Chapter Twenty-Four

Every truly miserable experience in Pete’s life so far had been marked by the taste of coffee on the back of his tongue. It didn’t seem to matter whether he’d been bingeing on coffee or avoiding it entirely. At this point, he figured, his body assumed that if he was suffering he must have had coffee in the recent past.

Today, for example, he couldn’t have touched a drop of caffeine if his life had depended on it. After weeks of grooming and coaching and very serious warnings from the prosecution team, Pete was so jittery he was wondering if he shouldn’t have done some vodka shots before coming to court.

The defense lawyer looked nothing like Pete had expected. He was a short, white-haired fellow with a bushy moustache and a bolo tie. His cross-examination was making Pete feel a little like he’d just stolen some prized candies from his grandfather’s desk. He chuffed quietly at his notes between questions and stared sadly at Pete while he asked them.

“And the vehicle,” he said, “which you had earlier stolen…”

“Ob-jection, Your Honor.” The prosecutor was a tall, weathered Southern guy with a military fade and very small glasses. He delivered every word he spoke with a kind of tired contempt, like he wanted you to know how much effort he was going through to form a sentence and how very much not worth it you were. “The method by which the witness acquired the vehicle is still not relevant to this case.”

“Sustained,” the judge said.

The defense lawyer cleared his throat and looked at his notes again. “So, this vehicle, which you had somehow acquired in a way not relevant to this…”

“Ob-jection,” the prosecutor said.

“Overruled,” the judge said. “Mr. Jarvis, if we could pick up the pace a little here…”

“Of course, Your Honor,” the defense lawyer said. “So you began your search for your boyfriend after dark, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Pete said.

“And you were driving a vehicle which you knew to have government insignia upon it, is that correct?” The defense lawyer raised his eyebrows.

“No,” Pete said.

“Mr. Miller,” the lawyer said. “The Park Service recovered one of its official vehicles from the burn site. It was a marked government vehicle. These facts are on the record, correct?”

“The truck did not have any insignia on it,” Pete said.

“But it was painted a distinctive shade of green that made…”

“Ob-jection, Your Honor.” The prosecutor rose to his feet again. “Relevance. Again.”

“Your Honor, the question of the vehicle’s emblazonment with government insignia does indeed go to the issue of reasonable expectation of…”

“Overruled,” the judge said. “Mr. Miller, answer the question.”

Pete sighed. He wasn’t sure exactly who was trying to prove what with this tangent about the truck, but he was getting out of criminal charges no matter what answer he gave. “Yes,” Pete said. “The truck was painted Park Service green.”

“And you have worked on and off with the Park Service for over ten years, isn’t that right?” A kindly smile spread across the face of the defense attorney.

“Yes,” Pete said.

“Very well. Thank you, Mr. Miller,” the defense attorney said. “That will be all.” He shuffled on back to the defendants’ desk, where both Corovic brothers waited while they stared down every witness called by the state.

The judge banged the gavel on his podium. “And that concludes our examination of…”

“Your Honor.” The prosecutor stood up and cleared his throat.

“Yes, Counsel?” the judge said. He looked less like a man presiding over a trial involving sex, drugs, and murder and more like a high school biology teacher getting through his lecture on The Penis.

Pete muttered a quiet “excuse me” as he stood up from his seat in the witness box and walked quietly back to his seat in the courtroom. He wondered how far he’d make it from the courthouse before one of the Double Eagles shot him in the head.

“I, ah, I do have one more witness to call to the stand.” The prosecutor’s voice was louder than it had been so far in the trial. For the first time that Pete had seen, he moved his face into something resembling a smile.

“Then do so, Counsel,” the judge said.

A young woman at his table with her hair in a very tight bun looked like Christmas had come early. She bolted up and went to the courtroom door as fast as her high heels would carry her, cracked it, and whispered something before opening it all the way.

The young woman held her head high as she walked back to the prosecutor’s desk. “The prosecution calls Seth Novak,” she said.

And then the rest of the room processed what was going on.

“Motherfucker!”

“The son of a bitch flipped!”

Novak Senior’s words were unintelligible; Pete just saw three of his sons wrestle him back into his seat while two bailiffs sprinted over with their stun guns ready.

Seth kept glaring straight ahead of him as he made his way to the front of the courtroom. He was balancing himself on a pair of crutches, and he’d grown his beard back in the time since Pete had seen him last.

Pete’s heart froze in his chest. He was standing halfway back to his row of seats with his jaw on the floor, trying to figure out if he was hallucinating or not.

Nobody else in the courtroom was moving either. Once the initial shock had been processed, every single person at the trial stood frozen while they waited for Seth to take the stand.

The prosecutor stepped forward with a grim smile on his face and a Bible in his hand. “Mr. Novak,” he said as he held the book out to Seth. “Do you swear under penalty of perjury to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

Seth nodded, his hand on the Bible. His gaze scanned the courtroom for a few moments before he locked eyes with Pete. “So help me God,” he said.

***

Pete’s dad and a couple of FBI agents took them both to the airport after the trial. They stopped at the hotel first so Pete could grab his belongings.

Truth be told, there was something kind of cool about three big guys in black suits following Pete around. Or, there would have been, if the cops’ presence wasn’t such a strong reminder that a lot of scary people really wanted to kill Pete and Seth right now.

They didn’t say much to each other on the way to the hotel. Pete didn’t know what he was going to say to Seth if they did manage to get some time alone. Seth was looking straight ahead, shoulders slumped and a vaguely nauseated expression on his face.

“You want any help with your bags?” Seth said as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Sure.” Pete nodded without smiling.

If any of the cops spotted the ruse here, nobody mentioned it. Seth had put his crutches in the back seat so that he could get them out himself, and he used one to get the car door open all the way.

“How do you like those?” Pete said.

“Harder than the walker,” Seth said, “but better for getting around on the ranch.”

“Oh.” Pete got out of the cop car and looked around the parking lot. “You still living out there?”

“Until Monday,” Seth said. “I found a job doing dispatch for this towing company in Cali. Pay’s good. Crew’s a bunch of decent guys.”

“You got a place out there?” Pete said.

“Yeah, friend of a friend is renting me this little house in the hills,” Seth said. “Kind of like your old place, but not as far into the woods. Better cell signal.”

“Nice.” Pete smiled and held the door for him.

“I do work with a couple felons, though,” Seth said, glaring at him for a second. “So, you know. I don’t know if that counts.”

“Seth.” Pete tried to think of something to say, but there was too much to choose from.

Seth didn’t reply as he walked inside.

Pete followed him. “Babe, I...I know what it means that you...that you did what you did today,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Seth said.

“I love you too,” Pete said.

Seth stopped and turned to look at him. He opened his mouth, and looked down the hall, and shook his head. “I can’t do this without you,” he said. “I...look, you’re…” He looked down the hallway. “Let’s go to your room.”

The cops were waiting for them at their door, awkwardly trying to pretend like they weren’t watching this scene unfold in front of them.

“I’m just sick of one fucking revenge plot after another, you know?” Seth said. “Fuckin’...my buddy out on the ranch, right?”

“Yeah,” Pete said.

“Soon as I show up, he starts talking about people who owe him money and we gotta go do this and that so he can start doing moonshine again.” He shook his head. “Same shit, different day, you know?”

Pete got his keycard out of his pocket and opened up the door to his room. The FBI had put him up in a pretty nice suite, with a little sitting room and a fireplace and tiny bottles of wine on the government’s dime.

“Nice digs,” Seth said.

“Thanks.” Pete had already packed his carry-on and put it on the bed. “I’ve been staying at my mom’s place in Ohio. Not sure what I’m going to do after this.”

“There’s a state park out by my house,” Seth said. “Stays open all year round.”

Pete closed the door behind him and looked Seth in the eye. “Are you sure we want to do this?” he said.

“I showed up in court today for you, darling,” Seth said. “I don’t know how much more sure about this you want me to get.”

***

The neighbors at Seth’s new place had goats. The neighbors having goats meant that at any time of day or night, Pete would hear the sound of a small demonic child in distress somewhere along the fence line.

“Come on, you little idiot!” Pete had finally gotten the little creature’s head positioned so he could stick it back through. It wasn’t letting him, because now it was eating grass again. “You are still stuck! You are going to stay stuck if you don’t relax!”

Behind him, he heard Seth’s ATV getting closer.

The goat pulled its head back sharply, realized it was stuck, and started screaming again.

“Hey, babe!” Pete stood up and scanned the field for Seth. He’d scored a cheapish used four-wheeler from one of the neighbors, and he made use of his newfound freedom on the property as often as he could.

The goat stopped screaming for a second when it found more grass.

“Babe!” Pete spotted Seth coming around the old windmill. “Come here!”

It had scared him, at first, to see Seth rampaging around the property in high gear. But with his leg braces on, he could balance perfectly well on four wheels. He zoomed on over to Pete with a wild grin on his clean-shaven face.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Do you have wire cutters?” Pete said. “We have another little buddy stuck in the fence.”

“Goddamn Jonathan,” Seth said. “Hold on.” He reached into one of the bags lashed to the back of the ATV and pulled out a fencing tool. “Will this work?”

“Yeah,” Pete said. He went to Seth to take the cutting tool and give him a kiss on the lips. He smelled good, like aftershave and sunshine and unleaded gasoline. “I got the mail this morning, by the way.”

“Yeah?” Seth said.

“You didn’t tell me Uncle Sam bought you a house,” Pete said. “I was starting to worry about your friend of a friend.”

“I drive a hard bargain,” Seth said. “That testimony was worth almost as much to them as it was to you.”

Pete kissed him again, wrapping his arms around Seth’s strong waist. He felt so good and so right, even after all that time they’d spent apart. In Seth’s arms, Pete was finally starting to feel like he’d come home for real.

“You’ve gotta start telling me things, babe,” Pete said.

“I was gonna tell you,” Seth said. “I was just, you know, waiting for those documents to show up in the mail.”

Behind them, the goat started yelling again.

“Jesus Christ,” Seth said. “I oughta see if the government will build us a new fence.”

Pete sighed and took the wire cutters over to assist their little friend. “We’re gonna have to do something,” he said. “Yesterday an entire goat got through somehow.”

“I say that’s our goat,” Seth said. “Unless, you know, that counts as crime.”

“Having goats at all counts as crime,” Pete said. “We could do chickens.”

“We could,” Seth said. “We certainly got enough scrap wood around this place to build them a little house.”

“You don’t think foxes would get them out here?” Pete said. Once the wire had been cut, the goat figured his situation out and went leaping away across the field.

“Not if you build the coop tight enough,” Seth said. “They’re kind of a pain in the ass, though, once they start laying. You gotta be around every day to get the eggs.”

“That’s fine by me,” Pete said. “Can’t get that desk job at the visitor’s center if I don’t stick around.”

Seth smiled as Pete walked back to him with the wire cutters. “You want a ride back to the house?” he said.

“Sounds...good to me.” Pete was suddenly focused on the black truck speeding down the road, leaving a plume of red dust in its wake.

Seth was watching it too. Both of them stayed tense and silent as the vehicle cruised past the end of Seth’s driveway, neither stopping nor slowing as it passed.

When it went around the butte to the west, Pete realized he hadn’t been breathing.

“We’ll be fine,” Seth said, reaching a hand out to wrap around Pete’s waist. “No matter what. We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. He believed it now. He leaned in to Seth’s touch, rested his head on his shoulder. “We always figure something out, don’t we?”