Mad River

aside, Marshall was just too far away.
    Jenkins and Shrake agreed to meet him at the Bigham Burger King, and from there, they’d head south toward the focus area; they said that a highway patrolman named Cletus Boykin was coming with them. “We can work in two-man teams that way,” Jenkins said. “Boykin’s an old friend of Shrake’s, and Shrake says he’s okay.”
    “What does that mean? He’ll kill on command?”
    “That, at least,” Jenkins said. “He’ll probably eat the dead, if you tell him to. See you in a half hour.”
    •   •   •
    IN A COLD DRY SPRING, before the trees bud out, the morning sun seems to shine white like a silver dime on the horizon, and the clear air over the still-fallow ground gives the prairie a particular bleakness, if your mood is already bleak.
    Virgil had a feeling that there’d be shooting before the end of the day, that people who were alive and even feeling good right then, maybe asleep in their beds, would be bleeding into the dirt before the sun went down.
    Or maybe already: he called the Bare County sheriff’s department and was told nothing had happened yet, but that Duke’s forces were moving into position. Sometime in the middle of the night, the cell phone used by Becky Welsh had been found, and bagged, in case further proof was needed that she’d made the phone call.
    Forty minutes after he left Marshall, running hard again, Virgil arrived at the Burger King and found Jenkins, Shrake, and Boykin drinking coffee among the remains of a nasty breakfast. Boykin was a thin, athletic man with white hair and sun wrinkles; he was wearing his highway patrol uniform. Virgil left his Minnesota atlas with them, and since he suspected that he might not eat again, and since the place offered the full menu twenty-four hours a day, he ordered a Double Whopper with cheese, large fries, and a Diet Coke; the bloat alone would carry him through to the evening.
    When he was back at the booth, working on the Whopper and fries, Shrake, who had his face in a nutrition menu, said, “That’s sixteen hundred and fifty calories, right there, most of it grease.”
    “Tastes really fuckin’ good, though,” Virgil said. He dabbed at his face with a napkin, wiped his fingers, and opened the atlas. “Okay. Here’s the situation. The Bare County people think they’ve got Sharp and Welsh in a net that’s roughly like this.” He traced a circle on the map with a pencil. “My focus group thinks they’ll be a little further south of that—south of Arcadia—and a bit west. The feeling was that they’d drop out of Bare County around here, after robbing that bank and Sharp getting shot.”
    They talked about the search pattern and tactics, and Virgil made sure they’d all be wearing their vests, which Jenkins and Shrake didn’t like to do, and that the two teams would stay close, in case one of them needed support.
    “If you don’t wear the vests, I’ll shoot you myself, just to make the point,” Virgil said. Shrake would go with his friend Boykin, and Virgil would go with Jenkins. Shrake referred to Boykin as “Mad Dog” and “Pit Bull” and Virgil said, “You can call him anything you want, but I’m not gonna ask you why.”
    “Jesus, you’ve gotten pretty touchy,” Shrake said.
    “Lot of dead people,” Virgil muttered.
    “There are always a lot of dead people,” Shrake said. “You can see them on TV all day. Little children fucked and chopped to pieces by freaks. Every day, sure as the sun rises, somewhere in the world, a little child—”
    “Shut up,” Virgil said.
    “—will be slaughtered, and the TV people will find it and put it on your breakfast table. I’ve managed to handle that fact by deciding that I no longer give a shit.”
    Jenkins said to Virgil, “Don’t encourage him. He’s been on this rant for two weeks now.”
    “It’s not a rant. It’s my new meme,” Shrake said. “I’m passing it to others.”
    He pronounced it “mem,” and Jenkins said, “How many times do I have to tell you—”
    “Meem,” Shrake said. “It’s my new meem. Hey, and I’m thinking about going on a vegan diet—”
    “Ah, for Christ sakes, let me ride with Virgil,” Boykin said.
    “Let’s go,” Virgil said.
    •   •   •
    OUTSIDE, Shrake said to Virgil, “You have a tendency to try to do the right thing. If you have a chance, you’ll try to save these kids’ asses, and you could get shot doing that. Don’t be too