Yeah.
“I found her, all right. Nice big hips. Young. But I fucked up. I didn’t take action with authority. You can’t hesitate when you set out to do something like that, Kyle. You have to … pounce.”
When Ron said the word pounce he lunged at Kyle, and Kyle stepped back and threw his arms across his face. But nothing happened.
It had been a bluff.
“Like that,” Ron said.
Kyle felt his heart pound in his chest. He wished he’d grabbed a screwdriver when Ron’s back was turned.
“My days out on the road are over, Kyle,” he said. “I can’t get it up like I used to. It’s hard to explain. I don’t feel it inside like I used to when I’m on the hunt. I guess I have better things to do now, better things to think about and work on. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten anything,” he said with a wink. “I know how to stay ten steps ahead and above it all. That’s why I’ve lasted this long.
“I told you you’d learn things if you stuck with me,” Ron said. “You will if you want to. I’ll teach you. Now grab that toolbox—it’s time for lunch.”
As they walked back toward the cabin from above Kyle asked, What will we do if we hear the bells or the cans?
Ron paused and looked over his shoulder at Kyle with a serious set to his face.
“What will you do?” he asked, patting his holstered .380. “You’ll die. Both of you. I’m not taking you fucking people with me.”
Kyle felt his mouth go dry.
Then Ron broke out into a grin. He reached out and tousled Kyle’s hair and said, “Had you going for a second there, didn’t I? Ha! You both mean a lot to me, especially you, Kyle. You’re the only family I’ve got.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
BULL MITCHELL’S ANCIENT Power Wagon ground up the rocky rise high above Gardiner to the east like a slow-motion mountain goat. Cassie held tight to the leather strap above the door with one hand and the dashboard with the other. Sheriff Pederson stuck both of his hands straight up and pressed against the underside of the roof so he could steady himself in the middle seat and not get pitched to the right or left as Bull maneuvered over football-sized boulders.
The mountainside was bare of trees and what little grass there was on it clung to the terrain as if for dear life. When Cassie looked out through the windshield she could see mainly blue sky.
“You say there’s a road here?” Cassie asked Bull.
“Used to be,” he responded.
“‘Used to be’ isn’t the best answer.”
“It’s the best one I’ve got,” Bull shrugged.
She looked over her shoulder at the sheriff’s department pickup behind them. It was then that she realized the angle she was peering down was as close to vertical as she’d ever experienced in a vehicle before. She could see the loose grid of streets far below in Gardiner as well as the Yellowstone River that looked like a rumpled grey ribbon. If the Power Wagon’s tires lost traction or Bull missed a gear as he climbed they could roll dangerously backward down the mountain and take out the deputies’ rig.
“Is there a better way up?” she called out. As she did she felt her phone vibrate with an incoming call in her pocket. She ignored it.
“Maybe,” Bull said.
“Then why don’t we try it?”
“We’re committed now,” he said with a rakish grin. “Once you start on a grade like this there’s no way to turn around. Is there, sheriff?”
“I’m staying out of this,” Pederson said.
Cassie didn’t know whether she should close her eyes and pray or keep them open so she could see firsthand when the Power Wagon stalled out and rolled down the hill. The thing that kept her in her seat was a single word: Kidnaped.
That Kyle misspelled it in his own blood made her heart ache more for him.
*
AT LAST THE FRONT TIRES clawed over the edge of the rim and the pickup and trailer leveled out. Cassie found that she could breathe again and she settled back in her seat.
They were on a rocky plateau and in front of them was an even bigger tree-covered mountain in the distance. But between where they were and the incline was a massive expanse of dead trees that were laid out flat on the ground like they’d all been clear-cut. When she looked closer, though, she could see splintered trunks still embedded in the ground. The trees hadn’t been cut—they’d been snapped off. The dead trees all pointed to the south.
On the far end of the dead trees a small herd of elk grazed on a mountain meadow. As one, they raised their heads and stared at the interlopers.
“What in the hell happened here?” Pederson asked Bull.
“Microburst. It happened after I was here last.”
“What’s a microburst?” Cassie asked.
“Kind of a small contained tornado,” Bull said. “It drops down from the sky and just lays all the trees over. They break like matchsticks. Sometimes they fall in a concentric circle and sometimes it looks like this. Like I told Cody Hoyt once, Yellowstone seems to manufacture its own weather. You never know what the hell you’re going to get into—snow in July, a heat wave in January, or a microburst on the top of a mountain that knocks all the damned trees over. I’ve seen the results of dozens of ’em in the park. But this is a problem,” he said with a nod toward the mess in front of them, “because the road I wanted to take goes right through the middle of it. Even cutting some of that timber with a chain saw and using the winch won’t get us through it.”
Cassie refrained from asking again where the road had been in the first place.
Bull pulled ahead far enough for the sheriff’s department pickup to join him on the flat. He kept the motor running while he rubbed his chin and looked at the result of the microburst.
Cassie glanced over to Pompy who drove the other pickup. The man’s face was white with fear from the drive up and he shook his head from side to side as if he couldn’t believe what they’d just done.
Pompy rolled down his window and asked Bull, “So, what’s our plan?”
“Plan B,” Bull said.
“What’s Plan B?”
“Haven’t figured it out yet.”
“What are our options?” Pederson asked. He had a way, Cassie thought, of making everything he said sound perfectly calm and reasonable. It was a gift she wished she shared.
“I’m thinkin’,” Bull said.
Cassie’s phone went off again and this time she drew it out and looked at the screen. Leslie had called three times in ten minutes. Cassie hadn’t even noticed the first one because she was scared for her life at the time.
“Well,” Bull said as he gestured toward the mountainside in the distance, “I wanted to check out the other side of that big hill. My plan was to drive to the top and maybe get the horses out and ride ’em down to where the old cabins are. If Pergram is up there and we come in on horses he won’t hear us coming. But it doesn’t look like we can drive the trailers to where I wanted to start.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Cassie said.