C Box - Below Zero

A lone convenience store and gas station squatted in the desert brush at Mule Creek Junction. Nate glanced down at his gas gauge-still showing empty-and swung into the gravel lot.

He filled the tank and rubbed his face with his shaking free hand. If there was a car or truck of any kind for sale at Mule Creek Junction, he swore he’d buy it for cash or steal it if necessary. But the only vehicle-a dark red Ford Ranger pickup with bald tires-belonged to the attendant, a shockingly white middle-aged man with a dark maroon pompadour. When Nate went in to pay for the gas, the store was dark and crowded with ubiquitous snack racks and low-priced merchandise found at every truck stop in America. The owner apparently had a pawnshop operation going as well and had a wall filled with used firearms, auto parts, CDs, golf clubs, and dozens of other items tagged and stacked in two piles. He contemplated buying one of the AK-47s on the wall to take with him, but the idea of roaring down the highway in his shoulder holster and an AK strapped to his back was just too Mad Max.

The attendant arched his eyebrows like a fellow conspirator and said, “Don’t assume the AK can’t be converted to full auto by someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Nate said, “I know that. I’ve done it. But I’m not interested right now. Just the gas, please.” He dug into his wallet and handed the attendant a $100 bill from a stack of them. “Unless you’re looking to sell your Ranger out front?”

The attendant looked up. “Then how would I get home?”

“I’m riding a bike. I’ll leave it. I won’t even deduct it from the balance.”

“I’m afraid I can’t sell the Ranger to you. It ain’t mine. It belongs to my intended, Jenny Lee. I’m just keeping it running until she gets out of the women’s prison in Lusk. Sorry.”

Nate shrugged.

The attendant said, “You look lost, mister. Can I help you with directions?”

Nate glared at him. “I’m not lost.”

The attendant nodded at the dirt bike outside. “Thought maybe you were looking for a moto-cross track or something. There’s one over by Edgemont.”

“No. I’m looking for a black Ford pickup.”

The attendant paused while he made change. “F-350? Crew cab? Crook County plates?”

Nate’s voice raised a click when he said, “Yes.”

The man nodded. “They were through here a half hour or so ago. Saw an old rancher type inside without a hat. You can always tell a rancher by his tan line. And then some Dapper Dan type comes in and gives me a $100 bill, just like you did. I ain’t seen two $100 bills in a single day since, well, I don’t know.”

Narrowing his eyes, Nate said, “Did you see anyone else in the truck?”

The attendant pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “I had the impression there was someone in the back seat. I didn’t see him outright, but the Dapper Dan guy turned around in the front seat and it looked like he was talking to someone before he came in.”

“Did the rancher look okay?”

“He looked old and crabby. Typical rancher.”

Nate nodded. “They were still headed south on Eighty-five?” He asked because at the junction there was a road back into South Dakota.

“Yup, south,” the man said. “Mind if I ask you why you’re chasin’ them on a dirt bike?”

Said Nate, “Yeah, I mind.”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” the man said, raising both of his palms to Nate.

“I’m perfectly calm.”

Nate asked the attendant to call the sheriff after he left. “There’s a woman all alone in a ranch house between Upton and Osage, about six miles from the highway. Her phone is out and she might need help. Her husband’s name is Walter, but I didn’t get a last name. You might ask the sheriff to swing by there to check on her.”

The man studied him for a beat, said, “I can do that.” Then: “You have bugs on your face. Doesn’t that hurt when they hit?” If there wasn’t genuine sympathy in the attendant’s tone, Nate thought he might have been tempted to pistol-whip him.

“Yeah, it hurts,” he admitted.

“I heard a story once,” the attendant said, leaning on the counter with $82 of Nate’s change still in his hand. “This guy was riding without protection like you and he ran square into a big old bumblebee. The bee struck him right in the forehead,” the man said, putting the tip of his finger on his own forehead as if Nate didn’t know where it was, “and it was just like a bullet, the impact of that damned bee. He never knew what hit him. The force of that bee knocked him silly and he spun out. He died a few days later in the hospital. Never even woke up.” As he ended his story, the attendant widened his eyes for emphasis.

Nate reached out for his change. “If he didn’t know what hit him and he died, how in the hell do you know it was a bee?”

The attendant nodded wisely. “It’s just a story I heard. I wasn’t there. What I was getting at is, do you wanna buy a helmet?”

NORTH OF LUSK in his new German army helmet fitted with a darkened plastic face mask, Nate braced himself and cranked the hand-grip accelerator back as far as it would go. The motor went into a high-pitched whine, and he prepared for the bike to shake apart. But he needed to locate the black Ford before it got to Lusk to see what direction it would head. There were three choices: west on US 18 toward Manville and I-25; east to Chadron, Nebraska; on US 20; or farther south on 85 toward Fort Laramie and Rangeland. Although he’d been trying to think it through, he had no idea at all where Robert and Stenko were going. He wasn’t sure even they knew.

Maybe a hospital, he thought. Stenko was obviously in pain.

Dusk threw gold light over the tops of the rolling hills and deep shadows into the draws. It was getting cooler. His back ached and his muscles were screaming at him from the constant vibration. His right inside calf was soaked with hot oil the motor was throwing off.

He topped a hill so fast he caught a few inches of air. The lights of the town of Lusk were splayed out ahead of him at the bottom of the rise. And the brake lights of a black Ford F-350 winked a mile ahead as the pickup slowed down at the town limits.

Because of the whine and the wind, Nate almost didn’t feel the burring of Joe’s cell phone in his front jeans pocket.

North of Rangeland, Wyoming

AFTER AN HOUR OF SMOLDERING SILENCE, ROBERT SAID, “I blame you for everything bad that’s happened.” Although he held the gun on his lap and the muzzle was pointed generally at the rancher, who drove, Robert was speaking directly to his father in the back seat.

Stenko, through gritted teeth, said, “I’m shocked.” Despite his condition, he still managed to project sarcasm. Maybe sarcasm was the last thing to go, he hoped.

The fight they’d had was vicious. It started when Stenko studied the numbers Leo had written on the napkin and said, “That rotten son of a bitch. These aren’t account numbers. These are the phone numbers of all of my Indian casinos. He just didn’t put hyphens in the numbers so you can’t tell at first. That rotten son of a bitch.”

And Robert realized what Stenko was saying-that the $28 million was out of reach.

“When I say everything, I mean everything,” Robert said bitterly. “I’m not just talking about the last two weeks when you corrupted me and made me see and do things I’d never even imagined. I’m not just talking about your great friend Leo who gave us worthless phone numbers. I’m talking about my whole life. Not to mention my entire generation. You people have ruined everything for us with your greed and your predatory consumption of all the resources of the planet. It’s like you were a bunch of drunks on the greatest bender of all time. You sucked everything dry and left us nothing but shit. When I think about it now, where I am, I think, How fucking selfish can you be?”