Greene-Dempsey signed off, lowered the phone, and said, “They’re ready for you now. You’re supposed to meet them at some ranch outside of town, and he said you knew the place.”
“Big Stream Ranch,” Joe said dourly.
“That’s the one,” she said.
12
Dave Farkus felt like he was being shaken to death, like his teeth were going to vibrate out of their sockets, and he asked ex-Sheriff Kyle McLanahan, who was at the wheel of the three-quarter-ton pickup towing the long six-horse trailer, if he was going to slow down soon. They were on an ancient two-track fire road that was washboarded and marred by cross-trenches caused by spring runoff. The center strip consisted of bumper-high sagebrush that scratched along the undercarriage of the pickup like long fingernails on a blackboard. A long roll of dust followed the rig.
“Why?” McLanahan asked.
“We’ve been on bad roads for an hour,” Farkus said, looking out at the dust-covered hood between the shoulders and heads of the two men in the front seat. “I feel like I’m gonna get sick.”
Spare tools and beer bottle caps skittered about at Farkus’s feet in the back.
“We’re in a hurry, Farkus.”
Then McLanahan turned to the man in the passenger seat of the crew cab, a dark man Farkus had met for the first time when McLanahan picked him up, and who hadn’t said two words in the past two hours.
“Jimmy, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Sollis said.
“Jimmy’s fine,” McLanahan said to Farkus, making eye contact via the rearview mirror. “Time to strap in and cowboy up, buckaroo.”
Farkus turned away and stared out the side window at the sagebrush flats. They were vibrating as far as he could see.
The idea, McLanahan had said when he arrived at Farkus’s mobile home with the horse trailer attached to his pickup and the mystery man in the passenger seat, was to drive north on the interstate, cut off at Winchester, and approach from the west the range of mountains where Butch Roberson was last seen.
“Those federal yahoos,” McLanahan said, “are going to mass on the east slope at Big Stream Ranch and push west. When ol’ Butch, he realizes the Feds are coming-I figure those boys will make a lot of noise and racket moving through the timber-Butch won’t be stupid enough to try and make a stand. Instead, he’ll stay ahead of ’em and work his way west. There are only a couple of possibilities how he’ll come out, and I’m guessing he’ll use the most direct route and the one he’s most familiar with. That’s where we’ll set up and intercept him.”
Farkus had nodded, not able to visualize the route McLanahan had in mind. Apparently, his puzzlement was written on his face, and it was obvious to the ex-sheriff.
“That’s where you hunted with him, right?” McLanahan said. “Up there on the west side on those saddle slopes and in those canyons?”
“I think so,” Farkus had said, “but we came from the other side, from the ranch. We never went up there from the west side.”
McLanahan had rolled his eyes and said, “It’s the same mountain, Farkus. The features don’t change because you’re looking at them from a different direction.”
“It’s wild country up there,” Farkus said. “It’s easy to get turned around.”
Inside the cab of the pickup, Farkus had heard the mystery man snort a derisive laugh.
“Who is that?” Farkus asked, chinning the direction of the pickup.
“Jimmy Sollis. His brother used to be a deputy of mine, a good loyal guy. He was killed in the line of duty when Wheelchair Dick got it. I’ll always be regretful it wasn’t the other way around.”
Farkus looked up, trying to connect the dots.
“He’s a prize-winning long-distance shooter,” McLanahan said. “He travels the country winning tournaments. He’s got some kind of custom rifle and scope, and he knocks the center out of targets at a thousand-plus yards. I figure he’s a good man to have along, and he wants to test his skill.”
Quiet, big, and deadly, then, Farkus thought. He’d been around too many of those types in his life, and he didn’t much like them. He shifted uncomfortably from boot to boot.
“Three guys-that wasn’t the deal,” Farkus said.
“He’ll be good to have along.”
“But three guys means a three-way split, is what I’m sayin’.”
“So?”
“I’m doing this for the money, Kyle. I don’t have any hard feelings toward Butch.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” McLanahan said, and sighed. “This ain’t about the money. And don’t call me Kyle. Call me Sheriff.”
Farkus nodded toward his mobile home. “It’s about the money for me, Sheriff.”
“I told you already, this is big money. Federal money. They’ve got lots of it.”
“So how much are we talking about?”
“I don’t have figures”-McLanahan drew the word out sarcastically-“but a shitload of it, that’s for sure. The Feds are the only folks who have any these days, don’t you know. It’ll be enough that you won’t ever have to worry about when the next disability check comes in the mail so you can fill your tank.”
Farkus considered pulling out. But what was his choice? There were few jobs, and he didn’t want one, anyway. He liked being a free man, and busting his butt was for losers. And this was free government money. They wouldn’t even miss it.
“Okay,” Farkus said.
“Then let’s get the map out,” McLanahan said. “I want to make sure you’re familiar with the terrain before we waste our time going up there.”
While the ex-sheriff unfurled the map on the hood of the pickup, Sollis got out of the truck without a word and bent over the side of the pickup into the bed. Farkus heard the sound of latches being thrown, and soon Sollis was holding a heavy and polished long bolt-action rifle with a black-matte scope. Farkus watched out of the corner of his eye.
“What’s he up to?” Farkus whispered to McLanahan.
“The map,” McLanahan said impatiently. “Pay attention to the map.”
Farkus tried to concentrate on the features of the map McLanahan was holding flat on the hood with his bearpaw hands. The layout of the canyons did look vaguely familiar. He bent close and found the confluence of Otter and Trapper Creeks. To the north of the confluence was a series of sawbladelike peaks. He was pretty sure he remembered them.
“This is where we camped,” Farkus said, jabbing the location with his fingertip.
McLanahan marked it with a pencil stroke and said, “That’s where we’re going to be. If Butch is familiar with the camp, it’s odds-on likely where he goes.”
Farkus nodded.
“I don’t see any roads going up there,” McLanahan said.
“There were no roads. Butch likes to hunt in the wilderness, not in places you can drive to. He’s crazy that way, like I told you.”
As they were going over the map, Farkus kept stealing looks toward Sollis, who had jacked a cartridge into his rifle and was now at the rear of the pickup. He’d rested his rifle on the top of the corner of the bed walls and was leaning down, looking through his scope at something in the distance.
“So I think we’re set,” McLanahan had said, rolling up the topo map and sliding a rubber band over the roll.
As Farkus opened his mouth to speak, the air was split by the heavy boom of Sollis’s rifle. Farkus jumped and looked up. In the sandy hills past the municipal dump, a plume of dirt rose in the air, leaving two black spots.
“What did you shoot at?” Farkus asked Sollis, alarmed.
“A black cat,” Sollis said, ejecting the spent brass. “Eight hundred yards. Cut it right in two.”
“That was my cat,” Farkus had said.
“Not anymore,” Sollis said, fitting the rifle back into its case.
The huge dark western slope of the Bighorns filled the front window of the pickup as they got closer, and the road got worse. Farkus leaned over and pressed his mouth to the gap in the open window so he could breathe fresh air and fight against the nausea he felt from being jounced around in the backseat. When he closed his eyes, he tried to picture the rough country he’d hunted with Butch Roberson the year before, but from the other direction. McLanahan seemed to think it was easy, but it wasn’t. There were granite ridges and seas of black timber, and he remembered at times trying to look up through the trees to see something-anything-he recognized. A unique-shaped peak, a rock wall, a meadow, or a natural park-anything that stood out so he’d know where he was. He remembered stumbling back into the elk camp at the confluence of the creeks one night near midnight, four hours late, because he’d been turned around in a box canyon, and although he had a compass and GPS, he’d convinced himself that the instruments were wrong but he was right. Butch Roberson had been happy to see him, but concerned about the possibility of him getting lost again.