C. Box - Endangered

Joe asked, “Who is the reporting party?”

“A female. I’m not sure she identified herself to the dispatcher.”

“Can we find out?” Joe asked.

“We’ll have a recording,” Reed said, looking skeptically at Joe. “Why—what are you thinking?”

Joe shrugged.

“Anyway,” Reed said, “we’ve put out a statewide BOLO on him and his Humvee. He won’t get far if he stays in that vehicle. It’s a rolling billboard.”

Deputy Boner appeared from the dark and held a cell phone out to Reed. “Chief Williamson for you.”

Reed frowned and shook his head before taking it.

“Yes, Rocky,” Reed said.

Joe could only hear Reed’s side of the conversation, but he got the gist of what was going on.

“No, we’ve got it handled. There’s no need for that now . . .

“I’d say sit tight and put your resources into finding Cudmore . . .

“I know he’s always armed, but sending that thing out here might play into his worldview and set him off, you know? I’d rather not do that . . .

“I understand. You’re just offering help and I appreciate that. But we’ve got the situation under control.”

Reed punched off and handed the phone back to Boner. To Joe, he said, “Our overeager police chief offered to send out his new toy. I politely declined.”

Joe rolled his eyes.

The Saddlestring Police Department, like so many police departments across the country, had received a twenty-ton military MRAP—a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle—from the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security the month before. The vehicle had been designed for and used in the Iraq War. Although it had cost the government more than a half-million dollars, it was given to Chief Williamson and his six-person police department free of charge. Helmets, body armor, combat boots, and camouflage uniforms were also provided. Williamson, who was as eager to make a show of force as Sheriff Reed was to refrain from it, had also procured a .50-caliber machine gun for the turret on top.

To Joe’s knowledge, the MRAP had been used twice: once to arrest a meth cook operating out of a garage, and also to serve papers on a derelict ex-husband for failure to pay child support. There had been a column in the Saddlestring Roundup by Chief Williamson apologizing for the damage to curbs, gutters, and lawns the MRAP had crushed en route, as well as a vow to only use it in the future for more appropriate situations.

—

JOE LEFT REED to check on Lucy. It had gotten cooler. Hard pellets of snow came in waves, bouncing off the windshields and the packed ground.

It was then that he remembered the plight of the sage grouse twins.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called Annie Hatch.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “Something came up. I can be up there in a couple of hours—”

“Fuck you!” Wentworth screamed back. He’d obviously snatched the phone from Hatch. “Don’t even bother. We found Lek Sixty-four just after the snow paused for a few minutes, and we managed to find the road, no thanks to you.”

Joe punched off before he said something he’d later regret.

—

TEN MINUTES LATER, a set of bright headlights appeared on the access road. Because of his job and the long nights he had spent perching and patrolling his district, Joe had become a student of headlights in the dark. He could discern the make and model of an off-road vehicle by the spacing, height, and intensity of the headlamps. They were like faces to him. These headlights were far apart and higher and brighter than normal, and Joe shouted, “It looks like a Hummer!”

“Oh shit,” Reed said. “Here he comes.”

As he wheeled toward his van, Reed said to his officers, “Get ready for anything. Think of your safety first—and no hero antics. We just want to take him in and question him at this point.”

Deputies jogged toward their vehicles with their hands on their weapons.

Joe grasped Dulcie by the arm and guided her toward his pickup. Lucy opened her door when she saw what he was doing.

“Please get in there with Lucy, and both of you stay on the floor,” Joe said. “Don’t raise your heads until I tell you to, okay?”

Lucy nodded, and scooted across the seat to make room for Dulcie. Joe retrieved his Remington Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun from behind the seat. If there was a firefight coming, he thought, the last thing he wanted was to be dependent on his sidearm. He racked a double-ought shell into the receiver.

When the pickup door was closed, Joe looked across the hood toward the oncoming vehicle. Rather than slow down at the band of crime scene tape, the Hummer accelerated through it.

6

He knows we’re here!” Reed shouted.

Joe crouched down behind the front fender of his pickup and rotated on his heels so he could survey the situation behind him. Reed had wheeled his chair back to his van and was positioned near the grille. Joe saw a glimmer of red from the wigwag lights wink from the barrel of Reed’s drawn semiauto. The deputies were well positioned behind their vehicles and were locked and loaded. Boner was crouched behind the back hatch of his SUV.

The Humvee roared into the yard and steered around two sheriff’s department SUVs, headed toward the trailer. Joe popped his head up over the hood of his pickup and was instantly blinded by the Humvee’s headlights. He dropped back down, squeezing his eyes shut. All he could see on the inside of his eyelids were the pulsing green orbs of an afterimage.

As the Humvee shot past Joe’s truck, he heard several deputies shout for Cudmore to stop, but he didn’t. Joe kept his head down, but no one fired at the passing vehicle.

The driver powered through a small front fence and across the lawn, turning around the side of the trailer and out of view. But rather than keep on going, the vehicle braked to a stop in the backyard.

“He’s going inside!” Reed shouted. He ordered two deputies to flank the trailer, and they moved out on foot.

“Should we storm it?” Boner asked Reed.

“Negative,” Reed said back. “I don’t want to get anybody hurt.”

“He’s inside,” someone said.

Joe looked up. A dim light had been turned on inside the trailer in what looked like the living room. A moment later, the window was thrown open.

“You sons of bitches have no right to be on my property, so get the hell off!”

He sounded enraged.

“Get in your goddamned cars and get the hell off my property, you fascist, jackbooted thugs!” he hollered. “Unless I see warrants and an order signed by the sheriff of this county— the only authority I recognize —you’re trespassing on my place and I’ll have all your asses. You have no right to be here!”

He had a thundering voice, Joe thought, but slightly slurred. Joe blinked his eyes, trying to force away the effects of the exposure to the headlights so he could see again.

“I’m right here, Tilden,” Reed responded from behind his van. “It’s Sheriff Reed. The warrant is on the way. So calm yourself down and stop yelling. Nobody wants any trouble if we can avoid it.”

Reed had a patient, reasonable timbre to his voice.

That seemed to startle Cudmore into silence.

Reed said, “If you’re packing that pistol you carry around, you need to take it out of your holster and put it down and come out of the house. I need to see your hands.”

“Sheriff, why are you here?” Cudmore asked.

“I think you know why, Tilden,” Reed said.

“Whatever it is, it’s bullshit.”

“So calm down and let’s talk about it.”

Joe took a deep breath. The situation seemed to be cooling. He chanced a glimpse around the front of his truck, keeping low this time so the headlights wouldn’t hit him again.