catapulted over the handlebar and turned a perfect somersault before landing on his back. The motorcycle bounced and banged its way into dense weeds.

  When Maryann Fedder woke up, the television was on. It took a moment for her to remember what she had been watching before crying herself to sleep. A woman on the Shopping Network had been selling the identical nightgown she was wearing. She rubbed the satiny fabric and felt the lace edges. She was certain Ronnie would like it. She imagined him fondling it and slipping it off her and …

  Maryann made herself stop. She didn’t want to cry again so she focused on the television, flipping channels. Three years earlier her parents had upgraded the satellite service to receive over two hundred channels. She paused for a moment when she saw a guy on a motorcycle. Ronnie had never made a date and failed to show up before. She guessed this was how he planned to dump her.

  She switched channels. Usually, she watched cooking shows. New dishes were appearing regularly on the family dinner table now. She paused. Africa. The channel had to be National Geographic or Discovery. What she saw reminded her of something her dad had said earlier about lions and tigers loose in Idaho. She gasped when she saw a leopard bring down a helpless baby wildebeest. At least she hadn’t bought the crotchless panties Ronnie wanted her to wear.

  By the time Jackson stopped at a service station and Katy awakened, it was after midnight. They both got a coffee-to-go, and then Katy offered to drive.

  “I’m fine,” Jackson said, “but unless you want to sleep, you could tell me about hunting lions and tigers.”

  “As I understand it, I’ll be briefing the State Police hunters in –” she looked at her watch “– something like six hours, so you’ll hear most of it again.”

  Jackson cracked a grin. “Hearing it twice probably won’t hurt me.”

  For the next thirty minutes Katy told him about tracking and hunting big cats. Jackson interrupted her often to ask questions, and when they finally fell silent, she said, “So what do you think?”

  “I think finding and killing the lions and tigers won’t be as easy as people imagine.”

  “It never is.” Katy looked out the window and saw the green and white sign that indicated they were twenty miles from Pocatello. “I need to stop in Pocatello.”

  “Stop? Where? Kind of late to pay a visit.”

  “Not to this guy.” Katy turned on the map light and read off an address and asked if Jackson knew it.

  “The university district,” he said. “I can find it.”

  “It’s a house. Belongs to a gun dealer.”

  Jackson glanced at her curiously.

  “I can’t go lion hunting without rifles. This gun dealer said he’d provide what I need if I stopped by tonight. He’s actually a friend of someone I know in Colorado, a man who runs an animal rescue operation.”

  “An animal rescue guy that’s friends with a gun dealer that’s helping a safari guide. Did hell freeze over?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s an American luxury, seeing the world as left or right, good or bad, hunters or preservers,” Katy said. “In Africa the lines are fuzzier.” She watched him as she spoke. “Take you for instance. You’re a policem
an. But does that mean you never do harm?”

  Jackson kept his eyes on the road. Katy didn’t see the sadness deep inside them. “Aren’t you half-American?”

  “American mother, British father. I was born in England, but I lived a lot of places growing up, including Africa and the States. My dad worked for the World Bank.”

  “Guess that explains the tiny accent.”

  “What accent?” she said with a laugh as she watched his profile in the dashboard lights. Jackson’s face was not classically handsome, but she liked the combination of rugged and sensitive. He had a burn scar on the side of his neck. It didn’t look to be more than a few years old.

  “House fire,” Jackson said once he noticed her looking at the scar.

  Katy waited for him to say more. Most people felt a need to annotate, to explain, as if they owed the world a reason for their imperfections. Jackson silently returned to watching the road ahead. Katy repeated the question from before that remained unanswered. “So do you?” Katy asked. “As a policeman, do you ever cause harm?”

  Jackson knew Iris would say yes. Eileen Stevens too. Nancy Larson certainly would say yes, if she weren’t dead. “Nobody walks through life without leaving a footprint,” Jackson said. “Not even if we want to.”

  Thirteen

  “This is it,” Jackson said as he stopped behind a white Mercedes SUV parked outside an immaculate 1930s’ Craftsman bungalow. Katy knocked, and a man wearing pajamas under a bathrobe made from loud beach towels opened the door. Ollie Hamm was six-two and twice as wide as a normal man. When Katy shook hands, it felt like she was gripping sausages. Hamm was cordial despite the hour, but after Jackson answered his questions about the escaped cats without adding commentary, Hamm soon got down to business.