If the place resembles a bomb shelter, Brent looks like the guy who crawls out of one after twenty years of thinking the world has ended. He’s maybe seventy, fit and wiry, with wild gray hair and a thick beard. Today he wears the Canadiens hockey jersey Dalton got for him. He played on the team for a season. Dalton says he mostly warmed the bench, but it’s one of Brent’s favorite stretches in a life full of twists and turns, and so when I see the jersey, I ask about his time on the team and we chat for a while. Dalton’s fine with that. Brent is more friend than contact, and you don’t treat a friend by showing up and interrogating him.
Brent perches on his bed as we talk. I get the chair—he insists on it, and I’ve learned not to argue. Dalton settles on a hide by the fire.
After we’ve chatted awhile, I tell Brent why we’re there.
“He kept her in a cave?” he says when I finish. He shakes his head. “And people wonder why I stayed up north. The world is full of crazy mother—” He clears his throat, and I try not to smile. Brent likes to watch his language around me, as if I don’t hear profanity every waking hour from Dalton.
“Well, this particular psycho is in the part of that world you chose to stay in,” Dalton drawls.
“Which is why you won’t see me out there socializing. Or visiting that town of yours. I stay in here, safe from all the crazy, near and far. Who you looking at for this? Someone out here obviously.”
“We’re considering our options.”
“Which is why you’re here. Because I’m an option.”
“Yep.”
I’d have softened that, but Brent only nods and says, “Well, I didn’t do it, but you’re free to ask your questions.”
“We’d like your opinion on a couple of neighbors,” I say. “Tell me about Tyrone Cypher.”
“He’s a bully and an asshole. Possibly the craziest mother effer up here. But could I see him doing this?” He settles in. “Nah, Ty has his own personal brand of crazy. He’s like … Put it this way. One time when I was out hunting, I spotted a wolverine at a kill. I was watching, considering taking him down for his pelt. Then along comes this grizzly, thinking she’d like some of that deer. Most animals, if they get a grizzly dinner guest, they clear out. Not this wolverine. He fights, despite the fact he’s a quarter of the bear’s size. He has no chance of winning, but the mother effer just won’t stop. He’s bleeding, with chunks torn out of him, and he’s still going, like a whirling dervish, all fangs and claws. Grizzly finally says eff this. She’s bleeding, and that deer just isn’t worth the effort. I decide the wolverine has earned the right to keep his pelt, so I leave. A few days later, I wander by, and what do I find? The wolverine, dead of its injuries. But he drove off a grizzly, and he got to keep his dinner, and so I figure he died happy, thinking it was all worth it. That wolverine is Ty Cypher. You don’t cross him unless you’re ready to fight to the death. Otherwise, though? If you don’t bug him, he won’t bug you.”
I glance at Dalton, who nods.
Brent says, “This abduction takes a whole different brand of crazy. The twisted kind—and the long-term kind, where someone committed himself to caring for these women. Well, ‘caring’ is probably the wrong word, but you know what I mean.”
“How about Roger?” Dalton asks.
Brent goes quiet.
“Brent…,” Dalton prods.
“I like Roger.”
“Yeah, I figured that. I know Jacob does, too. But Ty told me he was going around recently asking about Rockton. Did he come to you?”
“Roger isn’t your man, Eric.”
Dalton’s jaw sets. He waits. Then he gets to his feet. “Fine. Casey, come on. Brent’s right. This Roger is a nice guy. Nice guys don’t do shit like this. And you know, if he sets me on this guy, I’ll chase him down and string him up, and to hell with due process. Fuck, I’m not even sure I’d bother asking his story.”
“Yes,” Brent says. “He came by two days ago asking about Rockton.”
“What exactly?”
Brent’s on his feet, shifting his weight. “Law enforcement. What kind you had in there. How many people, how well trained, and whether…” He inhales. “Whether I thought you guys were capable.”
“Capable of what?”
“Catching someone you needed to catch.”
FORTY
Brent hadn’t even admitted to Roger that he knew Rockton existed. Like Jacob, “I don’t know nothing about that,” was all he ever gave. Brent had asked where the question was coming from. Roger just said he’d heard things, about the people who lived in there, who used to, and it got him worrying about what if one of them escaped. Should people out here need to worry?
Typical paranoia from a population that leaned in that direction anyway. Or so Brent figured.
The problem will be finding Roger. Brent offers his bounty-hunting skills. While he’s still not convinced Roger is responsible, he doesn’t particularly want Cypher to be the one bringing him in.
* * *
We’re tromping back to town, the light already fading, when Dalton says, “What Ty said, how I was when I came to Rockton, it wasn’t like that.”
“I know. I’ve met Jacob, remember? And even if it was like that, do you honestly think I’d care?”
He doesn’t answer, just walks, gaze fixed ahead.