“We’ll follow you,” Wade said, closing in behind Brandon as he left the room.
Brandon pulled on the ranch coat and looked over his shoulder at Marissa. “Back in a minute,” he said.
She nodded but her mouth was set tight as if holding in a sob.
Pingston and Wade followed Brandon outside into the snow. It was coming down harder now and the flakes had grown in size and volume.
He led them away from the house toward a massive corrugated-metal shed where the old man kept his working ranch equipment as well as the hulks of old tractors and pickups that no longer ran. The pole light that had once illuminated the ranch yard had long ago burned out, so Brandon had to peer through the snowfall to find the outline of the shed against the snow.
“I told Wade I wasn’t sure if I have the right key,” Brandon said in Pingston’s direction.
Pingston didn’t reply.
The shed had a side door but it was clogged with years of weeds that were waist-high, so he figured it hadn’t been used in a while. Brandon walked through the snow to the big double garage doors that were closed tight. A rusty chain had been looped through the handles and secured with a padlock.
Brandon bent over and tried one key after another in the lock.
“I need some light,” he said. “Did either of you bring a flashlight?”
Instead of answering, Wade extended a lighter in his hand and flicked it on. The flame lit up the old padlock in orange.
The next-to-last key on the ring slid in, and Brandon turned it. Nothing.
“Jerk on it,” Pingston said.
Brandon did and it opened. Tiny flakes of rust fell away from the lock into the snow below it. He closed his eyes with relief. Wade reached over his shoulder and pulled the chain free.
“Okay, step aside,” Pingston said, reaching forward with both of his hands and grasping the door handles. He groaned as he parted them. The old door mechanism groaned as well.
“Give me a hand here,” Pingston said to Wade. The two men wedged themselves into the two-foot opening and each put a shoulder to opposite doors. With a sound like rolling thunder, the doors opened wide.
Brandon watched Pingston walk into the shed and disappear in the dark. A wall of icy air pushed out from the open doors. It was colder inside the shed than outside, Brandon thought. Then a single match fired up in the corner and he saw Pingston’s finger toggle a light switch. Above them, two of four bare bulbs came on.
“See, I remembered where the lights were after all this time,” Pingston said.
“Good for you,” Wade said without enthusiasm. “You figured out how to operate a light switch.”
The shed layout was familiar to Brandon and much of it was the same as it had been. Some of the equipment was so old it looked almost medieval in the gloom. Thrashers, tractors, one-ton flatbed trucks without wheels, a square-nosed bulldozer, a faded wooden sheep wagon as old as Wyoming itself, a lifetime of battered pickups. And there, backed against the far sheet-metal wall, was the toothy front grille and split-window windshield of the ’48 Power Wagon. It sat high and still on knobby tires, its glass clouded with age, the two headlamps mounted on the high wide fenders looking in the low light like dead eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” Pingston said. “There it is.”
Wade blew out a sigh of relief.
“How you doin’, old girl?” Pingston said to the truck. He approached it and stroked the dust-covered hood. “It looks like the old man backed it in after they arrested me and it hasn’t been moved since,” he said.
Brandon put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. He said, “Then I guess my work is done here.”
“Not so fast,” Wade said, stepping over and placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder. Then to Pingston: “Check it out.”
Check out what?
Pingston nodded and opened the front door of the Power Wagon and leaned inside. Brandon was surprised how obedient Pingston had been to the command. Then he realized Wade was actually the one in charge, not Pingston.
“What’s he looking for? The keys?” Brandon asked.
“Shut up.”
Brandon pursed his lips and waited. He could see Pingston crawl further into the cab and could hear the clinks of metal on metal.
After a long few moments, Pingston pushed himself out and looked to Wade. Pingston’s face was drained of color.
“It’s not there,” he said in a weak voice. “The tools are on the floorboard but the toolbox is gone. The old man must have found it.”
Wade closed his eyes and worked his jaw. Brandon felt Wade’s hand clamp harder on his shoulder. Then Wade stepped back quickly and kicked Brandon’s legs out from under him. He fell hard, half in and half out of the shed.
When Brandon looked up, Wade was crouching over him with a large-caliber snub-nosed pistol in his hand. The muzzle pressed into his forehead.
“Where is it?” Wade asked.
“Where is what?” Brandon said. “I don’t have a clue what you’re looking for.”