Nowhere To Run - A Joe Pickett Novel Part 23

Farkus said, "What I gather is these guys are the the Cline Brothers? Of the Cline Family? What was their mother's name? The one in the news?" It came to him and he answered his own question: "Caryl Cline. I remember seeing her on TV. She had a following out here, you know. But why did the game warden say their name was Grim?" Cline Brothers? Of the Cline Family? What was their mother's name? The one in the news?" It came to him and he answered his own question: "Caryl Cline. I remember seeing her on TV. She had a following out here, you know. But why did the game warden say their name was Grim?"

"Because I'm sure that's what they told him."

"Why would they do that?"

Parnell started to answer as he approached the edge of rim, but he suddenly reined his horse to stop with a violent pull. "My G.o.d! There's someone down there."

"Is it one of the Clines?" Smith asked. "Did you see him? Did he see you?"

Parnell shook his head slowly, "It isn't one of them. You are not not going to believe the scene down there." going to believe the scene down there."

Intrigued, Farkus, Campbell, and Smith nudged their horses forward. As the horse walked, Farkus stood in his stirrups and strained to see over the rim. With each step of the horse, he could see a little more terrain below as it opened up to him. He was careful not to expose any more of himself than he had to. He was certain that the rim dropped away into a sheer rock wall. On the other side of the cirque, the wall wasn't as steep. There was a trail through scree on the other side of a pure blue mountain lake. And then he saw her.

"It looks like a naked woman," he said, a smile stretching across his face. "Finally, something good has happened."

IT TOOK HALF AN HOUR for the four hors.e.m.e.n to circ.u.mnavigate the last cirque to the trail down to the lake. Occasionally, as they rode near the rim, Farkus would rise up and catch a glimpse of the woman. It was too far to see her clearly, but what he could see was as interesting as it was baffling. She was swimming. He wondered if the water was as cold as he remembered. He caught flashes of pale white skin, long dark hair fanning in the fantastically clear water, a glimpse of bare shoulders and small b.r.e.a.s.t.s and long limbs. There was a pile of clothing in the rocks near the sh.o.r.e of the alpine lake.

"I feel like I died and went to heaven," Farkus said. "I been hunting up here all my life just hoping to see something like this. D'you suppose she's alone?"

"Don't let her see you," Parnell said. "There's something oddly sirenlike about this situation."

"Sirenlike?" Farkus said. "You talk in code, Parnell."

"Shut up, Dave," Smith said. "You obviously don't know your cla.s.sics."

Parnell ignored them both, said, "We're staying just long enough to find out if she knows anything about the Clines."

THE TRAIL DOWN to the lake was wide enough at first that the hors.e.m.e.n could ride two abreast. Parnell and Smith led; Farkus rode with Campbell. The trail narrowed about twenty yards from the lake and slivered between two large boulders. As they descended, Farkus could catch glimpses of the surface of the water on the far side of the lake and the high rock face that led up to the rim where they'd first seen the woman. But because of the size of the boulders on either side of the trail, they couldn't see her yet.

The steel shoes of the horses clicked on the crushed rock of the scree. Farkus could feel his heart beat faster. He reluctantly held back on the reins so Parnell and Smith could squeeze through the opening in the boulders first. He wondered if she would scream when she looked up and saw four men coming toward her on horseback. He kind of hoped so. He also hoped he could get to the pile of clothing before she did.

But the whistling sound he heard was not a scream, and he looked up to see a thick green branch slice through the air on the other side of the boulders at chest height. On the end of the branch was a two-foot pointed stake. Farkus caught a flash of it in the air streaking toward Parnell and it thumped into the man with a hollow sound. While the fire-hardened stake didn't penetrate Parnell's body armor, the velocity of the impact threw him backward off his horse and he hit hard on the rocks in front of Farkus.

"Ambus.h.!.+" Smith hollered ahead of him a half second before a shotgun blast blew him out of the saddle. Smith hollered ahead of him a half second before a shotgun blast blew him out of the saddle.

Farkus's horse reared and bellowed and he flew backward out of his saddle, hands windmilling through the air as if to find a hold. He landed hard and facedown in the loose shale, and grit was jammed into his nose and mouth. Inches from his face, a horse's hoof slammed into the rocks, and another right behind his head.

Two heavy booms booms came from behind a man-sized slab of rock to the right of the boulders, and he was crushed under Campbell's dead body as it fell on him, pinning him to the ground under the man's weight. came from behind a man-sized slab of rock to the right of the boulders, and he was crushed under Campbell's dead body as it fell on him, pinning him to the ground under the man's weight.

The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was the figure of a very tall man rise out of the rocks. There was something wrong with the man's face, like there was a dried red rose on the tip of his chin. The man was thin and gaunt. His face was pale and sunken and flesh peeled away from his nose. He wore a red plaid s.h.i.+rt with big checks, and a white slouch hat pulled low over his eyes. Farkus watched him limp over from where he'd hidden in the rocks to where Parnell was writhing on the ground, trying to get breath. He shot Parnell point-blank in the head. Parnell's body thrashed with the muscle spasms of the dead.

Then he heard, "You all right, Caleb?"

The response was a cross between a goose honking and a calf bawling.

Farkus turned his head toward the voice and saw the same man who'd spoken first. He thought he was seeing double.

And from the lake he heard a scream. Or was it a shriek of joy?

He thought: Wendigo. And there's more than one of 'em.

"OPEN YOUR d.a.m.nED EYES," a voice growled. "I know you ain't dead."

Farkus felt a pure terror course through him like a cold electric shock. He hoped his facial muscles didn't twitch, didn't betray him. But he was afraid they had.

For the past hour, he'd lain still on his back. Campbell's heavy dead body crushed him, and as the time went by it seemed to get heavier. Campbell's body lay crossways across Farkus, facedown. Beneath him, several sharp stones poked into his lower abdomen and thighs and the nose of a boulder pressed against the left side of his skull. His arm-which was trapped behind his back under Campbell's body-was numb from lack of circulation.

He'd spent the time since the ambush trying to play dead. He kept his eyes closed and tried to keep his breathing relaxed while his other senses roared with fear.

He'd heard a few voices. One of them, female, asked, "Who are they? Are they the ones from Michigan?"

And Caleb or Camish say, "Yup, I recognize two of 'em. The other two I don't know. That one doesn't look like he should be with them."

There were other conversations, but the roaring of blood through his ears blocked them out. He tried to stay calm, play dead. Tried to recall stories he'd read of victims of ma.s.s firing squads or ma.s.sacres who survived by pretending they were killed. Wondering how in the h.e.l.l they were able to pull it off when he felt like screaming.

Then the voice telling him to open his eyes. He was caught caught.

Something sharp tugged at the skin on his cheek and he flinched. There was no way of pretending anymore.

He opened his eyes as the brother with the dirty compress on his chin-it wasn't a red rose after all-withdrew the point of a knife. Both brothers hovered over him, looking down. Their faces were in shadow because the sun was directly over their heads and beating down. Farkus squinted, trying to see them. They were mirror images of each other, except for the bandage on the face of one of the brothers.

"This probably isn't going to be your best day ever," one of them said in a flat midwestern accent.

PART THREE

OUTLIERS AMONG US

I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.

-ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

23

JOE DROVE HIS PICKUP AND EMPTY HORSE TRAILER PAST THE sign on the highway that read ENTERING WIND RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION. Nate sat in the pa.s.senger seat, running a BoreSnake cleaning cable through the barrel and five cylinders of his .454 Casull. The pickup reeked of cleaning solvent and gun oil, and Joe lowered his window to flood the cab with fresh air. The FedEx box from Billings was lashed to the sidewall of the pickup bed with bungee cords.

As they rolled down a battered two-lane toward Alicia Whiteplume's uncle's ranch, Nate said, "Is the governor aware of what we're doing?"

"I thought it best not to tell him," Joe said.

"Is that wise?"

Joe said, "Probably not, but I can live with it and this way he has deniability."

"What about your director? What does he know?"

Said Joe, "Nothing. As far as he's concerned, I'm on administrative leave."

"Marybeth's okay with it, though?"

"She's the one who said go," Joe said.

Nate grinned. "Let's go with the higher authority, then."

"That's what I always do," Joe said.

Nate said, "Something I learned years before in special operations when dealing within the bureaucracy was, 'It's always better to apologize than to ask permission 'It's always better to apologize than to ask permission.'"

"Exactly."

Joe said, "I'll call Sheriff Baird as we start up into the mountains, but not before. He needs to know we're in his county even if the news makes him blow a gasket. I can't see him coming after us, having spent his budget and all, and he really can't prevent us from going back up there."

Nate loaded the cylinder with cartridges the size of cigar stubs and snapped it closed and holstered the revolver. "Okay, I'm ready," he said. "What are you packing?"

Joe said, "I picked up a new twelve-gauge at the p.a.w.nshop."

Nate dropped his head. "The p.a.w.nshop?"

"It's a good p.a.w.nshop. Besides, not everyone spends their conscious hours thinking about their immediate weaponry and how they'd react if attacked. Believe it or not, Nate, but there are even people who don't own guns."

"I know that," Nate said. "Don't a.s.sume I disapprove. The more who don't own guns, the greater my advantage. Even so, back to you. Another Remington Wingmaster?"

"Yup. I lucked out. There aren't as many guns available these days as there used to be. Folks are h.o.a.rding them. Oh," Joe said, reaching down and patting the .40 Glock on his hip. "And my service weapon."

Nate narrowed his eyes. "Are you ever ever going to take the time to learn how to hit something with that? You drive me crazy." going to take the time to learn how to hit something with that? You drive me crazy."

Joe shrugged. "I've done some damage with it."

"From an inch away and by spraying the landscape with slugs." Nate snorted. "A monkey monkey could do that." could do that."

Joe smiled. "Every time I pull this gun, I think it's the last time I'll ever do it. Not because I think there will be world peace-I just never think trouble will come my way again."

Nate shook his head in disgust. "But it always does," he said.

Joe curled his mouth on the sides and nodded. "Yup, it seems to."

"That doesn't just happen," Nate said.

"Oh, maybe it does," Joe said.

Nate shook his head and looked away. They eventually settled into a comfortable and familiar silence.

JOE'S PHONE BURRED and he plucked it from his breast pocket and looked at the display. "Uh-oh," he said.

Nate said, "Who is it?"

"It's a 777 number I don't recognize. But 777 is the state phone prefix. It's probably the governor or one of his staff calling."

The phone continued to ring.

"Are you going to answer it?" Nate asked.

Joe dropped the phone back into his pocket, then bent forward and clicked off his radio under the dashboard as well.

"Radio silence," Nate said. "I like radio silence."

"Unless, of course, Marybeth calls," Joe said.

"Obviously," Nate said.

"THIS ONE'S GOT a lot of moving parts, doesn't it?" Nate said after fifteen minutes. Joe knew he was referring to the situation in general.

"Yup."