Off the Grid Page 9

  “So, in my last days in office, I’m using my authority to order you to find Romanowski and figure out what those feds are up to. Go down there and start poking around. Play game warden. If I send my Division of Criminal Investigation suits, the feds will hear about it and know what I’m up to. I don’t want them to know I’m onto the bastards. Keep my chief of staff informed of what you learn, and if it’s something big, I want you to call me direct. You can run your expenses through my discretionary fund, but don’t go crazy buying new vehicles or anything like that. When you find Romanowski and figure out what those feds put him up to, get in touch with me for your report. Then I’m going after them like a rabid wolverine.”

  It was a lot to grasp, and Joe had a hundred questions. But Colter Allen was getting closer. He was working his way toward them and would be there any minute. There were only about a dozen more hands to shake.

  Joe said, “But what if I can’t find Nate by the time you’re out of office?”

  “You too, eh?” Rulon said, acting hurt. Then he grinned and punched Joe playfully in the shoulder. “I’ve already got a desk in a powerhouse law firm waiting for me. The partners understand I’m going to devote my first few years to suing all the bastards who gave me a hard time while I was in office, and that mainly consists of people in Washington, D.C., and certain federal agencies. I was going to start with the EPA, the IRS, and the Department of Health and Human Services, but these new clowns who harassed the doctor and recruited your friend are going to the top of the list.”

  “Will the new governor keep me on this special assignment?” Joe asked.

  “I’ll have to ask him,” Rulon said with a tone that brushed aside the question. “But there’s something you should know. I know what kind of shit you’re in over those hospital bills. I know that the problem comes in because the federal government kept changing the rules for health care right at the time your daughter was injured, so nobody quite knows what the law is or what your state health insurance covers. She—and you—shouldn’t suffer because our government is incompetent and running scared.

  “This sounds like a groundbreaking case to me, and I want to break some ground. If you do this last thing for me, Joe, I’ll take a hard look at your situation and start suing those bastards. If nothing else, we’ll get a settlement so you don’t go bankrupt for no good reason.”

  Joe was taken aback.

  “Thank you.”

  Allen’s man with the clipboard was now standing three feet away. He wanted Rulon’s attention. Rulon refused to look over.

  “You’re a good man, Joe. You’ve got a great wife and a wonderful family. You’ve worked hard for me and you’ve taken on risks you didn’t need to take. This is the least I can do. We’ll get those political hacks to squeal.”

  “Governor Rulon, a moment of your time?” the man with the clipboard insisted.

  Rulon patted Joe on the shoulder, meaning they were done talking. Joe’s questions would have to wait, like Where in the Red Desert? The area was huge.

  “What?” Rulon asked the campaign staffer.

  Colter Allen shouldered past his man. He didn’t even acknowledge Joe. “Spencer, I was wondering if you wanted to say a few words before my speech?”

  Rulon squinted up his face with distaste. “Hell no.”

  “Will you at least come up there and stand with me? You know, for pictures?”

  Joe looked back and forth, to the governor and future governor, as if watching a tennis match.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Allen’s face fell.

  “I’m here,” Rulon said. “That’s enough.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If you keep asking, I might accept and end up saying something you don’t want said.”

  Allen seemed at a loss for words.

  At that moment in the front of the room, Joe heard Marybeth’s familiar voice say, “I’m Marybeth Pickett, the director of the Twelve Sleep County Library. Today we’d like to welcome Mr. Colter Allen, who is running for governor and who has enthusiastically endorsed our local one-cent tax for a new expansion of the library . . .”

  Joe watched as Allen put his game face on and turned and strode toward the podium as if the conversation he’d had with Rulon hadn’t taken place.

  “I’m not sure what he’s going to be like,” Rulon said sotto voce to Joe. “Everybody thinks it’s an easy job until they get behind that desk. He might have been happier just strutting around Big Piney country thinking he knew all the answers. I just hope he doesn’t listen too much to his donors and screw things up in this state.”

  Joe barely heard what Rulon said. He was already thinking about going south to find Nate Romanowski.

  He had a guilt-ridden feeling of excitement about a new assignment outside of his normal duties. He knew he was always at his best—and sometimes his worst—when he was forced out of his district and comfort zone.

  What, he wondered, did the feds suspect was going on down there? It had to be more than reselling marijuana purchased legally in Colorado, although that was certainly starting to become a problem.

  And what had Nate been recruited to do?

  10

  That evening in Laramie, under the light of a used banker’s lamp she’d found at a flea market, twenty-two-year-old Sheridan Pickett sealed the envelope containing a belated birthday card. She needed a stamp to send it. She wasn’t sure she even had one.

  She’d texted her father on his birthday and he’d replied Thanks! the next day. He wasn’t much for texting. She hoped he’d appreciate the card. On the cover it said:

  There was a dad who had a daughter,

  Swung her,

  Chased her,

  Caught her.

  And on the inside it read:

  Oh, what happiness he brought her!

  Except that she’d messed up the rhyme by penning Not to mention teaching her how to fish, drive, and stand up for herself before the Oh, what happiness he brought her line.

  She liked it, although he really wasn’t one for cards, either.

  She rooted through her drawer looking for stamps and piled the items she found in it on top of the desk: rubber bands, ticket stubs, several old thumb drives, her freshman student ID when she’d lived in the dorms, a can of pepper spray her dad had given her . . .

  “Knock-knock.”

  It was Kira Harden, one of two roommates who shared the off-campus rental house on Steele Street with her. Erin was the other. Sheridan hadn’t seen Erin in three weeks, even though Erin was the reason she’d moved there. They were both seniors and both from Twelve Sleep County in northern Wyoming. Erin had all but moved in with her boyfriend, Lars, a blond exchange student from Norway who lived on the other side of town.

  Kira had come with the deal. She was small and pixieish with dark eyes, hair shaved to her scalp, gold rings in her nose and lower lip, and paisley full-sleeve tattoos. Not that Sheridan could see them. Kira was always cold, and she moved through the rental in baggy sweatpants and an oversized hoodie with sleeves so long they covered her hands to her fingertips.

  “Got a minute, Church Mouse?”

  “I do, Lisbeth,” Sheridan said.

  Kira smirked at the nickname.

  • • •

  KIRA HAD GROWN UP in the Bay Area and was perpetually bemused by all things Wyoming: the weather, the students, cowgirls, the culture (or lack of it). She was a first-year law student with a husky voice who described herself on social media as “Dilettante/Activist.” She invited Sheridan to LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) campus awareness events and had hosted a meatless reception for members of the organization at the house. It hadn’t been well attended, but Kira hadn’t seemed disappointed. She’d shrugged and gone on. And she’d appreciated Sheridan offering to help clean up afterward.

  Sheridan was fascinated
with her, and Kira seemed oddly fascinated with Sheridan. They’d become friends, even though they had nothing in common except Erin, who wasn’t even there anymore. She’d started calling Sheridan “Church Mouse” after the LGBTQ reception, because she said her roommate stood wide-eyed at the back of the room the whole time, studying the attendees as if they were an exotic species.

  To Sheridan, they were. And she’d responded with her own nickname for Kira—Lisbeth Salander, after the character in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Kira liked that.

  • • •

  SHERIDAN’S ON-AGAIN, off-again boyfriend, Jason, who was convinced that Sheridan would wind up with him in the end because he was tall, good-looking, and came from a prominent Cheyenne family, refused to come by the house on Steele Street if Kira’s trail bike was out front. Sheridan realized it didn’t bother her at all, because the less she saw of Jason these days, the better she liked it. The qualities she’d seen in him—his loyalty, easy laugh, and good manners—were being eclipsed by jealousy and neediness, attributes she hadn’t detected before. The relationship was going nowhere, even if Jason refused to believe it. He was smothering, and she didn’t agree, even though he insisted, that they were “inevitable” (although he’d pronounced it “invitable” the first time).

  “What’s up?” Sheridan asked Kira, who still hovered in the shadows just outside the doorframe. She was big on personal privacy, which Sheridan appreciated. “You can come in, you know.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kira padded across the floor and passed through the pool of light from Sheridan’s banker’s lamp to sit cross-legged, yoga-style, on Sheridan’s bed. Kira liked to keep the lights off in the house to save energy, she said. That she was constantly turning up the thermostat was apparently another matter.

  “Do you have a stamp I could borrow?” Sheridan asked.

  “I have one on my back.”

  Sheridan laughed and held up the envelope. “You know what I mean.”

  “Who has stamps? Who even sends things in the mail?”

  “It’s a birthday card for my dad. It’s late, but . . . I need a stamp.”

  “I read about them once. Little square sticky things, right? Pictures of dead white males on the front of them?”

  “Right.”

  “Actually, I have some in my room. My mom gave them to me, thinking I would write her a letter, I guess. They’re called ‘Forever Stamps’ because she knows it’ll take forever for me to use them. You can have one, though.”

  “Cool, thanks. I appreciate it.”

  • • •

  KIRA LIKED TO QUESTION Sheridan about where she came from. Sheridan told her stories of growing up outside the small town of Saddlestring, riding horses with her mother, apprenticing in falconry with a master falconer named Nate Romanowski, going on ride-alongs with her father the game warden. Kira regarded Sheridan as if she were some kind of throwback to another age. At one point, she’d said, “You really like your mom and dad, don’t you?”

  Sheridan had said yes.

  “That must be nice,” Kira said dreamily. Then she asked if Sheridan had grown up with indoor plumbing and the Internet.

  To confound Kira, Sheridan said she hadn’t experienced either before she got to college. It took several weeks for Kira to figure out that Sheridan had been putting her on.

  Sheridan wondered what her family would think of Kira, and toyed with the idea of inviting her north some weekend. She guessed that her mom would kind of enjoy Kira once she got to know her and she’d managed to get her on a horse. Sheridan’s mom thought all differences melted away and that anyone could be pleasant company once they were on horseback. Her dad would be silently confounded by Kira and worry about his daughter a little, and her sisters would act like they had Kiras in their lives, too, which maybe they did.

  • • •

  “SO THE REAL REASON I’m here. Do you have anything going on next weekend?” Kira asked. “Going to the big football game with that dreamy Jason?”

  Sheridan smiled at Kira’s sarcasm. “Probably not.”

  Kira beheld Sheridan and a conspiratorial grin formed on her mouth. “Are you up for a little adventure?”

  “It depends on what you mean, I guess. If it’s marching with signs and chanting, I’ll have to pass.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kira said, waving her arm dismissively so the end of her sleeve flapped. “It’s not another LGBTQ shindig. I’ve given up trying to expand your horizons and I can see that isn’t your thing. Besides, the people in the club spend too much time fighting amongst themselves. No, this is actually an outdoor adventure.”

  “You, outdoors?” Sheridan said. “Ha!”

  “Yeah, I know, believe me. I had to look up ‘s’mores’ on Google to find out what they were. And they sound disgusting.”

  “Everything tastes better outdoors,” Sheridan said. “You’ll believe me when you try it.”

  “I’ll try anything, I guess.” Then: “You’ve got, like, camping stuff in your closet, right?” Kira asked.

  Sheridan nodded.

  “You’ve done all that stuff like camping, hiking, sleeping in tents, and things like that?”

  “Yes, with my dad.”

  Kira leaped up from the bed and walked over to a corkboard that Sheridan had pinned with photos. There were shots of horse pack trips, fly-fishing excursions, and falconry kills. Her roommate shook her head. “So you really know how to do that kind of thing? These aren’t, like, Photoshopped?”

  Sheridan didn’t need to answer.

  “You see,” Kira said, “I’m Internet friends with some really cool people, and they need volunteers to help out on a project.”

  Sheridan leaned back, suspicious. “Are they on Facebook? I’d like to see them.”

  “Not exactly Facebook,” Kira said. “Facebook is too lame for what we talk about.”

  “Then what’s this project?”

  “I don’t know. They’re doing this thing out in the . . . wilderness, I guess. That’s all hush-hush. I don’t even know where it is yet and they won’t tell me until I commit. But the thing is, it involves camping, I guess. I don’t know the first thing about that shit.”

  “So you want to borrow my gear?” Sheridan said. “Sure, no problem. I’ll lend it to you for the price of a stamp.”

  Kira laughed and shook her head. “No, dude, I don’t want to just borrow it. I want you to go with me.”

  “What? I don’t even know these people. Why would I go with you?”

  “Oh, Sheridan, you’ll love them. They’re passionate about this country, they’re passionate about the earth. And you get to get away for a couple of days! Don’t tell me you aren’t sick of studying! Come on! Church Mouse, it’ll be a blast.” Sheridan didn’t want to say no outright before she even knew what it was. She wasn’t crazy about being called Church Mouse. Besides, she found herself more than a little intrigued.

  “If you come with us, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone about it, right?” Kira said. “You can’t tell anyone where we’re going or what we do, okay? If you do, my ass is on the line with these people.”

  “You still haven’t told me what it is,” Sheridan said.

  Kira sat back down and thumped the bedspread with her hands and laughed. “That’s because I don’t know myself! They won’t tell me online. But I know it’s something righteous—something you’ll tell your grandkids about, because I probably won’t have any. But they won’t tell me what exactly is going on yet until I”—she hesitated for a moment—“I mean we, commit.”

  “Boy,” Sheridan said. “I’m just not sure I want to . . .”

  “Please,” Kira said. “All you do is study and work and play around with that Ken doll. Isn’t this what college is supposed to be about? A time to try things and have new experiences?”

  When She
ridan didn’t respond, Kira begged, “Please-please-please. I know I can’t do it on my own, and from what I understand this might be the last weekend they need volunteers. Come on, help out your friend here.”

  Sheridan wavered. She’d never seen Kira beg before, and she felt sorry for her.

  And Kira was right. She could use a break from studying and from the drama surrounding Jason.

  Despite herself, she found herself asking, “All you know is that it involves a couple of nights of tent camping?”

  “Yeah. I’ll bring the food.”

  “We can shop together,” Sheridan said. “Not everything can be cooked over a campfire or a stove. Tofu might slip through a grate.”

  “Very funny.”

  “The weather is still decent,” Sheridan mused. “It won’t last all that much longer.”

  “Exactly! Come on, say yes!”

  “How many people will be there?” Sheridan asked.

  “I don’t know. I just know a couple of them. But they seem like really great human beings, at least online.”

  “I’m bringing my pepper spray,” Sheridan said.

  “I think that’ll be cool with them, but I’ll check.”

  “I’m bringing my pepper spray.”

  Kira’s eyes widened. She’d never heard her roommate use that tone before.

  “You cowgirls,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  —— PART THREE ——

  THE RED DESERT

  Man has emerged from the shadows of antiquity with a peregrine on his wrist.

  —ROGER TORY PETERSON, Birds over America

  11

  It took four days in the desert before someone made contact with him. When it happened, Nate Romanowski was standing naked over a small murky cisternlike spring, washing the red out of his clothing. He knew his movements had been tracked for the past forty-eight hours, ever since he’d found the discarded leather jess.

  That meant he was getting close.