Free Out of Range by C. J. Box Page A

funeral,” Joe called out to him. Then he rubbed his eyes furiously. Will’s funeral, yes. But maybe the beginning of his own career’s funeral, he thought.
    When his telephone rang it took a few moments to figure out which button to push to answer it. Finally, he stabbed a lighted button and raised the receiver.
    “Joe, this is Mary.”
    “Hi, Mary.”
    “That situation I told you about? With the people pitching a camp in the middle of the elk refuge?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s been confirmed.”
    “I’ll be right down.”
    As he passed the counter with his daypack and briefcase, Mary called out after him. “Your dispatch code is ‘Jackson GF60,’ Joe.”
    He paused at the door. “Okay, ma’am.”
    She smiled at him, warmly this time. “That’s good. I like that.”
    He strode into the parking lot to his truck, stopped, turned, and went back into the lobby. Mary looked up.
    “How do I find the road to get into the refuge?” he asked.
    She pointed due north and gave him directions to the access.
    Par t Two It must be admitted that the existence of carnivorous animals does pose one problem for the ethics of Animal Liberation, and that is whether we should do anything about it.
    Peter Singer, Animal Liberation What we eat depends on where we live and how we have come to look at ourselves.
    Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked
    Eight
    Instead of elk on the National Elk Refuge, Joe could see a half dozen trumpeter swans near a marsh, looking like pure white flares against the rustcolored reeds on Flat Creek. In the distance in front of him on the sagebrush plateau, three mangy coyotes fed on something dead. Beyond the coyotes were two tiny dome tents strategically placed in view of the northsouth highway into town. He approached the tents from the north, driving slowly over a worn twotrack that wound through the flat of the 25,000acre refuge. The coyotes scattered and loped away, then stopped and posed, waiting for him to pass so they could return to whatever it was they were eating. The late afternoon sun was an hour from dropping behind the Tetons, but already shadows from the peaks were creeping across the valley floor. In the winter, the area would be transformed, as the heavy snows in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks forced the herds south to the refuge, where they were fed alfalfa pellets to survive. The National Elk Refuge historically held between 7,500 and 11,000 elk, with thousands more fleeing to other refuges less well known.
    As Joe drove across the field, he kept thinking about his confrontation with Randy Pope, and he knew there was unfinished business with him. Pope would be watching him like a hawk, waiting for him to screw up. Knowing his own personal history, he would. And there was something else troubling him, making him feel on edge, that he couldn’t yet place. Something about Will Jensen’s office. An impression that was beginning to form just before Pope walked in and blew it all away. What was it?
    There was no vehicle by the tents, but Joe could see a car parked about a mile and a half away on the other side of the eightfoot elk fence near the highway. The campers, for whatever reason, had obviously scaled the fence and walked in. With all of the campsites in the national forests and parks, Joe wondered why they had chosen the wide, treeless flat in sight of the highway and within earshot of the sizzling traffic. There was also some kind of construction project going on near the tents. Two people—men— were digging postholes in the ground. Near them was a long flat object, some kind of sign.
    When a slim blond woman emerged from one of the tents and stood facing his pickup with her arms crossed in front of her and a defiant, determined look on her face, he realized why they were there. It wasn’t a campsite—it was a statement.
    Always cognizant of the risks of barging into the middle of someone’s camp—even an illegal camp—Joe stopped his truck thirty yards away and