Ed made that noise again.“He really thinks it was, though.”
“But it wasn’t, Ed.”
“Well,” Ed said, “maybe.”
Tean took a deep breath.Anger, like so many things, seemed like it was just beyond his fingertips most days, but right now there was a hint of…something.“Ed, this is my job.This is what you pay me to do.I looked at that cow, and I’m telling you right now that a wolf didn’t attack it.”
“Hmm.Well, you’re the expert.”
Tean took another deep breath.
“But I wonder, if you stepped back and took another look, if there might besomething.You know?”
“Ed,” Tean said.And then he stopped.His thoughts were doing that thing again—spinning and colliding and throwing up sparks.He made himself put the words in order before he tried to speak again.“In the first place, it’s rare for a pack of wolves to go after a fully grown cow.”
“But not unheard of,” Ed said.
Tean ignored that.“Second, we don’t have packs of wolves in Utah.”Which Ed would have known if he had any background or experience appropriate for his current job, instead of being a former executive at a pesticide company.Hell, he would have known it if he’d done so much as a year of Boy Scouts.“What we might have,” Tean continued, “is a single wolf who has crossed over into the state.And one wolf, working on its own, is not going to take down a cow.If this were depredation, we’d be looking at a dead calf.”
“Right, well—”
“But this wasn’t a case of depredation, Ed.Not by a wolf.Not by anything.That cow was sick, and that’s why she died.”
“See, that’s where I’m concerned, because you can’tknowthat—”
“I can know that, Ed.I do know that.Because that’s my job.That cow was covered in fecal matter from uncontrolled diarrhea.On top of that, there’s no sign of bites to the throat or snout, which is what you’d see if this had been a wolf attack.There are no bites to the hindquarters, which is what you’d see if this had been a wolf attack.”
“Now, there, Mr.Neff disagrees—”
Mr.Neff can go fuck a duck.The words exploded in Tean’s head, and they came in Jem’s voice.
“Mr.Neff saw damage to the hindquarters that was caused by scavengers ripping off chunks of soft tissue.Not bite marks from wolves harrying prey.The real issue, Ed, is that the only wounds that might have been from a wolf, where they accessed the internal organs behind the ribcage, are all clearly post-mortem.There’s no hemorrhaging.There’s no blood—nothing on the ground, no blood trails.There’s no sign of a struggle, no broken vegetation, no drag marks.I found one track, and it belongs to a coyote.”
Ed’s breathing came close and loud on the phone.The sales-lot good humor sloughed off his voice.“Maybe if it was asmallwolf.”
“It wasn’t,” Tean said.“You’ll have the depredation report tomorrow, and I’ll send a copy to Fish and Wildlife.”
“Now hold on,” Ed said.“I understand you’ve got your opinion, but Mr.Neff thinks you’ve made a mistake.And I think we should respect that, don’t you?”
Nowas the obvious answer.The obvious answer was to point out that Mr.Neff clearly wanted an excuse to kill a wolf, and he thought his buddies would rubber-stamp it for him.
But the anger had blown out.And Tean was tired.
“I told Mr.Neff we’d get the carcass back here for a full necropsy,” Ed said.“And Tean, I just want to be clear here: we want to do right here.And that means we’re going to be absolutely thorough.We’re going to checkeverythingfor any possible evidence that a wolf was behind this.Because we can’t have a wolf running around out there, taking people’s cattle and ruining their business, can we?”
The question dangled in the air like a knife.
“No,” Tean said.
“Great!Glad we’re on the same page.Now, I’ll call Mr.Neff and see about getting that carcass.We want to get on this toot sweet, don’t you think?We’ve already wasted enough of his time.”
Some sort of sludgy answer was working its way out of Tean’s throat, but it didn’t matter; Ed killed the call.
Tean tossed his notes onto the passenger seat.He stared out the windshield for a moment at the steep, rocky face of the valley wall.
His phone buzzed.
Ed again.He just needed Tean to okay a flamethrower and helicopter for Joe Neff to get that wolf—