Breaking Point

do it again.
    —
    T EN MINUTES LATER, Joe and Butch tugged the log along behind them through the warm shallows. It was no longer a boat, Joe thought, but a kind of floating stretcher for Dave Farkus.
    The riverbed was soft and sandy, and the water was warm. His cuts and bruises came to life as he warmed up and slogged along, and he noticed Butch grimacing as well. Now that they were out of the rapids and falls, the price they’d paid to run them was coming due.
    Joe looked downriver. The water was knee-deep and still. Behind them, the fire raged out of control, but the wind wasn’t blowing north yet. When it did, and it was a matter of time, everything he could see on both banks would go up in flames. He felt small and powerless. It was a feeling he appreciated for the pure truth of it in a situation like that.
    Joe thought this was the time to talk with Butch. Soon he wouldn’t have the chance. As he took a long breath and began to speak, Butch interjected: “Joe, thank you for getting me through this. I couldn’t have done it on my own.”
    Joe grunted.
    “I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains. I know my way around, and I’ve put myself in situations I had to think and work myself out of. But I’ve never run a river, and I never could have done what we just did.”
    Joe said, “Thanks.”
    “I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,” Butch said. “I’ll remember what you did. This could have gone a bunch of different directions, I know that. But you saved my life. And the idiot Dave Farkus—you saved him, too.”
    Joe didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “Butch, I know you had opportunities to make this go another way. You could have shoved Farkus off the log, or knocked me on the head, or just let go of the log and let me try to do this on my own. You could have escaped, is what I’m saying. It would have been easy. But you hung in there, and I appreciate that.”
    Joe glanced back to see if Farkus was awake. He was glad he wasn’t.
    “He’s out again,” Joe said. “I don’t know how long he’ll be under. So while we’re just walking along here . . .”
    Butch grinned in response, as if he’d been anticipating the questions.
    “You know we’re going to be at the campground pretty soon,” Joe said. “Who knows who will be there, or what will happen. So since it’s just you and me, and before we show up . . .”
    “What?”
    “There are decisions that need to be made.”
    “Yeah, I know,” Butch said, resigned. “When you agreed to make sure that helicopter was coming, were you lying to me?”
    Joe said, “Yes. It was out of my hands.”
    Butch nodded to himself, as if checking off a box in his mind.
    “Were you setting me up?”
    “No,” Joe said. “I was hoping I could be there to intervene. That’s the only reason I stayed with the EPA agent team. I wanted to be there when they found you so I could arrest you and keep you alive. Batista wanted blood.”
    Butch glanced over sharply, as if he hadn’t considered that.
    “The guy really wants to kill me, doesn’t he?”
    “Yes, he does.”
    “Do you know why?”
    “Not yet. But you’ll be the first to know when I find out. And I
will
find out.”
    —
    A HALF-HOUR LATER, Butch nodded in the general direction of Saddlestring. “Are the people down there with me or against me?”
    Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all happened so fast and the facts aren’t out yet. You haven’t had the opportunity to tell your side. But when you do, you’ll have some support, I think. Not when it comes to killing those agents, though. But no one in their right mind will think what Batista did to you is the right thing.”
    Butch nodded to himself and didn’t turn his head to look at Joe. He seemed to be in turmoil, Joe thought.
    Joe said, “Like I said, let’s handle this locally. Turn yourself in to Sheriff Reed and Dulcie Schalk. You won’t walk, but they’ll be fair.”
    “And you’ll make sure of that?” Butch asked with skepticism.
    “I’ll do my best,” Joe said, and bit his tongue. He didn’t want to say more.
    “Okay, then,” Butch said. “Let’s do this right.”
    “Thank you, Butch.”
    Butch snorted, as if he really didn’t have a choice. Although he did.
    —
    J OE CAME right out with it: “Butch, did you kill those two EPA agents?”
    Butch feigned shock at the question, then said, “Of course I did.”
    “Were you alone at the time it happened?”
    “Damn