Breaking Point

year. She knew Joe still checked it from time to time to see if there was any word from Nate, but he reported that there had been nothing.
    She called up a discussion thread on the training of kestrel hawks, which was the thread they had used. There had been no new comments posted for months.
    When she’d been doing her inventory of her family and where they were at that time, she’d also thought of Nate. He wasn’t related to them by blood, but he’d certainly been an oddball part of the family for years until all of the violence had happened and he’d gone away. She knew federal law enforcement was still looking for him, and that Joe occasionally got calls or visits to ask if he’d heard anything.
    On the end of the thread, she wrote:
    This is Marybeth. Do you still check this site? If so, please tell me you’re doing okay, wherever you are.
    She waited for a moment to see if there was a reply, then castigated herself for it. Did she really think Nate Romanowski was hovering by a computer somewhere, just waiting for her to post something?
    And if he was, what would she ask him? He couldn’t bail them out of the hole she’d dug, and Joe wouldn’t want him around in a county filled past capacity with federal law enforcement officers.
    She thought herself foolish for even posting the question, and shut down the computer.
    But tomorrow, she knew, she’d check it.
    —
    A S SHE CLIMBED the stairs to her bedroom, she heard a faint sound outside that was unusual. They were used to natural sounds: the cries of coyotes, the huffs of elk and moose from the willow-choked riverbed across the road, and assorted whistles and screeches from falcons and owls. And certainly the roar of a vehicle using Bighorn Road.
    This was different. It sounded like a pair of lawn mowers in the distance. But they came from the sky.
    Marybeth slid out of bed and parted the curtains, but she couldn’t see what had made the noise. Then she pulled on her robe and went downstairs, back to the computer.



25
    IT WAS PAST MIDNIGHT WHEN JOE REACHED THE summit of the mountain and turned to look back. He could see for miles and even locate the distant thread of highway because of the lights on the few vehicles using it. Twenty-five miles away was the tiny cluster of lights from the headquarters of Big Stream Ranch. The FOB was obscured from view by the ocean of trees below, but he knew approximately where it was by a faint glow of lights powered by generators.
    The mountaintop was bare of trees or any kind of vegetation except stubborn lichen holding on to granite for dear life, and it was illuminated by moonlight and millions of pinprick stars. Underwood and his team were behind him, their horses picking their way up through the icy granular crusts of snow and loose dark shale. The wind blew from the west into Joe’s face, and he kept the brim of his hat tilted down so his eyes wouldn’t tear. The wind was surprisingly cold for August and numbed his face and hands.
    Joe checked his cell phone for bars because sometimes he could get a wayward signal on the top of a mountain at night, but there was no reception. He was glad he’d made contact with Marybeth before, so she knew he was all right. He hated to have left her alone.
    One of Underwood’s team cursed the darkness and the cold, his voice harsh enough to cut through the wind. When the agents were close enough to start to crowd him, Joe nudged Toby on over a wide snowfield that looked like a pond or small lake in the moonlight, and led them over the mountain to the western slope. As he descended, he left the cold wind on top. And as he walked his horse into the thick stand of trees, he left the moonlight as well.
    —
    D EEP IN THE TREES, Joe could see only what the yellow orb of his headlamp would reveal. Toby could see better than he could in the dark, so he had to trust the horse wouldn’t trap them in down timber or walk over a cliff. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw the lenses of five bobbing headlamps, and sometimes the wayward beam of one slicing out to the side.
    He emerged into a small mountain meadow where the canopy opened to allow moonlight. He reined Toby to a stop and waited.
    Underwood joined him a few minutes later, and Joe said, “This is ridiculous. We’re only going to get our horses or ourselves hurt trying to ride down this mountain in the dark.”
    “We have our orders,” Underwood said without conviction.
    “Fuck the orders,” one of the team