Then, with resignation: “I can’t outrun them. There are too many of those guys.”

Joe hesitated a moment and said, “You might find allies who will help keep you out of their hands. I have a friend who has operated off the grid for years. I’m sure he’d give you some help.”

Butch nodded. “Yeah, I know there are people out there who could help me, like Frank Zeller. But why get other folks in trouble? This is my problem, not theirs.”

“They may not think of it like that,” Joe said.

“My mind is made up. Don’t give me any more chances to change it.”

“Okay, then,” Joe said. “You’ll need to give me that pistol. You won’t be needing it anymore.”

Butch reached back and handed it over. Joe tossed it toward the bank.

—

THE CAMPGROUND WAS BUSTLING, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. Joe recognized vehicles, tents, communications vans, and personnel from the forward operating base on the Big Stream Ranch. They were establishing a new FOB, he reasoned, since the old one was being consumed by the fire. He assumed Batista had ordered the campground evacuated, and was establishing a new beachhead. Joe was impressed they’d been able to assemble and move so quickly. But he dreaded the fact that he was delivering Butch Roberson into the Lion’s Den.

As they nosed the front of the log into the muddy bank of the campground, the cacophony of voices and activity went silent. Dozens of federal men and women turned their faces toward Joe and Butch, and there were gasps and open mouths.

Someone said, “Jesus, there he is.”

Joe searched the crowd for Governor Rulon, but didn’t see him. His new director, Lisa Greene-Dempsey, was there, however. She looked shocked to see him, and her eyes blinked quickly behind her designer glasses. Joe thought he must look like quite a sight: wet and torn clothing, disheveled appearance, streams of blood pouring down his legs into his boots.

Heinz Underwood shouldered through the crowd. To Joe, he grinned and said, “You made it, you crazy bastard.” He pointed at Butch and said, “Arrest that man.”

Several agents Joe didn’t recognize started to advance. Beside him, Joe could feel Butch stiffen.

“No,” Joe said, stepping in front of Butch and placing his right hand on the grip of his Glock.

The agents halted and looked back at Underwood for further instructions.

“Where’s Batista?” Joe asked.

“He said he was called back to HQ,” Underwood said, with a twinkle in his eye. “He’s been gone an hour. He left in a hurry.”

Joe acknowledged the news with a curt nod. It fit.

Lisa Greene-Dempsey said, “Warden Pickett, you need to stand aside. You need to cooperate.”

“I’m through cooperating,” Joe said, his tone flat.

To Greene-Dempsey, Joe said, “Call Sheriff Reed and get him down here now. This man will surrender to him and him only. He’ll be in county lockup if you need to see him.”

Underwood said to Greene-Dempsey, “This is a federal matter. You’ll have to order your employee to turn over that man.”

“Warden Pickett—” she said without enthusiasm, but Joe cut her off.

He said, “I made Butch a deal. He agreed to turn himself in to the sheriff.”

Silence.

Joe meant it. His insides roiled, and he didn’t want to draw his weapon.

Greene-Dempsey stepped forward, and Joe said softly, “That includes you, too, I’m afraid. Just make the call.”

She stopped there and gasped for air. Then she raised her iPhone.

—

BEFORE JOE CLIMBED into the sheriff’s department handicap van behind Butch Roberson in handcuffs, he plucked his badge off his uniform shirt and placed it in Lisa Greene-Dempsey’s outstretched palm. She closed her fingers around it and shook her head sadly.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Yeah, I do,” Joe said. “This has all put such a bad taste in my mouth, I don’t think I’ll ever shake it.”

“You’re in bad shape,” she said. “You might feel different when this is all behind us.”

“Is the governor still around?” Joe asked.

“He’s somewhere in town,” she said.

“Did my horse survive?”

“Your horse?”

“I let him go.”

The director shrugged and shook her head. She didn’t know anything about Toby.

Joe grunted and climbed into the van and slid the door shut behind him.

“Mike,” Joe said to the sheriff, “can I borrow your phone? I need to call my wife.”

Sheriff Reed handed his phone over.

As the van cleared the campground, spewing a roll of dust, Joe looked through the back window. Lisa Greene-Dempsey was saying something to Underwood, shaking her head while she did, and still clutching his badge.

Behind them, massive columns of yellow smoke rolled into the sky from the mountains.

“Thank you for what you did back there,” Butch Roberson said.

Joe nodded.

“Ask Marybeth to tell Pam and Hannah I’m all right, okay?”

Joe and Roberson exchanged a long look of understanding.

“I will,” Joe said.

—

AFTER HE’D TOLD MARYBETH he was safe but injured and he might be in the hospital for a few days, and she expressed relief, she said, “Something really odd happened this morning. Did you get my message?”

“No, what happened?”

“Pam asked to use the computer so she could check her email, and I pointed her to it. I’d left it on from last night when I called you. But when she sat down at it, her face turned white as a sheet. The EPA site was still up on the screen with Batista’s photo and bio . . .”

Joe felt something flutter in his stomach.

“. . . and Pam pointed to the photo of him and said, ‘What is this asshole doing here? And why are they calling him Juan Julio Batista?’”

“Let me guess,” Joe said. “She knew him as John Pate.”

“And that’s where things start to connect.”

Joe noticed that as he spoke the name, Butch’s head had snapped up sharply.

35

WITH NATE ROMANOWSKI IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF the pickup, Joe turned from the interstate onto the state highway that led to the burning mountains. Joe wasn’t wearing his uniform anymore, which made him feel incomplete. Seven red shirts were in a pile in the corner of the bedroom, where he’d thrown them as if they were radioactive. Spare badges, name tags, his weapon and gear belt, and a dog-eared laminate of the Miranda warning had been tossed on top of the pile.

Joe glanced down. His personal Remington shotgun was muzzle-down on the bench seat between them. He’d loaded it with double-ought buckshot.

—

NATE WAS TALL AND ANGULAR, with piercing blue eyes and a hatchet nose, and a short blond ponytail since he’d grown his hair back from a year before. The leather strap of the shoulder holster that held his .500 Wyoming Express handgun stretched across a white T-shirt beneath his open pearl-button cowboy shirt.

As they climbed, Joe hit his headlights. Smoke was still heavy in the air, and he hadn’t seen the sun or blue sky for a week. It was as if someone had placed a lid over the valley to keep it from boiling over.

There were no living trees on either side of the road, just skeletons with crooked black limbs. The ground was scorched and there were places where it still smoked. The air was bitter and sharp, and Joe’s lungs ached from breathing it in.

“This reminds me of black-and-white footage from World War One,” Nate said. “It looks like a moonscape.”

Joe grunted.

“How big is the fire now?”

“Last I heard, it stretches a hundred miles to the north and sixty miles to the south. It moves about twenty to twenty-five miles a day depending on the wind.”