C. Box - Force of Nature

“It’s not that,” Nate said. “I was wondering if you or any of your friends have seen a guy.” He described “Bob White.”

Bad Bob took a long time answering. “I think he might have got gas last week,” he said. “At least it sort of sounds like him, man. All you white people look alike to me.” Bob grinned.

“Not now,” Nate said impatiently. “Was it him?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. He pulled out front, gassed up his rig, and left. We didn’t have a conversation, really. Oh-he asked how to get to the school.”

Nate nodded. It would have been the same day the man met Alice Thunder.

“What was he driving?”

Bob rubbed his chin. “I’m trying to remember. Oh, yeah, It was a nice rig, one of these crossovers; part luxury car and part SUV. An Audi Q7. First one I’ve seen on the res. It was dark gray or blue.”

“Plates?”

“I don’t remember, but I think if they was out-of-state I would have noticed. But maybe not.”

“Anybody with him?”

“Naw,” Bob said. “He was alone. But I do remember he had a bunch of shit piled in the backseat. Gear bags or luggage or something. Nobody could have sat back there because there wasn’t room.”

Nate asked, “How did he pay?”

“Cash,” Bob said. “That I remember. Not many people pay in cash these days, they all use cards. But he peeled some twenties off a roll and I gave him change. That I remember.”

Nate nodded. Then, “Bob, we didn’t have this talk. You never saw me tonight.”

Bob looked over, wanting to hear more.

“That’s all. Forget I was here.”

“All right,” Bob said with hesitation.

“And forget about the loan,” Nate said, restarting his Jeep.

“Thanks, man,” Bob said, stepping away from the Jeep. It was perfunctory. As far as Nate knew, Bob had never repaid a loan, and he didn’t expect him to start now.

A few hundred yards up the reservation road toward the mountains and Hazelton Road, Nate saw a sow black bear in his headlights and swerved to miss it. In the red glow of his taillights he watched her amble down the faded center stripe of the asphalt en route to Bad Bob’s Dumpster.

Crazy Woman campground was empty except for two travel trailers full of elk hunters in the farthest reaches of the campsite. Nate could hear the hunters whoop from time to time, and he hummed along with old country music emanating from one of the closest RVs. Because of the possibility of being seen by any of the hunters if they chose to go for a walk in the dark, he moved his Jeep out to Hazelton Road, drove a mile away from the entrance of the campground, and backed it deep into the trees on an old logging road and waited.

It was nearly midnight when he saw a glimpse of distant headlights coming down the road. Just as suddenly, the lights doused. Joe, he thought, had hit his sneak lights as he got close to where the poacher had been reported. Sneak lights were mounted under the bumper and threw a dim pool of light out directly in front of the vehicle so potential violators couldn’t see him coming up the gravel road.

It was a cool, clear night and the stars were brilliant. The only sound was the occasional eerie and high-pitched elk bugle from the wall of thick trees on the rising mountains behind him. Upper Doyle Creek tinkled lightly on the other side of the road, deeply undercutting the grass banks on its circuitous route to the Twelve Sleep River.

Joe was almost upon him before he realized it. Nate saw the dull orb of light from beneath the front of the pickup, got a whiff of exhaust and heard the low rumble of the engine, and there he was, creeping along the gravel road, windows open so he could hear shots.

“Joe,” Nate said aloud.

The pickup braked to a stop. “Nate? Where are you?”

Nate fished a mini-Maglite flashlight out of his vest and swept it along the road in front of him until the light reflected from the headlights of his Jeep in the brush.

“This way,” he said, stepping aside.

As Joe turned off the gravel road and rumbled by Nate, his friend said, “There are no poachers, are there?”

“No.”

Nate used his flashlight to see ahead as he led Joe deeper into the trees to the edge of a small clearing. He jabbed the beam of light on a fallen tree trunk and said, “Have a seat,” while he kicked enough grapefruit-sized rocks free from the soil to make a small fire ring. Nate bunched a handful of dried grass in the center of the ring, lit it with a match, and started feeding the flames with dried pine needles and twigs.

He said, “I couldn’t risk calling you or coming to your place because I don’t know if you’re being watched and I can’t afford to leave any physical or digital records of my location or movements. The last thing I want to do is involve you or your family in what’s happening.”

Joe cleared his throat and sat back. “Good thing I showed up alone, then. The department assigned me a trainee, but when I called the TeePee Motel he wasn’t in, so I didn’t bring him along. I don’t know where he is.”

“That would have been unfortunate,” Nate said.

Joe leaned forward with his elbows on the tops of his knees and squinted at Nate. “So what is happening, Nate?”

Nate continued to feed twigs to the flame and didn’t look up. “Those three guys in the boat. They drew on me and I put them down. One of them shot me in the shoulder with an arrow.”

“Ron Connelly, the Mad Archer, I’d guess,” Joe interjected.

“Yes. They took me by surprise because they were locals. I let my guard down and they took advantage of it, which I think was the strategy all along. It was self-defense, Joe. Two of them were pulling guns as I shot them, and the one in front-the Mad Archer-had already put an arrow into me. I want you to know that even though you can’t really help me, because I know how you are. I understand it’s too late for that anymore.”

Nate took Joe’s lack of response as agreement. He said, “When you go off the grid, there are advantages and disadvantages. I always knew that. I’m not accountable for anything except to my own code, which is how I want it, because I trust my code more than any set of laws manipulated by those with their hands on the levers. But that’s an old story,” he said.

Joe nodded for him to go on.

Nate said, “I’m nonexistent as far as the government is concerned, and that’s harder these days than you’d think. But when something like this happens-or what happened to Alisha-I can’t respond through normal channels. I can’t let anyone know. I smashed my phone and there’s no way to find me. But I can’t call the cops or get a lawyer to defend me because then I’m back in the system and that’s where the bastards want me to be.”

Joe nodded, thinking it over, and finally asked, “How are you doing? You said you got hit with an arrow.”

Nate tented a half dozen bigger sticks over the fire and watched as the flames licked around them like tongues tasting peppermint sticks before they ignited. “I’m okay,” he said. “I can barely use my left arm, but it’s healing. I’m okay. I’ll be in yarak soon.”

“‘Yarak’?”

“Falconry term. Look it up,” Nate said, waving the exchange away.

“I can’t take you into town, but I could take you to the clinic on the res,” Joe said. “We might be able to work something out with them to keep it confidential. You’ve got lots of friends there.”

Nate shook his head. “No-I won’t involve anyone else in this. This thing I’m in is mine alone. And anybody who comes near me could get into trouble that’s not of their doing. I learned that when I stopped in to see Alice Thunder. I can’t risk anybody else, Joe. It’s not right.”