Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(2)

“Are you still convinced we’ll have ’em all back down by the time the cattle trucks show up? The horses, I mean?”

“Absolutely,” Joe said. “We’ll be back down by Friday.”

“Good, ’cause I loaded up my best mounts. Nothing but the best, you said.”

“Thank you,” Joe said with relief. “Did you remember to stop by our place and load Toby?”

“Yup.”

Toby was Marybeth’s oldest and most seasoned mount. He was a tall tobiano paint gelding who still displayed boyish enthusiasm, especially when he was taken away from the barn and corral and shown mountain trails.

“Any of these dudes ever been on a horse before?”

“They claim they have.”

“Those types always claim they have,” Boedecker said. He shook his head as he went inside.

Joe turned back to the west. The Gulfstream was now in profile, streaking left to right across the sky in order to make the turn and line up with the north-south runway.

He rocked back on his boot heels and tried to conjure a sense of anticipation, the feeling of excitement he used to feel as a younger man just prior to setting out into the mountains on an adventure. He’d toss and turn in bed the night before and be up hours before dawn to get ready, filled with a kind of primal joy.

Joe dug deep, but he couldn’t find it now.



* * *



—

He was dressed as he always was for a day in the field, in his red uniform shirt with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department pronghorn antelope patch on the sleeve and his J. PICKETT name badge over his breast pocket. Under his uniform shirt and Wranglers were lightweight wool long underwear and socks. He wore a dark green wool Filson vest under his olive-green uniform parka.

He’d been instructed not to wear his holster and .40 Glock semiauto weapon, or his belt containing handcuffs and bear spray. The lack of weight under his parka made him feel airy and incomplete.

He squinted against the reflection of the morning sun on the perfect white skin of the Gulfstream as it taxied toward the terminal building. The twin tail-mounted jet engines emitted a high-pitched whine that hurt his ears.

The pilot of the jet did a graceful turn so the passenger door lined up with the entrance of the terminal before he cut the power to the engines. The turbines wound down into silence and the only sound was the light wind. Joe could see the profiles of several people inside moving about.

A moment later, the door opened and a stairway unfolded to the surface of the tarmac.

And there, not quite filling the opening, was a pale, gangly man with a boyish face and wispy ginger hair. He waved as if there were a crowd to greet him and not just Joe.

This was Joe’s first glimpse of thirty-two-year-old Steven “Steve-2” Price, the Silicon Valley billionaire and CEO of Aloft, Inc. and the principal behind ConFab, the social media site.

Joe’s job was to take him elk hunting.



* * *



—

Price was dressed in state-of-the-art high-tech outdoor hunting clothing, but despite that, he hugged himself against the cold as he descended the stairs. When he reached the pavement, he stopped and looked up and around him, theatrically taking in the wide-open sky and the mountain ranges on three sides.

Price opened his arms as if to embrace it all and he cried, “Nature!”

Joe stifled a smile.

Behind Price, another person emerged: a fidgety overweight man, bald on top with tufts of black hair above his ears. He came down the stairs so quickly Joe thought he might tumble to the concrete. The man quickly shouldered past Price and strode toward Joe until Price called to him.

“Tim!”

The man called Tim stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. Joe had spent the past week exchanging scores of emails with Price’s point man, whose name was Timothy Joannides. Joe assumed this was him.

“Did you get that?” Price asked Joannides.

“Did I get what?”

Price fixed a look of disdain on Tim. “My first reaction?”

“No,” Joannides said. “I was behind you and—”

“Tim, your job is to document this experience. We talked about that, didn’t we? Do I have to explain it again?”

“No.”

Tim seemed to Joe to want to say more, but he didn’t.

“Are you ready now?” Price asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Price waited impatiently until Tim found his phone and raised it to eye level.

Price held up his camo glove for a moment, then climbed the stairs of the plane and reenacted his actions from a minute before.

“Nature!” he called out again with his arms spread. Then he froze in mid-pose.

“Got it?” Price asked Tim.

“Got it.”

“Make sure you get a panorama of the mountains,” Price directed. “Then cut that in before we post it.”

“I’m on it,” Tim said as he stepped out of Price’s way and raised up his phone to video the surroundings. He spun around slowly as he did so.

Joe was so preoccupied with the interplay between Price and Joannides that he hadn’t seen a third man exit the plane until the newcomer was headed straight toward him. The man was heavy, squared-off, and built low to the ground. His stride was smooth and purposeful, almost a jog, and his shoulders and head were bent forward. His arms were held out away from his body in a way that gave Joe the brief impression that he was about to be tackled.