Breaking Point

string of drool from her mouth to the pine needle carpet that there must be an accompanying food smell too faint for him to notice.
    —
    W HEN THE DRY CAMP came into view, Joe shouted, “Good afternoon.”
    Although it looked like he could have gotten closer before speaking, he wanted the occupant of the camp to know he was coming. There was nothing worse than startling a likely armed man in his own camp, Joe knew.
    In the clearing ahead, Joe could see a man wearing bulky camo clothing and squatting over a small fire with his back to him. A bulging pack hung on the branch of a dead pine, but there was no tent, horse, or ATV that Joe could see.
    At the sound of Joe’s greeting, the man wheeled around and shifted his weight toward the pack. That’s when Joe saw the scoped rifle leaning against the dead tree.
    “How’re things going?” Joe asked in a friendly tone. As he did, he pressured Toby’s right ribs with his leg so the horse would sidestep slightly and put a couple of trees between him and the man in the camp. That was another thing he’d learned long before: never approach a stranger head-on. Always come a little from the side so the scene was off-balance.
    The man stood up slowly and turned toward Joe. His posture was tense, as if he were coiled up. Smoke from the small fire outlined his body.
    Joe recognized him.
    “Butch?”
    “Joe?”
    Butch Roberson looked to be equal measures startled, aggressive, and somehow regretful. As if he were resigned to what he would have to do next.
    Butch was stocky and barrel-chested, with deep-set brown eyes, a three-day growth of heavy beard, and a wide bony jaw that made his head seem even larger than it was. He had black hair flecked with gray and a once broken nose that made him look like a fighter. He had a way of standing bent slightly forward with his arms stiff at his sides that suggested he would launch into an attack at any provocation. Until he opened his mouth, that is, and his soft-spoken tone belied the package.
    Butch owned Meadowlark Construction in Saddlestring, a small company that built a few houses but mainly did renovations. He was Joe’s age, mid-to-late forties, and Joe knew him because Butch was the father of Hannah, Joe’s youngest daughter’s best friend on earth. He’d seen Butch mainly at Lucy’s plays and concerts, and the two had chatted at school functions and when one or the other was sent to pick up his daughter at the Pickett or Roberson home. But since Hannah had obtained her special learner’s permit and could drive a beat-up old sedan to the Pickett house herself, he’d seen less of her parents the past year.
    Joe liked Hannah, and so did Marybeth. Hannah had recently expressed an interest in horses, and Marybeth was thrilled to have some help feeding and grooming in the corral behind their house.
    Joe knew Butch to be a hard worker, a devoted husband and father, and an outdoorsman who lived to hunt and fish. In that respect, he wasn’t unusual at all in Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming.
    Because the only times they’d talked were at social functions related to their daughters, Joe found it awkward to find Butch hunched over a fire miles from the road.
    Butch seemed to find it unsettling as well, Joe thought, because the look on his face was one Joe had never seen before.
    Joe said, “What brings you up here?”
    Butch seemed to be searching for the answer, and Joe noted the quick flick of his eyes in the direction of the rifle. Joe hoped it had been involuntary. Men confronted by game wardens in the wild often displayed tics and gestures that were uncharacteristic in the normal day-to-day. The innocent ones, the men who hunted and fished within the regulations and took pride in their ethics and sportsmanship, often displayed signs of nervousness and anxiety because they were disturbed at the possibility of being under suspicion. It was the boastful, overly friendly and outwardly confident backslappers, Joe had found, who were more likely guilty of something.
    “Just scouting elk,” Butch said, finally.
    Joe nodded. “Nothing wrong with that. Did you find ’em?”
    Butch chinned over his left shoulder in a vague westerly direction. “Six-by-six and a six-by-seven and a dozen cows and calves,” he said, meaning bulls with six and seven points on their antlers.
    “That’s encouraging,” Joe said, climbing down. “I need to get up here and do an elk trend count soon. But it’s good to hear that you found