by Jeff Carson
Like a firefly sitting in the bottom of a salad bowl, a tent squatted next to the water, lit within by a yellow light.
He cringed as a stream of icy water bolted down his neck between his shoulders. Sopping-wet clothing draped over his head and back, and any body heat he’d stoked within himself on the jog up the valley was sucked away by the second. But he’d figured that if he had a thermal-camera night-vision scope, then his enemies could have the same, so he was trying to mask any heat signature he gave off.
It was 9:41 p.m. and he’d arrived. Two hours and nineteen minutes to go and somebody already had something set up for him.
The trail was a thin tendril shining in the moonlight, entering the bowl and leading straight to the glowing tent.
He flipped on the thermal camera and began scanning.
There were no heat signatures near the tent or in it, and after a few minutes he’d still found nothing in the valley.
His early arrival had been anticipated, so how about his thermal-camera scope? A thermal blanket could block a heat signature easily enough, rendering anyone lying in wait invisible.
He pulled back on the zoom and scanned again, still seeing nothing on the slopes, then swept left and up to the top of the southern ridge.
Like a blob of amorphous red gas, he saw a heat signature up top.
Setting the zoom to max, the red blob grew in the scope, and though the figure took no better form than a bead of light, he could see that it moved.
A perfect perch for a sniper.
Or a rancher.
“There you are,” he said under his breath.
Years ago, back when Wolf had been a third-year deputy and Tom Rachette and Heather Patterson had still been battling zits in high school, he’d been called to a horrific traffic accident on the other side of Williams Pass, just near the turnoff to Cold Lake.
A woman named Ellen Mink had been driving with her teenaged son, Chad, in the passenger seat, and they’d gone off the road, flipping the vehicle multiple times. Not wearing a seatbelt, Ellen had been thrown from the car an unfathomable distance from the mangled vehicle and died. Chad had been belted and survived, though injured badly enough to put him into a two-day coma.
When Chad had regained consciousness, he’d told a story of a truck carrying a cattle trailer running him and his mother off the road near the Cold Lake junction. Other memories of the crash were hazy or had left the boy’s mind altogether, but he’d remembered the four-leafed clover painted on the side of the trailer and the words Emerald Isle Ranch as it’d veered into their lane and struck their car.
Naturally, upon hearing the news, Wolf had started the process of talking with the Emerald Isle Ranch owner, a man named Cormack Barker. Except Sluice and Byron county had not yet merged and the ranch was across county lines, so Wolf had gone to the sheriff to the south for help: Will MacLean.
Wolf, his then boss Sheriff Burton, and a young newly elected Sheriff MacLean had gone in together to the Emerald Isle Ranch.
The ranch was big with hundreds of cattle, and Cormack Barker had two brothers who helped him run the place—two brothers who’d kept their distance and their mouths shut that day.
Cormack had either acted or was genuinely surprised, because his cattle truck, he pointed out, was without markings—no logo at all, and no indications of having recently run a car into the sage up the highway. Sure, his ranch logo was a four-leafed clover, and his ranch name was indeed Emerald Isle Ranch, but his cattle trailer was a beat-up maroon piece of junk without any artwork painted on it.
On inspecting the trailer, they all saw rusted edges and no evidence of trading paint with Ellen Mink’s car. And, clearly, no one had painted over or removed logos from the trailer.
When asked to produce registration paperwork, Cormack had it handy, though to Wolf’s eye it looked suspect. Perhaps doctored. There was more damage to the paper than expected, given that it had probably sat in a file cabinet for most of its life. It reminded him of the time he’d changed two Ds to Bs on his fifth-grade report card before showing it to his parents.
And upon further inspection of the property, there was no sign of another trailer, which seemed odd considering how many cattle were on the ranch.
Cormack Barker was a donor to Sheriff MacLean’s campaign and there was to be no further investigation, as clearly stated by the Byron County sheriff. Burton promised to comply and, in the end, the whole thing fizzled out.
Wolf had continued, however, though he never found a solid link to where that phantom trailer had gone, nor did he find someone else who’d claimed to have ever seen it. Other than the boy, that is.
As he talked to the business associates of Cormack Barker—the veterinarian in Ashland, the slaughterhouse owner on the eastern plains—the picture became real clear. Cormack Barker had bought the silence of everyone associated with the Emerald Isle Ranch.
At the slaughterhouse in Greeley, he’d seen ten trailers on the owner’s property. Two of them had had fresh paint jobs. Without a warrant, however, standing on a ladder and scraping off the new paint to check underneath was out of the question.
Finally, after a year, he’d had to stomach justice not being served for Chad’s mother.
During those long months of Wolf’s unofficial investigation, Cormack Barker had renamed Emerald Isle to Turkey Hill Ranch.
That had rubbed Wolf wrong. Just like the cattle trailer, Cormack had effectively painted a new ranch name over the old, tarnished one.
Then Greg Barker, Cormack Barker’s only son, had eventually gotten hired by MacLean. And when the two counties merged, Wolf had been working side by side with a Barker. That had rubbed Wolf wrong too. Especially since the son was every bit of a lying, conniving bastard as his father had been all those years ago.
Wolf remembered Greg’s words in front of the art gallery.
I hear there’s an opening in the department for detective.
Wolf had been stewing over that comment ever since he’d seen the location of the meeting spot on the map. Rachette had been hogtied at that very moment, and Barker had been standing there, talking to him, Lauren, and her seven-year-old daughter, telling them he’d done it.
The coordinates they’d been sent referred to a single valley on the northern edge of their vast tracts of land. The Barkers were being brazen about it, or stupid. The line was thin with that family.
Finding the connection with Ethan Womack proved difficult, however. Nothing in his memory jarred loose any explanations. As far as he could tell, the only thing the Barkers and Womacks had in common was the direction of their blame—towards Wolf.
So how might they have connected? Ethan Womack could’ve recruited the Barkers’ help after Paul’s suicide. Perhaps his anger sent him on a quest for like-minded fellows—other men bent on revenge against David Wolf.
After studying the red signature some more, he moved on and scanned to the right, following the top of the ridgeline all the way to the other side.
It seemed that one of them waited alone. Ethan Womack had a skill set suited for the job of sniper, but it could’ve been any of them.
There was only one way to find out.
Wolf ducked back down and behind a rock wall that stood on the side of the trail and blocked him from view from the enemy above.
His watch read 9:45 p.m.
The same wall of rock that hid him from view now became a ridge of granite that ran from the valley floor to the top of the ridge above. He estimated the trek up would take an hour, and he’d be undetected the entire way.
Then, at the top, he’d be able to ambush the ambusher.
He peeled the wet clothing off his head and shoulders and stuffed it in his backpack, then climbed.
CHAPTER 38
Patterson eyed the rearview mirror for the thousandth time and leaned closer to the windshield to see.
“Shit, shit.”
The moon hid behind another cloud, and with her headlights off she dared not creep above five mi
les per hour. The forest on either side of the road was tight and dark, yielding no view into the trees, and the gravel road was made of dark rock that seemed to appear only milliseconds before she drove over it.
A map glowed on her phone in the passenger seat. The pulsing blue dot showed her location on aerial view, though gridlines filled most of the screen. When she next had a chance, she’d get a top-of-the-line GPS and take a sledgehammer to her phone.
She had to be close to the clearing she’d seen before. Then there’d be a series of buildings on either side of the road—the Turkey Hill Ranch.
The Barker ranch.
Thinking of Greg Barker made her hands tighten on the wheel.
How was this asshole involved in all of this?
Perhaps the answer could provide sense where previously there’d been none.
Rachette had been taken, and those responsible had demanded not only Wolf’s attention but Patterson’s too. Why? Because no other single family in the entire county had more pent-up anger toward the three of them, that’s why.
She, Wolf, and Rachette had compiled evidence regarding Greg Barker and his involvement in the political corruption and relayed it anonymously, under the pseudonym of Black Diamond, to Lucretia Smith, the one reporter they could find ruthless enough to publish the story.
One thing she’d learned in her years living in Rocky Points: secrets weren’t secrets for long. The Barkers must’ve learned the truth of Black Diamond’s identity.
Or maybe she was off. Completely off. Maybe the proximity of the Barker ranch was a coincidence.
Because a random guy from New Mexico was also involved. Or, at least, he seemed random. Then again, he was anything but random, wasn’t he? He was the brother of a man who’d been in the army with Wolf. The brother of a man who’d just committed suicide on video. And Ethan Womack, already damaged by his childhood head trauma, now blamed Wolf for the whole thing, if his angry edited version of the video was anything to go by.
The moon sloughed off its cloud cover at the same time the forest opened, and Patterson jolted at the sight of a dark figure on the side of the road.
A cow stood motionless, staring at her as if mocking her frantic thoughts. Dozens of the animals littered the rolling landscape.
As she edged over a hill, a complex of buildings came into view, ablaze with light.
Then she spotted something more sinister and came to a halt.
A tractor and a pickup truck were parked lengthwise across the road. A man holding a rifle across his chest stood underneath a lamp post next to the vehicles. The man had a thick torso. He wore a flannel hunting coat and jeans. His face was smeared in shadow.
What the hell was this?
As she checked the rearview mirror, headlights flicked on behind her, searing her eyeballs.
Twisting in her seat, she noted the height and spacing of the beams, and the throaty growl of its idle, and decided the truck from the highway had followed her after all.
She leaned forward to escape the glare and saw the man under the lamp post talking on the phone.
Her phone lit up and rang. The screen showed the same number from the previous text message.
“Hello?”
“Roll down your window and throw your gun out.”
The guy under the light ahead pocketed his phone and she heard the truck engine in her ear speaker. “Are you behind me?” she asked, trying to delay so she could think.
“Throw the gun out now or else I’ll give the word to shoot your partner in the head.” The man’s voice was gravelly with a slight accent she took to be Irish. She recalled hearing that Barker’s father and his brothers were first-generation immigrants.
Fear gripped her, clamping her chest like a vise as she lowered the window. She glanced at the photo of Tommy. His smiled seemed to sadden, like he was saying goodbye.
She flicked her gaze between the man ahead and the rearview.
“I couldn’t hear what you just said. The reception’s bad on my phone.”
“I’ll give you five seconds. Five, four, three …”
Staring at Tommy, she separated the Glock from the paddle holster, then threw the holster out the window as far as she could. It skipped off the road and into an irrigation ditch off the shoulder.
A spotlight swiveled from the truck behind her and landed on the spot; there was her empty paddle holster among the weeds.
“Nice try. Now throw your gun out,” the voice said. “Five, four, three …”
She closed her eyes and tossed the gun. It clattered on the road outside.
“Good girl.”
“Fuck you.”
“Drive forward until your car is in the light. Then stop and shut off your engine.”
“Five seconds. Four, three …”
“All right, all right.” She let off the brake and coasted forward.
The truck behind moved with her, then stopped where she’d dropped her gun.
As the headlights receded in her mirror, she saw a husky Barker man climb out and pick up her gun, then get back in his truck.
While they tightened the noose she was a whimpering prisoner with a hood over her head.
But what could she do? They had Rachette, and they were going to kill him.
She looked at Tommy’s picture again. So what if they did? That was their plan, right? They were going to kill her, and they were going to kill Rachette, no matter what. And in a couple of hours they’d meet Wolf two valleys over and kill him. They’d been watching her. The text had been telling the truth.
She clenched the wheel with soaking wet palms. Except for her lungs, which were pumping at a mile a minute, her body felt locked in rock.
These guys were cattle ranchers, and they were roping her from the front and back and taking her down. This was a slaughter.
Staring death in the face, she morphed her frantic breathing into rapid breaths, psyching herself up for action, though she still didn’t know what form it would take. She rolled her shoulders, trying to release herself from the paralyzing cast of fear.
The guy underneath the light stepped toward her now.
She flicked another glance at Tommy, then checked the rearview. The headlights behind her grew. And then the truck parked and the guy climbed out again.
The man with the rifle stepped in front of her vehicle, shielding his eyes with one hand against the truck’s headlights behind her.
Patterson saw an opening and struck before it closed. She flicked on her high beams and stomped on the gas pedal.
The tires skidded for a millisecond, then lagged for another as the silicon brain inside did its thing and applied power to all the right places. Then the car screamed and shot forward, sucking her back in the seat.
The man on the road halted and one of his boots slipped. He tried to right himself and point the rifle at her at the very moment she drove over him.
A rifle shot sound merged with the thump of his body against the front and bottom of the car.
The Acura rose and dropped and then she jammed the brakes, cranked the wheel right and hit the accelerator again, driving off the road and up onto a freshly mown, lush green lawn. If they put up a roadblock, she’d go around it, and if a dickhead with a rifle stood in front of her, he’d be squashed.
The car bounced up a small rise and her headlights painted the side of a red-and-white building.
The grass was soft and wet, and the car slid sideways as she turned the wheel left. She flipped a full one hundred and eighty degrees before she even knew what had happened.
The headlights from the truck and the Acura shone over a twisted body lying on the road.
“Shit,” she said.
Through her open passenger window, she heard the man moaning in the dirt, like he was in shut-down mode.
“Cormack!” The other man ran to him.
Somewhere in the night, a cow lowed in response to Cormack Barker’s agony.
“You bitch!” The other guy raised a pistol in her dir
ection.
A bullet smacked her windshield and the view vanished behind a web of cracks.
Under a hail of bullets, she shifted into reverse and backed up past the pickup and tractor. Once past the blockade, she cranked the wheel and got back on the road.
She shifted back into drive and leaned side to side, trying to see through the windshield.
“Damn it!” Without thinking, she punched the glass.
It bowed out against her two-knuckle shot but held firmly in place.
“Ahh!” She bared her teeth and grabbed her fist, then stuck her head out the side window and pushed the gas.
She slitted her eyes to block the wind and tears streamed back on her temples.
The road ahead climbed up and turned into the pine trees. As she rounded the corner she ducked into the cab and looked over her shoulder just in time to see two headlights bouncing off the lawn and back onto the road.
CHAPTER 39
Legs cramping, lungs burning, Wolf re-assessed his fitness halfway up the slope. Following a web of game trails, his zigzag route was steep and treacherous, passing through veins of scree and up and over rocks.
One wrong move would send a rock tumbling hundreds of feet, disturbing the otherwise still air and revealing his sneak approach. Then there was the issue of keeping himself on the mountain. The more he pushed, the more sluggish and uncoordinated his muscles became. Still, he dug deep to maintain a steady pace.
As he came across the third pile of animal droppings, he paused and wondered if he’d been looking at a mountain goat or bighorn sheep instead of a Barker or Ethan Womack. Where did those animals sleep?
Shaking off the thought, he continued, staying close to the rocks that hid him from the heat signature on the ridge.
The hidden route meant that the tent at the bottom of the valley was also out of sight, and the longer the climb took, the more anxious he became to get to the top and take another look through the scope.