Wild Animals - Reid Robert Sims

Good old by Merle Puhl is campaigning to be a United States Senator from Montana, and a former President is coming to Rozette to give him a hand.  This means that the Secret Service is coming, too, and local police detective Ray Bartell is assigned to work with them.  Bartell’s job:  act as the security detail’s tour guide in the realm of local lunatics.  The job starts out interesting, but takes a bad turn when Puhl decides to use one outspoken environmentalist, Henry Skelton, as campaign fodder.  Skelton has a violent past, so the Secret Service—and consequently Bartell—must take him seriously.  In response, Skelton seems determined to prove that everything Puhl does to portray him as a dangerous extremist is true.  But where, Bartell comes to wonder, are the lines of extremism drawn?  How do you recognize the difference between a patriotic fool and a foolish patriot?  And how do you sort out the wreckage when the two clash?