“I can’t figure what it is.”
“Freedom, brother. The only cause worth fighting for.”
“Freedom for what?”
“To live, man. To think. Thirty years ago, it was the Left calling for revolution. Now the hippies are the status quo, and the Right wants revolution,”
“What do you want, Ty?”
“I want the same thing I wanted thirty years ago,” he said. “The question is, what do you want?”
“I want a gun.”
“You’re in luck. Today, I got a real deal on a Chinese SKS. It’s the coming weapon, my friend. So cheap it’s practically disposable.”
“Something I can carry, Ty.”
“Big? Concealed? What?”
“I want one to keep hid, and it needs to put a man down to stay.”
“Snub-nose.38. An automatic is smaller and weighs less.”
“You got one?”
“Me, I take the Walther PPK, but this bunch of patriots out here will only shoot American-made, so that’s all I stock. The AK-47 is the finest weapon ever made. The revolutionary’s choice. That dog will hunt,”
“Pistol,” Joe said. “A simple goddam pistol.”
Joe followed Ty to his pickup. He dropped the gate and reached inside the topper, where several dozen automatic rifles lay beneath blankets. A two-tiered row of metal boxes held ammunition. He opened a case and passed Joe a shiny pistol. Joe released the clip. It was empty.
“That do for you?” Ty said.
“Figured it would be loaded.”
“What, you think I’m some kind of nut?”
Ty went inside his cabin and Joe felt as if he were watching the passage of wild weather. Ty returned with a duffel bag. Inside were four boxes of ammunition and two spare clips. Ty flicked the safety on and off, dislodged the clip, rammed it back, and showed Joe how to chamber a cartridge. He casually fired at a milk jug spindled on a sapling.
“Best target is a water balloon,” he said. “Fill them until they’re a little smaller than the human head. I know people in Texas who use a corpse. You get used to firing at a human, but there’s two problems.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting hold of a corpse, and getting rid of it later.”
He gave the pistol to Joe, who shot and missed the jug.
“Think of pointing your finger,” Ty said. “It’s pretty tricky with this short a barrel, though.”
“You hit it.”
“I’ve run thousands of rounds through every weapon you can name. Let me show you something.”
He reached in his back pocket for a bandanna and wrapped one corner around the grip of the pistol. He held it tightly with his right hand, lifted the opposite corner to his mouth, and clenched it between his teeth. He used his outstretched arm to aim the pistol, pushing it from his body while holding the cloth in his mouth. He squeezed the trigger. The stick holding the milk jug toppled.
Ty spat the bandanna from his mouth.
“Get it?” he said. “You’re giving yourself two points of support without a rest. Takes getting used to, but it’s good for a long shot. What you want to avoid is being stuck with a long shot. This baby’ll knock down anybody close. The ammo is expanding hollow point. Goes in like a marble, comes out like a softball.”
He clasped the duffel bag full of shells to his chest and looked at Joe for a long time before he spoke.
“Just remember what Lincoln said. ‘If you’re not for us, you’re against us.’ One day they’ll ask you that.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t live with them.”
Joe looked into the woods. He knew a deer trail that led to water. Last year he’d watched an eagle nest in the rock bluffs that rose like a wall beyond the creek. If he’d gone to Alaska, he’d have six months of darkness to conceal him. His leg would work right, and he wouldn’t need a gun.
Ty pushed the duffel bag into Joe’s hands.
“Here,” he said. “Get out of here.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Take it, take it. It’s a fire sale. You need a holster? Let me get you a holster.”
Ty reached inside his truck for a small nylon holster designed to fit against your lower back. He stuffed it in the duffel bag.
“Thanks,” Joe said.
“Forget it. I’m done here. It’s getting too hot.”
“The fires are pretty bad.”
“I mean law hot.”
Joe shrugged.
“Do me a favor,” Ty said, “and give Owen a message. Something I don’t want on the airwaves.”
“All right.”
“There’s a lot of traffic on Skalkaho Pass.”
“Probably fire crews.”
“There’s no fires around here, and I’m not going up there to find out who it is. My guess is the Feds. That’s the back way into the Bitterroot, Joe. This whole thing is about to blow up and I’m getting out. You should, too.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
“You could come with me.”
Joe looked at Ty for a long time, flattered that someone wanted his company, Boyd would have gone, but Joe decided to stay. He’d already left a place once. Now he had people to stay for.
“Thanks, Ty,” he said.
He walked swiftly to his Jeep, wanting to get away before he changed his mind. He backed out of the driveway and honked from the road. Ty lifted a clenched fist. Behind him the sun was fading in the west, striping the horizon with bands of scarlet ash.
24
Joe returned to the ranch by midafternoon. He left the pistol in his Jeep and joined Botree in the kitchen for coffee. The kids were making a map of the United States as a geography lesson.
“Get off early today?” Botree said.
“Not really. I sort of quit,”
“Sort of, huh?”
“Had a problem with some guys on the crew.”
She frowned out the window. Fire smoke dulled the sky to a sheen of gray.
“A job’s a job,” she said. “There’ll be more if you want.”
“It don’t bother you?”
“Long as you don’t hurt my kids,” she said, “what you do is your business.”
Botree’s shirt had horses embroidered above the snap pockets. Joe felt bad for concealing the truth, from her.
“I went to see Ty,” he said.
“After you quit?”
“Yeah, he’s leaving. He wanted me to tell Owen there’s a bunch of people on Skalkaho Pass. He thinks it’s trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He says the Feds. I guess they’re coming after Frank.”
“Ty Skinner talks more than anybody I ever met.”
“Maybe, but it scared him enough to where he’s leaving. He said I should go, too.”
“Are you?”
“Not without you.”
Joe took the Jeep to the bunkhouse and Owen met him at the door, wearing camouflage pants, a sidearm, and a walkie-talkie. Behind him stood the man with half an ear, holding an automatic rifle. The central room contained a long table on which lay several topographical maps, a stack of military field manuals, and a base unit for a CB radio. Bare bulbs lit the room, leaving shadows along its edges. Beside each window was a canteen, an automatic rifle, and stacks of ammunition. Joe smelled coffee and dirty clothes.
Coop sat at the table, his skin like paper that had lain in the rain. Across from him Frank worked at a laptop computer that was connected to a telephone jack. The only sound was his rapid fingers on the keyboard, like mice running through the ductwork of a furnace.
“You look better,” Owen said. “How’s the leg?”
“Only hurts when I laugh.”
“You’re in luck, then. We’re all serious here.”
Frank lifted his head from the computer and blinked several times. He stared at the far wall. The skin below his eyes was dark as if he hadn’t slept in days.