“He was a good man, he was an honest man, a hard worker, but he did have a bit of a temper,” said Bob Grossen, whose family has been in the Council area since the 1880s. “But if you know Jack, if you grew up around Jack, you know Jack would not be the person who would pull a gun on someone — I have no problem saying that.”

Mr. Yantis’s two daughters described him as a soft-spoken man who rarely raised his voice and who loved his animals. He trained his daughters in gun safety from the age of 5. His idea of Sunday worship was to head into Idaho’s back country.

“Let’s go see what God created,” he would say, his daughter Sarah Yantis, 42, recalled.

That Adams County is a tough place to be in law enforcement, though, or to hire or retain officers, is also clear. The pay is low — $14.50 to $15 an hour in a dangerous job — and the territory to patrol is vast. With the two officers involved in the shooting now on paid administrative leave, only four deputies are left to patrol an area bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

Economic stress is also part of the fabric. Adams County has the highest unemployment rate in Idaho, 6.8 percent, compared with 4.2 percent statewide, according to the most recent federal figures. Timbering jobs and tax revenue have declined over the years, and some residents believe that the sheriff’s office writes more speeding tickets than necessary just to make up the revenue. The county has about 3,900 residents.

“They have to do their job, and I agree with that — you can’t speed, and you can’t drive drunk,” said Sylvia Hulin, who said she had nieces and nephews married into the Yantis family. “But oh my gosh, it’s just known all over the country, ‘Be careful when you go through Council because they’ll stop you.’”

Mr. Yantis’s 5-year-old bull, struck and wounded on the highway that night, is what connects all the pieces.