Mad River

points off his popularity. He cut funding for the highway patrol, and the union’s been looking for something to stick up his ass.”
    “He didn’t actually cut funding, he cut the funding request,” Virgil said. “The actual funding went up.”
    “A technicality,” Davenport said. “Also, you’re starting to sound like a Republican.”
    “Sorry.”
    “So . . .”
    “Can’t go much longer,” Virgil said.
    “But they could kill a lot more people.”
    “I know, everybody knows. It’s a goddamn disaster, Lucas.”
    •   •   •
    THEY ATE REUBENS, and Davenport said, “We’re getting a lot of credit for you arresting McCall, so anything you want . . .”
    “I’m heading back down as soon as I get out of here,” Virgil said. “I’ve got a few places to look now. If you could send me a couple guys, and we find them . . .”
    “What about the Murphy thing?”
    “That’s why I want to find them. Because of the Murphy thing. I’m buying the idea that Murphy paid to have Ag murdered. I’d like to keep either Jimmy or Becky alive—both of them, if it’s possible—and get them to talk about Murphy.”
    “Might not be possible,” Davenport said. “A couple of deputies down there more or less told the TV people that it’s a duck hunt. It’s shoot on sight.”
    “They were going to kill McCall, too, but I got to him first,” Virgil said. “But if they get to Jimmy and Becky, it could be that Murphy walks on a murder.”
    “I’ll send you Jenkins and Shrake. I’ll have them on the road in an hour, in separate vehicles. You need to turn over every rock you can find. Then, when it comes to
our
funding . . .”
    “See, that’s what we
really
needed,” Virgil said. “A good reason to catch them. Like funding.”
    “You know what your problem is?” Davenport asked, jabbing a french fry at Virgil.
    “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
    “Yeah. You only think of one thing at a time. See, a smart guy, like myself, we know it’s important that we catch these kids, but we also know funding is important. There’s no conflict there.”
    “I feel chastened,” Virgil said.
    •   •   •
    VIRGIL GOT OUT of the Cities, heading straight west, then cutting southwest. Davenport called as he was clearing 494 and said that Jenkins and Shrake would take a couple hours longer than he’d thought, but would definitely be in Bigham that night.
    On the way west, it occurred to Virgil that if Sharp and Welsh were hiding in a farmhouse somewhere, they were probably watching television—and that he might be able to communicate with them.
    He was working through that idea when he ran into his first National Guard patrol, twenty miles north of Bigham. Traffic was jammed for a half mile back from the checkpoint, and he used his lights to jump the line, driving along the shoulder. Two Humvees were working the checkpoint, with an M16-armed MP behind each vehicle, as a third MP checked the cars and waved them through.
    When Virgil came up, the first MP stopped him, checked the truck, and then waved him through.
    And this, he thought, was well out of the search area.
    He was stopped three more times before he got to Bigham. At the last stop, he showed the MP his identification and asked, “Are you guys set up here permanently? Or are you roaming around?”
    “We move around. Headquarters is set up in Bigham, and they move us.”
    “Good.”
    Virgil got to Bigham a few minutes after three o’clock in the afternoon. The Guard was working out of a field tent set up in the parking lot of the law enforcement center, and Virgil checked in with a red-faced major who was running the operation. The major, who was a lawyer from Moorhead in civilian life, showed him a map of the covered area, which included Bare and all the adjacent counties, with a bias to the west, to take in Marshall.
    In addition, there were either Guard or sheriff’s deputies on the north side of every exit onto I-90, which was well to the south, to prevent Sharp and Welsh from crossing the highway and heading south into Iowa. There were also patrols at every bridge over the Minnesota River, which would keep them from going north. Mutual aid agreements had brought in other sheriffs’ deputies, highway patrolmen, and even town cops to patrol east- and west-bound roads out of the area.
    The prison focus group had suggested a bias to the southeast. Virgil told the major about the group, but the major said they