Breaking Point jp-13

by C. J. Box

  He missed the rest of the conversation as well in the vacuum of white noise caused by the shot, and he thanked God he wasn’t dead, because for a second there he was sure he was going to be.

  The hearing in Farkus’s ear improved to a low hum as Butch signed off, got up, and powered down the satellite phone. Butch looked distressed as he did so, and his movements were angry. He heard McLanahan say something about letting him go-that Butch could keep Farkus as his lone hostage-and maybe some of the heat would go off once they knew he’d released the ex-sheriff of Twelve Sleep County.

  Suddenly, Butch said to Sollis, “Get up.”

  Farkus realized why Butch had said he had two hostages, not three. Because he’d planned all along to get rid of Sollis.

  “What?” Sollis sputtered.

  “Get out of here. Start walking and don’t look back.”

  “But you ran off our horses! I don’t have food or water. . I’m not even sure I know how to get back.”

  Butch dug a crumpled daypack out of his gear and filled it with spare clothing he’d kept from the pannier as well as a half-full canteen of water and a fold-up shovel.

  “You can take this,” Butch said.

  “But not my rifle?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  While Sollis pleaded with his eyes for intervention by McLanahan, Farkus watched Butch unbuckle the shoulder straps of the daypack and weave them under Sollis’s armpits before securing them again. He roughly cinched the ties on the pack and fiddled with a side pocket. Farkus thought he saw Butch slide something into the pocket, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He hoped it wasn’t something good to eat. Farkus was hungry, and didn’t care if Sollis starved to death out there.

  Butch shrugged and said, “Go.” He prodded Sollis with the rifle and spun him around.

  “I might die out there,” Sollis said over his shoulder. There were tears in his eyes. He held out his banded wrists. “Aren’t you gonna cut me loose? I can’t even get to that pack this way.”

  “You’ll figure something out,” Butch said. “At least out there you’ve got a chance. If you stay here around me, I’ll keep thinking about what you did to that poor hunter, I’ll put an end to your miserable life.”

  When Sollis stopped and started to turn to plead his case, Butch fired a round at him that sounded like an angry snap. Farkus felt his legs go weak.

  But when he looked up, Sollis was still standing. The bullet had creased his right cheek, leaving an ugly red rip in the skin. Streams of blood dripped down his face from the wound.

  “I said go,” Butch growled through clenched teeth.

  Without a word, Sollis stumbled away. Farkus could see his back through the trunks for a while. Butch watched him as well with his rifle raised, the crosshairs no doubt on the nape of Sollis’s neck. Farkus waited for a second explosion and squinted his eyes in anticipation. But it didn’t come, and then Sollis was gone.

  “That guy makes me sick,” Butch said with finality. Then, to Farkus, “Start marching.”

  “About what I said. .” McLanahan whispered to Butch after Sollis was gone.

  “Naw,” Butch said to McLanahan. “I’m keeping you both.”

  Farkus said to McLanahan, “Thanks a lot.”

  “I didn’t think you could hear,” the ex-sheriff said back. “Besides, you smell like urine.”

  “Get up, both of you,” Butch said, gesturing at them with his rifle.

  Farkus rolled to his side and got his legs underneath him and stood. His wrists were still bound with zip ties, and he was as clumsy as a cub bear. Now that he could see out beyond the pocket of gray shale they’d been in, he could see shadows reaching out from the tips of the broken rock as if they were reaching for the horizon. It wouldn’t be long, he knew, before they’d be in darkness.

  He asked Butch, “Why’d you do that? Shoot your rifle right by my head?”

  “To make a point.”

  “To me?”

  “To them.”

  “But I’m the one that’s deaf now in one ear.”

  Butch shrugged sympathetically and said, “You’ll get over it.”

  “Why didn’t you let me go?” Farkus asked. “I understand why you want the ex-sheriff-he’s a big fish. But why cut loose that idiot Sollis and keep me?”

  Butch shrugged. “We hunted together. I guess I have a soft spot for you, even though you’re a lazy bastard.”

  “Oh.”

  Butch chinned toward the south. “That way.”

  Farkus was confused. “I thought we were going over the top of the mountain?”

  A slight smile passed over Butch’s lips. “That’s what I want them to think. But we’re not.”

  Farkus looked to McLanahan for an explanation, and the ex-sheriff said, “I just figured it out myself. Butch here knows the Feds have a bead on where that drone went down, and they probably got a bead on that satellite phone before he shut it off. They’ll chart the two points on a topo and connect them with a line and decide we’re coming over the top of the mountain in their direction.”

  McLanahan sighed and said, “But I guess we’re not doing that.”

  “No, we aren’t,” Butch said. “Now go.”

  McLanahan led, then Farkus, then Butch bringing up the rear with his rifle held loosely in his hands. Butch had secured Sollis’s sniper rifle to his pack as well. Instead of going up or down the mountain, Butch indicated he wanted them to traverse it, even when they cleared some trees and looked out at a quarter-mile rock slide that had taken a good piece of the slope with it, leaving an exposed slough of loose rock.

  The problem crossing the slide, Farkus figured, would be that they’d be in the open for the first time. If the Feds had another drone up or a spotter plane, they’d be sitting ducks. He didn’t care if the Feds took Butch down, but he didn’t want to be collateral damage. Butch must have been thinking along the same lines, because he told McLanahan to hurry.

  “Hurry, hell,” McLanahan said. “These slides are dangerous.”

  “So is being seen,” Butch said. “So pick it up, Sheriff.”

  “This would be a lot easier if you’d cut these cuffs off.”

  “I’m sure it would,” Butch said, “but that ain’t going to happen. Now go. Pretend there’s a box of donuts on the other side.”

  As they scrambled over it, Farkus looked down. The slide had not only taken the topsoil with it, but had gathered and snapped off tree trunks, which had collected into a tangle far below, almost like a driftwood hazard in a river. It was not only bad footing, but the setting sun threw knifelike shadows from the tops of trees that striped the ground like jail bars and made it hard to see.

  When he shifted his weight he accidentally dislodged a football-sized rock that started rolling, then bouncing down the slide making a pock-pock-pock sound until it crashed into the timber below. The soles of his boots slipped a few inches as well, and he held his breath waiting for the rest of the mountain to let go and follow the rock, taking them down with it.

  “This isn’t a picnic,” McLanahan said with emphasis to Butch, who told him to cowboy up and keep going.

  The last beams of the sun had a special intensity, Farkus noticed. As if the light had been choked down into natural laser beams. He didn’t mind the heat, though, because he hoped it would help dry out his trousers.

  Farkus grumbled to McLanahan, “I heard you back there, trying to convince him to let you go and keep me.”

  McLanahan shrugged. He was crab-walking low to the ground to keep his balance.

  “Is that how one partner treats another partner?”

  “I was thinking strategically,” McLanahan said over his shoulder. “If he’d let me go, I could help lead the Feds to him.”

  Farkus rolled his eyes. He said, “Aren’t you tired of thinking up ways to be the hero? None of ’em have worked out very well so far.”

  “Shut up, you two,” Butch said from behind them. “Concentrate on getting across this.”

&
nbsp; Farkus glanced back over his shoulder at Butch, who was scanning the cloudless sky.

  When they finally made their way across the rock slide to solid ground and reentered the dark timber, McLanahan bent over with his hands between his knees to rest.

  “Keep going,” Butch said.

  “I’m beat,” McLanahan said between panting breaths. Sweat streamed down his face and dripped off the tips of his beard and mustache. Farkus half expected the ex-sheriff to hang his tongue out like a dog.

  “Go,” Butch ordered with force.

  “Where are we going?”

  Farkus wanted to know as well, and he looked over his shoulder at Butch.

  Butch actually grinned. He said, “We don’t want to be late for dinner, do we?”

  22

  It was always startling, Joe thought, how quickly the temperature dropped once the sun slipped behind the rocky peaks of the mountains as if a switch had been thrown and the thin, warm air that hung in the trees was sucked with a whoosh into invisible vents. As they ascended toward the looming summit, he reached back and dug a well-worn Filson vest from a saddlebag and shrugged it on.

  “We don’t even have any goddamned coats,” one of the special agents complained from the back, obviously observing Joe. “No coats, no food, no sleeping bags, and no fucking plan.”

  “That’ll be enough,” Underwood said wearily, not even bothering to look over his shoulder to locate the offending agent.

  Joe kept his senses turned on high and tried to fight back mental threads that kept intruding from within, so he could concentrate on the situation before him. Although Underwood had no doubt been given coordinates for his handheld GPS of where the call from Butch had originated-and they certainly knew where the drone had gone down-Joe couldn’t simply relax and ride. Butch Roberson had sounded angry and desperate, and he’d shot Dave Farkus in cold blood, leaving a body count of three over three days in August. Butch was also on much more intimate terms with the terrain and secrets of the mountain they were on than he was.

  Joe guessed that Butch had likely figured out that the first thing they’d do was ask Joe to lead them to where he last saw him. It was logical. Therefore, Butch probably guessed that Joe was with a contingent of law enforcement and not sitting around with Julio Batista. Joe thought Butch might traverse the summit and set up an ambush Joe would lead them right into.

  After being told by Underwood that the agreement to provide a helicopter was a ruse and Joe wouldn’t be on it like Butch had demanded, Joe considered simply turning back. He would gladly leave the team of agents to their own devices, riding unfamiliar horses over unfamiliar terrain in an unfamiliar state. There would be consequences for Joe with Lisa Greene-Dempsey, of course. It could give her the excuse to withdraw the job offer and cut him loose. It would set an example to all the other game wardens in the field.

  And if he lost his job at the same time they were recovering from the lost opportunity of the Saddlestring Hotel. .

  There was the very life of Butch Roberson to consider. Joe thought Butch deserved the right to make his case before a court, even if the result was as inevitable. Butch should be allowed to shine some light on what drove him into such desperation, and when he was sent to prison or destined for the needle, he could perhaps attract enough attention and outrage that it couldn’t happen to anyone else again. If nothing else, Joe thought, Butch deserved that. And the only way he might get it, given the single-minded determination of Batista, was if Joe could be along to somehow circumvent Butch’s death on the mountain.

  So he stayed. And with every mile, he felt more and more trapped by a career and a set of values and a mission he wasn’t sure he could believe in anymore.

  As they rode through clearings, he checked his phone for a signal, but he didn’t get one. Joe wanted to let Marybeth know where he was and why, and see how she was doing. He hoped Sheriff Reed thought to call her. He hated not being in contact. Bad things often happened when they weren’t in contact.

  When the trees thinned and Joe could sense the end of the tree line beneath the summit, he sidestepped Toby so Underwood would catch up and they could ride parallel. Underwood looked over at him with obvious suspicion.

  “Mind if I ask you a few questions?” Joe said.

  “Depends.”

  “We can ride up ahead if you want, so we’re out of earshot of your guys.”

  Underwood’s eyes narrowed into a squint as he considered it, then he shrugged and turned in his saddle and said to his team, “Wait here for a few minutes. We’re going to scout a path over the top.”

  The agents pulled up and were soon forty yards behind them. Not far enough, though, that Joe couldn’t hear them complain.

  “I can’t say I blame them,” Underwood said to Joe. “This isn’t the kind of thing they’re trained for. Those guys are trained to storm into buildings and secure evidence of pollution and noncompliance and crap like that. They don’t get any instruction on riding horses or doing this cowboy Wild West bullshit in the middle of nowhere.”

  Joe nodded. He was surprised at Underwood’s tone. It was soft and coconspiratorial, if not exactly friendly. As if they were all on the same stupid exercise together.

  “Okay, what?” Underwood asked Joe. “I’ll listen to your questions, but don’t expect me to answer ’em. No offense, but you’re nothing to me. You’re just another redneck local from the sticks.”

  “Gotcha,” Joe said. “I guess you missed those sensitivity meetings the Feds are always holding.”

  “I didn’t miss ’em,” Underwood said. “I just don’t give a shit.”

  Joe took a deep breath, trying to keep on track. He said, “I work for a state bureaucracy, and you work for the Feds. I’ve got a pretty good idea how slow things go for the most part. Getting government employees to take action isn’t usually the fastest thing in the world. It’s like trying to make an aircraft carrier make a sharp turn around.”

  Underwood shrugged, as if the statement was so obvious it didn’t require any more response.

  “So how is it,” Joe asked, “that two agents of the EPA out of Denver would jump in their car and drive four hundred miles north to jump a landowner the day he starts to move dirt? Nothing happens that fast.”

  Underwood snorted but didn’t look over. He said, “It is a little. . unusual.”

  Joe waited for more.

  “I already told you I’m not going to answer every question.”

  “That tells me something right there,” Joe said. Then: “How long have you worked for Julio Batista?”

  “I don’t work for Julio Batista,” Underwood said. “I just go to work. He just happens to be the director of the regional division right now. There have been assholes before him, and there’ll be other assholes who come after.”

  Underwood sighed. “When I transferred out of the Defense Department a few years ago I looked around for a soft landing-some place where I could take it easy until retirement. So I thought-the EPA. Denver. They’re harmless, I thought. I could just ride out my days. That’s before we got this new director.”

  When Joe looked over, puzzled, Underwood said, “You want to know who I work for?”

  “Sure.”

  There was a slight smile on Underwood’s face when he said, “I work for my pension, and my insurance, and my accrued vacation and sick time. I work for me. I show up and do whatever I have to do to get through another day. I don’t give a shit what I have to do as long as those things are protected.”

  Joe shook his head.

  “What?” Underwood said, mocking Joe’s disbelief. “You expected me to say what? That I work for the American people? That I’m saving the goddamned environment? Is that what you expected? Look, I live in a great condo in LoDo with a view of Coors Field, where I’ve got season tickets for the Rockies. I have a time share in Boca. I’ve got a hot babe up the road in Evergreen and another babe in Florida who doesn’t know anything about the one in Evergreen. That’s what I work for.
I could give a shit about everything else, including you or Julio Batista.

  “Look,” Underwood said, “I grew up in a little podunk town in Colorado near Glenwood Springs. My parents had a florist shop-Underwood Flowers. I watched them get up every morning at six, go to work, and not get home until eight or later. Seven days a fucking week, because people need flowers for all kinds of things. They worked their asses off and never took vacations. They thought they were building the business for me-thinking I’d take it over when I graduated from college. But that was never in my plans, you know? Why would I want to bust my ass for the rest of my life like they did? I could see the writing on the wall, and I wanted to live my life for me. I didn’t want to be chained to some mom-and-pop store in the middle of nowhere.”

  Underwood looked over his shoulder toward the distant team of special agents.

  “I don’t know those guys very well,” he said, “but if you asked them the same question, I’d guess you’d get pretty much the same answer.”

  Joe said, “You don’t think any of them or the people back in the FOB have any doubts about what we’re doing up here?”

  “Why should they?”

  “Because it’s over-the-top,” Joe said. “Why not let local law enforcement handle this? Sheriff Reed is competent, not like that idiot McLanahan, who used to be the sheriff and got himself caught by Butch. Reed has a different approach, and things might go a whole lot smoother if he was talking to Butch instead of Julio Batista.”

  “Like we care,” Underwood snorted. “Grow up and look around you, Game Warden. Do you know how hard it is to find a job these days, much less a lifetime job with the government with no risk and all the security in the world?”

  “You’re a bunch of lifers,” Joe said.

  “And what a life it is,” Underwood said, warming to it. “I make good money, I have great benefits, and they’ll never fire me. I’m set, baby. I’ll retire making four times the money my father made the best year of his life. Tell me what’s not to like? You know how it is.”