‘Me too,’ she said.
He waited ten minutes for the hit to click in, but she didn’t come out again. So he took a walk, around the tree line, until he saw the cowboys coming along their path towards him. The three guys, as always with the one in the lizard-skin boots a step in front. They said hello to Reacher in a way that made him feel they were surprised to see him. He told them he had stayed behind.
The guy in the boots said, ‘The others aren’t here?’
‘For a couple more hours,’ Reacher said.
‘Were you talking to Rose?’
‘I was,’ Reacher said. ‘As a matter of fact.’
‘How’s she doing?’
‘She said she was there when Porterfield died.’
‘I believe that’s true.’
‘Where were you?’
‘We were in Colorado. Spring was late down there. We got work hauling hay.’
‘What did she say about it when you got back?’
‘She never talks about things like that.’
Reacher said nothing. The three guys looked at each other, a little hesitant, a little momentous, as if they had just gotten a weird idea.
The guy in the boots said, ‘We could show you the place where he was found, if you want.’
‘Is it near here?’ Reacher said.
‘About an hour on foot. Mostly uphill.’
‘Is it interesting?’
‘The walk is interesting. As far as the argument goes. You get to judge what kind of person could have carried a body that far.’
‘You said anyone could have.’
‘I said anyone would have. There’s a difference. The people who could have are a subset of the population.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Show me.’
They crossed the clearing near the corner of the house, and headed towards another gap in the trees, but first the guy in the boots detoured to the crew-cab, and came back with a rifle. He said right or wrong, remember why they were going. It was bear country.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE PATH ROSE through the woods, which thinned a little as the slope got steeper. Some trunks were scored by elk antlers. There were moose prints on the ground. No sign of bear. Not yet. Which Reacher was happy about. The guy’s rifle was an ancient M14 Garand. A U.S. soldier’s main squeeze sixty years before. A clumsy weapon. But competent. Except it was chambered for the NATO round. Which was a slim little thing compared to a bear. Maybe it was all the guy had left. Maybe he had traded the rest away, to pay for something that had suddenly gotten expensive.
Better than nothing, Reacher thought.
They walked on. The air felt thin. Reacher felt he was breathing hard. Not the three cowboys. They looked normal. They were used to it. At sea level they would be dizzy with excess oxygen. Maybe better than licking a patch. The hike itself was no big deal. Roots and rocks and gravel, the same as the tracks they had been driving, but narrower. The gradient was modest. Occasionally there were big steps up. Carrying a heavy weight would have been slow and awkward, but possible. For a subset of the population. Like the guy had said.
Five minutes later they came out on an open area where a young tree had been pushed down by a moose. There were animal tracks in and out, some of them large.
The guy with the rifle said, ‘It was a place like this.’
‘Like this?’ Reacher said. ‘Or this place?’
‘It’s further on. But you get the picture. In case you want to turn back now.’
Reacher looked left and right and onward, into the trees. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see. He felt a bear was unlikely. What were the odds?
‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep going.’
They did. The woods changed around them as they walked. The clearings stopped coming, because the trees themselves thinned out, to the point where the whole vista became a kind of low-density mixed-up half-woods, half-clearing type of landscape. Low scrub on the ground. Access lanes were clear and straight. Lines of sight were long. It was good predator country.
The guy with the rifle said, ‘Still OK?’
Reacher looked all around. The back part of his brain was stirring. It was telling him that kind of terrain was best gotten out of, and quickly. Some kind of a primitive instinct. The front part was thinking about bears. Unlikely, it was telling him. But a reality at some low level of probability. A factor. Worth taking into account. Worth preparing for.
In his mind he heard General Simpson’s voice, on the phone from West Point: Off post she would have been armed at all times.
He looked all around again.
There were no bears.
Not there.
He said, ‘Let’s go back.’
The guy said, ‘Why?’
Because I want to get back in the trees, he thought.
Out loud he said, ‘I get the picture now.’
And he felt he did. Stackley was the new Billy. Inheritor of the whole local empire. Including the periodic voice mail instructions. Stackley must have gotten a new one. Shoot the Incredible Hulk from behind a tree. All over again. Or whichever cartoon character he was by then. Message received and understood. Except Stackley hadn’t tried to execute the mission himself. He had bought in mercenary services from the outside. During the big discussion behind the camper shell. The pitch, the offer, the bait, the acceptance. Maybe handshakes.
He knew because of the weapon. And culture, and habit, and plain common sense. How likely was it a Wyoming cowboy would venture into legitimate bear territory without a rifle capable of shooting a bear? It was like getting dressed in the morning. Therefore it became a logical sequence. The wrong gun meant there were no bears, which meant they were not close to where Porterfield had been found, where bears had been plausible, which meant the three guys had brought him to the wrong place for a completely different purpose. With an M14, which for sure was capable of shooting a person. Or gut-shooting a person. After that they wouldn’t need bears. What had the guy said, in the bar, with the long-neck bottle? You got hundreds of other species already lining up and licking their lips.
He looked all around. Not good. Wide gaps, slender trunks.
The middle of nowhere.
No witnesses.
No proof. That’s the whole beauty of it.
For a second he wondered how much they were getting paid, but then he dismissed the question, partly because it was inherently vain, and partly because the answer was obvious. Far as I can tell, it’s a beautiful thing. The way they talk about it, it’s the best thing ever. They were getting a couple boxes of oxycodone and fentanyl patches. Like getting offed in prison for a carton of cigarettes. Life was cheap. Then for another second he felt betrayed. He felt they had gotten along well so far. He had made an effort. He had been polite. Then he got real. He looked at it from their point of view. Some things were more important to a person. More important than family and friends and any kind of a regular trustworthy life.
No one should ever underestimate the appeal of an opiate high.
He hoped they were getting a couple boxes each.