Cold Wind

by C. J. Box

  34

  After filling his Jeep with gasoline in Jackson, Nate drove north and east toward the dark Gros Ventre Mountains via Togwotee Pass.

  He pulled over on the two-lane highway before he reached the Togwotee Mountain Lodge. He got out and kept the engine running. There were walls of lodgepole pines on each side of the road and a channel of sky above his head like a river carrying fallen stars. The high mountain air, piney and cool with oncoming fall, helped place him back where he needed to be. Behind him, through the narrow clearing in the trees due to the road, he could see the tops of the Teton Range silhouetted on the horizon like the teeth of a frozen buzz saw. He reached down beneath the seat and checked to make sure his .500 hadn’t been stolen. It was there.

  He shed his Jackson Hole clothes and threw them into a pile in the back and pulled on jeans and a heavy shirt. He laced his boots on tight.

  Nate swung himself back into the cab of the Jeep and eased off the shoulder onto the blacktop. He hoped he could make it over the summit to Dubois before all the restaurants closed. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast in Chicago.

  He planned to drive all night until he found and killed the person who’d given him up.

  Nate leaned into the switchback turns coming down off the mountain. He drove fast and kept his lights dim so he could see beyond the orb of headlights for the eye reflections of elk or cows or mule deer on the road.

  He thought about Alisha, how he hadn’t yet allowed himself to really mourn her. Even when he’d built the scaffolding for her body, he’d concentrated on the construction of it, the materials, the timbers, the sinews holding the joints together. How he’d hoist the body up without letting it fall apart on him. And he’d left her without looking back.

  Still, though, he hadn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that she was really, truly gone.

  He just knew he couldn’t do it, mourn her, until he’d avenged her first. In a strange way that made him feel increasingly guilty, he knew the journey to Eden and Chicago and back had been done with such a murderous single-mindedness that he’d used it to justify pushing his feelings away.

  After it was done, he would slip onto the res and talk to Alisha’s relatives and the little girl she was taking care of and allow his focus and rage to turn into something else.

  He wasn’t sure how to do it when the time came, what to say, or what words to use.

  For the first time since it had happened, he gave it some consideration. Joe could help, he knew. Joe and Marybeth, especially. They were in the mainstream of sorts and Nate’s only real connection to the world of loving couples, growing children, mortgages, pet dogs, lawns, and social mores. It was a world he wished he understood and hoped he could enter some day, but it was still as foreign to him as daily life in Outer Mongolia. But because Joe and Marybeth were his only true connection to that world, he wanted to nurture them and protect them and keep them away from what he knew to be out there. Not that Joe wasn’t capable of protecting his family—he was, and in surprising ways—but Joe still seemed to believe in his oath and duty and in innocence and the law’s brand of justice. Nate didn’t want to be there if and when Joe learned otherwise, because it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Marybeth could help him with the words, Nate thought, and Joe could stand by with nothing but his own kind of humility and decency that would be like an anchor or a wall for Nate to attach himself to.

  There was nothing open in Dubois except a convenience store with shelves filled with processed food in plastic packaging. Nate bought a large paper cup of weak coffee (because there was no strong coffee), beef sticks that weren’t much more than stringy black muscle tissue laced with sodium and preservatives, and a package of string cheese.

  It had been years since he’d eaten such things. He couldn’t wait to get this all over and harvest an elk and an antelope and grill the back straps.

  What Laurie Talich had told him shouldn’t have been such a surprise, he thought. It all made sense when he thought about it and connected the dots. He was grateful his location hadn’t been determined by The Five, but through local channels.

  He once again pushed the particulars of mourning out ahead of him and concentrated on the task at hand.

  There was a compound to enter, and it was guarded. There might be motion detectors and no doubt there’d be cameras. Not that they’d stopped him before . . .

  SEPTEMBER 8

  Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.

  —WILL ROGERS

  35

  Joe rolled into Saddlestring at 12:30 a.m. and drove straight to the Stockman’s Bar. There were several cars and trucks parked diagonally outside, and he was grateful it was still open. The Coors, Fat Tire, and 90 Shilling neon beer signs lit the small windows on the side. He knew Timberman often shut the place down before 2:00 a.m. if he had no customers or if the drinkers who were still there had stopped drinking.

  Joe pulled into a space out front and killed the engine. He recognized a few of the vehicles and was pleased to locate the one he was looking for: a 1992 Ford pickup with a cracked windshield that had primer painted on the top of both rear fenders.

  He got out and strode toward the bar and instinctively patted himself down to make sure he was geared up. Cuffs, pepper spray, bear spray, digital camera, digital recorder, notebook, pen, citation book, radio, cell phone, .40 Glock with two extra magazines in a holster. Not that he planned to pull his service weapon or, God forbid, try to hit something with it.

  He paused outside the door of the bar, took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down against anticipation, and pushed his way inside.

  Timberman looked up, his eyebrows arched slightly, which meant surprise. Joe hadn’t been in the place so late at night for eight years or so, and it was obvious the barman wasn’t expecting him.

  Joe nodded to Timberman and took in the customers. He recognized all of them. The one he was looking for avoided his eyes.

  He walked down the length of the bar and took the stool once occupied nightly by Bud Longbrake Sr. Keith Bailey, Bud’s friend and drinking partner and the gatekeeper for the Eagle Mountain Club, leaned slightly away from him, putting space between them. Bailey slowly rolled a can of Budweiser between his big hands and there was an empty shot glass sitting on the bar next to Bailey’s glasses and a copy of the Saddlestring Roundup. Bailey turned his head a quarter toward Joe, just enough to see him warily with both eyes. His expression was stoic. Cop eyes, Joe thought.

  When Timberman approached, Joe said, “A bourbon and water for me. Maker’s Mark. And whatever Keith is having.”

  “We got Evan Williams,” Timberman said.

  “Fine.”

  “None for me,” Bailey said. To Joe, he said, “You’re out late.”

  “Past my bedtime,” Joe said.

  When Timberman turned and went for the bourbon bottle, Joe said to Bailey, “I bet you wonder what took me so long.”

  Bailey’s response was a slight beery snort.

  “All this time I’ve been looking for Bud and I never even thought of asking the most obvious guy,” Joe said.

  Bailey shrugged.

  “Where have you let him stay up there? One of the maintenance buildings, the club itself, or did you give him the keys to one of the members’ houses?”

  Timberman delivered the drink, and Joe took a sip of it. It was cold and smoky and good.

  When Timberman turned around, Bailey said, “He’s under a shit-load of pressure and pain right now. He needed some time away. There’s no law against helping a buddy out unless he’s wanted for something. You got charges on him?”

  “No,” Joe said. “I just need to talk to him. I’ve been trying to find him for days and you know that.”

  Bailey turned away from Joe and turned his palms down on the bar. He stiffened. “You never asked.”

  “No, you’ve got me there. So are you hiding him from the sheriff as well?”

  “So you’re fre
elancing?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m not hiding him from anyone,” Bailey said. “He’s hiding himself. I’ve got no stake in this thing that’s going on, other than helping an old friend. Back in the day when Bud owned the ranch, before that witch took it from him, he was a big man around this country. He helped out a lot of people, and he wasn’t a jerk about it.” He seemed to want to say more, but like so many men Joe had encountered of Bailey’s age and station, he didn’t feel the need to go on.

  “He’s struggling,” Bailey said, ending it at that.

  “With what? With what he’s about to do?” Joe asked.

  “I’m not getting into the particulars. That’s not my business. I’m not sure it’s yours.”

  Joe sipped his drink again and shook his head at Timberman when Timberman raised his chin with a “Want another?” look.

  Joe said, “I’m not going to hurt him in any way. You know me. I used to work for him, and we always got along. I shouldn’t even have to say that.”

  “I’m not worried about you,” Bailey said. “But Bud seems to think there might be some other bastards after him. Trying to get to him before he testifies.”

  Joe said, “Who?”

  “Don’t know,” Bailey said. “We don’t talk all that much. He asked for a place to stay and I helped him out. We don’t sit around and share feelings.” He said it in a way that made Joe smile and like Keith Bailey more than he’d thought.

  “He fades in and out,” Bailey said, “but you know about that.”

  Joe nodded. He recalled Bud Sr. showing up in his backyard a year ago, waving a gun, looking for people who were out to get him. For some reason, he thought one of them would be Nate.

  “He’s worse than that now,” Bailey said. “On account of his condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “I’m not going to be talking out of school here. He can tell you what he wants to tell you. All I’ll do is let you know how to find him,” Bailey said. Then: “On one condition.”

  “Shoot.”

  “If you’re caught up there, you didn’t get the keypad code from me. I don’t care where you say you got it from—a member, maybe. Or that someone gave it to you so you could check out the wildlife on the place or something. But if you say I gave it to you, I could lose my job.”

  Joe agreed, and Bailey tore off a corner of the Saddlestring Roundup and scratched out a seven-digit numeric code.

  “You aren’t going to call him and tell him I’m coming, are you?” Joe said, taking the scrap of paper.

  Bailey didn’t say yes, didn’t say no, but signaled Timberman for his check.

  In the daylight, the Eagle Mountain Club overlooked the Bighorn River valley from its massive perch along the contours of a rounded and high eastern bluff. The club had a thirty-six-hole golf course that fingered through the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, as well as a private fish hatchery, shooting range, airstrip, and about sixty multi-million-dollar homes that had been constructed long before the economy turned sour. Because of the airstrip, most of the members could arrive and depart without ever venturing beyond the gates. Built in the 1970s, the club was separate and apart from the moods, rhythms, and culture of blue-collar Saddlestring below it, although a handful of its members ventured into the community and some were great patrons of the museum, library, and other civic groups. The Eagle Mountain Club had only two hundred fifty members, and new people joined only when old members died, dropped out, or were denied privileges by a majority of the members.

  The locals who worked at the club signed employment agreements to keep quiet about who the members were—CEOs, celebrities, politicians, magnates, a few trust fund moguls—and what went on inside. Still, most people in town seemed to know both, including Joe. What had always impressed him was how un-awed the locals were about the famous people who ventured down from the club and shopped and dined among them. There were never any public scenes of gasping recognition or autograph requests. Joe attributed the phenomenon to a wonderful mixture of proprietary pride—These rich folks could live anywhere in the world and they choose to live here with us!—and a stubborn independence and the optimism that perhaps, someday, they’d be members, too.

  Joe had been within the boundaries of the club only a few times in his career. During his first year as district game warden, he’d located a rogue colleague holing up with a rich wife whose husband was away on business. Since then, he’d been on the grounds on calls where game animals had been found killed or local trespassers had been spotted. While he was there, he’d been shadowed by private resort security vehicles whose occupants had watched what he did and where he went through spotting scopes.

  Access to the resort was via a guardhouse manned during the daytime hours by Keith Bailey. At night, members gained entrance by calling the security people at the front desk of the clubhouse. Closed-circuit cameras were hidden in the brush along both sides of the driveway and throughout the massive compound.

  Joe drove up the driveway and punched in the numbers Keith Bailey had given him. The iron gates clicked and swung away. He eased his pickup past the empty guardhouse, looking both ways for security personnel who might swoop down on him any second. No doubt his entrance was being captured on videotape. Joe chose to believe that no security people were watching the monitors live, since it was September and most of the members had already left.

  As the gates wheezed shut behind him, Joe crept along the banked blacktop entrance to the heart of the club. The road ran along the rim of the bluff, and the lights of Saddlestring were splayed out below to his right. Subtle lights marked both sides of the road.

  He crested the hill and turned left, past the turnoff for the main clubhouse up on the hill. There were a few lights up there, but no activity he could see. The road dipped slightly, with large set-back houses on both sides, and he strained to see the plaques with the names of the owners in the grass marking each driveway.

  He looked for a sign that read SKILLING. Kimberly Alice Skilling, heir to Skilling Defense Industries of Houston. She owned not only a large house on the grounds but also two guest cottages. And she’d asked Keith Bailey to keep a special eye on her place, especially one of the cottages where the pipes had burst the winter before.

  Joe gave some credit to Bud Longbrake. Hiding in plain sight all this time.

  36

  Nate nosed his Jeep into a thick stand of tall willows on the riverbank, making sure his vehicle couldn’t be seen from the road. He spooked a cow moose out of her resting place as he drove up, and she scrambled to her feet, all legs and snout in his headlights, and wheeled away from him and high-stepped off.

  He killed the engine and the lights and climbed out. As he strapped on his shoulder holster and darkened his cheeks and forehead with river mud, he could hear the moose grunting and splashing and crashing downstream. He’d hoped to proceed soundlessly. He hadn’t counted on the demolition derby-like grace of a wild moose in the same area.

  When his eyes became adjusted to the darkness and the only ambient light was from the stars and the fingernail slice of moon, he stepped back away from the vehicle and surveyed the terrain all around him. The river was in front of him: inky and determined, lapping occasionally at pale, round river rocks that rimmed the bank as he passed by. Behind him were swampy wetlands created by beavers damming up the fingerlike tributaries of the river. He was lucky, he thought, to have found this dry spit of land to drive on.

  To his east was a sudden rise. The cliff face was striated and pale in the starlight. Small, dark forms shot across the flatness of the face, either starlings filling up on an evening insect hatch or bats doing the same thing. On the lip of the cliff he could see brush and bunched thick grass.

  Nate took it cautiously as he crossed the river. The water was cold and surprisingly swift and it came up to his knees. He stepped from rock to rock and sometimes couldn’
t tell what was beneath him. It was shallow and wide here, but there might be hidden deep holes. He aimed for smudges of tan or yellow beneath the surface, hoping they were rocks, hoping he wouldn’t slip on them.

  He made it to the other side, but found himself walled in by twelve-foot-high brush that was too thick and tight to get through. He paralleled the river for a while, but couldn’t find an opening. Then he dropped to his knees and crawled through the brush on a game trail. His presence spooked low-bodied animals that squealed and ran out ahead of him.

  After thirty yards, the brush thinned and he was able to stand. He found himself closer than he thought he would be to the cliff wall. Hands on his hips, he leaned back and scouted a route to the top. There were lines of dark vegetation zigzagging up the face. Since the seams were level enough to host weeds and grass, he assumed they would be flat enough to climb up.

  But before approaching the wall, he stood stock-still and simply listened and looked around.

  It was a familiar quiet, like Hole in the Wall Canyon. But he’d learned how treacherous that kind of quiet could be if he wasn’t fully alert and engaged.

  He saw no other people anywhere. No fences. But as he concentrated on a pair of tall cottonwood trees between him and the wall, he saw an anomaly. Nothing in nature had perfect lines, and he’d seen perfect lines. He squinted, and recognized two box-shaped pieces of equipment secured waist-high to the trunks of the trees.

  Hunters called them scouting cameras. They were battery-powered digital cameras designed to be mounted near game trails. The cameras had motion detectors and either flashes or infrared nighttime capability. They could take up to a thousand 1.5- to 5.0-megapixel images from a single set of four D batteries.

  The usual range of the cameras was forty to fifty feet. He was beyond that. But how could he possibly bypass them or get close enough to destroy them without having his photo snapped with every step?