Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson Read Free Book Online

have answers at this stage of an investigation.” I looked directly at her in anticipation of her next question. “Because at this point some of the answers would inevitably be wrong, and all that does is slow the pursuit.”
    “Pursuit?”
    I nodded, moving toward the door in hopes that she’d get the idea. “If Miguel Hernandez was murdered, then I am hunting for a killer, and the sooner I find him or her the better.”
    Following me, she paused at the top of the steps. “Before he or she kills again?”
    I took a breath and tried not to sound too pedantic. “And for the sake of justice and Miguel Hernandez.”
    “All this for a three-year working-visa Chilean?” I watched as she went down the steps, turning at the landing to look at me and smile. “They’re growing an odd crop of sheriffs here in Wyoming these days.”
    I stood high above her, attempting to cover my stained shirt with an arm—if you’re going to appear epic, it’s best to do it without looking like you’re bleeding to death. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I’m not a bad person, you know?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “I knew he was married and had kids and everything, but he was so lonely.”
    I dropped my head to examine my boots. After a moment there was a noise, and when I looked up she was gone. Having carefully avoided the minefield of personal interaction, I turned off the lights and eased down the steps, saluting the painting of Andrew Carnegie, along with all the 8 × 10s of the entire previous sheriffs of Absaroka County who had and had not avoided their own personal perils along the way.
    When I got to the door, the Toyota was pulling out onto the main street, the yellow traffic lights strung through town blinking long after all good sheriffs should be home in bed.
    I locked up and walked to my truck and was just about to open the door to an expectant Dog when I thought I heard a lone and plaintive sound from the west, high in the mountains.
    I paused and listened, but there was nothing more. Figuring it was just in my head, I turned back and opened the driver’s side door, but then I heard it again. Still unsure if it was just my imagination, I glanced in at my 145 pounds of canine mix as his eyes glowed and he lifted his massive head, answering with the bellowing call of the hound of the Baskervilles.
    Boy howdy.

3
    “Did you get any sleep last night?”
    We were bumping along the gravel road and over the moguls of ice that remained in the shadows of the Bighorn Mountains south of town, and I was actively failing in an attempt to keep my hat over my face. “Not much.” Finally giving up, I slouched against the passenger door and watched the sun slowly burning the late-morning mist from the Powder River Country like it was a doomed ghost.
    “Double Tough texted me and says he’s happy to come up and meet us at the Extepare place, if you want.”
    A lazy smile played on my face before my head bounced against the inside of the window again. “He’s bored down there in Powder Junction?”
    Saizarbitoria laughed, the black Vandyke splitting to reveal his white teeth. “Probably, but he thought that since the family has a propensity to relieve law enforcement of appendages . . .”
    Glancing out the window, I watched as we approached the gate of the fifteen-thousand-acre ranch. “Tell him I’ve got my Basque secret weapon with me and we’ll be fine.” Pulling the notepad from my pocket, I thumbed it open and held it in front of the Basquo’s face as he drove. “What do you make of that?”
    “Your drawing?”
    “Yep.”
    “That you made the right choice with a career in law enforcement.” He glanced at it again as we bounced along. “Where did you see that?”
    “On a tree, near where Hernandez was hung.”
    “Arborglyphs—carvings. The old Basque shepherds used to do them on the aspens all over the West, but like other traditions, there are less and less of them.”
    “These were fresh.”
    “Really?” He