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before veering off into the brush.
    He’d been wondering when Rulon would call.
    It had been over a year since he’d quit his job with a combination of anger and sorrow, thinking he could no longer work for the bureaucracy. That, and his new director, LGD, who had told him of her plans to modernize the agency and bring him in from the field to work at her side at a desk in Cheyenne. Leaving law enforcement had also allowed him to complete a case against a federal official who would have been tough to nail within the system.
    When it was done, he’d looked up and considered his family finances—his wife, Marybeth, had just lost a business opportunity to renovate a grand old hotel in the heart of town and would return to her part-time job at the library; he had one daughter in college, and both their ward April and youngest daughter, Lucy, were on the way; their savings would last them three months at the most; and he couldn’t imagine starting over in a new career at his age. Joe refused to even consider public assistance of any kind, or unemployment benefits. Plus, he loved his job as a game warden—being out in the field every day in his pickup or on horseback or in a boat. He knew the land, the wildlife, and the rhythms of his district as if they were his second family. Every morning, he looked forward to pulling on his red uniform shirt with the pronghorn antelope patch on the sleeve, clamping on his weathered Stetson, and gathering his gear and weapons—and his dog—to take out to his pickup in the predawn light.
    Luckily for Joe, Governor Rulon had always had a soft spot for him, even though he wasn’t sure why. And once again, the governor had slipped him his card in a moment of crisis and said, “Call me.”
    Joe had. Within a week, he was a game warden again and had retained badge number twenty-one, meaning his seniority in the department was twenty-first of the fifty-two wardens working in the state. Over the objections of Director LGD (Joe had heard through the grapevine), Rulon instituted a fifteen percent salary increase for Joe from his own discretionary funds and added the title
special liaison to the executive branch
to Joe’s job description. He’d called the governor’s office at the time to ask what that meant. Joe recalled the conversation as if it had just happened.
    â€œThis new title—” Joe started to ask, but he was cut off by Rulon, who was doughy, red-faced, charismatic, unpredictable, and a year into his second and final term of office.
    â€œFancy, huh? Sounds official as hell, doesn’t it?” the governor said so loudly Joe had to move the phone away from his ear. Joe had learned years before Rulon didn’t simply talk. He
boomed
.
    â€œBut what does it mean, exactly?”
    â€œHell if I know. I’m still figuring it out.”
    â€œDo I report to you, or to the director, or what?” Joe asked.
    â€œYou still report to your director. Nothing changes, except I’d like you to stay out of trouble with her so you don’t make me look like a buffoon for this. Can you do that?”
    â€œI hope so.”
    â€œKeep your nose clean, Dudley Do-Right,” the governor said, chuckling at his own joke.
    â€œI do appreciate this.”
    â€œYou should,” Rulon said. “It’s one of those things I probably never should have done. But hell, I only have three years left and what can the bastards possibly do to me now?”
    Joe didn’t know which bastards. Rulon faced lots of them,according to Rulon. Legislators, environmentalists, lobbyists, industry hacks, but most of all the Feds. According to Rulon, they were assaulting him in human-wave attacks, even though he was of the same party affiliation. Democrats were a rare breed in Wyoming, but Rulon was immensely popular.
    â€œSo,” Joe asked, “why me?”
    â€œHa!” Rulon laughed. “Why do you think? I’m a terrific