Breaking Point

eaten out of cans the owner had left in the cupboards, and waited for the mail carrier to deliver his check and bail him out. Since he’d left his job, this had become a monthly ritual.
    “Did they catch him?” Farkus asked.
    “Not as of this morning. Feds are pouring in from Cheyenne, Denver, and Washington, D.C. But they aren’t organized yet. Word is they’ll get their marching orders later today and begin a full-scale search for Roberson in the National Forest where he was last seen.”
    Farkus shook his head. “That don’t make any sense to me,” he said. “Butch Roberson is a fugitive?”
    “You used to work for him, didn’t you?” McLanahan asked. He had not lost any of his cop stink-eye and tone, Farkus thought.
    “For a while.”
    “Until he fired you, I heard.”
    “I’m filing for unemployment,” Farkus said. “He asked me to do things I couldn’t do, on account of my neck injury.”
    McLanahan grinned devilishly. It was hard to see his mouth because of all the whiskers, but basically his beard and mustache shifted a little.
    McLanahan said, “Yeah, nothing worse than a bad neck that can’t be found or detected by a doctor. It must get frustrating, always having to go on and on about how much your neck hurts when they can’t find anything wrong with it.”
    Farkus gestured at McLanahan with the half-full carafe so a little of the water splashed out of the top: “You said you had a proposition for me, but you’re just busting my balls.”
    “Sorry,” McLanahan said. “Didn’t realize you were so sensitive.”
    “My neck
hurts
,” Farkus insisted.
    “And I’ve got a huge pain in my ass,” McLanahan drawled. “His name is Mike Reed, and he’s the gimp wearing my badge and sitting in my office. I call him Wheelchair Dick, on account he’s in a wheelchair and he’s a dick who beat me by nine sympathy votes.”
    Farkus nodded, wondering where this was going.
    McLanahan shifted his weight so the edge of the table wouldn’t prod him in the belly.
    He said, “I heard you went hunting with Butch Roberson. Is that true?”
    Farkus nodded. His new employer had heard of Farkus’s exploits down in the Sierra Madre, when he’d been hired to guide a team of contract killers into the mountains to hunt for two homicidal brothers. Even though he’d spent most of the time lost, Farkus had embellished the story until he came out looking pretty good. Farkus even suggested to some guys at the Stockman’s Bar that he’d been known as “Pathfinder,” hoping the name would catch on. It didn’t. Despite that, Butch Roberson had wanted to show Farkus
his
mountains, and Farkus had agreed to go along mainly because his boss had asked him.
    “It was goddamned miserable,” Farkus said. “Five straight days of climbing mountains and crawling through down timber. Hardest work I’ve ever done in my life. Butch Roberson is a crazy man. He hunts from an hour before sunrise to an hour past sundown, and he knows every nook and cranny in those mountains. Worst of all, he passed up a half-dozen shots on elk because he wanted to keep hunting. He was like a man possessed by some kind of . . . obsession.”
    McLanahan grinned. “Did you learn anything?”
    “About what?” Farkus said, turning to pour the water into the Mr. Coffee. “What I learned is that blistered feet and sore muscles ain’t my idea of a wonderful time.”
    “I mean, did you learn about the terrain in the mountains up above the Big Stream Ranch? Did he show you the elk-hunting areas he likes best?”
    “Yeah, and it’s no picnic. It’s rough country up there.”
    “Do you think you could go back up there and know your way around?”
    Finally, Farkus knew where it was headed.
    “There’s a reward,” McLanahan said. “Federal money, and a lot of it—hundreds of thousands, if I heard right. Probably federal stimulus funds,” he said, and laughed. “But a hell of a lot of it.”
    “How much?” Farkus asked.
    “It don’t matter,” McLanahan said. “What matters is me finding Butch Roberson and either bringing him in or dragging him back facedown.”
    Farkus shook his head. “But Butch is a pretty nice guy overall. He’s just an elk-hunting fool.”
    McLanahan waved his hand as if swatting at a moth.
    “It’s not about Butch Roberson,” McLanahan said, “and it’s not even about the reward that I’ll split down the middle with you.”
    He paused for effect, then said, “It’s about nine voters when the