by C. J. Box
He could hear the Ford as it climbed, but could no longer see it through the trees. He was surprised there was a road over there because he hadn’t seen it.
Then he had a thought, and it chilled him. The man had estimated where the cabin was located in terms of elevation on the mountain. Joe guessed the man was working his way up the facing mountainside to take a position directly across from where he thought the cabin would be.
Joe had a decision to make, but none of his choices were worth a damn. “Joe,” he could almost hear Marybeth telling him, “You have really done it this time.”
“Let’s go, Lizzie.” Joe barked, turning her and spurring her on so she loped up the mountain road in the direction of where the cabin was supposed to be.
25
Twenty minutes before Joe had discovered the Mercedes SUV, John Coble had drawn his gun, stepped up on the slat-board porch of the low-slung log cabin, and kicked the door open. He had entered and had pointed his pistol at the man inside, who was seated at a table eating his lunch. Coble was winded from the climb so he leaned back against the doorframe to rest. The cabin was simple: a single large room with a kitchen, dining area, fireplace, and desk. A darkened doorway led to the only bedroom.
“I know you were expecting your lawyer, Stewie, but let me introduce myself,” Coble wheezed. “I’m Mr. John Coble, and I’ve spent the last two months trying to kill you and others of your ilk.”
Stewie Woods was frozen where he sat, a spoon filled with soup raised halfway to his mouth. Stewie’s face was hard to see because Coble’s eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness inside the cabin.
Coble paused to take a couple of deep breaths of air and then continued. “What I have to say is simple. Get out of this place as soon as you can and don’t look back. Don’t ask a bunch of questions because we don’t have the time. A manhunter named Charlie Tibbs could show up here any minute. Don’t stop until you’re out of the country; get yourself to Mexico or Canada or wherever you can get to fast. Get on a plane and go overseas if you can. Contact no one and just flat run.”
Stewie lowered the spoon into the bowl. His words were raspy and filled with air when he spoke, as if his voice box was a carburetor that had the mixture set too lean.
“I guess I’ve been expecting you. I just didn’t realize you would be so old,” Stewie rasped. “Somehow, that makes it worse.”
A woman stepped from the bedroom rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Stewie, I. ” she said before she noticed Coble and gasped.
“Britney, this is John Coble,” Stewie said, looking stiffly over his shoulder at her and wincing in pain as he did so. “He is one of the men I told you about.” Stewie Woods is in bad shape, Coble thought.
Britney’s face drained of color as she stared at Coble.
Stewie turned back in his chair. “This is Britney Earthshare. She lived in a tree to protest the logging of an old growth forest. She’s famous.”
Coble squinted at her. “Yeah, I remember. I remember I thought that was stupid.”
Stewie chuckled at Coble. “Britney’s been helping me out while I recover. She’s a saint.”
Coble grunted.
“Why don’t you sit down and talk to me for a few minutes?” Stewie asked politely. “You’ve probably got a pretty good story to tell.”
Coble’s eyes were still adjusting to the darkness in the cabin. As Stewie Woods’s features began to appear, it seemed to Coble like a Hollywood special effect where the closer he looked, the worse it got. Stewie was horribly disfigured. His face was monstrous. His prominent features had once been a jutting jaw, well-defined cheekbones and languid blue-green eyes, but now those outstanding features were ragged mutations. One eye was completely closed, the lid concave over an empty, seeping socket. Stewie’s nose was flattened to one side of his face, and the exposed nostril burred and flapped like the beating of a hummingbird wing when he exhaled. Coble cringed and looked away. Britney took a position in back of Stewie with her chubby hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were still wide.
“I don’t blame you,” Stewie said to Coble. “I still scare myself sometimes. Especially in the morning when I look in the mirror and expect to see the old Stewie. I used to be a pretty good-looking guy, you know.”
Coble looked back but focused on a spot somewhere above and to the left of Stewie’s head so he wouldn’t have to look at him again.
“I don’t have time to sit down and chat.”
“You’re doing a good thing, aren’t you?” Stewie asked. “That’s impressive.”
“I’m not here to save you or protect you. I don’t want to be your friend. I still think you and your ilk are shitheels.” Coble shook his head. “I’m amazed that you are still alive.”
“Me, too,” Stewie said. “So why are you doing this?”
Coble had a strange thought. He had not yet holstered his gun and it was at his side in his hand. It would take no effort to raise it, shoot Stewie and the tree-loving woman, and return to Charlie Tibbs. He could tell Tibbs he just wanted to finish this job himself. Tibbs may or may not believe him. There was comfort in evil, Coble thought. It was simpler.
“I’m doing this for me, not you,” Coble snapped. “Our job seemed right at first. It seemed like the only way left to strike back. You people threatened our way of thinking and our way of life. All you environmentalists just showed up one day and told us that everything we’ve done for years was now wrong, and that everyone living in the West was a stupid ignorant criminal.
“You people expect everyone out here to suddenly give up the only jobs they’ve ever known in mines and the fields,” he shot a dirty look at Britney, “and the forests. Somehow, all of us are expected to get jobs working out of our homes with computers, telephones, and modems. That’s all you’ve offered up as an alternative, you know. Like lumberjacks and cowboys can just change over to being software programmers.”
Coble’s voice began to rise, and his face began to flush. “None of you know or appreciate how tough and raggedy-assed it used to be in this country. Hell, a hundred and forty years ago this was still a wilderness out here. Indians ran the show. Even thirty-odd years ago when I started working for the state of Montana as a brand inspector, it was rough and it was real out here. There was bad weather and bad land and no water. If you looked over your shoulder the country was gaining on you and ready to wipe you out at any minute. The last thing anybody ever thought of was that they were ruining the earth. Hell, we all thought the earth was ruining us.”
Coble gestured to Stewie: “You people want to stop us from doing everything we know. You do it just so that if you ever want to travel out here from the East in your new car, you might be able to see a wolf out of the window. You’re trying to make our home a real-life theme park for environmental whackos. You don’t give a shit how many people lose their jobs or are displaced-just so you can see a goddamn wolf that hasn’t lived here in over a hundred years.”
Coble caught himself. He realized he was giving a speech, one that had been put together in bits and pieces in the pickup and rehearsed in silence as he and Tibbs drove across the country. Although he believed in what he said, he didn’t have time for it. He stood and looked at Stewie Woods. Stewie stared back. The man was grotesque.
“But as Charlie and I began to do what we were hired to do, it didn’t seem so damned noble to me anymore. In fact, I started feeling like the worst kind of criminal.”
Coble paused and shook his head.
“Not Charlie, though,” Coble said, grimacing. “Charlie enjoyed it more as we went along, and got more and more excited. He got righteous about it. We started getting sloppy, starting with your friend, Hayden Powell, that writer. There was no planning, no strategy, no nothing except Charlie and me turning into animals trying to kill somebody as fast and as nasty as we could. And we had no idea that our first project failed,” he said, looking at Stewie, the first project.
“Charlie Tibbs really does think he’s doing righteous work, yo
u know,” Coble said with caution. “Charlie’s lost something in his head along the way. Something’s malfunctioned. His moral compass is gone, and that fact is very frightening, given Charlie’s skills and abilities. Charlie’s the best tracker and hunter I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen one hell of a lot of ’em. Charlie thinks he’s doing this not just for the Stockman’s Trust, but for America.”
Britney Earthshare was horrified by what she had heard. She covered her mouth with her hand.
“You got paid for this.” Stewie said. “You didn’t do this entirely for your beliefs.”
Coble nodded uncomfortably. He didn’t like talking about the money. “I was going to get three-quarters of a million dollars,” Coble said flatly. “Two-hundred and fifty thousand was up front, the rest will be sitting in an escrow account for me once the list is cleared. Charlie is probably getting at least double that. We never discussed how much each of us was getting.”
Stewie whistled.
“You’ve got to understand something,” Coble said. “When I worked for the state of Montana I maxed out in salary at $30,500 per year. That was the highest annual salary I ever got. My state retirement is half of that a year. Charlie always made a lot more in his work as a stock detective, but I have no idea what that amounted to.”
Stewie said he understood.
“It wasn’t hard to recruit us,” Coble said, challenging Stewie with an arched-brow glare. “But the difference between Charlie and me is that Charlie Tibbs would have done this for free. It’s not a money thing with Charlie. It’s never been a money thing, and they knew it when they hired him. I don’t see him stopping even when he’s sure he’s got everybody on the list.”
Stewie’s unblinking eye had been boring into Coble as he spoke. “So the purpose,” Stewie said, “was to eliminate each person on your list in the most humiliating way possible so they would avoid martyrdom, and only be remembered for the ridiculous way they died.”
Coble stared back.
“You were pretty successful at that, John Coble,” Stewie said.
“Yup,” Coble agreed.
“But what is the Stockman’s Trust?”
Coble was about to answer but stopped himself and rubbed his eyes. He was absolutely exhausted, completely spent.
“Who is in charge? Who are your employers?”
One of Coble’s old hands weakly waved Stewie away. The other hand continued to rub his eyes.
“I’ve stayed too long and talked too much,” Coble said, grunting and pulling himself to his feet. “You two best get out of here. I need some air.”
John Coble opened the door and leaned against the inside of the door frame.
26
Joe tried to stay in the trees, avoiding the grassy open meadows, as he rode hard up the mountain. Lizzie was tiring, her easy lope giving way to lunges, and she was throwing her head in annoyance. Her hooves launched chunks of wet black earth into the air behind them.
He tried to anticipate and play out the scenarios that might occur when he reached the cabin. Should he ask them to come out with their hands up or yell for them to get down on the floor? Should he tell them about his suspicions in regard to the man in the alcove? A stream of sweat trickled down the back of his neck from his hatband.
Sensing that Lizzie was just about to give out, Joe reined her to a stop in the shade of a tree. While she rested, her nostrils billowing, Joe raised his binoculars and looked across the valley to the opposite mountain. He swept the binoculars over the mountain parks and granite spires, looking for the black Ford truck. A glimpse of movement in a meadow startled him, but when he looked back he saw it was only a cow moose grazing at the edge of a treeline.
Then he saw a flash of glass. Fumbling, he dialed the focus in tighter and tried to concentrate his view while Lizzie heaved, breathing hard, and his own heart whumped against the inside of his sternum. He found it. The glint was from something in the rear of the black Ford truck.
Joe reached out to grab a branch to steady himself and raised himself up in his stirrups so that he could see better. He took a sharp intake of breath. The man in the Stetson was in the back of the Ford, leaning over a long rifle mounted in the bed of the pickup. The glint was from the telescopic lens. Joe imagined a line of fire from the black Ford to the cabin, which must be just above him through the trees.
Joe heard the bullet before he heard the shot; a sound like fabric ripping that suddenly ended in a hollow and sickening pock sound.
In the doorway of the cabin, John Coble flipped backward through the air and landed heavily on the table where Stewie Woods sat. Britney screamed and backpedaled until the wall stopped her. Her T-shirt and face were spattered with blood and bits of bone and tissue.
Stewie kicked back his chair and scrambled to his feet, looking down at Coble. The top half of Coble’s head was gone.
Outside, a heavy rifle shot rolled across the valley, sounding like thunder.
Crouching forward in the saddle like a jockey, Joe spurred Lizzie out of the trees and into the open meadow that rose up the mountain to culminate at the shadowed front of a dark cabin. The boom of the shot swept through the timber.
“Get down!” he shouted at the cabin, not knowing how many people were inside. “Get down on the floor!”
And suddenly Joe felt an impact like an ax burying itself into soft wood. Lizzie stumbled, her front legs collapsing as her rear haunches arced into the air, her head ducking as she pitched forward, throwing Joe. He hit the ground hard, crumpling against the foot of the steps to the porch of the cabin, his chest and chin taking the brunt of the fall. Lizzie completed her thousand-pound somersault and landed so hard, just a foot short of Joe, that he felt the ground shudder.
Britney was still shrieking inside but she had screamed herself hoarse and was practically soundless when the doorframe filled with Joe Pickett. The fall had knocked the wind out of him and he leaned into the cabin with his hands on his knees, fighting for breath. The rope he had looped around the saddle horn was tangled around one foot.
Stewie lurched around the table where Coble lay twitching and helped Joe inside, leading him from the open door, as a fist-sized hole blew through the front window and shattered all of the glass.
“Get down!” Joe barked, as he dropped to his hands and knees, pulling Stewie with him.
Methodically, bullets hit the front of the cabin blowing holes through the walls that looked alternately like stars, hearts, and sunbursts-followed by the rolling thunder sound of the heavy rifle fire.
“You must be Stewie Woods,” Joe said, looking over to the man who had helped him inside the cabin.
“And you aren’t Mary Harris,” Stewie said.
“I’m her husband,” Joe said, glaring at Stewie’s disfigured face. Now was not the time to punch him in the nose, Joe thought. “Her name’s Marybeth Pickett.”
Stewie wheezed. “You’re a game warden.”
“Right.”
“Do you know how many there are out there shooting at us?” Stewie asked with remarkable calmness.
“One older man in a black Ford pickup. He’s got a hell of a rifle and he knows what he’s doing.”
“Look what he did to John Coble,” Stewie gestured to the table above them. For the first time, Joe noticed the two boots that hung suspended from the edge of the table and a single still arm that dropped over the side. A stream of dark blood as thick as chocolate syrup strung from the table to a growing pool on the floor.
“Is he-”
“He’s dead,” Stewie said. Britney Earthshare had now crawled over to join them on the floor. Her face was a mask of revulsion and frozen shock. Joe sympathized. He couldn’t yet grasp the magnitude and danger of the situation he was in.
“Do you have any weapons in the cabin?” Joe asked them both.
“No, but Coble has a pistol with him,” said Stewie.
“Get it,” Joe commanded. “Can you shoot a gun?”
“Of course,” Stewie said. “I’m from
Wyoming.”
Stewie rolled toward the table and began to rise up. As he did, the kitchen window imploded with the force of another bullet and threw shards of glass skittering across the floor. Stewie dropped to a sprawl, his attitude accusatory toward Joe.
“Forget that!” Stewie yelled.
“What about you, Britney?” Joe asked. She was closer to Coble.
“I will not touch a gun.”
Joe cursed. They were useless.
Joe’s mind raced as he lay there, his cheek pressed to the rough wood. Stewie was a few feet away, and despite the immediacy and danger of the situation, he couldn’t help staring. Stewie, Joe thought, was hideous. Seen in the dusty rods of light from the bullet holes in the walls, Stewie’s face looked as if it were made of wet papier-mache that had been raked from top to bottom with a gardening claw and allowed to dry. His mouth was misshapen and exaggerated, capable of making a perfect inverted U when Stewie was angry, like he was now. His mouth looked like a child’s drawing of a sad face.
Under Stewie’s rough, loose clothes, it was obvious that he had been bigger but had recently lost most of his muscle tone. Skin sagged on big bones. His left arm was limp and thin. Stewie’s fingernails and toenails needed trimming, and a beard, once full and red, was now pink and wispy. The hair on his head grew in patches, like putting greens on a desert golf course.
Joe, however, pulled his attention away from Stewie as he realized that the gunshots had suddenly stopped. Joe guessed that the shooter was reloading. He reached down to make sure his.357 was still in his holster and was relieved to find it was. Unfortunately, Joe was a notoriously bad shot, and he knew that it would be close to impossible for him to hit the shooter at this distance.
The shots resumed, but inside the cabin nothing happened. The shooter had shifted targets. Joe heard a faraway shattering of glass, and a metallic clang from the impact of a bullet.
“He found my truck,” Joe spat.