Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

Ty spat the bandanna from his mouth.

“Get it?” he said. “You’re giving yourself two points of support without a rest. Takes getting used to, but it’s good for a long shot. What you want to avoid is being stuck with a long shot. This baby’ll knock down anybody close. The ammo is expanding hollow point. Goes in like a marble, comes out like a softball.”

He clasped the duffel bag full of shells to his chest and looked at Joe for a long time before he spoke.

“Just remember what Lincoln said. ‘If you’re not for us, you’re against us.’ One day they’ll ask you that.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t live with them.”

Joe looked into the woods. He knew a deer trail that led to water. Last year he’d watched an eagle nest in the rock bluffs that rose like a wall beyond the creek. If he’d gone to Alaska, he’d have six months of darkness to conceal him. His leg would work right, and he wouldn’t need a gun.

Ty pushed the duffel bag into Joe’s hands.

“Here,” he said. “Get out of here.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Take it, take it. It’s a fire sale. You need a holster? Let me get you a holster.”

Ty reached inside his truck for a small nylon holster designed to fit against your lower back. He stuffed it in the duffel bag.

“Thanks,” Joe said.

“Forget it. I’m done here. It’s getting too hot.”

“The fires are pretty bad.”

“I mean law hot.”

Joe shrugged.

“Do me a favor,” Ty said, “and give Owen a message. Something I don’t want on the airwaves.”

“All right.”

“There’s a lot of traffic on Skalkaho Pass.”

“Probably fire crews.”

“There’s no fires around here, and I’m not going up there to find out who it is. My guess is the Feds. That’s the back way into the Bitterroot, Joe. This whole thing is about to blow up and I’m getting out. You should, too.”

“I don’t know where to go.”

“You could come with me.”

Joe looked at Ty for a long time, flattered that someone wanted his company, Boyd would have gone, but Joe decided to stay. He’d already left a place once. Now he had people to stay for.

“Thanks, Ty,” he said.

He walked swiftly to his Jeep, wanting to get away before he changed his mind. He backed out of the driveway and honked from the road. Ty lifted a clenched fist. Behind him the sun was fading in the west, striping the horizon with bands of scarlet ash.

Joe returned to the ranch by midafternoon. He left the pistol in his Jeep and joined Botree in the kitchen for coffee. The kids were making a map of the United States as a geography lesson.

“Get off early today?” Botree said.

“Not really. I sort of quit,”

“Sort of, huh?”

“Had a problem with some guys on the crew.”

She frowned out the window. Fire smoke dulled the sky to a sheen of gray.

“A job’s a job,” she said. “There’ll be more if you want.”

“It don’t bother you?”

“Long as you don’t hurt my kids,” she said, “what you do is your business.”

Botree’s shirt had horses embroidered above the snap pockets. Joe felt bad for concealing the truth, from her.

“I went to see Ty,” he said.

“After you quit?”

“Yeah, he’s leaving. He wanted me to tell Owen there’s a bunch of people on Skalkaho Pass. He thinks it’s trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He says the Feds. I guess they’re coming after Frank.”

“Ty Skinner talks more than anybody I ever met.”

“Maybe, but it scared him enough to where he’s leaving. He said I should go, too.”

“Are you?”

“Not without you.”

Joe took the Jeep to the bunkhouse and Owen met him at the door, wearing camouflage pants, a sidearm, and a walkie-talkie. Behind him stood the man with half an ear, holding an automatic rifle. The central room contained a long table on which lay several topographical maps, a stack of military field manuals, and a base unit for a CB radio. Bare bulbs lit the room, leaving shadows along its edges. Beside each window was a canteen, an automatic rifle, and stacks of ammunition. Joe smelled coffee and dirty clothes.

Coop sat at the table, his skin like paper that had lain in the rain. Across from him Frank worked at a laptop computer that was connected to a telephone jack. The only sound was his rapid fingers on the keyboard, like mice running through the ductwork of a furnace.

“You look better,” Owen said. “How’s the leg?”

“Only hurts when I laugh.”

“You’re in luck, then. We’re all serious here.”

Frank lifted his head from the computer and blinked several times. He stared at the far wall. The skin below his eyes was dark as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“Did you get fired?” he said.

“No, I quit. How’d you know?”

“It was radioed in that you left. We had three men get fired this week, including Johnny. I think they’re doing it on purpose, getting rid of the Bills. I got to find out who it is.”

He returned his attention to the tiny screen. The house was still cold from the night, and Joe wondered if it ever became warm.

“Why’d you quit?” Owen said.

“Had me a little run-in.”

“Who with?”

“I never knew his name.” Joe hoped his voice sounded casual. “Just some buckethead on a crew. Where’s Johnny at?”

“In town somewhere,” Owen said. “He dropped out of contact.”

“What made him do that?”

“Who knows?” Owen shrugged, “He got bent out of shape one day and left.”

“Who do you think fired those guys?”

“We don’t know exactly. We have their names, but they might be undercover ATE That’s what Frank’s working on.”

“Botree wants to know if you all need anything down here.”

“What I need,” Owen said, “is a three-day drunk in another town.”

Frank pounded the table with both hands. Rising dust shimmered in the glare of light coming through a window.

“Nothing,” Frank said. “Not a damn thing. The men who fired them are both clean. Either it’s coincidence or someone dropped a new set of numbers into every data bank available,”

“You checked them all?” Owen said.

“The three biggest credit bureaus — Equifax, TRW, and Trans Union. That’s over five hundred million files.”

“They could be using a cutout,” Owen said.

“They have the manpower,” Frank said. “Or it could be deep cover.”

“What’s a cutout?” Joe said.

“A middleman,” Owen said. “Somebody who doesn’t know anything except his Job. He takes an order from a stranger and reports to another stranger.”

“That way he can’t give anyone up,” Frank said.

He looked hard at Joe, who felt a quick tension swell within the dim room. He remembered Ty’s warning that the Bills would one day ask whose side he was on.

“Ty gave me a message for you. He’s leaving. Said the traffic was bad on Skalkaho Pass.”

“You sure about that?” Frank said.

“Said he thought it was the Feds.”

The men glanced at one another. Frank cleared his throat and spat on the floor.

“I was right,” he said. “There was a fire near my camp this week. It was in the crown and running, but it didn’t look right. Too small. The wind turned and it burnt itself out. I thought it was set but I couldn’t tell for sure.”

“Fucking ATF,” Owen said. “They infiltrated the fire crews. Easiest damn thing in the world to do. They probably set all the fires just to get at us.”

“It’s the government style,” Frank said, his voice calm. “But more CIA than domestic. The ATF traditionally goes straight at its objective, like the FBI or the army.”