Си Бокс - Dark Sky

They parked parallel to the Dodge and climbed out. It was always coldest just before dawn in the mountains and she zipped her coat to her chin and pulled on a pair of gloves. Nate walked straight to her dad’s pickup and she followed. Although the truck was locked, Nate quickly located the keys on the top of the driver’s-side rear tire, where Joe always hid them. He did it to guard against losing his keys while out on patrol and getting locked out of his own vehicle. Her dad had enough problems with his trucks as it was.

Nate unlocked the driver’s-side door and opened it and the dome light came on inside. She watched through the passenger window as Nate studied the inside of the cab and rooted through the box of hunting regulations and other official Game and Fish Department material. She heard him say, “No more sketches” as he reached over and unlocked the passenger door.

Nate found an old topo map in the door compartment and spread it out across the front bench seat. She opened the passenger door and leaned in.

“It’s old, but I doubt the terrain has changed very much,” he said.

Inside the cab she could smell a whiff of her dad’s Labrador, Daisy. It gave her an eerie feeling to be inside her dad’s truck without him in it.

While Nate studied the map, she opened the glove compartment and found a citation book, cigars stored in a ziplock bag to keep them from drying out, a canister of bear spray, and a stubby five-shot hammerless .38 revolver in a black nylon holster. She recalled seeing the weapon before and she knew he used it as a concealed backup gun. Sheridan turned so it wouldn’t be pointed at Nate and checked the cylinder to confirm it was loaded, then she slipped it into her coat pocket. The bear spray went into the other.

“It’s all about drainages,” Nate said inside, following the largest one down the length of the map and pressing the tip of his finger into the bottom of the sheet.

“We are here,” he said. “It makes sense that they’d go directly up this big drainage where the trail is. Their camp is probably on it or not far from it.”

“Okay,” she said.

“So that’s where we should go first.”

—

Her fingers were stiff through her gloves as they saddled the horses from the light of her headlamp and a small flashlight Nate clamped between his teeth. She checked Nate’s cinch strap to make sure it was tight enough while he lashed two saddle scabbards onto his saddle, one on each side, and one to hers. He slid both the .270 and the ranch rifle into his scabbards and the .30-30 into hers.

“I don’t need to have a rifle,” she said.

“It’s for looks,” he replied. “This way you’ll look like you mean business and not like some twenty-something girl on a horse.”

“That was mean,” she said. “Who do you expect we’ll run into up there?”

“One never knows,” he said. “How many people hate Steve-2 and what he represents? How many people out there just hate billionaires?”

She thought about it. Steve Price was certainly known as arrogant and controversial. “Maybe a bunch of people.”

“Well, there you go,” Nate said. “Do you have a cell signal?”

She checked her phone. “One bar.”

“Text Liv and your mom,” he said. “Let them know we’re hitting the trail so they can tell the search-and-rescue team when we left.”

As she did, Nate said, “My plan is to find your dad and get him back here before noon.”

“What about Steve-2?”

Nate shrugged. “What about him? He’s nothing to me right now. I’ve got business to attend to, you know.”

“What business?”

Nate climbed into the saddle on Gin’s back. “Don’t forget we’ve got a falcon thief on the loose in our own backyard. I let him off the hook yesterday right when I had him in my sights. I’m going to find that guy and shut him down before he ruins everything.”

She was encouraged by his optimism and determination to make their mission short and successful. It buoyed her, but she couldn’t figure out what he was basing his optimism on. Nate didn’t know where her dad was any more than she did, or what had happened to him.

“Okay,” she said, sending the text. Then she secured her phone in her jacket, filled a saddlebag with a first-aid kit Marybeth had given her to take along—just in case—and climbed onto Rojo. The slick leather of the saddle was cold, even through her Wranglers and long underwear.

Nate backed Gin up out of her way.

“Ride ’em, cowgirl,” he said to her as she passed.

—

Although it had snowed in the meanwhile, Sheridan noted the churned-up trail leading up and away from the trailhead. She could see deep U-shaped horse tracks beneath the thin blanket of snow in the beam of her headlamp. There had been at least half a dozen horses. Rojo locked in on the purpose of the mission after just a few minutes when he seemed to catch the lingering scent of Toby somewhere along the trail up ahead of him.

Toby’s scent gave Rojo motivation to pick up his pace. Nate, on lazy old Gin, had to keep urging the mare to keep up.

While she rode, Sheridan felt a kernel of unease that blossomed the farther she ascended into the dark timber. At first, she couldn’t determine exactly what it was. There was plenty foreboding about the immediate situation itself: they were taking horses into unfamiliar mountains in the dark to find her missing father. But there was something else, something Nate had said:

How many people out there hate Steve-2 and what he represents?

She had no idea how many people out there in the world hated Steve-2, or hated technology in general, or hated ConFab in particular. But she recalled there was someone who had railed about him locally.

What was his name? And what had happened to his daughter? The girl was a couple of years behind her at school, Sheridan recalled. She couldn’t place her name or face.

Sheridan checked her phone. If she had a signal, she could text her mom to find out more about her suspicions, but there were no bars on the screen.

Still, it ate at her.

TWENTY-FOUR

A short time later, Earl Thomas turned in his saddle and raised his voice and said, “That Joe Pickett is a slippery son of a bitch.”

“What was that?” Kirby asked as he rode up next to Earl. His tone was pinched with pain.

“I said, Joe Pickett is a slippery son of a bitch. I wouldn’t have thought it, knowing what I know about him, but I haven’t seen any sign of him or Price for quite a while now.”

Kirby winced as he tried to straighten up in the saddle. “When’s the last time you saw a track?”

“Way back there,” Earl said, jerking his head back as if punched in the jaw. “I saw water splashed up on a river rock where someone fell in. I haven’t seen a damned thing since. I think they slipped us.”

“Again?” Kirby asked, incredulous.

Earl didn’t reply. Was that a serious question or a snarky comment? He tried to keep his anger at his younger son in check.

“ Whud’s up? ” Brad asked as he neared them with his string of horses.

“We lost them again,” Kirby reported.

“ Wha’ da fug? ” Brad said.

Kirby translated. “He said—”

“I got it. Shut up, both of you,” Earl said through gritted teeth. “They couldn’t have gotten far.”

He craned around in his saddle and studied the dark slopes on both sides that led down to the creek bed. There was just enough light to see where the eastern ridge was now darker than the predawn sky, but the timber was still impenetrable.

“They either went over the top to the north or the south,” Earl speculated. “My guess is they went back over to the south. The north drainage would get them down the mountain too many miles away from the trailhead.”