Breaking Point

trees. McLanahan led, trailing a packhorse with bulging panniers, with Farkus in the middle and Jimmy Sollis last. Sollis also trailed a horse, but the horse wasn’t laden with anything other than an empty saddle and several coils of rope. McLanahan had explained to Farkus that the horse was for bringing Butch Roberson down from the mountain, either in the saddle or his body lashed across it.
    Farkus hadn’t been much help when it came to saddling the horses or gearing up, and both McLanahan and Sollis gave him a few dirty looks. Farkus had explained he was no horseman, and the time he’d spent in the saddle had been among the worst time in his life. Besides, he said, he was there to help guide them, not to be a wrangler. For revenge, he thought, they gave him a sleek black gelding with crazy eyes that looked like the devil himself. His name was Dreadnaught. And when he climbed onto Dreadnaught’s saddle and the mount crow-hopped and nearly dumped him before looking back with what seemed like an evil leer, Farkus knew it was a matter of time before something bad happened.
    Before departing, McLanahan had packed the panniers with food, camping gear, electronics, and dozens of items—radios, body armor, gear bags—stenciled with TSCSD, or Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department. Things he’d “borrowed” when he cleared out, Farkus guessed. The ex-sheriff told Farkus to leave his old hunting rifle behind and instead gave him a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle chambered for .223 with a thirty-round magazine. When he noted the TSCSD tag on the rear stock, McLanahan waggled his eyebrows as if to say,
Yes, so what?
    Jimmy Sollis fitted his long-distance rifle into a padded scabbard and lashed it to his saddle. He’d clipped a cartridge belt around his waist and hung heavy-barreled binoculars around his thick neck.
    —
    “A QUARTER TO ONE,” McLanahan declared, checking his wristwatch as they rode into the trees. “We made good time. I’ll bet the Feds on the other side of the mountain aren’t even organized yet.”
    Farkus said nothing, and of course Sollis kept quiet.
    As the canopy of trees closed in above them, Farkus noted how cool and dark it was. Memories from several years before came rushing back of another horse pack trip into another set of mountains for other fugitives, as well as the previous fall with Butch Roberson in these same mountains. Butch loved the mountains as much as life itself, he’d told Farkus.
    McLanahan asked, “Dave, how far until we make the elk camp?”
    Farkus strained around in his saddle, looking out ahead of them—trees—and to the sides—trees. All he knew was that they were high enough into the timber where he could no longer look back and see the pickup and trailer.
    “Three or four hours,” Farkus said, trying to guess.
    “Time to go dark, gentlemen,” McLanahan said to Farkus and Sollis. “If you’ve got cell phones, shut them off. We can’t have a phone start ringing as we’re closing in on Butch. And if Wheelchair Dick finds out we’re up here, he’ll try to order us back. In this case, ignorance is bliss, buckaroos. We’re on a mission.”
    Both Farkus and Sollis dug their phones out and switched them off.
    Farkus asked, “What if the Feds see us and start shooting? You said they don’t know we’re up here, either.”
    McLanahan twitched his mustache—Farkus guessed it was a grin—and said, “There’s a big difference between three men on horseback and one lonely and desperate guy on foot. Even those yahoos should be able to tell the difference.
    “Plus,” he continued, “we should be in place long before those yahoos even start their push. We should have Butch one way or other long before they even know we’re here.”
    —
    A N HOUR into their ride into the mountains, Farkus nudged Dreadnaught to the side of the trail and waited for Jimmy Sollis to catch up. As he approached, Sollis looked at Farkus with a hostile, deadeye stare that Farkus felt all deep in his gut.
    When Sollis caught up, Farkus nudged his horse so they rode side by side.
    “So what’s the deal with you?” Farkus asked. “Are you going into this for the money, like me?”
    “Hardly.”
    Farkus waited a beat, but Sollis didn’t offer more. Ahead, trees were narrowing on both sides of the trail, and he knew they wouldn’t be able to ride abreast much longer.
    “Do you have a beef with Butch Roberson?” Farkus asked.
    “Never met the man.”
    “So what is it,