C Box - Winterkill

The Sno-Cats had groomed a packed and smooth trail up the mountain road, and Joe increased his speed. Dark trees flashed by on both sides. He shot a look at his speedometer: seventy miles per hour. Even in the summer, the speed limit for Bighorn Road in the forest was forty-five.

Help me save her, he prayed.

Lord, he was tired.

The high, angry whine of the engine served as a soundtrack to his aching muscles, broken rib, and pounding head. He had not slept for twenty hours, and he rode right through spinning, improbable, multicolored hallucinations that wavered ahead of him in the dawn. More than once, he leaned into what he thought was a turn in the road only to realize, at the last possible second, that the road went the other way.

Despite the icy wind in his face that made his eyes water and blurred his vision, Joe’s mind raced.

He thought about the words on Cobb’s computer screen: THEY’VE ESTABLISHED A PERIMETER. HELP US, MY LOVE. “My love”? Cobb had said he admired Brockius, but…

Joe shook it out of his mind. At this point he wasn’t sure that it mattered. Maybe later, once April was safe. There was no time now.

If he could somehow buy an hour back, he thought, he would pay anything.

Spud’s driver’s license should do it, he thought. The ear definitely would, as unorthodox as it was. Even if Munker and Strickland didn’t back off, surely Sheriff Barnum would move to retreat or delay the assault, wouldn’t he? Not because he cared a whit about the Sovereigns, but because Barnum was politically sensitive and the next sheriff’s election was a year away. Barnum didn’t have as much invested in this thing as Strickland and Munker did. Barnum could come out looking good by putting his foot down, stopping the assault by pulling his deputies out of it. That was how Barnum operated, after all. He wanted to look good. Robey! Maybe Robey was up there, Joe hoped. Robey could shut things down in a hurry and threaten action against Melinda Strickland and Munker if they didn’t back off. Although Strickland didn’t care much about the law, she might listen if Robey convinced Barnum to pull his men out.

He hadn’t really thought through what Romanowski had told him about Melinda Strickland and Dick Munker, but he knew they spelled trouble. The thought of Melinda Strickland sitting, as Tony Portenson had described her, bundled in blankets and cuddling her dog as she ordered her minions to ascend the mountain, made him coldly angry.

Because he wasn’t paying attention, he almost missed a turn; he would have been launched over a bank into a deep slough. But he corrected himself at the last moment and leaned into the track of the road.

Think of something else, he pleaded to himself. Something better.

So he tried to imagine how he would feel coming back down this road in a little while with April bundled up in his lap. Under his helmet, he smiled. And he vowed to make that scenario real.

A man on a snowmobile blocked the road that led to the compound, and Joe figured he’d probably heard him coming from miles away. The man wore a heavy black snowmobile suit and had an assault rifle clamped under his arm, and he waved his hand for Joe to stop. Joe slowed-his broken rib and the muscles in his back were screaming from riding so hard and so fast-and he unbent from his forward lean while the snowmobile wound down. Joe stopped a few feet in front of the man. Early-morning light filtered through the canopy of pine trees but was absorbed by the heavy snowfall, giving the morning a creamy gray cast.

“Turn it off,” the man ordered, nodding at Joe’s snowmobile, which sizzled and popped as it idled.

Joe ignored him and raised the shield on his helmet with a squeak that broke a film of ice from the hinges. Joe’s breath billowed in the cold from the exertion of the ride.

“Oh, it’s you,” the man said. “I recognize you from the meeting at the Forest Service.”

“Are they up there?” Joe asked anxiously.

The man nodded. Joe recognized him as Saddlestring police, but didn’t know his name.

“Anything happening yet?”

“I haven’t heard anything. No shots fired,” the officer said. “Our radios are off, so I don’t know if they’re negotiating or what.”

Joe exhaled deeply. Thank God, he thought, I’m not too late. “I’ve got an emergency message for Sheriff Barnum.”

“I can’t let you in,” the officer said.

“I said it was an emergency, deputy.” Joe’s voice took on a mean edge that he didn’t recognize. “No one has been able to reach him because all the radios are turned off.”

The officer hesitated. “I can’t exactly call ahead and ask about this.”

“No, you can’t,” Joe said. “Which is why I’m going.”

“Well…”

Joe flipped down his shield and roared around the officer and up the road. In his cracked rearview mirror, Joe saw the policeman throw up his hands and kick at the snow in frustration.

The Sno-Cats were nose-to-tail on the road in front of the Sovereign compound, forming a glass-and-steel skirmish line, and snowmobiles were scattered at all angles behind them. Joe slowed and rose in his seat as he approached, trying to assess the situation as he squinted through watery eyes and snowfall so heavy that it obscured the scene like smoke.

As he approached the gathering of vehicles, he saw that the assault team all wore identical black snowmobile suits and black helmets, just like his own. Inside those suits were Highway Patrol troopers, Forest Service rangers, sheriff’s deputies, Saddlestring P.D., maybe even more FBI-but he couldn’t tell who was who. He wanted to start with local guys who might know and trust him, but he had no idea where to begin. Obscured by their suits and helmets, Joe thought, these men could be capable of anything.

Most of the men were huddled behind the steel wall of the Sno-Cats with their weapons pointed across the hoods of the vehicles toward the compound. Someone in a black snowmobile suit waved at him-he couldn’t tell who-and another stepped away from the line and blocked his path.

“Who in the hell are you ?” the man asked, and reached over and flipped Joe’s shield up. Angrily, Joe leaned forward on the handlebars and reciprocated, and the man stepped back as if slapped. It was Deputy McLanahan. Joe could see his dumb, rodent eyes and the bruises on his face.

“Where is Barnum?”

“Why in the hell are you here?” McLanahan asked.

“I asked you a question, McLanahan.”

McLanahan squared his shoulders as if he were about to charge.

Joe instinctively reached back for his shotgun, which was still attached to the seat with bungee cords. McLanahan hesitated.

“Knock it off, deputy,” Joe said. “I need to talk to the sheriff NOW! Spud Cargill isn’t up here. I can prove it.”

Confusion overtook McLanahan’s tough-guy face.

“What?”

“He was at the church all along. The First Alpine Church. He tried to come up here but they wouldn’t let him in. I arrested him and he’s in your jail. Now, step aside.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can prove it,” Joe shouted, turning the handlebars so the front skis pointed right at McLanahan. Joe engaged the gears and raced the engine. McLanahan knew enough about snowmobiles to know that Joe was poised to run right over the top of him if he didn’t answer. “Now, where’s Barnum?”

McLanahan stepped aside and pointed. Joe should have noticed it earlier-a single Sno-Cat parked behind the skirmish line. That would be the one holding the leaders, the one out of fire, he thought. He revved his engine and covered the fifty yards in a flash.

Joe shut down his engine, leaped off, and ran around the Sno-Cat. Its exhaust burbled in the cold. Joe threw open the door and stuck his head inside, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.