Dark Sky, page 8
part #21 of Joe Pickett Series
It was a loaded question, Jacketta thought. Why was he asking?
“My wife knows I’m up here,” Jacketta said. It wasn’t a total lie. Erin knew he was going hunting for a few days, but he hadn’t said specifically where he’d be because it was important for him to have flexibility. If the elk were on one mountain, he didn’t want to be stuck on another. Plus, Erin wasn’t a worrier. She trusted him and she was used to absences of a couple of nights here and there.
Earl seemed to weigh his answer, but said nothing. Finally, he asked, “Did you ever know my daughter, Sophia?”
The question had come out of nowhere, Jacketta thought. Was Earl implying something?
“No, I don’t believe so,” he said.
Jacketta noticed that Brad and Kirby were exchanging looks and expressions without actually speaking. Kirby seemed agitated that Brad had brought Jacketta into camp. Brad seemed to be defending what he’d done at first and then doubting it a second later.
“Look,” Jacketta said. “I don’t want to screw up your hunt. I didn’t know you guys were up here, either. I just want to get along.”
Earl said, “It’s just that we know you and you know us.”
“So?” Jacketta said. “Why does that make any difference?”
Earl looked to both of his sons and said something to them with his eyes. Jacketta couldn’t interpret it.
“We both know I have as much right to hunt on public land as you do,” Jacketta said, “but I don’t want any trouble. There’s three of you and one of me. I’ll break camp first thing in the morning and hike eight miles or so to the east. I’ll give you guys this whole mountain and stay out of your way.”
Jacketta hated giving up so easily. He’d scouted the area for months before the season opened and he knew there were elk here. He wasn’t so sure that would be the case eight miles east.
Brad said to Earl, “He was glassing the hunting party when I found him.”
Earl turned his gaze on Jacketta again. “Do they know you’re up here spying on them?”
“I wasn’t spying. They built a gigantic fire and it got my attention.”
“Do they know you’re here?” Earl asked.
Jacketta shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you know who is in that hunting party?”
“How would I know that?”
Jacketta looked to Brad and Kirby and made a What’s this all about? gesture with his hands.
“He don’t know,” Brad said.
“Don’t know what?” Jacketta asked the three of them.
Earl slowly shook his head and mouthed something to his sons. Jacketta thought it was “No guts,” which he took as an insult.
“Brad offered me dinner, but I’d like to take a rain check,” he said. He started to walk back in the direction they’d come, but Brad blocked him.
“Really,” Jacketta said. “I’ll break camp tonight and move on. I really don’t want to run into you guys tomorrow, either.”
Then it hit him. The words Earl had mouthed weren’t “No guts.” They were “No guns.”
Jacketta broke for it, shouldering himself around Brad and running as fast and as hard as he could for the dark trees in the direction of his camp.
“Shit,” Earl said from behind him. “The prick is fast.”
* * *
—
Jacketta ran blind, and it was terrifying. Tree trunks zipped past him on both sides and he couldn’t see well enough to know if he was about to slam into one. Once he got deep enough into the lodgepoles, he thought, he’d put his headlamp on for the rest of the way. But he wasn’t far enough from the Thomas camp yet.
Jacketta had no idea what had just happened and he hoped he hadn’t misread it. But he didn’t think so. He thought he’d made the right decision to bolt. His heart whumped in his chest and he could feel the rise of goose bumps on his forearms.
Brad knew where his camp was, but Jacketta thought he could reach it and pack up before Brad could catch up. Brad was stealthy, but he wasn’t quick on his feet. Earl didn’t seem spry, either. Then instead of east where he’d mentioned, he’d go west. Throw them off his trail. And when he got back to town the next day, he’d go to the new sheriff and file charges. Enough was enough with these people, no matter how long they’d been in the county.
That’s when he heard footfalls on the forest floor just behind him.
Jacketta stopped and listened. He recalled how Brad had approached him without making a sound. Whoever was chasing him wasn’t taking those precautions.
Jacketta threw his arms up in front of his face and took off again. He pushed through pine boughs and bounced off tree trunks and he could see nothing. He was getting winded from running and his lungs burned, but he tried to control his exhalations.
He ran across a small open meadow that was half-lit by starlight, then into another wall of tight lodgepole pines on the other side. Although he knew he shouldn’t take the chance, he paused and looked behind him.
It was Kirby, Brad’s brother. Kirby was just twenty yards behind as he crossed the meadow. A glint of starlight reflected off the blade of a large knife in Kirby’s hand.
There was no point in standing his ground, Jacketta thought. He’d left all his weapons at his camp. So he plunged forward. Jacketta couldn’t believe what was happening and he didn’t know why it was.
Footfalls. Kirby was getting closer.
Then Jacketta ran headlong into a tree trunk and smashed into it so hard the only thing he could see were orange orbs exploding in front of his eyes. He knew he’d opened up a gash on his forehead and he wiped the blood away and tried to get his bearings. For a few seconds, he lost his sense of direction.
As Kirby closed in, Jacketta bolted away, stumbling eastward.
The slice of the blade through the back of his leg felt cold, as if he’d been raked by an icicle. The cut itself wasn’t painful—yet—but he was sickened by the feeling of his untethered hamstring retracting up into his thigh.
Jacketta went down. When he turned over and looked up, he saw Kirby standing over him with the big knife in his hand.
No guns, Jacketta thought. Earl didn’t want anyone in the mountains—the hunting party—to hear a shot and know they were up there.
“Damn,” Kirby said after taking gulps of air, “you can run like a motherfucker. I didn’t think I’d catch you.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Jacketta said. “Don’t let me bleed out.”
“Naw. I just had to stop you.”
“I won’t say anything to anybody,” Jacketta said. “Just let me go to my camp and pack up.”
Kirby seemed to be considering it for a moment. Then: “No dice. I’ll help you up and we’ll go back and get you patched up. We’ll talk to Dad and see what we can figure out. You just ran away so damned quick we were afraid you got the wrong impression about us. You didn’t give us a chance to explain why we’re up here.”
Jacketta didn’t think he had a choice. He reached down and could feel hot blood pulsing from the wound. He knew his femoral artery had been cut.
“Maybe we could put on a tourniquet,” he said. “You could use my belt.”
“We’ll do that when we can see what we’re doing,” Kirby said, extending his left hand. “Here, grab on.”
Jacketta reached out and Kirby pulled him to his feet. He couldn’t feel his right leg or foot, so he balanced on his left boot. Kirby stepped under Jacketta’s extended arm and folded it at the elbow around his neck to support him.
“Can you walk?”
“Barely.”
They stumbled out of the trees into the starlit meadow. Kirby was surprisingly strong, Jacketta thought. He could lean all of his weight on the man.
“Too bad you saw our faces,” Kirby said. “Too bad you knew Brad and Dad. That’s where things went off the track.”
“I don’t know why,” Jacketta said. “What in the hell is going on?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“No.”
“Family business, I guess you could say.”
Jacketta looked over to try and get a better understanding. The last thing he saw was Kirby flattening the blade of the bowie knife and positioning the point of it under his armpit. Before Jacketta could react, Kirby thrust it to the hilt between two ribs and into his heart.
Aidan Jacketta died on his back, looking up at the wash of stars. There were a lot of them.
Monday
Green / Red Day
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
—Richard P. Feynman
NINE
At four-thirty the next morning, Joe shouldered on his pack in the dark and left Price and Rumy in a tangle of downed timber at the head of a dry wash. They were hunkered down. Rumy had kept completely silent all morning as if he weren’t yet awake and alert, and Price was just the opposite: anxious, excited, curious about what might happen next.
Joe had explained it to him in a hushed tone before leaving. The only illumination in the tangle was from the muted beam on Joe’s headlamp. The light from it was altered by a red filter, and the pink glow on both men created an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere, with deep shadows and discolored eyes. Price had placed his compound bow in the crook of an overturned pine root pan and lined up his high-tech arrows next to it. He was ready.
“You can’t see it right now,” Joe had said, “but facing us to the west is a large meadow on the side of the slope. The meadow gets blown free of snow in the winter, but it grows good grass in the summer and fall. The elk—if they’re there—graze on it during the night and then move into the timber to bed down for the day as soon as it’s light. My plan is to leave you two and circumnavigate the meadow so I can come up behind them. I’ll stay deep in the trees and try not to make any sound. The wind is with me right now, so I shouldn’t startle them before dawn.”
Like all hunting plans, or plans in general, Joe knew it would be a crapshoot. The wind could shift on him while he was making his way there, he could stumble in the undergrowth and snap a branch, or the elk could simply not be present at all.
“Why the red light?” Price had asked, gesturing toward Joe’s headlamp.
“So I can see where I’m going but the elk can’t see me,” Joe explained. “These animals have a wide field of vision and they can see very well in the dark. But unlike humans, they have what’s called dichromatic vision. They only see blue and yellow, and the rest is black and white and shades of both. In the dark, red light is invisible to them.”
“Fascinating,” Price said.
“I’ve still got to be really stealthy and slow getting around them. They know it’s hunting season.”
Rumy scoffed at that, but Joe ignored him.
“Give me at least an hour and a half,” Joe said to Price. He described how the clearing went all the way to the top of the slope summit and a little over to the far side. His plan was to work his way through the timber until he was on the other side of that rise. Then he’d crawl or crabwalk to the top until he could look over at the meadow from the opposite side.
“If the elk are in there, they’ll eventually see or sense me up there,” Joe said. “I’ll try not to panic them. I want them to walk away from me rather than run.”
“You think they’ll come to us?” Price asked.
Joe gestured toward the shallow wash that was below them. “They could come up right here in front of you,” he said. “I can’t guarantee it, because the herd might decide to bolt off to the north or south into the timber instead of coming your way. But the wash you’re looking over serves as a kind of funnel. They might appear right in front of you.”
“How far is the wash?” Price asked. “I obviously can’t see it yet.”
“The edge of it is thirty yards away. The opposite rim is about fifty yards away. Your shooting zone should be right in the middle.”
Price nodded and grinned. His teeth shone pink in the light. “It’s a good plan,” he said.
“As far as plans go,” Joe conceded. “Elk have minds of their own. I’ve seen them do all kinds of things that don’t make any sense, like turn and run right over you. Or in this case, over me. The only thing that’s pretty certain is that, whatever they do, they’ll stick together in a herd.”
“What do we do if that happens?” Price asked. “If they go out through the side or run over your position?”
“Sit tight,” Joe said. “Don’t chase them. You’ll never catch them. If they move on us, we’ll get back together, regroup, and make another plan.
“If the herd does come up here,” Joe continued, “you’ll likely see a big dry cow first. She’s the lead cow. Think of her as their scout. If she senses you up here, she’ll turn or reverse direction. But if she thinks the coast is clear, she’ll lead them in a line right in front of you.”
“Should I try for the lead cow?” Price asked.
“It’s your call,” Joe said. “But if you want a bull, you’ll have to wait. Bulls will come up at the end of the string.”
“And if I decide to shoot?” Price asked.
“Aim for the chest just in back of the front shoulder,” Joe said. “That’s your best chance of hitting the vital area and making a kill shot. Don’t aim at the head, neck, or shoulder. And if you hit the elk, grab another arrow. Keep shooting. Stick it with arrows until it goes down.”
Price shook his head. “Brutal,” he said.
“This is brutal business,” Joe agreed. “But what’s even worse is wounding an animal. We don’t want to spend the rest of our time tracking a wounded elk and we don’t want that creature to suffer.”
“I’m with you on that,” Price said.
Joe cast a quick glance to Rumy, who appeared bored with the conversation. He also looked to be very cold.
“It’s gonna get colder before the sun comes up,” Joe said. “If you need to get some circulation going, one of you at a time can get up and walk around back there in the trees. Be careful where you step and keep silent. You don’t want to scare them off before they get here.
“Whatever happens, don’t leave this spot,” Joe said, emphasizing his point by jabbing his index finger earthward several times. “Since we aren’t using radios, you’ll just have to wait for me to come back. I will come back here, whatever happens. And then we can plan our next move.” He looked at Rumy as he said it. Rumy struck him as the kind of guy who might decide to pursue fleeing elk or just want to go back to the camp for breakfast.
“We’ll do what we want to keep Mr. Price safe and comfortable,” Rumy said.
“We’ll stay,” Price said, cutting off his man. “We’ll do this right.”
“Good,” Joe said.
It had been Price’s decision to hunt without radio communication to better ensure a classic fair-chase hunt. Joe was fine with that. It bothered him when he encountered hunters in the field who operated as if big-game hunting was a military spot-and-kill maneuver. Radios weren’t necessary as long as everyone involved understood the strategy and contingencies.
Then he pulled his pack on and left them.
* * *
—
It was a surprisingly cold morning, Joe thought. There had been a dusting of snow during the night from the storm clouds he’d seen, but not even an inch of accumulation. The kind of snow that would likely melt off during a sunny day. He hoped Price and Rumy could stay loose and warm.
The light snow was a plus, he knew. It made it much easier to see tracks and gauge movement across the forest floor and in the meadow if the elk weren’t where he guessed they’d be.
The forest was dense with downed timber and tangled limbs. He had to make several detours to get around impenetrable brush so that his path, if mapped from the air, zigzagged all the way down the mountain and up the other side. Joe was grateful he was the one on the move because his activity warmed him up. It wasn’t long before he could feel the prickle of sweat beneath his armpits and in his crotch beneath his light wool underlayer.
In addition to the pack filled with extra clothing, optics, gear, a first-aid kit, and a knife and saw for field dressing, Joe wore both his .357 Magnum and a canister of bear spray on his belt. He’d laced gaiters over his boots to keep out the moisture from the snow.
In a perfect world, he thought, his plan would work at least as far as presenting the shooter with an opportunity. But anything could happen. Price might miss or wound his target, and they’d deal with either result. Panicking at the sight of elk happened often to many first-time hunters, Joe knew. It had happened to him the first time when he was fourteen and he’d let a lead cow walk by him so closely he could see the dew sparkle in her thick hide. He’d been frozen to his spot and never taken a shot. Joe planned to be very forgiving of Price if the same thing happened to him the first time.
He might not be as forgiving if it happened repeatedly.
* * *
—
As he picked his way through the trees, Joe couldn’t push away the feeling of being oddly disconcerted. Part of it, he knew, was leading an elk hunt for people he didn’t know. Another part of it was that he hadn’t been able to talk to Marybeth the night before because his satellite phone wouldn’t work. Talking to his wife was a ritual and it helped them both. It bothered him that he’d been unsuccessful and he felt like there was a hole in his heart that needed filling.
He also knew that when he didn’t call her—and it was rare when he couldn’t—her mind began to conjure up all kinds of worst-case scenarios. Especially when he was in the field. He was hurt, he’d been abducted, he’d been killed. And he couldn’t really assure her that none of those things were possible because of the many close calls he’d had in the past, including from his own doctor.
