Си Бокс - Dark Sky

“So they went back to the drainage where we started?” Kirby asked. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Earl said softly. One more bit of sarcasm or disapproval from either one of his sons would need to be dealt with fast and hard. Brad was a dolt, but Kirby was a smart-ass. Too bad he needed them both right now, Earl thought.

“ We godda go bag? ” Brad said.

“Your grasp of the obvious is just outstanding,” Earl snapped.

Kirby remained quiet. Not accepting, but quiet. In a way, Earl wished his younger son would just put it all out there on the table so he could slap it down and teach him a lesson. His silence was more aggravating than his sarcasm.

“ Where shud we cut to da soud? ” Brad asked, gesturing to the south.

“Right here,” Earl said. “My guess is they went over the top but they’re still working their way down the mountain like before. They’re likely moving parallel to us in the other drainage.”

“ Dat sud of a bitch Joe ,” Brad said. “ He’d slippery, all right .”

Earl rolled his eyes and turned his horse to the left. “Let’s pick it up, boys. If we go straight over the top from here, we might head them off right after we clear the ridge up there, so get ready.”

—

It took longer for the party to reach the summit of the ridge than Earl had anticipated. The slope was very steep and the footing for the horses was poor. The animals slipped several times on snow and slick rocks and one of the packhorses decided to sit back on its haunches in protest until Brad whipped it with a coil of rope to make it stand up and proceed.

The trees on the incline were gnarled and tightly packed as well, and Earl had to zigzag through them to avoid pinching himself and his mount between trunks and branches. Earl could hear Kirby cursing behind him and he hoped his son’s anger was directed at the predicament they were in and not at the leadership of his father.

With the top in sight and within fifty yards of where they’d cleared the trees, Earl found himself confronted by a vertical rock wall with no obvious opening within it to climb farther. They had to ride east along the base of the wall in a line until, finally, the wall gave way to an ancient rock slide covered in dirt, grass, and exposed scree. They took it and soon found themselves on the flat, windswept top of the ridge itself.

Earl’s horse was breathing hard and its gait was ragged and lurchy. Earl bent forward in the saddle and slipped his fingers between the edge of the saddle blanket and horseflesh to gauge its temperature. His mount was hot, tired, and lathered, and his fingers were wet when he pulled them out.

“The horses need a breather,” he announced. Earl dismounted and planned to stand there holding the reins until his horse cooled down and stopped huffing. Overheat a horse too much, he knew, and they would be shot for the rest of the day.

“It’s getting lighter out,” Kirby observed. He stayed in the saddle.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Earl snapped. “Do you think I can’t see?”

Kirby shrugged.

“Aren’t you going to get off?”

“Don’t think I can right now,” Kirby said through a grimace.

Earl didn’t push it. He’d hate it if Kirby got down and couldn’t get back into the saddle because of his injury.

—

Ten minutes later, Earl pulled himself back onto his horse and nudged it to walk along the length of the ridgetop to the west. Now in the light of the predawn, he could see the tops of other ridges that marked the series of drainages in every direction. Most of them were as treeless as the ridge they were on, and the snow on them glowed.

The morning had all the hallmarks of a nice fall day, he thought.

“What’s the plan?” Kirby asked in a whisper from behind Earl. “I thought we were going to go down into the drainage.”

“We will,” Earl said. “But I want to make sure we get well ahead of them before we climb down. That way, we can intercept them when they come down the creek. We can set up down there and let ’em walk into a crossfire when they come strolling by. I, for one, am tired of chasing them.”

“I am, too,” Kirby said. “I like that idea.”

“I’m glad you like something.”

From twenty yards behind, Brad called out, “ Wud are you guys togging about? ”

Earl stopped and turned swiftly in his saddle. His eyes flashed. “ Keep your voice down .”

Brad clamped up and lowered his head, chastised. Kirby hung back to tell his brother what their strategy was in a low tone.

“Jesus,” Earl grumbled to himself. “Let’s all ride along in profile on the top of this ridge and yell at each other as loud as we can. That’ll fucking help.”

—

They rode along the length of the ridge for two miles at a good clip, with Earl pushing the pace of his horse and his sons and the pack string keeping up with him. He guessed that they were now well ahead of where Joe and Price should be.

He looked for a trail down to the creek as he moved, and finally found it, the mouth of it located between two truck-sized boulders. Descending on the gentle grade was much easier on the horses than the climb up the ridge had been. Earl leaned back in the saddle and let his horse pick its own way down. Horses were sure-footed that way. They didn’t want to slide down the slope, either.

He knew he’d made a mistake to make that climb, but he’d never admit it. Earl didn’t acknowledge his errors. He just pressed on.

—

The party was halfway down the slope and strung out on the trail when Earl looked down the drainage and saw movement in the trees below. Something was passing through a thick grove of aspen downstream of the drainage path. He narrowed his eyes but kept moving.

Had they pushed a small herd of elk out in front of them? he wondered. Had Joe and Price somehow gained superhuman strength and gotten much farther ahead of them than he thought possible?

Then he heard Kirby say, “Riders. Two of them.”

And Earl now saw them. Two people on horseback coming up the drainage from below. One large, one small. The small one in front.

Earl turned. Kirby was right behind him and Brad was twenty yards in back, leading the string. The section of the slope they were on was wide open. If the two riders looked up, they’d see them for sure. There was no time to move his party out of the clearing and into the timber out of view.

“Who is that?” Kirby asked. “Looks like a big guy and his daughter.”

At that second, the lead rider raised her head and stopped her horse. She’d seen them.

Earl thought for a second. Then he waved at the two riders with as much friendly enthusiasm as he could fake.

“Brad, you stay back with that string of horses. Pull over in that thick timber below and get set up to cover us. Kirby, you come with me.

“Let me do the talking, boys,” he said over his shoulder.

TWENTY-FIVE

Joe had been scrambling clumsily down the creek for fifteen minutes, stepping from rock to rock, his lungs aching and his breath ragged, with Price struggling to keep with him ever since he’d heard:

“Wud are you guys togging about?”

“Keep your voice down.”

It had been the Thomases, above them. On top of the ridge just ahead of where they were in the drainage. Something was wrong with Brad’s voice and Joe guessed it was a result of his injury. But the exchange had been between Earl and Brad, for sure. As he moved, he stole glances up the slope to his right, fearing that he’d see the riders silhouetted against the dawn sky. He never saw them, but he knew they were there.