Nowhere to Run

26

The stopover in Rawlins with the governor had cost Joe two hours and a big chunk of his sense of purpose, he thought. Still, he was worried about getting to the trailhead in the Sierra Madre before dark. As he and Nate traveled west via I-80, Joe called Marybeth on his cell phone and filled her in on the meeting that had taken place with the governor. He was keenly aware of Nate’s presence in the passenger seat. Nate sat sullen and still, his eyes fixed on something in the middle distance out the side window. He was no doubt thinking whether or not he even wanted to be on this adventure anymore.

“So do you think the Shobers were withholding information from you?” Marybeth asked.

Joe said, “I’m not sure yet. Each of them might be withholding different things. If they don’t know it was the Cline Brothers up there in the first place, there wasn’t anything for them to come clean about. It’s possible Mr. Shober knows something, but I’m not sure. I think he’s focused solely on finding Diane.”

“But still,” Marybeth said, “the Michigan connection is just too. convenient. There has to be something there.”

“I agree, but what?”

“I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all. But I could do a little research.”

Joe grinned. “I was hoping you would say that.”

Marybeth had assisted in a number of cases over the years. Joe found her a clear-eyed and determined researcher, a bulldog with a laptop. And she wasn’t shy about making calls, either, and at times posing as someone else so she could get answers to questions. Joe was equally proud and a little frightened of her ruthlessness. She got information no one else seemed to be able to find, and she got it quickly. He hoped he never gave her a reason for her to turn her guns on him.

“Will you be able to stay in range?” she asked. “I’ll call you back as soon as I have something.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “There are dead spots ahead, as you know.”

He could hear computer keys clicking in the background.

“Wow-this looks like a target-rich environment,” she said, already distracted.

“What have you found?”

“I’ll call later,” she said, hanging up.

As he slowed down to take Exit 187 off I-80 south toward Baggs, Joe checked to make sure he still had a strong phone signal. He didn’t want to miss Marybeth’s return call.

“Okay,” Nate said after an hour of silence since they’d left Rawlins and the governor, “this new development about the Clines puts a whole new angle on the situation.”

Joe grunted, noncommittal.

Nate said, “From the standpoint of the Cline Brothers, they hunt, they fish, they go back to subsistence level. No doubt they even maintain some contacts with some of their kind around the country. And believe me, there’s more of them than you’d think and the numbers are growing by the week. Have you been into a sporting goods store the last two years? It’s impossible to find ammunition-it’s sold out. Folks are hoarding, getting ready for something bad to happen.”

Joe chose not to respond. He knew it was true. If he didn’t have channels through the department to buy bullets, he wasn’t sure where he would get them. Shelves in retail stores had been picked clean.

Said Nate, “Things are going on out here in the flyover states nobody wants to talk about.”

Joe shook his head. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

Nate said, “Yes, I have. Hanging out in Hole in the Wall gives me plenty of time to think.”

“Maybe you should get out more,” Joe said.

“I don’t even think it was the lack of an license so much,” Nate said, ignoring Joe. “It was your threat about seeing them in court. You were telling them, in effect, that the jig was up. You just didn’t realize what buttons you were pushing.”

“No,” Joe said, “how could I know that?”

Said Nate, “You couldn’t. But you are stubborn.”

“Yup, when it comes to doing my job. Besides, they stole that guy’s elk, too.”

Nate shrugged. “From their point of view, those hunters were in their territory and they didn’t bother to ask permission. It’s all a matter of how you look at it.”

“This is going nowhere,” Joe said. “We can’t have the rule of law if people can choose which laws they want to obey based on their philosophy and point of view.”

“Agreed,” Nate said. “Which is why the big laws ought to be reasonable and fair and neither the people nor the government should breach their trust. But when the government decides to confiscate private property simply because they have the guns and judges on their side, the whole system starts to break down and all bets are off.”

“Do we really want to have this discussion?”

Said Nate, “It might lead us into dark places.”

“Yup.”

“Speaking of dark places, where are you going to spread the ashes?”

“I have no idea,” Joe said. “I hardly knew him. I don’t know of any special places he liked except for barstools.”

“You can’t just drive around with him back there,” Nate said.

“I’ll think of something.”

Nate nodded and changed the subject back.

“One thing, though,” he said, pushing his seat as far back as it would go so he could cock a boot heel on the dashboard, “These boys may be losers, but damn. This is what happens when the government gets too big for its britches. Some folks get pushed out and they get angry.”

“You sound sympathetic to them,” Joe said.

Nate said, “Damned straight.”

“Great,” Joe said.

“I’m sympathetic to outliers among us,” Nate said. “I’m kind of one myself.” Then he paused and looked over at Joe, and said, “Government man.”

Joe said, “Quit calling me that.”

They were rolling down the hard-packed gravel road into the forest, racing a plume of dust that threatened to overtake the cab, when Marybeth called back. Joe snatched his phone from the seat between them and opened it. Nate looked on, interested.

“It wasn’t hard to find a connection between Caryl Cline and Diane Shober,” Marybeth said. “In fact, it was so easy I’m amazed others haven’t been there before us.”

Joe said, “We don’t know they haven’t been.”

“Agreed. But it might also be an instance where no one has thought to look.”

“Go on,” Joe said. “Are you saying the two of them were associated with each other?”

“I can’t confirm it,” Marybeth said, “but it looks like they had the opportunity to meet each other at least once.”

“When and where?” Joe asked.

She said, “I just did a simple Google search with both of their names. I came up with a bunch of hits, but in most cases the names are used in the same essays or news roundups during that year. Except for one instance.”

“Fire away,” Joe said.

“Caryl and Diane appeared on the same local cable news show years ago. They were both in Detroit the same day. It wasn’t as if they were interviewed together. According to the schedule, Diane was on at the top of the hour to talk about her chances to make the Olympic team and Ma Cline was on at the bottom of the hour to talk about what it felt like to lose her appeal to the court. Like I said, they weren’t on together and I found the YouTube clips to confirm that, but they very likely could have met in the green room before the show. Maybe they struck up a relationship there that continued.”

“Goodness,” Joe said, his mind swirling, marveling how simple it been for Marybeth to investigate and come up with positive results.

She said, “So we’ve got a Michigan connection now between the Cline Family, Diane Shober, and Brent Shober. This is getting interesting, Joe.”

“Yup,” he said. Then: “This thing between Diane and Brent. It smells bad. I can see the basis of real animosity there.”

Marybeth said, “Me, too. The guy is more than a creep. He’s obsessed with her.”

“And the Clines somehow connect with both of them,” Joe said.

“Maybe Diane and the Clines figure they’ve got a common enemy,” Marybeth said.

“Can you keep looking into it?” Joe asked. “See if you can find anything that links them up further?”

“I doubt we’re going to find anything as public, but I’ll do some advance searches and get creative. I’ll also start adding in the Cline Brothers and see what we get.”

Joe briefed Nate on what Marybeth had found.

Nate nodded his head, said, “The dispossessed.”

Joe said, “Talk about pure speculation, Nate.”

“Trust me on this. These are my people,” Nate said, only smiling a little.

The Sierra Madre defined the muscular horizon of the west and south, and they appeared to flex slightly into the blue as Joe and Nate approached them. Joe used his service radio to call ahead to contact Sheriff Baird’s office. The county dispatcher put him through directly to Baird’s vehicle. Joe expected an immediate rebuke for being back in his county. Instead, the sheriff sounded relieved. “Are you close?” he asked.

“Yup,” Joe said. “I wanted to let you know we’re planning to take horses into the mountains this afternoon to go after those brothers.”

“I figured you’d come back,” Baird said. “How far are you from the trailhead now?”

Joe looked at the dashboard clock. “Twenty minutes.”

Baird said, “Can you divert for now and take the road straight up into the mountains? I’m up here now on the eastern side of the mountains about an hour and a half from you. I may need some help.”

Joe frowned. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not real sure,” Baird said, his voice low. “I got a call earlier today from a citizen about some vehicles sitting empty way up on the side of the mountain. A couple of pickups and a big stock trailer with out-of-state plates. That struck me as unusual since it’s a little early for hunting season, as you know. I had a meeting in Saratoga this morning so I thought I’d check them out on the way back. Looks like I’m not the only one.”

“Meaning what?” Joe asked.

“I’m parked up on a pullout where I can see into the trees below me where the vehicles and horse trailer are located. But as I started looking over the campsite, I saw two men dressed exactly alike in the same clothes come down out of the trees on the other side of the mountain and walk toward the camp.”

Joe felt the hair rise on his forearms and on the back of his neck. He reached down while he drove and turned up the volume on the radio so Nate could hear clearly.

“What’s their description?” Joe asked.

“Taller than hell, skinnier than poles,” Baird said. “Red flannel shirts with big checks on them. Dirty denims. Goofy-assed hats. Kind of zombie Elmer Fudds.”

“It’s them,” Joe said. “The brothers. I wonder why they’re on the wrong side of the mountain?”

“Beats me,” Baird said. “The last I saw ’em, they was crossing a little meadow up above headed toward the camp with the vehicles in it. They’re out of view in the trees, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve reached those trucks by now. Maybe they plan to take the trucks and hightail it out of here once and for all. That would be okay with me,” the sheriff said with a chuckle.

“One thing, though,” he said. “I see a pickup truck down there I recognize that doesn’t belong here. It belongs to Dave Farkus. You know him, don’t you?”

Joe said, “Yup. He’s on my watch list for poaching.”

“Good place for him,” Baird said. “Anyway, his county supervisor called our office yesterday and said he was AWOL. They haven’t filed a report or anything, but I said I’d keep a lookout for him. I have no idea why he’d be over here on this side of the mountain with some out-of-staters, but that sure looks like his wheels.”

“The brothers,” Joe said. “Do you still see them?”

“Naw. Once they went down into the trees, I lost ’em.”

Joe said, “Maybe you ought to pull back.”

“I don’t think they saw me.”

Joe and Nate exchanged a quick look. “Don’t be too sure of that,” Joe said. “Those boys don’t miss much, I don’t think. In fact, you may want to back on out of there.”

“I don’t back off,” Baird said, his voice hard.

“Where are your men?”

Baird sighed. “The timing of this couldn’t be worse. Two of my deputies are in Douglas taking classes at the Law Enforcement Academy-one of ’em is in Rawlins for court today, and the other is on vacation,” Baird said. “It’s just me and I could use some help. I tried to raise a state trooper or two earlier, but they were too far away to respond.”

“They’re probably fetching Rulon’s dinner,” Nate grumbled. “Maybe giving him a nice foot massage.”

“What was that?” Baird asked Joe.

“Nothing important,” Joe said, glaring at his friend.

“Sheriff, can you see the license plates on the pickup and horse trailer at all?”

“Not real well,” Baird said. “I can barely make one of them out through the trees. I can’t see the numbers clearly, though.”

Joe asked, “Is the plate blue?”

“Yes.”

“I’d bet you a dollar it’s a Michigan plate.”

“That sounds right.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Joe said.

“Who is we?” Baird asked.

“Yeah, who is we?” Nate asked as well.

“Keep in radio contact,” Joe told Baird. “And back out of there if you see those guys again. Seriously. You don’t want to take them on without help.”

Joe was under no illusion the sheriff would believe him and re treat.

A half hour later, Joe’s radio crackled to life.

“Joe, you there?” Baird asked. Joe noted the urgency of Baird’s tone and his complete absence of radio protocol.

“Yes, sheriff, what is it?” He felt icy fingers pull back on his scalp.

“Jesus!” Baird said, and the transmission went to static.

Joe’s pickup was in a steady climb into the mountains, struggling with the weight of the horse trailer full of horses behind it. When the animals shifted their weight around, Joe could feel the trailer shift and pull back at his truck. His motor was strained and the tachometer edged into the red. He floored it. While he did so, he tried to raise the dispatcher who’d originally connected them.

When she came on she was weeping. “Did you hear the sheriff?” she asked. “I think those bastards got him.”

“I heard,” Joe said. “But let’s not speculate on what we don’t know. Time to sit up and be a professional. Are you dispatching EMTs? Anybody?”

The dispatcher sniffed. “Everybody,” she said. “But you’re the closest to him by far. I hope you can help him. I hope they didn’t. ”

“Yes,” Joe said. “Hey-you don’t need to talk about him that way yet. He may be okay.”

“Okay,” she said, to placate Joe.

A few minutes later, Nate said, “Wonder what’ll be left of him.”