C. Box - Nowhere to Run

On the table was a knife.

Diane Shober looked up from where she was packing items into a large duffel bag. “What, did you think-I wasn’t coming out?”

Joe said, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t live with the prospect of more blood on my hands.”

As they rode down the mountain, Joe said to Diane, “I’m glad you’re coming down. I’ll be eternally grateful you saved my life, but this isn’t any way to live.”

Her mouth was tight, and she stared straight ahead. When she talked, her lips hardly moved. “It’s crude and lonely, I agree. Growing up, this is the last thing I would have wanted. But when I was running, I went a lot to Europe. I got to experience socialism firsthand. At first, it’s seductive. Free health care, free college, all that. But nothing is free. And anything that’s free has no value. Zero means zero. I saw it close-up. So yes, you’re right. This is crude and dirty. But it’s my choice. There’s no one here to tell me what to do or how to think. The trade-off is worth it.”

Joe had no response.

“Will my mom be down there?” Diane asked.

“I’m not sure.”

She hesitated, asked, “My dad?”

“It’s possible,” Joe said. “But we’re in a pretty remote location. It would be hard for them to get here so fast.”

“If he tries to talk to me, I might have to kill him,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

Joe listened as Diane Shober talked to Nate.

“I’m an Objectivist,” she said. “You know, Ayn Rand. It’s the only good thing I got from Justin.” She laughed. “I’m a freak, I know. Most of my friends drank the Kool-Aid. But you know how you used to see those RVs on the road with bumper stickers that read, WE’RE SPENDING OUR CHILDREN’S INHERITANCE?” That always used to piss me off, just because of the attitude. I mean, ha-fucking-ha.”

Joe watched her lean toward Nate on her horse and reach out and touch his arm. “Now every car in America should have that bumper sticker,” she said. “Thieves like my father are stealing from me and my children, if I ever have any. He’s politically connected, and the money flows to him downhill.

“You know,” she said, “we’re the first American generation to expect less than our parents. I’m talking smaller houses, smaller cars, smaller families. It makes my blood boil. I want no part of it.”

Nate nodded, said, “Did you know the brothers were up here before you went on your run?”

She took a minute, then said, “Yeah. We’d been in touch. I felt really awful for all the people who donated their time to come looking for me. I really did. But yes, I was in communication with the brothers. After all, we had a common enemy.”

“Your father?” Nate said.

“Yeah, him too,” she said.

As they rode down the switchback trail toward the trailhead, Joe got glimpses of what was below. As he’d predicted, it was a small city. Dozens of vehicles, tents, trailers, a makeshift corral, curls of smoke from lunchtime cooking fires. Satellite trucks from cable television news outlets. And the ashes of his father, still in his pickup. He had no more idea what to do with the old man in death than he had in life.

Nate walked up abreast and handed the reins of his gelding to Joe. “Time for me to go,” he said.

Joe nodded.

“I’m taking her with me,” Nate said, gesturing toward Diane Shober. “I know of people who are with us. They’ll put her up. They’ll treat her well.”

Joe opened his mouth to object, but Nate reached down and touched the butt of his.454 with the tip of his fingers. He didn’t grasp, draw, or cock the weapon. But the fact that he did it told Joe things had changed between them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nate said. “You’re thinking there’s no way I can take the victim with me before she’s interviewed. That it wouldn’t be procedure. And you’re right, it wouldn’t. But Joe, I shoved everything I believed in to the side to help you out up there. Now it’s your turn to help me.”

Joe studied his saddle horn. He said, “You promise me she’ll be okay? I have these visions of the underground that aren’t so good.”

Nate smiled. “The underground isn’t underground at all. It’s not about people in caves, really. They’re all around us. Everywhere you look, Joe. Real people, good people, are the underground. Believe me, Diane will be fine.”

“I understand.”

Nate reached out and touched Joe on the back of his hand. Then he gave Joe the reins to Caleb’s horse, so Joe now had both brothers behind him.

Nate said, “You know where to find me.”

Joe nodded but didn’t say anything.

The last glance he got of Diane as she followed Nate into the timber was when she turned in her saddle and waved. There was something sad in the gesture. Thanking him for letting them go. He waved back.

Joe tied the ropes for Caleb’s horse and Camish’s horse together into a loose knot and wrapped them around his saddle horn with a tight dally and a pointless flourish. He smiled to himself in a bitter way and clucked his tongue. All the animals responded, and started stepping down the mountain trail. No doubt, Joe thought, they sensed some kind of conclusion when they reached the trailhead. If only he felt the same, he thought.

Dave Farkus had been astonished by the number of cars, pickups, SUVs, and equipment trucks that overflowed the campground below at the trailhead. He’d never seen so many vehicles-or so many people-in one place up in the mountains before. And when they’d seen him, as he broke over the timbered ridgeline and rode his horse for ten minutes through a treeless meadow, he saw them scramble like fighter pilots getting the nod to mount up to go out there and bomb something.

The high whine of all-terrain vehicles split open the morning quiet. He watched with interest as two, three, four ATVs shot across the stream below and started up the mountain to meet up with him. There were multiple people on each vehicle, as well as electronic equipment.

Not just electronic equipment: cameras.

He pulled the reins on his horse and jumped off. He wished he could see his face in a mirror, but he couldn’t. But he did his best. He spat on his hands and scrubbed his face, then dried and cleaned himself with his shirttails. Judging by the gray smudges on the fabric he tucked back into his jeans, it was a good idea. He wanted to look rugged, but not dirty.

The ATVs were getting close. He found an extra horse bit in his saddlebag and shined it under his arm. Farkus leaned into the bend of the metal and the reflection, and he patted down his hair and made himself look weary and sympathetic.

And before the ATVs cleared the timber, he remounted, clicked his tongue, and got the animal moving again. The first ATV stopped just outside the trees, and a disheveled man jumped out and set up a tripod and put a camera on top of it under the arm-waving direction of a blonde who-no kidding-was the best-looking woman Farkus had ever seen in real life. She was tall, slim, coiffed, with large breasts and wore cool boots that she’d tucked her tight jeans into.

He thought, Whoa .

Although she was a long way down the mountain and other TV crews were making their way up, she took a second to look up and meet his eyes. He felt a jolt of electricity shoot through him.

He thought, I’m from Baggs, but I’ve watched television. Hundreds of fucking hours of television. I’ve seen hundreds like you. You’re stuck in Wyoming, trying to claw your way up. You need something spectacular for your audition tape. I can give that to you, darling. I can give that to you.

So when she reached him on her ATV, he began to smile. He thought, I know a hell of a lot more about you than you will ever know about me.