Breaking Point

over?” Underwood asked.
    “Not unless you want to cut up your horses’ legs,” Joe said. “Plus, your guys aren’t real riders. It’s always best to take the easiest route and let the horse pick his way.”
    “So be it,” Underwood declared, and turned his horse to gather his team.
    Joe stayed. He turned up the collar of his Filson vest against a slight icy breeze. When Underwood’s back had faded out of sight into the gloom below, Joe reached up and unzipped the vest and reached into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt.
    And clicked off the digital micro-recorder he’d left in his pocket from that morning when he encountered Bryce Pendergast.

23
    THE LOG LEAN-TO WAS SO OLD AND WELL HIDDEN IT would have been hard to see if Butch Roberson hadn’t known exactly where it was. The lean-to’s roof was furry with lichen and moss that blended in perfectly in the forest, and it was set in a huge stand of thick trees that was cool and dark.
    Farkus shuffled forward and was surprised there was an orange plastic cooler with a white lid set inside. After seeing nothing most of the day that wasn’t rock, trees, or brush, the modernity of the cooler was like finding a highway cone in the middle of the desert. Next to the cooler was a bulging burlap sack that had been tied off with a leather string.
    He stopped and shook his head.
Who put it there, and how did Butch know it would be waiting?
    Behind him, Butch said, “I trust you gentlemen will help me with dinner, because we’re just about to lose our light. Farkus, you gather some wood and kindling. Sheriff, you dig a nice fire pit inside that lean-to and get the fire going.”
    Then, with obvious anticipation, Butch said, “I’ll cook our dinner.”
    He stepped through them and threw off the lid. Farkus was stunned to see what was inside the cooler. Huge, thick triangles of white butcher paper, potatoes, onions, Gatorade, and the unmistakable grinning tops of a six-pack of Coors beer. All of it nestled in ice.
    “We’ve died and gone to heaven,” Farkus said.
    “It helps to have friends.” Butch grinned, propping his rifle inside the corner of the lean-to.
    —
    T HE SMALL FIRE licked their faces with orange light. Farkus moaned and sat back, his belly so full it was hard to the touch. Like Butch and McLanahan, he’d eaten his entire sixteen-ounce T-bone steak, a scoop of fried potatoes and onions, and washed it down with two cans of beer. Butch had doled out the food in shared portions, even though he’d been out in the wilderness longer and was probably starved, Farkus thought.
    While Butch was preparing the meal, he’d balled up the wrapping paper from the steaks and tossed it toward the fire. One of the balls missed and rolled toward Farkus’s foot, and he surreptitiously scooped it up and jammed it in his front jeans pocket, where it was now. He thought at the time that maybe he could write something on it and leave it for the Feds to find. But after he hid it away in his pocket, he realized he didn’t have a pen or pencil with him.
    —
    T HE SKY WAS FULL DARK but creamy with stars. The temperature had dropped to the mid-fifties, Farkus guessed, cold enough to make it feel uncomfortable away from the small fire inside the lean-to. Although two beers for Farkus was usually not anything more than a nice start, he felt a pleasant buzz because he was both bone-tired and dehydrated.
    After they ate, he watched as Butch strapped a headlamp on from his pack and rooted through the burlap bag. He produced blankets, freeze-dried food packets, a small aluminum coffee pot and a plastic bag of coffee, binoculars, several boxes of .223 cartridges, an old Colt .45 revolver and ammunition, fleece vests, duct tape, wire and rope, and a water filter purification pump. And a fifth of Evan Williams.
    “All good stuff,” Butch seemed to say to himself. “All practical stuff we can use.”
    He jammed the pistol into the back of his pants and retied the bag closed. As he did, he glanced at Farkus as if to say,
You’ll be carrying this.
    Farkus moaned, and Butch grinned in response.
    “We could lighten that load if you opened the bourbon,” Farkus suggested.
    “Nice try,” Butch said.
    “So,” McLanahan asked, “who is the coconspirator?”
    Butch ignored him.
    —
    “A REN’T YOU GOING to get those blankets out?” McLanahan asked Butch a few minutes later, after Butch had rejoined them around the fire.
    “No.”
    “We’re gonna