by C. J. Box
“No,” Joe said, dismounting and walking Toby around the perimeter of the camp. “Butch didn’t come down from the mountains. He was going up into them, from the east.”
“He walked across the Big Stream Ranch to get here, is what you’re saying?”
“That’s right,” Joe said. “He cut the fence back there and continued on.”
“Why’d he cut the fence?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Joe said, “but I think he was just frustrated. I think he was striking out at anything that reminded him of you guys.”
Underwood snorted and shook his head. Then: “Didn’t anyone on the ranch think it was unusual for a guy on foot to be just walking across their property? Doesn’t that Frank Zeller goof have cowboys or farmhands watching the place?”
“It’s a very big ranch,” Joe said. “Butch Roberson could have easily stayed concealed as he came across. There are some deep irrigation ditches on the meadows down there and plenty of hills to hide behind. Or he might have crossed it before daylight-I don’t know.”
“Or maybe he had some help?” Underwood asked, raising his eyebrows.
“I wouldn’t know,” Joe said, looking up at Underwood.
Underwood asked, “So if he was coming up from the ranch when you saw him, how did he get here in the first place?”
“I’d like to know that myself,” Joe said. “His truck isn’t parked anywhere down there, but he indicated he’d walked all the way.”
“So someone dropped him off,” Underwood said.
“Yup.”
“Which means someone else is involved in this whole thing. Do you have any theory on who that might be?”
Joe shrugged. It had been a question hounding him in the back of his mind since the day before. Was it one of Butch’s friends or employees? A stranger he’d commandeered on the road? Or maybe someone closer?
“I’d like to know who it was,” Underwood said.
“Me, too.”
“So maybe he had some help getting out here and some more help getting across the ranch.”
Joe asked, “How big is this conspiracy going to get before we’re through?”
“I don’t trust these people,” he said, squinting.
“And they don’t trust you,” Joe said.
“So give me your best guess,” Underwood said, his eyes probing Joe’s face. “Where do you think he went after you let him get away?”
“I told you,” Joe said with heat, “I didn’t let him. .”
“I know, I know. You didn’t know he was a murderer at the time,” Underwood said sarcastically. “But putting that aside, where do you think he went?”
Joe looked around, twisting at his waist. He studied the dry forest floor and the slope of the terrain.
He said, “Because he came from the highway down there to the east, I think his intention was to continue west toward the peaks of the mountains. There’s a lot of wild country up there, and plenty of places to hide out. He knows the mountains from hunting here. What I don’t know is whether he planned to go over the top and drop into the canyons on the west side, or hole up here on the eastern slope.”
“Why would he go over the top?” Underwood asked.
“To get farther away from you guys,” Joe said. “He knows the country over there like he does here. I know that because there are two elk areas that run adjacent to each other, Area Thirty-five is this side of the mountain and Area Forty-five is the other side, and both are general elk permit areas, so special permits wouldn’t be necessary. Area Thirty-five opens a week before, so I’d guess Butch hunts this side first, then moves west a week later if he wants to. It just makes sense that he’d be more comfortable hunting east to west. The terrain is easier on this side, more slope and forest broken up by natural meadows and parks. There’s more open feed on this side.”
Underwood said, “It’s like you’re speaking Greek to me.”
Joe sighed and said, “Once you go over the top, the country gets tougher. There are a few brutal canyons, including Savage Run. What tends to happen is the elk herds on this side get early pressure from hunters and move over the top to get away from them and hide out in the rough country. My guess is Butch is doing the same thing.”
“That’s all very interesting,” Underwood said. “But as you said, you’re guessing.”
“Yup.”
Underwood sat back and sighed, then raised the satellite phone that hung from his neck on a lanyard. “I’ve got to check in with FOB One,” he said, a hint of weariness in his voice.
“FOB One?” Joe asked, knowing the answer.
“Regional Director Batista,” Underwood said. “We need to know whether to proceed or go back. He’s calling all the shots.”
Joe noted the team of special agents behind Underwood exchanged cynical glances with one another that were not meant for his eyes. But he found it interesting.
While Underwood talked with Batista-listening much more than talking, Joe observed-Joe walked down the slope until the timber thinned and opened up and he could see the expanse of the Big Stream Ranch below. The FOB, at that distance, was a small dot on a sea of sagebrush and grass.
He’d found over the years that he thought best when he was in the open, without being closed in by a tree canopy, or a ceiling, or the roof of a pickup. Somehow, his mind needed the open space of a vista to focus.
Things had been moving at lightning speed since the afternoon before, when he’d encountered Butch. Hell had broken open, and hundreds of bureaucrats were gushing out. If there was a strategic plan behind the investigation, he didn’t know what it was. All he could see was a blizzard of actions and movement based on a predetermined conclusion. And now the governor was involved.
Usually, when confused by circumstances, Joe talked with Marybeth or Nate Romanowski. Rarely was their advice similar, but it helped frame the issue for him to decide. But with Marybeth understandably preoccupied and Nate who knows where, he felt unmoored and drifting out to sea.
For the second time that day, he felt empathy toward Butch Roberson, and could understand why the man had snapped.
“Okay,” Underwood said to Joe and his team, “gather up. We have the word.” He said “the word” with slightly disguised contempt.
One of the agents snickered, then looked away when he noticed Joe was looking at him.
Underwood said, “We’re to engage hot pursuit of Butch Roberson. Joe Pickett will stay with us and help navigate. The director says that every hour that goes by is an hour wasted, so we should plan on being out all night at the very least.”
One of the agents moaned but cut it off quickly after a hard glance from Underwood.
Underwood continued: “I have the coordinates of where, approximately, the drone went down. Before contact was lost, there is some video of a man-probably our subject-in a clearing of some kind. Our job is to move swiftly toward that spot and intercept him.
“On the way there, I need everyone to keep on full alert. Keep your eyes and ears open. Look for tracks, or disturbances, broken twigs, anything. This guy is dangerous, and he’s desperate. But he knows the backcountry and we don’t, so we can’t assume he’ll roll over or give himself up easily.”
Underwood ordered the agents to prepare their weapons, and to mute cell phones and satellite phones. They would communicate with one another, he said, by radio. No one was to talk to anyone at the FOB without going through him first, so that lines of communication were clear.
As the agents unpacked headsets and earpieces to plug in to their radios, the man who had snickered earlier said to Underwood, “Sir, we aren’t exactly wilderness types. All these horses. . I don’t know. Looking for tracks? I don’t have any training in that.”
He looked around at the other agents and two nodded in agreement. Underwood turned and pointed to Joe.
“What about you?”
“I’ve done it,” Joe said, “but I’m not an expert in the field of man-tracking. I think Butch is smar
t enough to stay low-impact when he moves.”
“You’re the best we’ve got,” Underwood said.
Another of the agents spoke up and said, “I don’t think we’re prepared for this kind of thing.”
Joe nodded in agreement, although he knew Underwood wouldn’t grant him a vote in the matter.
“I understand,” Underwood said to the agent. “But you heard me. I’m relaying our orders.”
“Where do we sleep?” another agent asked. “Do we have tents and sleeping bags and such?”
“No.”
“What about food?” another asked.
“There’s bottled water and a couple of boxes of energy bars on the packhorse,” Underwood said.
“This is crazy,” one of the agents said, and the others agreed.
Joe was surprised when Underwood looked to him. “What do you think-will we find him by nightfall?”
“That depends,” Joe said, uneasy at the turn of events. “What are the coordinates?”
Underwood handed down a scratchpad with figures and a topo map of the Twelve Sleep National Forest. Joe sat down on the same stump he’d seen Butch Roberson sitting on and spread the map over his thighs.
When he calculated the location, he looked up. “It’s over the top of the mountains.”
Underwood said, “Seriously? How long would that take?”
“Most of the night,” Joe said.
“Let me call FOB One,” Underwood said, raising the satellite phone.
“It might make more sense to drive around to the other side,” Joe said.
Underwood conveyed the situation and relayed Joe’s suggestion. Joe could tell by the way Underwood’s face froze that it wasn’t received well. The agents looked on with stony silence.
“We proceed as ordered,” Underwood said after he signed off, and tried to get his horse to walk away from the glares. But the horse didn’t move.
“Click your tongue,” Joe whispered to Underwood.
Underwood clicked his tongue and his mount stepped forward. He mouthed “Thanks” as he walked the horse by Joe.
Joe led, followed by Underwood and his four special agents, and they climbed slowly up the mountain. The slope wasn’t steep yet, but the constant climb tired the mounts, and he stopped every twenty minutes to allow Toby to rest. They rode in shadow broken by shafts of afternoon sunlight that penetrated through the canopy. The ground was barren of foliage in large stretches, and was covered by a carpet of dry pine needles and bits of bark fallen from dead pine-beetle-killed trees.
The trees were dead, the forest floor was dry, and the slight breeze from the south was warm. As the horses stepped they made a crunching sound, and the combined cacophony of twenty-four hooves at times sounded like applause rolling slowly up the mountain. Joe wondered how they would ever attempt to be stealthy in the parchment-dry forest. A dropped match or cigarette butt, he thought, could make the whole mountain go up in flame. He was grateful none of the special agents lit up.
When he saw an aberration on the floor of the forest-a disturbance in the carpet, a flap of mulch turned over-he pointed it out to Underwood. Joe felt more than saw he was on Butch Roberson’s route.
The trunks of the trees were so dense in places that Joe had to weave Toby through them. Sometimes, he loosened the reins and trusted his horse to weave his own way through. The agents followed as best they could, but their trail horses balked at times and had to be urged to continue. It was a dangerous situation and could turn into a wreck if one of the horses panicked in the sea of trees, and he held his breath at times until the small string made it through the tightest spots. Trail horses liked trails, Joe knew. They weren’t thrilled with exploration, or tight fits, or climbing mountains, unlike Toby.
Although Joe could at times only intuit the route Butch had taken, there were places where, due to obstructions or granite walls, there was no choice where he’d had to go if his goal was to traverse the range.
His intuition was confirmed when they crossed a tiny stream of springwater from somewhere above them and he saw, quite clearly, a boot track in the mud. Joe photographed it with his digital camera to compare it with any other clear tracks they found later.
As Joe rode, he heard bits and pieces of conversation from the agents behind him. Underwood held his tongue.
The grumbling was typical of men being charged with a pointless and ill-conceived task, he thought. They didn’t like being so far from the FOB without proper food and shelter, they didn’t like riding horses, and they didn’t like Regional Director Julio Batista.
Joe thought he might be able to establish some common ground after all.
Two and a half hours after they’d left the dry camp, as the intense afternoon sun fused the forest with burnished orange, Underwood’s satellite phone burred with vibration on his chest.
Joe looked over his shoulder as he walked Toby and watched Underwood adjust the volume of the set as he listened. Something dark passed over Underwood’s face at whatever he was hearing, and after a minute or two Underwood looked up and gestured with his free hand for Joe to stop.
Were they being given the word to go back? Joe wondered. He halted Toby and sidestepped so Underwood could catch up alongside him.
As Underwood approached, he lowered the phone from his ear and covered the mic with his other hand. He said, “It’s for you.”
“Who is it?”
“Regional Director Batista.”
“What does he want?”
Underwood took a breath and extended the handset. “Our suspect somehow got ahold of a satellite phone of his own and he called the FOB. He’s on the line now and they’re patching it together into a conference call.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I’m not. He says he has a couple of hostages, including the ex-sheriff of this county. He’ll let them go, but only if we agree to a list of demands. And he says the only guy he can trust to be involved in the negotiation is Joe Pickett.”
19
“Is he on?” Butch Roberson asked Julio Batista. McLanahan’s satellite phone was pressed tightly to his face. Farkus noted Butch’s fingers gripped the handset so tightly they were nearly translucent white. And he noted the line of perspiration beads under Butch’s scalp. Since the sun was sliding toward dusk and it had cooled a quick twenty degrees in the past hour, he knew Butch wasn’t sweating because of the heat.
“We’re waiting,” Batista said. “Hold on-it’s a technical thing. We’ve got some guys trying to patch us all on together.”
Farkus could hear both sides of the conversation clearly. It was still and quiet, and Butch hadn’t turned down the volume of the speaker because he likely wasn’t familiar with the phone. Butch was nervous and twitchy, and his eyes burned red from exhaustion.
“If you don’t get him on. . where in the hell is he?” Butch asked.
“In the field,” Batista said calmly. “It’s taking a while to bring all the parties together, so please be patient.”
“Get him on,” Butch said.
Earlier, after ordering McLanahan, Farkus, and Sollis to dismount and disarm, Butch Roberson had emerged from the shadowed stand of timber on the west slope. Farkus hadn’t seen Butch since he’d quit his job, and he was surprised how he looked: thinner, slightly stooped when he walked, with furrowed lines in his face and tired eyes. He looked like he’d aged ten years, and Farkus knew it wasn’t just from being on the run in the mountains for the past two days. Something had happened to Butch Roberson in the last year that had changed him physically.
Butch held a semiautomatic rifle with an extended magazine and a tactical scope mounted on it, and used the muzzle to signal that they should walk away from the camp into a grassy clearing to the south of the alcove.
“What about the horses?” McLanahan had asked.
“Let them go. All except the packhorse. I want to see what you brought me.”
McLanahan protested, but Butch didn’t care. He circled the three men in the c
learing and unbuckled the cinch strap on Dreadnaught’s saddle and did the same with the other two saddled horses. Then he slapped him on his flank. Dreadnaught took off as if the bell had rung and summer vacation had begun. McLanahan and Sollis’s horse and the spare followed, leaving only the packhorse and three crumpled saddles on the ground.
“How in the hell do you expect us to get back?” McLanahan asked plaintively.
“Who says you’re going back?” Butch asked.
Butch had them all sit down in the grass after he patted them down and made sure they had no more weapons. When he ran his hand over Farkus’s clothing, he said, “Dave Farkus, I’m kinda surprised to see what kind of company you’re keeping.”
“Me, too,” Farkus had said.
When Butch got to Sollis, he said: “Hell of a shot. Did you think it was me?”
Sollis nodded. Butch shook his head in disgust and moved to McLanahan.
“So you decided to freelance, huh?” Butch asked McLanahan.
“In a matter of speaking.”
“Tell me what they’re saying about me in town.”
McLanahan cleared his throat. “Every Fed in the mountain west is either here or on their way. They want you for the murder of the two EPA agents. It’s a clusterfuck of industrial proportion.”
Farkus watched Butch carefully and noted no reaction.
“So why are you three here killing innocent elk hunters?” Butch asked.
Farkus said, “There’s a big reward out for you.”
Butch took that in, nodded, and said, “How much?”
Farkus looked to McLanahan with disdain and said, “I’d like to know that myself. All I’ve been told is that it’s a big-ass reward.”
“And you were hired to guide?” Butch asked Farkus.
“Yes, Butch.”
“The sheriff. . ex-sheriff. . hired you?”
“Yes.”
Butch said, “Remind me never to take you hunting with me again.”