“If you take them out, we’re both going to prison,” Joe said, easing on his brakes so he wouldn’t rear-end a Walmart eighteen-wheeler. At that moment, both of his side mirrors filled up with the grinning chrome grille of another semitruck.
“We’re hemmed in,” Joe said.
Ahead of them, uniformed troopers walked along the shoulder of the road from car to car.
Nate sat back, his eyes glassy. He read aloud the words painted on the back of the rig ahead of them.
He sneered,
TWO STATE TROOPERS APPROACHED JOE’S PICKUP, ONE ON each side of the road. The trooper on the left was tall and stoop-shouldered and had a brushy mustache and hangdog jowls. The trooper on the right was short and wide and his hard, round belly strained at the buttons on his uniform shirt. When he looked up and saw Joe, his eyes narrowed and he put his right hand on the grip of his weapon. Joe couldn’t hear him speak to the other trooper, but he read his lips:
The tall trooper put his hand on his gun as well, and as they walked up Joe lowered the driver’s and passenger-side windows.
“You Joe Pickett?” the tall trooper asked. His name badge read BOB GARRARD.
“Yes, sir.”
The other trooper couldn’t take his eyes off Nate, looking at him with practiced and wary cop eyes that came from approaching hundreds of pulled-over vehicles on the highway. He stayed a few feet away from the vehicle so, if necessary, he could draw cleanly and fire.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Nate said to him. Even though his gun was under the seat, Nate sounded as deadly as he looked, Joe thought.
“Governor Rulon is looking for you,” Garrard said to Joe. “Our orders are to take you to him.”
“To Cheyenne?” Joe said. “That’s three hours away.”
“What, are you on a schedule?” Garrard asked, with a hint of a sneer.
“Sort of,” Joe said.
“Naw, not to Cheyenne,” the trooper said. “He’s at the airport. He flew in about an hour ago and he’s waiting for you.”
Garrard looked in the back of Joe’s pickup. “What’s in the box?”
“My dad,” Joe said. “I don’t know where to spread his ashes.”
Garrard did a double take. “So you’re just driving him around the state? Like taking him on a vacation?”
Joe nodded.
The squat trooper on the other side of the truck said to Nate, “We were supposed to be looking for one guy. Pickett. Who might you be? Do you have some ID on you?”
“No.” Nate’s voice was soft but firm. Joe knew it was the way he spoke just before he tore someone’s ear off.
Joe said with false but distracting cheer, “Lead the way, men, and I’ll follow. The governor’s waiting, remember?”
He was grateful that both troopers decided to drop their line of inquiry and depart with both ears attached.
TWO HIGHWAY PATROL CARS led the way to the small airport, and another trooper car followed Joe’s truck and horse trailer. The patrolmen kept their wigwag lights flashing, and citizens on the road pulled to the side to let the caravan pass.
“This is ridiculous,” Nate grumbled. “I didn’t realize he had his own private police force.”
“Well,” Joe said, “he does.”
Harvey Field had several prop Cessna aircraft belonging to France Flying Service. A small Cessna jet was parked on the runway near a cinderblock building that served as the private terminal. On the tail of the airplane was a Wyoming bucking horse silhouette.
“There’s Rulon One,” Joe said. “He’s here, all right.”
RULON WAS A BIG MAN, with a round face and silver-flecked brown hair that always looked barely combed. He had a ruddy complexion that could quickly turn fire-engine red, and the movements of his arms and hands were dartlike. He stood at the head of a small table in the conference room of the terminal wearing an open-collared shirt and a dark blue windbreaker with the name GOV SPENCE embroidered over the breast. Jeans and lizard-skin cowboy boots completed the picture. Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI sat slumped at the table to Rulon’s right and the governor’s new chief of staff, a trim retired military man named Carson, sat at Rulon’s left. Both looked uncomfortable.
“You,” Rulon said, pointing at Joe, “need to answer your damned phone.”
“I get that,” Joe said, looking from the governor to Coon, who recognized Nate with palpable alarm.
“And look who’s with him,” Coon said. “The infamous Nate Romanowski.”
Nate kept quiet.
“None of that here,” Rulon said to Coon.
“But he’s a fugitive,” Coon said to Rulon. “For crying out loud, I can’t just look the other way.”
“Yes, you can, for now,” Rulon said. “Or I’ll have
