Relentless

6

The smile disappeared completely and instantly. Cigarette smoke trailed slowly from Vickers’ mouth and nostrils and whipped away in the cool wind. He said slowly, “You let me go all the way through with it before you stepped on it.”

“I always like to let a man say what’s on his mind.”

“I don’t like being made fun of, Trooper.”

“It’s an old habit. Hang around and you’ll get used to it.”

Buck Stevens said, “Wait, Sam.”

Vickers threw his cigarette down and ground it out under his toe, making the movement fierce and violent. “Trooper, let’s grant you’re clever, in your toe-in-the-dust way. Let’s grant you’ve got a sense of humor. I’ve seen all the movies where the Westerners let the dudes make jackasses out of themselves-maybe you think I’m that kind of dude. I’ve only been out here a few weeks, I’ve got things to learn. All right; but I’m a quick study and if I wasn’t capable of handling my job the Bureau would have replaced me with somebody who was.”

Buck Stevens reached for Watchman’s sleeve. “Sam, it’s no time to be a porcupine.”

Watchman shook his head. The wind across his face was sharp with chill: he turned his collar up against it and said in a hard clipped way, speaking each word as if he had coined it on the spot, “You’ve sent a lot of airplanes up into bad weather to hunt for something that isn’t there. You could have asked me before you went sprinting for that radio-you could have asked me first but you jumped right in the pool without looking to see if there was water in it. The super G-man-it doesn’t fit into your neat strategy to look for advice from a seminomadic food-gathering folk primitive. But this is still my home ground and nobody’s taken my jurisdiction away yet. Look-it was my friend who got butchered in that bank. And I can’t risk any more stupid…”

Vickers cut him off harshly:

“Let’s get this straight right now. I appreciate advice but the decisions are up to me-you know the statutes on Federal crimes as well as I do. We’re dealing with bank robbery, it’s an FDIC bank, and we’ve got attempted interstate flight. The ultimate responsibility is the Bureau’s. It’s not your case-it’s not a private war. I know the old man was an Indian and I could see the way that made a difference to your constable back there, but I’m not Cunningham and I haven’t got time to play that game with you. Don’t get thin-skinned with me. I don’t care if you’re red, black, or green. Your partner’s right-it’s no time to get contentious, we’re both on the same side. I understand your feelings. I understand about the old man. Hell, I had an Indian great-grandmother myself, I think.”

Oh God. You understand Innuns, yes indeed. That great-grandmother of yours was probably a Cherokee princess, wasn’t she. They always are. It you had time you’d tell me how you sympathize with the plight of the poor Innun and you’d pull out a Bible and flagellate yourself to atone for the sins of your ancestors against the red man-but right down at the bottom underneath all that crap you know for sure you’re just a little hit better than I am, don’t you, and you think…

Damn, he thought, quiet it down to a war whoop, Tsosie.

Vickers had stopped to glare at him but now added, “We need to get this straight right now-later on we may not have time to stop and get our chain-of-command sorted out. Ordinarily the Bureau doesn’t muscle in, we just ask politely for cooperation and we usually get it; but if you want to drag your heels you’d better let me know right now.”

“So you can pull rank?”

“Trooper, I represent the United States Government.”

Watchman laughed at him-brittle. “I’m not your ward, Great White Father.”

“I didn’t mean that and you know it.”

Watchman turned around, breathing hard, putting his shoulder to Vickers and contriving to deal with the sudden anger that had burst in him unexpected. He had never in his life been that kind of resentful Indian before: why now?

Jasper, he thought. Jasper and that crazy bit of a conversation on the phone with Lisa’s cool blonde sister-in-law.

It was enough to turn an Uncle Tomahawk into a raging Red Power militant.

And this was just a fine time for that.

He said, “If it turns out I’m wrong I’ll apologize.”

But he didn’t turn back to face Vickers and in the end Vickers was forced to walk around in front of him, shoes squeaking; Vickers touched Watchman in the chest with his fingertip-“This is my party, Trooper. Not yours.” And he wheeled away. Went thirty yards past the jeep and crouched down to search the ground. The light was so dim now he could hardly be seen. He began to move slowly around, crabwise. The wind was down now and the air was thick with a heavy layer of silence that muffled the crunch and squeak of Vickers’ movements. The jagged black shoulders of the mountains stood vague in the near distance like wreckage on an abandoned battlefield. The smell of dust and distant snow hung in Watchman’s nostrils.

Buck Stevens came over close and stood facing away from Vickers, talking over Watchman’s shoulder in a voice calculated to reach no farther than his ears. “That look on your face would’ve made quite a blaze if you’d touched a match to it. Listen, what’d he do?”

“Maybe I got rattled.” But that wasn’t all of it: suddenly he saw what he’d been missing. “I had to kick him in the teeth with it, Buck.”

“What the hell for?”

“We can’t let him go on thinking he’s going to wrap this up with radios and helicopters and their computerized crime lab.”

“I don’t get it. He looks pretty good to me.”

“Most everybody looks pretty good until you put them to the test. Then some stay good and some don’t. This one won’t. He’s going to run out of sand, Buck.”

How did you explain things to the rookie? This Vickers worked for an agency where you could get in trouble for turning in reports with bad spelling. They all went by the book. It was rigid, it came down from Washington, none of them was allowed to think for himself. They cared more about sticking to orderly procedures than about getting the job done-because the important thing was to be able to show in your report that you hadn’t made mistakes.

And out here in the mountain states you got the worst of them. Because when an agent got in dutch they assigned him to a district office in the sticks. They called it “going to Oklahoma City” but Oklahoma City was paradise against Phoenix, which was Coventry.

So this Vickers had got his fingers burnt for some transgression. That was what Watchman had known all along in the back of his mind: it had only just come to the surface and it explained Vickers’ eagerness to fall all over his own feet in an anxious rush to muster the minions of the law and summon all the manpower and machinery in three states when the coming blizzard was going to ground all that precious machinery and drive all that manpower into shelters. It was going to leave a lot of big holes for the fugitives to escape through, but Vickers wasn’t thinking that way because he hadn’t been programed to think that way: he was nervous, caught up by the fever of self-importance and the need for redemption. He wasn’t about to innovate, he wasn’t about to take chances. If he had to swat flies with a sledgehammer that was what he would do to get back in Washington’s good graces. Even if the sledgehammer missed the flies Vickers would be able to prove he’d done everything correctly.

But there wasn’t time to articulate all that. What Watchman said was, “Us Innuns have a name for people like him. The name is Custer.”

Vickers had gone back to the jeep and picked up one of the walkie-talkies. Watchman walked around the far side of the jeep, pulled the door back and began reaching inside and taking things out and distributing them on his person. He could hear Vickers talking into the hand radio:

“On the map I see a park headquarters and three ranches within fifteen or twenty miles of here in various directions. Get men into all those places and tell them to keep their radios open. And keep those planes in the air as long as you can-there’s still some daylight east of here… They did? That’s fine. All right, we’re going to wait here until we get word. It’s a central spot and the fugitives can’t be too far from here.”

You could hear it now-the storm was beginning to move, the air right here was very still and heavy and there was a faint growl coming from the west.

Buck Stevens came around the jeep. His boots crunched pebbles and seemed very loud. “What’s up?”

“Time to move.” Watchman handed him the knapsack and a five-cell flashlight. He shouldered into the heavy night-fighter’s battery pack and slung the ’scoped Weatherby rifle, with its red-lamped projector, in the crook of his elbow.

Vickers came in sight with his small mouth tight. His eyes whipped from Stevens to Watchman and he made an obvious effort to be civil:

“I gather you’ve got something in mind.”

“Sit here and wait if you want to. We’re heading out.”

“No. I need you right here.” Vickers’ jaw crept forward. “What do you think this is-every man for himself? If a call comes in we’ve got to move fast and move together. It’s stupid to divide our forces when they’ve already got us outnumbered.”

“You’ve got reinforcements headed out this way. You won’t be alone long. A couple of hours at the most, but that’s a couple of hours’ head start they add onto what they’ve already got if we wait that long.”

Vickers was very cool. “I’ve got two dozen planes up. Eleven roadblocks. Men heading into every ranch and building within walking distance of here. When the storm hits they’re going to have to take shelter and they’ll walk right into our people’s arms. But when that happens we’ve got to be ready to move in-I can’t have you way the hell out in the boondocks.”

Watchman smiled at him with the lower half of his face. “I guarantee you when that happens I’ll be closer to them than you will.”

“Tracking on foot? Two against five, with this weather coming?” The FBI agent shook his head. “We’ve already got seventy-five people hunting. By morning it’ll be two hundred. We’ll find them. You’d be wasting energy and taking a chance of getting caught in the open when the snow starts. I say it’s better to stay by the jeep and wait. Either they’ll head for shelter and we’ll catch them or they’ll try to wait it out in the open, in which case they’ll probably end up frozen to death-but even if they don’t they won’t have got far and we can find them after it blows over. No-you’re just taking an unnecessary chance. I won’t authorize it.”

Watchman looked at the sky. It wasn’t moving fast; he might have half the night before it hit. The fugitives were hauling maybe two hundred and fifty pounds of loot, plus whatever they’d decided to salvage from the plane. They were traveling heavy and there was a chance to catch up before the weather socked down.

Buck Stevens said, “Maybe the man makes sense, Sam.”

“I don’t say your idea won’t work,” Watchman said. “I’m just saying there’s a chance it won’t work. I want to plug that hole. If they know how to handle themselves in this kind of weather they might just find ways to get clean out of the country while your whole army’s bogged down and blinded by weather.”

“That’s far-fetched.”

“I haven’t got time to stand here arguing all night. Look: are you giving me advice or are you telling me flat out not to try this?”

That put it out in the open. Raw meat on the floor. Vickers had to make the choice now. If he made it a direct order and Watchman went ahead and disobeyed it, and if Watchman then caught up to the fugitives and nailed them, it would make Vickers look a prime fool. On the other hand if he left it at “disregarding my advice” and Watchman didn’t produce any results, Vickers could always write up an “uncooperative officer” memo that could get Watchman in plenty of trouble. Technically Vickers didn’t have authority to give orders to a state police officer but they both knew that was beside the point.

It really wasn’t a choice at all. In the end Vickers had to leave himself the opening. “All right. I’m advising you not to do it but I’m not telling you what to do. It’s your own funeral. If I need you later on and you’re not here, it’s going to sit heavy on you.”

“Understood.”

“What about you, rookie?”

Watchman snapped, “We don’t play that game here. He’s under my orders.”

“I’d like to hear what Officer Stevens thinks,” Vickers said. Stubborn about it because if Stevens went on the record as disapproving Watchman’s action it would add ammunition to Vickers’ arsenal later.

Buck Stevens’ eyes went from Vickers to Watchman and back to Vickers. Suddenly he was at the point of an unpleasant triangle. Then his head lifted: “I don’t mean anything personal. I know Sam Watchman and I don’t know you, Mr. Vickers. If Sam says it’s the right thing to do then I believe him.”

“Your faith and loyalty are very touching. I hope they’re not misplaced.” Vickers’ mouth was like a surgeon’s wound. “I wish you both luck.” He said that expressionlessly and Watchman was reminded of old British war movies in which the Air Vice Marshal said something like that to his pilots just before he sent them up to be shot down by the Luftwaffe. The thought made him grin; he hunted for the snooperlight switch and turned to walk away.

The infrared projector wouldn’t throw any light that the fugitives would be able to see but it would light up the ground like a floodlamp when you looked through the lens of the snooperscope: plenty of light to pick up indentations in the hardpan clay-light to follow tracks by.

Stevens was adjusting the walkie-talkie around his shoulders by its strap. When that was done he came away from the jeep. Ten feet from it Watchman turned to look back and said to Vickers, “We’ll keep in touch. Listen, I’m not saying we’ll get to them first, I’m just saying we’ve got to cover this bet.”

“I gather you know how to build a shelter if you have to. It’s my opinion you’ll end up sitting out the storm in one.” Then Vickers turned his back deliberately and reached for his walkie-talkie and Watchman smiled slightly, touched Buck Stevens’ arm and walked out into the dark desert.

And Stevens said, “Git’im up, Scout.”