Savage Run

25

Twenty minutes before Joe had discovered the Mercedes SUV, John Coble had drawn his gun, stepped up on the slat-board porch of the low-slung log cabin, and kicked the door open. He had entered and had pointed his pistol at the man inside, who was seated at a table eating his lunch. Coble was winded from the climb so he leaned back against the doorframe to rest. The cabin was simple: a single large room with a kitchen, dining area, fireplace, and desk. A darkened doorway led to the only bedroom.

“I know you were expecting your lawyer, Stewie, but let me introduce myself,” Coble wheezed. “I’m Mr. John Coble, and I’ve spent the last two months trying to kill you and others of your ilk.”

Stewie Woods was frozen where he sat, a spoon filled with soup raised halfway to his mouth. Stewie’s face was hard to see because Coble’s eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness inside the cabin.

Coble paused to take a couple of deep breaths of air and then continued. “What I have to say is simple. Get out of this place as soon as you can and don’t look back. Don’t ask a bunch of questions because we don’t have the time. A manhunter named Charlie Tibbs could show up here any minute. Don’t stop until you’re out of the country; get yourself to Mexico or Canada or wherever you can get to fast. Get on a plane and go overseas if you can. Contact no one and just flat run.”

Stewie lowered the spoon into the bowl. His words were raspy and filled with air when he spoke, as if his voice box was a carburetor that had the mixture set too lean.

“I guess I’ve been expecting you. I just didn’t realize you would be so old,” Stewie rasped. “Somehow, that makes it worse.”

A woman stepped from the bedroom rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Stewie, I. ” she said before she noticed Coble and gasped.

“Britney, this is John Coble,” Stewie said, looking stiffly over his shoulder at her and wincing in pain as he did so. “He is one of the men I told you about.” Stewie Woods is in bad shape, Coble thought.

Britney’s face drained of color as she stared at Coble.

Stewie turned back in his chair. “This is Britney Earthshare. She lived in a tree to protest the logging of an old growth forest. She’s famous.”

Coble squinted at her. “Yeah, I remember. I remember I thought that was stupid.”

Stewie chuckled at Coble. “Britney’s been helping me out while I recover. She’s a saint.”

Coble grunted.

“Why don’t you sit down and talk to me for a few minutes?” Stewie asked politely. “You’ve probably got a pretty good story to tell.”

Coble’s eyes were still adjusting to the darkness in the cabin. As Stewie Woods’s features began to appear, it seemed to Coble like a Hollywood special effect where the closer he looked, the worse it got. Stewie was horribly disfigured. His face was monstrous. His prominent features had once been a jutting jaw, well-defined cheekbones and languid blue-green eyes, but now those outstanding features were ragged mutations. One eye was completely closed, the lid concave over an empty, seeping socket. Stewie’s nose was flattened to one side of his face, and the exposed nostril burred and flapped like the beating of a hummingbird wing when he exhaled. Coble cringed and looked away. Britney took a position in back of Stewie with her chubby hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were still wide.

“I don’t blame you,” Stewie said to Coble. “I still scare myself sometimes. Especially in the morning when I look in the mirror and expect to see the old Stewie. I used to be a pretty good-looking guy, you know.”

Coble looked back but focused on a spot somewhere above and to the left of Stewie’s head so he wouldn’t have to look at him again.

“I don’t have time to sit down and chat.”

“You’re doing a good thing, aren’t you?” Stewie asked. “That’s impressive.”

“I’m not here to save you or protect you. I don’t want to be your friend. I still think you and your ilk are shitheels.” Coble shook his head. “I’m amazed that you are still alive.”

“Me, too,” Stewie said. “So why are you doing this?”

Coble had a strange thought. He had not yet holstered his gun and it was at his side in his hand. It would take no effort to raise it, shoot Stewie and the tree-loving woman, and return to Charlie Tibbs. He could tell Tibbs he just wanted to finish this job himself. Tibbs may or may not believe him. There was comfort in evil, Coble thought. It was simpler.

“I’m doing this for me, not you,” Coble snapped. “Our job seemed right at first. It seemed like the only way left to strike back. You people threatened our way of thinking and our way of life. All you environmentalists just showed up one day and told us that everything we’ve done for years was now wrong, and that everyone living in the West was a stupid ignorant criminal.

“You people expect everyone out here to suddenly give up the only jobs they’ve ever known in mines and the fields,” he shot a dirty look at Britney, “and the forests. Somehow, all of us are expected to get jobs working out of our homes with computers, telephones, and modems. That’s all you’ve offered up as an alternative, you know. Like lumberjacks and cowboys can just change over to being software programmers.”

Coble’s voice began to rise, and his face began to flush. “None of you know or appreciate how tough and raggedy-assed it used to be in this country. Hell, a hundred and forty years ago this was still a wilderness out here. Indians ran the show. Even thirty-odd years ago when I started working for the state of Montana as a brand inspector, it was rough and it was real out here. There was bad weather and bad land and no water. If you looked over your shoulder the country was gaining on you and ready to wipe you out at any minute. The last thing anybody ever thought of was that they were ruining the earth. Hell, we all thought the earth was ruining us.”

Coble gestured to Stewie: “You people want to stop us from doing everything we know. You do it just so that if you ever want to travel out here from the East in your new car, you might be able to see a wolf out of the window. You’re trying to make our home a real-life theme park for environmental whackos. You don’t give a shit how many people lose their jobs or are displaced-just so you can see a goddamn wolf that hasn’t lived here in over a hundred years.”

Coble caught himself. He realized he was giving a speech, one that had been put together in bits and pieces in the pickup and rehearsed in silence as he and Tibbs drove across the country. Although he believed in what he said, he didn’t have time for it. He stood and looked at Stewie Woods. Stewie stared back. The man was grotesque.

“But as Charlie and I began to do what we were hired to do, it didn’t seem so damned noble to me anymore. In fact, I started feeling like the worst kind of criminal.”

Coble paused and shook his head.

“Not Charlie, though,” Coble said, grimacing. “Charlie enjoyed it more as we went along, and got more and more excited. He got righteous about it. We started getting sloppy, starting with your friend, Hayden Powell, that writer. There was no planning, no strategy, no nothing except Charlie and me turning into animals trying to kill somebody as fast and as nasty as we could. And we had no idea that our first project failed,” he said, looking at Stewie, the first project.

“Charlie Tibbs really does think he’s doing righteous work, you know,” Coble said with caution. “Charlie’s lost something in his head along the way. Something’s malfunctioned. His moral compass is gone, and that fact is very frightening, given Charlie’s skills and abilities. Charlie’s the best tracker and hunter I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen one hell of a lot of ’em. Charlie thinks he’s doing this not just for the Stockman’s Trust, but for America.”

Britney Earthshare was horrified by what she had heard. She covered her mouth with her hand.

“You got paid for this.” Stewie said. “You didn’t do this entirely for your beliefs.”

Coble nodded uncomfortably. He didn’t like talking about the money. “I was going to get three-quarters of a million dollars,” Coble said flatly. “Two-hundred and fifty thousand was up front, the rest will be sitting in an escrow account for me once the list is cleared. Charlie is probably getting at least double that. We never discussed how much each of us was getting.”

Stewie whistled.

“You’ve got to understand something,” Coble said. “When I worked for the state of Montana I maxed out in salary at $30,500 per year. That was the highest annual salary I ever got. My state retirement is half of that a year. Charlie always made a lot more in his work as a stock detective, but I have no idea what that amounted to.”

Stewie said he understood.

“It wasn’t hard to recruit us,” Coble said, challenging Stewie with an arched-brow glare. “But the difference between Charlie and me is that Charlie Tibbs would have done this for free. It’s not a money thing with Charlie. It’s never been a money thing, and they knew it when they hired him. I don’t see him stopping even when he’s sure he’s got everybody on the list.”

Stewie’s unblinking eye had been boring into Coble as he spoke. “So the purpose,” Stewie said, “was to eliminate each person on your list in the most humiliating way possible so they would avoid martyrdom, and only be remembered for the ridiculous way they died.”

Coble stared back.

“You were pretty successful at that, John Coble,” Stewie said.

“Yup,” Coble agreed.

“But what is the Stockman’s Trust?”

Coble was about to answer but stopped himself and rubbed his eyes. He was absolutely exhausted, completely spent.

“Who is in charge? Who are your employers?”

One of Coble’s old hands weakly waved Stewie away. The other hand continued to rub his eyes.

“I’ve stayed too long and talked too much,” Coble said, grunting and pulling himself to his feet. “You two best get out of here. I need some air.”

John Coble opened the door and leaned against the inside of the door frame.