by C. J. Box
It’s not that. It’s the money. We’ve had this discussion before. Your dad and I.
I might get a scholarship, you know.
And if you do, we can discuss it. But a scholarship doesn’t cover travel, and housing, and all the other things.
I’ll work. I can work. I work now. I’m a great waitress, you know.
I know.
Lucy in the front room called out.
I just hope you go somewhere cool so I can visit. Are there colleges in New York City?
Of course. Are you an idiot?
Mom, can I have her room when she leaves?
Please, girls. Not now.
AND JOE WISHED he was there but he didn’t know what he could add to the conversation.
Where was April? he wondered. Why wasn’t she in the room?
The woodstove was lit, the smell comforting. There was no better smell than wood smoke on a cold fall night. He’d still need to get wood for the winter once he got home. The two cords he’d cut the year before had to be just about gone by now. He needed to keep his family warm.
Joe was abruptly jerked back to the present. The smoke he’d smelled wasn’t in his imagination.
In the daylight, he might not have found it. If it weren’t for the smoke which hung like a nighttime shadow in the trees, he would have limped right past. But he stopped and turned slowly to the right and slightly in back of him. There was a cut in the hillside on the other side of the little stream where another tiny spring creek fed into the flow. The cut went fifty yards back into the slope and doglegged to the right. The smoke came from where the dogleg ended.
Joe winced and nearly blacked out as he crossed the stream from rock to rock, unable to use his crutch to keep his weight off his injured legs. He paused on the other side and heard moaning and realized it was his own. He closed his eyes tightly and was entertained by fireworks on the inside of his eyelids. When he opened them, there was a cabin ahead. A faint yellow square of light seeped through a small curtained window from an inside lantern.
The cabin, he knew, shouldn’t exist. There was no private land within this part of the Medicine Bow National Forest, just like there were no roads. He thought, Hunters? Poachers? Forest rangers? Loggers? Then: Outlaws?
The curtain on the single small window quivered as he made a fist to knock on the rough pine door. Whoever was inside knew he was there. And if they were armed?
Then a wild thought: What if the Grims lived here?
He collapsed as the door opened and fell inside. A woman said, “Oh my God, no. ”
Then: “Who are you? Why did you come here? Oh no, you’ll be the death of me.”
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28
7
When Joe awoke, he was on his back on the floor of the cabin in a nest of thick quilts. He reached up and rubbed the right side of his face, which was warm from the heat of an iron woodstove. A curl of steam rose from the snout of a kettle on the surface of the stove, and inside a small fire crackled.
He could remember things: vivid nightmares reliving the attack, throwing off the quilts as he fought off demons, awaking with a fever and drinking water and broth, rolling to his side to urinate into a plastic jar, the touch of her fingers on his bare thigh as she bandaged it, her frequent prognostications of doom.
The cabin was small, old, and close. He guessed it had been built in the 1950s or 1960s, to judge from the gray color of the logs and the age cracks in the pine plank ceiling. Although it was only one room inside and was packed with possessions in the corners and on the shelves, it seemed clean and organized. Red curtains were drawn over small framed windows on each wall.
She was sitting at a small table wearing thick trousers, heavy shoes, a too-large man’s shirt, and a fleece vest. It was hard to tell her age. Her long brown hair fell to her shoulders and her forehead was hidden behind thick bangs. Her clothes were so large and loose he couldn’t discern her shape or weight. He couldn’t even see the rise of her breasts. Her eyes were blue and cool and fixed on him. Her mouth was pursed with anticipation and concern.
“How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Eighteen hours,” she said. “More or less.”
He let that sink in. “So it’s Friday night?”
Her face was blank. She shrugged, “I think that would be correct. I don’t think in terms of days of the week anymore.”
He nodded as if he understood and tried not to stare at her and unnerve her more than she already was. There was something pensive and off-putting about her, as if she would melt away if he asked too many questions.
Joe folded the quilt back. His pants were off, but she hadn’t removed his boxers. He looked at the bandage on his right leg. It was tightly wrapped and neat. There were two small spots of dried blood, looking like the eyes of an owl, where the holes in his thigh were. His other leg was purple and green with bruises.
“Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.”
She nodded quickly. “I know.” She said it with a hint of regret. “I really don’t want you here one minute past when you can leave. Do you understand me?”
Joe nodded. “Do you have a phone here? Any way I can make a call?”
“No, I don’t have a phone.”
“A radio?”
“No.”
“Any way to communicate with the outside world?”
“This is my world,” she said, twirling a finger to indicate the inside of her cabin. “What you see is my world. It’s very small, and that’s the way I like it. It’s the way I want to keep it.”
He took in the contents of the cabin but tried not to let his eyes linger too long on any one item. There were burlap sacks in one corner: beans, coffee, flour, sugar. Canned goods were stacked near the sacks. A five-gallon plastic container was elevated on a stout shelf with a gravity-feed water filter tube dripping pure water into a galvanized bucket. The drops of water from the tube into the bucket had punctuated his dreams.
Dented but clean pots and pans hung from hooks above the stove. Several dozen worn hardback books stood like soldiers on a shelf above a single bed covered with homemade quilts. Another shelf had small framed photos, but he couldn’t see who was in the photographs. There was a heavy trunk under the bed and a battered armoire with brass closures next to the bed, which made up the north wall.
The kitchen counter, as such, was a four-poster butcher block near the corner of the stove. From his angle on the floor, he could see knife handles lined up neatly on the side of it.
“This is it,” she said. “You’re seeing it all. And me, that’s all there is here.”
“So you live alone?”
“Alone with my thoughts. I’m rarely lonely.”
“Have you lived here very long?” he asked, wondering why he’d never heard of a lone woman in a cabin in the mountains.
“Long enough,” she said. “Really, I don’t want to get into a discussion with you.”
Joe sat up painfully. His head swooned and it took a moment to make it stop spinning. He assessed his condition and said again, “You saved my life.”
She nodded curtly.
“I’m a Wyoming game warden. My name is Joe Pickett. I was attacked by two brothers up on top of the mountain. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still after me.”
She grimaced, but he could tell it wasn’t news to her.
Of course, he thought, she’d seen his badge and credentials. Which made him quickly start patting the folds of the quilts.
“I had a weapon,” he said.
“It’s in a safe place.”
“I need it back,” he said. “And my wallet and pants. ”
She put her hands palm-down on the table and fixed her eyes on something over Joe’s head.
She said, “Your wedding band, I saw it when you fell into my cabin. It got to me, I’m afraid. Otherwise I might have pushed you back outside and locked the door and waited for them to show up. I’m amazed they aren’t here by now.”
He was taken aback by the c
asual way she said it.
Finally, he said, “I think I hit one of them. Maybe I hit them both.”
Her eyes widened in fear and she raised a balled fist to her mouth.
“What?” he asked.
She said, “This isn’t good.”
“That I may have hit them?”
“That you may have wounded them.”
Joe felt his scalp twitch. “So why did you help me?”
“I told you. The wedding band. I assume you have a wife.”
“Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
“With all my heart.’
“Kids?”
“Three daughters.”
She pursed her mouth again and shook her head. “I’m a sucker for wedding bands. And it may turn out to be the death of me.”
“That’s why you helped me?”
A quick, regretful nod.
“Are those pictures of your family?” Joe asked, gesturing up to the shelf behind her bed.
Her eyes flared, and she rose to her feet so quickly her chair shot back. She strode across the floor and turned each frame facedown. When she was done, she returned to the chair and sat back down and glared at the spot on the wall above his head. She’d yet to make direct eye contact, which didn’t bode well, he thought. Like she didn’t want to empathize with him. Like she thought he might not be around much longer. Or.
“Are you blind?” Joe asked.
She did a quick snort and her mouth clenched. “Of course not.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “Since you wouldn’t look at me, I thought. ”
“I saw you earlier. I know what you look like. I know what you stand for. You work for the government.”
“State government,” Joe said.
“Still.”
“It’s different from the federal government.”
“So you say.”
“Really.”
She swiveled in her chair and wrapped her arms around herself. “Hmmmph.” As if it were final.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said. “So you know them-the Grim Brothers.”
“Of course.”
There was something about her face, Joe thought. Something familiar about her. He knew he didn’t know her personally and hadn’t met her before. But he’d seen her face. Or a photo of her. He wished his head were more clear.
“Have we ever met?” he asked.
“I sincerely doubt it.”
“Are you from around here originally?”
“No.”
“So how long have you lived here?”
She was obviously annoyed by his questions. “I told you-long enough.”
“How do you know the brothers?”
Her eyes finally settled on him. He felt it was a small victory.
“They come by. They bring me firewood and meat. They look out for me. All they ask from me is my silence and my loyalty. You’re making me betray them.”
Joe said nothing. How much further should he push? he wondered.
“Did they bring you elk meat recently? Like a week ago?”
“I don’t recall,” she said icily.
He said, “If you’ll give me my gun, I’ll leave.”
“They’re not all bad,” she said, once again looking away. “They provide me protection. They understand why I’m here and they’re quite sympathetic.”
“Why are you-”
“They don’t ask for much,” she continued, cutting him off. “They could demand so much more, but they don’t. They respect my need for privacy.”
“Tell me your name,” Joe said.
She hesitated, started to speak, then clamped her mouth shut.
“I told you mine,” he said.
“Terri,” she said finally. “My name is Terri Wade. But you don’t know me, and it doesn’t matter.”
The name was unfamiliar to Joe. “Look,” he said. “I know this cabin shouldn’t be here. This is national forest, and there shouldn’t be any private dwellings. The private land is all in the valleys. Aren’t you worried forest rangers will find you and make you leave?”
She stared at a spot near Joe’s head, as close as she would get to eye contact.
Terri said, “I told you-the brothers protect me. They wouldn’t let that happen. This is my cabin. These are my things.” As her voice rose, she gestured by jabbing her right index finger into the palm of her left hand on the word my. “No one has the right to make me leave if I don’t want to leave.”
Said Joe, “So why are you here?”
“I’m here to wait out the storm. I’ll go back when it finally passes. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“What storm?”
“That’s all I’m going to say.”
“About this storm. ”
“You keep asking me questions. Look, I’m here to try to reassemble my life,” she said. “I don’t put my nose into anyone’s business, and I expect the same from others. Including you,” she said, again jabbing her finger into her palm. “Especially you.”
“I understand,” Joe said.
Wade suddenly sat up straight and lifted her chin to the ceiling. “Hear that?” she whispered.
Joe shook his head.
“There’s someone on the roof,” she said softly.
8
He looked up when he heard the sound. The ceiling was constructed of adjacent rough-cut pine planks. The wood looked green and soft and showed evidence of recent repair work on the structure. As he stared, one of the planks bowed slightly inward, then another did the same about a foot away. Fine dust from between the planks floated down and sparked in the light of the lantern. There was someone heavy up there. A board creaked loudly enough that whoever was on the roof froze for a moment. More dust filtered down through the light.
Joe rocked forward, his leg screamed silently, and he reached out and touched her hand. He mouthed, “Where’s my gun?”
Her eyes glistened with tears, and she shook her head as if she didn’t want to be involved.
“My gun,” he whispered.
Again, she bit her lip and shook her head, but when she did so she inadvertently revealed a tell with an unconscious glance toward the trunk under her bed.
He raised one finger to his mouth to urge her to stay quiet and scuttled across the rough floor and his makeshift bed to the trunk. He slid it out and unbuckled the hasps with his back to her so she couldn’t protest. When he raised the lid, he found the Glock and his belt on top of folded piles of worn clothes. Despite the situation in front of him, Joe felt a twang of deep sadness for whatever situation had brought her here to live like this.
He worked the slide of his handgun and ejected a live cartridge. Another was in the magazine. So he still had two rounds. When he looked up at her she seemed distressed, as if she wished she had taken the bullets. He nodded to thank her for not taking them and let the magazine drop and loaded the loose cartridges again and jacked one of them into the chamber. Two shots, he thought. Just two shots.
They both jumped when there was deep voice outside the door. “Terri, do you have company in there?”
Joe recognized the voice as Camish. The smart one. Which meant Caleb was on the roof. Which also meant that he wasn’t dead and certainly wasn’t wounded badly enough to take him out of production. Unless, Joe wondered, there were somehow more of them. The idea of more than two Grim Brothers gave him a sudden spasm in his belly.
He caught Wade’s eye, asked in a whisper, “Is it possible there’s more than the two brothers?”
She shook her head. He thanked her with his eyes for the answer, and she looked away as if feeling guilty for a new betrayal.
“Terri?” Camish repeated. “I know you heard me.” His tone wasn’t unkind. In fact, Joe thought, it was resigned, like a father’s voice when he had to reluctantly reprimand a child.
“Not now,” Terri said loudly toward the door. “Leave me alone.”
“Oh, Terri, it doesn’t work l
ike that. We know he’s in there.” Again the sad, reprimanding tone.
“Please,” she said. “Come back later. Come back tomorrow.”
“You mean after he’s gone?” Camish asked, and Joe detected a slight chuckle. “You want us to come back when he’s gone? That’s a crazy notion, Terri. He really hurt my brother. And you know the situation. We can’t let him go. You know that.”
“I don’t want any violence,” Terri said toward the door. “I told you before I don’t want violence. You promised. You promised me.”
Camish said, “Yes, we did. We promised you. And there’s no need for any violence at all. We just want that government man inside your place.”
Joe thought, Government man?
Then he looked at her and saw nothing other than torment. Her hands were knotted into white-knuckled fists and her shoulders were bunched and her mouth was pursed into a shape that reminded him of a dried red rose. She was in agony, and it was because of him. He felt sorry for her, grateful she’d displayed kindness and humanity toward him, and he wanted to save her.
He wanted to save himself as well.
Camish said, “Then we have no choice, do we?”
She asked, “No choice to do what?”
Joe thought, They’re going to burn us out.
Then Camish said, “Let the fumigation begin!”
Fumigation?
Suddenly, the cabin filled with acrid, horrible steam. Joe looked at the door at first for the origin, then realized it was coming from the wood stove. Terri sat back in her chair and buried her face in a napkin to try to avoid the foul-smelling steam that reeked of meat and animal fat and sulfur.
Joe recognized the odor from his youth, shook his head, and whispered, “Caleb is urinating down the chimney pipe.”
She looked at him with undisguised alarm.
He motioned for her to get down on the floor by motioning with his open hand.
“I can’t. ” she said, glancing toward the closed door and Camish outside.
“Get down,” Joe hissed. “I don’t want you hurt.”
He didn’t want to threaten her with the gun to make her respond. Not after what she’d done for him. But she seemed frozen, conflicted. He said, “GET DOWN.”