by C. J. Box
To Joe’s knowledge, the MRAP had been used twice: once to arrest a meth cook operating out of a garage, and also to serve papers on a derelict ex-husband for failure to pay child support. There had been a column in the Saddlestring Roundup by Chief Williamson apologizing for the damage to curbs, gutters, and lawns the MRAP had crushed en route, as well as a vow to only use it in the future for more appropriate situations.
—
JOE LEFT REED to check on Lucy. It had gotten cooler. Hard pellets of snow came in waves, bouncing off the windshields and the packed ground.
It was then that he remembered the plight of the sage grouse twins.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Annie Hatch.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “Something came up. I can be up there in a couple of hours—”
“Fuck you!” Wentworth screamed back. He’d obviously snatched the phone from Hatch. “Don’t even bother. We found Lek Sixty-four just after the snow paused for a few minutes, and we managed to find the road, no thanks to you.”
Joe punched off before he said something he’d later regret.
—
TEN MINUTES LATER, a set of bright headlights appeared on the access road. Because of his job and the long nights he had spent perching and patrolling his district, Joe had become a student of headlights in the dark. He could discern the make and model of an off-road vehicle by the spacing, height, and intensity of the headlamps. They were like faces to him. These headlights were far apart and higher and brighter than normal, and Joe shouted, “It looks like a Hummer!”
“Oh shit,” Reed said. “Here he comes.”
As he wheeled toward his van, Reed said to his officers, “Get ready for anything. Think of your safety first—and no hero antics. We just want to take him in and question him at this point.”
Deputies jogged toward their vehicles with their hands on their weapons.
Joe grasped Dulcie by the arm and guided her toward his pickup. Lucy opened her door when she saw what he was doing.
“Please get in there with Lucy, and both of you stay on the floor,” Joe said. “Don’t raise your heads until I tell you to, okay?”
Lucy nodded, and scooted across the seat to make room for Dulcie. Joe retrieved his Remington Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun from behind the seat. If there was a firefight coming, he thought, the last thing he wanted was to be dependent on his sidearm. He racked a double-ought shell into the receiver.
When the pickup door was closed, Joe looked across the hood toward the oncoming vehicle. Rather than slow down at the band of crime scene tape, the Hummer accelerated through it.
6
He knows we’re here!” Reed shouted.
Joe crouched down behind the front fender of his pickup and rotated on his heels so he could survey the situation behind him. Reed had wheeled his chair back to his van and was positioned near the grille. Joe saw a glimmer of red from the wigwag lights wink from the barrel of Reed’s drawn semiauto. The deputies were well positioned behind their vehicles and were locked and loaded. Boner was crouched behind the back hatch of his SUV.
The Humvee roared into the yard and steered around two sheriff’s department SUVs, headed toward the trailer. Joe popped his head up over the hood of his pickup and was instantly blinded by the Humvee’s headlights. He dropped back down, squeezing his eyes shut. All he could see on the inside of his eyelids were the pulsing green orbs of an afterimage.
As the Humvee shot past Joe’s truck, he heard several deputies shout for Cudmore to stop, but he didn’t. Joe kept his head down, but no one fired at the passing vehicle.
The driver powered through a small front fence and across the lawn, turning around the side of the trailer and out of view. But rather than keep on going, the vehicle braked to a stop in the backyard.
“He’s going inside!” Reed shouted. He ordered two deputies to flank the trailer, and they moved out on foot.
“Should we storm it?” Boner asked Reed.
“Negative,” Reed said back. “I don’t want to get anybody hurt.”
“He’s inside,” someone said.
Joe looked up. A dim light had been turned on inside the trailer in what looked like the living room. A moment later, the window was thrown open.
“You sons of bitches have no right to be on my property, so get the hell off!”
He sounded enraged.
“Get in your goddamned cars and get the hell off my property, you fascist, jackbooted thugs!” he hollered. “Unless I see warrants and an order signed by the sheriff of this county—the only authority I recognize—you’re trespassing on my place and I’ll have all your asses. You have no right to be here!”
He had a thundering voice, Joe thought, but slightly slurred. Joe blinked his eyes, trying to force away the effects of the exposure to the headlights so he could see again.
“I’m right here, Tilden,” Reed responded from behind his van. “It’s Sheriff Reed. The warrant is on the way. So calm yourself down and stop yelling. Nobody wants any trouble if we can avoid it.”
Reed had a patient, reasonable timbre to his voice.
That seemed to startle Cudmore into silence.
Reed said, “If you’re packing that pistol you carry around, you need to take it out of your holster and put it down and come out of the house. I need to see your hands.”
“Sheriff, why are you here?” Cudmore asked.
“I think you know why, Tilden,” Reed said.
“Whatever it is, it’s bullshit.”
“So calm down and let’s talk about it.”
Joe took a deep breath. The situation seemed to be cooling. He chanced a glimpse around the front of his truck, keeping low this time so the headlights wouldn’t hit him again.
In the background, he could hear one of the deputies on his radio calling for additional personnel. He hoped that Chief Williamson wasn’t monitoring the channel.
Joe caught a glimpse of Cudmore as he lumbered past the dining room window. He was a huge man, blocky and solid. He had a massive Neanderthal brow and deep-set eyes. His unshaven face sparkled with silver whiskers. He wore a kind of slouch hat and there was a spray of wild thin hair that flowed from beneath the sweatband to his shoulders. The wispy hair glowed in the beams of flashlights and spotlights, and then he was gone.
A few seconds later, his face appeared in the bottom corner of the window. Cudmore squinted into the light, his mouth curled with anger. “How many of you jackbooted thugs are out there, anyway?”
“Quit saying we’re jackbooted thugs, Tilden,” Reed said with annoyance. “It’s my sheriff’s department. I don’t even know what a jackboot is.”
“How many?”
“Half my department, Tilden,” Reed said.
“Well, shit, it’ll take more than that if you want to arrest me.”
“Lower your weapon and come out,” Reed said. Not so reasonable-sounding this time.
“Ain’t you heard?” Cudmore said. “There’s this thing called the Second Amendment. I got a right to keep and bear arms.”
“Of course you do,” Reed responded. “But we’ve got a situation here and I’m getting impatient. We’ll give you your weapons back after we ask you a few questions at my office. If there’s been a mistake, you’ll be back here within an hour or so.”
“To hell with that. I know how your so-called justice system works. Get your men off my place. All of ’em. I’ll talk to you, but only to you.”
“That’s not going to happen, Tilden,” Reed said.
Joe didn’t know all the reasoning or philosophy behind it, but he’d heard that some survivalists made it part of their governing philosophy to recognize the local sheriff as the only authority in the country because, for whatever reason, the rest of the government—especially the federal government—was considered illegitimate. At the
moment, Joe couldn’t care less about Cudmore’s reasons. He wanted him in a cage—or worse.
“You’re not arresting anyone,” Cudmore boomed. “This is my private property and you have no business being on it.”
“Back to that,” Reed said.
“Yes, goddamnit, back to that,” Cudmore said. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“We need to ask you some questions about a girl you might have picked up on the highway yesterday. We found her, Tilden.”
There was a long pause. Then Cudmore said, “What girl?”
It was an unconvincing reply, Joe thought. There was a hint of panic in it.
“If I come out, you promise you won’t shoot me?” Cudmore asked.
“I promise. My guys are professionals, and they won’t shoot, either, as long as you don’t make any threatening moves. So come out slow and relaxed, Tilden. We’ll go to my office and we can talk this out.”
Cudmore’s face disappeared from the window.
Joe looked at the front door: it wasn’t opening. He wondered if Cudmore would be dumb enough to try to escape through the back, where two deputies were waiting. Judging by his performance thus far, Joe thought, Cudmore was dumb enough to do just about anything.
For the first time, Joe heard something beneath the sound of the Humvee’s engine: the snarling of dogs. He changed his angle and could see the tops of black shapes inside the trailer: blocky heads, and glimpses of eyes and white teeth. The insides of the windows were smeared with spittle.
“Mike,” Joe said, “he’s got his dogs in there with him.”
Cudmore’s face reappeared and he looked toward where he’d heard Joe’s voice. He seemed to be thinking, trying to decide what he was going to do next.
“I’ve got my dogs in here,” Cudmore said. “I suppose you’re going to arrest me for that, too?”
“Of course not,” Reed said. “Just keep them inside when you come out. We don’t want to hurt your animals, either.”
After another long pause, Cudmore said, “Okay, I’m coming out.” He sounded resigned.
Joe tensed for what might happen next.
The front door opened slightly and Cudmore squeezed out. The dogs tried to exit as well, but he blocked them with his body until he could close the door behind him. A flashlight beam raked Cudmore over, pausing at his empty holster.
“Deputy Boner,” Reed said, “please approach Mr. Cudmore and place him under arrest.”
“Yes, sir,” Boner said, rising from behind his vehicle. His weapon was out and extended in front of him.
“I thought we was just going to talk,” Cudmore said. “Did you lie to me?”
“No. We are going to talk.”
Just then, Joe heard a heavy rumbling sound from behind him. It was actually causing the ground to tremble.
“Oh no,” Reed said.
The Saddlestring Police Department’s MRAP turned in off the highway and flattened the wrought iron archway. Plumes of dust billowed out from its undercarriage and dual sets of back tires.
“You fuckin’ lied to me!” Cudmore cried.
Then he leaned over and opened his front door and stepped aside.
“Get ’em, boys!” Cudmore commanded.
Four massive pit bulls boiled out: teeth flashing in the ambient light, ropes of saliva flapping in the air. Two of them were on Boner before he got a chance to retreat or fire.
Boner went down, the dogs on top of him. It was a savage attack.
Cudmore pumped his fist with joy.
Joe pushed himself to his feet. The third dog was streaking across the yard toward Reed, who was in the process of raising his weapon. Reed fired, but missed.
Joe raised his shotgun and fired instinctively, an orange gout of flame exploding from the muzzle. He hit the pit bull behind its front shoulder with a full load that rolled it across the grass less than a foot from Reed’s feet in the chair. The concussion was loud, but Joe barely heard it over the roaring in his ears. He hated killing a dog.
The fourth dog retreated from the others and took refuge behind Cudmore’s legs. Cudmore cursed and kicked it hard in the ribs, but instead of attacking like the others, the dog hunkered down in the mud.
The other deputies had surrounded the two snarling dogs on top of Boner. One of them yelled to be careful not to hit Boner, who writhed on the ground in a tornado of solid muscle and red-stained teeth.
Cudmore rocked back on his heels with his hands on his hips and hooted. Then he bent toward the whimpering dog and yelled, “Go help your brothers, you coward.”
There were several flashes and thumps and loud yelps as rounds hit the two dogs on top of Boner, then the whimper of a dying creature who’d been thrown to the side by the impact of the bullets. Boner thrashed, rolling, grasping at his face and throat. Blood, bits of flesh, and fur were everywhere.
A harsh spotlight from the top of the MRAP illuminated it all.
Joe was a beat too late when Cudmore drew a weapon he’d had tucked in his waistband under his jacket. The man did it tentatively, as if he were having second thoughts even as the semiauto cleared.
A volley of shots from the deputies cut him down and he fell straight back like a felled tree. A deafening burst from the .50-caliber machine gun on the MRAP ripped through the night and tore a twisted chunk of aluminum off the roof of the trailer. The fourth dog managed to scramble out of the way of Cudmore’s crashing body.
Joe ran to where Tilden Cudmore lay, and he kicked the .357 from the man’s hand. Cudmore grunted from the blow—he was still alive—and Joe wheeled and pressed his shotgun barrel into the man’s doughy cheek.
“Stay right where you are,” Joe said.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, but I ain’t dyin’, neither,” Cudmore said, revealing a mouthful of long yellow teeth in what was either a grimace or a grin. “I was prepared for your gestapo tactics.”
It was then Joe saw the collar of the body armor vest that Cudmore wore beneath his coat. Although the body armor had prevented rounds from entering his body, their impact had done damage. Cudmore hugged himself and whimpered.
“You’re going to pay for what you did to April,” Joe said, leaning in hard with the shotgun.
In Cudmore’s rheumy eyes was confusion at what Joe had said, then a slow realization.
“So that’s why you’re here,” the man said. “You think I done something to some girl. You people—”
The fourth pit bull charged Cudmore as if to attack him, but feinted at the last second and ran away. It got close enough to scare Cudmore, though. Joe admired the dog and watched it run off into the night.
—
“GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE!” Sheriff Reed yelled, wheeling his chair across the yard until it thumped into the front bumper of the MRAP.
The local cop garbed in camo and an army helmet who had fired the burst with the machine gun that missed Cudmore and nearly the entire trailer, said, “Sheriff—”
“Get that thing the hell out of here or I’ll arrest the lot of you!” Reed shouted. Joe had never seen him so mad.
The MRAP backed away, crushing a snow fence.
—
FIVE MINUTES LATER, with his ears still ringing from the explosion of gunshots, Joe heard Reed fume to Dulcie, “I just about had him in custody without anyone getting hurt. Then Williamson showed up with his goddamned tank.”
—
REED SAID, “If it weren’t for Deputy Boner’s injuries, I might ask the EMTs to slow down on their way out of here, and maybe we grab us some coffee while Cudmore rolls around in pain. But that wouldn’t be right, would it?”
“Um, no,” Dulcie said, her face white with shock at what had just happened.
Reed wheeled over to Joe. “Thank you for your restraint in not shooting him.”
“It didn’t seem right,” Jo
e said. “I really hated to shoot those dogs, though.”
“That last dog must have really hated him,” Reed said, shaking his head. “He finally got the chance to show him how much, is what I think.”
Joe barely heard him. His nerves jangled from the release of adrenaline and his throat ached from having witnessed—and participated in—such a scene of savagery.
He had his arm around Lucy, who had stayed silent since the shooting was over. He hoped she hadn’t seen much, but he was afraid she had. He wondered what she thought of her father if she’d seen him prodding a shotgun into the face of an injured man lying flat on his back on the ground.
“But we got our man,” Reed said.
Joe took a deep breath and recalled the confusion in Cudmore’s eyes just before he’d been attacked. He said, “Are you sure about that?”
“Maybe this will help,” a deputy named Woods said as he backed out of Cudmore’s Humvee, where he’d been searching the front cab.
He held up a Visa card and an iPhone.
“The credit card belongs to April Pickett,” Woods said. “I found it under the seat.”
Lucy shrugged out of Joe’s arm and approached Woods with her hand out. Woods turned over the phone.
Lucy swiped it on and punched a four-digit code and the phone lit up. She held it up so Joe could see the backlit image of April and Dallas Cates taking a selfie. They were grinning like fools with their cheeks pressed together, looking up at the camera.
7
On Monday morning, Nate Romanowski blinked against the harsh interior lighting of the interrogation room in the Federal Building in downtown Cheyenne. He wore a loose orange jumpsuit stenciled with DOJ over the breast pocket and large red Crocs on his feet. His long blond hair cascaded past his shoulders. His complexion was waxen and pale and his sharp blue eyes looked out as if from behind a mask. His hands and wrists were bound by a Smith & Wesson Cuff-Maxx high-security belly chain and restraints, even though his trip had consisted only of an elevator ride from the basement cell to the seventh floor.
