Stone Cold (4 page)

•   •   •

A
S HE
CRUISED
in a fast current that took him down the center of the river, he saw the falcon watching him from the gnarled dead branch of an ancient cottonwood. It was a peregrine with a mottled light breast and sharp black eyes. He knew how unusual it was to see a peregrine in the open, and it chilled him how the bird seemed to focus on him as he passed, as if assessing his worth. Peregrines, as Nate intimately knew, were killing machines—the fastest predators in the sky.

That bird, Nate thought, had no
right
to pass judgment on him. Peregrine falcons, unlike other raptors, would target any kind of prey,
whether ducks, rabbits, geese, cats, or mice. They were stone-cold killers.

So what was
he
now? He had no idea anymore, and shoved the thought aside. Unbidden, the image of his friend Joe appeared, an unreadable expression on his face. He shoved that aside, too.

•   •   •

I
N THE
DISTANCE,
he could hear the buzz of a small plane approaching. Right on time. The old asphalt airstrip was less than a half-mile downriver.

Saddlestring, Wyoming

A month later, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett winced against an icy wind in his face as he stood with his hands jammed into his parka pockets on the top of a treeless mountain in the Bighorn Range.

“Come on,”
he shouted to the tow truck driver, “you can do it.” He knew his words had been snatched away by the wind.

The driver was named Dave Farkus, and he'd had no idea when he took the part-time job at a local towing and recovery company in Saddlestring that it would mean taking his leased one-ton up a steep mountain switchback road to the very top as the first big snow of the winter rolled across the northern horizon, headed straight toward them. Farkus had managed to get his 1997 Ford F-450 truck turned around and had backed up to the edge of the snowfield, but he was obviously having second thoughts about trying to retrieve the vehicle that was buried deep seventy yards away. All that could be seen of
the buried pickup—Joe's departmental vehicle until he'd sunk it to the top of the wheel wells on an ill-fated run across the field two years before—was the dented top of its green cab and several radio antennas whipping back and forth in the wind. Farkus looked over at Joe through his closed passenger-side window and gestured with a
what-can-I-possibly-do-now?
shrug.

“Unwind the cable,” Joe shouted, using his hands to mimic the action so Farkus could understand. Farkus pretended he couldn't and looked at Joe with the uncomprehending stare of Joe's yellow Labrador, Daisy.

Joe and Farkus had spent the last hour digging with shovels through the hard crust of snow around the back of the pickup until they located the rear bumper. While Joe continued digging until he uncovered the rear wheel, Farkus had walked back to his truck to bring it closer. He had taken an inordinate amount of time while Joe labored. The snow beneath the crust was grainy and loose, and for every shovelful he threw out, a half-shovelful filled in the hole. Beneath his insulated Carhartt overalls, Wranglers, red uniform shirt, and parka, he was sweating hard by the time Farkus showed up. The wind was cutting through it all, though, and he was chilled as he waited for Farkus to
do something
. He was afraid the strong wind was sifting the snow back into the hole he'd dug and would fill it up, at the rate they were proceeding.

Joe groaned and made his way to the tow truck and climbed inside. It felt good to get out of the wind into the warm interior, although it smelled of fast-food wrappers, grease, diesel fuel, his own sweat, and Farkus.

The view through the windshield was stunning, now that he could look at it clearly without squinting his eyes against the wind. Frozen
blue-black waves of mountain summits stretched as far as he could see at eye level. Many were topped with white skullcaps of snow that had not melted during the summer, and between the ranges were deep wooded ravines and canyons that dropped out of sight. They were at least nine and a half thousand feet in elevation, above the timberline, where the only life was the scaly blue-green lichen on the sides of exposed granite boulders. The approaching storm clouds, rolling from the north with black fists, looked ominous.

He pulled his parka hood back and said, “We're going to need to take your hook and cable out there and wrap it around the rear axle. Then you can power up the winch to pull it out.”

“That truck is buried
deep
,” Farkus said, bugging his eyes with exasperation. “What if we try and it pulls my outfit into the snowfield with that storm coming? We might never get out.”

“There's only one way we'll find that out.”

Dave Farkus was fifty-eight and pear-shaped, with rheumy eyes, jowls, thick muttonchop sideburns that had birthed a full beard, and a bulbous nose. He worked hard at not working hard, but he'd shown an uncanny ability to get caught in the middle of several conflicts that had involved Joe as well. He wore a thick grease-stained down coat and a flocked bomber hat with earflaps that hung down on each side. Tributaries of frozen snot ran down his whiskers from his nostrils from helping Joe dig out the back of the truck.

“Joe . . . if I wreck this truck or leave it up here like you did . . .”

“No whining,” Joe said. “You owe me this, remember?”

“Aw, jeez,” Farkus said, sitting back and shaking his head. “That's not even fair.”

Fifteen months before, Joe had helped Farkus by shepherding him out of Savage Run Canyon during an epic forest fire that had
blackened thousands of acres of timber. Farkus had been injured at the time, and Joe's actions had saved his life. Joe didn't particularly like Farkus, and Farkus didn't particularly like Joe. But in the hospital under sedation, Farkus had said to Joe, “If there's anything I can ever do for you, just ask.”

And Joe had asked, once he found out Farkus had had to go back to work when his disability claims had finally been denied by the state workers'-compensation division.

“How long has the damn thing been up here?” Farkus asked.

“Two years,” Joe said. And one month.

“I'm sure the state has written it off by now. Who the hell cares if we even get it out?”

“I do,” Joe said.

Joe had been at the wheel, trying to drive across the perennial snowfield to connect with his friend Nate Romanowski when he'd buried his departmental vehicle. The ridge overlooked the South Fork of the Twelve Sleep River far below, where Nate was about to get into a gun battle that would change the course of his life. Joe had to abandon his vehicle and climb down the mountain on foot. The snows had come before he could convince a vehicle-recovery company to try and retrieve it. The summer before, another recovery company had made it as far as the summit before turning back, saying they couldn't risk damaging their equipment on such a foolish mission. Joe had lost another entire year because the fire the summer before had blocked the access road and littered it with downed burned trees.

Joe wondered again, as he had constantly over the last year, where Nate was now, what he was doing. And whether he would ever see him again.

Farkus tried again: “Why don't we say we tried and go home before this storm hits?”

“That wasn't the deal.”

“Why in the hell do you care so much about a wreck on top of a mountain?”

“It doesn't matter,” Joe said. He wasn't willing to tell Farkus that he was on very thin ice with his new director, Lisa Greene-Dempsey, who never failed to mention that Joe Pickett was responsible for more real actual property damage than any other employee of the agency. She'd soon issue another year-end report with his name at the top of the list unless Joe could mitigate the cost by bringing back at least the last of his wrecked pickups.

“I'll go with you, come on,” Joe said. “Let's go hook that cable on and get it out of here. Then we can get off the top before the storm hits.”

As he spoke, he felt the vibration of his cell phone deep in his breast pocket beneath the parka. Cell service was spotty in the mountains, and it surprised him. A few seconds later, there was another call. He didn't want to take it, though, because he didn't want to give Farkus another excuse to delay.

“If I wreck this truck, my boss will take it out of my hide,” Farkus said. “I could lose my
job
.”

“Since when have you wanted a job, anyway?” Joe asked. “Now, let's go.”

“That was mean,” Farkus said.

•   •   •

I
T TOOK
NEARLY AN HOUR
of winching, digging, repositioning the tow truck, and reattaching the hook and cable to free the pickup
and drag it out of the snowfield and position it on the wheel lift of the truck.

Joe's satisfaction on getting his old pickup out sank by degrees when he watched it get winched through the snowfield. The pickup was a wreck. The windows had been crushed inward by the weight and pressure of the snow, and the cab was packed with it. He couldn't even see the steering wheel inside. The sidewalls were dented and the rear left tire was flat. He could only guess at the condition of the motor and drivetrain after being encased in ice for two years. If anything, the pickup might provide some parts, but it would likely never be put into service again. Meaning he'd still top the list.

Farkus cursed under his breath as they cinched the nylon web ties on the rear wheels of the pickup.

“Okay,” Farkus hollered, when the straps were tight. “Let's get out of here.”

“Give me a minute,” Joe said, stepping back to the cab and opening the driver's-side door.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

“Checking something,” Joe said, digging out handfuls of snow from inside until he could reach behind the bench seat and feel around.
It was still there.

He closed the door and climbed back into the cab of the tow truck with Farkus.

“What was that all about?”

“Never mind,” Joe said, relieved.

“We're getting off this damned mountain with our lives,” Farkus said.

“We've done it before,” Joe smiled.

“It's barely November. And it's
snowing
.”

“It always snows up here.”

“But I'm sick of it!” Farkus said, hitting the cracked dashboard with the heel of his hand in anger. “I want to move someplace where it's warm and flat. I'm sick of mountains and this damned horrible weather. I want to see long-legged women in bikinis! Most of all, I'm sick of having guns pointed at me and animals falling out of the sky and nearly drowning. Do you know how much my hospital bills are?”

“No. But when did you start paying your bills?”

“Just stop it, Joe, goddamnit.”

As Joe scooped packed snow from his cuffs and the collar of his shirt, he remembered the calls he'd received earlier and dug out his phone.

One from Governor Rulon's office. The other from his oldest daughter, Sheridan, a junior at the University of Wyoming. Rulon had left a message Joe wouldn't be able to retrieve until they cleared the timber and got back on the highway, where there would be cell reception. Sheridan, typical of kids her age, hadn't. In fact, Sheridan rarely used her phone as a phone. It was more of a texting device.

Both calls had come completely out of the blue.

•   •   •

T
HE FALLING
SNOW
lightened in volume as Farkus maneuvered the tow truck down the mountain. Because the wreck on the back made the truck longer, Farkus had to carefully negotiate sharp turns in the burned timber to stay on the road. Twice, Joe could hear the body of the old truck scraping against tree trunks and damaging it further. Because many of the trees were standing dead, Joe feared the impact might knock them over and crush the cab of the tow truck. He told Farkus to slow down and be more careful. Farkus threw up
his hands and complained that they may not make it to the highway before it got dark.

“That's why you have headlights,” Joe said.

“Still . . .”

“Try not to beat up that pickup or knock down any trees until we get on the road, please.”

“If you think it's so damned easy, you can drive,” Farkus huffed.

Joe dismissed him and thought about Sheridan. For the past two months, she'd been the resident assistant at her dormitory at UW and they hadn't heard much from her. She claimed to be wildly busy with school, activities, and managing a coed floor of freshmen. Sheridan's tuition was paid by a trust established under duress by her grandmother Missy—Marybeth's mother—although there were additional expenses Joe and Marybeth were responsible for. Sheridan communicated primarily through cryptic texts and cell phone photos of herself at football games and parties, which made Joe wince every time. It was unusual for her to actually call, and more unusual for her to call
him
.

“Finally, thank God,” Farkus muttered, as they turned from the rough mountain trail onto the two-lane state highway. “Where do we drop off this wreck?”

“My house.”

Joe lived in a small state-owned home on Bighorn Road, eight miles from Saddlestring. It was en route from the mountains.

“So who is going to pay me for this?”

“Give me your bill and I'll send it in,” Joe said, distracted. He was waiting for the
NO SERVICE
indicator on his phone to give way to cell phone reception.

“Shit,” Farkus groaned, “I have to wait for the
state
to pay me? That'll take months.”

“Maybe. Sorry.”

“Do I at least get a tip?”

Joe said, “Never trust a man who wears white shoes. There's your tip.”

“Very fucking funny.”

Joe nodded.

“At least say we're square now?” Farkus said.

“We're square.”

Joe waited, staring at his phone.

“I've got to get on the Internet and look for someplace warm to live,” Farkus said. “Someplace with sun and an ocean I can look at. Maybe I can hook up with a boat captain and take rubes out deep-sea fishing. I haven't tied a fly in months, but I could learn some of those exotic patterns and—”