“Ah,” Joe said.

His father’s rheumy eyes looked at something above and to the left of Joe, but the scowl remained.

“I can’t,” Joe said.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Joe.”

“Joe? I had a son named Joe.”

“That’s me,” he said, feeling his heart break.

“You’re my son, but you won’t give me a drink?” George rasped. “Then what the hell good are you?”

And with that, he died.

Joe heard an alarm burr at the nurse station, and he stepped back and aside as an emergency team rushed into the room and surrounded George’s body, which seemed to have deflated even more. Despite the chatter of the attendants, he could hear the pneumatic cack-cack-cack of his father’s death rattle, and he couldn’t shake the thought that his dad was getting in one last laugh.

15

DAVE FARKUS HAD SPENT MOST OF HIS ADULT LIFE WORKING hard to avoid hard work. His philosophy was to save himself for pursuits he favored—hunting, fishing, poker, snowmobiling, mountain man rendezvous reenactments, and blasting through the mountains on his 4 x 4 ATV.

Avoiding hard work required discipline and a complete awareness of his surroundings, as well as an intuitive sense of when to be in the wrong place when extra time or effort was demanded. Like golf or fly-fishing, it was a lifelong pursuit that he knew he might never perfect but he could certainly continue to improve. When his soon-to- be-ex-wife, Ardith, suggested bitterly he consider writing a pamphlet on the techniques he employed to maintain his lifestyle, Farkus told her it would be too much work.

Before everyone had been laid off from the natural-gas pipeline company, he’d been supremely skillful at the art of slipping into the men’s room or taking a break moments before the shift supervisor entered the shop to outline new assignments or ask for volunteers for a big new job. When dirty and grueling tasks were demanded, like sandblasting old valves or replacing blown motors in pump units, Farkus expertly anticipated when the jobs would have to take place, due to his intimate knowledge of the industry and workplace, and would schedule a dentist appointment or mandatory drug test for that day.

It was easier to game the system in his new job working for the county. Bureaucracy was made for shirking, and he felt kind of stupid it had taken so many years to settle into his true calling. Today, for example, he’d gotten a tip that all the bus drivers would have to go into the garage and assist a contract cleaning crew on a top-to-bottom scrubbing of the vehicles. Which is why he’d taken a personal day to go over the mountains to try to spot-weld his marriage back together instead.

Dave Farkus always figured there would be high-intensity brown-noses who would take on the tough jobs and want to be heroes. He let them. Part of his philosophy was that it was as important to have slackers as to have go-getters within every work crew. For balance.

Additionally, in the thirty years since he’d graduated from high school (barely), he’d made it a point to avoid anything to do with horses, like ranch work. Horses were unpredictable, prone to break down, and involved after- hours maintenance. So after three hours of riding up into the timber nose-to-tail with the four men and their horses, he said, “So, if we find whatever it is you’re looking for, will you let me go home?”

Which made the red-haired rider in black, named M. Whitney Parnell, according to the nametag on his rifle scabbard, snort and exchange looks with Smith. Farkus gathered from observation that Parnell was in charge of the whole operation. Smith, and the two camo-clad men, the tall thin one with the nose named Campbell and the blond man named Capellen, were subservient to Parnell.

Parnell rode out ahead, followed by Smith. It was necessary to ride single-file because the trail was narrow and trees hemmed in both sides. Farkus rode a fat sorrel horse in the middle. Behind him were Campbell, Capellen, and the two packhorses.

“You see,” Farkus explained, “I’m just thinking my role here is to help you out because I know these mountains and you don’t, but if in the end you’re not going to let me go, well, you know what I’m saying. Where’s my motivation, you know?”

This time, Smith snorted derisively and touched the butt of his rifle. “Here’s your motivation.

Farkus craned around in his saddle to see if the riders behind him were more sympathetic. Campbell simply glared at him, his face a mask of contempt. Capellen, though, looked miserable. His face was bone-china white and his eyes were rimmed with red. He clutched the saddle horn with both hands as if to remain mounted.

“Capellen looks bad,” Farkus said.

“He’s just fine,” Campbell said through gritted teeth. “Turn around.”

“He looks sick or injured to me,” Farkus said. It was obvious Campbell and Capellen stuck together, just as Parnell and Smith were a team. What had brought them all together besides McCue? he wondered.

“Besides,” Farkus said, turning back around, “shouldn’t you let me know what we’re after? I can’t help guide if I don’t know what we’re hunting for.”

What Farkus didn’t tell them was that he had no idea where they were.

Parnell said, “We’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it and not before. I should have been more explicit and said if you came with us that you’d need to keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way. I didn’t figure it was necessary at the time because we have the guns and gear and all you’ve got is that stupid expression on your face. I guess I thought the additional conditions would be obvious and implied.”

Farkus grunted. Said, “You can’t blame a guy for wondering about his fate.”

“Dave,” Parnell said, not even turning in the saddle, “you’re a loser from Bumfuck, Wyoming. You have no fate. So shut up.”

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