Nowhere to Run

30

The standoff that occurred at 4:35 A.M. on the western slope of the Sierra Madre transpired so quickly and with such epic and final weight, and such a simple but lethal potential conclusion, that Joe Pickett found himself surprisingly calm. So calm, he calculated his odds. They weren’t good. He knew the likelihood of his sudden death was high and he wished like hell he had called his wife on the satellite phone and said good-bye to her and his precious girls. He also knew he would have apologized for dying for such a cause, and at the hands of the dispossessed. As if a man could choose his killer.

In this moment of clarity, Joe thought, sharp points elbowed their way to the fore:

• His shotgun was on Farkus and it would take one or two seconds to wheel and aim it at Camish;

• Camish had Joe’s heart in the sights of his rifle; knew Joe and Nate could cut him in half, so he must have a trump card, likely.

• Caleb had a.454 muzzle pressed against his temple and was unable to speak anyway;

• Farkus was clueless-he’d obviously been coerced by the brothers but hadn’t firmed up his storyline and he’d therefore stumbled into lies that piqued Joe’s interest;

• If one man pulled a trigger, a cacophony of exploding shots would throw lead through the void like a buzz saw and cut down all of them for eternity, and;

• Nobody wanted that.

At least Joe didn’t.

Joe said, “We all know the situation we’ve got here. It can go one way or the other. Things can get western in a hurry. If they do, I’m betting on my man Nate here to tip the scales, Camish. But I think a better idea may be sitting down and starting a fire and hashing this out.”

After a beat, Camish said, “You’re one of these folks thinks everything can be solved by talking?”

Said Joe, “No, I don’t believe that. No one has ever accused me of excess talking. But I think something really bad will happen any second if we don’t. I’m willing to sit down and discuss the possibility of more than two of us walking away from here.”

Camish said, “Caleb, you okay?”

The response was a muffled groan.

Nate said, “He’s about to lose the rest of his head.”

Camish’s voice was high and tight: “Don’t you hurt my brother.”

Joe realized his initial shocked calm had slipped away and he was sweating freely from fear. He struggled to keep his words even, hoping Camish would give in. It was easier to sound serious because he was.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s meet at that downed log a few feet from me. Camish can keep aiming at me. Nate can keep his gun at Caleb’s head. I’ll keep my shotgun on Farkus here. But when we get to the log we’ll sit down. How does that sound?”

From the dark, Joe heard Farkus say, “I’m kind of wondering where I fit into this deal.”

And Nate growl, “You don’t, idiot.”

Camish said, “Deal.”

Camish looked even thinner than Joe remembered him. It had been a rough few days. The man’s eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into hollows above his cheekbones and resembled marbles on a mantel. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, and all the silver hairs in his beard made him look gaunt and wizened. Like a Wendigo, Joe thought.

Joe and Nate sat on one log, the Grim Brothers on another. They faced each other.

Caleb sat in utter, pained silence. If anything, he looked more skeletal than his brother. His dark eyes flicked like insects between his brother and Joe and Nate as if hoping for a place to land. A dirt-filthy bandage was taped to his lower jaw. Caleb had an AR-15 with a scope across his lap, with the muzzle loosely pointed a foot to the right of Joe. Joe was sure the weapon was locked and ready to fire, and that Caleb was capable of spraying full automatic fire at him and Nate in a heartbeat. The weapon must have come from the Michigan boys, Joe thought.

In between them, they’d started a small fire. Farkus sat on a stump near the fire, positioned carefully equidistant from both logs. Farkus fed the fire with pencil-sized twigs. The fire shot lizard tongues at the darkness and occasionally flared due to a particularly dry piece of wood or because of time-concentrated pitch within the stick. The effect made Camish and Caleb’s faces fade in and out of the darkness in various stages of orange.

Nate sat silently on the log to Joe’s left. His friend didn’t even attempt to hide his proclivities, and he kept his.454 lying across the top of his thighs with his hand on the grip and his finger on the trigger. Joe knew Nate was capable of raising the weapon and firing at both of them in less than a second.

Whether Nate could take out both brothers before Caleb could fire his weapon at Joe and Nate was the question.

Joe said to Caleb, “I see your tactical vest now. I guess you were wearing it when I shot you with my Glock. Now I know why you didn’t go down.”

Caleb glared back at him, his eyes dark and piercing but his expression inscrutable.

“You know he can’t talk,” Camish said. “That shot to his lower jaw splintered his chinbone and somehow drove slivers of it into his talk box. The point-blank shot to his chest later probably didn’t help much, either. Anyways, he hasn’t spoken a word since that night.”

He said it matter-of-factly, and Joe let it sink in. Joe said, “I fired blindly when I hit him in the face. Not that I wasn’t trying to do damage-I was.”

Caleb almost imperceptibly nodded his head.

Joe said to Caleb, “I would have been happy to have killed you given the circumstances.”

Camish nodded, and he and Nate shared a look, which Joe found disconcerting.

“The circumstances are different depending on where you stand, I guess,” Camish said. “You have one version, we have a different version.”

Joe nodded. “Maybe so. But what I know is you boys came after me and killed my horses.”

Camish made his eyes big, and there was a slight smile on his face. “My version, game warden, is me and my brother were minding our own damned business and not bothering a soul when you rode up and wanted to collect a tax on behalf of the government, the tax being a license to fish so we could eat. And when we didn’t produce the license, you threatened our liberty. We, as freeborn Americans, resisted you.”

Joe held his tongue, but he shared a look with Nate. This confirmed his friend’s earlier theory.

Nate tipped his head toward Joe, but never took his eyes off Caleb. He said, “Joe’s kind of like that. It’s his worst fault. He’s damned stubborn.”

“My horses,” Joe said, glaring at Camish. “They belonged to my wife. She loved them like only a woman can love horses. You two killed them and butchered them.”

“Better than letting them go to waste, eh, Caleb?” Camish said, as if it made all the sense in the world, Joe thought. “Anyway,” Camish said, “we didn’t target your horses. They were collateral damage. We came after you so hard because there was something in your eyes when we met you. We knew you’d follow this goddamned stupid fishing license deal to the gates of hell. Otherwise, we’d just have let you ride away. We practically begged you to just ride out of here. But you wouldn’t let it go. You said you’d march us into court. All for a stupid twenty-four-dollar license.”

Joe said, “You boys are out of state. It’s ninety-four dollars for Michigan residents.”

Camish leaned back on his log and tipped his head back and laughed. Caleb snorted, sounding like the angry pneumatic staccato spitting of a pressure cooker on a stovetop.

Nate moaned.

Joe felt his neck get hot. He said, “It’s my job. I do my job.”

Camish finished his run of laughter, then cut it off. He leaned forward on the log and thrust his face at Joe. “That may be. But the things you set in motion. ”

Joe stood up. He let the muzzle of the shotgun swing lazily past Camish, past Caleb, past Nate. He said, “Tomorrow by this time, these mountains are going to be overrun. There will be hundreds of law enforcement personnel. Some of them will even know what they’re doing. You boys assaulted a sheriff and humiliated him. You assaulted me and humiliated me. The people who’ll be coming after you don’t even know about those three men you killed yet, which makes you cold-blooded murderers.”

From the far end of the downed log, Farkus said, “They killed four, not three.”

Camish said, “I wish you’d shut up, Dave.”

Joe broke in. “Four, three, it doesn’t matter at this point. You boys are done. Even if you figure out a way to hole up and not get caught tomorrow, this is only the beginning. You can’t really think you can stay here, do you? That you can set traps and hang dead men from cross poles and the world will just stay away? What are you thinking?”

With the last sentence, Joe stood and leaned into them and his voice rose. And he realized, by looking at Nate’s face, and the Grim Brothers, and Farkus in the light of the fire, how utterly alone he was.

“You people,” Camish said, his eyes sliding off Nate and settling on Joe, “you government people just keep coming. It’s like you won’t stop coming until you’ve got us all and you own everything we’ve got. Until we all submit to you. It ain’t right. It ain’t American. All we want to do is be left alone. That’s all.

“Hell, we know we make people nervous, me and Caleb. We know we look funny and we act funny to some people. We know they judge us. They made my mom out into some kind of stupid hillbilly when they went after her.”

Joe studied Camish’s face in the flickering firelight. Unlike Caleb’s terrifying, almost manic glare, Camish’s attitude had softened from its initial ferocity. Into what? Joe thought. Victory? Resignation?

“That’s all,” Camish echoed. “We thought you’d leave us alone back in Michigan if we just paid our taxes and kept our mouths shut. Didn’t we, Caleb?”

Caleb nodded and grunted.

Said Camish, “When they tried to take our property the first time, we fought ’em off pretty good. We thought it was over, that there was just no damned chance in the United States of America that the government could take a man’s land and give it to somebody just because they’d pay more taxes. They backed off at first, and we thought we won. But they was like you, like all governments, I guess. They just kept coming. Those three things that are supposed to be our rights-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Hell, the government’s supposed to protect those things. Instead, they took the last two of them away from us, just like that. Finally, they took our place from us and we lost our dad, our mom, and our brother in the process. They took all three of those rights away from them, didn’t they?”

He spoke in a flat, unsentimental way. Joe nodded for him to go on.

“When a thief comes into your home in the night and tries to take your property, it’s okay to shoot him. But when the government comes and wants the same thing, you go to jail if you resist. At least the thief puts his own ass on the line.”

Camish said, “We just wanted to find somewhere we could be left alone. Is that so damned much to ask?”

Nate said, “No, it isn’t.”

Joe sighed. “Problem is, no one can just walk away. Everyone has obligations.”

Camish said, “You mean like paying taxes?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Joe said, grateful it was dark so no one could see him flush. “Folks can’t expect services and programs without paying for them somehow.”

Camish said, “Why the hell should we pay for things we don’t want and don’t get? Why should the government take our money and our property and give it to other people? What the hell kind of place has this become?”

Joe said, “It’s not that bad or that simple. This whole mountain range, for example. It’s managed by the U.S. Forest Service, a government agency. Taxes pay for that.”

“We do our part,” Camish said. “We keep the riffraff out.”

Caleb snorted a laugh.

Joe said, “You boys vandalized some vehicles and scared the hell out of some campers. Not to mention that elk you took.”

Joe saw a flash of anger in Camish’s eyes. He didn’t even look at Caleb, hoping Nate had him covered. Camish said, “We did that to keep people away. To spook ’em. We didn’t want to have to hurt somebody or take things too far, so we laid down a marker: Leave us alone. It’s our way of managing the place. We didn’t disturb or hurt anything that was perfect. Fish, deer, elk-whatever. If anything, we helped cull the herd. That’s management, too. It just ain’t done by bureaucrats sitting on their asses. Like the Forest Service, you know? Or you guys.”

Joe could feel Nate’s eyes on the side of his face, but he didn’t look over.

Instead, Joe said, “Diane Shober. Tell me about her.”

“Yeah,” Camish said. “I was expecting you might have recognized her that night. She thought so, too.”

Joe waited. He looked up and realized Caleb was trying to tell Camish something with his eyes. Caleb looked distressed.

Camish said, “I won’t get too far into it, but Diane felt like she needed a refuge, too. So we offered her one.”

Joe said, “I find that hard to believe.”

Camish said, “Believe whatever the hell you want. But sometimes it’s hard to see how much pressure is being put on a person. And how it’s pretty damned nice to find a place where no one expects you to live up to a certain standard.”

“Her fiance?” Joe said.

“Yeah, him. But especially Daddy,” Camish said. “That man expected one whole hell of a lot. He lived his life through her, but she can’t stand him. He’s one of those parasites. He got rich taking other people’s property and money. We’d tangled before. She knew we didn’t like or respect the man. She knew we’d help her out.”

Joe nodded his head. “You had a common enemy,” he said, echoing Marybeth’s words.

“’Course we did,” Camish said. “He’s the developer who got our family property. Friend of a damned crooked Senator McKinty from Michigan and his no-good son.”

Joe sighed. He had no reason to disbelieve Camish, though he looked hard for one.

Camish turned to Farkus. “He’s the one sent them Michigan boys after us, right Dave?”

Farkus nodded, his eyes moving from Joe to Camish as if watching a tennis match.

Joe said, “You mean the senator? Are you saying a U.S. senator sent a private hit squad after you?”

“Naw,” Camish said. “Diane’s old man did that. They were supposed to take us out and take her back. And the way things work, I’d bet the senator and his son knew all about it, but nobody would ever be able to prove that. That’s how those folks are. We don’t want no part of those politicians anymore. That’s why we’re here.”

Joe thought: And when Shober heard about me, he tried to put me on the hunt for Diane, too, just for insurance.

“She stayed with you to rub her father’s nose in it?” Joe said.

Caleb shrugged as if to say, Why not?

And Camish said, “Why not?”

“Shober’s mother is worried about her. I don’t think she knows anything about what you’re accusing her father of.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Camish said, shrugging.

“So was it you who sent the postcard to Mrs. Shober?”

Camish sighed. “That was a dumb idea. But Diane insisted. Like she made us agree to call her Terri Wade. Half the time we forgot. But when a woman gets something in her head. ”

“Is she okay now?” Joe asked. “Diane Shober?”

Said Camish, as a slow smile built on his face, “If you want to-if you figure out how to get out of here alive, I mean-you can ask her yourself. I don’t mind. She won’t mind, I don’t think, as long as you don’t try to take her back with you. See, we got some caves up in the rimrocks. Indians used to live there, then outlaws. They’re sweet caves. Dave knows the way.”

Joe didn’t know what to say. He finally looked over at Nate. His friend mouthed, We have to talk. But because Joe knew what Nate wanted to talk about, he turned away.

Camish said, “We used to have a pretty good country. At least I think we did. Then something happened. It’s our fault ’cause we let it. We used to be a people who had a government,” he said, looking up, his eyes fierce again. “Now it’s the other way around.”

Joe didn’t respond.

“And we ain’t going back until things change. We want our property back and we want an apology. We want to see that senator go to prison. We want to see Brent Shober tarred and feathered. And most of all, we want to be left alone. Simple as that. And we ain’t going to argue about it, game warden. If you can promise us those things, we’ll put down our guns and come down with you. Can you promise them?”

Joe said, “I promise I’ll try.”

Camish snorted. “That’s the way it is with you people. Good intentions are supposed to be the same as good works.”

Joe had no reply.

Camish said, “Then it is what it is.”