they’d stepped on the wires like stairs to climb over the barrier, but weight—probably Stenko’s—had overburdened the staples and popped them out. Because the wires were now free, it was easy to press them down and throw a leg over and continue.
The boughs of the old-growth pine trees closed over his head, and he walked in shadow. Following their trail was easy now, as the forest floor was carpeted with dry yellowed pine needles that had scattered on the periphery of every footfall.
Ahead, less than a quarter mile, sunlight poured through the trees. There was an opening.
The afternoon suddenly filled with the sharp barking of dogs. Nate dropped to his haunches. The eruption of barks echoed through the timber and originated a quarter mile or so ahead of him. Nate imagined the scenario: Stenko and Robert had just broken from the trees and were approaching a ranch house. Most ranches had a small pack of dogs roaming the premises whose purpose was to alert the rancher to the appearance of strangers.
THROUGH THE SCOPE of his .454, Nate watched the proceedings. He was looking for a good shot.
The ranch itself was ancient. Front and center was an unpainted clapboard house with shutters and shake shingles on the roof so weathered they were the color of concrete. There were several dark and sagging outbuildings to the side of the main house and a post-and-rail corral. In the corral near the barn three steers and a swaybacked blue roan grazed on haphazard piles of hay. The barn on the grounds sagged as well, and what little white paint remained on it curled from the siding like dried worms. The dogs he had heard barking all sat in front of the ripped screen door on a porch, looking at the opening as if awaiting someone to open it and throw food to them. He could see no human activity.
Next to the barn, in sharp contrast to the buildings, was a new-model black Ford F-350 pickup crew cab.
He thought: Stenko and Robert are inside with whoever lives here. And like all ranchers, no matter the circumstances, the owner drove a state-of-the-art pickup truck. Priorities.
THE DOGS backpedaled comically as the screen door was pushed out, clearing the way for whoever was inside to exit. Nate thumbed back the hammer on his revolver and squinted through the scope.
The first person he saw was an older bald man in his sixties or seventies wearing a pearl-snap-button yellow shirt, suspenders, and worn Wranglers. The man was unshaven and bespectacled in yellowed horn-rimmed glasses. His bald head was paper white on top and there was a clear line mid-forehead where his absent hat shielded the sun, while the rest of his face and neck were nut-brown. He held his hands out in front of him like he didn’t know where they should go.
Nate swiveled his weapon slightly to the right and his scope filled with the handsome, square-jawed face of Robert Stenson, who was immediately behind the rancher. But as he swept his weapon, he saw the pistol Robert held and the muzzle of it was pressed into the back of the neck of the rancher as he guided him outside. Nate’s finger tightened on the trigger but the rancher stopped on the porch and backed up into the crosshairs.
“Shit,” Nate whispered to himself.
The rancher was saying something over his shoulder to Robert. Nate peered above the scope. He couldn’t hear what the discussion was about, but he knew it was an argument. Without the aid of the telescopic site, he could see that Robert and the rancher were nose to nose, yapping.
“Step aside,” Nate whispered to the rancher. “Give me a clean shot and I’ll lend you money for paint.”
But the rancher kept it up until Robert closed in and lowered his gun and shoved the rancher ahead of him toward the pickup. Immediately behind them, an older man appeared in the doorway:
Nate rotated his weapon again and peered through the scope. For a moment, the crosshairs kissed Stenko’s forehead. Until he ducked and Nate could see only the shadowed interior of the ranch house.
Again, Nate sat back and glared.
Stenko was doubled over, both hands on his belly. Nate could hear him moan. Despite that, Robert pushed the old rancher toward the pickup, staying so close behind him they looked like their belts were fastened together. Whatever dispute they had was over. Robert was in charge.
The two of them were now blocked by the pickup. Nate heard the door open and saw Robert push the rancher into the cab. Stenko was right behind them, still bent over, and he vanished into the back seat of the cab before Nate could fire.
The motor ground and took, and the pickup did a fast turn in the ranch yard toward a weathered two- track.
And they were gone.
NATE HOLSTERED HIS GUN and jogged across the ranch yard toward the barn and outbuildings. Ranchers always had extra vehicles, and in his experience the keys were usually in them. His boots crunched through the gravel and he got a glimpse of machinery in the shadows of the barn so he veered toward it.
Which was when he heard a muffled squeal, and a crash inside the house.
He paused. In the barn was a vehicle he could borrow so he could stay close to Stenko and Robert and the kidnapped rancher. But someone or something was in the house. The dogs watched him from the front porch as if wondering what his decision could be. That they didn’t bark at him seemed unremarkable at the time. For his entire life, he’d had an odd, tranquilizing effect on some animals. He had no explanation for it.
Nate sighed, shooed the dogs aside, and entered the old ranch house. It smelled of cooked meat and old people. The decor looked frozen in time from 1972—avocado-colored appliances, gold shag carpeting, a digital clock radio on the kitchen counter with large red numerals.
In the living room, a large woman in a floral printed dress was on her side on the floor in a hardback chair in the living room. Her arms were bound behind her back and her bare mottled ankles were tied to the chair legs with duct tape. The hem of her dress was pulled up because of her fall, exposing a meaty white leg. She had white hair, metal-framed glasses that made her big eyes look even bigger, and a sock in her mouth. She squirmed against her bindings, which consisted of shrugging her shoulders and wagging her head from side to side. He could see where she’d managed to wriggle across the carpeted floor and overturn a small telephone stand by banging it with her head. The phone lay useless near her hair. The cord had been cut.
The way she glanced down at her leg said to Nate she was embarrassed by the exposure.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
