Си Бокс - Dark Sky

“And you must be Joe,” Price said with a grin. “‘Good old Joe,’ I’ve been saying.”

Before Joe could confirm it, Price chinned toward the jet. “Is the wrangler waiting for us somewhere?”

“His name is Brock,” Joe said. “Yup, he’s waiting inside for us.”

“You can call me Steve-2,” Price said. He pronounced SteveTwo as a two-syllable word. Instead of grasping Joe’s hand in return, he offered an elbow bump. It was an obvious holdover from the pandemic. Either that, or Price was a germophobe, Joe thought.

“That’s Tim out there with the camera,” Price said. “He’s my personal assistant. You’ve met Zsolt Rumy. As you probably guessed, he oversees security.”

Rumy nodded at the mention of his name. Joe nodded back.

Price sidled up close, man-to-man. “I know you’re probably asking yourself why a dude like me needs security.”

“Not really.”

“I sometimes wonder myself,” Price said.

One of the crew of the jet had opened the cargo hold door and Joe could see what looked like dozens of large duffel bags, gear boxes, and backpacks inside.

Joe narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure Tim told you we’re taking horses.”

“He did. I’m really looking forward to it.”

“We may need to winnow down some of your stuff if it’s too much.”

“Are you saying we don’t have pack animals?” Price asked with a look of genuine concern. “My understanding is we’d have pack animals to transport everything we need.”

“We’ve got horses and panniers,” Joe said. “They’re waiting for us in the parking lot. But we need to limit the weight on each animal to no more than thirty percent of its body weight. We’ve got five packhorses in addition to the horses we’ll ride.”

Price frowned. “How much does a horse weigh?”

“Depends on the horse.”

Price closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then slowly reopened them. “I was under the assumption all of this was already sorted out in advance.”

Joe said, “I told Tim to limit your baggage to five hundred pounds.”

Price glared at him. “You know, good old Joe , I can do math in my head. In fact, I’m quite good at it. I’m a coder and a programmer and I’ve designed world-class proprietary algorithms. Are you telling me that your packhorses can only handle a hundred pounds each? I find that hard to believe, since most human riders weigh well above that.”

“They do,” Joe said. “But we need to plan for the weight of hauling elk back down the mountain.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll get it figured out,” Joe offered in an attempt to be conciliatory. As he said it, Joannides approached the group.

Price turned to his assistant. “If we need to leave things behind, they’ll be yours.”

“Yes, boss,” he said through gritted teeth as he turned and walked away.

Joe felt embarrassed for the man, which Price seemed to pick up on.

“I hope that’s not the first of many misunderstandings,” Price said. “Sometimes I think Tim tells me what he thinks I want to hear rather than what I need to hear.”

Joe was glad Joannides was out of earshot.

“Since you’ve been communicating with Tim,” Price continued, “it’s important that you know I’m not some kind of prima donna. I take what we’re about to do very seriously and it’s extremely valuable to me. I appreciate you and the wrangler taking your time to do this.”

Joe nodded.

“As I hope Tim conveyed to you, I only want to participate in an authentic, fair-chase hunt. Pretend I’m just a normal person who hires you to guide him.”

Joe started to say that he didn’t usually guide hunters at all, but Price was on a roll.

“I’ve had hundreds of opportunities to just shoot an animal, if that’s what I wanted to do. I’m talking absolute trophies. But that was on land owned by friends and colleagues, or worse, game farms. That is the last thing I want to do.

“I want real,” Price said. “I want the actual experience. Did Tim communicate this to you clearly?”

Joe was torn how to answer without throwing Joannides under the bus.

“I get it,” Joe said.

“Wonderful,” Price said. “Now, do you think you can go get the wrangler and help us unload all of that gear? And be very careful. Some of it is really delicate.”

Joe turned and pushed through the double doors into the terminal. He found Boedecker sitting on a plastic chair reading the Saddlestring Roundup .

The rancher looked up as Joe approached. He said, “Are you sure we can’t get out of this?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

Boedecker put the paper aside and looked around to make sure no one could overhear what he was about to say. His eyes were unblinking.

“You can go,” the man said. “No hard feelings on my part. In fact . . .”

Joe cocked his head as he waited for more.

“I’d really advise you to go home,” Boedecker said finally. “I can do this without you.”

Joe was puzzled. “I signed on for this.”

Before Boedecker could continue, Joannides stuck his head in the door. He was frantic.

“We need to get this show on the road, gentlemen,” he said.

Boedecker gave Joe a long look that Joe supposed was designed to tell him something. Then he stood up and the two of them walked through the tiny terminal toward the waiting plane.

Joe looked up from the tarmac. A procession of dark clouds scudded across the sky from the north. Soon, it looked like, they’d envelop Battle Mountain.

TWO

Two and a half weeks before, Joe had sat in a leather-backed armchair across from Colter Allen, the governor of Wyoming, in the newly refurbished capitol building in Cheyenne. Game and Fish Department director Rick Ewig was with him.

They’d both been summoned to appear before the governor. Joe had left a telephone message on Ewig’s phone asking if the director knew what the meeting was about. Ewig hadn’t called back.

“Why am I here?” Joe asked Allen.

“I’ll explain,” Allen said.

—

Governor Colter Allen was in the midst of completing his third year in his first term of office. His term had been wracked with problems including a #MeToo scandal, as well as revelations that he’d falsified his résumé and he’d been backed by donors of questionable character, including Joe’s own mother-in-law. Additionally, Governor Allen was thought by general consensus within the state to have fouled up the response to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic by lurching from strict shelter-in-place orders to a full-blown reopening within weeks, then issuing no guidance at all for months while the virus raged.

Joe’s relationship with the Republican governor was nothing like it had been when Spencer Rulon held the office. Although slippery at times, Rulon had enlisted Joe to be his “range rider” and he’d sent him out to different places in the state on special assignments. And when Joe had gotten into trouble, which was often, Rulon had backed him up.

Allen had assumed office with the misconception that Joe would do anything he asked, including gathering dirt on his political opponents and spreading misinformation on his behalf. When Joe had refused, Allen retaliated. If it weren’t for Rulon stepping in as a private-practice attorney and representing him, Joe would have long been out of a job and possibly indicted.

Although there had been rumblings about the possible impeachment of Allen—Wyoming’s first ever—the bills to start the proceedings had been killed in committee by the legislature. According to the Casper Star-Tribune , the house of representatives and senate seemed to have concluded that rather than play hardball with the governor, they’d simply wait him out and elect someone new.