Page 77 of Battle Mountain

“Do you think they’d actually let us in?” Nate scoffed. “And you think they’d believe us if they did? We have no evidence of an imminent attack. We just hate Axel.”

“Well…”

“Plus, who do we tell? I’m not sure we can trust all the security guys, and we’d need to get through them. For sure, Axel will have someone on the inside and maybe more. That’s how he operates. I saw that guy with the mustache get my card from the Texas guy. I wonder who he might call to let them know we were here.”

“Man, you can be paranoid.”

“It’s served me well,” Nate said.

Geronimo sat in silence as they drove through dark ranch country. The only lights to be seen were distant pole lamps near ranch houses, and the piercing stars overhead.

“Based on what that security guy said, these guys are about ready to clear out of here,” Geronimo said. “Which means…”

“It’ll be tomorrow,” Nate said, finishing the thought. “Axel will crawl out from under his rock tomorrow.”

Part Five

“The hunter must become the thing he hunts.”

—J. A. Baker,ThePeregrine

Chapter Nineteen

At four-thirty inthe morning, Axel Soledad nodded a greeting to each member of his team as they entered the lobby of the old hotel. Most of them were disheveled, bleary-eyed, and grumbling about the very early hour. They shuffled across the wooden floor to where an urn of coffee had been set up. Some made tea.

His attack team was made up of two distinct contingents: civilian activists and military veterans. After filling their cups, the individuals sat down in chairs at old tables or leaned against the far wall. As usual, the vets separated themselves from the activists, and they stood in a knot in the far corner of the room.

“Someone forgot the almond milk,” one of the activists complained.

“Fuck your almond milk,” one of the vets responded.

In all, the vets in the room numbered four. Two others were elsewhere. There were nine activists in the room, and they were soon joined by a tenth, who’d been in the kitchen because he alsoserved as the camp cook. When he came into the room he brought a carton of almond milk.

“Hey,” one of the activists asked Soledad, “we’re missing Caleb, Tosh, and Andy. Are they still sleeping?”

“They’re not available,” Soledad said. “They’re on a side mission in Laramie.”

“Will they be joining us?” another asked.

“Negative,” Soledad said. “They’ve got another purpose.”

What he didn’t tell them, and what hewouldn’ttell them, was that Caleb, Tosh, and Andy had all been killed by Nate Romanowski the previous day. That they’d set up a flawed ambush outside of Tie Siding that had failed miserably.

Soledad cleared his throat and addressed the entire room. “The mission is about to begin,” he said. “Let’s go over our plan and strategy one more time.”

One of the activists moaned, and said, “We’ve been over this a thousand times already.”

“This will be a thousand and one,” Soledad said.

“What about the land acknowledgment before we begin?” asked a purple-haired activist.

“Fuck your acknowledgment,” one of the vets grumbled.

“Maybe later,” Soledad said to placate her. He had no intention of revisiting the topic. For weeks, when speaking to the activists, he had led them in a kind of invocation they’d insisted upon:

The land on which we sit is the traditional unceded territory of the Cheyenne Nation. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced occupation of their territory, and we honor and respect the many diverse Indigenouspeople connected from time immemorial to this land on which we now gather.

—