C Box - Winterkill

“Joe?” Hersig asked. Joe hadn’t realized Robey was so close to him.

Joe opened his eyes. Melinda Strickland had stepped back, as had Elle Broxton-Howard. They had inadvertently cleared a path across the room to Dick Munker, who lit a cigarette behind the podium.

“Munker.” His voice was hoarse.

Munker raised an eyebrow in response.

“If you do anything that hurts April even further, I’m going to paint the trees with your blood.”

“My God!” Melinda Strickland said, looking to Broxton-Howard with alarm so her reaction would be noted.

“That goes for you, too,” Joe said, shooting his eyes to Melinda Strickland. “You wanted a war and now you’re going to get your wish.”

“Joe, goddammit, go home,” Hersig hissed into his ear. “Go home before Munker swears out a warrant on you for that threat that we all heard .”

The silence in the room was conspicuous.

Joe let himself be led toward the door by Robey Hersig, who stepped outside with him.

“You were way out of line in there,” Hersig said, shaking his head. “What are you doing, Joe?”

Joe set his jaw to argue, but the red shroud of rage began to pull back from his eyes. “Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing, Robey.”

“Go home. Keep out of this.”

“April is up there.”

“So is Spud Cargill.”

“I don’t know that. I honestly don’t believe that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Joe…”

“We’re taking McLanahan’s word that he might have seen a guy who might have been Cargill driving past him yesterday afternoon. Based on that, all hell is breaking loose, to use your phrase.”

“I know, I know,” Hersig said wearily.

“Are we just going to let it happen?” Joe asked.

Hersig started to speak, then stopped. “Maybe it won’t be so bad, Joe. That isn’t exactly the cream of all mankind up there.”

Joe’s eyes flared. “Get the hell away from me, Robey.”

Joe turned and stomped across the snow, knowing that if he didn’t leave now, things were going to get much worse very quickly.

Joe cleared Saddlestring toward the mountains en route to… where ? He didn’t know. He felt as if he were under water. His thoughts and movements seemed sluggish. They were someone else’s thoughts.

He pulled over. Huge white flakes lit on his windshield, turning instantly into beaded stars against the glass. It was snowing hard. He opened his window and stuck his head out. The snow descended on his face. It felt cool against his skin.

He stared wide-eyed into the sky. Snowflakes swirled as far as he could see. A few stung his eyes. He tried not to blink.

The snow was now falling at an overwhelming volume. As Joe drove toward Saddlestring with his defroster and windshield wipers on high, he fought a rising sense of desperation. The fresh snow crunched beneath his tires, and the tracks in the snow he had made on the way out of town were already filled in and covered over. Deer, passing shadows in the snowfall, silently climbed from the plains and draws into the timber of the foothills. Geese on the river found overhangs and brush. The looming, wide shoulders of the Bighorn Mountains that provided the constant, dependable horizon had vanished behind a curtain of deathly white. If it weren’t for the dark metal delineator posts that bordered the two-lane highway, he would not have been able to see where the road was located.

He tried to think, tried to put things into perspective, tried to fight the bile that was rising in his throat. He had cooled down enough to feel ashamed of what he’d said at the Forest Service office. He had lost it, which was unusual for him. The weakness he had showed to Strickland and Munker, and things he had said could come back to haunt him. Strickland, Munker, or even Robey could file a complaint with his supervisors. They could have him arrested. Jeannie Keeley could use the outburst against him when Joe tried to make the case that April would be better off with him and Marybeth.

Joe cursed, and thumped the dashboard with the heel of his hand.

THINK. Calm down and think.

Strickland and Munker were mounting an assault on the Sovereign Citizen compound because Spud Cargill was allegedly there. The judge had signed a search warrant based on probable cause. Joe couldn’t imagine a scenario where Wade Brockius and the other Sovereigns simply stood aside while the agents ransacked their “sovereign nation.” The Sovereigns would defend their compound and from there, it would likely get out of control.

Spud Cargill was the key. If Joe could find him, arrest him, or somehow prove that he wasn’t in the compound-the assault could be delayed until Munker found another excuse. By then, possibly, enough time could pass to once again defuse the situation. Maybe by then the storm would let up. Exposing the situation to the light of day, with the possible help and/or interference of the media, could delay or spoil Munker’s immediate plans. Maybe the Sovereigns would pack up and move on, taking their problems and their decades of miserable, irrational, and violent emotional baggage with them. Then they would be someone else’s problem. The idea appealed to Joe, although he suffered a pang of guilt as well.

But Spud Cargill was the key. The only way to keep April out of danger, to delay things long enough for the courts to work, was to find Spud Cargill.

To do this, Joe would need help.

He drove through one of the three red lights in Saddlestring without seeing it.

The parking lot at the Twelve Sleep County Municipal Library was empty except for four cars already topped with eight inches of snow. Marybeth’s van was one of them.

Joe pulled beside it and jumped out. He left his pickup running.

The library was locked, and a hand-lettered sign had been taped to the double doors saying that they had closed for the day due to the weather. Joe pressed his face to the glass and knocked loudly on the door. The lights inside had already been dimmed. A woman inside, one of Marybeth’s co-workers, saw him and squinted. She started to shoo him away when Marybeth joined her, smiled, and approached the door with a set of keys.

“The librarian is sending everyone home,” Marybeth said, letting him in. “They’ve released the kids from school, and I guess the roads and airport are already closed.”

Joe entered after shaking snow from his coat and hat. He nodded hello to the other employees, who were gathering their coats and gloves to go home.

“Marybeth, we need to talk.”

Her face showed instant concern. There was a sadness in her eyes that quickly emerged. It was a sadness that had not been very far from the surface since April had been taken.

Aware that the other library employees were hovering, Marybeth led Joe to a small, dark conference room. She told the others to go ahead and leave, and that she would lock up.

When she closed the door, he told her what had happened at the meeting.

“You said that ? Joe!”

“I know,” he said. “But I could smell blood in that room, Marybeth. It got to me.”

Marybeth sighed and leaned back against a table, studying him, waiting for what would come next. He was taken by her profound sadness. It hurt him that she felt this way. Which meant he had to do something about it. It was his duty to fix it.

“I’m here for your permission,” he said.

“For what?”

“To do what I think best.”

“What? You don’t need my permission for that.”

Joe shook his head. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. For the past month, it’s been eating at me.”

She didn’t understand.

“Marybeth, I’ve been a bad husband and father. I haven’t protected April, or you, or our family. I’ve let lawyers do it. I’ve asked Robey about it, hoping he would do something. I’ve gone the easy, legal route.”