Си Бокс - Dark Sky

Marybeth said, “I know what you mean. I’m probably overreacting myself. There’s probably a really good reason why your dad didn’t call or text me last night, and I’ve let it derail my entire morning. There was a time when men went off to sea or into the frontier and their wives wouldn’t hear from them for months, even years. Somehow they survived.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan said. But she didn’t sound convinced.

“So you haven’t heard anything from him this morning, either?” Sheridan asked.

“Not yet.”

“And Steve-2 hasn’t posted anything more?”

“No.”

“Maybe they got their elk and they’re busy taking care of it.”

“That’s the only explanation I can think of,” Marybeth said. “It’s the only one I want to consider at the moment, because it means they’ll be headed back soon.”

“Do you know where he is in the mountains?” Sheridan asked.

Marybeth vaguely gestured toward the east. “Kind of,” she said.

“He didn’t leave a note?”

“No. He told me, but I didn’t write it down. He has a sat phone and he swore he’d take a personal locator beacon. Brock Boedecker is also along with them, so I didn’t worry about it this time.”

“There are ways of finding him if Steve-2 doesn’t post again,” Sheridan said. “You know, cell phones can be tracked and things like that.”

Marybeth sat back. “A full-fledged search-and-rescue operation could be launched, I know. But that takes time and we’ve got this new sheriff who hasn’t done it here before . . .” She trailed off. Then: “If I don’t hear from him by this afternoon, I may need to call him, as well as Director Ewig. I don’t want to overreact, though. Lord knows he’s been late or out of touch before.”

“We grew up with it,” Sheridan said. “Dad can handle himself pretty well.”

“He can,” Marybeth said. “I’m sure there’s a good explanation. But right now I want to know he’s safe so I can kill him.”

Sheridan laughed. Then she got serious. “This could turn out to be a huge social media story, but I don’t want to follow it that way. Please keep me in the loop.”

“I will.”

“And I’ll join ConFab to see what Steve-2 posts. I know April and Lucy are on it.”

TWELVE

After leading Price through the sprawling aspen grove, Joe turned around and looked with dismay at the tracks they’d left. The thick carpet of dropped leaves acted as a cover to the surface below, so the moist soil hadn’t dried out. Their muddy boot prints were as distinct as a popular cattle trail.

Price followed Joe’s gaze. “Are they going to come after us?”

“Yup,” Joe said. “And we’re making it easy.”

“So what can we do?”

“Let me think,” Joe said.

“You saw what they did to Zsolt,” Price said. “They shot him down like a dog. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”

Joe didn’t reply. He carefully studied the terrain and wished he could see through the impenetrable wall of aspen to determine if the Thomases were coming through it from the other side.

“I also can’t believe he ran like that,” Price said, still focused on Rumy. “He didn’t even attempt to save me. He’s been at my side for five years. Man, I trusted him. I always kind of thought Tim might turn on me at some point, but I trusted Zsolt.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Joe asked.

—

They’d come through the aspen grove east to west on a slight decline. Although there were natural rises and ridges in front of them, as well as black timber to navigate, the trailhead and his truck were in front of them, but at least a day and a half away on foot. There would be no doubt where they were headed, Joe thought.

He swung his daypack off his shoulder and dropped to one knee. Inside, he found the folded topo map in a ziplock bag that he’d been carrying with him since he first patrolled the mountains. The map was over twenty years old and had started to come apart at the folds, but the features of the Bighorns hadn’t changed much. He spread it out on the forest floor.

Price got close so he could see the map over Joe’s shoulder.

“They know we’ve got to keep heading west,” Joe said softly. He ran the tip of his index finger over the paper. “There are three drainages to the bottom from where we’re at. We’re currently here on the top of the middle one. If we follow it down and nothing stops us, we’ll eventually reach the trailhead.”

“I see.”

“But that’s exactly what they’ll expect us to do. They can move faster on horseback and they’ve got us outmanned and outgunned. It’s just a matter of time before they’re on us, especially considering that track we’ve churned up.”

“Shit,” Price whispered.

“Do you have anything on you?” Joe asked Price. “Your phone or your PLB?”

“No,” Price said. “They made us turn everything over. That big dumb one smashed all of our electronics with the butt of his shotgun.”

Joe nodded. They’d been rendered completely dark. “Do you have anything with you that can help us?”

“My amulet,” Price said, reaching into his collar and displaying a smooth blue stone the size of a robin’s egg mounted on a gold chain. “I got it in Nepal. It’s supposed to ward off evil.”

“When does it start to work?” Joe asked.

Price smiled bitterly and tucked it back beneath his shirt.

Joe turned back to the map, studied it, then tilted his head up and scanned the skyline of a steep rocky ridge to the north. It was two to three miles away and the granite outcropping rose out of the timber.

He chinned north and said, “I assume the Thomas clan will figure we’re taking the most direct route. That’s what I’d assume. My suggestion is that we turn ninety degrees and climb that outcropping and drop down the other side. The north drainage will take us down out of the mountains a few miles away from the trailhead, but I think we can find it if we don’t overrun the location. That route will add a lot of time to get to the trucks, but it’s less likely they’ll look for us over there.”

Price put his hand to his brow to block out the morning sun.

“That looks steep. Are you sure we can climb out of here?”

“No,” Joe said. “And we have to be careful we don’t rimrock ourselves so we can’t climb either up or back down. But it’s harder to track a man in the rocks than it is on the forest floor. And one thing I know about Earl Thomas is he’s a hell of a tracker.”

Price put his hands on his hips and slowly turned around, taking it all in: the mountain ridges on both sides, the sea of trees before them, the aspen grove they’d just hiked through, the cloudless big sky overhead.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s too bad we have to see it like this.”

“Hmmm,” Joe said while carefully folding up his map and putting it back in the plastic bag. As he’d guessed, Kirby had removed the Leatherman tool from the side pocket of his daypack.

The morning was cool and sunny at the moment with little wind, but he knew the weather could change at elevation in a heartbeat and they weren’t equipped for it.

Price said, “Is it true an aspen grove is one of the largest living organisms on earth? That all of the roots are interconnected so that it’s all a single entity?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So it’s kind of like the Internet,” Price said.

That made Joe pause.

“Except right now we can access the aspen grove, of course,” Price said with a sour chuckle.

For the first time that morning, Joe smiled. But it wasn’t a happy smile.

—

Joe shouldered his pack and started walking east again. Price dutifully followed. After a half mile, Price said, “I thought this wasn’t our plan.”