Си Бокс - Dark Sky

“I’m not rifle hunting,” Jacketta said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Jacketta pulled a headlamp from the pocket of his cargo pants and strapped it over his cap. He turned it on to the lowest light. Since the beam went wherever he turned his head, Jacketta deliberately avoided staring at Brad full-on. Blinding someone temporarily with a headlamp was rude camp etiquette.

Instead, he shined the beam on his recurve bow and quiver.

“See?” he said.

Brad moved over into the light and reached out and fingered the leather-wrapped grip of the bow and tapped on the extended stabilizer.

“Nice bow,” Brad said. “Did you make it yourself?”

“I did,” Jacketta said with some pride in his voice. “That was my winter project. I made the arrows, too.”

Brad hmmm ed his appreciation. “Looks like a piece of art. I didn’t know you had that in you. Can you hit anything with it?”

“I can hit a target. It’s got a sixty-five-pound pull.”

Brad hmmm ed again. “Seeing anything?” he asked.

“I passed on a spike this morning,” Jacketta said. “He walked up to me at twenty feet and just stood there staring for a while. It would have been a fairly easy shot.”

“But you want something bigger,” Brad said.

“I’d like a big bull, but I could live with a big lead cow. This is about meat, for me.”

“Yeah, I know.”

—

Jacketta had tangled with the Thomas clan at a Game and Fish Department public meeting the year before. Jacketta was a software engineer who’d moved from Boulder to the Twelve Sleep Valley to, as he put it, live a more basic existence. He was a low-impact kind of guy: light packs, no footprint, pack out everything he packed in. The Thomas operation was big and old-school: wall tents, stoves, ATVs, rifles. They prided themselves on delivering trophy elk for out-of-state hunters. Meat was a long way down on their list, Jacketta thought.

Jacketta was new to the area, but he considered the Thomases to be the last of a dying breed. They were second- or third-generation guides and outfitters who seemed to have the impression that the Bighorn Mountains belonged to them, even though most of the terrain was public national forest land. The family had well-established camps in the mountains in choice locations and they were known for scaring off and intimidating anyone who dared to use the locations without their permission.

Earl, the patriarch, was cantankerous and loud and he didn’t seem to care who he offended. After Jacketta had stood up at the meeting and said he lived in the valley and appreciated the mountain resource as much as the old-timers did, Earl had said to him, “You millennials with your beards and flannel will come and go. And when you’re gone, we’ll still be here.”

Jacketta wanted no trouble with the Thomases. He wanted no trouble with anyone. He just wanted to hunt for his own food and stay above the fray when it came to disputes about territory or tradition. He’d never attended another public meeting, nor had he spoken out after Earl had dressed him down. He’d done his best to avoid all of the Thomas clan. Which reminded him of something he’d heard about the family, something about a sister . . .

“I see you’ve got a little camp stove,” Brad said, nodding toward the hissing unit. “I suppose it works okay if you’re cheap and needy. Our camp is about a half mile away. Do you want to come and eat with us? We’ve got steaks instead of the freeze-dried crap you’ve got.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Jacketta said. “But I’m fine. I want to go to sleep early tonight so I can get up at three-thirty and go find an elk.”

“What are you planning for dinner?”

“Ramen noodles,” Jacketta said. He wished he’d said the name with more authority, like he was proud of it.

“Really?” Brad said. “You’d pass on a steak?”

Jacketta shrugged. “And the whiskey that comes with it, I would guess. I want to be clearheaded.”

“Very sporting of you,” Brad said. Jacketta detected a half sneer in the dark. That was something he’d learned about the Thomas clan: they were arrogant. He didn’t know Brad well, but he could hear Earl’s voice talking through the bearded mouth hole of his big son.

It was then that Jacketta realized Brad had casually swung the muzzle of the carbine up a little, even though he still held it one-handed. It wasn’t pointed at him exactly, but it was just a flick away.

“Let’s go get a steak,” Brad said.

“I can’t tell if that’s an offer or a threat,” Jacketta said.

“You’ve got a lot to learn if you can’t tell the difference. Come on,” Brad said while he stepped aside. “Follow me. I know you’ve met my old man, but I don’t think you’ve met my brother.”

“Maybe I’ll come along and say hello,” Jacketta said, as much to himself as to Brad. “Since we’re all in the same area and you’re locals and all.”

Brad nodded his agreement. “This way,” he said.

—

The first thing Jacketta noticed was that the Thomas men weren’t set up in one of their more established camps like the ones they used when guiding hunters. Instead of cleared trees, decades-old fire rings, and elevated cross-poles in the trees to hang game, this camp looked temporary, as if set up to be torn down at any time.

The second was that they didn’t appear to be grilling any steaks.

There was one medium-sized canvas wall tent, a small campfire shrouded on four sides by gnarled root pans as if to hide the flame, and various gear bags and panniers scattered on the pine needle forest floor. He could smell the musky odor of pack animals as they got closer and he sensed their big bodies within the trees, but he couldn’t see them in the dark.

Jacketta squinted and said to Brad, “I thought you said your brother was with you.”

“He is.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

As if that were a signal in itself, two men stepped out from behind trees on either side of the camp. Earl was armed with a rifle, but the other, smaller man didn’t appear to have a weapon.

“What the fuck, Brad?” the smaller man said.

“Look what I found about a half mile away,” Brad said to Earl.

Earl approached Jacketta and looked him over carefully. “I know you,” he said.

“Aidan Jacketta,” Brad said. “We met him at that meeting last year. He’s one of those millennials, like Kirby.”

“Fuck you, Brad,” Kirby said.

Jacketta nodded to Kirby as if trying to establish a kind of bond. Kirby didn’t reciprocate.

“What are you doing up here?” Earl asked Jacketta.

“Bowhunting for elk.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes.”

Earl narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t nobody ever tell you it isn’t a good idea to hunt alone? Does anyone know where you are in case something happened to you?”

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.