Honor Road Jason Ross (any book recommendations .TXT) 📖

had been unfaithful to the girls’ dad, and he’d died, leaving the breach unresolved. It was a sullen cloud that drifted over the house from time to time; a rare bit of enmity between mother and daughters.

The high school boys were returning from their run, much reduced in piss and vinegar. Sage snapped out of his daydreaming and pointed them back to the bunkhouse to get their guns. They returned at a sloppy jog and Sage ordered them to set up and resolve Type One, Type Two and Type Three malfunctions on their ARs. They were blown out from the run, and Sage walked up and down the firing line cajoling their messy performance.

The captain cut a beeline across the pasture from the house.

Sage smiled. “Good afternoon, Sir.”

The captain pointed at the boys. “Are they ready?”

Sage shrugged. “When I can get them to stop playing grab ass, they do okay.”

“We rounded up snowshoes for everyone. If you think their snow boots are adequate, then I think we’re set to go. We’ve got a small storm tonight. There’ll be a window of good weather after that.”

“How do you know the forecast?” Sage asked.

The captain pointed at the building clouds atop the Blue Mountains. “Your best weatherman is what your eyes tell you. That one’s a small storm. It’s not dark and towering like the heavy ones. But a big one will come soon. After that, even the snow machines will have trouble bogging down in the canyon bottoms. This is our window. We go tomorrow, weather permitting.”

Sage had been secretly harboring hope that the weather would stop the mission. The ranch was tucked so far back in the valley that it’d soon become difficult to reach, even on snowmobiles. Unless Union County plowed the main road right up to the Wallowa roadblock, the smaller county could soon lock itself in a snow fortress for the duration of the winter.

Sage turned to the high school boys and shouted like an angry drill sergeant, “Pack it in. Head to the bunkhouse, get a meal and prep your packs to head out tomorrow. Open chambers on those rifles while you’re in the bunkhouse! I want to see nothing but air in there. No brass. If you shoot a hole in the captain’s place, we shoot a hole in you. That’s the deal.”

But he was no drill sergeant, Sage knew. He was just a boy like them. He’d gone to one, two-day training on the AR-15, and that made him the most-expert guy on the force when it came to running gun drills.

Sage would be late to the Buttertons’ tonight. He’d need to drive by his hotel and pack up his own kit so he’d be ready the next morning. The extra drive time would chew into his sleep, but he needed the smell of Aimee. He needed her assurance that he was doing the right thing.

Packing wouldn’t be a problem. Every item in his winter survival pack had proven itself useful or been discarded. After crossing the Blue Mountains and conducting two recon missions into Wallowa, Sage knew exactly what to expect. His gear was like a second skin, and it was all dried out, which felt like a new lease on life.

He got the boys settled in for supper, said his goodbyes to Captain Chambers and his wife, and headed to his hotel. He put all thoughts of Aimee aside while he ran a mental inventory of what he could leave behind, given he’d be spending a single night in the snow. When covering that much ground—twenty-five miles each way in snowshoes—ounces became pounds and pounds would eat you alive. Anything he could ditch, he’d ditch. He wasn’t worried about beating the high school boys on the trail, but he needed every advantage to make sure he didn’t lag behind the boss.

The cold and the wind had burned hard lines into Sage’s face. He could see it when he looked at himself in the rearview mirror of the police cruiser. The world-weariness of surviving outdoors had etched into his soul. He would never again be a carefree high schooler like the boys at the ranch. He’d never again sprint the first quarter mile of a five mile run.

He wished the hardness had sunk deeper. He wished it’d cauterized more of his soul because no matter how much he focused on his backpack stove and whether to bring a bigger knife, his heart quailed at the thought of putting hands on Commissioner Pete.

Aimee’s touch would make it okay, at least for tonight. She’d steady his resolve; remind him that he knew nothing about the area’s history, or about Commissioner Lathrop and his family. She’d punctuate her words with caresses and cooing singsong, and he would drift off to sleep in her arms.

Sleep was the only peace he could hope for in this fucked up world.

Lathrop Ranch

Outside Enterprise, Oregon

Wallowa Valley

Luckily, the arrest team from La Grande P.D. had spent only one night sleeping in the snow. The boys were wet and freezing, and they bitched about it non-stop. Keeping them quiet through the cold, dark night had proven nearly impossible. Captain Chambers threatened to shoot the next boy who spoke out loud.

A malevolent, churning snow cloud had poured over the top of the Blue Mountains as the team of twelve men snowshoed through the pines that afternoon, following the same trail Sage had cut on his recon mission. Other than hundreds of elk tracks and a few coyotes, nothing had cut across the sign of his passing. Preparing cattle for winter probably occupied the people of Wallowa Valley. They hadn’t turned their sights on hunting elk yet, so no one appeared to have ventured into the forests.

The arrest team arrived at final camp after covering twelve miles of trail that day. The boys had been well-prepared for the trek, and other than a lot of blisters—and the bitching— they’d comported themselves well enough. Tonight, they’d stage their ambush, and not a moment