Endangered

30

The engine of Bull’s pickup coughed, then raced, then coughed again. Joe glanced down and saw that the needle of the gas gauge was past the E, and he hoped he had enough fuel in the tank to get into the Cates compound.

He was surprised how dark it was now that the sun had finally dropped behind the mountains. There was still enough cloud cover to blot out most of the stars, and the only sign of life he could see ahead of him was a single porch light at the main house.

Where was everybody?

The motor shuddered and quit and the power steering went down and made the steering wheel taut. Joe pushed the transmission lever into neutral and coasted the last forty feet into the compound.

“That’s it, Daisy,” he said aloud.

As he reached down to kill the headlamps, he glimpsed movement on the far side of the compound in the vicinity of the outbuildings. Joe squinted to see better, but whoever it was had moved beyond the reach of the lights.

He started to get out with his shotgun but thought: Bull was a poacher. Poachers have spotlights. The grip for Bull’s roof-mounted spotlight was overhead and Joe grasped it and thumbed it on.

There, shielding her eyes against the powerful beam, was Olivia Brannan. She was dirty and bloody and standing to the side of the C&C Sewer and Septic Tank Service pump truck he’d seen moving across the yard from the sagebrush bench.

Joe closed his eyes for a second and breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive after all.

But she looked terrified.

—

“LIV BRANNAN,” he called out while standing on the running board with the driver’s-side door open, “it’s Joe Pickett.”

At the mention of his name, she froze for a second, then covered her face with her hands and dropped to her knees.

He could hear her sobbing as he ran though the snow toward her with his shotgun ready and Daisy on his heels. When she looked up, he was grateful they were tears of joy.

“What happened here?”

She hugged herself and said, “They kept me in that hole back there after they shot Nate. I just now got out. Just now.”

He kneeled down in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel her tremble. When she spoke, she was half crying and half smiling.

“It was the Cates family,” she said. “They kept me down there since it happened. They’d lower food down to me in a bucket, but they didn’t know what to do with me so they decided to murder me.”

Joe rotated on his heels and looked around. “Where are they now?” he asked, suddenly aware of how vulnerable the both of them were since they were bathed in light from the spotlight.

“Luckily, I made Brenda fall into the hole and I’m pretty sure she broke her neck. I hit Eldon on the head with a thirty-pound rock. They’re both still down there,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. “Eldon’s probably dead by now. I hope Brenda is alive a while longer. She needs to know what it feels like to be kept prisoner in a damned hole in the ground.”

“Liv, you have to be kidding me, right?” Joe asked. “They’re both in that root cellar?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re okay?”

“I think I can say I am,” she said, closing her eyes and squeezing two more tears out. “I’m probably going to be half crazy, though.”

Joe stood and walked around her to the open cellar doors. The pump truck was backed up to it so that the discharge valve was poised over the opening.

Liv said, “They were gonna pour raw sewage in that hole and drown me. Then they were going to fill it up. That was going to be my grave. They were all ready to do it when I yanked on the dinner bucket rope and pulled Brenda in on top of me. That’s how she broke her neck. When Eldon came down to check on her, I brained him.”

Joe paused and looked back at Liv. She was rattled enough that she could be saying just about anything.

But when he shined his flashlight into the root cellar, he saw that she was telling the truth. Eldon lay on top of Brenda, apparently pinning her down. Their bodies were in the shape of an X. Eldon’s entire head was black with blood.

“I was going to open that valve,” Liv said from behind him. “I was going to smother them with everything they have in that truck, but then you showed up.”

“Glad I did,” Joe said.

“We could still do it.”

“Let’s not.”

“Whatever you do, don’t go down there,” she said. “They may look harmless, but those are two of the most dangerous psychotics you’ll ever run across, especially Brenda. Just leave them where they are.”

Joe said, “What you did . . . you are one tough lady.”

“I am,” she said.

Joe said, “The sheriff is on his way. I’m sure he’ll call the EMTs. Those two may be rotten, but we don’t just leave people in a hole.”

“That’s what they did to me,” Liv said. Then: “What day is it?”

Joe had to think about it. “Monday, March Twenty-fourth.”

“I was down there for six days,” Liv said. “This was going to be my last night on earth.”

Joe shook his head. It was a lot to take in.

She raised her hands to the sides of her face in alarm. “They’re not all dead, though. Bull is out there somewhere and he should be back any minute for dinner. He never misses dinner. I thought when I saw your truck out there, it was him.”

“You don’t have to worry about him,” Joe said. “He’s going to miss dinner tonight.”

“Good,” she said. She didn’t ask any more.

“What about Cora Lee?” Joe asked.

“Cora Lee is gone. She took off for good.”

“And Dallas?”

“Dallas is out riding a snowmobile somewhere.”

“Now?”

“That’s what Brenda said.”

Joe shouldered his shotgun and turned toward the mountains. He searched the far-off black timber for a single headlamp that would indicate Dallas coming home.

“They killed Nate,” Liv said softly.

“You mean they shot him,” Joe said. “Nate’s alive.”

“He is?” Liv said, getting to her feet. “My God. I had no idea. Where is he now?”

“It’s not all good news,” Joe said, telling her about Nate’s condition in the hospital in Billings.

“I tried to see him when we went to visit April,” Joe said.

Liv nodded. Her face was suddenly troubled and she closed the gap between them. “It was Dallas who hurt your daughter. Brenda told me.”

Joe remained still.

“She said Dallas did something to your daughter, so they had to protect him. She said Eldon and Bull pulled his shoulder out of the socket and beat him up so he’d look more injured than he was. And they lured Nate and me up here so they could take Nate out before he could help you find the asshole who hurt April.”

Joe was tight-lipped when he asked, “Did she say what Dallas did to April?”

“No. But I’m guessing you already know.”

Joe said, “I do,” but he could barely hear himself over the roaring in his ears.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said. “I’m sorry for you and I’m sorry for Nate and I’m sorry for me.”

Then she pointed toward the root cellar. “I’m not sorry for them. That’s one toxic white trash family that’s better off dead. Let’s open the valve.”

For a second, Joe considered doing it. But when he looked over her shoulder and saw a long stream of vehicles coming from the direction of Saddlestring, he said, “You stay right here. Don’t open the valve. Just tell the sheriff everything you told me.”

She said, “You’re going after him, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Before you do, tell me what happened to Bull.”

Joe nodded his head in the direction of the F-250. “Bull’s body is in the back of his pickup. He fired on me and I killed him.”

“Is that what happened to your face?”

Joe reached up and touched the bandage. He’d forgotten about his wound. He nodded his head.

“Stay right here, Liv.”

He turned on his heel and strode toward Eldon’s equipment shed. He remembered seeing the trailer with two snowmobiles. He heard Liv behind him. She was standing over the opening of the root cellar, shouting down into it.

“Did you hear that, Brenda? Eldon’s brains are bashed out. Bull’s deader than hell. And your precious Dallas is next.”

Joe paused and looked over his shoulder to make sure Liv wasn’t trying to unscrew the valve. She wasn’t. She was bending over the opening with her hands on her hips.

“Look up at me, Brenda. I want to see your eyes. I want you to see that I’m up here and you’re down there and I’m ferocious. Ferocious!

“Oh, and your pork chops weren’t really that good. Neither was the fried chicken. My mama can run circles around you in the kitchen, and so would I.”

Joe thought, Pork chops? Fried chicken?

But there was no doubt in his mind that Liv was ferocious.

—

IT WAS THE SECOND TIME in recent memory that he’d found himself roaring through a winter forest on a borrowed snowmobile. This time, though, he was barely in control of his anger.

Dallas was easy to follow. There was only one snowmobile track that left the compound, crossing the sagebrush bench toward the mountains, and Joe rode right on top of it. He’d strapped the shotgun across the cowl with bungee cords. He’d not even bothered with snowmobile boots or a suit since the temperature was already rising above freezing after the storm passed.

He thought of April in the hospital bed, Dallas grinning at him with his boxlike smile, and Liv Brannan shouting like the devil herself into the hole in the ground.

He’d already killed one Cates brother tonight, and the two monsters who’d conceived him were crumpled on the floor of a root cellar.

—

THE TRACK VEERED as it got within a quarter mile of the timber on the side of the mountain. For whatever reason, Dallas had made a sudden turn. Joe overshot it but was soon back on his trail.

It wasn’t long before Joe saw why Dallas had changed direction.

A five-by-five-point bull elk stood gasping in the snow-covered sagebrush, dual spouts of condensation pulsating out of its nose. The snow around it was churned up and mixed with bits of soil and sagebrush. It didn’t run away even as Joe got within ten feet of it.

There were clumps of grass on the tips of the bull’s antlers, snow on its shoulders and back, and a wild look in its eyes. The bull elk was exhausted and too tired to run away.

Joe slowed down as he passed it, then speeded back up with a twist of the hand throttle.

What had happened was obvious by the tracks in the snow. The storm had likely driven the elk herd down from the forest, onto the flats. Dallas had seen the herd coming down the mountain at dusk. He’d turned toward them and opened his throttle and chased the entire herd for a half mile or so, then closed in on a bull. Like a steer wrestler in a rodeo, he’d leapt from his snowmobile onto the bull and twisted it down by the antlers. He’d bulldogged an elk. The rumors Joe had heard years before were obviously true.

It was an astonishing athletic feat, Joe knew, but it was also foolish and cruel. Elk that survived the winter were weak by spring. Chasing them through snow and wrestling them down could stress them further and likely injure or kill them. Not that Dallas would care . . .

—

JOE FOUND ANOTHER BULL still on its side and breathing hard, a hundred yards into the forest. It must have been quite a battle, Joe observed. Chunks of bark had been sheared off pine trees by antler tips and pine needles carpeted the snow.

The animal had been injured somehow while being taken down, and blood was spritzed across the top of the snow.

—

DALLAS WASN’T DONE, though. The track went farther up the mountain, zigzagging across the churned-up trail of the fleeing elk herd. Joe stayed on it.

An old cow elk lay dead in the path and Joe almost hit her. He turned at the last second, and the left front sled nicked her haunch. She’d likely died from exhaustion, Joe knew. He could tell by her expanded form that she was pregnant with a calf.

Which made him even angrier.

—

THE TREES OPENED INTO a large mountain meadow painted dark blue by the starlight, and there was Dallas Cates, standing over the prone body of another bull elk, his snowmobile idle and rumbling thirty feet to the left of him.

He’d bulldogged another one.

When the beam of Joe’s headlamp lit up Dallas’s face, he was grinning and breathing hard from his latest conquest. There was blood and swatches of tawny elk hair on the front of his snowmobile suit.

He looked up and squinted, and the boxlike smile appeared. He was proud of himself, Joe thought. Look at what I did. Three of ’em!

He wanted to share the moment and be admired by whoever was coming his way on the snowmobile. Probably Eldon or his brother Timber. Dallas held out his hands, palms down, saying Slow down.

As Joe got closer and started to brake, Dallas’s eyes narrowed. He recognized who was on the machine. Dallas’s left hand shot up and unzipped the front of his suit and he reached inside with his right.

Joe caught a silver glimpse of the butt of a pistol. Dallas was trying to draw it out, but it had gotten caught on the inside of the bulky fabric of his snowmobile suit.

Instead of stopping, Joe cranked the right grip to full throttle and sat back and braced himself. The snowmobile surged forward as if kicked from behind.

Before Dallas could pull the gun, or duck to the side or run, the front end of the machine bucked and Joe ran him over. The headlamp exploded on impact and the plastic cowl cracked down the middle. Joe saw Dallas’s arms flail and vanish underneath the machine, and he felt the big bump under the back end of the snowmobile as it passed over him.

Joe lost his grip on the handlebars for a second after the crash, but found them again in time to turn sharply and avoid smacking into a tree at the edge of the meadow. When he got the battered snowmobile looped around, he saw the writhing black smudge in the snow that was Dallas.

Joe cruised back and killed the engine. He dismounted and walked over to Dallas’s snowmobile and shut it off, too.

After the high whine of his machine, the forest seemed silent and still. All he could hear was the ticking of the cooling engines, the labored breathing of the bull elk, and a moan from Dallas. Joe found the .45 semiauto in the snow ten feet from where Dallas lay.

Joe said, “I forgot to say ‘Freeze.’”

Dallas moaned again and rolled painfully onto his side. Joe could tell from the odd angle of Dallas’s left leg that it was broken. Dallas yelped when he drew a breath. Broken ribs again, too.

Joe said, “You shouldn’t have gone for that pistol. Congratulations: you’re my second Cates of the day.”

—

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Joe saw the lights of the Cates compound wink through the trees. Dallas was strapped to the back of the seat, facedown and groaning. Joe had taken Dallas’s machine because the one he’d borrowed was a mess.

He was pleased on the way down to see that the first bull had recovered enough to wander back into the forest to rejoin the herd. Unfortunately, the second and third bulls had died from their injuries and exhaustion.

—

SHERIFF REED met him in the yard when Joe rumbled in and killed the motor. The flashers and lights of twelve law enforcement vehicles lit up the compound.

Reed looked at the writhing body on the back and said, “Dallas?”

“I was going to arrest him, but he pulled this,” Joe said, handing the .45 butt-first to Reed.

Reed took it and said, “We found Bull in the back of his pickup. Not much left of his head, though.”

Joe climbed off the machine. His knees and lower back ached from the ride.

“What happened to your face?” Reed asked.

“Bull shot me. Did you find Liv Brannan?”

Reed nodded. “She’s in my car. Did you know . . .”

“Yup.”

“My God,” Reed said. “Six days. Did Brannan tell you that Dallas was the one who attacked April?”

Before Joe could answer, Reed gestured to Dallas tied onto the back of the machine and said, “Never mind. I can see that she did. I’ll call for another ambulance.”

Joe was puzzled.

“Brenda Cates is still alive. She’s on her way to the clinic in the ambulance. She’ll probably never have the use of her limbs again. I guess she’s just too mean to die.”

“Eldon, too?”

Reed shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”

Joe said, “Mike, I know there’s a lot to sort out here, but I’ve got to get to Billings. Mind if I borrow one of your trucks?”

Reed groaned, and said, “You’re hell on trucks, Joe. But sure. Take Deputy Boner’s.”

“Thank you.”

Reed looked out over the compound and shook his head sadly. “The whole damned family,” he said. “Except one.”