Part 5
Keene asked June not to alter or destroy anything or take it off the property. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent was driving from Missoula, and a county deputy would meet him at the ranch later that evening. Until then, Luke could stay with Lena or leave with Keene.
“I’m staying here,” Luke said.
June waited for the old correction to rise—don’t make this harder, do what the officer says—but it did not come. “Then I’m staying too.”
Keene gave them a direct number and told them not to admit anyone. She photographed the ledger where it lay, then left to secure the line cabin with another warden.
June made tomato soup because it required opening only two cans. Luke sat at the kitchen table and watched Amos sleep. Neither of them ate much.
The open ledger lay between their bowls.
During the wildfire closure two summers earlier, Cole had sat at this same table and called every client before they could call him. He had returned deposits the business could not afford to lose and taken a loan against his house to pay the guides.
That man had not vanished. The March entry remained in June’s handwriting anyway.
“Your dad will know soon,” she said.
“He already knows.”
Luke turned his phone so she could see the messages appearing on the lock screen.
WHERE ARE YOU
CALL ME NOW
DON’T MAKE THIS WORSE
June read the last one twice. “Has he said anything else?”
“Just that.”
Later, headlights swept across the kitchen ceiling. Cole’s truck stopped beside the porch. He got out alone, wearing the canvas jacket David had given him when he became a guide. The right cuff was darker where it had been mended; June had sewn that patch herself.
She called Keene’s direct number before he reached the steps.
“He’s here,” June said.
“The deputy is less than fifteen minutes out. I’m a few minutes behind him. Lock the inner door and keep this call open.”
The front knob turned. Cole still had a key.
June shot the dead bolt on the inner kitchen door and left Keene on the counter with the call connected. Cole’s key opened the outer mudroom, but not the dead bolt. He entered, stamped dirt from his boots, and tried the second knob.
“Mom.”
His voice was not threatening. That made it harder.
“I need to talk to Luke.”
“You can talk through the door.”
There was a pause. June pictured him with one hand on the knob, lowering his head the way David had when thinking. Cole had inherited so many of his father’s gestures that sometimes she reacted to them before remembering whose face she was looking at.
“I’m not going to hurt anybody,” he said. “Open the door.”
Luke stood from the table. His chair legs scraped the floor.
“Please stay back from the door,” June told him. “The deputy’s coming.”
Luke remained standing, but he did not approach.
Cole heard him. “You took something off my tablet. What did you hand the warden?”
“Do you?” Luke called back.
Cole struck the door once with the flat of his hand. Mabel fled beneath the sideboard. Amos got to his feet, not growling, and moved beside Luke.
June looked at the dog and then at the locked door. For fourteen months she had ended every raised voice by leaving the room. Now her son stood behind the door, and the boy who had called twice stood beside her.
“She got one kit out of the temporary den,” June said. “The team is still watching the other.”
Cole let out a breath. “Then they’ll handle it.”
“Her foot was trapped through the night and most of a day.”
“She walked away, didn’t she?”
June said nothing.
“Mom, listen. I made a bad call. That drainage closure is a line on paper under three feet of snow. Reporting it would’ve shut us down. The buyer said the kits were going to a licensed facility. They’d sent an advance, not the full amount. I was going to release the female when the pickup was set.”
“Why not release her first?”
The silence on the other side lasted too long.
“Because I needed to know they’d pay.”
Luke turned away.
“You know those books,” Cole said. “You saw what was happening.”
“I saw the debt.”
“You entered the transfer.”
“I did.”
“So don’t stand in there and act like I built this in secret while you were minding the daisies. You stopped asking questions before Dad died. You left me with the mess and called it grief.”
Luke looked at her. June felt the heat rise into her face, along with the urge to explain hospital nights, oxygen alarms, the ranch account, and the weight of forty years packed into one dying season. Explanations would not change the ink in the ledger.
“Some of that is true,” she said.
Cole went quiet.
June crossed to the small wall safe and turned the dial. Inside were the outfitting partnership papers, the bank records, and David’s brass key ring. She gathered the papers and records into a canvas document case, then lifted the ledger from the kitchen table and placed it inside.
“What are you doing?” Cole asked through the door.
“Giving the agent the complete books.”
“Those are company property.”
“They’re mine too.”
The doorknob jerked. “Open this door.”
“No.”
He hit the wood again, harder. “Luke, come out. We can still fix your statement before this gets out of hand.”
Luke’s jaw worked. “I’m not changing it.”
“You think your grandfather would want you to destroy his business?”
June saw Luke’s shoulders fold and his eyes drop toward David’s old key rack. The outfitting company had put food on their tables, paid for Luke’s first saddle, and carried David’s name on every trailer.
June picked up the document case. “Your grandfather reported every non-target catch, even when it cost him a season.”
“Dad said Grandpa cut corners too.”
“He did. On fuel logs. On fence permits. He never left something alive in a trap to make sure a buyer paid.”
Outside, tires crackled on the gravel. Cole stepped away from the dead-bolted door and looked through the mudroom window toward the approaching county vehicle. He could have reached his truck before the deputy turned into the yard.
Amos remained beside Luke. The old dog’s legs trembled, but his eyes did not leave the closed door.
June took David’s key ring from the safe and carried the canvas case to the kitchen’s separate side exit. Through its glass she saw the deputy stop at the gate and Keene’s truck turn in behind him. Only then did she open the door and step onto the small porch.
Cole came out of the mudroom as she crossed the yard. He saw the case and took one step toward her.
“Give me that.”
June kept walking. “The officers are here.”
“I’m your son.”
For one instant she saw him at nine, furious and frightened after David had made him release his first trout. Then Keene called his name from beside her truck, and he stopped.
“Mara,” June called. Her voice broke, so she started again. “These are the business records I control. My entries are in there too.”
Keene came onto the porch without rushing. The deputy asked Cole to keep his hands visible and step away from June. Cole obeyed, his face emptied of everything but fatigue.
Keene took the document case, logged the time for the deputy, and asked Cole whether he would come to town for an interview. He agreed, then turned once beside the truck.
“You know what this does to the business,” he said.
“Yes.”
He looked through the kitchen window, but Luke had moved out of sight. Then he got into the truck. June looked down. David’s brass key ring lay in her open palm, pressed so hard into her skin that each tooth had left a mark…
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