Nowhere to Run (29 page)

“Maybe you didn’t meet them in the best circumstances,” Nate said.

Joe shrugged. “Diane is a puzzle. I don’t see how those guys could have taken her up into the mountains if she didn’t want to go. She didn’t seem to fear them nearly as much as she regretted letting them down by taking me in. Are you thinking she’s the key to all of this?”

Nate sat back and sighed. “No. I can’t figure out how she fits. Or why, of all the places on earth, she’d end up there.”

Joe grunted.

Nate said, “Well, she
had
to know people were looking for her a couple of years ago, right? So even if those Grim Brothers grabbed her and kept her captive at the time, from what you said she was moving around of her own free will. If nothing else, she could just up and
outrun
those knuckleheads.”

“If it was even her,” Joe said wearily.

“And if it isn’t,” Nate asked, “then who is it?”

“Don’t know.”

“If it isn’t, how are you going to tell Mrs. Shober?”

Joe cringed.

After a few more miles, Joe said, “Nate, I want to thank you for coming along. I couldn’t do it without you.”

Nate said, “We haven’t done anything yet except rent some horses.”

Joe didn’t say anything.

“This thing spooked you, didn’t it?”

No response.

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Nate said. “You got your butt kicked over and over. These guys ran circles around you up there and took everything you had, including your confidence. I can tell. You don’t want to go up there for revenge as much as to see if you can get your courage back, isn’t that it?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Joe said, swerving to avoid hitting a jackrabbit that darted out onto the blacktop. There were so many dead, flat rabbits on this stretch of road that the asphalt looked cottony in places, as if the rabbits had been violently hurled down to the pavement from the sky in a fit of pique.

“Like I said, they kicked your butt up one side of the mountain and down the other,” Nate said.

“You’re really irritating sometimes,” Joe mumbled.

“But what I can’t figure out is why they didn’t finish the job,” Nate said, looking over and locking his eyes on the side of Joe’s face. “They had you down from that shotgun blast, but they didn’t follow up. Guys like that, who hunt for a living, would know to find you in the grass and cut your throat or put one or two into your head. Why didn’t they do that?”

Joe shrugged. “I’ve been wondering that since I woke up in the hospital.”

Said Nate, “I guess maybe Camish was worried about Caleb since you shot him, or they were both tending to ‘Terri Wade’ or Diane Shober or whoever the hell she is. But it doesn’t jibe. They should have hunted you down and finished the job. Then they should have burned your body and buried the remains so deep no one would ever find you. That’s what
I
would have done.”

Joe said, “Not that you have experience in that sort of thing.”

“I do, though.”

“Nate, I was being sarcastic.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” Nate said. “Back to my point. Why didn’t they finish you off?”

Joe looked over. “I have no idea.”

“Maybe they aren’t as bad as you think?” Nate said.

“Not a chance,” Joe said. “They’re
worse
. They’ve got a woman up there against her will. And who knows what else we’ll find?”

Nate rubbed his chin. “Maybe we’ll find that lady wants to stay.”

“No way,” Joe said again.

“Another thing,” Nate said. “They called you a government man. I find that interesting. Not a game warden or a fish cop or whatever. But a
government man
.”

Joe said, “I’ve been called everything else, but I’ve never been called that before.”

“But that’s what you are.”

“I guess I never thought of myself that way,” Joe said. “I’m surprised they used that choice of words.”

Nate smiled slyly. “That says something about their worldview, doesn’t it?”

Before Joe could answer, his phone rang again. He expected a 777 number but saw on the display it was from MBP Management. Joe opened the phone, said, “Yes?”

She said, “Has the governor found you yet?”

“No.”

“He called here a few minutes ago. When I told him you weren’t here, he didn’t sound very happy.”

“I can imagine,” Joe said.

“He said he’s been trying to reach you all day.”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“When he asked me where you were, I couldn’t lie to him,” Marybeth said. “I mean, he’s your boss. And he is the governor.”

Joe considered telling her it was better to apologize, but thought better of it and said, “I understand.”

“He asked what you were driving and which route you were taking.”

Joe frowned. “He did?”

“That’s not all,” she said. “He told me this thing is blowing up all of a sudden and he needed to find you. Then he hung up. You know how he is.”

The cutoff toward Rawlins was ahead, and Joe tapped the brake to release the cruise control so he could swing into the turn. “Yup,” Joe said, “I know how he is.”

He closed his phone and dropped it to the seat. They topped a rise before dropping down into Rawlins. When they crested the hill, Joe saw the blue and red wigwag lights, the phalanx of state trooper vehicles, and the long row of eighteen-wheelers directly ahead, all waiting to pass through the roadblock.

“Oh, no,” Nate said, sitting up straight.

Joe looked over and saw his friend strip off his shoulder holster and cram it beneath the bench seat like a high-schooler hiding his open container.

“I’m not going back to Cheyenne,” Nate said softly.

Joe considered braking and turning around, but he was on a one-way exit and the ditches on either side of the road were too steep for him to pull the horse trailer through without high-centering the rig.

“I’ve got to keep going,” Joe said, “unless you have any ideas.”

“You could let me out here,” Nate said. “Let me run for it.”

Joe looked ahead. He counted four highway patrol cars and a Carbon County sheriff SUV.

“They’ll run you down in two minutes,” Joe said.

“Not if I take them out,” Nate said. Joe knew the .454 rounds were capable of penetrating the engine block of a vehicle, and he’d seen Nate do exactly that.

“If you take them out, we’re both going to prison,” Joe said, easing on his brakes so he wouldn’t rear-end a Walmart eighteen-wheeler. At that moment, both of his side mirrors filled up with the grinning chrome grille of another semitruck.

“We’re hemmed in,” Joe said.

Ahead of them, uniformed troopers walked along the shoulder of the road from car to car.

Nate sat back, his eyes glassy. He read aloud the words painted on the back of the rig ahead of them.

He sneered,
“Always Low Prices. Always
.
”

TWO STATE TROOPERS APPROACHED JOE’S PICKUP, ONE ON each side of the road. The trooper on the left was tall and stoop-shouldered and had a brushy mustache and hangdog jowls. The trooper on the right was short and wide and his hard, round belly strained at the buttons on his uniform shirt. When he looked up and saw Joe, his eyes narrowed and he put his right hand on the grip of his weapon. Joe couldn’t hear him speak to the other trooper, but he read his lips:
It’s him.

The tall trooper put his hand on his gun as well, and as they walked up Joe lowered the driver’s and passenger-side windows.

“You Joe Pickett?” the tall trooper asked. His name badge read BOB GARRARD.

“Yes, sir.”

The other trooper couldn’t take his eyes off Nate, looking at him with practiced and wary cop eyes that came from approaching hundreds of pulled-over vehicles on the highway. He stayed a few feet away from the vehicle so, if necessary, he could draw cleanly and fire.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Nate said to him. Even though his gun was under the seat, Nate sounded as deadly as he looked, Joe thought.

“Governor Rulon is looking for you,” Garrard said to Joe. “Our orders are to take you to him.”

“To Cheyenne?” Joe said. “That’s three hours away.”

“What, are you on a schedule?” Garrard asked, with a hint of a sneer.

“Sort of,” Joe said.

“Naw, not to Cheyenne,” the trooper said. “He’s at the airport. He flew in about an hour ago and he’s waiting for you.”

Garrard looked in the back of Joe’s pickup. “What’s in the box?”

“My dad,” Joe said. “I don’t know where to spread his ashes.”

Garrard did a double take. “So you’re just driving him around the state? Like taking him on a vacation?”

Joe nodded.

The squat trooper on the other side of the truck said to Nate, “We were supposed to be looking for one guy. Pickett. Who might you be? Do you have some ID on you?”

“No.” Nate’s voice was soft but firm. Joe knew it was the way he spoke just before he tore someone’s ear off.

Joe said with false but distracting cheer, “Lead the way, men, and I’ll follow. The governor’s waiting, remember?”

He was grateful that both troopers decided to drop their line of inquiry and depart with both ears attached.

 

TWO HIGHWAY PATROL CARS led the way to the small airport, and another trooper car followed Joe’s truck and horse trailer. The patrolmen kept their wigwag lights flashing, and citizens on the road pulled to the side to let the caravan pass.

“This is ridiculous,” Nate grumbled. “I didn’t realize he had his own private police force.”

“Well,” Joe said, “he does.”

Harvey Field had several prop Cessna aircraft belonging to France Flying Service. A small Cessna jet was parked on the runway near a cinderblock building that served as the private terminal. On the tail of the airplane was a Wyoming bucking horse silhouette.

“There’s Rulon One,” Joe said. “He’s here, all right.”

 

RULON WAS A BIG MAN, with a round face and silver-flecked brown hair that always looked barely combed. He had a ruddy complexion that could quickly turn fire-engine red, and the movements of his arms and hands were dartlike. He stood at the head of a small table in the conference room of the terminal wearing an open-collared shirt and a dark blue windbreaker with the name GOV SPENCE embroidered over the breast. Jeans and lizard-skin cowboy boots completed the picture. Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI sat slumped at the table to Rulon’s right and the governor’s new chief of staff, a trim retired military man named Carson, sat at Rulon’s left. Both looked uncomfortable.

“You,” Rulon said, pointing at Joe, “need to answer your damned phone.”

“I get that,” Joe said, looking from the governor to Coon, who recognized Nate with palpable alarm.

“And look who’s with him,” Coon said. “The infamous Nate Romanowski.”

Nate kept quiet.

“None of that here,” Rulon said to Coon.

“But he’s a fugitive,” Coon said to Rulon. “For crying out loud, I can’t just look the other way.”

“Yes, you can, for now,” Rulon said. “Or I’ll have
you
arrested. Don’t forget, I’ve got my troopers outside.”

“On what charge?” Coon said.

Rulon shrugged. “I don’t know. Interfering with the governor, maybe.”

“That’s not a law,” Coon said, a little unsure of himself.

“Sure it is,” Rulon said. “Right, Carson? And if it isn’t a law, it should be. Write that down, Carson. We need a new law next session about gubernatorial interference.”

Carson blanched and looked away.

“Anyway,” Rulon said, slapping the top of the table, “that’s not why we’re here.”

Joe said, “Why are we here?”

Rulon paused and his face reddened. Joe awaited an explosion, but Rulon pointed his finger at Coon and said, “Because the feds are dumping murderous miscreants into my state and not telling me about it.”

“It’s not like that,” Coon said heatedly.

Joe shook his head, confused.

“Got a minute?” Rulon said to him, then answered his own question: “Why, of
course
you do. Have a seat, both of you.”

 

“JOE,” GOVERNOR RULON SAID, “I’m not one to believe in government conspiracies, and the longer I’m in the government the more I’m convinced they cannot exist. Do you know why?”

Joe knew that just as before, Rulon wasn’t really asking him, so he said nothing.

Said Rulon, “It’s because government, by nature, is damned sloppy and incompetent. And the bigger it gets, the worse it becomes in those subject areas. There’s just too many people involved with too many agendas for a secret—any secret—to be kept very long. Someone always leaks, or gets drunk and brags, or tries to impress someone else by telling what they know. That’s why I don’t do secrets. Not because I wouldn’t like to, right, Carson?”

Carson didn’t answer, either.

Rulon continued, “It’s because secrets can’t be kept. I’m not being noble. Secrets just won’t work in government, and they shouldn’t. And when you get to the federal level,” again, he pointed at Coon, “it gets even harder. There are hundreds of thousands of employees with hundreds of thousands of partisan and personal agendas. The only conspiracy that exists is the conspiracy of incompetence.”

Rulon paused, pleased with his phrasing. He said, “Conspiracy of incompetence—I like that. Write that down, Carson. I can use it in a speech.”

This time, Carson dutifully wrote it down on a yellow legal pad, obviously grateful for something to do.

“So,” Rulon said, “conspiracies don’t exist in government for long. But a couple of things are timeless, especially in Washington: greed and corruption. Especially with the very long-term political class. And by that, I mean certain senators and congressmen of both political parties, the ones who’ve been there so long they’ve forgotten what it’s like back here in the real world. It gets to the point where it’s all about
them
. These are the power brokers, the old lions who traffic in influence, favors, and pork. The ones surrounded by staff and sycophants telling them day after day how great and powerful and eloquent and statesmanlike they are.”