C Box - Below Zero

“Wow,” Sheridan said. “Those things are awesome-looking.”

“I’ve been on top of them,” Joe said, grateful to change the subject.

“What is it like up there?”

He told her how he’d climbed to the top of the middle butte and walked around. The surface was as flat as a tabletop, covered with short grass. Chippings from arrowheads and other tools winked in the grass like jewels, and there were a half-dozen campfire and tipi rings where the Indians used to camp. The height of the buttes afforded them protection from other bands because the view was unparalleled: oceans of treeless prairie to the east, north, and south. He told Sheridan he could see until the land met the sky and vanished. To the west was the knotty blue spine of the Big Horn Mountains.

“I’d like to climb them someday,” she said. “I’ve never found an arrowhead.”

“Look,” Joe said suddenly, “I’ve done and said things in the past I regret. I wish I could take some things back. You’ll understand someday. But getting a second chance to save April means a lot to me right now. So let’s concentrate on that, okay?”

Sheridan nodded. “Okay.”

“No more speculating.”

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll shut up.”

“You don’t have to shut up,” Joe said. “Just quit bringing up things that give me a stomachache. I’ve got to concentrate.”

She laughed, “So what is your opinion about never listening to old music?”

AS THEY DESCENDED on the two-track, Joe pointed out the windshield at a tight cluster of blue lights on the prairie floor to the northeast. “See that?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Savageton.”

“That’s all there is?”

“Yup.”

Joe’s cell phone lit up and rang: Coon.

“Yes, Chuck?”

Joe could hear a roar in the background and recognized it as the ascending whine of helicopter rotors. He was surprised how quickly the FBI had located their pilots and fueled the helicopter. It sounded like they were ready to scramble.

Coon had to shout: “Damn it, Joe. You’re holding out on us.”

“What are you talking about?” Joe asked, wondering if Coon and Portenson had learned about April.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Coon yelled. “The subject fired up the cell phone a half hour ago. Are you telling me your daughter didn’t get a call or a text?”

Joe slowed to a stop on the two-track and jammed the pickup into park. He glanced over at Sheridan, who’d heard Coon shouting.

Sheridan shrugged and checked her cell, just in case. “No new texts,” she said, looking at the display, “and I still have a strong signal.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “We’ve heard nothing. Do your contacts say calls are being made?”

“Yes, but we’re not sure which numbers were called. We don’t have that information yet,” Coon said. “The night staff at the phone company isn’t up on the tracing procedure, I’m afraid. But we do know the phone is on and starting to move.”

Joe felt a tremor in his face muscles. So April had been at Savageton all this time? And was just now starting to drive away? He dug beneath his seat for his spotting scope while Coon said, “Yeah, we’re tracking it going south on Highway Fifty, which is the wrong way! They’re supposed to be headed north to I-Ninety, where we’ve got the roadblock set up!”

Without consulting the map, Joe knew 50 would intersect with Wyoming Highway 387, which went southwest to northeast. On that road and several others, it would be possible for Stenko to access the Black Hills without ever putting his tires on the interstate. They’d all guessed wrong. He gave Stenko credit for being unpredictable in his movements.

Sheridan said, “I wonder why she turned her phone on.”

“Hold on a second,” Joe said to Coon and dropped his phone in his lap while he tightened the bracket of the spotting scope to the top of the driver’s side window. He leaned into it, focusing on Savageton.

Savageton consisted of a single green corrugated metal building on a small rise a two hundred yards from Highway 50. The sides of the structure had been battered by snow and wind over the years and the words SAVAGETON LOUNGE AND RESTAURANT could barely be read in the moonlight. The large gravel parking lot where energy trucks and semis parked during the day was empty and lit by four pole lights. He could see fifty-gallon drums that served as garbage barrels and large wooden spools that were used as makeshift outdoor tables. Two abandoned cars sagged on the side of the building. All the interior lights were on, but as Joe focused on them they went off one by one, from the back of the building to the front. Ten seconds later, the front door opened and a single large man came out, turned, and locked the front door. He was alone and obviously closing the place for the night. Joe was sure he couldn’t be Stenko.

“There!” Sheridan said. “I see a car.”

Joe looked to his right. Sheridan was pointing far to the south, where two tiny taillights could be seen for a moment as the vehicle passed between to small hills. As the lights receded from left to right a brushy rise blocked them and they blinked out.

Joe grabbed the cell and put the pickup into gear. “We have a visual,” he said to Coon. “A single vehicle headed south on Highway Fifty.”

“Can you see who’s inside?”

“No.”

“Make or model?”

“Too far,” Joe said. “And I’ve got at least two miles of rough road in front of me before I hit the pavement.”

“Stay on them!” It was Portenson, who had apparently snatched the phone from Coon. “Don’t lose them!”

“Hi, Tony,” Joe said.

“Don’t ‘Hi, Tony’ me!” His voice was rapid-fire and angry. Joe could visualize Portenson standing in the dark on the tarmac with his salt-and-pepper hair flying in the prop wash and his scarred lip pulled back in a grimace. He shouted, “Catch up with Stenko and stay on him until we can get the chopper there or divert law enforcement from I-Ninety your way!”

Joe said, “I’ll do my best.”

But he’d lost the taillights. Sheridan had, too, and looked over with a palms-up gesture.

“We can’t see the vehicle right now,” Joe said.

“You can’t lose him!” Portenson said. “It’s impossible. Christ, there’s only one highway-”

Joe said, “This whole basin is covered with roads, Tony. This is where all the energy development up here is. There are gravel roads everywhere going to oil rigs, wells, gas lines… and plenty of old ranch roads.”

“JUST STAY ON HIM!”

Joe wasn’t sure whether Portenson was yelling because of the increased motor noise from the helicopter or because his internal gaskets were blowing. Either way, Joe closed the phone.

“It’s for his own good,” Joe said to Sheridan.

She giggled as he tossed the phone aside and gripped the wheel with both hands. “Hold on,” he said to Sheridan, and gunned it down the hill.

“WOO-HOO!” she howled, thrilled.

Powder River Basin

BY THE TIME JOE LAUNCHED UP THROUGH A BORROW DITCH onto the stunning calm of the two-lane blacktop, he felt as if his bones had been rattled loose and his internal organs were sloshing around inside of him like loose pickles in a jar. He turned the pickup south on the highway and accelerated. The too-fast push down the butte and across the rutted steppe to the highway had been brutal, although Sheridan had shouted as if she were on a carnival ride.

“I feel like I just got tumble-dried!” Sheridan said, laughing. “That was cool!”

Unfortunately, the rough fast ride had jarred the glove box open and the contents-maps, papers, citation books, spent cartridges, spare handcuffs-had spilled all over the floorboards. As they sped down the highway, wind rushed in through the vents and sent papers flying through the air as if the cab of the vehicle were somehow gravity-free.