Trophy Hunt by C. J. BOX

Author:C. J. BOX [BOX, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, Fiction, General, Political, Mystery & Detective, Mystery Fiction, Thrillers, Murder, Wyoming, Pickett; Joe (Fictitious Character), Game Wardens
ISBN: 9780425202937
Google: t43zgJ4MPfEC
Amazon: 0425202933
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2004-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

They cleared the hill and Joe stopped his truck. " Voila!" Thompson said, sweeping his hand as if presenting what was behind door number three.

Joe looked. Below them, on a sagebrush flat, was a perfect circle cut into the buffalo grass. Joe estimated that it was eighty feet in circumference. Joe rubbed his jaw, ignoring the look of triumph on David Thompson's face.

"Just like I told you, eh?" Thompson said.

"It's a circle, all right," Joe agreed.

"A crop circle."

Joe continued to size up the scene. "Don't you need crops for a crop circle?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"I was just kidding."

"I," Thompson said slowly, "am less than impressed with your investigative technique, Mr. Pickett. Maybe I should have waited for the sheriff."

Joe arched his eyebrows. "Maybe. But let's go down there for a closer look."

He eased the pickup down the hill and parked it on the left side of the circle. Joe and Thompson climbed out. While Thompson leaned against Joe's pickup, Joe paralleled the ring on the outside, studying it. The ring cut through the buffalo grass turf to bare ground. It did not look singed on the edges, or ripped out. There were no pieces of broken-up turf along the edges. He was reminded of the ring of moisture a sweating, cold drink made on a countertop. He walked a full rotation around it until he was back at the truck.

Thompson looked expectant, his eyebrows raised as if to say, "See? What did I tell you?"

Joe turned, looked again at the circle, squinting.

"When was the last time you used that road we just took?" Joe asked.

"Oh, a few months, I suppose."

"Are you sure? Can you remember the last time you came down here?"

Thompson's eyebrows fell a little. "Why are you asking me this?"

Joe stuffed his hands into his Wranglers and rocked back a bit on his bootheels. "I'm trying to establish how long this thing has been here."

"I told you about that premonition I had . . ."

Joe nodded. "But that doesn't mean that because you just found this thing it was made last night. You see, if you look close at the dirt in the ring you can see that it's been weathered. There's old pockmarks from rain in it. This circle has been here quite a while—at least a month, and probably longer than that."

Thompson looked puzzled for a moment, obviously doubting himself, then rebounding, as Joe knew he would.

"What difference does it make if the crop circle was made last night or a month ago? It's still a damned crop circle."

Joe shook his head. "Don't you have caretakers who live here in the winter when you're in Texas?"

"A woman stays here," Thompson said impatiently, trying to figure out where Joe was going. "Heidi Moos. She stays in the guest house and watches over the place."

"I know Heidi," Joe said. She was an attractive, dark-haired woman who had moved to Wyoming from Alabama. "She moved here with her horse a few years ago. She's a horse trainer, right? I mean real horses.

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