Open Season jp-6

by C. J. Box

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "Christ, Joe," Vern whined. "You could at least be civil."

  The explosion of the pistol in the closed cab of the pickup was deafening, and the only thing louder than the ringing in Joe's ears was the high-pitched cursing of Vern as he searched himself frantically for the wound. There was a now a hole in the truck door the size of a quarter, just a few inches from Vern's belly.

  They drove in silence for a few moments. The truck smelted sharply of cordite.

  It also smelled of urine because Vern had wet himself.

  "How did Wacey get involved in this?" Joe asked calmly.

  "Jesus, this is really embarrassing," Vern said, looking down in his lap. He clutched his thighs with his hands to keep his legs from shaking.

  "How did Wacey get involved in this?"

  Vern rubbed his face and sighed.

  "Getting Wacey in this deal was the single most stupid fucking thing I ever did. But he was the one who told me about that idiot Clyde Lidgard. He said Lidgard had talked to him about some little creatures he saw up in the canyon. Wacey knew about the pipeline, of course, and he had heard about Miller's weasels just like everybody else had. He told Clyde to keep it a secret, that it was some big government secret that just he and Clyde could know about. Clyde liked that shit. Then Wacey told me about it."

  "So you and Wacey and Clyde went up there and wiped out the weasels," Joe said.

  "But unfortunately you didn't wipe them all out, and Ote Keeley and his buddies found what was left."

  Vern nodded. Joe thought Vern figured he had nothing more to lose by talking.

  "Ote must have hoped that if he delivered a Miller's weasel to you that you would drop the charges on him," Vern said. "That was how you got involved in this whole stupid fucking mess."

  Joe grunted.

  "I always thought of you and Wacey as my boys," Vern said, his voice cracking. "My proteges. Wacey was always a little hotheaded, but he was determined and he was tough. You were the straight arrow. A little slow at times and you fucked up now and then, but basically you were a stand-up kind of guy. Now look what's happened: Wacey has gone over the edge and you're pointing a gun at me. I'm disappointed, Joe, at the way things turned out. How did they ever go so wrong?"

  "Who killed the outfitters?" Joe asked.

  Vern sighed, rocking his head back as if he were in pain.

  "Wacey killed the outfitters. Then he killed Clyde. He's a goddamned lunatic hothead. He likes to be the one in control. I had no idea he could be like that. That was never supposed to happen with the outfitters. He said they were drunk when he rode up on them, and they showed him a couple of the weasels they had dug up and they mouthed off. Wacey said one of 'em went for a rifle."

  "So Wacey told Clyde Lidgard to stay up there and guard the camp until we showed up?"

  Vern nodded.

  "I wondered why Wacey slept so hard the night before we went into that camp," Joe said. "And how he could just walk right up to that camp like he owned the place. It's because he had spent the night before that up there and he knew exactly what we were going to find."

  "Wacey made sure Clyde got shot," Vern confirmed.

  "What was in it for Wacey?"

  Vern slumped against the door of the truck. It was as if every question knocked him farther down.

  "He wanted in the worst way to be the sheriff, if you can believe that. He wanted to be the big shot."

  "I believe it."

  "I told Wacey I had some things on Barnum that would make Barnum drop out of the race. Barnum, back in the old days, liked Indian women. He used to hit on them when they were drunk and brought into jail. He's got a couple of grown kids on the reservation he pays support for. Nobody knew that but him and me. And eventually Wacey. That was part of the deal before it went so sour.

  "That's how it started," Vern said, his voice small. "All I wanted to do was make a lot of money and all Wacey wanted was to be the sheriff. All I wanted were the big bucks I know I deserve after all of those years of working for the state. I was so close, too. The clearances were issued and that pipeline was just humming toward Saddlestring. But things got out of hand because of Wacey.

  "All I ever wanted was a ton of money. Then Wacey went fucking nuts trying to cover up everything. The more he tried to cover it up, the worse it got. I warned him off of going after your daughter, but he was absolutely convinced that she knew about some living Miller's weasels. He kept saying if he could find those weasels and get rid of them that this whole thing would be over."

  Joe had suddenly lost his concentration.

  "What?" he yelled.

  Vern looked scared. "You didn't know about your daughter?"

  "Know WHAT about her?" Joe quickly switched the revolver from his left to his right hand and shoved the barrel into Vern's nose, pinning Vern's head against the passenger window.

  "Jesus, Joe!" Vern honked.

  "WHAT?"

  "That Wacey thought she was keeping a couple of them as pets!" Vern said his eyes fixed on the gun barrel. "That's why he figured out a way to get you people out of your house and up to Eagle Mountain--so he could find those weasels. He told me this morning that he was going to head up to your place today to look for them."

  Anguished, Joe pushed harder on the pistol.

  "Wacey went after my daughter?"

  "Please, Joe ... ," Vern pleaded, eyes bulging and blinking.

  "Did Wacey shoot Marybeth, Vern? Did he? Is that what happened? He was up there looking for weasels and instead he fucking shot my wife?"

  Vern started to sputter out a reply but Joe, already knowing the answer, cut him off.

  "That son-of-a-bitch was my friend," he said, more to himself than to Vern.

  Joe thought about how Wacey had blocked Joe's entrance into his own house earlier and how he had hustled Joe back out onto the road. Wacey had told the cop to find Vern and tell him Marybeth had been shot. Wacey had made a point of telling Joe he would stay and watch over everything. Wacey had seemed unnerved.

  Wacey.

  "Shit," Joe said, finally looking at the road and jerking the truck back in his lane after it had wandered. "Sheridan was right after all. There are monsters out there."

  ***

  When dawn breaks over the Bighorns, it breaks hard and fast and with cascades of bright sunlight gushing over the mountains like a broken dam. A shaft of sunlight burst through the windshield of the pickup. Joe pulled over in a stand of mountain ash about a half a mile from his house. He shut off the motor and stuffed the keys in his pocket.

  "Get out," he told Vern. "We're going to walk the rest of the way. I don't want him hearing us drive up. Shut the door easy."

  Vern started to walk down the road bed, and Joe waved him into the ditch on the shoulder. Joe holstered his pistol and pulled his shotgun from behind the seat. He pumped a shell into the chamber. In his slippers, Vern gingerly stepped down from the road into the ditch. Frosted reeds in the ditch lit up with morning sun, and Vern's feet crunched through a skin of ice.

  "This water's cold," Vern said.

  Joe nodded and motioned with the shotgun for Vern to start walking.

  "I look like a clown," Vern mumbled. Already his sweatpants were wet from the frost. A red "O" from the muzzle of Joe's revolver was still visible on Vern's nose.

  "You are a clown," Joe said. "Now stay in the ditch and don't say anything when we get close. The

  only way to keep your life is to help me find my daughter."

  Vern moaned. "Then we're through, right?"

  "Then we're through."

  Neither told the other what they meant by that.

  ***

  Sheridan untwisted herself from beneath the horse blanket. The sun was coming up. She was surprised to see that the blanket was covered with frost. She stood and tried to rub some feeling into her legs, arms, and face. She was no longer hungry-she was beyond that. The night had been long and terrible. She was dirty and she felt featherlight. E
verything hurt. There seemed to be scratches, bruises, or imbedded thorns all over her body.

  She could finally see what was around her, but she knew he could, too Rather than crawl on top of the boulder where she might be seen, she pushed her way through the juniper bushes on the side of it again. She tried not to rustle the bushes too much.

  Wacey was not in the backyard. That meant he either was in the house or was already stalking her. She couldn't believe she had actually fallen asleep. She hoped she hadn't slept too long.

  Then beyond the house, up Bighorn Road, something caught her attention. It was the glint of morning sun reflecting off of the glass of a windshield. It was a green truck way down the road, a green truck just like her dad's and parked in some trees. And in the foreground, between the house and the truck, there was movement in the ditch. Two men, walking in the tall weeds. The first man was big in a long flowing robe. Behind him was her dad!

  Sucking in her breath, Sheridan scrambled out from around the boulder and started to run down the mountain.

  Wacey stood at the broken kitchen window sipping from a cup of coffee that he had just brewed. When he saw a flash of color on the mountain, he stepped back and picked up his binoculars from the table. He focused.

  Sheridan Pickett, blond hair streaming in the sun, was racing down the hill like her pants were on fire.

  "Damn."

  He had been beginning to believe that maybe she wasn't up there after all, that maybe what he'd heard crying in the night was a cougar or a coyote. They sounded the same as kids sometimes.

  The next business would not be pleasant at all. But like burning the Miller's weasels, it needed to be done. Boy, he thought, he had sure sunk low. He had gone from killing three heavily armed hunters to shooting an unarmed woman. Now he was waiting for a seven-year-old. Strangely, it wasn't all that hard to do. He would make a damned good sheriff, he thought. He had a good understanding of the criminal mind.

  Wacey placed the cup on the table. He started to reach for the .30-06 but decided that if she saw him come out with a rifle now, she might turn and run right back up the mountain. He didn't feel like chasing her or possibly missing her with a long shot. She was remarkably fast for a girl her age--especially one with glasses, he thought. Instead, he would wait until she got to the backyard. Then he would step out and run her down. He knew of a sump hole at the base of Wolf Mountain where some hunters had once trailed a wounded elk. The animal had gotten caught in the sump and sunk out of sight, much to the hunters' dismay. It would be a perfect place to throw a body. He would weight her down with rocks.

  He waited until she ran through the back gate before he stepped out on the porch.

  When she saw him, she froze in place. Her green eyes were so huge. He tried his best smile on her as the screen door slammed behind him. What he didn't understand was why those eyes had moved off of his face toward the side of the house. He followed them.

  "Wacey," Vern said in his deep voice, "it's over, buddy. Our deal is done and we had better get the hell out of Dodge while we still can."

  Wacey turned toward him, confused. Vern looked like he just got out of bed and had walked all of the way from Saddlestring.

  "You look real stupid, Vern," Wacey said. "What'd you do, piss your pants?"

  ***

  Joe came around from the other side of the house near the garage. Wacey's back was turned to him; he was facing Vern. Sheridan was out in the yard. Her clothes were tattered and she was smudged with dirt and blood.

  "What are you doing here? What are you saying?" Wacey asked Vern, his voice high-pitched.

  "I wiped out the rest of the weasels, and we're almost home free."

  He gestured toward Sheridan and spoke to her. "Don't you move, darling'."

  Sheridan stood absolutely still. But Joe knew she could see him. Don't give me away, Joe silently implored.

  "Let's get out of here while we can," Vern said to Wacey. "They know about the weasels, and Barnum's on the way now."

  "How in the hell did that happen?" Wacey demanded, almost in falsetto.

  "I'll tell you in the car," Vern said, shaking his head from side to side.

  "Tell me now."

  Vern sighed. "Clyde Lidgard woke the fuck up and told everybody what happened. Somebody found some pictures he took up in the mountains with both of us in them." His voice cracked again, like it had in the pickup. "Remember Clyde and his goddamned camera? We've got to get out of

  here NOW!"

  "Not yet," Wacey said, reaching down for his 9mm pistol. "I've got to finish up here."

  Joe thought Wacey would turn on Vern. But the pistol started to raise toward Sheridan, started to arc up from the holster as Wacey held it with a stiff arm, started to flush up into the air like a pheasant exploding from the brush into the sky, and Joe heard his daughter start to scream ... How could Wacey, the same Wacey who had shared coffee with Joe on so many mornings while they watched the elk come down from the mountains to eat hay in a rancher's meadow, the same Wacey who scrunched in between Joe and Vern on the bench seat of Vern's Game and Fish pickup, the same Wacey who, with that goofy laugh, recalled riding both bulls and buckle bunnies at the National College Rodeo Finals in Bozeman--how could this be the Wacey who was now leveling his 9mm pistol at Joe's older daughter?

  With the shotgun, Joe shot Wacey's arm off at the elbow. The blast spun Wacey around until he was facing Joe. Joe had never seen terror in Wacey's face before. Wacey's disembodied forearm, with the fist still gripping the pistol, flew end over end through the air and dropped to the ground near the base of the cottonwood tree.

  Joe racked the shotgun and, with two more lightning blasts, blew both of Wacey's knees back in the wrong direction. Wacey buckled to the pavement on top of himself, howling.

  Vern stood stock still with his palms out and his mouth open. His robe was spattered with Wacey's blood.

  Sheridan rushed to Joe, and he bent to catch her. He didn't know she could squeeze his neck so hard. She was sobbing, and he kissed her and hugged her back.

  "Your mom is okay," he told her, picking her up and rocking her as if she were an infant.

  "I saw her last night and she's okay."

  "I was so worried about her," Sheridan sobbed. "It's all my fault."

  "No it isn't, darling," Joe said, wincing. "Don't ever think that. Don't ever say that. You are such a brave girl. You are such a hero. Your mom will be proud of you."

  "Is he dead?" she asked.

  "I'm sorry you had to see all that," Joe said to Sheridan. "It makes me kind of sick."

  "He deserved it. Nobody ever needed it more than him."

  He lowered her to the grass when he noticed that Vern had bent over and dug the pickup keys out of Wacey's pocket and had started to walk away.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Joe asked.

  "We're through, remember?" Vern said over his shoulder. "I did my part. And shit, you sure did yours. I forgot what a wing shot you were." Out came the chuckle.

  "Don't take another step, Vern," Joe cautioned.

  "We're waiting for Barnum now. You're going to prison."

  "We're through, Joe. We had a deal." Vern was angry. "Remember that one you owe me." He never stopped trying.

  On the porch, Wacey moaned. He was alive, but blood was pouring out of

  him. His legs were grotesquely bent backwards underneath him.

  "Stop, Vern," Joe said. He didn't yell, but he knew Vern could hear

  him.

  Vern continued to walk along the back of the house.

  "Honey, turn your head," Joe said sternly to Sheridan.

  "No, I want to see this," Sheridan said.

  "Turn your head!"

  Sheridan reluctantly obeyed.

  Joe raised the shotgun and waited until Vern was far enough away that the shot pattern wouldn't be tight. Then he shot him in the hip. Vern dropped like a rock.

  "Jesus!" Vern cried, writhing on the ground. "I can't believe you shot me in the a
ss!"

  "It was the least I could do," Joe said. "If you try to get up, I'll shoot you again."

  Joe found Wacey's pistol in the grass, and tucked it in his belt. He walked back to the porch and squatted on the pavement. Wacey was balled up with his back against the door. His good arm was pulling a smashed leg to his chest. His wounded arm, now a hamburger-like stump pulsing gouts of arterial blood, flopped about like a broken wing. Wacey s eyes were wide, and his mouth was fixed in a waxy snarl.

  "Can you hear me, Wacey?" Joe asked.

  Wacey grunted and nodded through the pain.

  "Wacey, the only reason I didn't kill you for what you've done to my family is because if you were dead, you wouldn't think about it much," Joe said. "Do you understand what I'm saying? I want you to be able to think about what you've done to my family, and to me, and to those outfitters. Not to mention the Wyoming Game and Fish Department."

  "Get an ambulance!" Wacey hissed through chattering teeth. "I'm bleeding to death!"

  "Do you understand what I'm saying?" Joe asked again, calmly.

  "Yes! Goddamn you!" Wacey spat. He was trembling violently.

  "No," Joe said, standing.

  "Goddamn you to hell, Wacey. And take Vern Dunnegan along on the same

  horse."

  Joe picked up Sheridan and carried her around the house and through the front yard to Bighorn Road. He put her down near the gate.

  "Dad, look," Sheridan said, pointing down the road toward Saddlestring.

  Evelyn had done what she said she would. County sheriff's vehicles were roaring down the road from town, Barnum's Blazer in the lead with the siren and lights on.

  Joe leaned his shotgun against the picket fence and stepped out onto the gravel road. Sheridan stayed with him. She was his shadow. He guessed that she might be his shadow for a very long time.

  PART SEVEN

  Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.

  No living man will see again the long-grass prairie, where a sea of prairie flowers lapped at the stirrups of the pioneer.. .