Joe fought back an urge to shove her. "It's true."
She was joined by Melinda Strickland. Strickland was obviously concerned, which, to Joe, looked as patently false as all of her public emotions. It looked like she'd said to herself, "Now put on your frowny face."
"Joe, we really have to talk."
Joe looked up. Elle Broxton-Howard stepped to the side. Munker and Barnum were still at the podium, but they were both looking toward Joe and Melinda Strickland, awaiting the outcome of what no doubt had been previously discussed among the three of them.
"Joe, we all really appreciate what you did when you arrested Rope Latham, but there are some issues."
In his peripheral vision, he saw Broxton-Howard scribbling the sentence in her pad. So this was for her benefit, Joe realized.
"What issues?" he asked. He hated words like "issues."
"It's interesting that you didn't get one of the liens or subpoenas like all of the rest of us did," she said. "Or did you?"
He shook his head no.
"Joe, don't you feel that maybe you've got too many personal issues in this situation? Like with that little girl and all? Like maybe, you know, maybe you're a little too close to the Sovereigns up there, and that it would be best not to participate in the search and all?"
He stared at her. Broxton-Howard wrote.
"This whole sad affair started when, unfortunately, Lamar Gardiner escaped from you. The arrest of Rope Latham was good and all, but maybe you should sort of take a break and get some rest and leave it up to the professionals."
A hot surge began to crawl up Joe's neck as he looked at Melinda Strickland, and beyond her at Munker. The flush spread through his chest, ran down his arms, and settled behind his eyes. He stared at them both with blinders on, his rage coursing through him.
"I can see what's happening here," he said. His voice sounded strained, even to him. "It's a case of target fixation, just like when Lamar Gardiner saw more elk than he had ever seen in one place before. Like when he was reloading with cigarettes so he could shoot and kill some more."
"Joe…"
"You see a chance to crush people like you've always wanted to do. You've found a situation where you think you're justified in doing it. You people hate so much you forget to think. There are big problems here. The first is that you've brought in a psychopath to run things." He nodded toward Munker. "The second is that I have a child up there in that compound. As you know."
From the front of the room, Dick Munker scoffed. He had been listening all along. "From what I understand she's not even yours."
Rage all but consumed him. He despised the fact that Munker and Strickland had discussed Joe and Marybeth's situation with April as freely as they had. Although the matter was not private, given the circumstances, he thought it should be treated that way. When he closed his eyes, spangles of red cascaded like fireworks down the insides of his eyelids. He felt someone grip his arm-Hersig-and he ripped his arm away.
It's not about children as property, he shouted to himself, or who belongs to whom. It's not about that. It's about bringing up kids who become good human beings, so they won't turn out like the people standing in front of me.
"Joe?" Hersig asked. Joe hadn't realized Robey was so close to him.
Joe opened his eyes. Melinda Strickland had stepped back, as had Elle Broxton-Howard. They had inadvertently cleared a path across the room to Dick Munker, who lit a cigarette behind the podium.
"Munker." His voice was hoarse.
Munker raised an eyebrow in response.
"If you do anything that hurts April even further, I'm going to paint the trees with your blood."
"My God!" Melinda Strickland said, looking to Broxton-Howard with alarm so her reaction would be noted.
"That goes for you, too," Joe said, shooting his eyes to Melinda Strickland. "You wanted a war and now you're going to get your wish."
"Joe, goddammit, go home," Hersig hissed into his ear. "Go home before Munker swears out a warrant on you for that threat that we all heard."
The silence in the room was conspicuous.
Joe let himself be led toward the door by Robey Hersig, who stepped outside with him.
"You were way out of line in there," Hersig said, shaking his head. "What are you doing, Joe?"
Joe set his jaw to argue, but the red shroud of rage began to pull back from his eyes. "Maybe I don't know what I'm doing, Robey."
"Go home. Keep out of this."
"April is up there."
"So is Spud Cargill."
"I don't know that. I honestly don't believe that. It doesn't make sense."
"Joe…"
"We're taking McLanahan's word that he might have seen a guy who might have been Cargill driving past him yesterday afternoon. Based on that, all hell is breaking loose, to use your phrase."
"I know, I know," Hersig said wearily.
"Are we just going to let it happen?" Joe asked.
Hersig started to speak, then stopped. "Maybe it won't be so bad, Joe. That isn't exactly the cream of all mankind up there."
Joe's eyes flared. "Get the hell away from me, Robey."
Joe turned and stomped across the snow, knowing that if he didn't leave now, things were going to get much worse very quickly. Joe cleared Saddlestring toward the mountains en route to… where? He didn't know. He felt as if he were under water. His thoughts and movements seemed sluggish. They were someone else's thoughts.
He pulled over. Huge white flakes lit on his windshield, turning instantly into beaded stars against the glass. It was snowing hard. He opened his window and stuck his head out. The snow descended on his face. It felt cool against his skin.
He stared wide-eyed into the sky. Snowflakes swirled as far as he could see. A few stung his eyes. He tried not to blink. Twenty-six The snow was now falling at an overwhelming volume. As Joe drove toward Saddlestring with his defroster and windshield wipers on high, he fought a rising sense of desperation. The fresh snow crunched beneath his tires, and the tracks in the snow he had made on the way out of town were already filled in and covered over. Deer, passing shadows in the snowfall, silently climbed from the plains and draws into the timber of the foothills. Geese on the river found overhangs and brush. The looming, wide shoulders of the Bighorn Mountains that provided the constant, dependable horizon had vanished behind a curtain of deathly white. If it weren't for the dark metal delineator posts that bordered the two-lane highway, he would not have been able to see where the road was located.
He tried to think, tried to put things into perspective, tried to fight the bile that was rising in his throat. He had cooled down enough to feel ashamed of what he'd said at the Forest Service office. He had lost it, which was unusual for him. The weakness he had showed to Strickland and Munker, and things he had said could come back to haunt him. Strickland, Munker, or even Robey could file a complaint with his supervisors. They could have him arrested. Jeannie Keeley could use the outburst against him when Joe tried to make the case that April would be better off with him and Marybeth.
Joe cursed, and thumped the dashboard with the heel of his hand. Think. Calm down and think.
Strickland and Munker were mounting an assault on the Sovereign Citizen compound because Spud Cargill was allegedly there. The judge had signed a search warrant based on probable cause. Joe couldn't imagine a scenario where Wade Brockius and the other Sovereigns simply stood aside while the agents ransacked their "sovereign nation." The Sovereigns would defend their compound and from there, it would likely get out of control.
Spud Cargill was the key. If Joe could find him, arrest him, or somehow prove that he wasn't in the compound-the assault could be delayed until Munker found another excuse. By then, possibly, enough time could pass to once again defuse the situation. Maybe by then the storm would let up. Exposing the situation to the light of day, with the possible help and/or interference of the media, could delay or spoil Munker's immediate plans. Maybe the Sovereigns would pack up and move on, taking their problems and their decades of miserable, irrational, and violent emotional baggage with them. Then they would be someone else's problem. The idea appealed to Joe, although he suffered a pang of guilt as well.