Storm Watch


 
 
 
 ALSO BY C. J. BOX
 The Joe Pickett Novels
 
 Shadows Reel
 Dark Sky
 Long Range
 Wolf Pack
 The Disappeared
 Vicious Circle
 Off the Grid
 Endangered
 Stone Cold
 Breaking Point
 Force of Nature
 Cold Wind
 Nowhere to Run
 Below Zero
 Blood Trail
 Free Fire
 In Plain Sight
 Out of Range
 Trophy Hunt
 Winterkill
 Savage Run
 Open Season
 
 The Hoyt/Dewell Novels
 
 Treasure State
 The Bitterroots
 Paradise Valley
 Badlands
 The Highway
 Back of Beyond
 
 The Stand-Alone Novels and Other Works
 
 Shots Fired: Stories from Joe Pickett Country
 Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
 Blue Heaven
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 G. P. Putnam’s Sons
 Publishers Since 1838
 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
 penguinrandomhouse.com
 
 Copyright © 2023 by C. J. Box
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Box, C. J., author.
 Title: Storm watch / C. J. Box.
 Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2023. | Series: A Joe Pickett novel; [23] |
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022055510 (print) | LCCN 2022055511 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593331309 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593331316 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3552.O87658 S786 2023 (print) | LCC PS3552.O87658 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23/eng/20221115
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055510
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055511
 Cover design: Eric Fuentecilla
 Cover images: (man on horse) Simonkr / Getty Images; (background) John D Sirlin / Shutterstock
 Book design by Katy Riegel, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 pid_prh_6.0_142549203_c0_r0
 
 
 
 In memory of Toby, our first horse, and for Laurie, always
 
 
 
 
 
 Wednesday, March 29
 
 Doctor, doctor, I’m going mad
 This is the worst day I’ve ever had
 I can’t remember ever feeling this bad
 Under fifteen feet of pure white snow
 —Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow”
 
 
 
 CHAPTER ONE
 Late March in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains wasn’t yet spring by any means, but there were a growing number of days when spring could be dreamt of.
 For Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, this wasn’t one of those days. This was a day that would both start and end with blood on the snow.
 At midday, he climbed out of the cab of his replacement green Ford F-150 pickup and pulled on coveralls and a winter parka over his red uniform shirt and wool Filson vest. He’d had the foresight to layer up that morning before leaving his house, and he was also wearing merino wool long johns and thick wool socks. He buckled knee-high nylon gaiters over his lace-up Sorel pack boots, then placed his hat crown-down on the dashboard and replaced it with a thick wool rancher’s cap with the earflaps down.
 On the open tailgate of his vehicle, he filled a light daypack with gear: water, snowshoes, camera, necropsy kit, extra ammo, ticket book, binoculars, sat phone. While he did so, he shot a glance at the storm cloud shrouding the mountains and muting the sun. A significant “weather event” had been predicted by the National Weather Service for southern Montana and northern Wyoming. Joe didn’t question it. It felt like snow was coming, maybe a lot of it, and he needed to find an injured elk cow and put her out of her misery before the storm roared down from those mountains and engulfed him.
 The interstate highway had closed an hour before, as it so often did because of heavy snowfall, high winds, and vehicle crashes. The winter, thus far, had been brutal. Storm after storm since Christmas, and very little melting. The snowpack in the mountains was one hundred and fifty percent of normal, which was a relief after several years of drought, but getting through it had been cruel. During his lifetime in the Rocky Mountains, Joe had rarely been bothered by long winters, but this year was different. He was getting tired of constant snow making everything he did more difficult.
 He was located fifteen miles from Saddlestring on a paved but potholed county road that ran east to west, parallel to the foothills. It was on that road that morning that a young male driver en route to a Montana ski resort for spring break had taken a shortcut from the interstate highway. He’d apparently been looking at the navigation app on his smartphone screen when he plowed into a small herd of elk crossing the road.
 The driver’s car was totaled and had been towed away. The driver himself was under observation at the Twelve Sleep County Medical Center for an injury sustained when he bounced his forehead off his steering wheel upon impact. Two elk had been killed in the collision. A third elk, the cow Joe was after, had been seen by a state trooper who had responded to the accident call. On three good legs, the elk had somehow leapt over the fence beside the road and had last been seen limping away toward the mountains.
 Joe had heard about the incident over his radio while he’d been in another corner of his district looking for another problematic animal: a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound wolf that had gutted two yearling calves within sight of a rancher’s home. By the time Joe had responded, the wolf had gone and the rancher was furious.
 Joe had photographed the dead