Coburn dropped to his haunches and raised his .45. He swept the mountainside above the trees, moving his front sights from outcropping to outcropping. He was sure the gunfire had come from up there, but he couldn’t see anyone. Behind him, bullets smacked into tree trunks. Pine needles rained down on his head and shoulders, and slivers of dislodged bark stung the back of his neck. He looked up to see Pickett on his hands and knees, launching himself toward the cover of the half-completed building.
Coburn shimmied to his left behind a two-foot-diameter tree trunk that had been recently felled. He squatted behind it for a moment, then came out over the top with his hands extended and the .45 held tight. He aimed at a suppressed muzzle flash far up the mountainside in a fissure in the outcropping and fired twice. He knew he hadn’t hit anyone, but the return fire would at least make the shooter retreat for a moment. He used the time to throw himself over the tree trunk and run toward the shelter as well.
He caught up with Pickett, who tripped over an exposed root just as his hat was shot off his head. Coburn reached down and yanked the game warden to his feet. But rather than run straight to the structure, the idiot turned and retrieved his hat from the ground, snatching it as bullets kicked up chunks of earth on both sides of him.
Coburn leaped over the corpse in the doorway and rolled across the dirt floor of the building until he was tight against the far wall. He heard Pickett behind him. Both men pressed their cheeks against the rough log wall while the shooter, or shooters, continued to fire.
He felt the impact of bullets thumping into the outside of the wall, but the logs were sturdy enough that they stopped the rounds.
That was good.
But they were pinned down, and the shooters had the high ground, able to see clearly below, which included three-quarters of the structure floor itself.
“Are you hit?” he asked Pickett over his shoulder.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you remember to grab your pistol on the way in?”
“Wouldn’t have done any good anyway. But I got my shotgun.”
“There’s that,” Coburn said. “So we have my .45 and your shotgun against long-distance rifles and guys with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.”
“How many of them are there?”
“At least two. Maybe all three.”
“Three?”
He grunted a yes, contemplating rising to full height and aiming carefully at the muzzle flashes he’d seen earlier. Maybe he could take one of them out and improve their odds.
But the gunfire had stopped.
The shooters seemed to have realized it was a waste of ammo to fire at targets behind a log wall.
“Do you mind telling me what’s going on here?” Pickett asked.
“Later. Right now, I think they’re trying to come up with their next move.”
He spun on his heels and looked east toward the doorway and the dead man. The one direction where the mountains didn’t rise above the trees.
“At least they can’t get above us from behind,” he said. “But they’ll see us if we venture more than five feet away from this wall, so stay put.”
“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” Pickett said, sounding annoyed. “And when this is over, I’m still going to arrest you for murder.”
He sighed.
The man was a bulldog. The worst kind.
“Look,” he said, “you can do whatever you want once we get out of here. But right now we’ve got a little time while they reload and regroup. I need you to call this in and get some backup here. I know the Teton County sheriff has access to a chopper. I can give you the exact coordinates.”
“That would be fine if I had a radio or a phone.”
He turned angrily. “What kind of law enforcement officer doesn’t have a radio or a phone?”
“The kind whose horse was spooked by a lunatic who suddenly appeared from the trees. Everything was in my saddlebags, including my cell phone. You don’t have a phone?”
“I did but it’s . . . gone.”
Pickett frowned.
“What part don’t you understand? It’s no longer in my possession.”
“Did you drop it?”
He swore under his breath. “I gave it to them, and they took the battery out.”
“And you thought I was a chump.”
He felt a flash of anger and considered decking the guy.
But first things first.
“How well do you know these mountains?” he asked.
“Not well at all. This isn’t my district. I’m doing a guy a favor.”
“Fucking great. I’m stuck here with a game warden who doesn’t even know where he is.”
“Story of my life,” Pickett said with a shrug. “By the way, thanks for helping me up out there when we were running for the cabin.”
He nodded.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Coburn.”
“Just Coburn?”
“As far as you’re concerned.”
“Just Coburn? One name, like Cher or Beyoncé?”
“Lee Coburn, damn it.”
“Can you spell it so I get it right on the arrest warrant?”
“Capital F-u-c-k Capital O-f-f.”
He briefly considered smacking the game warden on his precious hat with the butt of his .45. Maybe that would keep him quiet for a while. But he needed Pickett to keep an eye on the north while he handled the east, west, and south where the shooters surely were.
“I’ll just call you Coburn,” Pickett said.
FOR THE NEXT HOUR, JOE sat with his back to the wall and his shotgun across his knees, wishing the day had gone in an entirely different direction. He scanned the trees he could see over the top of the walls, hoping the shooters weren’t creeping closer to them.
He also kept an eye on the north side of the clearing, hoping against hope that Rojo would wander out of the woods. He hoped his horse was okay. In addition to the shooters perched in the rocks above their position, the timber was populated by the grizzly bears, mountain lions, and other predators who would consider Rojo meat on the hooves.
He checked his watch.
Two in the afternoon.
Marybeth would expect him back by dark, but not before. So unless they could get word somehow to the Teton County sheriff, for the next five hours no one would know he was in trouble or even think to send someone up to look for him. Today, he recalled, the plan for his family was to buy tickets for the alpine slide on Snow King Mountain. Lucy was quite excited about that.
Next to him Coburn sat, watchful, still, lethal. When he moved at all, he raised up just high enough to look over the top of the wall. Each time he did the shooters retaliated by firing shots, which Joe figured was what Coburn wanted. When they fired, he could spot them.
After the last volley, Coburn had aimed and squeezed off a shot. He said he was pretty sure he’d hit his target that time, but he couldn’t guarantee it. Which meant there were two shooters left, or two shooters and a wounded shooter. All had high-powered rifles. The odds were still against him and his unlikely ally.
“One of these times when you pop up like a Whac-A-Mole, they’re going to blow your head off,” he said to Coburn.
“Like a what?”
“A Whac-A-Mole.”
Coburn’s face remained a blank.
“You know. The kids’ game.”
Coburn looked down at the pistol in his hand, hefting it. “Never was much of a kid. Didn’t play many games.” Then he raised his gaze back to Joe and said with derision, “Sure as hell not one called whack a . . . whatever.”
Joe tucked that observation away to think about later. “So you’re just going to keep letting them take potshots, until you get off a lucky one?”
Coburn glared at him. “Do you have a better plan?”
“Nope.”