Cold Wind jp-11

by C. J. Box

  “Unusual like what?” Bob asked.

  “You know,” Joe said, “vehicles you didn’t recognize on the county roads. Strangers about, or even people you know who were out and about on a Sunday.”

  “Maybe like equipment trucks and construction vehicles?” Bob asked, sarcasm tainting his tone. “Like hundreds of goddamned wind farm people driving through our ranch raising dust and scattering our cattle? Like engineers and politicians driving through our place like they owned it? Like that?”

  Joe said nothing.

  “That’s just a normal day around here,” Bob said. “It’s been like that for a year. And now we have the noise.”

  Joe said, “The noise?”

  “Open that kitchen window, Dode,” Bob commanded.

  Mrs. Lee left her place near the door and entered the kitchen. The big window over the sink faced south, and she unlatched it and slid it open.

  Joe heard it: the distant but distinct high-frequency whine of the turbine blades slicing through the sky, punctuated by squeaks and moans of metal-on-metal.

  “The goddamned noise,” Bob said. “It drives the dogs crazy. It drives us crazy. Gives me headaches, I swear, and makes Dode crankier than hell. That odd sound you hear means the bearings are going out on one of the turbines. Eventually, I guess, they’ll have to climb up there and replace it. But until they do, we get to listen to it twenty-four hours a goddamned day.”

  Joe nodded. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed the high but constant whine before he entered the house, but concluded it had been drowned out by barking dogs and the gusts of wind.

  “That’s what we get to listen to all our damned lives, thanks to Earl Alden,” Bob said. “And that’s not counting all the heavy equipment on our roads. I suppose you saw the start of them transmission lines on the way in?”

  “Yup.” Tower after tower of gleaming steel coursing across the sagebrush, power cables sagging between them like super-sized clotheslines.

  “Earl was behind that. Because he owns the wind energy company, he’s somehow considered to be a utility, which means he has the right to condemn that corridor across our ranch so they could put those up. That way, he can ship his power to the grid somewhere.”

  “You got paid, though, right?” Joe asked. “They have to pay you fair market value.”

  Bob sneered. “Which is next to nothing. Dry land pasture doesn’t have much value, they said. Breaking up the ranch that has been in my family for four generations don’t mean nothing when it comes to the state and the Feds on a goddamned crusade for wind power.”

  “Fucking windmills,” Wes said, practically spitting the words out. Joe glanced at Wes and was surprised by his vehemence. Definitely a mean streak, Joe thought. A big guy like that could easily hoist a body up the inside of a wind tower.

  Bob said, “This county sits right on top of natural gas, oil, coal, and uranium. I have the mineral rights, but no one’s interested because they all think that’s dirty and bad these days. But for some damned reason, they think wind power is good. So they got all this federal money and tax credits and bullshit. Anything that has to do with wind power just gets steamrolled through. Let me ask you something, Mr. Game Warden.”

  “Ask away,” Joe said, hoping to end the diatribe and get back to his questions.

  “When you look at a wind turbine, do you see a thing of beauty? Is it more beautiful than an oil well or a gas rig?”

  Joe said, “I see a wind turbine. Nothing more or less.”

  “Ha!” Bob said, tilting his head. “Then you need to get with the damned program, son. You’re supposed to behold the prettiest goddamned thing you ever saw. It’s supposed to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The sight of it is supposed to give you a boner.”

  Wes barked a laugh and slapped his knees. Dode said, “Bob Lee!”

  Joe shrugged.

  “Earl Alden claimed he loved those windmills. He’d always talk up his wind farm while he was getting his government checks and getting the locals to condemn my land for the transmission towers. But you notice where he put ’em, don’t you? Right outside my window on that big ol’ ridge. He put ’em where he wouldn’t have to look at them or hear them all goddamned day, on a ridge where the wind never stops blowing. Right up against my property. They mess up my sky, son, and they mess up the quiet. I can’t take it. A man shouldn’t have to take it just so a gaggle of politicians back east can feel good about themselves.”

  “I understand,” Joe said. “But that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”

  Bob leaned forward and removed the oxygen tube from his nose with one hand while raising the cigarette with the other in a well-practiced way. He inhaled deeply, sat back, and plugged the oxygen apparatus back in. Joe watched the exchange while holding his own breath, anticipating an explosion and fireball that did not come. Bob said, “So if you want to ask us if we feel bad Earl Alden got killed and hung up from one of his towers like a piece of meat, the answer is hell no.”

  “Hell no!” Dode chirped from the kitchen while closing and latching the window.

  “But you didn’t see anything unusual Sunday?” Joe asked again, trying to bring it back. “Anything you told the sheriff, or didn’t think of until now?”

  “The sheriff?” Bob said. “He ain’t been out here. You’re the first. And not that it matters, ’cause I don’t even look out anymore. I hear them equipment trucks and Rope the Wind vehicles, but I don’t even look out at them anymore because it makes me so damned mad.”

  “What about you, Dode?” Joe asked. “Or Wes? Did you see or hear anything?”

  Dode shook her head. “We keep the curtains shut most of the time anymore,” she said. “We never used to do that, but we do now. And we keep the windows shut on account of the dust those trucks kick up.”

  “Wes?”

  The son had an odd smile on his face, Joe thought. Almost a smirk. “I guess I was just working on my engine all day,” he said, unconvincingly. “I’m trying to get that ’69 Pontiac GTO Judge out there to run again. You probably saw it when you drove up. That’s from when they made real cars and Americans weren’t scared to drive them.”

  Joe was silent. He stood and let the silence become oppressive, hoping one of them would rush to fill it with something that might prove useful. But Dode stood kneading her hands, Wes stared at a spot on the wall, and Bob did his quick oxygen-for-cigarette move again.

  He stood up and said, “Do you have any idea who might have had it in for Earl Alden? Enough to kill him?”

  Bob snorted, as if to say, Who doesn’t?

  “Well,” Joe said, digging a card out of his uniform shirt, “I thank you for your time. If anyone thinks of anything, feel free to give me a call.” He crossed the room and offered the card to Bob, who wouldn’t reach out and take it. Humiliated, Joe placed it on a cluttered end table next to the lounge chair.

  “I heard Missy Alden did it,” Dode said, her eyes lighting up. “I wouldn’t put it past that stuck-up. well, I can’t say the word but it rhymes with ‘ditch.’”

  Joe stifled a smile, despite himself. He clamped his hat on and headed for the door. As he opened it, he turned back. The three of them hadn’t moved. There was something they weren’t telling him, he was sure of it.

  “I was wondering,” Joe said, “why you couldn’t take advantage of the wind opportunities you describe. You’ve got the land and you sure do have the wind, and it sounds like there’s big money in it.”

  Bob said, “You really want to know what’s going on?”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Then come back in here and sit yourself down, son. Wes, clear a place on that damned engine block for the game warden.”

  21

  Nate Romanowski stood deep in a grove of aspen on a mountainside in the Salt River Range. It was a cool fall day with a slight breeze that rattled the dry heart-shaped aspen leaves with a sound like a musical shaker. To the north was the town of Alpine and, beyond that, Jackson Hol
e. To his south was Afton. From where he stood in the shadows, he could see a distant silvery bend of the Grays River, and when he faced west he could see Freedom, Wyoming, just inside the Idaho border. He’d hidden his Jeep in an alcove in the dark timber above and hiked down the weathered two-track to the rendezvous spot.

  He was waiting for a man to deliver a gun.

  Nate checked his pocket watch. Large Merle was an hour late. Plenty of things could have happened to delay him, Nate knew, but he took a few steps farther back into the aspens and hunkered down just in case Merle had been intercepted by someone who was out there looking for him. Lord knew, he thought, there were enough people after him these days.

  The sound of the motor came with a gust of wind. A flock of gold leaves dislodged and fluttered to the ground like wing-shot birds. Within a few minutes, the sound became pronounced. It was punctuated by the grinding of the transmission as the driver missed a gear on the climb. Merle drove like that-badly-and Nate rose.

  The toothsome grille of Large Merle’s 1978 Dodge Power Wagon thrust through the brush below, and Nate didn’t move or blink until he could see there was only one occupant in the cab. One very big occupant.

  Nate raised a hand and stepped out from the trees. The dry leaves crunched underfoot like cornflakes. Through the windshield, Merle nodded in recognition and goosed the Dodge up the road. When he reached Nate, Merle killed the engine, jammed on the parking brake, and swung out. Nate watched Merle carefully, looking for the sign of a tell.

  Large Merle was seven feet tall and weighed about four hundred and fifty pounds, Nate guessed. Although he could afford a newer vehicle, the Dodge had been adapted to a man of Merle’s size by retrofitting the seat flush against the back cab wall and cutting lengths out of the brake and clutch arms. Large Merle left the keys in his Dodge all the time because, he’d once told Nate, no car thief was big enough to steal it.

  What Nate was looking for on Merle’s face was a nervous twitch or a refusal to make eye contact. Or if Merle started spouting small talk unrelated to the matter at hand. Any of those traits would be a sign of guilt and thus the end of Large Merle.

  Nate had always believed in justice even if he didn’t believe in many laws. And if Merle revealed anything besides remorse or blind stupidity, Nate would see that justice was done.

  “You’re a sight,” Large Merle said, stepping out of his truck. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I was starting to wonder,” Nate said, watching Merle closely. So far, so good.

  “It took longer than they thought it would to mount the scope. We went with a Leupold 4X in the end.”

  Nate nodded. “Good scope.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  Merle was studying his boot tops. Not looking up. Nate felt something begin to swell inside him.

  Then Merle said, “I feel so goddamned bad about what happened. I blame myself for those yahoos getting through my place, Nate, and I’m just so sorry.”

  Nate let the words hang in the air until the breeze floated them away. He sounded sincere.

  “It was a girl that made me screw up, Nate,” Merle said, glancing up, his eyes begging for understanding. “A woman, I should say. She came into the cafe two nights before. She said she was from East Texas and she was going to visit her sister somewhere in Montana. Ekalaka, I think she said. Damn, she had pretty eyes and a nice figure and she asked me to come along.”

  Nate watched Merle carefully.

  “There ain’t that many girls who like a guy like me,” Merle said. “It wasn’t always like this, you know. Back when I went two hundred twenty, two hundred fifty, I didn’t have that many problems. Lots of girls thought I played basketball,” he said, chuckling.

  “I remember,” Nate said. “I was there.”

  Merle had been in Nate’s unit in black ops. They’d served together in Africa, South America, and the Middle East. He’d been there when the whole thing blew up.

  Merle still stared at his boots. “Yeah. But it’s been a long time since a girl looked at me that way. When she said to come along with her and meet her sister. hell, I just took my apron off right there at the grill and followed her out the door. I don’t think I even locked up the place and I sure as hell forgot to let you know I was leaving. I hope you can forgive me just a little.”

  “Hmmm,” Nate said.

  Large Merle took a deep breath and chanced a smile. He acted as if a huge weight had been lifted from his neck and shoulders. “All I want is a little understanding,” he said. “And I swear to you right now I’ll help you find them. I’ll stick with you until we find those bastards.”

  Nate shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, Merle, but this is all mine.”

  “Really, I want to help. Do you think it was The Five? Did they finally get a bead on you?”

  Nate reached up and scratched his chin. “It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t The Five, Merle. They were just sloppy amateurs and they left evidence behind. That only makes it worse. It’s just a matter of time before I find them.”

  “You got names?” Merle asked. “Locations?”

  “Not yet, but I’ve got fingerprints and DNA. I need to get them analyzed and I’ll have my boys do that. What I don’t know yet is who put them up to it and why. And who gave them my location. That bothers me.”

  “It wasn’t me, Nate,” Merle said. “If it was, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here now.”

  Nate nodded.

  “Hell, that girl took advantage of me. What a disappointment, you know?” Merle moaned. “Turned out she wanted me around as muscle so she could intimidate her sister into moving off the family ranch so she could move in. It was complicated as hell, but my gal left the place a long time ago and wanted to come back and claim it. Once I found out what the deal was about, I slunk back to Kaycee with my tail between my legs. That’s when I saw what happened to your place while I was gone. When I saw the wreckage. I thought they’d killed you. I was so damned happy when you called me. Women,” Merle said sadly. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”

  “Not all of them anyway,” Nate said.

  Merle looked up sharply. “One of them was a woman?”

  “That’s what my sources tell me,” Nate said. “She wasn’t the shooter, but she may have put them up to it.”

  “No name on her, either?”

  “I’ve got a good idea who it is,” Nate said.

  They drove up the mountainside in Merle’s Power Wagon with the box on the bench seat between them. The road leveled on a long plateau of short grass and knuckles of rock that stretched out flat several miles as if the terrain were gathering its strength before thrusting upward into the Salt River Range. An old barbed-wire fence stretched out parallel to the road.

  Nate picked up the box and hefted it in his hands. Heavy, and not quite right.

  “This isn’t a.454 Casull,” Nate said, looking over at Merle. “I thought we talked about the right weapon.”

  “Jesus,” Merle said. “You can tell by the weight?”

  “Couple of ounces different,” Nate said. “Lighter.”

  Merle whistled. Then: “You amaze me. You’re right; it’s not a.454. Seems Freedom Arms has a new model, and I thought you might want to give it a try.”

  Nate frowned back, perturbed.

  “Tell you what,” Merle said. “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back for a.454 this afternoon and get the scope swapped. But at least make an informed decision.”

  “What new model?” Nate asked.

  “It’s called a.500 Wyoming Express,” Merle said. “Stainless steel five-shot revolver, just like what you’re used to, only bigger: fifty cal. A little over three pounds without the scope. It’s got a Model 83 chassis just like the.454 so it should feel the same in your hand. Seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. Shoots 1.765-inch belted cartridges at 35,000 psi. Twice the power of a.44 magnum. The belted cartridge allows them to cut down a little on the cylinder weight.”

  Nate raised his eye
brows in appreciation.

  “It’s not as fast as your.454,” Merle said, “but the knockdown power is greater. The.454 has a TKO of 30, while the.500 goes 39. And according to the man who sold it to me, it’s like getting hit by a freight train as opposed to a car. It’ll knock down a moose or a cape buffalo or a grizzly like nothing else. The penetration is incredible. The bullets just blow through flesh and bone and are rarely ever recovered afterward, which is an attribute I thought you might appreciate.”

  Nate nodded. He liked that. “Range?”

  “Five-hundred-yard capability,” Merle said, “but it’s most effective within a hundred.

  “In the right hands,” he winked at Nate, “and with an adjustable scope, accurate one-thousand-yard shots are not impossible. Plus at close range, one could, you know, knock out a bulldozer.

  “Hell,” Merle said, “you’re Nate Romanowski. You’ve got the rep. You’ve got to have the baddest gun known to man or beast.”

  Nate said, “I’m getting interested.”

  He liked the way it felt in his hand, loved its balance and weight. Large Merle stood behind him, silent, letting him get acquainted with the weapon. Nate kneaded it with his hands, spun it on his finger through the trigger guard, checked out the scope, then opened the cylinder.

  He was well practiced with the model. He loaded one large shell, rotated the cylinder past an empty hole, then loaded the next three rounds. The idea was to leave the firing pin resting on the skipped cylinder for safety. Then he raised it like an extension of his right arm and cupped his left hand under his right. He kept both eyes open and cocked it with his left thumb. The snick-snick sound of rotating steel cylinder was tight and sweet, he thought.

  The fence they stood next to had warped wooden posts spaced every ten feet. He counted out fifteen posts from where he stood-fifty yards-and fired. The concussion was tremendous and it seemed like the air around them had been sucked away for a second. Large Merle cried out, “Jesus Christ! My ears. give a guy some warning.”