Page 14 of Battle Mountain

Chapter Four

The next morning,Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett drove slowly on a corduroy county road northeast of Saddlestring until he could locate an enclave of ramshackle structures a few hundred yards from the shore of a shimmering prairie lake. The clapboard buildings had no glass in the windows or shingles on the roofs, and several potbellied goats roamed among them. The single-wide trailer located within the enclave was the last-known address of Matt Theriault and his partner. Joe’s task was to see if he could find evidence on the property that Theriault had poached a mule deer out of season. And arrest him for it.

Theriault—pronounced “Terry-O”—was a longtime local miscreant known for wearing tie-dyed T-shirts and cargo shorts even in subzero temperatures. To Joe, cargo shorts plus winter equaled “moron.” Theriault was also known for his hair-trigger temper and the fistfights that had led to his being banished from most of the local bars. He was said to be a nice guy when he was sober, but that was rare.

Someone in the area had sent an anonymous message to Joe viathe Wyoming Stop Poaching Now web hotline the night before. Within the message was a link that led Joe to Theriault’s Facebook page. After consulting with his wife, Marybeth, and his youngest daughter, Lucy, about how to use the social network, Joe had found several day-old photos of Theriault in full camo posing over the body of a five-by-five mule deer with Eagle Mountain clearly in the background. That area had been closed for deer hunting for two weeks, and a quick check of the state database showed that Theriault hadn’t purchased a deer license, either.

In the photos, the treeless summit of Eagle Mountain was dusted with snow, with the heaviest accumulation on its west slope. Joe compared it to what he could clearly see outside on the eastern horizon, and the images matched up. The photo had been taken a day or two before.

Joe was constantly astounded at what people posted on the internet about themselves. He’d apprehended a half dozen people over the years based on what the violators had uploaded for the world to see.

He took the turnoff to the enclave and parked his Game and Fish Ford F-150 between two of the shacks with a clear view of a trailer house. A decade-old Ram pickup was backed up to an ancient icehouse on the side of the trailer, but no one was inside the vehicle. A wisp of smoke rose out of the chimney pipe on top of the trailer before the wind jerked it away, suggesting it was occupied.

Joe called in the plate number to dispatch in Cheyenne and the dispatcher confirmed that the vehicle was registered to Amy Ehrlich of Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming. Ehrlich was Theriault’s partner.

“Stay here,” Joe said to Biscuit, their new one-year-old black Lab puppy. Biscuit took the place of Daisy, Joe’s longtime companion who had been diagnosed with cancer the previous winter and had to be put down. It was a traumatic decision, and Joe had cradled his Lab in his arms as she was sedated for the last time. He hoped that Biscuit would be half the dog Daisy had been. Biscuit was jet-black, lean, and surprisingly calm for her age. So far, so good.

To Joe, a Game and Fish pickup without a Labrador inside was a sad vehicle.

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He couldn’t tellif anyone within the trailer had seen him out there. He’d deliberately approached from the county road and spent several minutes inside his pickup before getting out. There was no reason to panic Theriault or Ehrlich with a macho entrance and takedown. Especially someone as volatile as Theriault.

While he ambled his way to the Ram truck, Joe stayed in the open. They couldn’t mistake the distinctive pickup and his red uniform shirt from inside, he thought. He went through a mental checklist of his gear: digital recorder, cell phone, handheld radio, handcuffs, bear spray, .40 Glock, ticket book.Check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

He considered calling for backup from the county sheriff, but decided not to do it. Sheriff Jackson Bishop and his new deputies liked to come on strong, and several excessive-force complaints had recently been filed against them. That wasn’t Joe’s style.

Joe glanced into the bed of the pickup as he passed it. There were smears of blood on the metal floor as well as several tufts ofbristly deer hair. He didn’t doubt that a forensics test would confirm it was deer blood.

He guessed that if he threw open the door of the old icehouse that the vehicle was backed up to, he’d find the hanging carcass of the buck deer he’d seen on Theriault’s Facebook page. But to do so legally, he’d need a search warrant that he didn’t have.

Due to the very tough winter, the mule deer population in his district had declined upward of sixty percent. That was the reason Joe had foregone using his own license for deer. Although he never faulted hunters for harvesting game for meat, he had no patience with trophy antler hunters, especially poachers who ignored the regulations. If Theriault had done it, Joe planned to charge him with every violation he could. A conviction would result in a hefty fine, loss of all hunting and fishing privileges for several years, and the confiscation of Theriault’s hunting rifles and gear.

Since the state agency didn’t issue body cams to game wardens, Joe activated his digital recorder and placed it in his breast pocket as he climbed the three wooden steps to the metal front door of the trailer. With his right hand on the grip of his Glock, he rapped softly on the thin metal of the structure with his left.

“Hello? This is Joe Pickett, the game warden. I need to talk to Matt Theriault.”

Nothing. No response.

Then he knocked again, harder.

“Hello? Is anyone inside?”

Joe quickly looked over his shoulder toward the icehouse. If they were in there instead of the trailer, they were close enough to see and hear him.

He balled his fist and pounded on the door. It shook the trailer.

“Hey—is anyone home?” he shouted while he identified himself once again.

Finally, there were stumbling footfalls from inside. He could feel from the vibration on the aluminum skin of the trailer that someone was approaching the door.

“Who is it? What do you want?”

A woman’s voice. It sounded weak, shaky, and slightly terrified.

Joe again identified himself. Then: “Hey—are you okay in there?”

The bolt was fumbled with a couple of times, then finally thrown back. The door opened a few inches and Joe stepped back so it wouldn’t hit him in the head and knock his hat off. The smell of woodsmoke, stale fried food, and something else hit him from inside. It smelled like vomit.

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