Free Fire

by C. J. Box

  He heard it before he saw it.

  “Boundary Creek,” Joe whispered. They were now in the Zone of Death.

  Joe felt his senses heighten as they crossed the creek, which was wider and more impressive than he’d guessed from looking at the map. He hopped from rock to rock, spooking brook trout that sunned in calm pools, their forms shooting across the sandy bottom like dark sparks. On the other side, as they pushed farther into the trees, he tried to will his ears to hear better and his eyes to sharpen. His body tingled, and he felt, for the first time in months, back in his element.

  ROBINSON LAKE WAS rimmed with swamp except for the far side where trees formed a northern stand. The trail skirted the lake on the right and curled around it to the trees where, Joe guessed, the campers had set up their tents and been murdered. As they walked, he tried to put himself into Clay McCann’s head. How far away did he see their tents? Where did he encounter Hoening? Did he smell their campfire, hear them talking before he got there?

  As they approached the stand of trees and an elevated, grassy flat that had to be where the camp was located, Joe heard Demming unsnap her holster behind him. She was as jumpy as he was.

  The camp had been cleared months before but the fire ring revealed the center of it. Logs had been dragged from the timber to sit on around the fire. Tiny pieces of plasticized foil in the grass indicated where a camper—or Clay McCann—had opened a package of snacks.

  In the campsite, Joe turned and surveyed the trail they had taken. From the camper’s perspective, they must have seen McCann coming. There was no way he snuck up on them unless they were distracted or oblivious, which was possible. Since Williams had been found near the fire ring and McCaleb and Wade had been killed coming out of their tent, he assumed McCann was literally in the camp before he started shooting. So was Hoening, whose body was found on the trail, the first or last to die? Again it struck him that the sequence of events really didn’t matter. There was no doubt who’d done it.

  “Joe . . .” Demming whispered.

  She was staring into the timber, her face ashen, her hand on her gun. Joe followed her line of sight.

  The man aiming his rifle at them was dressed in filthy camouflage fatigues and had been hiding behind a tree. At fifty feet, it was unlikely he would miss if he pulled the trigger.

  “That’s right,” the man said to Demming, “pull that gun out slow and toss it over to the side.”

  She did as told.

  Because his back was to the lake, Joe figured the man with the rifle hadn’t seen the Glock in his belt. Not that it would help them right now, since in order to use it he’d need to pull it, rack the slide, and hit what he was aiming at. In the time that would take, the rifleman could empty his weapon into the both of them.

  “I seen you coming half a mile away,” the man said, stepping out from behind the tree but keeping the rifle leveled. “I was in the trees taking a shit when you showed up.”

  He was short, stout, mid-thirties, with a blocky head, wide nose flattened to his face, dirt on his hands. His eyes sparkled with menace. Behind him, in the shadows of the timber, Joe now saw a crude lean-to shelter, a skinned and half-dismembered deer hanging from a cross-pole lashed to tree trunks. A survivalist, living off the land in a place with no law.

  “You need to lower the weapon,” Demming said, her voice calmer than Joe thought his would be at that moment. “Let’s talk this over before you get yourself into any more trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” he said. “There ain’t nothing you can do to me here.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Demming said.

  “Sure it does,” he said, and showed a tight smile. He was missing teeth on both top and bottom. “It worked for Clay McCann.”

  Joe and Demming exchanged a quick glance.

  “I wrote him a letter but he never answered,” the man said. Joe tried to determine the man’s accent. His words were flat and hard. Midwestern, Joe guessed.

  “Where you from?” Joe asked. “Nebraska?”

  “Iowa.”

  “You’re a long way from home.”

  The Iowan looked hard at Joe for the first time and narrowed his eyes. “This is my home. And you two are trespassing. And the way I got it figured, I could shoot you both right now and walk ’cause no court can try me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Demming said. “How long have you been here?”

  “Month.”

  “Then you don’t know that Congress passed a law,” Demming said. “You’re now in the Idaho district. This is no longer off the map.”

  Joe admired Demming’s quick thinking. The lie sounded credible. It produced a flicker of doubt in the Iowan’s eyes and the muzzle of his rifle dropped a few inches.

  “Let us leave,” Demming said, “and no harm will come to you. There was no way you could have known.”

  “They really passed a law?” he asked.

  Demming nodded. Joe nodded.

  “And the president signed it?”

  “Yes.”

  The Iowan looked from Demming to Joe and back, digging for a clue either way. Joe hoped his face wouldn’t reveal anything. Seconds ticked by. A bald eagle skimmed the surface of the lake and just missed plucking a fish out.

  “Naw,” the Iowan said, raising the rifle butt back to his shoulder, “I don’t believe you. If that was the case there would have been some rangers patrolling out here, and I ain’t seen nobody.”

  The heavy boom, an explosion of blood and fingers on the forestock, and the rifle kicking out of the Iowan’s hands happened simultaneously and left the wounded man standing there empty-handed and wide-eyed.

  Demming screamed, Joe froze.

  Another shot took the Iowan’s nose and part of his cheek-bone off his face. When he instinctively reached up with his now-shattered left hand, a bullet ripped through the back of his camo trousers at knee level, no doubt slicing through tendons, collapsing him backward into the grass like a puppet with strings clipped.

  Joe saw movement on his left in his peripheral vision, a flash of clothing darting from the reeds along the shoreline into the cover of the trees. He fumbled for his weapon, racked the slide, trained it on the writhing, moaning Iowan as Demming retrieved her pistol.

  He approached the Iowan and squatted, patting down the man and finding a .44 revolver, bear spray, and the half-gnawed leg bone of the deer. He tossed them aside, adrenaline and the aftereffects of fear coursing through him. The leg plopped fifteen feet out into the lake.

  He heard Demming shout into her radio, telling the ranger back at the station to call in a helicopter for an airlift to Idaho Falls before the man bled out.

  “Is he going to make it?” she asked Joe, her eyes wide, her hands trembling so badly she couldn’t seat the radio back into its case on her belt. She glanced nervously in the direction the shots had been fired.

  “I think so,” Joe said, grimacing at the Iowan’s split and disfigured face and the pool of bright red blood forming in the grass behind his knees. “We can tie his legs off with tourniquets and bind his hand and face to stop the bleeding,” he said, taking off his shirt to tear into strips.

  “What happened?” the Iowan croaked, mouth full of blood, shock setting in. “Who did this to me?”

  Joe didn’t recognize the flash of clothing, but the marksmanship was familiar.

  “His name’s Nate Romanowski,” Joe said.

  “Who?” Demming asked.

  “Friend of mine,” Joe said to the Iowan. “If he wanted to hit you in the head and kill you, you wouldn’t be talking right now.”

  11

  “HOW LONG AGO WERE THEY HERE?” CLAY MCCANN asked Sheila while picking up the business cards. He was agitated.

  “I don’t know—three hours, maybe.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Gee, Clay,” she said, rolling her eyes, “maybe they wanted to ask you about shooting four people dead.”

  Annoyed, he looked up at h
er from the cards. He recognized the woman’s name—Demming. She was one of the first on the scene at Bechler. She was no heavy hitter within the park, he knew that. Nothing special. But . . . a game warden?

  Sheila looked back at him with insolence. She was a poor fill-in for the receptionist who quit. Too much attitude, too much mouth. He wanted to tell her to tone down her act or he’d lose what few clients he still had. Then his focus changed from Sheila to the open door behind her, to the credenza and the notebooks that were clearly displayed on his desk.

  “Why is my door open?” he asked, his voice cold.

  “I wanted some light out here so I could read,” she said defensively. “If you haven’t noticed, it’s dark in here. You need to replace some bulbs. And there’s a nice big window in your office that lets in the light. Besides, the room needed airing out.”

  He glared at her. It wouldn’t take much to drag her out from behind the desk by her hair. “Did they go into my office?” he asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Did you?”

  “Just to open the door and the curtains. I told you that. Jesus, calm down.”

  “Did either of them look into my office?”

  She glared back. “No. What’s your problem, anyway?”

  Instead of answering, he strode around her desk into his room. Shutting the door, he said, “Keep it closed.”

  She knocked softly on the door. “Clay, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  ACTUALLY, EVERYTHING WAS wrong.

  He sat heavily in his chair and rubbed his face and scalp with both hands, stared at his desk without really seeing it.

  Everything was wrong. He tried not to think he’d been played. He was the player, not the playee, after all, right?

  But the money still hadn’t been wired. The banker was getting ruder each time he called, and had even insinuated that morning that “perhaps Mr. McCann should consider another financial institution, one more enthusiastic about such a small deposit, one that would be more in tune to servicing such a meager balance. Maybe one in the States?”

  The banker had turned McCann from an angry customer demanding answers into a pitiful two-bit wannabe, begging for just a few more days of patience. The money would be wired, he assured the banker. He guaranteed it, knowing the value of his word, like his big talk months before, was being devalued by the day.

  Even worse was that the man who was supposed to deposit the funds wouldn’t take his call. McCann couldn’t get past the secretary. How could this be?

  Had he been conned? McCann couldn’t believe that. He was too smart, too street-savvy to fall for it. He knew too much. But why wouldn’t his business partner take his call? Why wouldn’t he pay up, as promised? If this was a legitimate transaction, McCann could slap a suit on the bastard and take him to court to get his money. A contract was a contract, and this was Contract Law 101. But in this circumstance, McCann couldn’t handle the problem through the courts. The irony of his situation gave him the sweats.

  He’d spent hours waiting by the pay phone on the side of the supermarket for the callback that never came, his frustration and anger building by the minute. He debated with himself whether to go back and try again.

  “Fuck it,” he said to himself as he reached out and picked up his desk phone and dialed.

  “EnerDyne, Mr. Barron’s office,” the receptionist answered.

  “This is McCann, again. I need to speak to Layton Barron immediately. Tell him.”

  “Mr. McCann, I told you earlier. Mr. Barron is in a meeting and he can’t be disturbed. I’ll give him your message when—”

  “Tell him now,” McCann said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  My life, McCann thought. His death, if there wasn’t some cooperation.

  The receptionist hesitated, then put him on hold.

  Okay, McCann thought. Either Barron came on the phone and explained himself, which meant the deal was still in play, or he sent the receptionist back with another delay or refusal. If that happened, there would be hell to pay.

  Minutes ticked by. The lawyer began to wonder if the receptionist had chosen to place him on permanent hold.

  Finally, Barron came on the line, angry, and said, “You agreed never to call me here. Is this a secure line?”

  McCann was relieved. “No. I’m calling from my office.”

  “Goddamn it, we agreed—”

  “I’ll go to a secure location, but I’m not going to stand around in the cold all day again. Call me in ten minutes.” McCann read off the number of the supermarket pay phone. Barron repeated the number back.

  At last, he thought, gathering his coat and hat. Finally, he would find out why the funds hadn’t been deposited into his account, as promised. He’d done his part, certainly. Now it was time for them to do theirs.

  “Going again?” Sheila asked, sighing heavily.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “Keep—”

  “Your goddamned door shut!” Sheila finished for him in a screech.

  MCCANN THOUGHT ABOUT Sheila as he walked down the sidewalk to the supermarket. His feelings were mixed, which surprised him.

  Even though she was a piss-poor receptionist, he liked to look at her. She was more than a cartoon after all, he’d decided. She brought experience, sexual knowledge, and unabashed du tifulness to his needs and desires. Her reputation as a former mafioso kept woman excited him. He liked being seen with her because it was scandalous and only added to his infamy in town. Her features were severe: very black hair, very white skin, fire-engine red, pillow-soft lips. She was a combination of sharp, soft, ethnic, sensual, and in-your-face. Even if she was on the summit of over-the-hill.

  He’d always thought her exotic and amusing, but he was beginning to wonder if there was more going on with him. Was he falling for her? How could that be? He knew he couldn’t trust her.

  She was a puzzle, though. How she went on and on about getting out of there but never seemed to pull it off. It made no sense. Leaving wasn’t that hard. An hour to Bozeman and the airport, that’s all the time it would take. And it couldn’t be just lack of money. What did a Bozeman-to-Newark plane ticket cost? Five hundred bucks? Surely she could afford that. So why did she keep leaving just to end up back in West Yellowstone?

  The only thing he could figure out was that, despite her constant complaints, she liked it. She liked being the wildest vamp in town, the fish with the biggest, reddest lips in the small pond. He started to admire her a little and feel sorry for her at the same time.

  Maybe, just maybe, he would take her with him after all.

  First things first, though. He needed his money.

  AS HE TURNED the corner he saw the pay phone blocked by a dirty white pickup. A big woman with a loud voice was on the phone. His heart sank. McCann approached the vehicle slightly panicked and checked his wristwatch. In two minutes, Barron had agreed to call.

  She had curlers in her hair and was wearing an oversized parka. There was a cigarette in the stubby fingers of her free hand, and she waved it around her head as she talked. Her pickup was twenty years old, the bed filled with junk, the cab windows smeared opaque by the three big dogs inside, all of them with their paws on the glass and their tongues hanging out. He was vaguely familiar with her and had seen her death trap of a pickup rattling through town before. She collected and sold junk and hides. She had a sign on a muddy two-track west of town that offered $10 apiece for elk hides, $7.50 for deer. Her name, he thought, was Marge.

  When she saw McCann standing there, obviously waiting for her and checking his wristwatch, she flicked her fingers at him. “It’ll be a while,” she said. “There’s a phone down the street outside the gas station.”

  “No, I need this phone.”

  Marge looked at him like he was crazy. “I told you it’ll be a while, mister. The phone service is out at my place. I got a bunch of business calls to make.”

  She turned away from him. “I’m on
hold.”

  In a minute, Barron would call.

  “Look,” McCann said to her back, “I’m expecting a really important call on this number. Right here, right now. You can call whoever it is you’re waiting for right back. Hell, I’ll give you the money. In fact, if you want to sit in my office and use the phone there, you can make calls all day.”

  She turned slightly and peered over her massive shoulder with one eye closed. “If you’ve got a phone in your office, mister, why don’t you use it?”

  He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “Lady . . . Marge . . .”

  She ignored him.

  Furious, he reached out to tap her on the shoulder to get her attention when the dogs went off furiously, barking and snarling, gobs of saliva spattering the inside of the cab window inches from his arm. He recoiled in panic, and she yelled for her dogs to shut the hell up.

  Then she turned on him. “What the hell is wrong with you, mister? I’m on the phone.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” he said, his heart racing in his chest from the shock of the barking and the flash of teeth. “I’m expecting an important call. It’s a matter of life and death. I need that phone.”

  She assessed him coolly. “I know who you are, Clay McCann. I don’t think much of you. And you’re not getting it.”

  He shot a glance at his watch. Past time. He prayed Barron would be a few minutes late. Or call back if it was busy the first time. But what if he didn’t?

  The .38 was out before she could say another word. McCann tapped the muzzle against the glass of the passenger window in the drooling face of a dog. “Hang up now,” he said.

  “You’re threatening my dogs,” she said, eyes wide. “Nobody threatens my dogs.”

  Then she stepped back and jerked the telephone cord from the wall with a mighty tug.