While he’d waited for them, Rory told them, he’d worked minimum-wage jobs at the Tractor Supply, at Walmart, and for a short time was a check-in clerk at a budget motel.
Rory had been in for aggravated assault and battery (6-2-502 in the Wyoming state statutes) on Lander police officers during a Fourth of July parade. Luthi had listened to lots of Rory’s stories and had learned to discount the details of them by half for a more accurate representation.
Nevertheless, according to Rory, he’d grown up in Torrington on the eastern side of the state and had once been a promising defensive linebacker in high school. All the college scouts (which to Luthi meant one or two) were looking at him, until he stomped on the chests of two opposing players (Luthi thought one) with his cleats and kicked the victims repeatedly in the helmets long after the play was over. The assault was captured on video by the mother of one of the victims and posted on YouTube and immediately went viral and was viewed by millions (thousands) of viewers. Thus, Rory was expelled (probably true).
After four (two and a half) long years on a highway construction outfit, he’d driven to Fremont County to interview for a job on an exploration survey crew. Unfortunately, he’d arrived too late Friday night to talk to the crew chief. Saturday was the Fourth and after one or two (nine) beers at a bar, he’d decided to go out to watch the parade. When he’d stepped outside, he was immediately hit in the eye by a piece of hard candy thrown from a flatbed trailer of Girl Scouts.
Surprised and enraged because he thought he might be blind in his right eye—his rifle and pool-shooting eye—he found the Jolly Rancher on the sidewalk and threw it like a missile toward the offending Girl Scouts. The candy bounced off the forehead of a little blond girl and she lost her balance and fell off the trailer into the street. A couple of cops walking the parade route rushed to the little girl, and an outraged titter arose from those crowding the sidewalk. The girl turned out to only be bruised—“a little drama queen fraud in the making,” Rory said—but the whole troop shrieked and pointed at him as the villain who had launched the projectile.
Rory had tried to explain to the two cops what had happened, that he was only acting in self-defense, that he might be blind in his right eye, when two additional town cops (so, two total) showed up and one of them jabbed him in the ribs with a stun gun. The fifty thousand volts (ten thousand volts—still a lot) made him “go off on them,” sending three of four (one of two) of them to the Regional Hospital and landing him in the Fremont County Jail, and later, serving three to five years (this was correct) at the penitentiary in Rawlins.
Where he met Randall Luthi and Dallas Cates and protected them both from the gangs and hard-timers.
—
LUTHI DROPPED the .17 rifle on the couch and found Rory at the kitchen table with the bottle of Ancient Age in front of him. It was nearly half gone.
“Did you already drink all that?” he asked, plucking a plastic drinking glass off a stack of them and pulling out a chair.
“Naw. Eldon must have been working on it before he was killed.”
Luthi poured three fingers. “Wish we had ice,” he said.
Although Dallas had managed to get the backup generator in the garage going, because the county power had long been shut off, no one had thought to fill the ice trays in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator with water.
Rory said, “Maybe Dallas’ll think to bring a bag.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Luthi took a small sip and let it burn his tongue. It was hard getting used to the effects of alcohol again, as it had been the other night at the Stockman’s Bar, but it was well worth the effort.
“Not very fine whiskey, is it?” he said to Rory.
“Cut it with a little water or 7-Up and it ain’t so bad.”
“I’ll try that,” he said, reaching for a warm can of 7-Up on the table.
He tried it again and winced. “Better than nothing, I guess. You heard anything from him?”
Rory chinned toward the cheap prepaid cell phone on the table. “Nope.”
Dallas had purchased two at a convenience store—one for him and one for them—and loaded them with twenty-five dollars of credit.
“He said not to call him unless it was an emergency,” Rory said. “I don’t think a bag of ice is an emergency.”
Luthi sipped at his glass until it was gone. Then he poured more whiskey and soft drink into it.
“Better on the second go,” he said.
“Everything is,” Rory agreed.
“What’s that mean?”
“I was thinking about bitches.”
“Oh.”
—
THEY WERE ON THEIR THIRD DRINK when the phone lit up with a call. The number was unknown.
Luthi and Rory exchanged a glance, and Luthi finally reached for it and punched the talk button.
“Yello,” he said, deepening his voice and trying to flatten out his Texas drawl.
“It’s me,” Dallas said. There was an edge to his voice and Luthi sat up straight.
“Is it him?” Rory asked.
Luthi nodded that it was.
“I’ve got two local yokels on my ass right now,” Dallas said. “They haven’t turned their lights on, but they’re coming up behind me.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on the Winchester Highway with the supplies, and I’ve got less than two miles before I turn off on the gravel.”
“Can you lose them?”
Dallas said, “I’m not even gonna try. If I do, they’ve got a reason to take me down.”
“Gotcha.”
“Okay, here they come.”
Luthi could hear a siren in the background, then two.
“I’m sure I won’t be back tonight,” Dallas said. His voice was calm. “You guys know what to do. Call the number that’s programmed into the phone and tell ’em what happened. Then get the hell out of there.”
Luthi looked across the table at Rory, who’d turned white. He’d obviously overheard what had been said.
“Don’t know who might be listening so I won’t say more,” Dallas said. “You know where to go and what to do. They’ll probably be out there later tonight, is my guess.”
“We know what to do,” Luthi said.
The sirens were so loud now he could barely hear Dallas speak, and he couldn’t be sure if he’d been heard.
“It’s that asshole Spivak,” Dallas shouted. “He’s telling me to pull over.”
“Asshole,” Rory repeated.
“Keep your phone on,” Luthi said to Dallas. Then: “Did you get that?”
“Got it,” Dallas said.
There was a muffled sound, but the phone was still active and receiving on the other end. Luthi searched for the speaker button, found it, turned it on, and placed the burner on the table between him and Rory.
They heard Dallas say, “What can I do for you, Deputy Bonehead?”
“It’s Spivak. Keep your hands on the top of the wheel and don’t move them.”
“Of course. Is there some reason you pulled me over? I know I was under the speed limit and carefully obeying all the traffic laws.”
“You know why I pulled you over, Cates. Now reach down with your right hand and turn off the truck—slowly. Then hand the keys to me.”
“Can I ask—”
“Just fucking do it, and do it now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Luthi pressed his index finger to his lips to remind Rory to keep quiet. He placed his other index finger on the phone itself to mute the microphone, because he didn’t trust Rory to be still.
A background hum, obviously the motor, went silent. Then a jingle of keys.
“Here you go, Officer.”
“Now slowly step out of the car.”
“You don’t need to
point that gun at me. I haven’t done anything wrong and I’m cooperating with everything you ask.”
“Get the fuck out of the car. Now.”
“Let’s just be calm and cool about this, sir. I’m taking my left hand off the wheel and reaching down to grab the door handle. My right hand is staying on the wheel.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody.”
A third voice said urgently, “He’s got something on the seat next to him. It might be a gun.”
“It’s a phone,” Luthi mouthed.
“It’s a fucking phone, you assholes,” Rory growled. Luthi was glad he’d covered the mike.
There was a crash of glass and the sound of blows. Dallas grunted and said, “It’s a phone, it’s a goddamned cell phone. Why did you break my window out? Why are you hitting me?”
The connection went dead.
—
“THOSE PIGS,” Rory said. “They picked him up for nothing at all, just like he said they would.”
“They’ll be out here for us next,” Luthi said, shaken.
“I’ll fucking kill them,” Rory said.
“We need to stay calm and remember the plan. We need to wipe down this place and grab our go-bags and walk right on out of here before anybody comes.”
“Wipe it down with what?”
“There’s Windex and Clorox under the sink, right?”
Rory nodded.
“Every surface, he said. Don’t forget the doorknobs and handles.”
“It ain’t right,” Rory said as he pushed away from the table.
“You start,” Luthi said. “I’ll make the call.”
—
HE ACCESSED the saved-numbers screen on the phone. There was only one, area code 307. A Wyoming number. There was no name associated with it.
With Rory frantically wiping down the counters in his peripheral vision, Luthi punched the number.
It rang a dozen times and didn’t go to voicemail. He didn’t know how long he should wait.
Finally: “Yes?”
It was a very soft female voice. That surprised him.
“This is Randall Luthi.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.” He could barely hear her.
He guessed she was speaking so quietly for a reason.
She said, “Do you have a message?”
“Who am I calling?”
“It doesn’t work that way. Do you have a message?”
He looked up at Rory, who was in the process of dutifully spraying the surface of the refrigerator with Windex. Rory offered no help.
“Yeah,” Luthi said, “I guess I have a message. The cops grabbed Dallas Cates tonight. That’s all I know.”
“I’ll pass it on,” she said, and disconnected the call.
“Well, that was fucked up,” he said aloud before pocketing the phone.
—
THEY THREW THEIR GEAR and guns into the back of the 2012 Polaris Ranger 500 side-by-side in the shed and climbed in. Rory had remembered to pack the Ancient Age in his go-bag. Luthi didn’t mind riding shotgun because he had very little experience driving an off-road utility vehicle.
In fact, he’d never even sat in one before Dallas showed it to them and did a run-through.
“You got the map?” Rory asked as he gunned the motor and blue smoke filled the shed.
Luthi smoothed the topo map across his knees and nodded.
The Polaris roared out of the shed and straight across the sagebrush flat where the pronghorn antelope had been grazing.
Rory drove fast and the machine bucked through the high brush. Luthi hung on and tried not to be thrown from the ATV when Rory made a sharp left turn.
The snow was barely sifting through the air and it was getting colder and darker by the minute. When they reached the top of the first rise, Rory slowed the vehicle to a stop so they could consult the map Dallas had marked for them.
“We’re here, I think,” Luthi said, pointing to the map. “We need to keep going west.”
“Yeah,” Rory said with sarcasm. “That’s where the mountains are.”
Luthi didn’t want to go back up there.
He looked over his shoulder and was surprised how far they’d come. The Cates compound was a small dark disturbance in the sea of white.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Look.”
Rory turned as well.
In the distance, flashing red and blue lights coursed down the Winchester Highway. The lights slowed for the turnoff that would lead them to the Cateses’ place.
“Nick of time,” Rory said. Then: “Bunch of jackwads.”
“Turn the ATV lights off. We don’t want them to see us up here.”
“Hell with that,” Rory said, reaching for the shifter. “We’ll be gone before those assholes even think to look up here.”
They shot over the rim and plunged down the other side.
6
That night, in a shabby two-bedroom rental in Powell three blocks from the small campus of Northwest College, April Pickett sat at her desk and finished up a bowl of leftover chicken soup. She really tried to get interested in Candide, a novel by a Frenchman named Voltaire that had been assigned in her freshman English class. Even after reading the first five pages seven times over, she still couldn’t get it. The prof said it was supposed to be funny. She had yet to even crack a smile.
Not all of the books she was forced to read were as awful. For example, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea was okay because it was about fishing. She thought maybe her dad would like it. But Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman made her almost tremble with rage that she was spending hours with it when she could be doing something worthwhile like grooming her horse, throwing a rope, or hanging out with the other members of the rodeo team. Not that the guy didn’t seem to love America—he did, and that was nice—but he did it in such a softheaded and exaggerated way that it put her off.
April was not a natural reader like her older sister, Sheridan, or her mom and dad, or even Lucy. There had always been better things to do with her time and she got bored easily. Plus, doing the same thing everyone else was doing rubbed her the wrong way. But to stay on the team, she had to do what she had to do to keep her grades up.
The only line she liked and remembered from Walt Whitman was “Resist much, obey little.” She’d posted that line on her Facebook profile and thought that maybe it would make for a good tattoo.
It spoke to her. The rest of Walt Whitman she could take or leave.
—
IT HAD BEEN JOY BANNON’S IDEA, this community college thing, and like most of Joy’s ideas it had turned out to be a good one.
Joy, like April, had worked long hours as a salesperson and stocker at Welton’s Western Wear in Saddlestring. April had started there her junior year in high school and Joy had come later.
For a while, it was a great job. Welton’s was the unofficial center of the cowboy universe in the county and April was its princess. She was able to meet rodeo cowboys when they came through to promote clothing lines they were associated with, and she was able to buy her own stylish clothing at forty percent off retail. April was knowledgeable and friendly and knew the latest fashions—Miss Me, Aura from the Women at Wrangler, Rock & Roll Cowgirl, Cruel Girl, Cowgirl Tuff—except if customers were asses. Then she’d tear them a new one.
It was at Welton’s that she first met Dallas Cates. Before that, the closest she’d ever gotten to him was the life-size cardboard display of him wearing “Dallas Cates Endorsed” shirts and jeans.
He was older, good-looking, charming, and had a hint of menace about him to which April was immediately drawn. His reputation as a hound dog aside, he’d been nothing if not charming and polite to her. He’d offered her front-row tickets to the rodeo that evening, where he won the saddle br
onc buckle, and he’d invited her out afterward and didn’t try anything inappropriate. Not that she would have resisted much at the time.
He’d even made a point of saying that, before they went on a real date—she knew what that meant—he’d like to meet her parents, which surprised her.
It was the first time she’d seen her dad take such a hard line against anyone she liked. Sure, he’d greeted several boys with his stupid “I have a shotgun, a shovel, and ten acres of land” warning he always used, but with Dallas it was serious and personal.
He’d been right. She still regretted running away with Dallas, although the first few months on the circuit with him had been wildly adventurous and thrilling. She’d stayed with him in nice hotel rooms in big cities as well as in motels he shared with other cowboys.
But being with Dallas meant sharing him with rodeo groupies—buckle bunnies—he seemed to have stashed in every state. She was supposed to take that in stride, but she didn’t, and they had screaming fights that soon became the talk of the rodeo crowd.
Then he kicked her out of his truck on the side of the road.
And everything else happened.
—
WHEN APRIL FINALLY RETURNED to work, Joy was still there, but the allure of working at Welton’s was gone. April found out that she’d forever be known as the girl who took off with Dallas Cates, and she could hear other employees and customers whispering about her and pointing her out.
April had not really hung out with Joy at school. Unlike April, Joy was a local ranch girl who was studious and not boy crazy. She was thinner and plainer than April, and didn’t turn the heads of the cowboys when she walked by, even in her super-stylish Cruel Girl jeans. Her passion was horses.
The only person April knew who was as crazy about horses as Joy was her mother. Therefore, April had never been that interested in them.
Resist much, obey little.
On a late Saturday afternoon with no customers in the store, Joy had turned to April and said, “Look at us.”
“What about us?”