87

Hurley made the Northwestern main line by midnight. He’d turned westward when he left the plateau, doubled back, dropped down the Whitefish Range in the same direction he’d come, roughly twenty miles north of the Trail Valley on another old, half-overgrown logging road.

The snow was falling now. Light, but it was bound to pick up. The railroad tracks were silent, empty, the line dark in both directions. A single track here, no passing sidings within ten miles. The trains would roll past at speed, if they rolled past at all. Hurley suspected the FBI would have alerted the railroad, maybe even shut down the line. Everyone on the Northwestern payroll would be on the lookout. He would have to keep moving before he thought about catching on.

Hurley was exhausted. His muscles ached all over, and his legs felt like concrete. He was still having fun, but the fun was diminishing. And when the next storm hit, this backcountry adventure would start to smell an awful lot like work.

The snow continued to pick up as he moved westward, following the logging road that had brought him down from the mountains to where it intersected with the highway, US-93, one lane north to Canada and one south to Whitefish. The snow stuck on the highway, accumulated, muted every sound but the wind. The highway was as empty as the Northwestern main.

Here was where Hurley would find out if he’d gambled correctly. He’d assumed the FBI agents would peg him to head east, had based his entire strategy on that notion. If he was right, the law would have concentrated their efforts on the North Fork Flathead River. They’d have left him an opportunity here.

He’d made the highway. Now Hurley settled down at the roadside to wait. Switched off his night vision to save what was left of the batteries, searched through the darkness for the first sign of a headlight, some unsuspecting traveler foolish enough to be out on the roads on such a miserable night.