“I’ll be careful, but I won’t back off because we found some more kills.” He handed Tess some photos. “Turns out the fire uncovered more poached carcasses.”

Tess glanced at the photos, trying with all her might to fight the shock and nausea. Born and raised in Southern California, a region not all that hunter friendly, Tess was new to the hunting culture. At first, the animal lover in her had screamed for Bambi, but hunting friends like Victor Camus clued her in to the sport and to the fact that 99 percent of the hunters in her jurisdiction hunted not only for the sport, but for the meat. They ate venison and elk, and if they didn’t, they found someone who did. Poachers were the one percent who wasted and killed for the wrong reasons. Yarrow had been trying to catch this particular offender all summer long.

Whether the pictures before her were the work of poachers, Tess couldn’t say; she’d have to take Yarrow’s word for it. From what she could see—and she wasn’t certain because the animals were charred and burnt—there was a headless deer, a headless elk, and what looked like the body of a dog.

“He shot a dog?”

“It’s a wolf, one of my marked wolves. He killed him and skinned him. These photos were taken up on the ridge around the boundary of Rogue’s Hollow and BLM land. This guy kills whatever crosses his path.”

Tess glanced from Yarrow to Logan, remembering the poor dead lambs. “So does this confirm that he’s also responsible for the dead livestock?”

Steve nodded. “Some bullet fragments taken from poached bears were similar to fragments taken from one of the dead lambs.”

Tess shook her head. “Any idea why he’d target domestic animals as well?”

Yarrow shrugged. “I think the guy is just plain mean.”

“Hard to tell his motive for the farm animals,” Steve said. “But it could be spite. Blakely is the most disagreeable man I’ve ever known.”

“Yes, that’s Blakely,” Tess conceded. “Is there a lot of money in poaching?”

“The wolf pelts maybe. But he’s killed five black bears, gutted them, and removed their gallbladders. There’s a heavy black-market demand for those.”

Tess had read something about that. Bear gallbladders were supposed to be a cure for many diseases.

“He might leave an online trail for that. He’s not selling bear gallbladders in the Hollow.”

“He claims he doesn’t own a computer or a cell phone. Says he doesn’t know how to use them. In our search, we didn’t recover a computer. And unfortunately, I don’t have the resources or the tech skills to dig around online.”