Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(21)

“Steve Rinella? Really?”

“Have you heard of him?”

“We’ve got one of his wild-game cookbooks at home,” Joe said.

“Ah, I should have guessed. I’ve read a lot of his work, and a year ago I binge-watched MeatEater on Netflix. I became absolutely fascinated with the idea of harvesting my own protein. It seems so pure and primal. It takes the thoughtless cruelty and inhumanity of the mega-corporations out of the equation, it seems to me.”

Joe nodded. Price was going on in a way that didn’t really invite a response or comment.

“When you see what happens on factory farms,” Price continued, “it’s just an assembly line of soulless slaughter. Those animals never get to live the experience of being animals. They’re just organisms. Some of them never see the sky or eat a blade of grass. They’re pumped full of hormones, fed chemically enhanced pellets, and grow until they’re killed and butchered. All so we can buy the meat in a sterile package at a supermarket and never even think of where it comes from or how it got there.

“I tried to go vegan, I really did,” he said. “I did it for nine months, but I found my brain getting fuzzy. I couldn’t focus and I lost my sharpness. I knew I was hardwired to eat meat, but I knew there had to be a better way to get it, a way to earn it with dignity shared between me and the animal who sacrificed and gave up its life so I could eat. I needed skin in the game.”

“Got it,” Joe said. He picked up one of the saddles Boedecker had placed upside down in the grass to air out and carried it into the trees, where he placed it near the base of a pine tree. If it rained or snowed during the night, the saddle would likely stay dry. Toby was picketed a few yards away from the tree and he was greedily eating meadow grass.

“My board doesn’t really understand where I’m coming from,” Price said, still trailing Joe. “Nobody does. But I need to experience this on a basic level. I need to get blood on my hands. This is why I’m here. This is why we’re here.”

“Since you’re here, why don’t you grab one of those saddles?” Boedecker said to Price from where he was brushing down one of the packhorses. “Put it over in the trees with Joe’s. Then we can get started on dinner before it’s completely dark.”

“Excuse me?” Price said in alarm. It was as if Boedecker had rudely derailed his train of thought.

“I’ve got it,” Joe said to Boedecker, picking up another saddle. He’d been slightly mesmerized by Price’s reverie.

“I think I’ll head back and get some water,” Price said. Then he turned on his heel and walked toward the camp and the fire.

“Take it easy on him,” Joe said softly to Boedecker when Price was out of hearing range.

“Why? Did I offend him? We’re busting our asses getting this camp set up and those dudes are either sitting around or yapping too much. Kind of what I expected when I saw ’em get out of the plane. They like to be catered to.”

“Yup,” Joe said. “That’s the job.”

“It don’t mean I have to enjoy it.”

“I find Steve-2 kind of interesting,” Joe said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“He talks more than my wife,” Boedecker said sourly.

Joe started to respond but decided not to. Silence, he’d found, was often the best argument. Tension was natural between members of a hunting party when you’re thrown together into close quarters with people you’ve met just hours before. It was a complicated and delicate dynamic, all those strong personalities in what was almost a closed room. So unless the disagreement was about safety or security, Joe preferred to stay out of it.

He was a little surprised Brock voiced such hostility, though. Brock took inexperienced clients into the mountains all summer long on multiday pack trips. Maybe Boedecker was just a little burned out. It happened often in the guide and outfitter business. Bitterness toward clients brought down as many wilderness enterprises as the economy or loss of access.

“Looks like we’ll need to gather more wood,” Boedecker said after a long glance at the campsite. “That Joannides guy nearly let the fire die out, and now he’s building a bonfire.”

Joe looked over his shoulder. Boedecker had a point. The fire was enormous and throwing showers of sparks in the direction of the tent.

“It’s like taking little boys camping,” Boedecker said.





EIGHT


I don’t know what they’re doing down there,” Aidan Jacketta said aloud to himself as he leaned into his spotting scope and zeroed in on the large campfire. “It looks like they’re trying to burn down the whole forest.”

Jacketta was long and lean with a pointy blond beard and tiny-lens, horn-rimmed glasses. He was on his belly beneath a canopy of low-hanging pine boughs to observe the hunting party’s camp far below. A small white-gas camp stove hissed near his feet, but the water in the pot hadn’t yet begun to boil. His simple one-man tent was set up at the base of a massive ponderosa pine and his sleeping bag and pad were unfurled inside it. His soiled camo cap was tilted back on his head so the brim wouldn’t interfere with the eyepiece.

“Fucking idiots,” a deep voice said from the trees to his right.

Jacketta scrambled to his feet, startled. He was camping alone and hadn’t seen any sign of other hunters, hadn’t even heard anyone approaching.