Dark Sky, page 22
part #21 of Joe Pickett Series
Joe looked up and around him. The eastern sky was beginning to take on a slightly cream-with-coffee hue, but it would still be at least two hours before the sun broke over the top of the mountains.
In the dark behind them, a length of wood snapped. It was a heavy crunch, indicating there was real weight behind it. He couldn’t guess how far away it had happened, but it was close.
“Hear that?” he whispered to Price.
“I did. What was it?”
“A horse stepping on a dead branch under the snow.”
Price’s eyes widened and Joe choked the headlamp out.
“What should we do?” Price asked.
“Run.”
“Where?”
“That way,” he motioned.
“Straight across the creek?”
“Yup. They’re right behind us and getting closer. We need to angle away from the creek.”
Joe shouldered around Price and walked stiff-legged to the creek. Price followed.
Joe stepped carefully from rock to rock until he was on the other bank. The far slope was steep, but rocks and brush poked through the light carpet of snow.
“Stay in my footsteps,” Joe whispered.
He climbed the slope, hopping on top of rocks and in the middle of squat brush. It wasn’t easy, but it didn’t leave a trail in the snow, he hoped. Price kept up as they climbed.
Joe’s heart beat with exertion and terror as he ascended the slope. Behind him and up the mountain, he heard another branch snap and then the unmistakable sound of a metal horseshoe glancing off a rock.
He hated going in the wrong direction when the best and fastest route to a trailhead was straight down the mountain, following the creek. But if they kept going that way, he knew, they would soon be overrun.
Joe clawed his way through a dense mountain juniper bush just below the tree line. When he emerged on the other side, he turned and helped Price. He could smell the sharp scent of juniper berries they’d crushed or dislodged.
Joe hunkered down behind the bush and tried to breathe deeply and normally so he wouldn’t make loud panting sounds.
Within minutes, he heard the soft thump of horse hooves making footfalls below where they’d just been. He cursed the stillness and wished there was a breeze to provide some cover and white noise, because it sounded like the horses were just thirty to forty yards away in the stillness.
Joe reached out and pressed his gloved hand on the top of Price’s head to urge him to keep down. Then he removed his hat and slowly rose on his haunches to get a better sight angle on the creek.
The ghostly dark shapes of two horsemen passed by below them, parallel to the nameless creek. The man out front was bulkier and Joe guessed it was Earl. The second rider slumped over oddly in his saddle. It was Kirby. Kirby looked as though he was either hurt or fighting sleep. Joe hoped it was the former.
Twenty yards behind them, the unmistakable mass of Brad Thomas appeared, leading a line of packhorses. Toby was second from the last in Brad’s string. The gelding walked along dutifully, but Joe could tell Toby wasn’t liking it by the way his horse kept his head bowed.
There’s our stuff, Joe thought. There’s my horse. I wonder where Joannides went?
Kirby was upright on his saddle, but Joe thought he could detect a slight wobble in him as he rode, as if his bones had softened. Joe knew Brad had been hit in the face by the .22 bullet he’d fired.
For a moment, Joe thought about raising the rifle and taking a shot at Earl. But what if he missed? Or what if the cartridge was another dud? Earl’s head was hard to see in the darkness, and as Joe thought about it the man passed out of view behind a snow-covered spruce tree. Kirby followed him and was soon out of clear sight as well.
But there was Brad, just about to ride his big draft horse across a patch of snow glowing with starlight that would frame him perfectly for a second or two. If Joe shot Brad again and Brad fell, the packhorses with their weapons and gear might be available to catch, he thought. Joe didn’t know if he could scramble down the slope fast enough to get to his weapons before Earl and Kirby turned and came back, but it just might be worth the risk. Even if he couldn’t get down there, thinning the immediate threat from three men to two could change the dynamics of the situation. Earl and Kirby would have to contend with how to deal with the severely wounded or dead body of Brad and the string of horses. That was in addition to hunting down Price and Joe.
Joe weighed the odds, then raised the rifle and cocked it and pressed the stock against his cheek.
“What are you doing?” Price whispered.
Because of the darkness, it was hard to see the blade of the front sight to line it up with the slot in the back site, Joe found. But when aligned, and his aim settled on Brad’s head and neck area, he let his breath out slowly and squeezed the trigger.
Snap.
The cartridge was another dud.
Joe peered down the rifle sites at Brad, who’d cocked his head at the sound.
Joe thought, It’s over now.
But Brad didn’t react further. He looked up the slope in Joe’s direction and then up the facing slope without spurring his horse or reaching for his shotgun. He wasn’t alarmed. And he continued to slowly ride alongside the creek.
Either Brad hadn’t heard the sound of the misfire, or he’d heard something but had no idea what it was. He rode on.
Joe sat back with his heart beating in his ears. He closed his eyes and was grateful things hadn’t gone horribly wrong. Price, to his credit, seemed to realize what had just happened, but he didn’t say a word.
After a minute, Joe said, “Okay, that cartridge didn’t work. They’re all old. But we’re fortunate the Thomases passed right by and we bought some time.”
“Where do we go from here?”
Joe chinned toward the timber above them. “Back over the top into the drainage we started out in. They’ll figure it out at some point when they don’t find any tracks, but at least for a while they won’t be breathing down our necks.”
Price nodded dutifully and rolled to his feet. He moaned as he did so. “This is like a nightmare that won’t end,” he said.
“How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s starting to really hurt.”
“There were a few ibuprofen packets in your first-aid kit,” Joe said. “Take some of those.”
While Price dug in his cargo pants for the pain relievers, Joe ejected the bad cartridge from the .22 and let it drop to the soil. He made a point of grinding it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. Then he grasped a handful of six or seven cartridges from his pocket and stared at them in the palm of his gloved hand.
“You pick,” he said to Price.
“Why me?”
“You might be luckier than I am.”
Price grimaced. “Look at us. I don’t feel very lucky at all.”
He touched the rounds with the tip of his finger and rolled them around. He selected one and handed it to Joe.
“Who knows?” Price said.
TWENTY-THREE
Nate and Sheridan drove in the dark into the mountains with Marybeth’s horse trailer hitched behind the utility pickup Liv had borrowed from a neighbor. Sheridan had a paper napkin spread over her lap with a crude drawing Joe had left behind indicating which trailhead he’d planned to use to lead the hunting party.
“You’re sure this makes sense to you?” she asked Nate at the wheel.
“I think so,” Nate said. “I’ve seen him sketch out his routes before.”
“It’s a good thing my mom found this.”
Nate grunted his agreement. “I think I can find the trailhead, but your guess is as good as mine where they went from there.”
Sheridan used the illuminated screen of her phone to study the sketch of the map. It showed a dotted line going east from the trailhead—which was marked with an X—up into the Bighorns. There was no indication of where they intended to camp or hunt. She guessed her dad had a plan but didn’t feel the need to share it. Sheridan wasn’t really a hunter, but she’d heard her dad say more than once, “You hunt where the elk are, not where you think they’ll be.” Which meant the entire eastern slope of the Bighorns was target-rich.
“I wish Steve-2 would post something on his feed,” she said. “I know there’s a way to get the exact geographic location of a satellite phone. Mom would know how to find it through her networks of contacts. But if the phone stays off—that doesn’t do us any good.”
She scrolled through her ConFab feed, hoping there would be a post from its founder since Enjoying the big sky and the mountain air. It’s fun to be off the grid for a while, but there hadn’t been. She found that post to be atypical, illogical, and insipid. As if Steve-2 was off his game.
The #WheresSteve2 hashtag had now risen in rank and was trending in the top three, she noted. Users had pasted photos of his face on iconic symbols from all over the world: on Mount Rushmore, replacing Roosevelt; on Lady Liberty, beneath her crown; blinking on and off at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
* * *
—
Gin and Rojo, two of Marybeth’s horses, were in the horse trailer and their saddles and tack were in the bed of the pickup. Sheridan and Nate had packed light with no camping gear because they didn’t anticipate being in the mountains overnight.
“Tell me about the personality of your horses,” Nate said as they left the paved county highway and turned onto a rough two-track dirt road into the trees.
“They’re my mom’s horses.”
“Tell me about them. I’m no horseman, but I know they can be as quirky as falcons.”
“True. Dad’s riding Toby,” she said. “Toby’s pretty much the boss in the pecking order, even though he’s getting older. He’s a tobiano paint and he’s bombproof in the wilderness.”
“I remember Toby,” Nate said. “Four white socks with black spots on them?”
“That’s him.”
“What about the horses we have with us?”
“Rojo in the back is a gelding and he’s pretty quick and athletic,” she said. “He’s also nervous and flighty at times. He worships the ground Toby walks on and he’s probably upset and all riled up that Toby’s gone. I’ll ride him.”
“Good.”
“Gin’s our mare. She’s highly trained, but she’s lazy. That’s why she’s the fattest. She can do everything you could want a horse to do, but she doesn’t want to. She’s not going to be spooked by anything, though.”
“I’ll take Gin,” Nate said. “You know, horses are complicated and unreliable.”
“I know that. Would you rather walk?”
Nate didn’t reply for a minute. Then he said, “You lead, I’ll follow.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking,” she said.
Nate wore his shoulder holster with his huge .454 Casull revolver in it, and there were three long guns in the cab, all belonging to Nate: his 6.8 SPC Ruger ranch rifle with a fifteen-round magazine, a scoped .270 Winchester bolt-action elk hunting rifle, and an ancient open-sight lever-action Henry saddle carbine chambered in .30-30. The rifles were all placed muzzle-down on the bench seat between them.
“Gee,” she said to Nate, “I think we have enough guns along.”
“Bite your tongue,” Nate said. “One never has enough guns.”
* * *
—
Sheridan was filled with relief when they turned from the tight mountain road into an opening and the headlights swept over her dad’s green Ford F-150 pickup as well as a new-model Dodge with a long horse trailer hitched to it. They’d found the right trailhead. There was also an empty Suburban.
They parked parallel to the Dodge and climbed out. It was always coldest just before dawn in the mountains and she zipped her coat to her chin and pulled on a pair of gloves. Nate walked straight to her dad’s pickup and she followed. Although the truck was locked, Nate quickly located the keys on the top of the driver’s-side rear tire, where Joe always hid them. He did it to guard against losing his keys while out on patrol and getting locked out of his own vehicle. Her dad had enough problems with his trucks as it was.
Nate unlocked the driver’s-side door and opened it and the dome light came on inside. She watched through the passenger window as Nate studied the inside of the cab and rooted through the box of hunting regulations and other official Game and Fish Department material. She heard him say, “No more sketches” as he reached over and unlocked the passenger door.
Nate found an old topo map in the door compartment and spread it out across the front bench seat. She opened the passenger door and leaned in.
“It’s old, but I doubt the terrain has changed very much,” he said.
Inside the cab she could smell a whiff of her dad’s Labrador, Daisy. It gave her an eerie feeling to be inside her dad’s truck without him in it.
While Nate studied the map, she opened the glove compartment and found a citation book, cigars stored in a ziplock bag to keep them from drying out, a canister of bear spray, and a stubby five-shot hammerless .38 revolver in a black nylon holster. She recalled seeing the weapon before and she knew he used it as a concealed backup gun. Sheridan turned so it wouldn’t be pointed at Nate and checked the cylinder to confirm it was loaded, then she slipped it into her coat pocket. The bear spray went into the other.
“It’s all about drainages,” Nate said inside, following the largest one down the length of the map and pressing the tip of his finger into the bottom of the sheet.
“We are here,” he said. “It makes sense that they’d go directly up this big drainage where the trail is. Their camp is probably on it or not far from it.”
“Okay,” she said.
“So that’s where we should go first.”
* * *
—
Her fingers were stiff through her gloves as they saddled the horses from the light of her headlamp and a small flashlight Nate clamped between his teeth. She checked Nate’s cinch strap to make sure it was tight enough while he lashed two saddle scabbards onto his saddle, one on each side, and one to hers. He slid both the .270 and the ranch rifle into his scabbards and the .30-30 into hers.
“I don’t need to have a rifle,” she said.
“It’s for looks,” he replied. “This way you’ll look like you mean business and not like some twenty-something girl on a horse.”
“That was mean,” she said. “Who do you expect we’ll run into up there?”
“One never knows,” he said. “How many people hate Steve-2 and what he represents? How many people out there just hate billionaires?”
She thought about it. Steve Price was certainly known as arrogant and controversial. “Maybe a bunch of people.”
“Well, there you go,” Nate said. “Do you have a cell signal?”
She checked her phone. “One bar.”
“Text Liv and your mom,” he said. “Let them know we’re hitting the trail so they can tell the search-and-rescue team when we left.”
As she did, Nate said, “My plan is to find your dad and get him back here before noon.”
“What about Steve-2?”
Nate shrugged. “What about him? He’s nothing to me right now. I’ve got business to attend to, you know.”
“What business?”
Nate climbed into the saddle on Gin’s back. “Don’t forget we’ve got a falcon thief on the loose in our own backyard. I let him off the hook yesterday right when I had him in my sights. I’m going to find that guy and shut him down before he ruins everything.”
She was encouraged by his optimism and determination to make their mission short and successful. It buoyed her, but she couldn’t figure out what he was basing his optimism on. Nate didn’t know where her dad was any more than she did, or what had happened to him.
“Okay,” she said, sending the text. Then she secured her phone in her jacket, filled a saddlebag with a first-aid kit Marybeth had given her to take along—just in case—and climbed onto Rojo. The slick leather of the saddle was cold, even through her Wranglers and long underwear.
Nate backed Gin up out of her way.
“Ride ’em, cowgirl,” he said to her as she passed.
* * *
—
Although it had snowed in the meanwhile, Sheridan noted the churned-up trail leading up and away from the trailhead. She could see deep U-shaped horse tracks beneath the thin blanket of snow in the beam of her headlamp. There had been at least half a dozen horses. Rojo locked in on the purpose of the mission after just a few minutes when he seemed to catch the lingering scent of Toby somewhere along the trail up ahead of him.
Toby’s scent gave Rojo motivation to pick up his pace. Nate, on lazy old Gin, had to keep urging the mare to keep up.
While she rode, Sheridan felt a kernel of unease that blossomed the farther she ascended into the dark timber. At first, she couldn’t determine exactly what it was. There was plenty foreboding about the immediate situation itself: they were taking horses into unfamiliar mountains in the dark to find her missing father. But there was something else, something Nate had said:
How many people out there hate Steve-2 and what he represents?
She had no idea how many people out there in the world hated Steve-2, or hated technology in general, or hated ConFab in particular. But she recalled there was someone who had railed about him locally.
What was his name? And what had happened to his daughter? The girl was a couple of years behind her at school, Sheridan recalled. She couldn’t place her name or face.
