Nowhere to Run

“In every way,” Joe said.

THERE WAS ONLY ONE open road that went to the southeast toward the smoke, and there were fresh tire tracks imprinted over a coating of dust. Joe made the turn and drove down the two-track as swiftly as he could over the washboarded surface without shaking the pickup apart. Nate hung out the passenger window like a Labrador, Joe thought, with his hand clamped on his hat.

“This looks like the right road,” Nate said, pulling himself back in. “We need to be ready.”

Joe nodded. Afternoon sun fanned through the lodgepole pines as he shot along the dirt road. In his peripheral vision, he saw Nate dig his weapon and holster out from under the bench seat and strap it back on.

“You loaded?” Nate asked, pulling Joe’s new shotgun out from behind the seat and zipping off the gun cover.

“Shells in the glove box,” Joe said.

Nate, who was never unloaded, sighed and found the shells and fitted them into the receiver.

“I have mixed feelings about this thing we are about to do,” Nate said.

“I know.”

“You do, too.”

Joe grunted. “If it weren’t for Diane, I might be tempted to turn around.”

“But we can’t let feelings get in the way,” Nate said, putting the shotgun muzzle-down on the floor and shoving the stock between the bench seats so it wouldn’t rattle around on the dirt road. “We’ve set our course. It doesn’t matter what we think about politics or the law or anything else. It’s not Speed kills, it’s Hesitation kills. If we find those brothers and you’ve got a shot, take it. These boys aren’t going to let us lead them back to jail. They’ve left all that behind, I’m afraid. Don’t start talking or reading them their rights or trying to figure out where the hell they went off the rails. Just shoot.”

When Joe started to object, Nate said, “It isn’t about who is the fastest or the toughest hombre in the state. It’s never about those things. It’s about who can look up without any mist in their eyes or doubts in their heart, aim, and pull the trigger without thinking twice. It’s about killing. It’s always been that way.”

SHERIFF RON BAIRD’S county Ford Excursion was parked twenty feet off the two-track in a grove of aspen trees that overlooked the campground below in the distance. It wasn’t burning, but it had been worked over.

Joe pulled up beside it and jumped out of his pickup with his shotgun. He circled the Excursion. The hood was open and all visible wires had been sliced in half or pulled out and thrown to the ground like angel-hair packing from a shipping crate. The front windshield was smashed inward and cubes of safety glass sparkled like sheets of jewelry on the front bench seat, with errant cubes of it on the hood. The tires were flat and air had stopped seeping out from the open wounds in the sidewalls.

Baird was nowhere to be found.

Nate had opened the passenger door and stood outside the truck on the running board. Using both hands, he tracked through the air how he guessed the brothers had come up from down below on each side in a pincer movement converging on Baird’s vehicle.

Joe said, “I wonder where they took him.”

“They marched him down the hill,” Nate said, binoculars at his eyes. “I see him.”

Joe felt a spasm of fear shoot through him. “Is he alive?”

“I think so. But he doesn’t look real good.”

“How so?” Joe asked.

“Looks like he’s got an arrow sticking out of his ass.”

THE STENCH FROM BURNING FUEL, tires, and plastic was nearly overwhelming on the valley floor. The pickup that towed the horse trailer, the trailer itself, and Dave Farkus’s pickup was on fire. Baird was fifty yards off to the side of the camp, and he appeared to be hugging the trunk of a tree.

“Do you see any sign of the brothers?” Joe asked as they drove down the hill toward the scene. He’d shifted to four-wheel drive because of the incline, and he let the compression of the motor hold back his truck and trailer.

Nate lowered the binoculars. “Nope.”

“Think they’re gone or using the sheriff to draw us in and ambush us?” Joe had used the same tactic two years before when he’d bound a wanted man to lure in his would-be assassin. It had been one of the most shameful decisions he’d ever made, even though he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do it again, given the circumstances.

“If we get sucked in and ambushed using the same trap,” Joe said, “it’s not poetic justice, but it’s something like it.”

Nate shook his head. “My guess is those boys are running back into the mountains. They probably came down to disable the vehicles and didn’t expect to get surprised by the sheriff.”

“Or us,” Joe said.

Nate said, “And I bet they’re wondering why they picked the only day in Wyoming history without wind to start a couple of cars on fire. Normally, we might not even see the smoke.”

Joe drove to Baird and hit the brakes and leaped out. He could feel the heat from the burning pickup on his back.

Baird was conscious, his eyes wide open, his mustache twitching. He was hugging the tree because they’d cinched Flex-Cuffs around his wrists on the other side of the trunk. And, as Nate had mentioned, there was an arrow shaft sticking out of his left buttock. Joe recognized the craftsmanship of the arrow and knew it had been made by the Grim Brothers. He could see the rawhide where the shaft was bound to the point next to the Wrangler label on Baird’s jeans. The arrow wasn’t deep at all, although Joe guessed it probably hurt.

“Sheriff,” Joe said, “you’ve got an arrow sticking out of your butt.”

“Why, thanks, Joe. I was wondering what it was bothering me back there.”