Savage Run

12

I-90, West of Missoula, Montana

June 27

The old man awoke to the sound of the early morning news playing on the pickup radio. He had been having a dream that he was evil. It was a dream like any other dream, but it was from a different perspective. It was on the outside looking in, and his thoughts in the dream were dark, breezy, and grotesque. He saw other people, strangers, in the dream as vacant stooges to be bent to his will or disposed of if they got in the way. There were men, women, and little children and they were crying out. He had pure contempt for them and their suffering, which he saw as weakness. He had never had a dream like that before, and it unsettled him.

He grunted and pulled himself into a sitting position before readjusting the truck seat. It was a beautiful day in Western Montana and it wasn’t raining. The Old Man was more comfortable here than in Washington State. The Clark Fork River was on their right. It was fast, white, and tumbling with early summer runoff. Mist hung low and stayed in the valley like a relative. The forested mountainsides were still and dark because the morning sun had not yet lit them, and they were shot through with a mosaic pattern of burn from the fires that had ripped through the land two summers before.

Through bleary eyes he looked at Charlie Tibbs, who was driving. Tibbs nodded good morning, then gestured to the radio. The Old Man yawned and listened. The huge black Ford pickup with smoked dark windows shot through the Lolo National Forest.

It was toward the end of the national news: U.S. Congressman Peter Sollito of Massachusetts had been found murdered in his Watergate apartment in Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia police and the FBI were investigating. Sollito’s body had been discovered by his longtime housekeeper. The woman had come in to give the apartment a final cleaning as the congressman had called her the previous week to tell her that he would be going home to Massachusetts in a few days for summer recess. The police were investigating, but so far they had no suspects. The cause of death was not revealed.

But it would be, the Old Man said to himself. The news that Sollito was strangled to death by a pair of panty hose in his own bed, and that he was intoxicated at the time of his death would soon be splashed all over the headlines. Trace evidence of lipstick, long, tinted hair, and fibers from a cheap, loud miniskirt would be found in the sheets; a woman’s shoe with a long spike heel would be discovered under the bed. The police would have certainly noted the singles’ tabloid on Sollito’s kitchen counter with the pages opened to listings of prostitutes and escort services. The conclusion to be drawn from all of this was very simple: Sollito had been playing sex games with a woman and the game got out of hand. It would be embarrassing, of course, and humiliating. He was not known for this kind of thing.

The important thing about all of this, as Charlie Tibbs had pointed out to the Old Man as they entered the elevator at the Watergate dressed in maintenance uniforms, was that Sollito would only be remembered for how he died, not for what he did in Congress.

Rep. Peter Sollito, with his position on the Natural Resources Committee and his relationship with the media, was by far the foremost advocate of environmental legislation in the House. Sollito introduced bills halting timbering, mining, natural gas, and petroleum exploration on many federal lands. He killed a proposal to declare a moratorium on grazing fees. He was the most visible “green” Congressman, and the most vocal. Environmental groups loved him and showered him with awards. His constituents were proud of his tough stands on the environment and his high profile.

In Charlie Tibbs’s toolbox, in the elevator, had been an envelope with the fibers and hair, the shoe, the singles tabloid, and the pair of black panty hose. The Old Man carried a small daypack containing three bottles of cheap champagne, and he had the pistol. Sollito had opened the door after looking at them through a peephole and deciding they were legitimate. They were just two old guys, after all.

“That took a while, didn’t it?” Charlie said after the news was over. “Four days to find him. You’d think a congressman would be missed.”

“It seems like months ago,” the Old Man said. They had crossed the country from Washington, D.C., to Washington State in the meanwhile. And now they were back in Montana.

“Charlie, don’t you ever sleep?” the Old Man asked.

Charlie Tibbs clearly disliked personal questions and so he ignored this one as he had all of the other personal questions the Old Man had asked.

The Old Man shifted his weight and looked through the back window into the bed of the pickup.

“Where did the computer and all that other stuff of Powell’s go?”

“Dumped them in a canyon by Lookout Pass,” Charlie said. Lookout Pass was on the Idaho-Montana border.

“I didn’t even know we stopped.”

“I know.”

Charlie seemed to resent the fact that the Old Man slept at night. Charlie seemed to resent anything that suggested human frailty of any kind. The Old Man recalled the look Charlie gave him back at Hayden Powell’s house when the Old Man didn’t want to see Powell’s injuries.

“There’s some coffee in the Thermos,” Charlie said.

“Charlie, do you dream much?” the Old Man asked, finding the Thermos of hot coffee and pouring the remainder into their cups. He knew the question would annoy Tibbs, which was why he asked it. Waking up to the news of Sollito had unsettled him and brought it all rushing back. The situation in Washington, D.C., had been especially troubling to the Old Man. It was much worse than what had happened in the Bighorns or at Hayden Powell’s house. Sollito had begged, and had continued begging, for his life even after he was forced to drink the second bottle of champagne and his voice had become a slurred whine. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to escape. He had looked deeply into the Old Man’s eyes and asked for mercy, mercy that wasn’t granted.

Charlie didn’t respond to the question. He seemed uncomfortable with it, and shrugged.

“I had a hell of a dream,” the Old Man said, sipping the coffee. “I dreamed I became an evil man. Then I woke up and I still feel evil.”

The Old Man watched for a reaction. He knew he was pushing it with Charlie.

“That’s a bad dream,” Charlie said, finally. “You should just wash that right out of your mind. You are not an evil man.”

“Didn’t say I was,” the Old Man said. “Just said I woke up feeling that way.”

“You are a noble man. What we’re doing is noble work.” It was said with finality.

The Old Man rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I think I need a real bed and a real rest. I hope I can get both when we get to where we’re going.”

“I hope you can, too,” Charlie said. It was another shot at the Old Man’s weakness. The set in his face made it clear that as far as he was concerned the topic was finished.

After a lapse of some time, Charlie cleared his throat to speak. “Our employers have heard rumors that some environmental whackos believe that Stewie Woods is still alive because they never found a body.”

The Old Man snorted. “He was blown to bits.”

“That’s how goddamned nuts some of those people are, though. I guess they’ve got stuff on the Internet about it.”

The Old Man just shook his head and chuckled. The early morning sun heated the tops of his thighs through the windshield.

“They don’t believe it, do they?” the Old Man asked. “Our employers, I mean.”

“No.”

The Old Man sipped his coffee and watched Charlie Tibbs drive. He enjoyed watching Tibbs drive. There was such a display of competence, and competence was something the Old Man admired because it was so extremely hard to find. With Charlie Tibbs you always knew where you were going and why. The fears he had the night before about Tibbs he dismissed as manifestations of stress and fatigue.

But the feeling the Old Man had from the dream lingered.