fingerprint and DNA identification you mentioned?” Merle asked as they neared Nate’s Jeep.
“I know a guy in law enforcement,” Nate said, looking away. “I’m pretty sure he’ll help.”
“Is it the guy I’m thinking about? The one you had the falling out with over Diane Shober? The game warden?”
Nate looked over and silenced Merle with a look.
After a few beats, Merle said, “You want me to go down in the canyon and clean it up a little? Make it habitable again?”
“No.”
“So you aren’t coming back?”
Nate shook his head. “If an angry woman and two yahoos can figure out where I am, The Five wouldn’t have any problem. No, I’m gone from there.”
“Where are you gonna be?”
“For now,” Nate said, patting the holster and the weapon, “I’m going hunting.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Merle said, pulling up next to the Jeep. “Money, ammunition, a home- cooked meal. Anything. Just let me know. And keep in touch.”
Nate looked over. “Why?”
Merle said, “In case we need you. If things turn real ugly, you know? Or if The Five decide to start taking out everybody from our old unit who’re still around. I know there aren’t many of us left, but as long as we breathe, we’re a threat to them.”
Nate nodded, said good-bye with his eyes, and climbed out of Merle’s Power Wagon.
As Large Merle rolled away, Nate got out of his shoulder holster and placed it on the hood of his Jeep. He withdrew the .500 WE and reached into his jeans pocket.
He’d braided the three-inch length of Alisha’s hair into a stiff bolt and tied one end of it to a supple leather jess he’d last used on his murdered peregrine. Nate took the loose ends of the jess and knotted them to the end of the muzzle of his weapon, just behind the front blade site.
He lifted the revolver and aimed it. The length of hair tilted slightly in the breeze. It would help when it came to gauging wind velocity for long-range shots. And it would remind him—as if he needed it—of the only thing he cared about right now.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren . . . There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
Friday evening, Joe and Marybeth took Joe’s pickup to dinner at the Thunderhead Ranch. Missy had invited them, and Joe had been dreading the event all week. Lucy couldn’t join them because of play practice, and when they raised it with April, she said, “If I’m grounded, I’m friggin’
“Family events can be an exception,” Marybeth said.
“One of the problems with you people is you keep changing the rules,” April said, stalking back to her room and slamming the door.
Her favorite new phrase, besides “frigging” was now the accusatory
Joe held the front door open for his wife. As she passed him, she said, “Marcus Hand better be as good as they say, because if he isn’t, April gains in power.”
“Ouch,” Joe said, flinching.
“I don’t want to do this,” Joe said, as they turned onto the highway.
“I know,” Marybeth said. “I can’t say I’m very excited myself. But my mother needs to know she’s got some support, Joe. Can you imagine how she feels?”
He bit his tongue and drove. If the woman had made any effort at all to befriend the locals or even show some respect for them, he thought, she might have a few allies.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Marybeth said.
“Can’t help it.”
He’d taken a shower and changed into jeans and a Cinch shirt, but his face still burned from being outside in the wind and sun all day. Mourning dove season had opened on the first, and he’d spent the last two days in the field checking hunters and limits. There was no other season where all a successful hunter had to show for himself was a small bag of the soft gray birds that would barely make a single meal—even though it was a tasty one. But because mourning doves migrated out of the area as quickly as they arrived, it was a furious few days of hunting and work and he’d not been able to pursue his investigation further.
Joe and Marybeth had not caught up because they’d been missing each other at home with his long days and her evening shift at the library.
As they turned off the highway and passed under the magnificent elk antler arches that marked the entrance to the Thunderhead Ranch, he said, “I guess this will give me the chance to ask Missy a couple of questions that have been nagging me since my talk with Bob Lee.”
