“You gotta stay with me, Doc.”

“I’m trying.”

“Grind it?” Coats asked, indicating the baggie on the table.

“Mortar and pestle. Coffee mug’ll work. Handle end of a screwdriver, but you’ll need to boil it first. Ten minutes. Do you have any saline?”

“Contact lens solution.”

“That’ll work. You may need that. Not much. Enough to liquefy. Then get the extract into the syringe.”

“I mush it up. Add the saline. How much do I give you?”

Coats was already over at the stove. He dropped a screwdriver in the kettle of boiling water kept there to throw moisture into the air. He located an oversized coffee mug, rinsed it with some of the boiling water, and put the contents of the baggie in the cup. It looked like a piece of liver but was, in fact, pancreas.

Aker muttered. Coats returned to him and put his ear by Aker’s trembling lips. “If I start sweating and shaking… this is after the injection… then you gave me too much. I need the-” Aker vomited, pitched forward, and passed out. Coats shook him, but it was no use: he was unconscious.

“You need what?” Coats screamed at him.

Coats didn’t have ten minutes to sterilize the screwdriver. He used a pair of barbecue tongs to fish the screwdriver from the boiling water; he dried it on a clean dish towel and used the butt end to smash the tissue in the mug. In a matter of minutes, he had the tissue reduced to a mushy gruel. He added a small amount of the contact lens solution, and then he tipped the mug and drew the extract into the same syringe originally intended to get Aker to cooperate.

The fluid was a horrible color and consistency. He couldn’t see how this could do anything but kill someone, but Aker was on his way out as it was. He pulled down Aker’s loose pants and stabbed the syringe into the man’s flank and gave him 20 ccs.

Aker’s reaction was surprisingly quick. Less than two minutes after the injection, he snapped awake, lifting his head. Color had returned to his face. He glanced around the cabin. “Interesting,” he said.

Coats noticed beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow.

“You’re sweating.”

“Juice,” Aker said. He grabbed the arms of the chair as his limbs began to shake. “Get the juice, you moron!” he shouted. The entire chair was shaking now, dancing on the floor.

Coats had neglected to have this ready. The only juice he had was frozen orange juice. He placed the can into the sink and ran water on it. But Aker’s chair was going like a paint shaker. It tipped over and crashed to the floor. Coats fumbled with a water glass, spooned sugar in it, and filled it with water. He stirred it up, and slopped it out of the glass as he hurried to Aker. Sat Aker up and got him drinking, the water spilling down his front.

Aker returned to the living, and, unable to measure his blood sugar, took inventory of how he felt. Five minutes after he’d been going like an earthquake, he sat calmly in the chair.

“We can expect some secondary problems, Coats,” Aker said.

“Such as?”

“The extract will be weak. I’ll need injections every few hours. But we’ll have enough for that. Dosage is obviously going to be the problem. There will be warning signs: I’ll know when I need more. But the bigger issue will be the allergic reaction to the extract. Possible infection at the site of the injection. That’s basically a given. The reactions can be anything from some discomfort, in the form of a skin rash, to something much more severe. We won’t know until we see them. And we will see them. You’ll want to watch me fairly closely, and I’ll do my best to monitor how I’m feeling. Tell your guy I need Lantus. One dose lasts for twenty-four hours. Until we get the Lantus, we’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”

Coats barked out a laugh. Some spittle escaped onto his beard and he wiped it away.

“Something funny about that?” Aker asked.

“Doc, we are so deep in the woods it would take an army to find us.” He amused himself. “A very big army.”

“Get me a clean shirt,” Aker said, testing how much leverage he’d gained over his captor. “Mine’s filthy.”

Coats hesitated a moment, unsure how to respond; but then he crossed to a footlocker by the only bed in the room and dug around in it for a shirt.

Mark Aker did not allow his captor to see the smile that slowly formed. Coats had done as he’d asked.

There was hope yet.

28

SENATOR JAMES PEAVY’S WHITE HAIR ESCAPED FROM BENEATH his cream-colored, beaver-felt Stetson, his blue, steely eyes never leaving Walt as he paced the living room of his homesteaded farmhouse. He was the fourth-generation Peavy to run the twenty-thousand-acre sheep ranch and he looked the part, with his large belt buckle, the pressed blue jeans, and the pair of Tony Lamas.

“That’s a hell of a question, Sheriff,” he said.

“It’s simple enough, Senator.” The man hadn’t been a senator for twenty years, but respect where respect was due.

“What’s your man doing out there?” Peavy asked, his back to Walt as he faced the window.

“You said he could look around.”

“He’s walking across my pasture.”

“He’s an overachiever,” Walt said. “Let’s not worry about him.”

“We use Mark- Sun Valley Animal Center-exclusively. It’s not as if it’s unusual for him to pay us a visit.”

“It’s not as if you’re answering the question,” Walt pointed out.

“We run nine band of sheep, Walt. That’s nine thousand head. I have a ranch foreman, an overseer for each band. It’s not as if I know every time we call a vet or what the ailment was.”

“So you don’t know why Mark was called? That’s simple enough.” Walt stood from the couch. “Maybe you could introduce me to your staf f?”

“Sit down,” Peavy said, his voice suddenly too loud for the room. He moved to another window, still fixated on Brandon ’s activities. “Enough of what Mark Aker did or did not do for us. What difference can it make? What’s important here is your next election. That’s what I thought you came here for. Let’s get down to brass tacks: what can I do to help?”

“You’ve always been more than generous, Senator.” Peavy supported sheriffs in at least three counties, including Blaine.

“I hear you have some real competition this time around in Richie Dunik.”

“Well-organized.”

“And I hear you’re… distracted by this divorce. Damn sorry to hear about that. Talk about bad timing.”

Walt clamped his open palms between his knees and leaned forward, trying to keep from saying something offensive about Peavy’s insensitivity.

“I could arrange for each of my bosses to make contributions, Walt. Up to the accepted limit. There are ten to twelve who would do this, if I asked.”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about ways to get around the election laws, Senator.”

“Christ! Do I look like I’m wearing a wire? I’m making you an offer. I’m trying to help.”

“Help is always appreciated.”

“If you need financial help, I can arrange it. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I need to know what brought Mark Aker out here. I need to identify whatever it was that made your sheep sick.”

“Who said my sheep were sick? Don’t go jumping to any conclusions, Walt. I’ll tell you what. Mark comes out here as much to vaccinate and geld and deliver calves as he does to doctor.”

“Did you know he’d recently made house calls to two of your neighbors?”

“Should that surprise me?”

“There’s no paper trail for any of these visits over here. His office knows next to nothing about them. This, from a type A, meticulous professional who, I’m told, would never have made a trip this distance without billing for it. Much less three such trips.”

“And this interests you because…?”

“If I could just say something here, Senator? That is, that every time I ask you a question, or say something about Mark Aker’s visits, instead of an answer I get a question. We both know what a skilled orator you are, but, frankly, you’ve never treated me the way you’re treating me today. I find it offensive. I’m sitting over here wondering what the hell is going on.”