Free Fire - C. J. Box [113]
INSIDE, MRS. HANSON was telling Lucy she’d read recently that measurements between rings of the trees within Yellowstonewere proving to scientists, beyond doubt, that the ecosystemwas dying, being tortured to death by carbon monoxide emissions from snowmobiles and snow coaches. Lucy listened wide-eyed. Marybeth feigned interest. Nate and Sheridan ate dessert and acted as if the Hansons weren’t there. Joe broke in, said, “Wasn’t that study written several years ago by Dr. Miles Keaton?”
Mrs. Hanson and Josh looked up. “Why, yes,” she said, “I’m surprised you know that.”
“I do manage to read when I’m not driving my gas-guzzlingfour-wheel drive around the ranch,” Joe said, which elicited a sharp glare from Marybeth. “Would you like to meet him?”
“Dr. Keaton? He’s here?” She flushed. “I’d be honored!”
“I just ordered him a drink at the bar,” Joe said. “He’s in there waiting for you.”
Mrs. Hanson excused herself, telling Lucy, “It was great to see you, Lucy, but sometimes the teacher needs even more education,if you can believe that.”
When the Hansons were gone, Marybeth looked suspiciouslyfrom Joe to Nate and asked, “What are you two smiling about?”
The image that would stay with Joe as he glanced into the bar after paying for dinner was Mr. and Mrs. Hanson’s bloodless,horrified expressions as Doomsayer wagged his finger in their faces.
As they walked back to their cabin, Nate dropped back from Joe and Marybeth and asked Sheridan and Lucy if they’d like to go hot-potting.
“With swimsuits,” Nate added, for Marybeth’s benefit.
Joe watched his older daughter carefully. Nate and Sheridan had once been master falconer and apprentice, but the relationshiphad severed. There had been a time, two years before, when Sheridan announced quite clearly that she didn’t care if she ever saw Nate Romanowski ever again. Nate tried to apologize to her for his transgressions but she’d hear none of it. Nate let it ride, biding his time. Now he was asking her and her sister to join him.
“What’s hot-potting?” Lucy asked.
Nate said, “It’s like sitting in a hot tub outside, only this hot tub is natural.”
“Isn’t it illegal?” Marybeth asked.
“Yes,” Nate said.
Joe nudged his wife, and she got it. Nate was not only mendingfences with Sheridan, he was working it so Joe and Marybethcould have some time alone together.
“I’ve got a new pink suit,” Lucy said. “I was hoping I could use it. Sheridan, you brought yours, right?”
Sheridan hesitated. “Yes.”
“Can we go?” Lucy asked.
“As long as you don’t get thrown in the Yellowstone jail,” Joe said.
“So let me get this straight,” Sheridan said. “It’s legal to shoot and kill people in Yellowstone Park, but it’s against the rules to pick up a rock or go hot-potting?”
“You’ve got it,” Nate said. “Thus begins your enlightenment and understanding of our federal government.”
Marybeth laughed nervously, started to object, but again Joe nudged her.
“Don’t be gone long,” Marybeth said.
But long enough, Joe thought.
“Okay,” Sheridan said, sighing, “I’ll go.”
As they left the cabin, Sheridan paused at the door, rolled her eyes at her parents, and sighed again before leaving.
“She knows,” Marybeth said.
“No, she doesn’t,” Joe assured her.
“Yes,” Marybeth said, “she does.”
Their lovemaking was furious and seemed dangerously illicit, as they kept expecting a knock on the locked cabin door when the hot-potters returned. Both feared either Sheridan or Lucy asking, “What are you two doing in there?”
As usual, Joe overestimated his staying power and was up, dressed, and scanning the entrance gate videotapes when Nate and his daughters returned.
27
While sheridan and lucy got ready for bed in the cabin, Joe and Nate sat outside under the porch light sipping bourbon and smoking Cuban cigars Nate dispensed from a box beneath the seat of his Jeep labeled “Fuses and Toilet Paper.”
“I’ve never smoked a Cuban cigar before,” Joe said, marveling at its fruit-tinged smoothness. “I think I could get used to ’em.”
“Don’t,” Nate said. “They’re illegal.