Nowhere to Run

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Three hours after he’d broken camp, repacked, and pushed his horses higher into the mountain range, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett paused on the lip of a wide hollow basin and dug in his saddlebag for his notebook. The bow hunters had described where they’d tracked the wounded elk, and he matched the topography against their description.

He glassed the basin with binoculars and noted the fingers of pine trees reaching down through the grassy swale and the craterlike depressions in the hollow they’d described. This, he determined, was the place.

He’d settled into a familiar routine of riding until his muscles got stiff and his knees hurt. Then he’d climb down and lead his geldings Buddy and Blue Roanie-a packhorse he’d named unimaginatively-until he could loosen up and work the kinks out. He checked his gear and the panniers on Roanie often to make sure the load was well balanced, and he’d stop so he and his horses could rest and get a drink of water. The second day of riding brought back all the old aches, but they seemed closer to the surface now that he was in his mid-forties. Shifting his weight in the saddle toward the basin, he clicked his tongue and touched Buddy’s sides with his spurs. The horse balked.

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