Killer Summer

6

Cantell heard the insectlike buzzing of the two ATVs approaching the rendezvous. He’d parked the Yukon, engine running, on Deer Creek Road at the intersection with Harp Creek. Their reckless speed, along with the fact that they’d been told to keep a low profile, told Cantell all he needed to know.

Roger McGuiness and Matt Salvo drove the ATVs straight into a thicket of golden willow along the creek and disappeared. They ran out on foot a moment later, frantic and panicked.

The two piled hurriedly into the vehicle. McGuiness shouted “Go!” too loudly for the confines of the truck’s interior.

Salvo climbed into the front passenger’s seat and dragged a sleeve across his face, mopping off the sweat and dirt. “Cops!” he said.

“Sheriff ’s Office,” Roger McGuiness clarified. An Irishman of unpredictable temper, McGuiness was a hell of a wheelman. Cantell wished he were driving.

“Did we-?”

“No,” Matt Salvo cut him off, “we lost the case.” A wiry man of thirty, Salvo could bench-press two-eighty, run a 4.6 forty, and contort himself into ungodly positions. He was their spider, capable of free-climbing anything. “The shit had it handcuffed to the seat frame.”

“Resourceful,” Cantell said, keeping his disappointment in check.

A vehicle approached in the distance. Cantell slowed the Yukon.

“Get down,” he instructed. “Matt, into the far back. Roger, between the seats. Use the blankets.”

Salvo scrambled into the back.

Cantell pulled the Yukon over. He was climbing out when McGuiness spoke up.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“My part. Stay put.”

He closed the car door, rounded the back of the Yukon, unzipped his fly, and spread his legs. He urinated into the scrub.

It was a Blaine County Sheriff ’s cruiser. It pulled alongside the Yukon just as Cantell zipped up. “Help you?” Cantell called out to the young deputy, who was just rolling down his window.

“Looking for a pair of ATVs. We got a complaint.”

I’ll bet you did, Cantell thought. He made a point of keeping his back to the deputy, not allowing him to see anything more than his profile, no face to remember.

“News to me. This is the road to the dump, right?”

“No, sir, that’s Ohio Gulch you want. To the left as you enter the highway heading north. It’s up the road, then head east.”

“East?” Cantell said. “Wouldn’t you know!”

“Be safe,” the deputy said. He rolled up his window and took off.

If trained well-and he had no reason to believe otherwise-the deputy had made note of the Yukon’s license plate. That meant Salvo would have to steal some plates or they’d have to dump the Yukon, rent another or do without.

And so the challenges began. But rather than resent them, he savored the chance to prove himself.

He climbed back behind the wheel.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

“Are you telling me you just stood out there taking a piss with your back to a cop?” Salvo called out from the back.

Cantell said nothing, angling the mirror so he could see himself.

“What now?” Salvo asked. He talked too much. “We got some kind of backup plan? We’re going to get the case, right?”

“We’ll see.”

Only Cantell knew the full plan. He returned the mirror to its center position, and drove on.