Savage Run

by C. J. Box

“No, but Coble has a pistol with him,” said Stewie.

  “Get it,” Joe commanded. “Can you shoot a gun?”

  “Of course,” Stewie said. “I’m from Wyoming.”

  Stewie rolled toward the table and began to rise up. As he did, the kitchen window imploded with the force of another bullet and threw shards of glass skittering across the floor. Stewie dropped to a sprawl, his attitude accusatory toward Joe.

  “Forget that!” Stewie yelled.

  “What about you, Britney?” Joe asked. She was closer to Coble.

  “I will not touch a gun.”

  Joe cursed. They were useless.

  Joe’s mind raced as he lay there, his cheek pressed to the rough wood. Stewie was a few feet away, and despite the immediacy and danger of the situation, he couldn’t help staring. Stewie, Joe thought, was hideous. Seen in the dusty rods of light from the bullet holes in the walls, Stewie’s face looked as if it were made of wet papier-mâché that had been raked from top to bottom with a gardening claw and allowed to dry. His mouth was misshapen and exaggerated, capable of making a perfect inverted U when Stewie was angry, like he was now. His mouth looked like a child’s drawing of a sad face.

  Under Stewie’s rough, loose clothes, it was obvious that he had been bigger but had recently lost most of his muscle tone. Skin sagged on big bones. His left arm was limp and thin. Stewie’s fingernails and toenails needed trimming, and a beard, once full and red, was now pink and wispy. The hair on his head grew in patches, like putting greens on a desert golf course.

  Joe, however, pulled his attention away from Stewie as he realized that the gunshots had suddenly stopped. Joe guessed that the shooter was reloading. He reached down to make sure his .357 was still in his holster and was relieved to find it was. Unfortunately, Joe was a notoriously bad shot, and he knew that it would be close to impossible for him to hit the shooter at this distance.

  The shots resumed, but inside the cabin nothing happened. The shooter had shifted targets. Joe heard a faraway shattering of glass, and a metallic clang from the impact of a bullet.

  “He found my truck,” Joe spat.

  He remembered that his shotgun was in the saddle scabbard. On his knees and elbows he scrambled toward the open door.

  “Where are you going?” Britney asked hysterically. “Are you leaving us?”

  “Try to calm down, Britney,” Stewie implored.

  Joe crawled to the side of the doorframe and cautiously leaned forward. His face and head felt stunningly exposed when he peered outside. He wondered if he would hear the bullet before it hit him.

  Joe was practically useless as well. The shooter was over 1,500 yards away on the other mountain. Joe’s .357 Magnum was not capable of even half of that range. The fat, heavy bullets he fired would fall short at about the distance of the road.

  Lizzie wasn’t where she had fallen, but Joe spotted her further down the meadow. She stood in a pool of shadow just inside the treeline. His saddle had come loose and hung upside down beneath her belly. She took a step, faltered, and stopped. She stood stiffly. He could see that the bullet had shattered her right rear leg. Her leg, from her hock down, hung like a broken branch.

  Suddenly, there was a puff of dust and hair from her shoulder and the horse jerked and buckled into the summer grass as the reverberating sound of shot rolled across the valley.

  That son of a bitch, Joe thought. That son of a bitch killed Lizzie!

  Joe suddenly scuttled back as another .308 bullet blew a football-sized chunk out of the doorframe dirctly above where his head had been.

  “Jesus Christ!” Stewie bellowed.

  Joe knew his face was white and contorted with fear—he could feel his own skin pulling across his skull—when he joined Stewie and Britney Earthshare under the table. His voice choked as he asked them if there was another way out of the cabin.

  Stewie said there was a side door but that Charlie Tibbs could probably see them if they went out that way.

  “There’s a window in the bedroom,” Britney said, her teeth chattering as if the temperature were subzero.

  They crawled across the floor of the cabin toward the bedroom over shards of glass, splinters of wood, and congealing globules of blood and tissue. A bullet tore through the wall a foot above floor level and smashed into the base of the stove where Britney had huddled just a few minutes ago. Joe felt the cabin shudder with the impact.

  In the bedroom, Joe ripped the curtains and rod off of the only window and shoved it open. It faced the back of the cabin, away from where Charlie Tibbs was positioned on the mountain.

  Britney was trembling beneath her T-shirt as Joe helped her out the window. There was a five-foot drop, and she landed awkwardly but recovered. Stewie sat on the sill and grunted, trying to fit his broad shoulders through the frame.

  “I’m stuck, dammit,” he complained.

  With the heel of his hand, Joe thumped Stewie’s left shoulder, forcing him through. Stewie dropped to the ground and landed gracefully.

  A sound like a cymbal crashed in the main room as a bullet tore through the wall and hit a cast-iron skillet hanging above the stove.

  Joe dropped through the window and his boots stuck fast to the soft earth covered with pine needles.

  “Which way?” Britney asked.

  “North.” Joe pointed into the timber. “Keep the cabin between us and the shooter. Stay in the trees and don’t look back until we’re over the top of the mountain.”

  “I was really looking forward to seeing Mary,” Stewie said. “What a shitty day this has turned out to be.”

  Joe wheeled and hit Stewie square in the nose. Stewie lost his footing and sat down.

  Stewie reached up and covered his nose with his hand, then looked at the smear of blood in his palm. He glared at Joe with his one good eye.

  “Enough about my wife.” Joe commanded, shaking his hand that stung from the blow.

  Britney ran to Stewie and helped him to his feet. Stewie rose with a twisted, manic grin that looked almost cartoonish.

  “The man who is shooting at us,” Joe asked, “do you know who he is?”

  Stewie nodded, still rubbing his nose. “His name is Charlie Tibbs.”

  “Charlie Tibbs?” Joe repeated. “Oh, shit.” Joe had heard of Tibbs. He hadn’t realized the legendary stock detective was still working.

  “Okay,” Stewie said, shaking his head with bemused disbelief. “Let’s resume fleeing now.”

  As they climbed through the thick trees in back of the cabin, Joe grimly went over what had just happened, wishing he could call it all back, wishing he could start over from the time he saw the man he now knew as Charlie Tibbs.

  Wishing he knew then what he knew now, Joe thought how easy it would have been to pump his shotgun and level Charlie Tibbs with a cloud of buckshot as the man stood in the alcove by the hidden Mercedes. If he had done that, Joe thought, John Coble would still be alive, Joe would still have his horse and his dignity, and he would not be deep in the timber, running north, with Stewie Woods and Britney Earthshare, into mountain country so rough and wild that no one had ever bothered to cut a road into it.

  Behind him he heard another heavy bullet slam into the cabin, followed by another booming roll of a rifle shot.

  27

  After entering the house and kissing Sheridan, Marybeth asked if Joe had called. Sheridan, still lounging on her pillows in front of the TV, answered that he hadn’t.

  Marybeth dropped the Tom Horn book on the kitchen table and launched herself into scrubbing the counters and washing the dishes. It was a way of fighting off the sense of dread she had been feeling since the telephone calls and the incident with Ginger Finotta in the library. It was barely four in the afternoon and Joe had said he would be back by dark or call first. It was still early, and she had no good reason to feel such anxiousness.

  Reading the book hadn’t helped. Although it meandered through Tom Horn’s Indian fighting days—he was one of those hired to pursue Geronim
o—and his service with the U.S. Army in Cuba, what interested her were the chapters at the end of the book. Those chapters covered the period when Tom Horn was hired by Wyoming ranchers to clear out rustlers and homesteaders in southern Wyoming. The ranchers were a gentlemanly, genteel group. Many had nothing to do with day-to-day ranch work, which they hired out to their foremen, and they spent their days in the men’s clubs wearing fashionable clothing and their nights in a cluster of beautiful Victorian homes in Cheyenne. Some had visited their vast holdings up north only for occasional hunting trips. They knew, however, that the presence of rustlers, outlaws, and settlers threatened not only their income but also their political power base and the concept of open range. The ranchers were all members of the nascent Wyoming Cattle Growers’ Association. So it was decided among a cabal of association members that the rustlers had to go, and it would be best if it were accomplished ruthlessly, to send a powerful message. Based on the landowners’ experience in the territory thus far, local law enforcement couldn’t handle the job. The rustlers were local and their connections within the community were pervasive. For example, the rustlers knew well in advance when a sheriff’s posse was forming or where deputies were going to be sent to try to break them up.

  So Tom Horn was hired, supposedly to break horses for the Swan Land and Cattle Company. He lived alone in a rough cabin in the rocky Iron Mountain range, which was country better suited for mountain lions than for people. But there was no mistaking the real reason he was in the area, and it had little to do with horses.

  One by one, men suspected of rustling turned up dead. They were found in the high sagebrush flats and amid the granite crags of the Medicine Bow Mountains. There was a pattern to their deaths. All were found shot in the head, probably from a great distance, with a large caliber rifle bullet. And under their lifeless heads, someone had placed a rock.

  “You be good,” parents of the time would say to their children, “or Tom Horn’ll get you!”

  At five, Marybeth called the dispatcher to find out if there had been any word from Joe. The dispatcher said that according to the log, Joe had not called in the entire day. At Marybeth’s request, the dispatcher tried to reach him, but after several attempts, she reported that either Joe’s radio was turned off or he was simply out of range. Both Marybeth and the dispatcher knew how difficult it could be at times to make contact with officers in the mountains.

  At five-thirty, Marybeth called the Sheriff’s Office. Joe had promised to call the sheriff and advise him of his whereabouts, as well as his agenda. Sheriff Barnum was out of town at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas for firearms recertification, and Marybeth didn’t trust Deputy McLanahan enough to tell him her suspicions. Barnum was not expected back until late Sunday afternoon. The Sheriff’s Office told Marybeth that Joe had called early in the morning and had left his cell phone number for the sheriff to use when and if he called in.

  Marybeth felt a flash of anger at Joe. Knowing Joe, he had probably been grateful that Barnum wasn’t in. This way, he could investigate the cabin on his own. This was the kind of stubborn behavior that worried and enraged her. She tried to relax, telling herself that he was probably just fine, simply out of radio or cell phone range. He was probably rumbling up out of the trees with the horse trailer after having met Stewie Woods—or not. He would certainly call her when he could. But dammit, he had no right to put her through this.

  She stepped out of Sheridan’s line of sight while she composed her thoughts. She breathed deeply and calmed herself. The one thing she didn’t want to do was to worry Sheridan, because the two of them would feed off of each other and their dual concern would escalate—which wouldn’t accomplish anything of value. Marybeth was grateful that Lucy and April were both at church camp so there were two less children to hide her feelings from. But then, at times like these, she wanted all of her children around her. She wanted to be able to shelter and protect them.

  She thought of Trey Crump, Joe’s district supervisor in Cody. He was a good guy, and wouldn’t begrudge her calling him for advice. It was still much too early to panic, but if Trey was aware of the situation he might have some ideas on how to proceed, and he was the closest to the mountains—although from the other side—if it were necessary to start a search.

  Joe had taken a copy of the directions she had written down when Stewie called, but Marybeth assumed the original was still in the small desktop copier in his office. She noted that Sheridan’s eyes were on her as she crossed the family room and entered Joe’s office.

  “Anything wrong, Mom?” Sheridan asked.

  “No, nothing,” Marybeth answered a little too quickly.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Sheridan said from her cushions. “A man came here today and left a letter for Dad.”

  Marybeth stepped from the office doorway holding the envelope that was printed with the return address of Whelchel, Bushko, and Marchand, Attorneys at Law.

  “You need to tell me these things,” Marybeth snapped.

  Sheridan did her best “Hey, I’m innocent” shrug. “I just did,” she explained. “Besides, people drop stuff off for Dad all the time.”

  Marybeth sighed, knowing Sheridan was right. Still holding the envelope, she found the directions in the copier, exactly where she thought they would be. Then she stared at the writing on the envelope.

  Game Warden. Important.

  Important enough to open now, she wondered? Important enough for the game warden’s wife to open it?

  “Tell me what the man looked like,” she asked Sheridan.

  “Jeez, chill, mom,” Sheridan said, turning the television volume down with the remote control. “He was an older guy, probably sixty or so. He had on a cowboy hat and jeans. He had a potbelly and he seemed like a nice guy. He said his name was Jim Coble or something like that.”

  Marybeth thought about it. The description wasn’t much help, except that the man wasn’t someone they knew.

  Trey Crump wasn’t at home so Marybeth talked to his wife. They agreed that this kind of situation was maddeningly familiar and would probably reduce both their normal life expectancies. Mrs. Crump said she would have Trey call Marybeth as soon as she heard from him.

  “Tell him I’m not panicking,” Marybeth asked. “That’s important.”

  Mrs. Crump said she understood.

  The gentlemen ranchers, the pampered sons of industrialists and shipping magnates and bankers from Europe and New York and Boston, had gotten together and conspired over brandy and cigars and had determined that the local authorities were too stupid, too ineffectual, and too familiar with the rustlers and the settlers to eliminate the problem. What they needed, to preserve the status quo and the dominant concept of open range, was a calculating hired assassin from the outside who would answer only to them.

  So Tom Horn was brought in, hired by an associate who could not directly implicate them, to do the job.

  The rustlers were criminals, but they were not treated with the condemnation by the public that they deserved, the ranchers thought. Rustlers were often portrayed as dashing cowboy rogues, the last of the frontiersmen. The settlers, who were building shanties (some actually burrowing into the earth like human rodents) and putting up fences on their open range, were thought of as rugged individualists. Public sentiment was growing against the gentlemen ranchers. Locals spoke of a distinction between the ranchers who lived on their land and took on the elements and the markets as opposed to the gentlemen ranchers who lived in Cheyenne and managed their affairs over fine dinners and liquor sent out daily on the Union Pacific.

  So the ranchers started a small war. And they were very successful, at least for a while.

  Marybeth lowered the book and her eyes burned a hole into the clock above the stove. It was six-thirty, and shadows were beginning to grow across the road on Wolf Mountain. Joe hadn’t called in. Neither had Trey Crump.

  Maybe this is what Ginger Finotta was trying to tell her. Maybe, she thought, t
he ranchers were going to war again.

  She drew the envelope from her pocket. It could be anything. It could be a letter asking about where the man could get permission to hunt. In the Rockies, men generally thought that anything to do with hunting should be labeled “Important.” And ranchers thought anything that had to do with their land was important.

  She ripped open the envelope and pulled out a single folded sheet and read the wavering script.

  “Oh My God,” she said aloud.

  “Mom, what is it?” Sheridan called from the other room.

  PART THREE

  I’m not much of a prophet. I suppose the conflict between conservation and development will grow more intense each year with the pressure of a growing population and economic demands. That’s all I can see in the future—more conflict.

  Edward Abbey,

  author of The Monkeywrench Gang,

  NPR interview, 1983

  28

  With the cabin behind them, Joe Pickett, Stewie Woods, and Britney Earthshare ascended the first mountain. Joe led, keeping to the trees, and eventually found a game trail that switchbacked its way to the top. Descending, they plunged steeply into twisted, gnarled, almost impenetrable black timber. They crawled more than walked through it, sometimes covering much more ground moving sideways to find an opening in the trees than actually distancing themselves from the cabin.

  The frequency of the rifle fire had slowed. Joe checked his watch. It was now three to five minutes between shots. Then the shots stopped altogether.

  Finally, they reached the bottom of the slope. By then Joe was thinking about the probability of being tracked. While the black timber would be as difficult for a horse as it was for them, it would be obvious that the only place they had to run was downhill. There was no reason to flank the cabin or try to work their way back to the road where they could possibly be seen. The best strategy, Joe figured, was to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.