Page 16 of Three-Inch Teeth

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AN HOUR LATER, Cates lay naked on top of the bed drinking whiskey straight from the bottle while Johnson snored next to him. Her pale white skin danced with flashing colors from the crappy TV. Cates nudged her so she’d turn from her back to her side to stop her snoring. It worked.

The Wyoming news out of Casper was on, and he watched it dumbly. The sound was turned down, so he could barely hear what the blow-dried twenty-something newscasters read off their teleprompters. He was fine with that.

Then Cates saw a chyron that got his attention: ANOTHER GRIZZLY BEAR ATTACK IN NORTHERN WYOMING?

Even more than the chyron itself, the image gripped him. A man wearing a red uniform shirt and a battered cowboy hat was reluctantly answering questions from a local reporter. The man had a pronghorn antelope shoulder patch on his uniform and a thin gold nameplate above his shirt pocket.

He said something about an “alleged human and bear encounter” and calling in the “Predator Attack Team.” In the background of the shot, Cates recognized the very familiar outline of the Bighorn Mountains.

The newscast quickly cut away from the man to a graphic made up of bullet points of four previous bear attacks that year. One of them had been near Jackson, one had been near Dubois, and the last two near Cody, Wyoming.

This was the first in Twelve Sleep County, which was one hundred and eighty-five miles from the east gate of Yellowstone Park, where grizzly bears were “supposed” to stay.

Cates sat up in bed, his head swirling. A killer grizzly bear in the Bighorns?

He hadn’t even tried to read the name tag of the man in the news story, because he knew him. He hated him. The game warden had a spot waiting for him on the back of Cates’s hand. Joe Pickett.

Cates thumped Johnson on the shoulder with the back of his hand hard enough to wake her.

“What, goddamnit?” she asked.

“Get your bare ass up and get dressed,” Cates said. “We’ve got a change in plans.”

“What in the hell are you talking about? What about California?”

“We’ll end up there eventually,” he said. “But first there’s a couple of guys I need to find. One of them wrote to me in prison and we kind of bonded, you might say.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Johnson said.

In response, Cates raised his hand and chinned toward the tattooed boxes.

“We both deserve justice, and we’re going to get it,” he said.

“Who is this person?”

“You don’t know him,” Cates said. “So his name doesn’t matter right now.” As he said it, Cates slit the plastic packaging on one of the prepaid burner phones Johnson had purchased for him at the Rawlins Walmart. He activated the device and typed in a number with his thumbs and sent a message.

“We’ll see if he shows up or not,” he said.

“Hold it,” Johnson said with alarm. “Who are you inviting along? I thought it was just going to be us. And maybe Carmin.”

“I’ve got things I gotta do,” Cates said. “And I may need some help. First, I needed to contact this guy in Colorado who reached out to me. Second, I need to find my former cellmate. He’s got … unique abilities. I’ve never met anyone like him. Of course, he’s also goofier than shit. But I think I know where he lives and he owes me.”

“What about Carmin?”

“Carmin will have to wait,” Cates said. He pulled her close and glared into her eyes. “It’s all coming together for me.”

CHAPTER SIX

Double Diamond Ranch

ON THE DAY Clay Junior’s body was found near the Twelve Sleep River, Joe accompanied the Predator Attack Team as they hunted the bear.

The team consisted of four members: regional Game and Fish Department supervisor Brody Cress; Dubois game warden Tom Hoaglin; Cody game warden Bill Brodbeck; and Jennie Gordon, the agency’s large-carnivore specialist, based out of Lander. The team had arrived in a helicopter and Joe had met them at the Twelve Sleep County airport. He’d helped them load their equipment into two four-wheel-drive pickups. In addition to standard-issue clothing, weapons, communications equipment, and tactical clothing, armor, and other gear, they were armed with semiautomatic Smith & Wesson M&P rifles chambered in .308 Winchester and twenty-round magazines, and he’d offered to lead them to the scene on the Double D Ranch.

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