Tim stared dumbly at the money the cartel man was holding for a few seconds before reaching out a shaky hand to take it. “That’s not necessary, sir, but it sure will be appreciated. Thank you.”
“We thank you for bringing us in here on such short notice,” Durango said. “See you in a few days. We’ll call when we near the pullout.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tim said, stuffing the money in his jacket pocket and climbing back on his horse. He waved and was soon out of sight, heading back down the trail.
“Get the rafts inflated and assemble your weapons,” Durango said to his men. “I’m calling Emmanuella.”
While two of his men opened the duffels and retrieved the components of five AR rifles, the others pumped up the rafts. Durango walked off with the satellite phone. When he was out of his men’s hearing, he texted his sister. A few moments later, he got a return text with a phone number, which he called.
“Where are you?” Emmanuella said.
“A place called Big Salmon Lake, getting ready to sit in ambush for Cross and Sampson,” he said. “As far as we know Butler and his men are not with them. Do you have Cross’s signal still?”
“They’re three miles upriver of you, in the middle of Murphy Flat,” she said. “And don’t let your guard down, Raphael. I’m telling you, Butler or some other Maestro soldier is there somewhere. I can feel it.”
Durango rolled his eyes. Emmanuella always “felt” things when she did not have facts to support her position.
“We’ll keep a lookout,” he said. “In the meantime, what do you want me to do if Butler is not with Cross and his friend? Let them go by? Engage? Cross is going to remember me.”
“Obviously,” she said, then paused. “How remote are you, really?”
“Like, deep Sierra Madre–remote. We haven’t seen anyone else in a day and a half.”
“No one camping at that lake you passed coming in?”
“No one we saw. The weather’s getting shitty, raining, cold.”
She was quiet again for a moment. “Cross has too much influence over Marco.”
Durango frowned. His half brother was in a supermax prison; how much influence did Marco have anymore? None that he could see. But he said, “Okay?”
“And even if he’s not turning Marco against us, I don’t like thinking of Cross allied with Maestro,” she said. “It keeps me up at night. Worried for our survival.”
“I can’t read minds, Emmanuella. What do you want me to do?”
“Kill them both, brother,” she snapped. “And make sure they’ll never be found.”
He grinned a little and said, “That part’s easy. We’ll just cover their bodies in bacon grease and leave them for the grizzly bears, the wolves, and the ravens.”
Chapter
86
It was nearly four p.m. on our second full day on the river. The rain was letting up. The skies were clearing.
We’d floated almost nine river miles and were nearing Big Salmon Lake. I was rowing while Sampson peered downriver, searching for any sign of the helicopter or of people camped there.
Near the confluence of Big Salmon Creek, I brought us in on the west bank. We pulled our raft high out of the water and climbed farther up the bank to see a white outfitter’s tent by an old cabin surrounded by scattered trees. We scanned the area, saw no one.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Hello!”
We waited and heard no one. Sampson ran over to the wall tent, looked inside, then shook his head at me. He tried the old Forest Service cabin. No luck.
John returned, said, “We can camp here and hope someone comes along with a satellite phone, or we can keep going and get three or four more miles downriver before dark.”
“Let’s keep going,” I said. “We could overtake someone ahead of us who has a satellite phone. At the very least, we’ll be closer to the pullout.”
Sampson nodded. “My turn to row.”
“I’m not arguing,” I said, massaging my sore shoulders.
A few minutes later, we pushed off with the sun warming our bones after the long day in the rain. We passed Big Salmon Creek and entered a thousand-yard straight with high rock walls on both flanks.
We rounded the far bend about twenty minutes later and found ourselves in a lazy S. In the middle of the S, about two hundred yards away, two blue rafts similar to our own and loaded with gear were pulled up on a gravel beach.
“I’m not seeing anyone,” I said, peering through my binoculars.