‘That was the big dispute?’
‘It was never a big dispute. We never fell out. But things happened so fast back then. All of a sudden Rose was in the army. And that was a serious thing. Our resources were stretched thin. She was hardly ever home for nine years. I was never told where she was. I couldn’t go visit. Most of the time I couldn’t even call. Meanwhile I was working. I got married. That’s how it was. We had real lives. Like everyone else with a sibling.’
‘Except she was prepared to kill people, and you weren’t.’
‘I don’t mean she wanted to, or planned to. It was an ethical discussion. That’s all. We were eighteen. I wasn’t saying it had to be all or nothing. In fact it never is. No one says always or never. Everyone says sometimes. But her sometimes were not the same as mine. She would pull the trigger before I would. Which was OK. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was na?ve. It wasn’t the difference of opinion that bothered me. We always had different opinions. It was that she had thought about it, seriously, carefully, and decided yes, she could do it. For real. Which changed her a little. She changed herself, by deciding it. For the first time ever I felt not the same as her.’
Reacher said nothing.
She turned back.
They waited.
The second candidate for the apocalypse was the woman who had given the strawberry pie to Sy Porterfield. His neighbour. Second place on the left. She was in a battered Jeep SUV. She looked left and right and turned towards Laramie. Maybe heading to the market. Maybe planning to spend time in the fruit aisle.
The third vehicle they saw came from behind them. It turned in off the two-lane, and passed them by, and set out down the dirt road west.
It was a pick-up truck.
On the front it had snowplough pistons, bolted to the frame.
TWENTY-FIVE
BRAMALL LOOKED A question, and Mackenzie and Reacher both nodded, so he started the engine and bumped up on the dirt road. A unanimous decision. The obvious play. It cost them nothing to follow the pick-up at least as far as Billy’s place. Their eyes would be on the neck of the funnel throughout. Any random driving dead would pass right by, close enough to touch. Certainly close enough to eyeball in great detail. Then in the end if the pick-up kept on going, they could coast to a stop and turn around, and call the snowplough pistons a weird coincidence.
‘What if it turns in?’ Mackenzie said.
‘Maybe it’s a competitor just heard the news,’ Reacher said. ‘Maybe he wants Billy’s Rolodex. Maybe snowploughing is a very competitive business.’
‘Suppose it’s Billy himself?’
‘I’m sure the Boy Detective changed the locks. Or glued them up, or whatever they do now. Either one of which will make our boy good and mad. He’ll get all cross and frustrated. He’ll go get his deer rifle from his truck, to shoot the locks. He’ll be standing right there on the porch with it when we show up. Finger on the trigger.’
‘Only if we turn in too.’
‘He hasn’t heard the phone message. He’ll think we’re Mormons. Or whichever it is let women join in now.’
By that point they had caught up to about a hundred yards behind the pick-up. Which would be considered a very close pursuit, in such a vast landscape, but they were invisible, because of the dust cloud. The pick-up’s mirrors couldn’t see them.
They rolled on, in secret convoy. The pronghorn herd was grazing a new patch of pasture. Two miles gone. Less than a minute remaining, at their current speed.
The pick-up slowed. They saw it loom large and ghostlike in the cloud ahead. Bramall backed off. The pick-up braked, lights flaring, all the way down to walking speed, and then it turned a wide slow left into the mouth of Billy’s driveway.
‘Go for it,’ Reacher said. ‘Go after him.’
Bramall looked at Mackenzie.
She hesitated.
Reacher said, ‘He hasn’t heard the phone message. He doesn’t know who we are. We’re just three random people.’
Mackenzie said, ‘He knows where Rose is.’
Bramall turned in. No dust on the driveway. It was a forest track, all rock and grit and gravel. Now the Toyota was plainly visible. They hung back. They saw the pick-up through the trees. Two hundred yards ahead of them, flashing through the sun and the shadows.
‘Stupid to run and come right back,’ Reacher said.
‘Maybe he wants his money,’ Mackenzie said.
They rolled on, keeping pace. The pick-up drove through the final curve and out of sight. Another fifty yards it would be out of the woods. Then the last hundred, over the beaten red dirt, to the house.
‘Let me out here,’ Reacher said. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way, in the trees. I can cut the corner. I can get there faster.’
‘Is that smart?’ Bramall said.
‘It’s smarter than sticking together. A good squad never bunches up. Too big of a target.’
Bramall stopped the car and Reacher slid out. Bramall drove on. Reacher watched him go, and then he threaded his way into the woods, and set out on what he hoped was a straight line to the last tree before the house. He got close just in time to see the pick-up drive across the last of the dirt, and park near the house.
He waited.
A hundred yards away in the mouth of the driveway he saw Bramall roll to a stop. His Toyota was well hidden. No glint of paint, no gleam of chrome. All completely covered with thick red dust. Better than desert camouflage.
He waited.
The pick-up’s engine turned off.
The driver’s door opened.
A guy got out. He was young. Early twenties, maybe. Six feet tall. Couple hundred pounds. Maybe more. Most of it fat. He was a big shapeless guy. He looked slow and clumsy.
Not Billy.
Billy wore a thirty-two waist, and a thirty leg, and an eight and a half shoe.
The big guy took a ring of keys from his pocket, and stared at it like he had never seen one before. He carried it up on the porch, and walked to the door. He chose a key and bent down to the hole.
He looked puzzled.
He touched the keyhole with his fingertip.
Then he straightened up and spun around, as if he was suddenly certain someone was behind him. With a camera, maybe. For kids to watch on their phones. And laugh.
Reacher stepped out of the trees.
He walked across the dirt, and waved a come-on to Bramall. The guy by the door watched him all the way. Not reacting. Still looking puzzled. Reacher stepped up on the porch. Up close the guy looked harmless. His shape made his clothes tight and smooth. There were no unexplained lumps or bumps in his pockets. He was unarmed. He was very young. He was no kind of a physical threat.
Maybe not the smartest kid, either.
Not a whole lot going on behind his eyes.
Reacher said, ‘Who are you?’
The kid said, ‘I came by to get something.’