Nowhere to Run

Farkus knew he shouldn’t say anything, but he couldn’t help himself. “No, please.”

Smith had turned in his saddle and was watching them now with a smirk on his face. “I was kind of wondering that myself.”

“Please, no,” Farkus said, his voice cracking. “Put the gun away. You see, I’ve always been a talker. I’m sorry. I’ll shut up. I’ll start now.” To himself, Farkus said, “Shut up, Dave.”

Campbell’s face twitched. “What’s that smell?”

Farkus felt hot tears in his eyes from fear and shame. He said, “I’ve ruined the saddle.”

Campbell leaned away and lowered the pistol. Farkus looked down as well. A wet stain blotted through the denim of his crotch. Dry leather on the pommel soaked it in, turning it dark.

To Parnell, Campbell said, “This guy is becoming a liability.”

Parnell’s dead-eye silence didn’t reveal a thing about what he was thinking. But what he didn’t do, Farkus noted, was disagree with Campbell.

Campbell said, “Dave, I’m starting to think you’re just a bullshitter, because all I’ve heard out of your pie-hole is bullshit. And don’t think I didn’t notice how you caught yourself back there when we rode through that knotty pine. You’d never been there in your life, have you? I’m thinking you don’t know where the hell you are right now and I don’t see how the hell you’re going to help us.”

A minute went by. Toward the end of it, Campbell raised the Sig Sauer to eye level.

Despite the cold feeling of dread that coursed through him, Farkus said, “That’s where you’re wrong. Hell, I’ve not only hunted up here, I used to move cows from the mountains down to pasture on the other side.”

Campbell shook his head, not buying. Then he gestured to the horizon, toward the highest point. “What’s the name of that peak?”

To Parnell, Campbell said, “Check his answer against your map, and we’ll see if he’s lying.”

Farkus pointed, stalling for time, “That one? That one there?” He searched his memory, trying to recall conversations from his buddies around the campfire talking about where they’d been that day. Years of conversations to sort through. He wished he’d paid more attention.

His mouth was dry. He could recall his friend Jay telling a story about wounding a young bull elk and tracking it in the snow all the way to . . .

“Fletcher Peak,” he said.

Parnell studied his map. While he did, Farkus tried to think of how he could talk his way out of this. Could he say, Well, that’s what we always called it. . . .

But Parnell said, “Fletcher Peak. Ten thousand, eight hundred feet.”

Farkus tried not to close his eyes as joy replaced dread.

Campbell lowered the weapon.

And Farkus thought, I wish I knew where the hell we are.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

16

WITH MARYBETH AT WORK AND THE GIRLS AT SCHOOL, JOE had the revelation that he’d never been alone in his own house before. It was remarkably quiet. He felt like both a voyeur and a trespasser as he limped through the rooms carrying a plastic five-gallon bucket filled with tools and equipment. His only company was Tube, who, since they’d returned two days before, had not let Joe out of his sight. In fact, Tube trailed him so tightly that the dog would bump into the back of his legs if Joe stopped.

At dinner the previous night, Joe had queried Marybeth and his daughters for their wish lists of repairs, maintenance, and projects. He listed the chores on a legal pad and finally begged them to stop after he filled the first page and after April requested he build “a wall of separation” between her bed and Lucy’s in the room they shared so she “wouldn’t have to look at her face, like, ever.” He was embarrassed there was so much to get done, which was a testament to his long absences over the past two years. In addition to his own list—painting the house, fixing a leak in the garage roof, cleaning the gutters, shoring up his leaning slat-board fence, sorting out his long-neglected Game and Fish office—Joe figured he had at least a week’s worth of projects ahead of him. By then, he hoped, his in-house sentence would be over and Governor Rulon would lift his order of administrative leave.

Certainly Marybeth had welcomed him home and was pleased he was getting to all of the neglected projects, but Joe could feel tension building between them. Marybeth ran the house and family, and she did a good job of both. She had become used to him not being around. Joe’s presence, especially since he was at home during the day, disrupted her management and routine. He sympathized with her and found himself feeling sorry for himself as well. Joe didn’t like being inside so much.

Although the home they owned on the quiet residential street in Saddlestring was much more conventional and convenient for Marybeth’s business and the girls’ school and activities, Joe still pined for past houses in the country. He’d even mentioned to Marybeth when they pulled into the driveway from Billings that it seemed the neighboring houses on each side had somehow encroached a few feet closer to theirs. This was not the first time he’d had this impression, and it made him doubt his sanity.

After he turned off the water to the toilet so he could reset the float to make it stop trickling constantly, Joe parted the curtain and checked to see if his neighbor, Ed Nedney, was still out in his yard. He was. He was out there reseeding a one-foot patch of slightly bare earth in his backyard with a rake so it would grow to be as perfect as the rest of his yard. Nedney was a former town administrator who’d retired solely, Joe believed, to keep his lawn and home immaculate and because it gave him more time to disapprove of Joe’s home maintenance regimen.

Joe had watched Nedney through the window all morning while he himself was on the phone making arrangements for his father’s body with a Billings funeral home. He didn’t look forward to discussing the costs with Marybeth later that night. Marybeth’s business transition was facing hurdles now that the downturn in the economy