CHAPTER NINETEEN

“You’re mad at me,” Audie said. “I can tell. I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m so damn sorry, but I miss my mom something bad.”

“I’m not mad at you, kiddo. Just worried. I thought you were at my mother’s, for chrissakes.”

“I was,” she said, “but I snuck out. She don’t know.”

“How?” I tried to sound careless. To sound not afraid. To keep her talking.

“I was walkin’ Hoot around out by the barn after supper. Hoot was huntin’ rabbits. Sonny was parked out on the lane. He waved to me. Waved me to come over. I was scared not to go. He told me he’d seen my mom. If she was dead, I don’t know how that could be, but he knew I missed her. When I asked him if he knew the spirit lady, he said sure. He could take me to her. He told me to sneak out after bedtime and not let your mom know. To meet him on the road.” I could hear her crying. “Your mom’s gonna be pissed at me and make me go back to Sonny for good, and I’ll never see Hoot again, neither.”

“That’s not going to happen. Where are you?”

“I dunno. Another ranch or something. We drove through Paiute Meadows to get here.”

I could hear muffled noise and talking.

“Okay, dude,” VanOwen said. “Little Audie wanted some quality time with the old Snake, but now it’s reckonin’ time.”

“I’m listening.”

“I got something you want,” he said, “and you got something I want. We’re gonna do a little straight-up trade. You and me, bro.”

“Keep talkin’.”

“Sweet little Audie for that skanky Erika Hornberg and those bank codes.” He sounded like he was enjoying himself. “I know you got her. We’ll do a little swap-a-mundo.”

“Where are you?”

“At her brother’s. Kind of a pretty place with the lights off. Moonlight on the old rancho. It looks like dog-crap in the daytime, though. If it was mine, I’d burn it to the ground and turn it into a truck stop. But stroll by, cowboy. Buddy’s here. We all got a lot to talk about.”

“Talk fast. Pretty soon that place’ll be crawling with deputies.”

He laughed. “Ain’t they all up your cabin? Waitin’ to arrest your ass? Harboring a fugitive and all?”

I just stood there in the dark with Sarah and Erika staring at me. Erika moved close, doing her best to listen. I couldn’t help but think it was always the boneheaded bastards who thought they had the world wired. The ones who were still pimping children and calling themselves Snake and peddling stolen chopper parts and setting arson fires for insurance money when they were pushing fifty. And all the time dreaming that outlaw dream of that one last big score. Wasting a single thought on somebody like Sonny VanOwen didn’t make me very smart, either.

“I’ll meet you at Hornberg’s. I’ll give you the account codes for Audie.”

“And the Hornberg bitch.”

I looked Erika straight in the eye. “She’s already on her way to the Feds. And they know she’s alive and her brother’s ID of the body was a lie. So it’s Audie for the codes.”

There was silence for a minute.

“Then come on down,” he said. “Hell, I’ll leave a light on for you.” The call went dead.

“I should go, too,” Erika said.

“You’re not going. You don’t deal with guys like him. You don’t trade.”

“You are,” she said.

“I got no choice.” I stuck my hand out. “Give me the thing with the codes.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Where the hell is it?” Sarah said.

She looked from Sarah to me. “Audie has it,” she said. “Audie has my thumb drive.”

“The hell?”

“How could you put a child in that position?” Sarah said. I thought she was going to shoot Erika right there.

“She doesn’t know it,” Erika said. “I hid it in the sleeping bag I gave her the night she was alone in the canyon. I told her—”

“Oh, for shit’s sake.”

Erika started blubbering.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said. She gave me a grim look. “You can’t go in without that drive, babe.”

“I can’t just leave the kid.”

“How are you going to get the girl if she’s with Sonny?” Erika said.

“I got her once before.”

A big gust made it hard to hear a thing for a minute. The two of them stared at me in the dark. Erika was impulsive and heedless and could get us all killed if she was along. I wouldn’t take her on a bet.

“If I don’t have the money,” Erika said, “then what do I have to bargain with? What do I tell the FBI?”

“I’ll tell Aaron Fuchs everything the FBI needs to know,” Sarah said. “That you came to us with the account codes. To turn yourself in.”

“If I get a chance at the sleeping bag, what am I looking for?”

Erika described a little plastic deal about the size of a pack of gum with a plug at one end. She said she’d cut a slit at the bottom of the bag on the inside. I asked her where the account was.

“In a bank in Cyprus. All the most discriminating dictators and Russian gangsters use it.” She tried a lame laugh and told me the bank’s name. “I think at some level Sonny can’t grasp that the money only exists electronically. I think he was kind of hoping for a duffle bag full of cash.”

“Ain’t we all.”

Even in the uneven darkness with tree-branch shadows bouncing all over our faces, I could see Erika worry. Those numbers had been what she’d counted on to keep herself alive for almost a year.

Sarah pulled my rifle out of the scabbard on the sorrel and handed it to me, looking sad. She took a half-full box of Remington .270 soft points out of my saddle pockets and handed them to me as well.

“I guess these are your bargaining chips, now.”

“You know I’m not going there to bargain.”

“Why the hell do I bother worrying about you?” she said.

I stowed my rifle behind the seat of the Silverado, gave Sarah a long hug and a last kiss goodbye, and told her to have Fuchs meet me at Hornberg’s before he went to Becky’s. I knew he’d never get there in time, but Sarah might feel better thinking that he would. I told Erika to hide in the trees below the trailhead until Sarah could get word to Dan Tyree to pick her up on his way home, and for the two of them to sit tight there at his mother’s ranch until they heard from Sarah, Aaron, or me. And not to budge.

Sarah and I watched Erika shuffle across the clearing by the trailhead and disappear in the dark. Sarah grabbed the front of my coat and buried her face in it.

“Should I be worried?” she said. “I mean … more than usual?”

“I think me going in alone will be the best way out of this. What VanOwen wants most is the money. If I can get my hands on that sleeping bag with the thing inside, I can probably get Audie back safe.”

“As long as you get back safe, buster.”

“I plan on it.” I leaned into her to feel her warmth. “I will. I will.”

We saw headlights flare up across the meadow and head towards the bridge.

“That should be Dan’s truck. I better get moving.”

She gave me another kiss, then started walking down the hill leading the two horses towards the bridge.

I stood next to the cab of the Silverado ready to duck or run until Dan’s truck passed by. Sarah stopped with the two horses when the headlights hit her. She was keeping the animals to the side of the road against a cutbank so the vehicle could pass, and I thought I saw her look back at me. Then I saw why. It wasn’t Dan’s truck heading towards her. It was a Frémont County Sheriff’s SUV. I ducked behind the Silverado with my back against a rear tire. The SUV passed Sarah and slowed when it hit the trailhead. A spotlight swept the Silverado and the beam paused on the cab. After a minute the light dimmed off and the SUV drove away down the canyon. I couldn’t see who was driving, just that two officers were inside.

Dan’s dually followed a couple of minutes later. I kept to the shadows and didn’t flag him down. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want any other deputies to notice Dan’s truck stopping if anyone was watching from the pack station. I didn’t want to talk about Erika Hornberg anymore, and I didn’t want to get into it with Dan about what he thought he’d been doing with her.

I waited another few minutes after he passed me to fire up the Silverado. I crept away from the trailhead with lights off till I hit the quarter mile of pavement that marked the Forest Service campground and watched a black bear mosey across the road ignoring my headlights. In fifteen minutes I was rolling off the logging road onto the Summers Lake Road when my phone buzzed. It took me a second to dig it out of my one damp jacket pocket. It was Becky Tyree.

“Hey, Tommy. We’ve got a problem. Erika just blasted out of here in Dan’s truck.”

“Shit. Was he with her?”

“No,” she said. “They pulled into the yard about five minutes ago. Dan had called, and I was waiting for them. I hadn’t seen her since she vanished last year, and I wanted to talk to her. Dan was stowing his bedroll in the saddle house, and she was pretty distraught. That guy VanOwen had called her on Buddy’s phone. He said that he had Buddy and would kill him if she ran out on him again. He’s holding Buddy at their ranch and said he’ll trade Buddy’s life for hers. She was talking wild that no matter how she tried to do the right thing, she always ended up putting people’s lives in danger. You, the little girl, my son, and now her brother. I went back into the house to put on some coffee and try to talk sense into her. Then I heard the pickup spinning around, and I saw her fly out the lane like a madwoman.”

I could tell Becky was really fried. She’d stuck by Erika when half the valley wanted to string her up.

“Damn. All she had to do was not answer that phone.”

“Where are you now?” she said.

“On my way to Hornberg’s.”

“Do you want to wait for the sheriff?”

“I’m meeting my FBI guy there. Can you call Sarah?”

“It’ll be light in three more hours. Would it be better if …?” She let it hang.

“In this kind of deal, dark is my friend.”

She told me that she’d get Sarah right away, and my mom next to fill her in.

“Becky?”

“Yes?”

“How come it was you called and not Dan?”

“He thinks you’re disappointed in him,” she said. “For helping Erika when she was hiding from the law. For letting her get away just now.”

“Tell him no worries. Ain’t none of us fortunetellers.”

Then she called me honey like she did when I was a kid and told me to be careful and do what I thought was best.

Halfway towards town, the pavement of the Summers Lake road took a ninety-degree left following the old homestead boundaries through the treeless grazing land. A local would know that turning right instead of left would put you down in front of a wide gate across a fenced dirt lane that was the division between Becky Tyree’s land and the Hornberg ranch. On a hunch, I turned right onto the grass and got out. I looked a mile southeast across the pastures to Hornberg’s headquarters and saw what looked like a single yard light in the rainy mist. I scanned the grass under my feet with my pocket flash and could see fresh dually tracks in the ground soggy with rain where someone had just pulled up to the gate. Judging by the black spot the exhaust made on the grass, the driver left the diesel idling. If that someone was Erika, she probably tried to get the gate to budge. It was a stout wooden thing, not locked, but too heavy for a short person with a just-sprained wrist. I could see where the truck had been thrown into reverse, the wheel jerked around and the tires spinning as the driver almost got themselves stuck. The vehicle left mud and grass tracks on the first few feet of blacktop once it climbed back up on the road. All this told me that Erika had been trying to take the old Hornberg Lane, not because it was quicker than circling through town, but because she was hoping to creep up on the ranch unseen. That’s the same thing I was hoping when I dragged the gate open and drove down the lane with my lights off.

I drove a quarter-mile south, then the lane turned due east toward the ranch headquarters another mile off. It was slow going between the fences on a cloudy night. Ahead I could see a single light was on but the house was dark, the whole ranch just shapes and shadows. A quarter-mile on, I drove through a gravel crossing of the East Frémont River. The water ran swift to the top of my tires and ripples flashed in spotty moonlight. The far side of the crossing put me in sight of the first outbuildings. The lone light was shining through the open slaughterhouse door, but that was off to the side of the empty feedlot and not in the direction I needed to go.

The headquarters sat on flat ground about fifteen feet below a curve in the Reno Highway, with a steep bluff rising from the opposite side of the pavement. A southbound set of headlights swept into the curve, then slowed to turn sharp and drop down the dirt lane between the corrals and the house. It was a pickup, heading in my direction. For a second the headlights caught Audie standing alone and perfectly still out by the corrals. She was holding her sleeping bag to her chest and blinking into the light. I almost yelled out the window at her but didn’t want to expose myself just yet and maybe put her in jeopardy. If I could get her alone, I might be able to get my hands on the dingus Erika hid in the bag. As the headlights swept farther into the yard, Audie disappeared in shadow. The pickup was Dan’s dually, which was no surprise. I could see Erika crouched behind the wheel peering into the shadows like she was figuring just where her life would end. The headlights finished their arc and lit up the spot where Audie had been, but by then the kid had vanished. The truck pulled up along the feedlot and stopped. Down the fence line a five-hundred-gallon above-ground fuel tank sat high on angle-iron legs. The truck lights threw the long shadow of the tank fifty feet across the open yard.

I stopped the Silverado behind the empty bunkhouse and slipped out with my rifle, drifting away from my truck as quick as I could. I found shelter in the darkness trying to figure who else was there. The ranch house with its sagging porch sat unlighted under the poplars, looking abandoned and ready to sink into the earth. There was no telling how soon Aaron Fuchs or Mitch’s bunch would be pulling in. When they did, things might settle right down. Or all hell could break loose.

I saw Erika kill the headlights and get out of the pickup. She looked around. Standing in the ranchyard where she’d grown up seemed to disorient her, like she could barely keep her feet. Then I heard her shout her brother’s name. I caught a movement off to my right, but whatever it was had disappeared into the dark. When I looked back towards the truck, Erika was gone, too.

If what I’d seen was a man, he’d flanked me. I stayed still for a minute just watching, and caught something move at the edge of a cedar postpile by the equipment shed. Sticking up from behind the shed was the white shape of a rental truck box that the dark clouds had kept hidden from view. I wondered if in the middle of all this mess, Buddy Hornberg had decided to just get out of Dodge.

There was no sound. It was like whoever was there wasn’t even leaving footprints on the wet ground. What I could hear next was the noise of eighteen tires hissing by out on the wet pavement before the headlights of a semi arced over my head as the road curved north. I used the sound and light to cover distance fast until I was almost on top of whoever was moving in the dark.

I chambered a round as a shape moved in the shadow. Then I pointed the Remington and cleared my throat.

“Step into the light.”

“Whoa—easy.”

“Jack?”

I moved closer so I could whisper.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Sarah radioed me,” he said. I could see he was carrying his department 12 gauge. “Told me you was heading here, and could I keep an eye on you? Back you up without gettin’ us both shot or tipping off Mitch.”

“How long you been here?”

“Not long,” he said.

“Think anybody saw you?”

“Nah. I parked way down by the hot springs gate.” He swung open the cylinder of his Smith & Wesson and checked his load, then holstered it. “So what’s the play?”

I pointed toward Dan’s truck with my rifle just as the semi faded away and the ranchyard went dark. Jack started to say something, but I shushed him. We heard Erika shout Buddy’s name again, but this time it was more of a shriek. Like she was desperate. A short line of cars shot by, following the semi, their headlights sweeping the damp air above the housetop and throwing the long shadow of the gas tank on its spindly legs clear across the ranchyard again and again, like it was moving right towards us. But now the shadow of a man moved with it, arcing fast across the sheds and dirt and corral boards, the long shadow making the man look forty feet tall. Then, just as quick, the lights were gone. It was way after midnight and another car might not pass again for an hour. I watched disappearing taillights as the darkness settled.

“Buddy, you think?” Jack said.

I shook my head no. “VanOwen.”

A bright white LED beam popped on in someone’s hand.

“It’s him, alright,” Jack said.

There was movement to the side of Dan’s pickup. VanOwen whipped the light around. The white beam landed right on Erika’s face. She flinched like he’d hit her. He wore a camo hoodie against the storm with the hood pushed back from his face. He carried no visible weapon but I wasn’t counting on him being unarmed.

He backed her against the truck, jabbing her with the end of his steel cane. From where I hid, I could see them arguing but not hear a word. I set the Remington on the postpile and motioned for Jack to sit tight. He looked at me like I was nuts when I walked out toward VanOwen without the rifle. I covered half the distance then shouted VanOwen’s name.

He turned and watched me. The flashlight glare lit up his face from below and I could see him smile.

“Well, well,” he said. “Here’s the rifleman, right on time.” He looked me up and down and laughed. “But still no rifle. Maybe you’re a faker.”

“Where’s the girl?”

“I dunno know, man. Hey, don’t stop. Keep on coming.” He laughed. “You know kids are damn hard to keep track of.”

I circled left so I’d have the corral fence close by.

“I thought you said the Feds had Erika,” he said. “But here she is. You lied to me, son.”

“I want that kid.”

“Sure, Tommy Smith,” he said, “sure. And you were gonna trade me that bank code thingy. That was the deal, right?” He laughed. Then he yelled toward the dark shape of the ranch house. “You can come out, now, Li’l Bit. Come say hi.”

I took a few more steps toward them and stopped by the fuel tank. I could see Erika looking at me like I was all that was left in the world. When VanOwen pointed his light at me, I could see three red and yellow plastic gas cans sitting in the dirt, and greasy wet spots where fuel had spilled from the big tank. The padlock from the faucet had been pried off the bent steel hasp and lay in one of the wet spots. When I looked up I could see VanOwen studying me, jiggling the flash in my face.

“Going off-roading?”

“Brush clearing,” he said. He laughed.

I looked over to Erika. “Shoulda stayed put.”

“I know,” she said. “But Buddy …”

“One of these days you’ll have to let big brother sink or swim.”

I turned to VanOwen to be sure he was looking me in the eye. “Erika being here doesn’t change anything. FBI’s on their way.”

“They got nothing on me,” he said.

“Don’t count on it.”

I squinted into the dark for Audie as VanOwen called her name. It took a minute before she drifted out of the shadows. She stopped before she got near any of us. I walked towards her kind of sideways, keeping my eye on VanOwen. When I got to her, I took a knee and she put her arms around my neck. I heard VanOwen say, “Awww.”

Audie looked over my shoulder at Erika, who stood with VanOwen seventy feet away. He kept a hand tight around her arm.

“That’s her again, right?” Audie said. “The spirit lady?”

“I guess so.”

The sleeping bag was stained with mud and grease. Old hay and dried leaves stuck to both the outside and the lining. I picked up a corner of it and tried to whisper.

“Is this what the lady asked you to guard?”

“Yeah,” Audie said. “How’d you know?” She watched Erika with tears in her eyes. “You think she’s mad? I tried to keep it nice but it kinda looks like shit now.”

“No. It’s just fine. Can I take a peek at it?”

She nodded and handed it to me. I felt around inside, poking and squeezing the fleecy lining. I could feel bits of twig and hay and grit, but nothing like Erika had described to Sarah and me. No computer gizmo. No hardware. Nothing that was the key to a million bucks. I looked up when I heard VanOwen laugh.

“Looking for this, dude?” he said. He held up something small. I guessed it to be Erika’s thumb drive, the metal tip of it catching a bit of light from his flash for just an instant. He laughed just as nasty as he could. “Sorry, rifleman, looks like you got nothin’ left to trade for.”