Си Бокс - Dark Sky

Joannides made a pained expression at the deviation in his menu.

Joe said, “Look up and you’ll see a little bear.”

In fact, a small black bear, likely a yearling, was running up the middle of the road ahead of them. Its coat shone in the morning sun and the pads of its feet looked like pink slipper soles.

“A what?” Joannides said.

“A little bear.”

The assistant glanced up from his iPad just as the bear ducked into the timber to the left. “It didn’t look very scary,” he said.

“It isn’t a grizzly.”

Joannides shrugged and continued. “Friday is oily fish night.”

“There are a dozen cans of sardines in the panniers,” Joe said.

“Sardines? I asked for wild-caught oily fish.”

“I didn’t have a lot of options at the grocery store. We’re a long way from the ocean.”

Joe didn’t want to bring up the fact that all of the food he’d purchased for the ConFab group had been paid for out of his own pocket. Eventually, perhaps, the state would reimburse him. Marybeth had been concerned about it since it was the middle of the month and their budget was already stretched—they had a car repair bill due on her van and Lucy’s tuition payment. It was an issue that probably hadn’t even occurred to Joannides or Steve-2.

“Maybe we can have more fresh elk meat on Friday,” Joannides clucked while he updated the dinner schedule on his iPad. “Then we get to Saturday. We should be done and back on the jet by then, right?”

“If it all goes well,” Joe said. “No guarantees.”

“If it doesn’t, this whole trip will be a disaster,” Joannides warned.

“I’ll do my best,” Joe said.

“You’ll need to,” the assistant said. “Do you realize how much it costs Aloft to keep our CEO away for an entire week? We’re paying for pilots to sit around in your little town while we do this. The jet alone uses four hundred and fifty gallons of fuel per hour. Plus, every decision he isn’t there to make can mean millions of dollars to our shareholders.”

Joe took a deep breath and held it. Then he said, “I sent you a list as well. Did you get all the gear and equipment I wrote down?”

“We did our best,” Joannides said. “I’m sure you can imagine that some of the items aren’t easily found in downtown San Francisco.”

“Got it,” Joe said. “So let me know what you brought and what you didn’t. I’m sure I can fill in where you’re short.”

Joannides scrolled to another page on his device. He said, “We’ve got tents, sleeping bags and pads, headlamps, rain gear, camo clothing, optics, and personal items. Steve-2 has a knife.”

Joe mulled over the items for what was missing. “I’ll throw in a couple more knives, a meat saw, and some game bags.”

“Yes, we weren’t able to locate those. And we wondered about ‘alligators’?”

“Not alligators,” Joe said, stifling a smile. “ Gaiters . You buckle them on over your boots and ankles for wet conditions or snow.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry—I’ve got a couple of extra pair.”

“Just make sure Steve-2 gets some.”

“Of course.”

“Anything else?”

“Where we’re going, mountain money is important.”

After a beat, Joannides said with mild panic, “ Mountain money? What’s that?”

“Toilet paper,” Joe said. “It’s more valuable than cash. It wasn’t on either of our lists, but I brought plenty.”

—

The rough two-track began to level out a mile and a half away from the trailhead. The terrain on the top of the plateau was embedded with football-sized rocks and Joe slowed his truck as he drove over them. Battle Mountain loomed in the foreground and its timbered slopes rose and dissipated into the low-hanging clouds. Tendrils of fog and vapor reached down into the trees like bony fingers.

Joannides scrolled through his iPad with a hint of desperation, as if trying to recall things he’d missed.

Joe recalled tips and techniques he’d been studying—again—for loading the packhorses and panniers. He’d practiced tying diamond hitches for days with rope, and he’d reread both Horses, Hitches, and Rocky Trails by Joe Back and Packin’ in on Mules and Horses by Smoke Elser and Bill Brown to refresh his knowledge. He felt as comfortable as he could be before they set out and he was grateful Brock was accompanying them because of his familiarity with the horses.

“I feel like we’re on top of the world,” Joannides said. He’d finally looked up from his screen.

“We’re not,” Joe said. “But you can see it from here.”

FOUR

Over two miles away, deep in the cover of a thick stand of spruce trees and several hundred feet higher than the trailhead parking and staging area, Earl Thomas pushed the lens of a spotting scope through a thick growth of mountain juniper. He was prone so there’d be no profile if any member of the hunting party decided to look up in his direction.

With stubby fingers the size of sausages, Earl delicately manipulated the focus knob until he could see sharply.

“It’s them,” he said in a low baritone. “I recognize the game warden’s horse. He rides a paint.”

His adult sons, Brad and Kirby, were huddled together near his feet. He’d told them not to stand up, too. They were on the back side of the small rise Earl had shinnied up to place the spotting scope.

Earl said, “One, two, three, four, five of ’em. Eight horses that I can see so far.”

“Only five?” Brad said. “That don’t seem like a fair fight.”

“Shut up, Brad,” Kirby said in a whisper. Then to Earl: “Do you see Steve-2?”

Earl didn’t respond right away. He slowly panned the scope from right to left.

The two pickups, the big SUV, and the horse trailer were the only vehicles in the clearing. The rancher was backing horses out of the trailer one at a time and tying them nose-first to the side of the unit. The game warden—easily identified by the red sleeves of his uniform shirt, although he was wearing a dark vest—was pulling bag after bag of gear and equipment from the back of the SUV and stacking it in a large pile on the flat, unpaved surface. Three others milled together on the periphery of the staging area, looking on. Earl stopped his lens on them.

“There he is,” Earl said to Kirby. “There’s that son of a bitch.”

Price stood out. He was fairly tall and slim, willowy and pale, and despite his camo hunting clothing he looked like he was wearing a costume, Earl thought. Like he was about to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. His ginger hair was like an ill-fitting skullcap.

The two men with him didn’t seem comfortable with each other. One was shorter than Steve-2 and he fidgeted and bounced from foot to foot as he stood there. He kept glancing at the screen of an iPad. The other was thick in the chest with dark hair, dark clothing, and a way of holding his arms out away from his sides that suggested his bulging muscles wouldn’t allow him to stand comfortably. He wore a tight parka and his eyes swept the area around them. Earl recognized the big man’s actions and demeanor: security.

“Let’s see if my plan works,” Brad said, almost to himself.

Earl could hear the muffled click of a handheld radio behind him. Then Brad eased the volume up.

For a moment, Earl assumed the signal was bad. After all, there was a considerable distance between the staging area below and their position on the mountainside. Plus, there were other considerations.

“Maybe somebody noticed it and turned it off,” Brad said.

“Or maybe it was a fucked-up idea to begin with,” Kirby countered.

“Boys,” Earl hissed.

Then the radio crackled. Brad turned up the volume.