(Braden)
“My first love was an angry painful song, I wanted one so bad I went and did everything wrong.”
—RECKLESS KELLY, “WICKED TWISTED ROAD”
When I cross paths with a black GMC truck on the access road near the Sawtooth trailhead, I notice two things in my rearview mirror.
One, there’s a nice mule deer buck loaded into the truck bed.
Two, the truck has Texas plates.
Now, let’s be honest, it isn’t this guy’s fault he’s from Texas. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to turn around to follow him and have every intention of finding him in violation of some hunting regulation—no matter how obscure or menial. Is it wrong that my shitty outlook on life since returning from his state of residence with nothing but a busted heart is what’s spurred this otherwise baseless investigation of mine? Yes. And I know that. Logically.
Too bad logic isn’t my forte these days. Instead, it’s only cynicism and hostility taking turns at the wheel. And if this poor sap dares question my motivations, I’ll be happy to pinpoint the source for him, right down to a small bungalow in the Hyde Park area of Austin.
The driver slows to a stop where the dirt road meets the main county road, signals properly, then turns right. I follow him through Hotchkiss and onto Highway 133, headed out of town. Fifteen minutes later, I’ve nearly given up this pointless pursuit, only to have him flip on his turn signal and slow his speed to hang another left.
Straight into the parking lot of the Empire Ambassador Motel.
I let out a sigh. This fucking guy. Now I really have to nail him to the wall with something, simply because he was stupid enough to rent a room here, and this place will forever remind me of the moment when Amber texted me a picture of her in one of these shitty rooms.
He pulls into a parking space and shuts off the truck. I hover near the entrance with my truck motor running and watch as a barrel-chested guy in his early forties emerges from the driver side. His clothing is camo from head to toe, in heavier layers than I would have expected given Colorado’s temperate fall weather. But he’s from Texas, where it’s still warm enough for some people to strut around in rompers.
A teenager bounds out from the passenger side, dressed in the same gear, all except for his flat-bill hat, from which his floppy brown hair curls out from around the brim. The grin on his face tells the story. The deer in the back of this truck is his, and given that he only looks about thirteen years old, this may be his first Colorado buck with a bow. Well, it better have been with a bow. This is still archery season, and if I find a rifle or a muzzleloader in that truck that will make this easy. Taking a deer with anything other than a bow today would result in losing their future privileges, paying a serious fine, and if I really want to be a dick, they might need to come up with bail money.
I begin a slow creep through the parking lot in my truck and pull in perpendicular behind theirs, blocking them in. Scanning the deer’s carcass, I quickly spot a problem: there’s no tag on this deer.
Christ, that was almost too easy. I didn’t even have to break a sweat.
Although some people might claim otherwise, hunting regulations are not only simple, but clear-cut. Some of the most fundamental rules have to do with hunting tags. Each season, once the state draw is complete, hunters who were successful receive a physical tag in the mail. This tag must travel with the hunter, and if he or she fills the tag, three things need to happen.
First, they need to punch their tag by striking a hole through it, effectively destroying it for future use. Second, they need to sign the tag. Third, they need to attach the tag to the animal, prior to moving it anywhere. I happen to know that this deer took a twenty-mile spin around town—all without a tag.
My truck door is barely open before the driver is headed my way, calling out a greeting and extending his hand.
“Morning!”
“Morning.” I return his handshake. “Braden Montgomery, CPW unit manager for this area.”
“Greg Dunlap. This is my son, Bryce.”
I tip my chin toward the truck bed. “Looks like you two had a good day.”
Greg chuckles, puffing his chest out a bit. “Yes we did. This is Bryce’s first archery season, and we’re headed home with this guy.”
The still-grinning Bryce beams when I give him a nod. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir,” he breathes, now gawking over the bedside to admire his deer.
I step forward and peer over the tailgate myself, pretending to give the deer an appreciative once-over. Then I shake my head, clicking my tongue a little.
“Man, this sucks. I hate casting a cloud over your big Colorado hunt. I mean, you came all the way from Texas, after all. Which makes this situation such a bummer.”
Bryce freezes, darting a glance his dad’s way. Greg’s head rears back as a puzzled look crosses his face.
“Situation?”
I drop a forearm to the tailgate and lean on it casually, thumbing toward the carcass.
“No tag.”
Behind me, Bryce makes a choked-off noise. I hear the sound of his boots shuffling, his hands patting over every pocket on his clothing, followed by the passenger door on the truck opening and a whole host of junk inside rattling about.
Greg shakes his head. “Shit. We have it. I swear. It’s just . . . we were . . . shit. We never do this, forget to tag out.” He flicks a hand toward Bryce. “His first with a bow, you know? I was as excited as he was. But I raised him to know the regs and follow the rules. This was an oversight, nothing else.”
“Got it!”
Bryce has his hand thrust in the air, waving the tag about. He slams the truck door shut behind him as he careens our way and looks frantically about for a pen. Greg does the same. Slowly, I pull a pen from the breast pocket on my shirt, stalling long enough to be sure they both have time to note the CPW logo stitched there. I hand the pen to Bryce, watching as he signs it with a shaking hand, and then uses the tip of the pen to poke a hole in the bottom corner. He hands the pen back to me, the tag along with it. I lift a brow.
“It goes on the animal.”
His face goes slack. “Crap. Sorry. Yes, sir.”
Awkwardly leaning over the bed, Bryce wrestles the deer closer by grabbing on to a hoof and ties the tag to it. He gives me another sheepish apology. I draw in a long breath, as if I’m thinking hard through what to do or say next.
I’m not.
“Improper tagging. Illegal transport,” I muse. “I’m well within my rights to assess a hefty fine. If I assess penalty points, you could lose your privileges here in Colorado for a year. Not to mention I could confiscate this deer.”
The fines and points seem to the least of Bryce’s concerns. Confiscating his deer would mean he can’t show off to his friends when he gets home. Or show off right here, via social media—assuming he didn’t already do that in the field. So the possibility of losing his deer means his lip is quivering and his eyes are watering. If I weren’t such an insufferable asshole these days, I might try to put myself in his shoes, remembering what it was like to be a kid who just shot his first deer with a bow.
“He’s twelve,” Greg sputters. “This was a God’s-honest mistake. One that won’t happen again. Cut us some slack here. Please.”
Greg knows as well as I do that game wardens have plenty of latitude when it comes to lesser violations, which in the grand scheme of things is exactly what I’m dealing with. No one’s poaching or trespassing, nor have they cut the head off this animal and left the carcass to rot somewhere in the field.
I could easily send these two on their way with a verbal warning. A few months ago, I’d have done exactly that, mostly because it’s nice to meet kids these days who show an interest in anything that doesn’t have a touch screen.
But that was a few months ago. Today, things are different.
“Rules are rules. We all have to play by them.” I dig out my ticket pad and begin to write without looking up. “I won’t confiscate the deer. That’s the best I can do.”
An hour later, just as I pull into my driveway, my phone rings with a call from Tobias.
I groan. A call from my boss at four in the afternoon on a Saturday cannot be a good thing. Tobias guards his weekends as if they’re precious metals, and from Friday at five p.m. to Monday at seven a.m., he’s not interested in anything but golf, his grandkids, and working on the ’49 Triumph motorcycle he’s restoring.
When I answer, I’m prepared for the worst, because I already have a good suspicion what he’s calling about. He doesn’t offer any greeting—not that I was expecting one.
“Did you just issue a five-hundred-dollar fine and a fifteen-point ticket to some kid who isn’t old enough to drive?”
“Yes.” I spare him the details because it doesn’t sound like he cares. At all.
“Fifteen points. Five short of the twenty that would suspend his hunting privileges in the state of Colorado for a year. Similar to what we slapped on that guy who poached an elk on that private ranch outside Delta last year.”
“Yes.”
“Was this kid carrying a machete? Did he flip you off? Did he kick you with his twelve-year-old feet?”
“He was from Texas.”
Tobias curses quietly and grumbles until I’m nearly convinced he has nothing else to say. Finally, he blows out an audible exhale.
“I like you, Montgomery. You’re reliable, you give a shit, and I don’t have to look over your shoulder every five minutes. And until today, I always trusted you to do your job without any drama. I’ve never questioned where your head is at. I’ve certainly never thought it might be up your ass.”
He pauses to lower his voice, speaking measuredly so I can’t mistake a word.
“I don’t know what happened when you took that little unplanned trip to Texas, and I don’t care. Get your act together, Montgomery. I won’t say it again.”
He hangs up. I stare out my windshield, regretting all of what I’ve done. Jesus. What have I done? I must have lost my mind, because this would be one stupid-ass way to find myself on the unemployment line.
Inside my house, I toss my coat on the couch and toe off my boots. Charley skitters around me with her favorite chew toy in her mouth as I cast a look around my place. All my books and my records are in their place; everything is where it should be. All I have to do tonight is crack a beer and heat up some of the leftover soup I made yesterday, slice up some of the soda bread I made to go with it, and call it dinner. After that, I can read for a while or crash into bed or stare at the sunset from my front porch. Life doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Garrett may have moved to Kansas, and Cooper may be days away from being a new dad, but they’re still my buddies. We’ll still hunt turkeys together and drink a few beers when we can. Next year, I’ll find myself back in Oregon at the cabin, just like always, trying to track down that buck again—and if my mom happens to be there, we’ll share dinner and talk about the same things we always have: books and ferns and politics. And, currently, I still have my job. My dog is still here and is always happy to see me.
My life is just as it was before Amber Regan stormed her way into it and, for a moment, changed everything. She was like an impending flashover in a wildfire, one that after all those years I spent on the front lines, I should have seen coming. The signs were there—the heat, the oxygen, the fuel—but I ignored them. Then boom, it all goes up in flames, my heart and my good judgment along with it.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not for one more day or one more minute. Not anymore. I can choose to get over this and move on, just the way I did with Laurel. And I will.