Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank everyone who assisted in the research, reading, editing, promotion, and publication of this novel, including Tim Curley, Lonie Hardenbrook, Ryan Lewis, Bob Budd, Max Maxfield, Karen Wheeler, Sherry Merryman, Doug Lyle, M.D., Roxanne Box, Molly Box, Laurie Box, Mark Nelson, Terry Mackey, and Bob Baker.
Kudos to Don Hajicek for cjbox.net and Jennifer Fonnesbeck for the Facebook page.
Special thanks and recognition goes to the wonderful Ann Rittenberg as well as the champion Putnam team of Ivan Held, Michael Barson, and the legendary Neil Nyren.
ALSO BY C. J. BOX
THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS
Nowhere to Run
Below Zero
Blood Trail
Free Fire
In Plain Sight
Out of Range
Trophy Hunt
Winterkill
Savage Run
Open Season
THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
Blue Heaven
ALSO BY C. J. BOX
THE JOE PICKETT NOVELS
Nowhere to Run
Below Zero
Blood Trail
Free Fire
In Plain Sight
Out of Range
Trophy Hunt
Winterkill
Savage Run
Open Season
THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye
Blue Heaven
SEPTEMBER 20
Therefore pride compasseth about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.
PSALM 73:6
Epilogue
Nate Romanowski once lived in the stone house on the banks of the North Fork of the Twelve Sleep River. Across the river, to the east, a steep red bluff rose sixty feet into the air. The morning sun lit up the red face of the bluff. The river was so low that it was no more than a series of pocket water pools kept on life support by an artery of underground springs. To the east was a long flat dotted by sagebrush. A two-track cut through the flat from the highway and was the only road to the place.
Nate awoke in his blankets near the trunk of the single ancient cottonwood on the side of the house to discover that the peregrine had found him during the night. The falcon sat high and silent above him on a branch of the same tree. The bird didnt look down and acknowledge him, and Nate didnt call to it. It was just there. That was the nature of their partnership.
He kicked off his blankets, hung his weapon from a peg in the bark of the tree, and stood up naked and stretched. Although the stone walls of his house still stood, the rest had been vandalized over the years hed been gone. The windows had been kicked in. There were two dozen bullet holes in the front door and a few shotgun blasts. Someone had entered the place and started a fire on the floor, which had burned down through the joists. A family of skunks now lived under the floorboards, and an owl nested in the chimney.
Nate walked down to the river and lowered himself into one of the deeper pools. The water was icy and bracing, and he washed his skin and most of the black out of his hair.
Shivering, he dressed in his best shirt and jeans. Then he pulled on his boots. He cleaned and roasted a sage chicken hed killed the night before. He ate all the meat and tossed the bones aside for his falcon.
Joe and Marybeth were due anytime. Theyd agreed to go with him to the res and to help him find the right words to use with Alishas mother. He was curious to hear more about the trial, too. He already knew the result. And he knew that Bud Longbrake Sr. had died three days before. Hed never come out of the coma, and to Nate it was a bittersweet ending. An incomplete ending. He was not satisfied.
When Nate heard the sound of a car motor coming from the west, he wasnt alarmed. He squatted and repacked his things into his duffel bag. When he returned, hed begin rebuilding his stone house, making it habitable and secure for the winter ahead. Hed need to lay in meat and wood, and repair the well that had been knocked over by yahoos.
Although he couldnt see the vehicle yet, he recognized the particular sound of the motor. It wasnt Joes pickup or Marybeths van.
Squinting toward the sound, Nate took his holster down from the peg and slid it on and strapped it tight.
Large Merles 1978 Dodge Power Wagon ground over the top of the distant western rise, and the cracked windshield caught a brilliant flash of morning sun. Nate stepped behind the trunk of the cottonwood tree and waited. Merle drove slowly, and swerved from side to side, the front wheels climbing out of the two-track and wandering away a few feet before being turned back in.
Was Large Merle already drunk so early in the morning?
Slowly, the old 4x4 drew closer. Nate could see Merles unmistakable woolly profile through the windshield. There was no passenger. Nate expected Merle to brake to a stop next to his Jeep, but he drove slowly right by it. As he did, Nate could see Merles head slumped forward, chin on his chest, eyes closed.
Merle!
The vehicle rolled over Nates old vegetable garden, headed straight for the stone house.
Merle, wake up.
And he watched the Dodge drive head-on into the side wall of his house with a heavy crunch. The wall was solid, though, and didnt collapse. The motor coughed twice and died.
As Nate approached the rear of the Dodge with his hand on his .500, ready to draw, Merles door opened and the big man tumbled out and landed sloppily and heavily on the dry grass. His feet remained in the car and he lay on his back, his mouth open and gasping, his blood-soaked hands clutching his belly.
Jesus, Nate said. Merle?
Large Merle rolled his head over toward Nate. His face was ashen. He spoke through gritted teeth. That girl... that Montana girl. She was a scout.
Nate didnt understand at first. Then he did. The girl whod seduced Merle, whod asked him to come to Montana with her. She had been sent out to find him. And to find Nate as well. And shed succeeded.
He winced as he got closer to Merle and could see that his friend was clutching at his huge belly in an attempt to keep slick yards of blue-colored intestines from rolling out. Hed been gutted.
The Five, Merle said. Theyve deployed.
1
He set out after breakfast on what would be his last day on earth.
He was an old man, but like many men of his generation with his wealth and station, he refused to think of himself that way. Deep in his heart, he honestly entertained the possibility he would never break down and perhaps live forever, while those less driven and less successful around him dropped away.
In fact, hed recently taken to riding a horse over vast stretches of his landholdings when the weather was good. He rode a leggy black Tennessee walker; sixteen and a half hands in height, tall enough that he called for a mounting block in order to climb into the saddle. The horse seemed to glide over the sagebrush flats and wooded Rocky Mountain juniper-dotted foothills like a ghost, as if the gelding strode on a cushion of air. The gait spared his knees and lower back, and it allowed him to appreciate the ranch itself without constantly being interrupted by the stabs of pain that came from six and a half decades of not sitting a horse.
