Bittersweet (9 page)

Mack was startled. “But I didn't tell him to—”

“Yes, you did.” Karen reached for Mack's hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “That's exactly what you did, and you ought to take the credit. You had to do it because Lanny wasn't special enough. It's going to take a really special guy to love you
and
love what you do—because you very much are what you
do
, you know. In ways other women probably aren't.”

Not special enough? Mack ducked her head, feeling confused and uncertain but at the same time grateful. Yes, grateful. She and Karen had
known each other for a long time, and she trusted her. If Karen saw the situation that way, maybe she should try out that point of view.

“Thanks,” she said softly. “I'll . . . I'll think about it.”

“See that you do,” Karen directed. “And while you're at it, check out that hunky deputy. He looks pretty cool.”

Mack nodded, but she was thinking of something else. “When you go up to your study area again, let me know and I'll try to go with you. I'd like to know more about those lions and what you're doing up there.”

“Sure thing,” Karen said, opening the truck door. “We can make it an overnight, just us girls. And if you hear about any more lions, give me a call.”

“I will,” Mack said. “I'd much rather trap and release than trap and kill.” Which was what Parks and Wildlife did when a lion began hanging around a populated area and making a nuisance of itself.

“Yeah. That policy stinks.” Karen made a face. “Killing is what happens in the end, though, by vehicle or by rifle. There are too many of us humans living in the lions' habitat.”

A few minutes later, Mack was letting herself into her house, aiming to have lunch, then spend the next couple of hours catching up on the pile of paperwork on her desk. Molly greeted her with delight and followed her into the kitchen, tail nub wagging an ecstatic welcome. Mack poked her head out of the back door to check on Cheyenne, who pawed the ground at her paddock gate and gave her an inquisitive—and impatient—nicker.

Mack considered for a moment, and then said, “Maybe tomorrow, huh, girl? You could go out to Derek's place with me and we could give the girls a ride.” Molly pushed with her nose at the back of Mack's
knee, and she laughed down at the dog. “You, too, Mol?” Derek's daughters seemed to be more into their smartphones than the great outdoors, but maybe that was just because they hadn't been introduced to horses or dogs. All girls loved horses, didn't they?
She
had, when she was a girl.

Mack made herself a quick cheese and lunch meat sandwich, poured a glass of milk, and snagged some chips and a couple of cookies. Trailed by Molly, she took her lunch into her office and settled down to work. She started by picking up the messages on her office answering machine: a couple regarding holiday changes in the district meeting schedule, one from fellow warden Dusty Ross about some equipment he was trying out, and one from a woman named Amy Roth, calling from Pecan Springs. She identified herself as a member of PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—and said that she wanted to talk about a project she and Chris Griffin were working on involving the use of drones.

Mack frowned as she noted the number where Amy Roth could be reached. The name Chris Griffin rang a bell, although she couldn't quite place him. Something to do with drones? What she did know, though, was that the legislature was considering a bill (cannily titled the Texas Privacy Act) that would make the private use of drone aircraft illegal by individual citizens, by journalists, or by organizations like PETA. It was said to be the most restrictive law in the United States.

But the bill hadn't yet gotten out of committee, and for the moment, at least, Texas citizens could still fly drones. Parks and Wildlife was using them, too, to track bird habitat in Galveston Bay, monitor invasive tamarisk on Texas rivers, and survey fly-fisherman on the Guadalupe River. Parks and Wildlife hoped that the drones would eventually replace
helicopters, which were both costly and dangerous. In fact, three years before, they'd lost an aircraft and air crew to an accident. If they could replace the helicopters with drones, there would be no more risk of fatalities.

Mack was interested in drones, and curious, both personally and professionally. When she was a kid, her brothers had built radio-controlled model airplanes, and they'd let her fly them. Flying a drone must be a torqued-up version of flying a model plane, she thought, and the idea of being able to get a bird's-eye view of the landscape intrigued her. She could think of a dozen ways that conservationists could use drones—for research, not as spies in the skies. Karen's mountain lion, for instance. The tracking equipment was cumbersome, and it had to be carried on foot, over difficult terrain. What if she and Karen could fly a drone over the study area? It could pick up the radio signals from the lion's collar and report the animal's whereabouts, maybe even get video of it.

Mack keyed Ms. Roth's number into her cell phone. She had worked with PETA members on a couple of projects when she was an undergraduate. They were an important force for the protection of animals, and they often weighed in on Texas wildlife conservation issues—mostly on the right side, in Mack's opinion. But they could be pretty aggressive in their methods, and they sometimes crossed the line. She had the feeling that she'd better find out about Roth's drone project, whatever it was.

But it looked like they were going to play telephone tag. Her call was routed to voice mail, so she left a brief and reasonably cordial message saying that she was interested in learning more about the project and went back to her work. She had opened her report file on her computer and was beginning to update it from her log book when her cell phone
dinged. She saw that the caller was Derek, and when he spoke, she could hear that he was clearly upset.

“I've just found six dead white-tailed deer in the pasture, Mack.” His voice was strained. “Can you come out and take a look? I have no idea what's going on. What in hell am I supposed to do with all these dead deer? Do you know somebody who could haul them to the landfill for me?”

She frowned.
Six dead deer?
“Dead how?” she asked. “Were they shot? Are they all in one place? Have the backstraps been taken?” Every hunting season since she'd been a game warden, she came across one or two deer that had been shot by hunters, licensed or otherwise, who took only the best meat, the so-called venison filet mignon, and left the rest for the scavengers. But
six
?

“They're all in one place,” he replied impatiently, “pretty close together. And no, they weren't shot or butchered or anything like that. I mean, there's maybe a little blood, but I don't see any bullet holes or any sign that they've been killed by an animal—like that mountain lion that's running loose, I mean.”

“What do they look like?” Mack asked. “Malnourished? Normal?”

It wasn't an idle question. CWD, or chronic wasting disease, had recently cropped up in a couple of mule deer taken in far west Texas. Related to mad cow disease and epidemic among deer herds in nineteen other states and in Canada, CWD was the primary reason that deer breeders were prohibited from importing deer into Texas or moving breeder deer around the state without a permit. One infected deer could infect an entire captive herd. If an infected deer escaped, it could infect the wild deer. And if CWD got into the wild population, it could make a
huge dent in Texas' two-billion-dollar-a-year hunting industry. But the chances of deer dying of CWD as a group were remote at best.

“No, I wouldn't say they're malnourished,” Derek replied. “One of them is a good-size buck. They're just . . . dead, that's all. Six of them, not very far from where I'm putting in that new pond.” He sounded petulant. “Dead wild animals. This is a job for a game warden, isn't it?”

“Definitely,” she said, in the I'll-take-care-of-it voice that she used to soothe upset citizens. “I'm glad you called, Derek—you did the right thing. I'll meet you at your house in, say, twenty minutes, and you can take me to the site. Meanwhile, don't touch the animals. Okay?”

“Don't touch them?” he repeated, now sounding uncertain. “Why? You're thinking some kind of disease, maybe? But if it's a disease, it must be pretty damn contagious. I mean, there are
six
of them out there, and who knows how many out in the woods.” He gulped audibly. “Whatever it is, could it infect people? Maybe I should round up the girls and take them to a motel for a couple of days?”

She thought that was going overboard, but she only said, gently, “How about if we don't worry until we know what we're dealing with? See you in twenty minutes.”

Mack clicked off the call and immediately phoned Doc Masters, who ran a vet clinic on Highway 187 a couple of miles north of town. He was often out of the office on calls to outlying ranches, but luckily, she caught him in. She described the situation without any additional comment and asked him to meet her at Derek's ranch. She already had her suspicions about the cause of the deaths, but the vet would be the one to take samples and send them to the Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory in College Station, where the lab analysis would be done.

“I've got things to do this afternoon,” the vet said grumpily. “You sure this can't wait?”

“Tomorrow's a holiday,” Mack said. “We'd better get this done today.”

“Twenty minutes,” the vet said and clicked off.

Mack had been introduced to Doc Masters at the café and had bumped into him at the General Store, but she hadn't yet had a chance to work with him. To tell the truth, she'd been apprehensive about it. The old vet—gray-headed and gray-bearded—was known to be crusty and bad-tempered, and he didn't suffer fools gladly. In fact, he didn't suffer fools at all and was reputed to have no love for game wardens, especially female game wardens. Mack's predecessor, Clyde Brimley, had warned her of the need to convince Doc Masters that she knew her stuff.

“He'll make life tough for you if you don't,” Clyde had cautioned. “Master's a shrewd old buzzard. He knows all the ranchers in this part of the county, and you need him on your side. But he's got this thing about game wardens, like he thinks we're not well trained or something. I never did figure that one out.”

All Mack could do was shrug. She'd run into the anti-woman attitude before, and it always took some extra patience to keep from telling the guy, whoever he was, to go fly a kite. But Masters was the only vet in northeast Uvalde County. And a good working relationship with the local vet was as important as a good working relationship with the local law enforcement officials.

“Not today, Mol,” Mack said, when Molly begged to go with her. “You can come tomorrow, for Thanksgiving, and we'll take Cheyenne, for the girls to ride.” She bent over and rubbed the heeler's ears. “But if this is what I think it is, it's not going to be pleasant. And I don't want you near it.” Then, thinking about the possibilities, she got a can of gasoline and a
propane torch out of the garage, stowed them in the back of her truck along with a couple of extra rakes, and headed out to Derek's ranch.

When she pulled up in front of the impressive glass-and-stone ranch house, Doc Masters was already there, talking to Derek, who was wearing baggy shorts, flip-flops, and a Hawaiian print shirt. A slight, stooped man in his late sixties, the vet was dressed in stained khaki pants and a baggy vest with multiple pockets and wore a maroon Texas A&M baseball cap pulled down tight over his gray buzz cut. Nodding curtly to Mack, he put his bag in her truck and the two of them followed Derek's red ATV over a rutted ranch road. After Mack's greeting and Masters' grunted response, the old man refused Mack's efforts at conversation. Mack's heart sank. They weren't exactly getting off to a strong start.

The sun had ducked behind a band of pewter gray clouds, and the wind was picking up ahead of a cold front that was predicted to slide through the county that evening, bringing wind and maybe some rain. After a fifteen-minute drive, Derek stopped his ATV and Mack pulled up alongside him. She could see vultures clustered around the dead animals, which seemed to be scattered across about a half acre of grassland, at the foot of a steep limestone cliff near a small creek. Not far away, a big bulldozer was sitting idle beside a deep, wide basin and a pile of scooped-up soil and rock.

“I counted six dead,” Derek said, swatting at a bug on his bare leg. In his shorts and flip-flops, he looked out of place in the rough country. He gestured toward the bulldozer. “I spotted them when I drove out to check on the pond I'm having built.”

Mack followed Doc Masters to the nearest dead animal, a young doe. Peering over the tops of his round, metal-rimmed glasses, he looked as if
he had seen almost everything in his long career—and he probably had. He had certainly seen
this
before, Mack knew, as she stood beside him, gazing at the scattered group of six dead deer, five does and a buck, in short grass. The carcasses were fairly fresh, but the day had turned warm and they were already pretty ripe. The vultures lifted noisily from their lunch and flapped off to watch from a couple of nearby hackberry trees. The dead animals showed little or no rigor, and in spite of the vulture depredation, Mack could see that small amounts of dark blood had oozed from their mouths and noses. A textbook case, she thought.

Masters hunkered down for a closer look at the doe, then straightened up. He gave Mack a testing glance. “You want to hazard a guess, Miz Warden-lady?” There was a slightly mocking tone in his grainy voice. “What killed 'em?”

Mack met his eyes, steady and sure. “It's late in the year for anthrax, but that's what it looks like to me. What do you think?”

“Looks that way to me, too,” the vet agreed with a brusque nod. “Glad to see they're teaching something useful at warden school these days. But o' course we'll have to see what they say about it over at College Station. They may have a different idea.”