Rocky Mountain Lawman

Prologue


Buddy Jackson sat at the fancy dining table his great-grandmother had carted out here from back east almost a century ago, a table that looked out of place amidst the mostly rough-hewn surroundings of the cabin his grandfather had built and his family had added to over the years.

His wife and kids were out tending the garden as they should be. The growing season here was short, and there was no time to waste.

Across from him sat Cap MacDonald, a guy he’d met last year at a gathering of “Preppers,” as they called themselves, people who were preparing either for the collapse of society or the end of the world. All of them, of course, assumed that they would survive the cataclysm. Buddy had no doubt of it; he was living in the middle of nowhere. Little could reach him here on his mountainside.

But Cap had somewhat different ideas, and they appealed to Buddy. Cap didn’t just want to survive, he wanted to win. To be in control afterward. What’s more, he made a good argument for self-protection and keeping the parasites out after the troubles started.

Cap had even grander ideas, though. Buddy had been prepping for a long time, and sometimes he got tired of waiting for the moment that would prove the brilliance of his foresight. Cap wasn’t prepared to wait. He spoke of how it was their job to bring it all about.

That sounded okay to Buddy most of the time, and the fact that Cap was pulling together a small militia didn’t seem like a problem. If the revolution was coming anyway, what was the point of waiting for it?

But something was bothering him now.

“You heard,” he said to Cap, “about that hiker they found dead about four miles from here?”

Cap shook his head. His hands were busy cleaning the AR-15 he always carried. “What about him?”

“He was dead.”

Cap shrugged. “People die out here in the wilderness. You aren’t stupid, Buddy.”

“No.” Buddy dropped it, but he didn’t stop thinking about it. He knew Cap took his guys out to walk through the national forest that surrounded his land on three sides. Nothing wrong in that. But he also had figured out that Cap was capable of killing. That was one thing Buddy didn’t know about himself, and he’d been glad to have someone join him who wouldn’t hesitate to defend the compound if necessary.

But surely that didn’t extend to some hiker wandering around in the woods? Of course not.

After a minute or two, he finally stopped thinking about it. The revolution hadn’t begun yet, and Cap couldn’t have had any reason to hurt a hiker, one who wasn’t even prowling this property.

No reason at all. Must have just been an accident.