Nowhere to Run

Farkus felt the springs of his truck rock. He looked up. In his rearview mirror, the mustached man in camo climbed into the bed of his pickup directly behind him with his pistol drawn.

A cold O from the muzzle of a pistol pressed into his temple from the linebacker on the left. He squirmed as the redhead in the cab jacked a cartridge into his handgun and shoved it into Farkus’s rib cage. The pale man in camo now stood directly in front of his pickup, aiming a scoped AR-15 at his face.

Farkus thought, No one is ever going to believe this in the Dixon Club bar.

FARKUS GOT OUT of his pickup at gunpoint. The red-haired man told him to put both hands on the hood of his truck and spread his legs. He was patted down by the black-clad linebacker, who found and pocketed his Leatherman tool and Buck knife. The sharp-featured camo man rooted through the cab of his pickup and found his Charter Arms 9mm in the glove box.

The man who’d been driving the SUV left it parked behind the pickup, and Farkus realized with a start that he knew him. It was that state guy, McCue. What was he doing here? He stood back with his hands in his pockets, watching silently. He wore a rumpled and ill-fitting suit, a pair of reading glasses dangled from a chain around his neck, and he looked tired.

“What’s this?” the camo asked, holding the gun up.

“My handgun. You know, for snakes.”

“Snakes?” The man laughed.

“I always have it with me. Everyone is armed around here. This is Wyoming, boys.”

The red-haired man in black said, “We’re going to cuff you to your vehicle until we get back.”

Farkus said, “How about you guys just let me go about my business and I swear I won’t say a word? I don’t know who you are or why you’re up here in the first place. I can keep a secret. Ask my wife if you don’t believe me,” he said, hoping like hell they’d never take him up on that offer.

The red-haired man said, “What makes you think you’ve got a choice in the matter?” He turned and said, “Got a second, Mr. McCue?” To Farkus, “Don’t move a muscle.”

“Okay,” Farkus said. Then pleading to McCue: “Aren’t you supposed to be with the state cops? Shouldn’t you be helping me here?”

McCue rolled his eyes, dismissing the notion. Farkus felt the floor he thought he was standing on drop away and, with it, his stomach.

But as the two men walked out of earshot, Farkus rotated his head slightly so he could see them out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t have to hear them to get the gist of what they were discussing: him. The “cuffing him to his vehicle” statement was a feint. It didn’t pass the smell test. He’d obviously stumbled onto something he wasn’t supposed to see. Farkus felt a shiver form in his belly and roll through him. McCue gestured toward the trees beyond the camp. The red-haired man shook his head and squinted, looking off into the woods as if they’d provide the answer.

Farkus knew his life rested on the decision McCue would make. He wondered how—and if—he could influence that decision. While he searched for an angle—Farkus’s life was an endless procession of angle location—he craned his neck around farther and sneaked a look at the back of their vehicle and the horse trailer. Michigan plates. Vehicles and visitors from that state weren’t unusual in the mountains during hunting season. But this wasn’t hunting season.

“Damn,” he said. “You boys came a long way. Where you from in Michigan?”

They didn’t answer him.

But he had his angle. He said, “Boys, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s obvious you’re about to head off into the mountains to find something or somebody. I know these mountains. I grew up here and I’ve guided hunters in this area every fall for twenty-five years, and let me tell you something: it’s easy to get lost up here.”

Farkus felt like whooping when McCue turned to him, actually listening and not looking at him as if measuring his body for a coffin.

Farkus said, “These mountains are a series of drainages. The canyons look amazingly similar to each other when you’re in them. People get lost all the time because they think they’re walking along Cottonwood Creek when it’s actually Bandit Creek or Elkhair Creek or No Name Creek.”

He nodded toward the piles of equipment in the camp, and the red-haired man followed his gaze. Farkus said, “Even with a GPS it’s easy to get rimrocked or turned around. You know what I’m saying here. I can help you find what it is you’re looking for. Trust me on this.”

McCue said, “He’s got a point.”

The red-haired man disagreed, said, “Mr. McCue, we have all the men and equipment we need. Taking along another guy will slow us down.”

McCue waved him off. “That sheriff over in Baggs had more men and more equipment, and they didn’t find them. Maybe having someone along who knows the mountains will help. Equipment fails sometimes.”

The red-haired man was obviously in no position to argue with McCue. But he was unhappy. He pointed to Farkus. “You can come along as long as you’re actually useful. But you need to keep your mouth shut otherwise. And when you turn into dead weight . . .”

“I’m dead meat,” Farkus finished his sentence for him. “I understand.” He took his hands off the hood.

Farkus had no idea what was going on or what these men were after. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was getting through the next ten minutes before McCue changed his mind.

He pointed toward a fat sorrel without a saddle. He said, “So, is that my horse?”

14

JOE SAID TO MARYBETH, “I CHANTED YOUR NAME FOR TWO straight days. It helped me to keep going.”