'So you guys moved him out?'
Alex Chareaux laughed. 'They are smart, these creatures, and I think they know that the park is their sanctuary. But,' he added conspiratorially, 'they have no real sense of boundaries, so you see, it is not so difficult after all.'
'For Christ's sake, Alex, that place is crawling with park rangers and federal agents. Are you guys out of your living minds?'
Really into character now, Lightstone nodded, because Henry Allen Lightner was extremely worried about getting caught by the Feds. He'd made that very clear at his first meeting with Alex Chareaux and had continued to emphasize it during their subsequent conversations.
And now, after weeks of work, he just might have the bastard.
It was better than he could have hoped for, and at the same time, far worse, because Yellowstone was about two hundred and twenty-five miles south of Great Falls, which meant a good four-hour drive even if the roads were clear. Which they weren't, Lightstone knew, because the radio stations had been putting out storm advisories all morning.
Lightstone felt his chest tighten as he realized that the only viable option was to fly down to Bozeman and then rent a car and pick up Highway 89 at Livingston.
'You should not worry about these federal people, Henry,' Alex Chareaux advised cheerfully. 'My brothers and I have been outsmarting them since we were little children. You have heard the story, of course, that most of the federal judges are chosen from the lowest ten percent of the law-school students?'
'Oh, yeah?'
'I am told that it is absolutely true,' Chareaux said. 'But even if it is not, I can assure you that none of these federal judges or prosecutors or policemen are so smart that you need to be concerned. They are simply people who have neither the brains nor the ambition to find honest work, so they take it upon themselves to hinder the honest work of others.'
Under normal circumstances, Lightstone might have enjoyed the idea of egging Alex Chareaux on, but he really wasn't paying all that much attention to the outlaw guide now. Mostly because he was desperately trying to figure out some other way to get down to Gardiner without having to go up in an airplane during storm-advisory conditions.
He hated to fly. Absolutely hated it. From Henry Lightstone's decidedly nervous perspective, modern airplanes were made up of thousands of complex parts, each of which had to work perfectly in order for the plane to continue to fly extremely fast so that it wouldn't fall out of the sky.
'Yeah, well, that's fine of course, unless we do get caught,' Lightstone said. 'I'm the one who'd go to the goddamned state pen for the next twenty years.'
'Actually, it would be a federal prison, Henry;' Chareaux corrected. 'And only for ten years at the most. But none of that matters, because you and I are going to do this together, and we are not going to get caught. You have my word on that. After all, for what do you think we charge you so much money?'
In spite of himself, Henry Lightstone smiled.
Henry Allen Lightner had a reputation for snap decisions and aggressive action. He was also gutsy enough to have made just over four and a half million in his multifaceted business deals; smart enough to have kept a goodly part of it away from the IRS; and self-serving enough to indulge himself with some of the nicer things that money could buy. All in all, he was exactly the type of client that had made Alex Chareaux and his brothers very wealthy, and increasingly greedy over the past few years.
'What about the locals? Anybody see him?'
'Sonny and Butch are with him, but they're staying back because he is very edgy now,' Chareaux spoke. 'Perhaps he knows you are coming. Sometimes they can sense that sort of thing, you know. Especially the big ones.'
'Really?'
Very nice touch, Alex, Lightstone nodded approvingly. A gentle ego massage for all those born-again clients who were always trying to forge an emotional link between themselves and their intended prey, but were still just a little bit nervous about spending the next ten years in a federal penitentiary.
'Oh yes, I am almost certain of that, Henry,' Alex Chareaux said, carefully reinforcing the point. 'They are funny that way. Absolutely fearless, but incredibly sensitive also. That is why it is so important that they die well. We owe them that.'
Hemingway, Lightstone smiled. Christ, how could Lightner resist?
The point being, of course, that he couldn't. Henry Allen Lightner, moderately wealthy businessman, infamous slayer of the great ones, and proud teller of even greater tales, was hooked.
'Amazing.'
'I think you will cherish the memory of this one, Henry,' Chareaux agreed. 'He has a younger one with him. A thousand pounds perhaps. Too small for your trophy room, of course; but I think he will try to protect her, so you must be quick. The shot must come fast, and be well placed.'
'Is she part of the deal, too?' Lightstone asked eagerly, vaguely discomforted by the ease with which the words seemed to flow from the warped soul of his borrowed persona.
The voice on the other end of the line hesitated for a moment, calculating.
'A significant bonus certainly if he is coerced into a charge,' Chareaux said finally. 'Perhaps an extra two thousand for the charge, but no more than that.'
Lightstone remained silent, and Chareaux went on quickly. 'It is a shot that only a handful of men ever experience and live to tell about, Henry.'
'But you will be there, too, just in case…'
Lightstone had been careful to include a few well-chosen flaws in Henry Allen Lightner's persona. Henry Allen Lightner, the young and wealthy Great Falls businessman, was just a little too tight with his money to play the role of a big spender, and perhaps a little too nervous to stand and face a full-grown grizzly all by himself.
For that, he would need the spine-bracing presence of a Cajun coon-ass swamp boy who had faced death a thousand times from the day he could first stand.
'But of course,' Chareaux replied immediately. Lightstone thought he could detect a trace of contempt in the guide's well-controlled voice. 'But only to watch for others. Your meeting with the dark one is a private affair, Henry. My brothers and I will be there, certainly, but I can tell you now that you will neither want nor need us on that day.'
… if you have any balls, Lightstone understood the implication.
'Are you sure no one else has seen him?' Lightstone whispered. What he really wondered was if anybody would spot the Chareaux brothers. The Louisiana Department of Fish and Game was eager for their arrest in any way possible.
According to the dossiers that Paul McNulty's Special Operations team had put together, Alex, Sonny, and Butch Chareaux had been born and raised in the backwoods bayous of Terrebonne Parish. They had been taught to shoot by their maternal grandfather, who-despite a thirteen-page rap sheet-truly believed that the illegal killing of wild game was an honorable way to make a living. The boys took to killing wildlife like ducks to corn bait.
Their motto was 'If it flies, it dies.' They eagerly killed any fish or animal they could, limited only by the number of shotgun and rifle rounds they could steal in a week. When the local fish and game authorities finally decided that they'd had enough of the Chareaux brothers, Alex, Butch, and Sonny were wakened at three o'clock one morning and quietly escorted across the state line with six. 357 Magnums pressed solidly against the back of their long-haired heads. They were politely offered a chance to emigrate.
North, south, east, or west, it didn't matter as far as the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game was concerned. Given the well-earned reputation of the Fish and Game Department for being serious about protecting the state's wildlife, the Chareaux brothers had wisely chosen to move on. But six months later, two of the 'relocation' wardens were discovered facedown in the Terrebonne swamp, with numerous deep cuts crisscrossing their arms and chests.
And when further examined by the coroner, it was determined that both of the officers had had their femoral arteries severed.
In spite of some very emotional testimony, a local magistrate had come to the interesting conclusion that there wasn't enough evidence to warrant an extradition order on the Chareaux brothers for murder. But the way the
