C. Box - Force of Nature

“I’ll save it for when you have to know,” Nate said. “When there’s no choice. It might be sooner than you think, but for now we can move on.”

Joe seemed to be okay with that. He asked, “Do you have a game plan for this Nemecek guy?”

Nate shrugged, “I’m still working it out. But what I do know is that something has happened to cause him to come out here for me in person. In the past, as you know, he sent surrogates. I was able to, um, make them go away.”

As he said it, he could see Joe withdrawing a little, so Nate brought it back to vagaries.

“Anyway, I need to do some investigating of my own,” Nate said. “I’ll find out what’s happened that made him feel like he had to come out here and take care of things himself. He’s secretive and cautious, and he’s always been an expert when it comes to getting things done and not leaving any fingerprints of his own on the operations. So for him to leave his lair, well, something is pressing him hard. If I find out what it was, I might have an angle.”

Joe said, “Did he send someone out here to take care of Large Merle? Get him out of the way? No one’s seen the guy in a month.”

Nate was surprised Joe was aware of the disappearance of Large Merle, but he didn’t give it away. Joe once again impressed him with his innate ability to dig deep and look at the world through his own eyes.

“Yes,” Nate said. “He sent a young woman. He knew Merle well enough to know his soft spot, and that’s how he got to him. Merle should have known better. Not many young and attractive women show interest in a giant.”

Joe asked, “Is Merle the last one of your friends from the old days?”

Nate shook his head. “Not entirely. I’ve still got some allies, but there aren’t many left. A few of them died of natural causes. A couple went straight and won’t even acknowledge our old unit. A couple more are in prison, where they tried to put me. And there is a small group of them… in another state. They’re off the grid, too.”

“Can they help?” Joe asked. Nate wasn’t sure Joe knew about the conclave in Idaho, but he’d made references in the past and his friend was probably aware. For one thing, Joe knew Diane Shober, for whom they’d both searched in the Sierra Madre, was in Idaho. But Joe didn’t let on anything, and Nate didn’t press.

“I’m going to find that out soon,” Nate said. “I’m going to go away for a while. Nemecek won’t hang around here if he thinks I’m gone.”

“Can I help?”

“I don’t want you any more involved, as I said. The farther you stay away from me, the better.”

Joe sighed heavily. “I can keep an eye out, at least,” he said. “If this Nemecek is still in the area, I might get a lead on him. It’s a small town, Nate. Not much goes on somebody doesn’t talk about it.”

Nate started to object, then thought better of it. Joe did have a wealth of contacts and was the kind of man people liked to talk to. Joe was empathetic. People told him things they shouldn’t, and Nate was guilty of that as well.

“That might be okay,” Nate said. “As long as you don’t try to do anything. If you did and something happened and Marybeth and those girls lost a husband and a father… well, that can’t happen. I mean it, Joe.”

Joe scoffed.

“You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” Nate said. “And I don’t mean that as an insult. You’ve got a way of getting into the middle of things and you usually come out on top. But it’s a percentage game, Joe. The odds wouldn’t be with you if you got too close to him. He’s not like anybody you’ve ever run across.”

Nate paused, and said, “I’ve always admired you, Joe, you know that.”

His friend looked away, but even in the firelight Nate could see he was flushing and uncomfortable.

Nate said, “You’ve got a beautiful wife, great daughters, and a house with a picket fence. I know it sounds trite, but there are assholes out there who think my life is hard, but it isn’t. Anybody can keep to themselves and be selfish. What you do every day is hard, Joe. Staying true and loyal, man, that’s not the easy path. I admire what you’ve got…”

Joe leaned back on the log and rolled his eyes, said, “Enough!” but Nate kept going.

Nate said, “I want to defend it, even if I can’t ever get there myself. That’s what this has always been about: admiration. So I can’t let you get hurt trying to solve my problem. And this guy… he’s something else.”

“He really scares you, doesn’t he?” Joe asked. “What is it about him?”

Nate thought about it as the fire died down. He didn’t put any more fuel on it. “You know what I’m like,” Nate said. “You know what kinds of things I’ve done.”

“ Some of them,” Joe said, cautioning Nate again not to go beyond their conversation.

Nate said, “There’s a certain kind of ruthlessness that can only be achieved by the coldest professionals or the truly deranged. The middle ground is mushy as hell, and unpredictable. Nemecek taught me professional ruthlessness. It takes a certain kind of mind-set to believe that whatever you do is correct and whoever gets hurt in the process is no more than collateral damage when it comes to achieving something greater. He has that mind-set. He’s the greatest asset imaginable to his masters and to a righteous cause. Those are the circumstances I met him under. But if things get warped…”

Nate wasn’t sure he was making sense, based on Joe’s quizzical expression. Nate paused, thought about it, and said, “Nemecek is the greatest falconer I’ve ever seen. He’s better than I will ever be, and I’m good. But what you need to realize is that great falconers, master falconers, see the world differently than anyone else. Think about it, Joe. A falconer devotes his life to a wild raptor and develops a partnership based on killing prey. But at any time, the falcon-the wild, untamed weapon-can simply fly away. Imagine devoting years of your life to a potential lethal partnership that could dissolve in an instant. It takes a crazy devotion to a possible outcome that may never materialize. Falconry is as old as human civilization. It goes against the nature of things that a human and a killer bird should work together for a common purpose. But when it happens, man… it’s the greatest thing in the fucking world. When it does, all the normal human social conventions seem like bat shit. And humans become just another hunk of meat compared to the rapture of wild and man when they intersect.”

Joe seemed stunned and said nothing.

Nate said, “What I’m telling you is that really great falconers, like Nemecek, think they’ve transcended low human boundaries in regard to behavior and morals. Therefore, everything they do is on a different and higher plane.”

Joe nodded.

Nate said, “So you take a person like this and you have to understand that he’s worst when he’s cornered. He has nothing but contempt for those who put him in that position, because they’ve never experienced what he’s experienced, and they don’t even comprehend the sacrifice that he’s undergone. And something has made him feel cornered. Believe me, he’s capable of anything.”

Joe shook his head, not fully comprehending what Nate was getting at.

Nate said impatiently, “Once, in a country I won’t name, I watched him saw the face off of a child with piano wire in front of her father to make the old man talk.” Nate paused and said, “He talked.”

“My God,” Joe said, as an obvious shiver ran through him.

Nate said, “I’ve seen him do worse than that. But what you have to understand is that when you’ve devoted your life to studying and worshipping birds of prey, you can lose your empathy for mere humans. When you turn yourself over to the call of the wild and understand it, things we would consider cruel are just part of the game.”