“Big,” Nate said.

“And getting bigger.”

The local news was dominated by fire reports and stories of cabins and ranches being burned down, communities evacuated, smoke jumpers killed or injured. People wore masks when they went outside, and public health authorities cautioned young parents to keep their children indoors. Most of the residents of the Saddlestring retirement home had been flown to other locations where they could breathe.

“Where did you say we were headed?” Nate asked.

“A subdivision called Aspen Highlands.”

“I hate cutesy names like that.”

—

NATE HAD SIMPLY shown up on their doorstep three nights before. He’d been sitting on the porch reading a book when Marybeth drove Joe home from the hospital after they’d treated and released him for all of his injuries. Joe had been injured many times before without three days of hospital care, and cynically figured he’d been stuck there to give affidavits and statements regarding Butch Roberson rather than for the severity of his wounds. Dave Farkus was in the next room and he was recovering well. Joe had overheard Farkus telling an attractive nurse how he’d escaped death by bullet, fire, and a whitewater river. How he planned to sell his story to Hollywood.

When Nate saw them drive up, he raised his head and smiled a goofy smile, for Nate.

Marybeth braked a little too hard for Joe and flew out of the van to hug the falconer. She didn’t even close her door.

Joe limped around the van and shut it, and turned to Nate and Marybeth. It was good to see Nate again, he thought.

Nate gestured toward the burning mountains and said, “Sorry. It looks like I’m too late.”

Nate said to Marybeth, “I leave for a year and look what happens. Your husband burns the entire place to the ground.”

“Actually,” Joe said, “you’re right on time.”

“You’ve got something for me to do?”

“Yup.”

“Now?”

“Give me a couple of days to sort it out,” Joe said.

Nate nodded. “Good. I hear Sheridan has a kestrel. I’d like to see it.”

Marybeth clapped her hands girlishly and said, “I know she’d love to show it to you, Nate.”

—

JOE HAD TO SLOW DOWN the pickup as a yellow roll of smoke blew across the road. As he peered into the gloom, he couldn’t see actual flames anywhere and he wondered what there was left to burn.

Nate said, “In the long run, the fire will be a good thing. New growth, aspen, all that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joe said. “Like I haven’t heard that a thousand times in the last week.”

“You’re getting grumpy,” Nate said.

“I keep thinking about Butch. How he could be me.”

“Stop thinking so much.”

“I’ve missed that kind of brilliant advice. Wait, no, I haven’t,” Joe said with an edge.

“So what’s this guy’s name we’re going to visit?”

“Harry Blevins,” Joe said. “Harry S. Blevins.”

“And you learned about him how?”

“Matt Donnell, the real estate mogul,” Joe said. “When he came by the house to tell Marybeth he’d sold the hotel, I asked Matt to use his contacts at the county records department to do a title search. He’s the one who came up with Blevins.”

“Ah.”

Donnell had been practically bursting with the good news. He’d learned that the Bureau of Land Management was in the midst of a search for more space in the county because they’d outgrown their old building. Donnell had swooped in and offered the Saddlestring Hotel lot, and the supervisor in charge liked the location—right in the middle of town.

He’d get all his money back, Matt told Marybeth. There would be no profit and what he’d spent on repairs was lost, but the bulk of the investment would be returned. Joe had expected Marybeth to be pleased with the news, but she wasn’t.

“They’ll tear it down, won’t they?” she had asked Donnell.

“Most certainly,” he said, nodding.

“So they can throw up a perfect new nothingburger government office building,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you see the irony in this, Matt?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “But I’m not in the business of irony. I’m in the real estate business.”

“It’s a good place for you,” Marybeth said to him, doing a shoulder roll and climbing the stairs toward their bedroom.

“I thought she’d be happy,” Donnell said to Joe. He was obviously distressed.

Joe said, “Give her some time.”

“It wasn’t easy, convincing the BLM to buy that lot. What I’m saying is it cost me a little money, if you know what I mean.”

Joe understood.

That’s when he asked Donnell to do the title check.

—

“SO YOU’RE UNEMPLOYED,” Nate said as they drove up Hazelton Road.

“Yup.”

“When do you have to move out of your house?”

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Joe said. “I think they’ll give me to the end of the month at least. The new director wants to spin it so it doesn’t look like I quit. The wheels of government turn pretty slow, you know.”

“Except when they don’t,” Nate said, and grinned. “So what are you going to do?”

Joe shrugged. “Something different. Something honest. I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m figuring it out, Nate. Governor Rulon has called my cell phone twice in the last couple of days. He says he wants to offer me a job.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you haven’t called him back?”

“Not yet.”

Nate nodded and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then: “Since I’ve been gone, I’ve come up with a few projects of my own. It’s worked out pretty well. I’m in demand. Do you want to hear about it and maybe partner up?”

Joe looked over and squinted. “I don’t know. Do I?”

Nate smiled wolfishly. “It depends if you’ve completely shucked that Dudley Do-Right thing of yours.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then this is a subject best left for another time,” Nate said.

Joe was curious but not curious enough to ask. There was something disconcerting about Nate, he thought. Nate seemed too jolly, too devil-may-care, where in the past he’d been intense yet honorable in his way. Joe chalked it up to the terrible things that had happened to Nate in the past year, and understood how those tragedies could affect a man.

Still . . .

—

COUNTY ATTORNEY DULCIE SCHALK had come to their house two days before and had told Joe and Marybeth the governor was on a rampage against Batista.

It turned out rancher Frank Zeller had noticed an extra horse grazing in his pasture several days before that turned out to be Toby. Zeller had retrieved the digital recorder and delivered it in person to Rulon, who’d listened to it.

Although Dulcie said she didn’t know any of the details, Julio Batista had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation of his actions—not the least of which was the unauthorized use of a Hellfire missile. The governor wanted Batista arrested and was making the case for it to anyone who would listen, including Dulcie.

Dulcie said she was pursuing charges against Juan Julio Batista for the murder of Jimmy Sollis. So far, the federal agencies were refusing to turn over the audio and video footage of the drone strike, but Dulcie was tenacious, and she was certain she’d receive it in the weeks ahead. When she did, she said, she’d file the papers to have Batista extradited to Twelve Sleep County.

Joe said, “The murder of Jimmy Sollis? That’s it? He’ll claim fog-of-war stuff. If you’re lucky, you’ll get him on manslaughter.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Dulcie said, defensive.

“There’s more,” Joe said, and waited for Marybeth to hand Dulcie the file she’d put together.

“And maybe,” Joe said, “we can get him to deliver himself.”

—

JOE HAD VISITED Butch Roberson in the county lockup the day before. Roberson wore an orange jumpsuit with TSCDC—Twelve Sleep County Detention Center—stenciled across his back and over a breast pocket. He was shaved and cleaned up, although his arms were covered with bandages from his wounds. He looked smaller through the thick glass of the visiting booth, Joe thought.