McLanahan sighed and said, “But I guess we’re not doing that.”

“No, we aren’t,” Butch said. “Now go.”

—

MCLANAHAN LED, then Farkus, then Butch bringing up the rear with his rifle held loosely in his hands. Butch had secured Sollis’s sniper rifle to his pack as well. Instead of going up or down the mountain, Butch indicated he wanted them to traverse it, even when they cleared some trees and looked out at a quarter-mile rock slide that had taken a good piece of the slope with it, leaving an exposed slough of loose rock.

The problem crossing the slide, Farkus figured, would be that they’d be in the open for the first time. If the Feds had another drone up or a spotter plane, they’d be sitting ducks. He didn’t care if the Feds took Butch down, but he didn’t want to be collateral damage. Butch must have been thinking along the same lines, because he told McLanahan to hurry.

“Hurry, hell,” McLanahan said. “These slides are dangerous.”

“So is being seen,” Butch said. “So pick it up, Sheriff.”

“This would be a lot easier if you’d cut these cuffs off.”

“I’m sure it would,” Butch said, “but that ain’t going to happen. Now go. Pretend there’s a box of donuts on the other side.”

—

AS THEY SCRAMBLED OVER IT, Farkus looked down. The slide had not only taken the topsoil with it, but had gathered and snapped off tree trunks, which had collected into a tangle far below, almost like a driftwood hazard in a river. It was not only bad footing, but the setting sun threw knifelike shadows from the tops of trees that striped the ground like jail bars and made it hard to see.

When he shifted his weight he accidentally dislodged a football-sized rock that started rolling, then bouncing down the slide making a pock-pock-pock sound until it crashed into the timber below. The soles of his boots slipped a few inches as well, and he held his breath waiting for the rest of the mountain to let go and follow the rock, taking them down with it.

“This isn’t a picnic,” McLanahan said with emphasis to Butch, who told him to cowboy up and keep going.

The last beams of the sun had a special intensity, Farkus noticed. As if the light had been choked down into natural laser beams. He didn’t mind the heat, though, because he hoped it would help dry out his trousers.

Farkus grumbled to McLanahan, “I heard you back there, trying to convince him to let you go and keep me.”

McLanahan shrugged. He was crab-walking low to the ground to keep his balance.

“Is that how one partner treats another partner?”

“I was thinking strategically,” McLanahan said over his shoulder. “If he’d let me go, I could help lead the Feds to him.”

Farkus rolled his eyes. He said, “Aren’t you tired of thinking up ways to be the hero? None of ’em have worked out very well so far.”

“Shut up, you two,” Butch said from behind them. “Concentrate on getting across this.”

Farkus glanced back over his shoulder at Butch, who was scanning the cloudless sky.

—

WHEN THEY FINALLY made their way across the rock slide to solid ground and reentered the dark timber, McLanahan bent over with his hands between his knees to rest.

“Keep going,” Butch said.

“I’m beat,” McLanahan said between panting breaths. Sweat streamed down his face and dripped off the tips of his beard and mustache. Farkus half expected the ex-sheriff to hang his tongue out like a dog.

“Go,” Butch ordered with force.

“Where are we going?”

Farkus wanted to know as well, and he looked over his shoulder at Butch.

Butch actually grinned. He said, “We don’t want to be late for dinner, do we?”

22

IT WAS ALWAYS STARTLING, JOE THOUGHT, HOW QUICKLY the temperature dropped once the sun slipped behind the rocky peaks of the mountains as if a switch had been thrown and the thin, warm air that hung in the trees was sucked with a whoosh into invisible vents. As they ascended toward the looming summit, he reached back and dug a well-worn Filson vest from a saddlebag and shrugged it on.

“We don’t even have any goddamned coats,” one of the special agents complained from the back, obviously observing Joe. “No coats, no food, no sleeping bags, and no fucking plan.”

“That’ll be enough,” Underwood said wearily, not even bothering to look over his shoulder to locate the offending agent.

Joe kept his senses turned on high and tried to fight back mental threads that kept intruding from within, so he could concentrate on the situation before him. Although Underwood had no doubt been given coordinates for his handheld GPS of where the call from Butch had originated—and they certainly knew where the drone had gone down—Joe couldn’t simply relax and ride. Butch Roberson had sounded angry and desperate, and he’d shot Dave Farkus in cold blood, leaving a body count of three over three days in August. Butch was also on much more intimate terms with the terrain and secrets of the mountain they were on than he was.

Joe guessed that Butch had likely figured out that the first thing they’d do was ask Joe to lead them to where he last saw him. It was logical. Therefore, Butch probably guessed that Joe was with a contingent of law enforcement and not sitting around with Julio Batista. Joe thought Butch might traverse the summit and set up an ambush Joe would lead them right into.

—

AFTER BEING TOLD by Underwood that the agreement to provide a helicopter was a ruse and Joe wouldn’t be on it like Butch had demanded, Joe considered simply turning back. He would gladly leave the team of agents to their own devices, riding unfamiliar horses over unfamiliar terrain in an unfamiliar state. There would be consequences for Joe with Lisa Greene-Dempsey, of course. It could give her the excuse to withdraw the job offer and cut him loose. It would set an example to all the other game wardens in the field.

And if he lost his job at the same time they were recovering from the lost opportunity of the Saddlestring Hotel . . .

—

THERE WAS the very life of Butch Roberson to consider. Joe thought Butch deserved the right to make his case before a court, even if the result was as inevitable. Butch should be allowed to shine some light on what drove him into such desperation, and when he was sent to prison or destined for the needle, he could perhaps attract enough attention and outrage that it couldn’t happen to anyone else again. If nothing else, Joe thought, Butch deserved that. And the only way he might get it, given the single-minded determination of Batista, was if Joe could be along to somehow circumvent Butch’s death on the mountain.

So he stayed. And with every mile, he felt more and more trapped by a career and a set of values and a mission he wasn’t sure he could believe in anymore.

—

AS THEY RODE through clearings, he checked his phone for a signal, but he didn’t get one. Joe wanted to let Marybeth know where he was and why, and see how she was doing. He hoped Sheriff Reed thought to call her. He hated not being in contact. Bad things often happened when they weren’t in contact.

—

WHEN THE TREES THINNED and Joe could sense the end of the tree line beneath the summit, he sidestepped Toby so Underwood would catch up and they could ride parallel. Underwood looked over at him with obvious suspicion.

“Mind if I ask you a few questions?” Joe said.

“Depends.”

“We can ride up ahead if you want, so we’re out of earshot of your guys.”

Underwood’s eyes narrowed into a squint as he considered it, then he shrugged and turned in his saddle and said to his team, “Wait here for a few minutes. We’re going to scout a path over the top.”