by C. J. Box
He’d spent the time since the ambush trying to play dead. He kept his eyes closed and tried to keep his breathing relaxed while his other senses roared with fear.
He’d heard a few voices. One of them, female, asked, “Who are they? Are they the ones from Michigan?”
And Caleb or Camish say, “Yup, I recognize two of ’em. The other two I don’t know. That one doesn’t look like he should be with them.”
There were other conversations, but the roaring of blood through his ears blocked them out. He tried to stay calm, play dead. Tried to recall stories he’d read of victims of mass firing squads or massacres who survived by pretending they were killed. Wondering how in the hell they were able to pull it off when he felt like screaming.
Then the voice telling him to open his eyes. He was caught.
Something sharp tugged at the skin on his cheek and he flinched. There was no way of pretending anymore.
He opened his eyes as the brother with the dirty compress on his chin—it wasn’t a red rose after all—withdrew the point of a knife. Both brothers hovered over him, looking down. Their faces were in shadow because the sun was directly over their heads and beating down. Farkus squinted, trying to see them. They were mirror images of each other, except for the bandage on the face of one of the brothers.
“This probably isn’t going to be your best day ever,” one of them said in a flat midwestern accent.
PART THREE
OUTLIERS AMONG US
I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.
—ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
23
JOE DROVE HIS PICKUP AND EMPTY HORSE TRAILER PAST THE sign on the highway that read ENTERING WIND RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION. Nate sat in the passenger seat, running a BoreSnake cleaning cable through the barrel and five cylinders of his .454 Casull. The pickup reeked of cleaning solvent and gun oil, and Joe lowered his window to flood the cab with fresh air. The FedEx box from Billings was lashed to the sidewall of the pickup bed with bungee cords.
As they rolled down a battered two-lane toward Alicia Whiteplume’s uncle’s ranch, Nate said, “Is the governor aware of what we’re doing?”
“I thought it best not to tell him,” Joe said.
“Is that wise?”
Joe said, “Probably not, but I can live with it and this way he has deniability.”
“What about your director? What does he know?”
Said Joe, “Nothing. As far as he’s concerned, I’m on administrative leave.”
“Marybeth’s okay with it, though?”
“She’s the one who said go,” Joe said.
Nate grinned. “Let’s go with the higher authority, then.”
“That’s what I always do,” Joe said.
Nate said, “Something I learned years before in special operations when dealing within the bureaucracy was, ‘It’s always better to apologize than to ask permission.’”
“Exactly.”
Joe said, “I’ll call Sheriff Baird as we start up into the mountains, but not before. He needs to know we’re in his county even if the news makes him blow a gasket. I can’t see him coming after us, having spent his budget and all, and he really can’t prevent us from going back up there.”
Nate loaded the cylinder with cartridges the size of cigar stubs and snapped it closed and holstered the revolver. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said. “What are you packing?”
Joe said, “I picked up a new twelve-gauge at the pawnshop.”
Nate dropped his head. “The pawnshop?”
“It’s a good pawnshop. Besides, not everyone spends their conscious hours thinking about their immediate weaponry and how they’d react if attacked. Believe it or not, Nate, but there are even people who don’t own guns.”
“I know that,” Nate said. “Don’t assume I disapprove. The more who don’t own guns, the greater my advantage. Even so, back to you. Another Remington Wingmaster?”
“Yup. I lucked out. There aren’t as many guns available these days as there used to be. Folks are hoarding them. Oh,” Joe said, reaching down and patting the .40 Glock on his hip. “And my service weapon.”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “Are you ever going to take the time to learn how to hit something with that? You drive me crazy.”
Joe shrugged. “I’ve done some damage with it.”
“From an inch away and by spraying the landscape with slugs.” Nate snorted. “A monkey could do that.”
Joe smiled. “Every time I pull this gun, I think it’s the last time I’ll ever do it. Not because I think there will be world peace—I just never think trouble will come my way again.”
Nate shook his head in disgust. “But it always does,” he said.
Joe curled his mouth on the sides and nodded. “Yup, it seems to.”
“That doesn’t just happen,” Nate said.
“Oh, maybe it does,” Joe said.
Nate shook his head and looked away. They eventually settled into a comfortable and familiar silence.
JOE’S PHONE BURRED and he plucked it from his breast pocket and looked at the display. “Uh-oh,” he said.
Nate said, “Who is it?”
“It’s a 777 number I don’t recognize. But 777 is the state phone prefix. It’s probably the governor or one of his staff calling.”
The phone continued to ring.
“Are you going to answer it?” Nate asked.
Joe dropped the phone back into his pocket, then bent forward and clicked off his radio under the dashboard as well.
“Radio silence,” Nate said. “I like radio silence.”
“Unless, of course, Marybeth calls,” Joe said.
“Obviously,” Nate said.
“THIS ONE’S GOT a lot of moving parts, doesn’t it?” Nate said after fifteen minutes. Joe knew he was referring to the situation in general.
“Yup.”
“And a bunch of parts we don’t even know yet.”
“That’s the feeling I get.”
“Are the feds with us or against us on this one?”
Joe shrugged. “That’s something I can’t quite figure out yet. The FBI seems very interested in it, but from the outside. Usually, they move in and try to take over. This time, it’s like they’re trying to stay out of it but control things at the same time.”
“Have you talked to that agent you know, Coon?”
“Yup, I called him but he didn’t tell me much. He said he couldn’t comment on ongoing investigations, as if I were a reporter or something.”
“Ongoing investigations? And he hasn’t tried to get in touch with you since?”
“Nope,” Joe said.
“That tells me something right there,” Nate said.
“Me, too.”
“He should have contacted you again by now, if for no reason other than to see how you’re doing. There’s a reason he’s stayed away, and that’s probably because he doesn’t want to communicate with you and maybe let something slip out.”
Joe nodded. “The governor said there were some indirect federal contacts. Plus, Coon was adamant that the Grims, or Grimmengrubers, didn’t exist. At the time, I thought he was telling me I was nuts. In retrospect, I think he was telling me the names didn’t jibe with his investigation. In other words, he knows these brothers exist, but not under those names.”
“I wonder what he’s hiding,” Nate said. “And I wonder how far it goes up the chain.”
Joe’s phone rang again. He said, “Another 777 number.”
Nate said, “It’s always better to apologize than to ask permission.”
Joe breathed deeply and dropped the phone back into his pocket without answering.
ALISHA’S UNCLE, Willie Shoyo, had herded a dozen of his horses into a temporary corral made of twelve-foot rail panels in the sagebrush well out of sight of his home and barn. Beyond the corral were undulating grasslands that rose in elevation and melded with the dark brush marching downward from the mountai
ns. The horses in the corral obviously didn’t like being penned up together, and they were restless and jockeying for preeminence in the nascent herd. In the distance, horses that hadn’t been selected by Shoyo grazed on yellowing grass and pretended they weren’t paying attention to the arrival of the pickup and horse trailer.
As Joe parked and swung out of his truck, he heard the solid thump of a kick and the squeal of the kicked in the pen. It didn’t take long for horses to start establishing the pecking order.
Willie Shoyo wore a King Ropes cap, a green snap-button cowboy shirt, a big buckle with an engraving of a Shoshone rose, and crisp Wranglers tucked into the tops of scuffed Ariat boots. He stood near the corral with his boot on the bottom rail and crossed arms on the top. His hands seemed darker and older than the rest of him, the skin on the back of his hands like coffee-stained leather. Joe thought he had a pleasant face—smooth and round, with sharp dark eyes. Willie’s horses were prized as great cow ponies, and a few had won money in team penning competitions.
Willie said to Nate, “Alisha told me you’d like to rent a few horses.”
Nate said, “Three or four, we haven’t decided.”
“Three,” Joe said. “Geldings. Two for riding and one for packing. I haven’t had much luck with mares in the mountains.”
Willie sized up Joe for the first time and nodded. “I’ve got plenty of geldings to choose from.”
Alisha Whiteplume drove up as Joe looked over the horses in the pen. She got out of her car and stood still appraising Nate with her hands on her hips. Nate ambled over to her, and she didn’t change her expression or posture.
Shoyo had watched the interaction as well. He said, “I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Pickett. Mares can be too emotional at times, even though most of them want to please you. But you can never make them completely happy, in my experience.”
Nate looked over from where he stood with Alisha to Joe and Shoyo and said, “Are we talking about horses here?”
THEY WERE ALL STOUT quarter horses, sorrels and paints with white socks and all of stolid disposition. Joe wished he’d brought Marybeth because she knew horses better than he. All of the geldings looked good to him.
“How about those three?” he said to Willie, gesturing toward a Tobiano paint, a sorrel, and a red roan.
Willie nodded his head. “Those are good ones,” he said. “Calm and a little dumb. Bombproof.”
“Good.”
Nate hadn’t paid any attention to the transaction, but stood outside the pen nuzzling Alicia. Joe helped Willie cut the three from the herd and shoo the unpicked horses out of the pen through the gate. The released horses ran hard to join the others out in the grass, raising plumes of dust behind them like the tails of comets. The three remaining snorted and paced and looked offended not to be allowed to go with the rest of the herd.
Willie told Joe, “The three horses you picked are named Washakie One, Washakie Two, and Washakie Three.”
“You’re kidding,” Joe said.
Willie shook his head. “I’m not.” He pointed out toward the foothills. “Washakie Four through One Hundred Forty-two are out there grazing.”
Joe smiled, “Got it. It’s easier to remember their names when they’re all named Washakie.”
Shoyo said, “I know each one by color and personality, but they come and go so often I quit giving them individual names.”
Said Joe, “Will you take a government voucher for the cost?”
A frown passed over Willie’s face.
“It’s a state voucher,” Joe said quickly, realizing what the deal was, “not a federal one.”
“So I can’t charge you three times the going rate, then?” Shoyo lamented. He looked as offended as Washakie One, Two, and Three.
“Sorry.”
The cloud passed, and Willie said, “Okay, then.”
From near the pickup, Alisha said, “Uncle Willie, are you sure you want to do this? You’ve heard what happens to Joe Pickett’s horses, haven’t you? They meet the same fate as his vehicles.”
“Thanks, Alisha,” Joe said, his face flushing. He wanted to argue, but he had no argument.
“I’ve heard,” Willie said. “We can hope these horses bring you more luck.”
“I’ll need it,” Joe said.
Willie said, “I understand you need a couple of saddles and a pack saddle outfit, too, because you lost yours with your horses. I can lend you those.”
“Thank you,” Joe said.
“I’m doing this as a favor to my favorite mare,” Willie said, glancing toward Alicia and talking loud enough so she could hear. “I mean my favorite niece.”
“What’s he talking about?” Alisha asked Nate suspiciously.
Nate shrugged and said to her, “I don’t understand all this horse talk. You know that.”
AS JOE AND NATE APPROACHED Muddy Gap, towing the horses in the horse trailer, and took the highway toward Rawlins, the Green Mountains loomed like sleeping lions on the horizon. Nate said, “I don’t see where the woman fits. Do you think she’s up there with those brothers voluntarily, or is it some kind of Stockholm-syndrome type of deal? Is she a hostage, a kidnap victim, or a willing accomplice?”
Joe shook his head. “First, we don’t know if it’s Shober or if she’s still okay. She could be anybody.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nate said dismissively.
Said Joe, “If you saw those brothers in person like I did, there’s no way you’d think anyone in their right mind would stay with them willingly. They creeped me out.”
“Maybe you didn’t meet them in the best circumstances,” Nate said.
Joe shrugged. “Diane is a puzzle. I don’t see how those guys could have taken her up into the mountains if she didn’t want to go. She didn’t seem to fear them nearly as much as she regretted letting them down by taking me in. Are you thinking she’s the key to all of this?”
Nate sat back and sighed. “No. I can’t figure out how she fits. Or why, of all the places on earth, she’d end up there.”
Joe grunted.
Nate said, “Well, she had to know people were looking for her a couple of years ago, right? So even if those Grim Brothers grabbed her and kept her captive at the time, from what you said she was moving around of her own free will. If nothing else, she could just up and outrun those knuckleheads.”
“If it was even her,” Joe said wearily.
“And if it isn’t,” Nate asked, “then who is it?”
“Don’t know.”
“If it isn’t, how are you going to tell Mrs. Shober?”
Joe cringed.
After a few more miles, Joe said, “Nate, I want to thank you for coming along. I couldn’t do it without you.”
Nate said, “We haven’t done anything yet except rent some horses.”
Joe didn’t say anything.
“This thing spooked you, didn’t it?”
No response.
“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Nate said. “You got your butt kicked over and over. These guys ran circles around you up there and took everything you had, including your confidence. I can tell. You don’t want to go up there for revenge as much as to see if you can get your courage back, isn’t that it?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Joe said, swerving to avoid hitting a jackrabbit that darted out onto the blacktop. There were so many dead, flat rabbits on this stretch of road that the asphalt looked cottony in places, as if the rabbits had been violently hurled down to the pavement from the sky in a fit of pique.
“Like I said, they kicked your butt up one side of the mountain and down the other,” Nate said.
“You’re really irritating sometimes,” Joe mumbled.
“But what I can’t figure out is why they didn’t finish the job,” Nate said, looking over and locking his eyes on the side of Joe’s face. “They had you down from that shotgun blast, but they didn’t follow up. Guys like that, who hunt for a living, would know to find you in the grass and cut
your throat or put one or two into your head. Why didn’t they do that?”
Joe shrugged. “I’ve been wondering that since I woke up in the hospital.”
Said Nate, “I guess maybe Camish was worried about Caleb since you shot him, or they were both tending to ‘Terri Wade’ or Diane Shober or whoever the hell she is. But it doesn’t jibe. They should have hunted you down and finished the job. Then they should have burned your body and buried the remains so deep no one would ever find you. That’s what I would have done.”
Joe said, “Not that you have experience in that sort of thing.”
“I do, though.”
“Nate, I was being sarcastic.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” Nate said. “Back to my point. Why didn’t they finish you off?”
Joe looked over. “I have no idea.”
“Maybe they aren’t as bad as you think?” Nate said.
“Not a chance,” Joe said. “They’re worse. They’ve got a woman up there against her will. And who knows what else we’ll find?”
Nate rubbed his chin. “Maybe we’ll find that lady wants to stay.”
“No way,” Joe said again.
“Another thing,” Nate said. “They called you a government man. I find that interesting. Not a game warden or a fish cop or whatever. But a government man.”
Joe said, “I’ve been called everything else, but I’ve never been called that before.”
“But that’s what you are.”
“I guess I never thought of myself that way,” Joe said. “I’m surprised they used that choice of words.”
Nate smiled slyly. “That says something about their worldview, doesn’t it?”
Before Joe could answer, his phone rang again. He expected a 777 number but saw on the display it was from MBP Management. Joe opened the phone, said, “Yes?”
She said, “Has the governor found you yet?”
