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Jane Boot and her husband James had settled in the nowhere between Gabbs and Two Springs, Nevada, twelve years before. Apparently, four years ago, he’d died of cancer they couldn’t pray away. Jane lived on. She kept a goat for milk, some chickens, butchered her own pigs, and had a smokehouse for the meat.
She believed, fanatically, in the Rapture, in Commies who ran all branches of the government, and in inevitable war that humanity would wage against aliens—either terrestrial or extra.
She devoured posts on QAnon sites faster than he ate chips.
Jane, and the not-so-recently-departed James, stood as anti-vaxxers, anti-government, anti-gay, anti-everything that didn’t include God and guns.
A certified nutcase in Rozwell’s opinion, with no children, one sister who had long since disavowed her, and internet access.
She’d had a dog, but she’d buried him alongside her husband the year before.
Rozwell expected she’d be well armed and more than willing to shoot an intruder dead as Moses. But he’d figure it out.
He lost three pounds—fifteen more to go—and his confidence built as he hacked into her accounts as smooth as a knife through soft butter.
She had a truck, of course, and from the ledger she kept on her computer, took a bimonthly trip, either to Gabbs or Two Springs, to sell eggs and goat’s milk and trinkets she made from cheap beads and tanned pigskin.
Gross.
She didn’t use Amazon, UPS, or FedEx, and had an iron gate and lines of barbed wire with plenty ofKEEP THE HELL OUTsignage guarding her dirt road and five dusty acres.
But she had a cabin, a shed, a well and indoor plumbing, and solar for power—something her handy husband had seen to before he took his dirt nap. Otherwise, Rozwell would’ve risked the marine.
He flew his drone. He watched. He waited.
One day he watched her go to the shed, and this time she drove out in the truck.
At last!
He watched her, like a vulture overhead, haul jugs of milk, cartons of eggs out of the cabin and into the coolers in the bed of the truck. Then she hauled out a crate—probably the trinkets—and loaded that in.
She had a shotgun and what he thought was a rifle in the gun rack in the back, and a gun of some sort strapped to her side.
She shut the shed door, snapped it secure with a padlock before going back to the cabin, another padlock on that door.
In her dusty boots and jeans, she looked skinny as a snake, but he’d bet she had some strength in her.
With the drone, he followed her as she drove down the dirt road, spewing up more dust. But he called it back before she reached the gate.
Since her last ledger entry listed Gabbs, he guessed she’d head east to Two Springs. He got back in his truck and pulled out a map as if consulting it if she turned his way.
It took time for her to reach the gate, unlock it, open it, drive through. Then get out, shut it, lock it again.
Then she drove east, and Rozwell knew his luck had changed.
He waited ten long minutes before assuring himself she wouldn’t double back. He couldn’t just bolt cut the padlocks, or she’d know. But he’d spent some quality time in his motel with padlocks and lockpicks and wikiHow.
He didn’t find it easy, and by the time he’d finessed the first one, the sweat rolled. It took him nearly a half hour to open all three, but he opened the gate. He went back for the truck, drove through, then locked up again behind him.
He’d thought this part through in the hours keeping watch or sitting in that motel room. He needed to get his truck well out of sight. He drove around the house, had to all but shimmy it through the side and the lean-to where the goat stood in the shade. It scraped the paint some, but what did he care?
He drove it back to where she’d strung several lines of barbed wire, to where sagebrush huddled.
He’d figured the angles from the drone. She wouldn’t see it if she drove to the shed, not with the house and brush blocking it. If she crossed to the chickens, she would.
But he’d be on her if she did that.
She had a lean-to at the back of the house—over another padlocked door—and the three-legged stool she used when she milked the goat.
