headlamps. He never would have seen the dust as they sped by, but in his brights the settling dust bloomed like a wilting flower in the road.
“They took this one,” he said. “See the dust in the air?”
“Yeah . . .”
He shut the lights off, and the gravel road vanished into darkness.
“Hey,” she said. “How are we going to follow them in the dark?”
“An old Indian trick,” Joe said while he reached under the dashboard and found the toggle switch for his sneak lights and turned them on. The sneak lights threw an orb of light down from under his front bumper into a pool immediately in front of the pickup. It was enough light to see to drive but because the beams pointed down into the dirt they were difficult to see from a distance. The sneak switch also disabled the taillights and brake lights, so that if he slowed or stopped, there would be no indication from flashing red.
“Hey,” Sheridan said, “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I’ve caught a lot of game violators over the years using these to follow vehicles or sneak up on poachers,” he said. “I’m sure Stenko probably saw us earlier when we were coming down that rough road with the brights on. But he’ll assume we went on down the highway, which is probably why he turned off here.”
“Cool,” she said. “How come you didn’t ever tell me about these spy lights?”
Joe said, “I keep some of my tricks in reserve. There are lots of tricks you don’t know about. You know, in case you ever decide to break any Game and Fish laws and I have to arrest you.”
“Very funny,” she said. “You’d never arrest your own daughter.”
“You know I would,” Joe said.
She sighed, said, “Yeah, I guess you probably would. But Mom would be mad at you.”
He smiled and reached over and squeezed her shoulder. Then he shoved the pickup into drive and turned off the highway onto the unpaved road. The truck vibrated and shook as it had before as his tires ground over egg- sized gravel.
Sheridan said what Joe was thinking: “So what do we do if we catch them on this crappy road?” she asked.
Joe said, “I’m not sure.”
He could feel her staring at him, waiting for a better answer. But she wouldn’t get one. He didn’t dare approach Stenko’s vehicle too aggressively with Sheridan in his pickup and April with Stenko. The chance for a confrontation would be too great and he couldn’t risk their lives. He was sure Sheridan would object so he didn’t even want to discuss it with her.
He said, “We’re going to maintain visual contact,” Joe said. “That’s all for now.”
Sheridan didn’t respond. He glanced over to see her furiously tapping a message on her phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m asking April what’s going on.”
“What if she can’t answer?”
“Then she won’t,” Sheridan said, testy. “But if her phone’s on like that man told us, maybe she’ll get the text from me. She might be able to respond when Stenko or Robert aren’t paying attention.”
“So what are you sending her?” Joe asked.
“I’m asking her if they know we’re back here.”
Joe nodded. “It would be interesting to know that.”
“Yeah, and she can text back with just a ‘Y’ or an ‘N.’ Easy.”
Because the sneak lights drastically cut down on his field of vision, Joe proceeded much slower than he would have preferred. He hoped that if Stenko saw no headlights in his rearview mirror, he’d have no reason to try and outrace him. He might even slow down or pull over to regroup. Joe and Sheridan topped a rise, and Joe saw the taillights ahead in the distance less than a mile away.
“There they are,” he said. He couldn’t judge if Stenko had slowed or not before they plunged down into a hollow.
Halfway up the next incline, Sheridan’s phone lit up and buzzed. Joe felt his stomach clench: April was responding.
Sheridan read the message in silence and lowered the phone to her lap. When Joe looked over for clarification he could see moisture rimming her eyes.
“What did she say?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“She said something bad,” Sheridan said, her mouth twisting into a pucker as if she was about to cry.
“She said, ‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.’ ”
Joe nearly drove off the road. He didn’t know if he was more shocked by what April had written or the fact that Sheridan repeated it verbatim.
“Maybe somebody took her phone away from her and is using it to answer me,” Sheridan said weakly, turning her head away.
And Joe was instantly enraged at the idea of April—or whoever—talking to his daughter like that and he thought:
