Breaking Point
far away it was. Jesus, what a
rush . . .
”
—
T HEY WERE CLOSE ENOUGH that Farkus could smell the smoke. It was sharp and acrid, probably fueled by green twigs. A breath of wind shifted and took the smoke away. But there was also another smell tucked inside the smoke.
“Be alert,” McLanahan said, as he reached down and peeled back the security strap of the Bushmaster in its scabbard. He drew the rifle out and seated a round. Farkus observed and did the same and laid his rifle across the pommel of his horse.
“No reason to get excited,” Sollis said, and beamed, shaking his head at their precaution. “He ain’t going nowhere.”
Because the camp was situated on a rise from the valley floor, Farkus couldn’t see into it yet. But he recognized the size of the rocks circling the fire pit, and the stumps that had been chainsawed smooth and even to sit on. He got a flash of a memory:
dusk, the last of the sun
filtering through the trees on the western horizon, the fire
blazing high, Butch Roberson leaning over and pouring a healthy
splash of Wild Turkey into Farkus’s metal cup. He’d been
talking about his daughter, how he didn’t feel like he
was truly a man until that day in the hospital
when she was delivered and he looked into her face . . .
—
“T HERE HE IS,” McLanahan said
.
The body was there just like Sollis had promised, and Farkus saw it as they rode up the rise. The body was on its side, facing away from them, partially curled around the fire itself. A clump of baggy green camo with legs extended, scarred hunting boots side by side in the grass.
Bursting through the fabric under Butch’s rib cage was a wet ball of red-and-gray intestine the size of a softball. So
that
was the smell he’d detected earlier, Farkus realized. The earthy, musky odor of a downed game animal being field-dressed.
“Gut shot,” the ex-sheriff declared.
Farkus waited for Sollis to say something defensive, but there was no sound. Maybe, Farkus thought, it had finally dawned on Sollis that his target had been a living, breathing human being.
McLanahan was still trailing the packhorse, and he stopped both of his animals a few feet from the body and fire ring and leaned down, studying the body. Farkus hadn’t ridden around to see the face yet, although he nearly jumped out of his skin when he thought he glimpsed movement from the body’s extended right hand. After a double take, he saw the hand was still.
Then McLanahan said, “Son of a bitch. We got the wrong guy.”
—
P ANICKED, F ARKUS swung down from the saddle and left Dreadnaught to wander off to graze. He didn’t care. He still had the rifle in his hand as he lunged forward and grasped the body’s right shoulder and pulled it to him. The body flopped to its back, and the red-haired man moaned.
“Jesus—he’s still alive!” Farkus said, dropping the gun and jumping back. The man’s face was square, his head blocky, and there was a five-day growth of beard. Farkus had never seen the man before, but it certainly wasn’t Butch Roberson. The man’s eyes were wide open but didn’t move around, and there was a pink string of blood and saliva connecting the top and bottom lip of his partially open mouth.
“It isn’t him, is it?” McLanahan asked Farkus, his tone neutral.
“No.”
“Shit. I wonder who it is Jimmy shot?”
Farkus looked up. Sollis looked thunderstruck, but McLanahan seemed to be taking it in stride, which astonished Farkus.
He watched as McLanahan sat back and slowly surveyed the camp. The ex-sheriff said, “I see his backpack over there against a tree. Farkus, why don’t you see if you can find some kind of ID?”
“Me?”
“You. But first you better tie up your horse before it runs away on you.”
Stunned by the turn of events, Farkus sleepwalked Dreadnaught over to a thick lodgepole pine and tied the lead rope over a branch. He glanced up at McLanahan and Sollis as he made his way over to the backpack because he didn’t want to see the face of the gravely wounded man again. Sollis sat in the saddle staring out at nothing, slack-mouthed and frozen. McLanahan was squinting and looking into the middle distance, as if gears were working in his head.
Next to the backpack, propped on the side of the tree that had been out of their view, was a complicated compound bow with wheels and pulleys and a mounted set of razor-sharp broad-head arrows.
He called to McLanahan, “He’s an elk hunter. It must be
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