Breaking Point

his eyebrows in greeting.
    “Woods told me,” Joe said. “So none of these geniuses made a call to Frank to ask permission to cross his land and set up a command post on it, huh?”
    “Apparently not,” Reed said. “They call it an FOB, by the way.”
    “So how long have you been waiting here?”
    Reed glanced at his wristwatch. “About a half an hour.”
    Joe whistled.
    “I heard about Bryce Pendergast,” Reed said, his eyes moving to the reddened side of Joe’s face. “I can’t say I’m surprised, though. Pendergast and McDermott have been hanging with the tweaker crowd for a couple of years now, and I guess they thought they’d rather be buyers
and
sellers.
    “Norwood called me a few minutes ago and said those idiots had all the ingredients they needed inside the house—Sudafed, iodine, phosphorus, Coleman fuel, acetone, denatured alcohol, and a bunch of flasks and beakers—but he said it didn’t look like they were in production yet. He said it looked like they were trying to figure out how to cook it, but so far all they’d made were mistakes. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow themselves up.”
    “Good thing they didn’t,” Joe said. “There’s a nice old lady next door.”
    “Oh—and we have McDermott in jail right alongside Pendergast. We caught him at the Kum and Go, buying a microwave burrito with his last pennies.”
    Joe nodded.
    “Sounds like you could have gotten yourself killed,” Reed said, concerned.
    “Yup.”
    “Bear spray, Joe?” Reed asked, incredulous.
    “Good stuff.”
    Reed grinned and shook his head, then got serious. “I think they could use your help over at the gate. You know Frank pretty well, don’t you?”
    “I had breakfast with him yesterday morning.”
    “Maybe you could talk some sense into him.”
    Joe looked over and saw Batista gesticulating through the rails of the gate.
    “Frank’s a stubborn old bird,” Joe said.
    “Please, Joe,” Reed said. “Give it a try. We all look kind of stupid just sitting here.”
    —
    A S J OE TURNED to join Batista and Heinz Underwood at the gate, Reed called after him, “Joe, they canceled their offer of a reward.”
    Joe looked over his shoulder, relieved. “Good.”
    “Couldn’t get authorization for it, I guess,” Reed said. “Too much red tape.”
    “So it wasn’t like they came to their senses and realized it was too heavy-handed,” Joe said.
    “Nothing like that.”
    “Did they announce it to the press?”
    “Not that I’m aware of,” Reed said.
    “So the word is still out there.”
    “I’m hoping they’ll give a statement soon. I heard something about a press conference at the FOB.” He nodded toward the locked gate and added, “Assuming there’s an FOB.”
    Joe shook his head, took a deep breath through his nostrils, and approached the gate.
    —
    F RANK Z ELLER STOOD on the other side of the locked gate in his Wranglers, boots, and sweat-stained silver-belly Stetson. He cradled a lever-action Winchester .30-30 rifle that was pointed loosely off to the side. Joe had last seen the weapon the morning before, in Frank’s gun case. It was an old saddle carbine that had belonged to his father. The stock was scuffed, and the bluing was rubbed silver from years of rough use. He knew Frank had a large choice of rifles—every ranch house did—so he wouldn’t have brought the symbolic Winchester to the gate if he didn’t think the situation was profound.
    Frank was short, wiry, and had a long craggy face that made him look tall in photos. Cobalt-blue eyes winked out from tanned and wrinkled skin, and his hands were so leathery it appeared he was wearing gloves. He wasn’t a warm or glib man, and he’d burned through two wives, seven or eight kids, and two dozen ranch hands since Joe had been in the valley. Frank Zeller was known for being one of the few remaining scions of the original founding ranches in the area that were still intact, and for not exactly welcoming newcomers. It took three years for Frank to meet Joe’s eyes as they passed on the highway, five years before Frank would raise a traditional single-digit salute of greeting from his steering wheel, seven years before Frank nodded at Joe in town, and nine years before he said Joe’s name aloud. The last two years, though, they actually talked, mainly due to the water-guzzler project Joe had proposed and installed, which Frank approved of.
    Like so many western characters Joe had come to know, and despite his