C Box - Winterkill

“But Joe…”

“Nobody cares for April like we do. The judge doesn’t care, the lawyers don’t care. To them, it’s just more paperwork, another case. Robey tries to care, but he’s busy. Now there are things happening where lawyers aren’t going to help us.”

Joe stepped forward and gently grasped Marybeth by her shoulders. “I’m not sure I can do any good, honey. But I can try.”

Marybeth was silent for a moment. Then she spoke gently. “You haven’t been a bad father or husband, Joe.”

He was pleased that she said it, but not sure he agreed with her. “The most important thing is that April is safe,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if she’s with us or that awful woman. Those things can be sorted out later. For now, we need to see that she’s safe.”

Marybeth’s eyes softened. “I agree,” she whispered.

“We can’t rely on the sheriff or the lawyers for this. We can’t rely on anybody .”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he confessed. “But I know that the reason Melinda Strickland and her stormtroopers are going to confront the Sovereigns is because they think Spud Cargill is up there. If I can get to him first, or prove he isn’t really up there, there’s no reason for them to do it.”

“I trust you,” she said. “I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known. Do what you have to do.”

“Are you sure? I’m not sure that I trust myself.”

“Go, Joe.”

He kissed her, and they left the library together. While she started her car, he brushed the snow off her windshield and made sure she had traction to pull away. He told her to keep her cell phone on and call him if she had any trouble getting home.

As she started to leave the parking lot, he ran through the snow to stop her. She rolled the window down. He reached in and squeezed her hand.

“Marybeth…” He had trouble finding the words.

“Say it, Joe.”

“Marybeth, I can’t promise I can save her.”

Marybeth left the parking lot and turned onto the unplowed street, and Joe watched until the snowfall absorbed her taillights.

He could never remember Saddlestring being as quiet as it was now. The only thing he could hear was the low burbling of the exhaust pipe of his pickup.

Residents had retreated to their houses and woodstoves. Stores, schools, and offices had closed. The snow absorbed all sound, and stilled all motion. There was no traffic.

Joe fought back a horrendous feeling of inevitable doom.

Then he climbed into his pickup and roared out of the parking lot.

THINK.

Joe had no clear idea where he should go or how he should proceed. He drove through Saddlestring on streets that were becoming more impassable by the minute. It was the kind of once-every-fifty-years storm where sending the plows out was pointless until it was over.

He drove by Bighorn Roofing to confirm that it was dark and locked. The same with Spud Cargill’s home. He knew he was treading old ground.

He thought of interviewing Mrs. Gardiner again, just to see if she could provide anything new, but dismissed the idea as useless. He wasn’t sure she was still in town and not en route to Nebraska.

Rope Latham might know something, he thought. Latham might reveal where his friend was likely to run. No doubt Barnum and Munker had asked Rope about his partner, but if he had said anything to them, it hadn’t resulted in anything. Now Latham was in jail, in the county building, guarded by sheriff’s deputies. Barnum’s crew might not let Joe in to see him, or might delay a meeting throughout the day. Joe didn’t think he had the time to waste right now. Also, Rope Latham wouldn’t exactly have special feelings for the man who had arrested him, and if he was going to talk, it probably wasn’t going to be to him.

Using his cell phone, Joe made sure Marybeth had made it home. She was there, but said the county had closed the road in back of her. And her van was stuck in the driveway.

On a chance, he tried another number.

“County attorney’s office.”

“Robey? You’re there.”

“Ah, Joe…” he said it in a way that suggested he wished it was just about anybody else who was calling him.

“Robey, you need to help me.”

Silence.

“Robey?”

“I shouldn’t even be talking to you, Joe, after what you said this morning. How you treated me. I’ll just assume that you’re a little off your rocker right now. Can I assume that?”

Joe nodded, even though Hersig couldn’t see it. “I guess you can assume that. I guess I get that way when I see a blood-bath coming.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Joe…”

“Robey.”

“What?”

“Are Strickland and Munker still gathering the troops? Considering the weather, I mean?”

“You are to stay away from that meeting, Joe. You’re likely to be arrested if you even show up.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“YES!”

Joe slowed to a stop in the middle of the street. There was no traffic to impede. “How are they going to get up the mountain? I just talked with Marybeth, and she said Bighorn Road is already closed.”

“I don’t know all the details, Joe. This isn’t exactly my department. But I heard Barnum put in a request for those Sno-Cats again. And the sheriff’s department has snowmobiles of their own. My understanding is that they’ll roll as soon as they can get enough vehicles.”

THINK.

The first place Joe had ever noticed Rope Latham and Spud Cargill together was during the Christmas Eve service at the First Alpine Church of Saddlestring. He’d been concerned with the presence of the Sovereigns at the time, and hadn’t given it much consideration until now.

Two single men, business partners, had gone to church together. That was a bit unusual in itself. And although he didn’t know either man well, he couldn’t say that the roofers showed any outward signs of deep religiosity. One never knew for sure about such things, he thought, but neither seemed to approach business or life in a very God-fearing way. Unprovoked murder and assault for unpaid bills weren’t exactly Christian acts.

But the First Alpine Church was more than just another denomination. It was “unconventional.” Joe had heard that the weekly sermons by the Reverend B. J. Cobb were equal parts Gospel and God Damn the Government. It was the latter part, he surmised, that had drawn Spud Cargill.

Joe flipped a U-turn in the middle of the empty street and felt the back end of the truck fishtail in the snow. When it gripped, he gunned the truck eastward toward the edge of town.

One of the advantages of the storm, Joe thought, was that it drove everyone home and indoors. In normal circumstances, a search for the Reverend B. J. Cobb would have consisted of visiting various work sites where his contract welding unit might be set up. But today, Cobb would likely be home like everybody else. Home was a double-wide trailer behind the church.

Joe parked in front of the church and waded through the snow toward the double-wide. There were no fresh tracks of any kind around either structure. A snowmobile had been driven out from the garage and parked near the road, a wise precaution if an emergency came up.

He banged on the metal door and waited.

B. J. Cobb opened it wearing a ratty terrycloth bathrobe over a sweatshirt and stained white painter’s pants. He was unshaven. The odor of simmering chili wafted out of the door.

“Hello, sir,” Cobb said, not unfriendly.

Joe nodded and said he didn’t mean to bother him at home. “Can I ask you some questions?”

Cobb smiled and looked up over Joe’s head at the falling snow. “It seems like today you should be home with your family, waiting this out, instead of standing in it.”