by C. J. Box
“Yup,” he said. Then: “This thing between Diane and Brent. It smells bad. I can see the basis of real animosity there.”
Marybeth said, “Me, too. The guy is more than a creep. He’s obsessed with her.”
“And the Clines somehow connect with both of them,” Joe said.
“Maybe Diane and the Clines figure they’ve got a common enemy,” Marybeth said.
“Can you keep looking into it?” Joe asked. “See if you can find anything that links them up further?”
“I doubt we’re going to find anything as public, but I’ll do some advance searches and get creative. I’ll also start adding in the Cline Brothers and see what we get.”
JOE BRIEFED Nate on what Marybeth had found.
Nate nodded his head, said, “The dispossessed.”
Joe said, “Talk about pure speculation, Nate.”
“Trust me on this. These are my people,” Nate said, only smiling a little.
THE SIERRA MADRE defined the muscular horizon of the west and south, and they appeared to flex slightly into the blue as Joe and Nate approached them. Joe used his service radio to call ahead to contact Sheriff Baird’s office. The county dispatcher put him through directly to Baird’s vehicle. Joe expected an immediate rebuke for being back in his county. Instead, the sheriff sounded relieved. “Are you close?” he asked.
“Yup,” Joe said. “I wanted to let you know we’re planning to take horses into the mountains this afternoon to go after those brothers.”
“I figured you’d come back,” Baird said. “How far are you from the trailhead now?”
Joe looked at the dashboard clock. “Twenty minutes.”
Baird said, “Can you divert for now and take the road straight up into the mountains? I’m up here now on the eastern side of the mountains about an hour and a half from you. I may need some help.”
Joe frowned. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not real sure,” Baird said, his voice low. “I got a call earlier today from a citizen about some vehicles sitting empty way up on the side of the mountain. A couple of pickups and a big stock trailer with out-of-state plates. That struck me as unusual since it’s a little early for hunting season, as you know. I had a meeting in Saratoga this morning so I thought I’d check them out on the way back. Looks like I’m not the only one.”
“Meaning what?” Joe asked.
“I’m parked up on a pullout where I can see into the trees below me where the vehicles and horse trailer are located. But as I started looking over the campsite, I saw two men dressed exactly alike in the same clothes come down out of the trees on the other side of the mountain and walk toward the camp.”
Joe felt the hair rise on his forearms and on the back of his neck. He reached down while he drove and turned up the volume on the radio so Nate could hear clearly.
“What’s their description?” Joe asked.
“Taller than hell, skinnier than poles,” Baird said. “Red flannel shirts with big checks on them. Dirty denims. Goofy-assed hats. Kind of zombie Elmer Fudds.”
“It’s them,” Joe said. “The brothers. I wonder why they’re on the wrong side of the mountain?”
“Beats me,” Baird said. “The last I saw ’em, they was crossing a little meadow up above headed toward the camp with the vehicles in it. They’re out of view in the trees, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve reached those trucks by now. Maybe they plan to take the trucks and hightail it out of here once and for all. That would be okay with me,” the sheriff said with a chuckle.
“One thing, though,” he said. “I see a pickup truck down there I recognize that doesn’t belong here. It belongs to Dave Farkus. You know him, don’t you?”
Joe said, “Yup. He’s on my watch list for poaching.”
“Good place for him,” Baird said. “Anyway, his county supervisor called our office yesterday and said he was AWOL. They haven’t filed a report or anything, but I said I’d keep a lookout for him. I have no idea why he’d be over here on this side of the mountain with some out-of-staters, but that sure looks like his wheels.”
“The brothers,” Joe said. “Do you still see them?”
“Naw. Once they went down into the trees, I lost ’em.”
Joe said, “Maybe you ought to pull back.”
“I don’t think they saw me.”
Joe and Nate exchanged a quick look. “Don’t be too sure of that,” Joe said. “Those boys don’t miss much, I don’t think. In fact, you may want to back on out of there.”
“I don’t back off,” Baird said, his voice hard.
“Where are your men?”
Baird sighed. “The timing of this couldn’t be worse. Two of my deputies are in Douglas taking classes at the Law Enforcement Academy—one of ’em is in Rawlins for court today, and the other is on vacation,” Baird said. “It’s just me and I could use some help. I tried to raise a state trooper or two earlier, but they were too far away to respond.”
“They’re probably fetching Rulon’s dinner,” Nate grumbled. “Maybe giving him a nice foot massage.”
“What was that?” Baird asked Joe.
“Nothing important,” Joe said, glaring at his friend.
“Sheriff, can you see the license plates on the pickup and horse trailer at all?”
“Not real well,” Baird said. “I can barely make one of them out through the trees. I can’t see the numbers clearly, though.”
Joe asked, “Is the plate blue?”
“Yes.”
“I’d bet you a dollar it’s a Michigan plate.”
“That sounds right.”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Joe said.
“Who is we?” Baird asked.
“Yeah, who is we?” Nate asked as well.
“Keep in radio contact,” Joe told Baird. “And back out of there if you see those guys again. Seriously. You don’t want to take them on without help.”
Joe was under no illusion the sheriff would believe him and re treat.
A HALF HOUR LATER, Joe’s radio crackled to life.
“Joe, you there?” Baird asked. Joe noted the urgency of Baird’s tone and his complete absence of radio protocol.
“Yes, sheriff, what is it?” He felt icy fingers pull back on his scalp.
“Jesus!” Baird said, and the transmission went to static.
Joe’s pickup was in a steady climb into the mountains, struggling with the weight of the horse trailer full of horses behind it. When the animals shifted their weight around, Joe could feel the trailer shift and pull back at his truck. His motor was strained and the tachometer edged into the red. He floored it. While he did so, he tried to raise the dispatcher who’d originally connected them.
When she came on she was weeping. “Did you hear the sheriff?” she asked. “I think those bastards got him.”
“I heard,” Joe said. “But let’s not speculate on what we don’t know. Time to sit up and be a professional. Are you dispatching EMTs? Anybody?”
The dispatcher sniffed. “Everybody,” she said. “But you’re the closest to him by far. I hope you can help him. I hope they didn’t . . .”
“Yes,” Joe said. “Hey—you don’t need to talk about him that way yet. He may be okay.”
“Okay,” she said, to placate Joe.
A few minutes later, Nate said, “Wonder what’ll be left of him.”
27
THE LACK OF WIND WAS RARE AND REMARKABLE, JOE thought, and the single thin plume of black smoke miles away deep in the timber rose straight up as if on a line until it finally dissipated at around 15,000 feet.
Joe and Nate had just summited the mountains, and the eastern slope was laid out before them in a sea of green between the ranges. The vista was stunning: a massive, undulating carpet veined with tendrils of gold and red. The thread of black smoke seemed to tenuously connect the mountains with the sky.
“It’s like whoever set the fire said, Look at me,” Nate said as they plunged down the other side o
f the mountain in the pickup. “I’m wondering if they wish they hadn’t set a fire now. Or if they’re trying to draw us in.”
“Black smoke like that isn’t from a forest fire,” Joe said.
“Nope.”
“Smoke that black usually means rubber is burning,” Joe said.
“Do you know how to get there?” Nate asked.
Joe nodded. “There are quite a few old logging roads ahead. I’ve been on a few of them. It’s been so dry, though, we should be able to find Baird’s tire tracks and follow him in.”
Nate surveyed the vista in front of him as Joe eased forward. “Rough country,” he said.
“In every way,” Joe said.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE open road that went to the southeast toward the smoke, and there were fresh tire tracks imprinted over a coating of dust. Joe made the turn and drove down the two-track as swiftly as he could over the washboarded surface without shaking the pickup apart. Nate hung out the passenger window like a Labrador, Joe thought, with his hand clamped on his hat.
“This looks like the right road,” Nate said, pulling himself back in. “We need to be ready.”
Joe nodded. Afternoon sun fanned through the lodgepole pines as he shot along the dirt road. In his peripheral vision, he saw Nate dig his weapon and holster out from under the bench seat and strap it back on.
“You loaded?” Nate asked, pulling Joe’s new shotgun out from behind the seat and zipping off the gun cover.
“Shells in the glove box,” Joe said.
Nate, who was never unloaded, sighed and found the shells and fitted them into the receiver.
“I have mixed feelings about this thing we are about to do,” Nate said.
“I know.”
“You do, too.”
Joe grunted. “If it weren’t for Diane, I might be tempted to turn around.”
“But we can’t let feelings get in the way,” Nate said, putting the shotgun muzzle-down on the floor and shoving the stock between the bench seats so it wouldn’t rattle around on the dirt road. “We’ve set our course. It doesn’t matter what we think about politics or the law or anything else. It’s not Speed kills, it’s Hesitation kills. If we find those brothers and you’ve got a shot, take it. These boys aren’t going to let us lead them back to jail. They’ve left all that behind, I’m afraid. Don’t start talking or reading them their rights or trying to figure out where the hell they went off the rails. Just shoot.”
When Joe started to object, Nate said, “It isn’t about who is the fastest or the toughest hombre in the state. It’s never about those things. It’s about who can look up without any mist in their eyes or doubts in their heart, aim, and pull the trigger without thinking twice. It’s about killing. It’s always been that way.”
SHERIFF RON BAIRD’S county Ford Excursion was parked twenty feet off the two-track in a grove of aspen trees that overlooked the campground below in the distance. It wasn’t burning, but it had been worked over.
Joe pulled up beside it and jumped out of his pickup with his shotgun. He circled the Excursion. The hood was open and all visible wires had been sliced in half or pulled out and thrown to the ground like angel-hair packing from a shipping crate. The front windshield was smashed inward and cubes of safety glass sparkled like sheets of jewelry on the front bench seat, with errant cubes of it on the hood. The tires were flat and air had stopped seeping out from the open wounds in the sidewalls.
Baird was nowhere to be found.
Nate had opened the passenger door and stood outside the truck on the running board. Using both hands, he tracked through the air how he guessed the brothers had come up from down below on each side in a pincer movement converging on Baird’s vehicle.
Joe said, “I wonder where they took him.”
“They marched him down the hill,” Nate said, binoculars at his eyes. “I see him.”
Joe felt a spasm of fear shoot through him. “Is he alive?”
“I think so. But he doesn’t look real good.”
“How so?” Joe asked.
“Looks like he’s got an arrow sticking out of his ass.”
THE STENCH FROM BURNING FUEL, tires, and plastic was nearly overwhelming on the valley floor. The pickup that towed the horse trailer, the trailer itself, and Dave Farkus’s pickup was on fire. Baird was fifty yards off to the side of the camp, and he appeared to be hugging the trunk of a tree.
“Do you see any sign of the brothers?” Joe asked as they drove down the hill toward the scene. He’d shifted to four-wheel drive because of the incline, and he let the compression of the motor hold back his truck and trailer.
Nate lowered the binoculars. “Nope.”
“Think they’re gone or using the sheriff to draw us in and ambush us?” Joe had used the same tactic two years before when he’d bound a wanted man to lure in his would-be assassin. It had been one of the most shameful decisions he’d ever made, even though he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it again, given the circumstances.
“If we get sucked in and ambushed using the same trap,” Joe said, “it’s not poetic justice, but it’s something like it.”
Nate shook his head. “My guess is those boys are running back into the mountains. They probably came down to disable the vehicles and didn’t expect to get surprised by the sheriff.”
“Or us,” Joe said.
Nate said, “And I bet they’re wondering why they picked the only day in Wyoming history without wind to start a couple of cars on fire. Normally, we might not even see the smoke.”
Joe drove to Baird and hit the brakes and leaped out. He could feel the heat from the burning pickup on his back.
Baird was conscious, his eyes wide open, his mustache twitching. He was hugging the tree because they’d cinched Flex-Cuffs around his wrists on the other side of the trunk. And, as Nate had mentioned, there was an arrow shaft sticking out of his left buttock. Joe recognized the craftsmanship of the arrow and knew it had been made by the Grim Brothers. He could see the rawhide where the shaft was bound to the point next to the Wrangler label on Baird’s jeans. The arrow wasn’t deep at all, although Joe guessed it probably hurt.
“Sheriff,” Joe said, “you’ve got an arrow sticking out of your butt.”
“Why, thanks, Joe. I was wondering what it was bothering me back there.”
“You want me to pull it out or cut you down first?”
“Cut me down, please.”
As Joe removed his Leatherman tool and opened the blade, he said, “How far are the brothers ahead of us?”
Baird nodded toward the forested slope on the other side of the burning pickups. “Maybe thirty minutes,” he said.
“They on foot?”
Baird nodded. “They are, but they cover ground like demons. I saw them coming out of the trees at me on both sides, but they were so fast I didn’t get a chance to fight them off.”
“I understand,” Joe said, cutting the plastic cuffs free. “I’ve tangled with them and lost, just like you.”
Baird stepped away from the tree and rubbed hard on his wrists. His Stetson had fallen off, and strands of his wispy black hair reached down from his brow to his upper lip. As he rubbed his wrists, the arrow shaft danced up and down.
“So,” Joe said, “do you believe me now?”
Baird reached up and pushed his stringy hair back. “I was waiting to see how long it took you to ask me that question.”
As the two men looked at each other, Nate strode behind Baird toward the burning vehicles in the camp. As deft as a swallow plucking a gnat from the air, Nate reached out and pulled the arrow from Baird.
“Ouch, goddammit!” Baird said, spinning around. “Who said you could do that?”
Nate smirked, handed Baird the arrow, and continued on his way.
“THEY HAD NO INTENTION of killing you,” Joe said to Baird a few minutes later, as he helped the sheriff limp to a downed log to rest on. “Or you’d be dead.”
“I know,” Baird agreed. He straddled the log
and leaned over it so his chest rested against the bark. His wound was open to the sky.
“Same with me,” Joe said to the sheriff. “For whatever reason, they did some real damage, but they didn’t feel compelled to finish the job.”
“It would have been easy,” Baird said, then gestured over his shoulder toward his wound. “This thing hurts. How bad is it?”
Joe said, “This is when you find out who your friends are,” looking at the trickle of fresh blood coming out of the wound.
“Just don’t let that friend of yours near me again,” Baird said.
Joe grimaced and turned for his pickup truck to get his first-aid kit.
JOE RIPPED another strip of tape to bind the compress to the wound while doing his best to avoid looking at Sheriff Baird’s bare butt, which was stunningly white. As Joe applied the tape, Nate came down out of the trees.
“Did those boys say anything?” Nate asked Baird.
“Like what?”
Nate shrugged. “Anything at all? Like, Stay off our mountain, sheriff, or Damn, where’d you come from?”
Baird shook his head. “Nothing at first. It’s like they could communicate through hand signals or something. They never said a word the whole time. Until the end, I mean.”
Joe paused, said, “What did they say at the end?”
Baird cleared his throat, coughed up a ball of phlegm, and spat it away. “After they cuffed me to that tree, I expected them to just cut my throat and leave me there. One of ’em got right behind me and kind of whispered into my ear. He said, ‘The only reason we’re letting you live is so you can tell anybody who will listen to leave us the hell alone.’”
“That’s all?” Joe said.
“Pretty much. He repeated himself, though. ‘Just leave us the hell alone.’ Then he stepped back and said, ‘This is to show you how serious we are,’ and shot me in the butt with that arrow. I could tell he took it easy on me, though. He barely shot that at me with much force. I mean, he could have done all kind of damage.
