Free Fire - C. J. Box [60]
The street was empty and Clay McCann listened to his future,for the time being, go unanswered.
He was still sitting on the sidewalk, eyes closed, his new headache pounding between the walls of his skull like a jungle drum, when Butch Toomer, the ex-sheriff, kicked him on the sole of his shoe. “You all right?”
McCann opened one eye and looked up. “Not really.”
“You can’t just sit there on the sidewalk.”
“I know.”
Toomer squatted so they could talk eye-to-eye. McCann could smell smoke, liquor, and cologne emanating from the collarof the ex-sheriff’s heavy Carhartt jacket. Toomer had dark, deep-set eyes. His mouth was hidden under a drooping gun-fighter’s mustache.
“You owe me some money, Clay, and I sure could use it.”
McCann nodded weakly. Now this, he thought.
“Tactics and firearms training don’t come cheap. And it looks like it paid off for you pretty damned well. Four thousand dollars, that’s what we agreed to back in June, remember?”
“Was it that much?” McCann said, knowing it was. He had never even contemplated, at the time, that money would be a problem. He did a quick calculation. Unless he sold his home or office or suddenly got a big retainer or the money he was owed came through, well, he was shit out of luck.
Then he thought of the business cards in his pocket. And his so-called business partners who had hung him out to dry. They could use some shaking up.
He said, “How would you like to turn that four thousand into more?”
Toomer coughed, looked both ways down the street. “Say again?”
McCann repeated it.
“Let’s talk,” Toomer said.
12
The iowan’s name was darren rudloff, he told Joe and Demming over the roar of helicopter rotors, and he was from Washington, Iowa, which he pronounced “Warsh-ington.” He’d lost his job at a feed store, his girlfriend took up with his best bud, and his landlord insisted on payment in full of back rent. He felt trapped, so he figured what the hell and headed west armed to the teeth to live out his fantasy: to be an outlaw, to live off the land. He liked Robinson Lake. There had been dozens of hikers on the trail over the summer, but he’d avoided them. None were brazen or stupid enough to walk right into his camp, as Joe and Demming had done. When asked about the murders or the murder scene, he said he knew nothing other than what he’d read before he came out. All this he told Joe and Demming while the IV drips pumped glucose and drugs into his wrists to deaden the pain and keep him alive, while EMTs scrambled around his gurneyreplacing strips of Joe’s shirt with fresh bandages until they could land in Idaho Falls and get him into surgery.
Joe found himself feeling sorry for Rudloff, despite what had happened. Rudloff seemed less than dangerous now. In fact, he seemed confused, childlike, and a little wistful. Joe had a soft spot for men who desired the simplicity of the frontier that no longer existed, because he’d once had those yearnings himself. And, like Rudloff, he’d thought that Yellowstone was the place to seek them out. They’d both been wrong.
Demming confessed to Rudloff that she’d lied to him about Congress passing a law.
“I figured that out,” Rudloff said through bandages on his face that muffled his voice. “That’s the only good thing about today, I reckon. We don’t need no more laws. I’ll head back up there when I’m patched up.”
“I’d advise against it,” Demming said.
“You gonna press charges?”
“Maybe.”
“Where you gonna have the trial?” Rudloff chided.
Demming had no answer to that, and she ignored him for the rest of the trip.
Joe asked the helicopter pilot to take them back to the Bechlerstation to get his vehicle after they’d admitted Rudloff. The pilot agreed.
They landed on the only clear, flat surface at the Bechler ranger station—the horse pasture—at dusk. Joe and Demming thanked the pilot and scrambled out. Joe was happy to be out of the air and back on the ground. Stevens was there to meet them and handed Demming a message.
In the Yukon, Demming unfolded the piece of paper. “I need to call the Pagoda,” she said.