Cold Wind

9

Laurie Talich slowed and pulled off the two-track into knee-high sagebrush and turned off the GPS unit that had guided her there. It was nearly noon and heat waves shimmered across the plains. In the distance, the Bighorn Mountains framed the horizon.

“It’s an interesting view in that you can’t even tell from here there’s a canyon between here and those mountains,” she said to Johnny and Drennen. “But there is. From what I understand, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to hide in the caves down there.”

“I heard of them,” Drennen said.

“I saw the movie,” Johnny added.

Before they got to the canyon rim, she stopped the pickup to show them how to fire the rocket launcher. Her adviser had carefully gone through the procedure and made her repeat it back. She was not well versed in firearms of this size, but was shocked how simple it all sounded. So simple, she thought, even Johnny and Drennen couldn’t foul it up.

She climbed into the bed of the pickup and opened the lid of the crate. The boys watched her carefully, looking mainly at her butt, until she unveiled the weapon. Then they switched their interest to that. There was no disguising their visceral fascination with the rocket launcher.

She held it up and brushed clinging packing peanuts from the AT4. She was shocked how light it was. She’d anticipated something much heavier.

She showed them where to remove the safety pin so the sights would pop up automatically. She handed it over to them so they could hoist it on their shoulders and aim through the sights. They were like boys with their first air rifle, and they took to it instantly. Drennen stepped back and aimed it at Johnny and said, “Ka-pow. Die, rag-head, die.”

Johnny wrenched it away while she looked on in horror, but it didn’t go off. Johnny said, “Knock that off, you dimwit,” to Drennen. “And don’t call me no rag-head.” Drennen grinned and shrugged.

She showed them the two remaining safety steps, the repositioning of the cocking lever, then where a thumb could press the red firing button. Her adviser had told her she needed to press on the second safety while aiming. Then when she had the shot, hit the button. She repeated the procedure to them, and watched-again in horror-as Johnny armed the weapon and squinted down the sights toward a tree in the distance. Then he carefully uncocked it and waited for additional instructions.

“Make sure you know what’s behind you,” she said. “There’s back-blast.”

Drennen pouted, “So Johnny gets to shoot it, huh?”

“Yes, fool,” Johnny said.

“We’re still splitting the money,” Drennen said to Johnny. Johnny agreed.

“What if I miss?” Johnny asked her.

She shook her head. “You’ve got only one chance. This is a oneshot weapon, and after it goes off, that’s it. Just remember to bring the tube thing back to me. Don’t throw it aside because it’ll have our prints all over it.”

There was a faint footpath through the brush from where they parked to the rim of the canyon. She pointed it out and told them they were to take it. While they cracked the tops off more bottles of beer and watched and listened intently, she showed them the drawing she’d been given. She smoothed it across the hood.

“This is where the opening of the cave is,” she said, pointing to an oval marked with an X. “There’s a place with some cover on the trail down where you can see the cave entrance, if you know where to look for it. That’s where you hide and aim. But like I told you on the way here, don’t just blast away. Make sure you actually see him. Make sure he’s there.”

“How far is the cave from this hiding place?” Drennen asked.

She paused and tried to recall what her adviser had told her. “Five hundred feet. So it’s not that far.”

“What’s he look like?” Johnny said.

“I’ve never seen him, but he’s tall with long hair. He’s a big guy. But it’s not like there are going to be other people down there in that canyon.”

“And we have to actually see him, right?”

“That’s why I gave you the binoculars,” she said. “We have to confirm he’s there. Don’t just shoot at the cave and hope you catch him inside.”

“And if he ain’t there?” Drennen asked.

“Come back after a few hours. We’ll have to try again later.”

“No one said anything about a later,” Drennen said.

“I’m only paying you if the job is done,” she said. “That was our deal.”

Drennen sighed theatrically. “He better be there, then.”

“That’s what I was told.”

“Who told you?” Johnny asked. “Who else knows about this?”

She shook her head. “Someone who knows the situation, and who knows Nate Romanowski.”

Johnny grimaced, but seemed to accept it.

“There’s something very important you need to know,” she said, looking from Johnny to Drennen and back again, making sure she had their full attention. “You’ve got to make the shot count. If you miss or screw up, we’re all in deep shit.”

Drennen sat back against the passenger door, shaking his head. “What are you talking about?”

“This guy we’re after,” she said. “He’s got a reputation. Have you ever heard the line, ‘When you strike at a king, you must kill him’? Some guy named Emerson said that.”

“Who the fuck is Emerson?” Drennen asked. “Is he somebody big?”

“Never mind,” she said, sorry she’d repeated the line from her adviser since she didn’t have a clue, either. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t miss. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

They each took another beer with them and stuffed another in the back pockets of their Wranglers. She climbed back into the pickup cab. Her knitting bag was behind the seat and she pulled it out. She’d taken to storing her knitting needles in the shafts of her tall cowboy boots, and she drew them out. She was a piss-poor knitter, but she was nervous and needed something to do with her hands. Since she’d taken up the craft, all she’d managed to complete was a piece that was twelve inches wide and fifteen feet long. It had no purpose. It was the longest scarf in the world, she thought, and she didn’t know how to end it.

She watched them walk down the path with the rocket launcher, trading it back and forth to get the feel of it. She’d made them repeat the firing procedure back to her before they left and they seemed to recall it. Men were intuitive when it came to weapons, she thought. Maybe it was the only thing they were intuitive about. She recalled how Chase was with his handguns, like they were an extension of him. She got edgy even looking at one, and rarely handled the.38 she kept hidden away in her knitting bag.

She had given them the drawing so they wouldn’t fire at the wrong place.

Johnny and Drennen were in view for five minutes before they found the trail that would lead them down into the canyon. She’d been assured that it wouldn’t be booby-trapped on the top half of the trail, so she didn’t even mention it to them.

When they were out of sight, she knitted furiously, waiting for the explosion.

She was looking forward to feeling cleansed.