Once Tean had finished documenting the carcass, he moved outward in a spiral until he found a track.He knelt, held a pen close to the print for size comparison, and snapped another photo.
It was all so much bullshit.
“What’d you find?”Neff asked.“What is it?”
Tean went back to his search.The spiral carried him outward until he was close to the shrubby willows and snowberry lining the creek.He paused there, considering the softer ground, visually following it upstream to where the creek flowed out of the foothills.No easy-to-spot tracks, but sure enough, a flash of fluorescent yellow on a stubby pine.He found another yellow blaze to the left.And then, a few seconds later, to the right.
He made his way back to Neff and McCall.Neff had his hands on his hips.McCall was staring down like a kid who knew he was in trouble.
“Mr.Neff,” Tean said, “I think what we have here is a simple case of a coyote—maybe a mated pair or a small family group—scavenging a carcass.”
Neff’s face darkened with blood.
He opened his mouth, but Tean spoke first.“I don’t see any evidence that a wolf attacked and killed your cattle, and so my recommendation to the Fish and Wildlife people is that lethal control is neither necessary nor appropriate in this situation.”
“That’s bullshit,” Neff said.
“I’m sorry—”
“This is bullshit.It’s my property.It’s my land.I got a wolf killing my cattle, plain as day, but because some fucking wetback bureaucrat tells me it’s not a wolf, I’m supposed to sit around and do nothing.That’s what’s wrong with this country!”
“I’d like a ride back to my truck,” Tean said to McCall.
“I’m going to call your supervisor,” Neff said.Spittle made a little strand of spider silk at the corner of his mouth.“Incompetence.I’ve never seen such a half-assed job.You’re going to be out of a job.”
And that threat was why Tean was out here instead of Maddie or Jamal or any of the conservation officers who normally would have handled it.That, and the fact that Neff owned close to half a million acres.
To McCall, Tean said, “Now, please.”
McCall gave Neff a sideways look, but he started for the second ATV.Tean climbed in next to him, and McCall started the engine, and they drove off.
The dog was still barking.
A breeze raked Tean’s face, carrying the dusty, spicy scent of the sage as they crossed the pasture.The sun was high overhead, and the shadows in the valley had thinned down into little slivers of blue: at the base of a rocky bluff; where the creek bank dropped sharply; under a cottonwood where a pair of cows lay.Tean looked back once.The turkey vulture had dropped out of the sky.
He got in the truck, drove off the ranch, and found a pullout where he could park and finish his notes.He’d barely started writing when his phone buzzed.The screen said Ed Collins—Tean’s new boss.
“Hello,” Tean said.
“Hey!How’s it going?”
“What do you need, Ed?”
“Are you back on the road?I don’t want to interrupt if you’re working.”
“What did Mr.Neff say I did wrong?”
Ed laughed.It was a big, booming, good-natured laugh.It would have been at home on a used car lot.“Oh boy, he’s a character, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Tean said.Joe Neff was also a wealthy man, a big political donor, and hunting buddies with a number of red-blooded elected officials.
“You can probably guess he’s not happy,” Ed said.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tean said.
Ed made a noise that might have been affirming or acknowledging or maybe just a nice, humming sound he’d perfected to mean absolutely nothing.“He really thinks it was a wolf,” Ed said in that same upbeat tone.
“But it wasn’t.”
