Page 50 of Shadows Reel

Nate Romanowski and Geronimo Jones were over halfway on the nineteen-hour, thirteen-hundred-mile drive from Denver to Seattle. Nate was at the wheel of the van. The landscape was rolling grassland and wide-open vistas and there was no longer much snow in the mountains. The sagebrush was gone. They’d outrun it.

As they traveled, Nate got used to the van rattling with empty cages on rough blacktop. It was a sound that he hoped would go away once the crates were filled with his recaptured Air Force. The rattling would be replaced by the shrieks of falcons and the heavy odor of hawk shit. He welcomed it.

They’d soon leave Idaho and enter the state of Oregon. Eastern Oregon, like eastern Washington, struck Nate as more Rocky Mountain West than Pacific Northwest. Dry, flat, and lonesome. The change in terrain and atmosphere was subtle andit came slowly over hundreds of miles traveled. He’d noted it before. Beef cattle still grazed in the fields and the small rural towns they passed through were ranch-oriented. Farming towns and green fields would soon replace them in a kind of changeover that came with the subtle drop of altitude and the heavier air. Once they left the Yakama Indian Reservation and crossed over the Cascades in Washington State, it would all be different: wet, green, and more than a little insane.

As he drove, Nate eyed every car they passed on I-84 for a glimpse of Axel Soledad’s vehicle. They’d learned from Tristan that Soledad had swapped out the Chevy Suburban he’d used in Wyoming for a black Mercedes-Benz Sprinter transport cargo van. Presumably, it was loaded with Nate’s falcons and one, maybe two, associates of Soledad’s. If Tristan’s information was correct, Soledad was bound for Seattle with a stop along the way in Baker City, Oregon.

Tristan had let the Baker City reference slip when he talked to them and it determined the route Soledad would take. Interstate 25 north to Fort Collins, US 287 to Laramie, I-80 West to Salt Lake City, I-84 to Ellensburg, Washington, then I-90 West to Seattle. The fastest possible route, less the stop.

Nate and Geronimo planned to stop in Baker City as well, if they didn’t overtake Soledad’s vehicle en route.

—

Tristan, last name Richardson,had spent the previous night bound and gagged in a heated outbuilding on Geronimo’s land in the mountains west of Denver. Nate had been given awell-appointed guest bedroom on the second floor in the Joneses’ spectacular log home. He’d gone to sleep overlooking a stunning view of the twinkling city lights far below them.

From that distance, downtown looked quiet and peaceful. The fireworks had apparently stopped.

Jacinda Jones, Geronimo’s attractive wife, had made scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. She was obviously six to seven months pregnant with their first child. It was clear to Nate that she was peeved at Geronimo, likely because he’d told her what they were about to do. She kept her distance during breakfast to maintain civility, but she couldn’t help but ask Nate about his “circumstances.”

Men always asked what he did for a living. Women always asked about his family.

He showed her photos of Liv and Kestrel on his phone and her eyebrows arched.

“I didn’t know there were any Black people in Wyoming,” she said.

—

Tristan had been seatedon the floor in the corner of the utility shed when Nate and Geronimo took him a plate of breakfast. Geronimo had cut the tape from Tristan’s wrists and removed the tape from his mouth so he could eat. He refused and said he wasn’t hungry.

Relieved of his black bloc clothing and heavy boots, Tristan looked even less impressive than Nate had imagined. He was pale, sallow, with a sunken chest and acne scars on his neck andjaw. His eyes darted toward them like a cautious ferret and he kneaded his fingers together to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

Turned out, Tristan Richardson had grown up wealthy in the Highlands Ranch suburb of Denver. His father was an insurance company executive and his mother was a buyer for an outdoor sports clothing chain. He’d graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and... he lived at home.

Tristan hated his parents. He hated the government. He hated all politicians, whether local, state, or federal. They were all corrupt fascists, and their party didn’t matter. He hated the police. He hated capitalism most of all, and he was determined to “fight the fascists who benefitted from it at the expense of the downtrodden, the oppressed, and those without a voice or rights.”

He said he was “anti-fascist,” just like the Allied troops that invaded Hitler’s Europe on D-Day.

While he went on, Geronimo scrolled through Tristan’s iPhone 12 Pro. He’d gotten Tristan’s password earlier by pointing the triple-barrel shotgun at his knees.

Tristan seemed befuddled by the fact that Geronimo was distracted and wasn’t more sympathetic to his views.

Nate didn’t care about any of that.

“How do you know Axel Soledad?” he asked Tristan.

Tristan said his associates referred to the man by his first name primarily. Axel.

Axel was kind of a patron saint of antifa cells across the country, Tristan said. Axel had set up legal defense funds with sympathetic attorneys in most of the major western cities to bailout those that got arrested, and he funded the defense for antifa who actually appeared in court. Axel was influential with many local district attorneys and he encouraged them to release people who’d been arrested without charging them.

Axel had become more important in the past few years, Tristan said. He’d become more active. He was like a ghost who knew where to show up and when at just the right time to provide weapons, food, tents, clothing, and spiritual backup. He was unbelievably well-connected.

Even though no one was certain where he lived, Axel knew where to be. Whenever there was serious street action, Axel was there. Portland, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Kenosha, Omaha, Louisville, Washington, D.C. His support kept the movement simmering at all times.

He was alegend.

Geronimo was more focused on the nuts and bolts of what had happened the night before.

“Who knew about the cache of weapons he dropped off?”

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