Dark Sky, page 24
part #21 of Joe Pickett Series
Something stirred in her. He looked familiar, she thought. She’d seen him, or a photo of him, before somewhere. She wasn’t sure, but she knew he’d been dressed much differently than he was now. Sheridan tried to recall where it had been.
Behind him was a smaller, younger, and darker man. He had a pinched expression, as if he were annoyed or in some kind of pain. The smaller one exuded menace, she thought. He appeared to be dangerous and tightly coiled. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
Both were heavily armed. Rifle butts jutted up from saddle scabbards and the older man had a holster strapped to his right hip. She couldn’t see any handguns on the younger man, but he wore a bulky coat that could hide them. A long leather knife sheath ran the length of his thigh. She caught a glimpse of a bone handle on the knife.
“We didn’t expect to run into anyone up here,” the older man said to Nate. He displayed a boxlike smile that revealed yellow teeth. His flat, beady eyes were disconnected from the smile on his mouth, though.
He continued in a jaunty tone. “How are you folks doing out here on this cold fall morning? You doin’ all right?”
“We’re fine,” Nate said. “We really didn’t expect to run into anyone, either.”
She noticed as Nate spoke that he subtly squeezed his legs so Gin would know to take a step ahead. He was keeping himself between the horsemen and her as a barrier.
“I’m Earl Thomas and this is my son Kirby,” the older man said. “We’re outfitters based between Saddlestring and Shell. We’ve got clients coming in later this week, so we’re up here scouting for elk. What brings you and your daughter up here?”
Nate apparently didn’t feel the need to explain too much or elaborate on Sheridan’s relationship to him. She didn’t question why not. Instead, she barely heard the exchange over the roar of blood suddenly rushing into her ears.
Earl Thomas.
At the sound of the name, things began to fall into place for her. Earl Thomas. He was the man who’d sat three rows ahead of the Pickett family at Lucy’s graduation ceremony in the school auditorium. Earl had been dressed differently then, in an ill-fitting gray sports jacket with a black western yoke on the back. He’d been by himself with empty seats on each side, even though the room was packed, as if no one wanted to sit next to him.
What drew her attention to him at the time was his behavior. Although big and rough-hewn, he’d cried openly as his daughter, Sophia, was called to the stage to receive her diploma. His back rocked as he wept, and his head bobbed up and down. People around him acted as if they didn’t notice, but they did.
She recalled looking up at Sophia, who was blond, lithe, and tall. Sheridan got a vibe from the girl that although she was attractive, she wasn’t very smart. Something about the way Sophia held herself—as if she were unaware of her surroundings and not keyed in to the rest of the ceremony, resulted in the snap judgment.
Sheridan remembered thinking Sophia had to know that was her father out there weeping, because he was so loud and demonstrative while he did so. But the girl made a deliberate point not to look out at the audience to meet his imploring gaze.
Sophia Thomas, Sheridan thought.
That Sophia Thomas.
* * *
—
We’re looking for someone,” Nate said to Earl as Sheridan tried to return to the present.
“Really? Who?”
“Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett,” Nate said. “He’s supposed to be up here guiding a hunting trip.”
“I know Joe,” Earl said with obvious but treacly surprise, Sheridan thought. It was said like a man who wanted to feign that he was friends with her father, but he really wasn’t. “Hell, I’ve known Joe for years. What’s he doin’ guiding hunters? Isn’t that a job better left to us private-sector types?”
Sheridan squirmed in her saddle. A theory was clicking into place. She tried to remain still when she wanted to shout it out.
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know the circumstances, but that’s not real important at the moment. Have you seen him?”
Earl turned to his son Kirby and they exchanged a glance. Then Earl said, “I surely haven’t seen Joe up here anywhere. But a couple of nights ago, we thought we saw smoke from a camp two drainages over. We couldn’t figure out who in the hell that might be.”
She thought, He’s lying.
“Two drainages over?” Nate asked.
Earl indicated the direction behind him and over his shoulder. “Over there,” he said.
“Really, that’s odd,” Nate said. “That seems to be a long way from where he was headed at the start.”
Earl shrugged. “Well, I can’t explain that other than to say when you’re huntin’ elk, you go where the elk are. Maybe Joe saw a herd and followed them. But hell, I don’t know for sure. We just saw a camp, we thought.”
“How many miles?” Nate asked.
“Eight to ten miles away from here, I’d reckon,” Earl said. “At least that’s where we seen it. They could have packed up and moved by now.”
“I see,” Nate said.
“Does anyone else know they’re missing?” Earl asked. Sheridan thought Earl was trying to pretend he was concerned, but he actually wanted to gather information.
“No,” Nate lied.
“When are they supposed to come back?”
“End of the week.”
“Ah,” Earl said, sitting back and smiling. “You don’t need to start worrying for a while yet. They probably got into a bunch of elk and they don’t even know what day it is. We’ve had clients like that who get overexcited, haven’t we, Kirby?”
Kirby stirred slightly and winced. “Yeah.” But he seemed distracted, she thought. He was too busy trying to get a good look at her on the other side of Nate.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked Kirby, as if on to his game.
Before Kirby could answer, Earl said with a chuckle, “He’s fine. He’s usually quite the chatterbox, especially when there’s a nice-looking female around. But he had a bit too much whiskey last night. He’s a hurtin’ unit this morning. Aren’t you, son?”
“Yeah,” Kirby grunted. He looked away. Sheridan was grateful for Nate’s intervention.
“I hope you take that as a compliment, miss,” Earl said as an aside to Sheridan. She didn’t respond.
“What about you two?” Earl asked Nate. “Have you run across anyone else on your way up here? I assumed you must have started at Oh-Dark-Thirty this morning to get up this creek so far.”
“We did, and no, we haven’t seen anybody but you,” Nate said.
“Seen any elk?” Earl asked.
“A couple of cows and calves down low,” Nate said.
“If you see some big bulls, please give me a shout,” Earl said with a grin. “I’ll put my clients on ’em, and I’d be happy to drop off some tenderloin as a finder’s fee later on.”
Nate didn’t respond. She observed him. He looked carefully from Earl to Kirby and back to Earl in silence.
She didn’t anticipate an explosion coming, but she couldn’t rule it out, either. The entire exchange had felt forced and false to her. She knew Nate could draw his weapon and thumb the hammer back to aim with one swift movement and blow them both out of their saddles. But neither man seemed concerned, which didn’t make sense to her, given the circumstances.
Then it hit her. It explained why both men just sat there, seemingly calm. And it was something Nate had obviously already figured out.
It wasn’t because Earl and Kirby didn’t perceive a threat from Nate, or that they were incapable of drawing first. It was because someone farther up the hill was filling his rifle scope with Nate’s head—or Sheridan’s. Just waiting for a twitch.
Sophia had been the youngest, but she had two older brothers, Sheridan recalled. Kirby was in front of them. So where was the other one?
“Your daughter doesn’t say much,” Earl observed while trying to crane his neck to the side so he could see around Nate toward Sheridan.
“Your son doesn’t, either.”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“Neither Kirby here, nor the one up the slope with the rifle.”
Sheridan studied Earl carefully for his reaction to Nate’s statement. While Kirby had remained still, Earl’s nostrils flared for a millisecond. A tell. Nate was right.
“I don’t know why you think that,” Earl said.
“Because we’re day riders,” Nate said. “We don’t have pack animals with us. But if you two are up here scouting elk for a few days, you’d have a lot more stock and gear with you. I’m guessing the guy up on the slope is in charge of all of that.”
“Maybe we have a camp,” Earl said. “Did you think of that?”
Nate hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I didn’t,” he said, looking abashed. “I didn’t think of that at all. Now I’m embarrassed. I’m just being extra-cautious this morning, I guess. My apologies.”
Earl seemed confused by Nate’s sudden back-down, as was she. Earl narrowed his eyes for a moment, trying to determine if he was being played. Then he said, “You’re right. My oldest son, Brad, is up there with the packhorses. We didn’t want him bringing them all down here at once. You know how it is when a bunch of unfamiliar horses get together. They’ve got to establish who’s boss of the herd and so on. We didn’t want to have a rodeo break out. I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure—we see a lot more injuries from horse accidents than anything else up here.”
Nate nodded his head as if that made sense, his smile still rueful.
Finally, Earl said, “How about we let you two go on up the creek and we’ll stay out of your way?”
“Sounds good,” Nate said. “But please keep an eye out for Joe Pickett. If you see him, please tell him we’re looking for him.”
Earl cocked his head to the side. “I don’t believe you told me your names.”
Nate said, “We didn’t,” and clicked his tongue to get Gin moving.
* * *
—
Sheridan fell in behind Nate and they continued up the drainage. Her back felt like it was burning because it was so exposed. The two of them were easy targets.
But Nate rode along calmly, swaying a bit in the saddle. Without turning around, Nate whispered, “Are they still back there?”
Sheridan didn’t crane around. Instead, she straightened her legs in the stirrups and leaned forward as if adjusting Rojo’s bridle. While she did it, she shot a glance back under her armpit.
“They’re still there,” she whispered back. “Standing there by the creek watching us go.”
“Good. We’re going to ride away, okay?”
“Okay, I guess.”
When she presumed they were far enough from the Thomases not to be overheard, Sheridan said, “What are we doing? They were lying to us. I know they were.”
“Correct,” Nate said.
“So what are we doing?”
Nate blew out a puff of air. “We’re up here to find your dad, remember? I could have taken out Earl and Kirby and not found out the answer. Most important, I didn’t know where Brad was. I didn’t want either of us to take a bullet. If you got shot, I could never look Marybeth in the eye again.”
“Never mind that. We’re going back, right?”
“Please give me a minute to think. I’m trying to figure out our plan,” he said. It was a rare moment of candor from Nate, she thought.
“They don’t care about Dad. They’re up here to get Steve-2,” she said. “I put it together. Earl blames Steve-2 and ConFab for what happened to Sophia.”
Nate looked over his shoulder at her, urging her to continue. She spilled out her theory: this was all about Earl Thomas getting revenge on Steve Price. Her dad was just along for the ride.
Afterward, she said, “There were terrible rumors about Earl and Sophia. I never really believed them, because you know how high schoolers are. But he did seem unnaturally close to her, and you should have seen him at her graduation. It was embarrassing. Do you think they know where Dad is?”
“I think they’re trying to find him,” Nate said. “Just like us.”
“Then he’s alive,” she said with relief.
“My best guess. Your dad can be pretty wily at times. Are they still watching us?”
She did the bridle-adjustment ruse again. “Yes. But they’re looking up toward the ridge.”
“See that thick timber just ahead?” Nate said.
“Yes.”
“As soon as we get into it, I want you to do something.”
* * *
—
Five minutes later, with Nate holding Rojo’s reins while they hid in the dark copse of trees, Sheridan kept low and scrambled back to the mouth of the trail. She ducked behind a thick spruce trunk and pried the covers from the lenses of the binoculars and focused them on Earl and Kirby below them.
Earl was signaling to someone up on the slope by waving his hand. Kirby sat slumped; his head bent forward with his chin resting on his chest. If it was a hangover, as Earl had said, it was a powerful one.
She rotated around the tree to scan the slope. Within a minute, a younger man even bigger than Earl appeared in a clearing. He was riding a huge horse and he was headed down toward the creek. The man was slowly leading a string of horses behind him. A scoped rifle lay across the cantle of his saddle.
She studied him for just a few seconds before he rode out of view behind more trees. The packhorses, one by one, stepped cautiously down the path.
Sheridan gasped, and leaned into the binoculars so hard they hurt her face as the horses passed through her field of vision.
Then she turned to Nate. “Toby,” she hissed. “Toby is with them.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Joe couldn’t clearly see or hear what was going on outside through the slit opening of the cave they were in. He knew two riders had gone by earlier because he’d heard them and caught glimpses of horse legs, and he thought he’d heard the murmur of voices far below them near the creek. The voices shimmered as if carried away by the breeze.
“Where are they?” Price asked in an urgent whisper.
“Shhhhh.” Joe gestured toward the roof of the opening. “Someone is still up there,” he mouthed.
Price’s eyes enlarged, and he stared up at the slab rock, as if by concentrating he could see through it.
Then Price growled, which startled Joe. The growl was deep and rumbling and guttural. It was a sound that had come from deep within the man’s chest. Joe shot him an annoyed look.
“That wasn’t me,” Price hissed.
There was another growl. It was coming from the dark, beyond where Price lay, from deeper into the cave where it narrowed. Joe felt Price burrow into him and grip his right shoulder so hard he winced.
Slowly, Joe raised the headlamp in the gloom and pointed it toward the back of the cave. Price didn’t watch. Instead, he buried his face into Joe’s shoulder. Joe could feel the man trembling.
Joe fumbled for the on button and pressed it. The beam of light was startling in the dark and it took a second for his eyes to adjust to what he’d illuminated. He didn’t see it in its totality at first. Instead, there was a rapid series of impressions:
Two large round eyes reflecting orange in the beam.
Spike-like teeth glistening wet; black lips curled back.
A low-to-the-ground, heavy body.
Shimmering long hair and folds of skin.
The flash of claws . . .
And the creature was on them, rushing them, grunting, slashing with its claws like single-bladed razors, fighting to get out of the cave.
Price cried out and Joe felt the crush of the animal as it scrambled over the top of him. He guessed it weighed forty or fifty pounds, and its thick coat smelled musky and strong of oil, dried blood, and pine. Like Price, Joe flattened himself onto the cave floor to allow for as much space as possible to allow for the beast to see the opening and rush toward it while slicing away at him the entire time. He could feel rents being ripped through his clothing and piercing cuts in the flesh of his back, legs, and neck.
When it cleared them, Joe opened his eyes to see that the animal was blocking out most of the light from the opening. For some reason, it had stopped there. Joe hoped it wouldn’t wheel around and tear into them again.
But it did.
Before Joe could react and raise the .22, the beast was on him again, trying to roll him over on top of Price, and then he felt an electric jolt in his shoulder as it sunk its teeth into him. Although less than a third of Joe’s body weight, the animal had enormous strength and quickness.
Joe grunted and swung at his attacker with his fists. He landed a solid blow on the top of its head with enough force that he heard its jaws snap together.
It was enough. The creature backed away and shot out through the opening.
* * *
—
Huhnnnn.
Huhnnnn.
Huhnnnn.
At first, Joe couldn’t account for the repetitious tone in his right ear. Then, as the dozens of cuts and scratches in his back began to scream at him, he realized it was coming from Price. Price was hugging him so tightly that his nose was pressed into Joe’s ear. The man’s breathing was panicked and ragged.
“It’s gone,” Joe said.
“Are you sure?”
“I saw it go.”
“What in the bloody hell was it? A bear?”
“No,” Joe said as he reached down and pried Price’s hands from him. “Wolverine. We’re in a wolverine den.”
