Page 47 of Battle Mountain

“Yes, he did,” Racines said. “His name is Mark-something. Spike said the guy was really wet behind the ears.”

Joe didn’t respond.

“He said it’s getting harder and harder to find help these days. Nobody wants to work. They just want to sit around their houses all day and play video games and collect unemployment. That’s a damned sight easier than packing a quarter of an elk out of the woods in knee-deep snow.”

“True,” Joe said.

“I worry about my country.”

Joe let that one go.

—

There were twofit-looking sorrel quarter horses in a corral tucked into the pines not far from where the game-hanging poleswere lashed up. Joe threw them some hay from a short stack of bales outside the corral and filled their water trough from a gravity feed bag hung from a branch. The animals were well-muscled and well-behaved, and since there were only two of them, Joe assumed Rankin used them not to hunt from but to pack out meat from areas too rugged to access with his Power Wagon or ATV. Like most experienced outfitters Joe knew, Rankin likely didn’t want to put his clients on the back of a horse if they weren’t extremely experienced mountain riders. Too many things could go wrong—and often did.

Joe confirmed his guess when he found two weathered packsaddles under a tarp near the corral.

He untied the flaps to the tent on the left side of the clearing to find four roomy cots, a table with a full pitcher of water, and four bedrolls. That would be for the clients.

In the other sleeping tent were three cots. Two were on the right side of the tent, and a sheet separated them from a single cot on the left. That one had a rumpled sleeping bag on it, as well as a duffel bag underneath and a vanity and mirror at the back. Joe guessed that Audrey Racines had slept there the night before. The two other cots, for Spike Rankin and Mark Eisele, were untouched.

It was impossible to know how long it had been since the camp had been set up but not used by Rankin and Eisele. Two nights? Three nights?

—

While he wasinside the tent, Joe heard the rumbling of another vehicle approaching the elk camp. He left the staff sleeping tentand retied the flaps closed, hoping Rankin’s “tricked-up” Power Wagon would nose through the aspen grove and he could go home to Marybeth.

Both Kany and Racines had also turned toward the road.

Instead of a Power Wagon, however, a new-model luxury Land Rover appeared. It had three people inside and North CarolinaFirst in Flightlicense plates.

Rankin’s hunters had arrived.

—

Joe met theLand Rover on foot and held up his palm to signal to the driver to park it. The vehicle stopped and Joe could see the driver angrily gesticulating to the passenger, who held up his hands in anI don’t knowresponse. A third man in the back seat had leaned forward to listen to their exchange. The back half of the big SUV was packed to the ceiling with gear and duffel bags, making it dark inside.

The driver’s-side door exploded open and a slim, fit man in his sixties popped out. He had close-cropped, styled silver hair and his chin was thrust out. He wore tactical hunting pants and a tight beige chamois shirt with a red bandana around his neck. He was obviously angry.

In contrast, the passenger in the front seat eased his door open and slipped out of the SUV. The man in the back seat did the same.

“Who the hell are you?” the driver asked Joe.

“Not Spike Rankin.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” the man said as he peered over Joe’s head toward the camp. “Where is he? He was supposed to meet us herethis afternoon. I paid a lot of money for this, and he won’t answer his goddamned phone.”

Before Joe could respond, the driver squinted at Joe and then at Susan Kany. “You’re game wardens,” he said. “Has Rankin done something wrong? Because if he has and we can’t hunt, I’m going to sue his ass.”

“Let’s calm down,” Joe said as friendly as he could. “I’m Joe Pickett and this is my colleague, Sue Kany. She’s the local game warden. Audrey Racines back there is your camp cook. Let’s relax and get this all sorted out.”

“Jimbo,” the passenger pleaded to the driver, “let’s hear him out.”

Jimbo shot a withering look at his friend, then turned to Joe and raised his eyebrows. “This better be good,” he said.

Joe explained the situation without explaining thewholesituation. He and Kany had come just an hour before to visit with Rankin, but no one was there except for Racines.

Jimbo was obviously enraged, but he listened patiently. As he did, his face got redder.

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