Breaking Point

of them.”
    “I’ve heard there are more pronghorn antelope than people in this part of the state,” Singewald said.
    “Well, at least there’s something good about it,” Baker said.
    —
    “T HE T ETONS?” B AKER ASKED, pointing toward the mountains.
    “Bighorns,” Singewald said. “Those are the Bighorns.”
    “So that’s where we’re going,” Baker said, looking at the GPS display, and then his watch.
    “We should be able to get this done in time to check in to the hotel by five,” Baker said. “We won’t even have to do any overtime.”
    “That’s the plan,” Singewald said.
    “I hope we can find someplace decent to eat,” Baker said. “I’m starving.”
    “First things first,” Singewald said as they took the first exit near the town of Saddlestring. The bypass would link them up with a two-lane state highway into the mountains, toward Aspen Highlands, a subdivision near Dull Knife Reservoir.
    When he checked his mirror, Love’s sedan was no longer there.
    “Call Love and see what’s happened to him,” Singewald said, handing Baker his cell phone.
    Baker scrolled through his recent calls and pressed SEND . After a moment, he said, “This is Agent Baker and we’re on our way up the mountain. We were kind of wondering if you planned to join us.”
    When he punched off, he said, “Straight to voicemail. Either we lost him or he decided to go into town and check in to his hotel.”
    Singewald hadn’t noticed whether Love had continued on I-25.
    “I guess we’ll do this ourselves,” he said.
    “That asshole,” Baker said. “For sure, this will go into our report, right?”
    —
    A N HOUR LATER, Tim Singewald writhed in the grass on his back, choking on his blood. Although his legs were convulsing, causing his heels to thump against the ground uncontrollably, he couldn’t feel them. He was able to roll clumsily to his right side.
    Lenox Baker was also on his back just a few feet away. Baker’s eyes were open, as if he were staring at the late-afternoon clouds. A bullet hole, like a third eye, looked out from his left eyebrow. He wasn’t breathing.
    Singewald knew he wouldn’t last much longer, either. The first two bullets, he suspected, had collapsed his lungs. He couldn’t draw breath, no matter how hard he tried, and he was drowning in his own blood. He gurgled when he tried to speak.
    Baker’s weapon lay in the dirt between them. Singewald hadn’t drawn his before he was cut down.
    In the distance, he heard shouting. Then a tractor started up.



2
    THE NEXT AFTERNOON ON THE LONG WESTERN SLOPE of the Bighorn Range, where the sage and grass met the first lone scouts of pine preceding the army of dense timber descending from the mountain, game warden Joe Pickett encountered Butch Roberson. By the way Butch looked back at him, Joe knew something was seriously wrong.
    The mid-August afternoon was uncharacteristically sun-splashed and soft under the massive blue sky, which was cloudless and clear except for a single fading vapor trail miles above. The warm air was still and perfumed with juniper, sage, pine, and mountain wildflowers: Indian paintbrush and columbine. Insects hummed at grass level, and Joe was so far away from the distant state highway he couldn’t hear traffic sounds from the occasional passing vehicles.
    Joe was riding Toby, his fourteen-year-old Tobiano paint. The day and the surroundings brought a bounce to the gelding’s step, and the horse had trouble focusing on the task. There was rich grass on both sides of the narrow trail, and Joe had to be constantly alert so Toby wouldn’t dip his head to grab a bite. Joe’s one-and-a-half-year-old yellow Labrador, Daisy, loped alongside or drifted behind so she could hoover up Toby’s droppings, even though Joe hollered at her to stop. The new dog had joined Tube, their less-than-ambulatory corgi-Lab cross, in the Pickett household. The new dog had been dropped off at the local veterinarian’s office by disgusted Pennsylvania bird hunters the winter before. They claimed she was useless. Joe knew that all year-old Labs were useless, and took her home to mature. She seemed to be settling down, now that every shoe in the house had been destroyed. And so far on this ride he’d been impressed with her, except for eating the horse droppings.
    It was a rare and perfect day; so perfect, in fact, that after the year he’d had and the things that had happened, the day seemed cheap and false and somehow