C. Box - Savage Run

Coble caught himself. He realized he was giving a speech, one that had been put together in bits and pieces in the pickup and rehearsed in silence as he and Tibbs drove across the country. Although he believed in what he said, he didn’t have time for it. He stood and looked at Stewie Woods. Stewie stared back. The man was grotesque.

“But as Charlie and I began to do what we were hired to do, it didn’t seem so damned noble to me anymore. In fact, I started feeling like the worst kind of criminal.”

Coble paused and shook his head.

“Not Charlie, though,” Coble said, grimacing. “Charlie enjoyed it more as we went along, and got more and more excited. He got righteous about it. We started getting sloppy, starting with your friend, Hayden Powell, that writer. There was no planning, no strategy, no nothing except Charlie and me turning into animals trying to kill somebody as fast and as nasty as we could. And we had no idea that our first project failed,” he said, looking at Stewie, the first project.

“Charlie Tibbs really does think he’s doing righteous work, you know,” Coble said with caution. “Charlie’s lost something in his head along the way. Something’s malfunctioned. His moral compass is gone, and that fact is very frightening, given Charlie’s skills and abilities. Charlie’s the best tracker and hunter I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen one hell of a lot of ’em. Charlie thinks he’s doing this not just for the Stockman’s Trust, but for America.”

Britney Earthshare was horrified by what she had heard. She covered her mouth with her hand.

“You got paid for this.” Stewie said. “You didn’t do this entirely for your beliefs.”

Coble nodded uncomfortably. He didn’t like talking about the money. “I was going to get three-quarters of a million dollars,” Coble said flatly. “Two-hundred and fifty thousand was up front, the rest will be sitting in an escrow account for me once the list is cleared. Charlie is probably getting at least double that. We never discussed how much each of us was getting.”

Stewie whistled.

“You’ve got to understand something,” Coble said. “When I worked for the state of Montana I maxed out in salary at $30,500 per year. That was the highest annual salary I ever got. My state retirement is half of that a year. Charlie always made a lot more in his work as a stock detective, but I have no idea what that amounted to.”

Stewie said he understood.

“It wasn’t hard to recruit us,” Coble said, challenging Stewie with an arched-brow glare. “But the difference between Charlie and me is that Charlie Tibbs would have done this for free. It’s not a money thing with Charlie. It’s never been a money thing, and they knew it when they hired him. I don’t see him stopping even when he’s sure he’s got everybody on the list.”

Stewie’s unblinking eye had been boring into Coble as he spoke. “So the purpose,” Stewie said, “was to eliminate each person on your list in the most humiliating way possible so they would avoid martyrdom, and only be remembered for the ridiculous way they died.”

Coble stared back.

“You were pretty successful at that, John Coble,” Stewie said.

“Yup,” Coble agreed.

“But what is the Stockman’s Trust?”

Coble was about to answer but stopped himself and rubbed his eyes. He was absolutely exhausted, completely spent.

“Who is in charge? Who are your employers?”

One of Coble’s old hands weakly waved Stewie away. The other hand continued to rub his eyes.

“I’ve stayed too long and talked too much,” Coble said, grunting and pulling himself to his feet. “You two best get out of here. I need some air.”

John Coble opened the door and leaned against the inside of the door frame.

Joe tried to stay in the trees, avoiding the grassy open meadows, as he rode hard up the mountain. Lizzie was tiring, her easy lope giving way to lunges, and she was throwing her head in annoyance. Her hooves launched chunks of wet black earth into the air behind them.

He tried to anticipate and play out the scenarios that might occur when he reached the cabin. Should he ask them to come out with their hands up or yell for them to get down on the floor? Should he tell them about his suspicions in regard to the man in the alcove? A stream of sweat trickled down the back of his neck from his hatband.

Sensing that Lizzie was just about to give out, Joe reined her to a stop in the shade of a tree. While she rested, her nostrils billowing, Joe raised his binoculars and looked across the valley to the opposite mountain. He swept the binoculars over the mountain parks and granite spires, looking for the black Ford truck. A glimpse of movement in a meadow startled him, but when he looked back he saw it was only a cow moose grazing at the edge of a treeline.

Then he saw a flash of glass. Fumbling, he dialed the focus in tighter and tried to concentrate his view while Lizzie heaved, breathing hard, and his own heart whumped against the inside of his sternum. He found it. The glint was from something in the rear of the black Ford truck.

Joe reached out to grab a branch to steady himself and raised himself up in his stirrups so that he could see better. He took a sharp intake of breath. The man in the Stetson was in the back of the Ford, leaning over a long rifle mounted in the bed of the pickup. The glint was from the telescopic lens. Joe imagined a line of fire from the black Ford to the cabin, which must be just above him through the trees.

Joe heard the bullet before he heard the shot; a sound like fabric ripping that suddenly ended in a hollow and sickening pock sound.

In the doorway of the cabin, John Coble flipped backward through the air and landed heavily on the table where Stewie Woods sat. Britney screamed and backpedaled until the wall stopped her. Her T-shirt and face were spattered with blood and bits of bone and tissue.

Stewie kicked back his chair and scrambled to his feet, looking down at Coble. The top half of Coble’s head was gone.

Outside, a heavy rifle shot rolled across the valley, sounding like thunder.

Crouching forward in the saddle like a jockey, Joe spurred Lizzie out of the trees and into the open meadow that rose up the mountain to culminate at the shadowed front of a dark cabin. The boom of the shot swept through the timber.

“Get down!” he shouted at the cabin, not knowing how many people were inside. “Get down on the floor!”

And suddenly Joe felt an impact like an ax burying itself into soft wood. Lizzie stumbled, her front legs collapsing as her rear haunches arced into the air, her head ducking as she pitched forward, throwing Joe. He hit the ground hard, crumpling against the foot of the steps to the porch of the cabin, his chest and chin taking the brunt of the fall. Lizzie completed her thousand-pound somersault and landed so hard, just a foot short of Joe, that he felt the ground shudder.

Britney was still shrieking inside but she had screamed herself hoarse and was practically soundless when the doorframe filled with Joe Pickett. The fall had knocked the wind out of him and he leaned into the cabin with his hands on his knees, fighting for breath. The rope he had looped around the saddle horn was tangled around one foot.

Stewie lurched around the table where Coble lay twitching and helped Joe inside, leading him from the open door, as a fist-sized hole blew through the front window and shattered all of the glass.

“Get down!” Joe barked, as he dropped to his hands and knees, pulling Stewie with him.

Methodically, bullets hit the front of the cabin blowing holes through the walls that looked alternately like stars, hearts, and sunbursts-followed by the rolling thunder sound of the heavy rifle fire.