Long Range (Joe Pickett Book 20)(72)

“Whoever it was didn’t take another shot,” Martin said to Joe. “We scoped the mountain to the east where it must have come from, but we didn’t see anyone.”

Smith said, “It had to come from up there, but where the thick timber is, it’s short of a thousand yards from the rest area. Whoever did it made a hell of a shot.”

“But you didn’t hear it?” Joe asked, feeling the skin crawl on his chest.

“Must have used a suppressor,” Martin said. “When I think back on it, I might have heard a crack up in the trees, like a branch breaking. I can’t swear to it and I didn’t associate it with a gunshot at the time. It seemed like a second or two before I heard the thump. At the time, I was busy getting ready to get rid of some coffee.”

“Then it got dark,” Smith said. “We didn’t want to hike up that mountain in the dark to see if we could find a shooter. We were both kind of confused by everything that happened. Mike thought it might have been a stray round from somewhere, but we just don’t know.”

Martin said, “Maybe someone over here doesn’t like game wardens.”

Joe nodded. A cold knot formed in his stomach.

“Anyway,” Martin said with a clearing sigh, “here’s your truck. Except for a bullet wound, it’s just fine.”

“I’m glad nobody got hurt,” Joe said.

Smith chuckled and said, “Even if he’s not driving it at the time, Joe’s truck gets damaged. The streak continues. It’s a hell of a thing.”

*

MARTIN, SMITH, AND JOE rested on their elbows on three different sides of the truck bed with their hands dangling inside. Joe leaned on the driver’s side, Martin was directly opposite, and Smith took the tailgate. Joe thought about how many conversations he’d had with other game wardens adopting the same posture over the years. It was as if the open bed of the pickup were a kind of neutral conversation zone.

Martin caught Joe up on the grizzly bear investigation. He spoke in a world-weary tone Joe associated with longtime law enforcement officers who thought they’d seen it all but could still be unpleasantly surprised by how screwed up things turned out.

“I told you we located Jim Trenary’s body right where Julius Talbot said it would be,” Martin said. “The next morning, the sow grizzly and her yearling cub came back and we found them patrolling the site. The sow saw us coming from a long way and came right at us. She didn’t even hesitate. Her very obvious purpose was to run us off.”

Martin stopped speaking and Joe waited. Martin had trouble telling the story for a moment and Joe caught a glint of moisture in his eyes.

Martin cleared his throat and composed himself. “It was one of the worst things I’ve been involved in. We took out that sow as she charged us. We must have hit her a dozen times with .308 rounds before she tumbled and dropped hard. I know I hit her at least five times and she reacted like I was shooting blanks. But she was dead before she hit the ground. It was like she was possessed with superhuman, superbear, strength.

“Her yearling saw the whole thing and he went kind of crazy. He started bellowing and crying over his dead mother. It was awful because sometimes he sounded just like a human wailing. Then he stopped and looked at us with absolute rage in his eyes. We had to kill him as well, because at the time we didn’t know if Jim’s killer was the sow or the yearling, and that orphaned bear wasn’t running away. He was intent on doing the same suicide charge his mother did.”

“Man,” Joe said.

“Trenary’s body was torn up but not fed on,” Martin said. “It was like the bears were hoarding it for later. I’ve never seen anything like it. Who knows what those bears were thinking?”

“So Talbot told the truth?” Joe asked.

“He told part of the truth,” Martin said. “Just like we thought. But he’s sticking to his story.

“Turns out we were able to pretty much establish what really happened by footprints and the evidence we found,” Martin said. “By the time we got it all sorted out, Talbot was being transported back to Jackson so he could make his flight. We couldn’t hold him, although we asked him politely to stick around. He refused.”

“So what did you determine?” Joe asked.

Martin shook his head. “What we found was that it looked like the grizzly charged them just like Talbot said. Unprovoked. But we found Talbot’s canister of bear spray underneath Jim’s body. We think Talbot didn’t stand there fumbling with his spray like he told us. Instead, he jumped behind Jim just as the bear charged. Do you know that old joke about bears?”

Smith said, “Everyone knows it. You and your buddy are hiking and you walk between a sow and her cub. You say to your buddy, ‘We can’t outrun that bear.’ Your buddy looks at you and says, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.’?”

“That’s what we think Talbot did,” Martin said. “He didn’t try to deter the grizzly like he claimed. What he did was step behind Jim at the last second so Jim took the full force of the attack. Then Talbot ran away while Jim was fighting for his life. We don’t think he even looked back until he was on top of the hill. It might be true that Talbot didn’t shoot because he was afraid he’d hit Jim. But I’d bet Jim would have urged him to take that shot anyway—given the circumstances.”