Page 5

Chapter Five

The stairs to Rulon One , a Cessna Citation Encore jet with the Wyoming Cowboys bucking horse logo on the tail, were folded down to the tarmac. Joe climbed them, and the copilot nodded a greeting and stepped aside so he could retract the steps and close the door behind him.

Governor Rulon sat grinning behind a small desk at the back of the plane and Ann Byrnes sat a row in front of him with an iPad on her lap. The other six seats in the aircraft were unoccupied.

“Ah, Joe,” Rulon said as he struggled out from behind the desk. “Thanks for meeting with me.” The “meeting area” on the aircraft was cramped for space.

When he was in the aisle, Rulon placed his meaty hands on both of Joe’s shoulders. It was a familiar gesture from an instinctively tactile man. Rulon chuckled and said, “Well, now—together again.” Then: “Why aren’t you wearing that fine hat I got for you?”

Years before, Rulon had presented Joe a nine-hundred-dollar Resistol Cattle Baron cowboy hat with his name inscribed on the sweat brim.

“This is my work hat,” Joe said, touching the brim. “I save your hat for special occasions.”

Ann Byrnes cleared her throat and sniffed. “One might think that meeting with the governor was a special occasion.”

“Give him a break, Ann,” Rulon said while he wedged himself back behind the desk and shot her a side-eye. “We called him out of the field.”

Byrnes looked at her watch and said to Rulon, “We have ten minutes if you want to be on time for the Wyoming Stock Growers reception this afternoon.”

“Oh, those guys will wait a few minutes,” Rulon said. “We both know they love me.” Then: “Sit down, Joe.”

Joe did so. Byrnes occupied the seat next to Joe and, despite her arch tone, he thought Rulon absolutely needed a chief of staff like her. The governor was notoriously exuberant, easily distracted, and often late. Past chiefs of staff had not always been good choices, including ones with secret agendas of their own, and once, an attractive female chief who was known to sometimes answer the phone while sitting on the governor’s lap.

Byrnes fixed her eyes on Joe and mouthed, “ Ten minutes .”

Joe indicated that he understood.

—

Rulon had gained weight since the last time Joe had seen him, and his ruddy complexion seemed to have paled. Joe wondered if the job was more daunting than Rulon had expected it to be in his second stint.

As if reading Joe’s mind, Rulon patted his belly behind his desk and said, “Reception after reception after reception. Speech after speech after speech. All involve vast quantities of food that I’m expected to eat. And we aren’t even to the cursed legislative session yet.”

Wyoming’s legislature met for only forty days every other year, and only twenty days in between. Many people in the state thought even that was too much. Rulon was on record saying he agreed with them.

“You know,” Rulon began, “I’m not real sure why I’m doing this again. I think I can tell you that in confidence, can’t I?”

“You can,” Joe said.

“I’ve had a very good life, and in my first go-round, I left as a much-beloved ex-governor,” Rulon said matter-of-factly. “When I termed out the first time, I made a hell of a lot more money as a lawyer than I ever did as a public servant. Plus, I could represent whomever I wanted to represent and do some good without always looking over my shoulder to see who in the Cowboy Congress was trying to stab me in the back.

“So here I am, right back in the thick of it again. What’s wrong with me, Joe?”

Rulon seemed to be sincere when he asked the question, but Joe wasn’t so sure. Rulon was the most natural political animal Joe had ever been around. The man thrived in the limelight and seemed to revel in picking fights and taking on anyone who the governor thought was working to harm or belittle the state of Wyoming. Voters thought of Rulon as a man who would fight, and Rulon rarely disappointed them.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Joe said. “Except that I think most folks are glad you’re back in there. Governor Allen was—”

“A feckless little faux-rancher asshole,” Rulon said, finishing Joe’s sentence with words Joe wouldn’t have said. “I tried to warn people about him, but no one believed me.”

Joe nodded. He knew that was partly accurate. Rulon had had concerns about Allen, but he’d kept them mostly to himself. But like every politician Joe had ever encountered, Rulon was much more comfortable with his own version of the truth.

“Anyway, water under the bridge,” Rulon said with a dismissive wave of his arm. “To the matter at hand.”

“To the matter at hand,” Joe repeated.

“Are you still gonna be my guy? My trusted range rider?”

Joe frowned. “I guess it depends on what you need.”

Rulon threw his head back and laughed. “You haven’t changed, Joe. You’re still the guy who arrested a governor for fishing without a license way back in the day.”

“Yup. And I’m still a guy who won’t do politics. I wouldn’t do it for Governor Allen and I won’t do it for you.”

“I assure you this isn’t politics,” Rulon said. “It’s personal.”

Joe looked at him warily. For men like Rulon, Joe had learned, everything was politics.

“Did you ever meet my son-in-law, Mark?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mark Eisele?”

“Nope.”

“He’s married to my daughter, Megan, who, as a modern-type woman, goes by her given last name. So I understand if you’ve never heard of the Eiseles. Anyway, they have a little one—a girl—and more on the way, I hope. Megan takes little Charlotte to work every day, and Mark works for some Silicon Valley tech firm out of their home in Cheyenne. I have no earthly idea what in the hell he does for them. He tried to tell me once, but I fell asleep.”

“Charlotte is your granddaughter?” Joe asked.

Rulon lit up at hearing her name. “Grandchildren are an absolute blessing,” Rulon said. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. They are the greatest gift there is. You’ll find out someday.”

“I hope so,” Joe said. He and Marybeth had a bet on which of their three daughters would have a child first. Marybeth thought it would be Lucy, their youngest, because, unlike her older sisters, she’d always been gentle, maternal, and openly pined for a family of her own. Middle daughter April, the maverick, was focused on her work for a private detective agency in Montana. Joe’s bet was on April, since April always seemed to do what was least expected of her. Both agreed that it wouldn’t be Sheridan, who was all-consumed with running Yarak, Inc. in Nate’s absence.

“Do you know why grandparents and grandchildren get along so well, Joe?” Rulon asked him.

Joe shook his head. As he did so, Ann Byrnes sighed and rolled her eyes. She’d obviously heard the anecdote a million times.

“It’s because they share a common enemy,” Rulon deadpanned. Then: “It’s not that I don’t like Mark. I don’t want it to sound that way at all. But, well, Mark’s a nerd, you know? He grew up on the East Coast, and the only thing he’s ever looked at—besides my daughter, I mean—is a series of screens. He’s never hunted, never fished, never played organized sports, never camped, never, well, you get the idea.”

“He’s an indoor person,” Joe said.

“That’s being very charitable, yes,” Rulon said. “I’d describe him as half a man, but I get in trouble with my wife and daughter when I say that.”

“I can imagine,” Joe said.

Rulon suddenly gestured toward the Bighorn Mountains through the airplane’s portal window. “I mean, why live out here when your existence is no different than it would be if you were in downtown San Francisco or the D.C. Beltway? People need to get out there and experience life, you know? My Charlotte, and future grandkids, need to know there is a natural world out there beyond their iPads. Charlotte needs to know so she can turn out to be a well-rounded and well-adjusted human being. But her parents need to show her the way, you know?”

Joe didn’t interrupt, but he wasn’t sure where Rulon was going or how long the journey was going to take. In his peripheral vision, he noted that Byrnes was checking her watch.

“Our kids went outside, you know?” Rulon said. “Even Megan. She used to love to turn over rocks while I was fishing to see what was under them. She had pet worms in a jar, for goodness’ sake. And a salamander named Ashcroft. We let her get actual dirt on herself. I think if Mark had his way, he’d bubble-wrap Charlotte and never let her go outside. He just doesn’t know any better, I guess.”

Byrnes softly cleared her throat. It got the attention of the pilots, as well as Joe and the governor. Time was running out.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but we’ll need to wrap this up,” she said.

Rulon glared at her, and for a moment his neck flushed pink. Then he sighed, temporarily defeated. Byrnes was no doubt doing exactly what Rulon had asked her to do: keep him focused and on time.

“Joe,” Rulon said, “I hooked Mark up with an elk-hunting guide and encouraged him to get out of his home office this fall and learn about the outdoors firsthand. He was reluctant to do it, but Megan supported the idea, much to my surprise.”

“Okay,” Joe said, urging the governor to get to the point.

“Mark agreed to do it. I’m proud of him. I wanted him to experience the great outdoors and learn some skills. In all honesty, I might have pressured him more than I should have.”

“Okay. Who is the guide?”

“Spike Rankin. Do you know him?”

“Yup,” Joe said. “He hunts in southern Wyoming, down around the Battle Mountain area.”

Joe smiled to himself as he recalled meeting Rankin over the back of a pickup once. Rankin was a tough nut, an opinionated curmudgeon, but one of the best outfitters in the state. Rankin didn’t suffer fools, and poor Mark would have to toe the line or he’d be humiliated.

“Well,” Rulon said, leaning into Joe and lowering his voice, “it seems that Spike Rankin and my son-in-law have been missing since yesterday.”

“Probably scouting,” Joe said. “That isn’t very unusual.”

Rulon shot a glance to Byrnes, then turned back to Joe. Joe got the impression that Byrnes didn’t approve of what was coming next.

“Spike Rankin is an old buddy of mine,” Rulon said. “I asked him on the sly to text me a progress report on Mark every day, and he agreed. I wanted to keep track of the father of my grandchild, you know? Well, Rankin texted me saying Mark was doing better than he thought he would do, and that they were going to do a scouting recon in the mountains, just like you said.”

“Okay.”

“Then yesterday—nothing. Megan is starting to get a little bit worried that she hasn’t heard from Mark, either. I assured her that it’s not unusual at all for Rankin to be out of cell signal range, and I told her not to fret about it. But I’m starting to worry now, too.”

“Have you contacted the sheriff down there?” Joe asked.

“No,” Rulon said emphatically. “And I won’t. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Sheriff Regan Haswell is not only crooked, he’s one of my longtime enemies,” Rulon said. “He’s one of those crazy ultra–right wingers who thinks everyone in state government is corrupt. He answers to no one, including the governor.”

Joe was aware of the ideology of the sovereign nation and their odd beliefs. The sovereigns believed that the duly-elected local sheriff was the only legitimate authority they had to answer to in the nation. Therefore, they paid no federal income taxes and ignored federal regulations in general—as well as most state laws.

“If Haswell knew about Mark, he’d make a huge issue of it and embarrass the hell out of me if he could,” Rulon said. “And if I asked him, he sure as hell wouldn’t go out there and discreetly find Mark and Rankin. That’s for sure.”

“What about highway patrol or DCI? Are they involved at all at this point?”

Both agencies, like the Game and Fish Department, were within the executive branch and therefore answered to the governor.

“No,” Rulon said. “Why would I send DCI cops or troopers into the mountains looking for elk hunters? Does that make sense to you?”

“Probably not,” Joe conceded.

“The fewer people know about this, the better.”

Joe was puzzled for a moment, then he got it. “Megan and your wife don’t know Mark is missing yet, do they?”

Rulon shook his head.

“They don’t know that Rankin had agreed to check in with you every day?”

“That’s correct,” Rulon said.

“And you’re worried that all hell will break loose in your immediate family if something has happened to Mark, since you pressured him to go with Rankin. It’s all your doing.”

“That about sums it up,” Rulon said.

“This isn’t a good situation for you,” Joe said.

“You think?” Rulon emphasized the importance of that by widening his eyes and thrusting his chin toward Joe.

“Governor,” Byrnes interrupted. “We really need to go.”

Joe felt the aircraft hum and shake as the pilots fired up the jets. The copilot removed his headphones and started the procedure to unlock the door and extend the steps back to the tarmac so Joe could leave.

“Can you go south to that Battle Mountain country and see if you can find him?” Rulon asked Joe. “Like I said, this is personal. It might be nothing at all—Rankin and Mark might be high in the mountains setting up their elk camp out of cell signal range. Or Rankin might be preoccupied and he’s forgotten to text. Or something unfortunate happened to the both of them. Either way, I’d owe you a big one if you could find out.”

Joe didn’t respond. Governor Rulon had rescued him from trouble countless times, and he’d used his influence to free Nate Romanowski from the grip of rogue federal agents. More than once.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Joe said.

He was surprised when Rulon leapt from his seat and grasped Joe by the sides of his head and kissed him on the top of the crown of his hat. “Thank you, Joe. Thank you.”

Byrnes stood in the aisle, glaring down at Joe to move. Rulon One began to tremble as the jet engines powered up.

“Call or text me your progress,” Rulon called out to Joe as he straightened his just-jostled hat and moved toward the open door. “Bless you, son! Bless you! Go find Mark and bring him back to me in one piece.”

—

As the eastern mountains turned electric pink with the last gasp of dusk, Joe packed clean clothing into a duffel bag in his bedroom. Downstairs, he heard Marybeth enter the house and call out to him. Joe had called Marybeth after his meeting with the governor and gotten her out of her board meeting to brief her. Even though the governor didn’t want anyone but Joe and Ann Byrnes to know about the pickle he was in, Joe told his wife everything, like he always did.

He found her in the kitchen holding a take-out box of pizza in her right hand while balancing Kestrel Romanowski on her left hip. Marybeth was still dressed in a dark suit and white blouse from her library board meeting that day. For the past year, Marybeth had taken the child to work with her. Kestrel spent her time in a library-sponsored day care for part of the day and the rest in Marybeth’s office playing with toys and reading children’s books in a kid’s corner Marybeth had set up.

Their three dogs—Bisquit, Tube, and Bert’s Dog—converged on Marybeth and the pizza smells from various places in the house.

“Here, I’ll take her,” Joe said.

Marybeth swung her hips and Joe plucked the toddler out of Marybeth’s grip.

—

“Unka Joe,” Kestrel said as she beamed. “Throw me, Unka Joe.” Her eyes sparkled with devilry.

Like he did every night now, Joe launched Kestrel into the air almost to ceiling height and caught her on the way down. And like she did every night, Kestrel squealed.

—

The three of them sat at the table eating pizza, and Joe realized how natural the situation had become. Years after their three daughters had left them an empty nest, they were caretakers of a toddler once again. He told Marybeth what the governor had said about why grandparents and grandchildren got along so well.

“But Kestrel isn’t our grandchild,” Marybeth said.

“She sort of seems like one. She’s our practice grandchild. I think Liv would approve and Nate would be pleased.”

“And speaking of our common enemy,” Marybeth said with a sly grin, “I spoke to Sheridan today. She said Geronimo Jones came by looking for him yesterday. She steered him in the direction of Hole in the Wall Canyon.”

“Smart,” Joe said. “That’s where I’d look.”

“So why haven’t you?”

“You know why.”

It was a sore subject between them. Marybeth didn’t dispute the fact that she felt both safer and more comfortable when Nate was around. It had nothing to do with the added responsibility of seeing to Kestrel’s well-being, which Marybeth had taken to easily and naturally. Joe quietly bristled at the fact that Marybeth felt that way, even though he knew she had a point. After all, it was his duty to keep his family safe and secure, not Nate’s.

“Tell me again why you haven’t gone after him,” Marybeth said.

“I know Nate,” Joe said. “He’s gone to ground for a reason. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

Just as Joe had conceded Marybeth’s point, Marybeth quietly conceded Joe’s.

She turned to Kestrel, who was in the process of removing each round of pepperoni from her pizza and eating them individually. “I’ll miss this little one when he does come back for her.”

“I think we both will,” Joe said.

“And if for some reason he never shows up, I can see her becoming part of the family.”

Joe had been waiting for Marybeth to voice it. April had become a part of their family in roughly similar circumstances.

“He’ll come back,” he said.

—

“How long do you expect to be away?” she asked.

“A few days, I think. If it takes longer than that, we’ll have to start up a full-fledged search and rescue operation. The governor doesn’t want that to happen because if it goes public then his family would have to know. But it might be unavoidable.”

“I hope you don’t plan to try and do this all on your own,” she said. “I know how you are.”

He smiled and said, “I’ll need some help down there. I spent some time in the Sierra Madres, as you know, but I’m not familiar enough with the country to do this solo.”

Tube, their half-Lab and half-Corgi mix, had come from Joe’s brief assignment to southern Wyoming years before.

“Who is the game warden down there?” she asked.

“Susan Kany. I met her last year at the Wyoming Game Wardens Association meeting. She’s a rookie.”

“Does she know the district well enough to help you?”

“I hope so. She seemed pretty with-it,” Joe said. “No doubt she’s met Spike Rankin at some point, so she might know where his camp is and where he hunts elk.”

“Are you going to tell her why you’re down there? The real reason?”

“I’m not sure yet. I think I can massage it so I don’t necessarily have to mention the governor’s name.”

“Let’s hope it’s as easy as that,” Marybeth said. “What about the sheriff?”

“Rulon doesn’t trust him. But that doesn’t mean that I probably won’t meet with him and let him know what’s going on if I have to. It’s professional courtesy. Local law enforcement usually doesn’t like it when someone from the outside starts operating in their county. And from what the governor said, Sheriff Haswell definitely wouldn’t welcome me with open arms if I didn’t reach out to him at some point.”

“He sounds like our sheriff,” Marybeth said. Then to Kestrel: “You can’t just eat pepperoni, sweetie. You have to eat the whole slice, or at least try it.”

Kestrel sat back in frustration for a few seconds, then reluctantly reached for the pizza slice.

“While you’re gone, I might ask Sheridan to stay with me,” Marybeth said. “I can use the companionship, and she likes it when she doesn’t have to cook for herself.”

“I was going to suggest that,” Joe said.

“Plus, with not having Nate around…”

“Yes, I know,” Joe said more sharply than he intended to.

—

An hour and a half later, after Joe had secured all of the gear he thought he’d need for the mission and put it into the large toolbox in the bed of his pickup, Marybeth opened the door to the detached garage and leaned against the open doorframe with her arms crossed. She was wearing the oversized barn coat she wore to feed her horses and do other corral chores.

“You’re leaving tonight instead of tomorrow morning?”

“Yup. I thought I’d get a jump on it. This way, I can be in Warm Springs first thing in the morning.”

The town of Warm Springs was in south-central Wyoming and it was the closest village to Battle Mountain and the Sierra Madre range, where Rankin and Eisele had disappeared. The game warden station for the district was also located there.

“Are you taking Biscuit with you?”

“Nope. I’m leaving her here. She’s a better watchdog than Tube or Bert’s Dog. I mean, as you constantly remind me, since Nate isn’t around…”

“He’s done it again, hasn’t he?” Marybeth asked.

“Who? Nate?”

“Governor Rulon. He’s put you in a tough situation, where if you succeed he can skate without anyone being aware of what might have happened, and if you fail he’ll blame you for the loss of his son-in-law.”

“That’s harsh,” Joe said. But it was partly true.

“I had a choice,” he said. “I could have said no.”

“But you didn’t because ultimately Rulon is your boss. And the boss of your boss. He could make our lives miserable if he wanted to.”

“Of course. But don’t forget how many times and ways he’s helped us out,” Joe said. “Times he didn’t have to step up.”

She said, “Promise me you’ll do what you can—but stop before you get yourself into a life-threatening situation. The governor got himself into this dilemma. It’s his problem, not yours. And not ours.”

“I’ll do my job and not cross the line,” Joe said.

“You’ve said that before.”

Joe draped his arms over the top of the wall of his pickup and looked her over. Marybeth appeared quite provocative to him, the slinky way she was framed in the doorway.

“Did you already read Kestrel a story and put her to bed?”

“Yes. She fell asleep faster than usual.”

“So we once again have the house to ourselves?”

Marybeth’s eyes widened for a beat when she realized what he was suggesting, then she gently shook her head. “Not with a toddler down the hall, Joe.”

“Why not?” he said. “She’s our practice grandchild. We need to work on sneaking around again.”

Which made her laugh. But instead of retreating back to the house, Marybeth came into the garage and extended her hand and said, “Follow me.”

—

A half hour later, Joe’s cell phone burred when he backed his pickup out of the garage. He saw on the screen that the call was coming from Ann Byrnes.

“Joe Pickett.”

“Joe, this is Ann Byrnes, Governor Rulon’s chief of staff.”

“I know who you are. You don’t have to say that every time.”

“Are you in Warm Springs?”

“I got delayed, but I’m on the way.”

He smiled to himself as he said it. The delay was more than worth it.

“I was hoping you’d be there by now,” Byrnes said with obvious irritation.

He sighed. “It’s a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Saddlestring, you know. Not everyone has a state plane.”

“I’m well aware of that,” she said. “Well, I hope you’re successful—and quick.”

“Me too.”

“Because until we can get this situation resolved, the governor will be beside himself. He’s not very productive when he’s in the state he’s in.”

“I get that,” Joe said. “I’ll do my best.”

“Quickly and efficiently,” she said. “And undercover, so to speak.”

“Yup.”

“Please keep me informed of your progress. Even if it’s bad news.”

“Do you think it might be bad news?” Joe asked.

“Well, it’s about to be two days if we don’t hear from him tonight. What do they always say about the first forty-eight hours of a law enforcement investigation?”

“They say if you don’t solve the crime within that time, it’s unlikely you ever will.”

“Let’s hope that’s not the case here. That would be extremely unfortunate, not to mention unacceptable.”

“I’ll keep you informed,” Joe said, punching off.