Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(22)

“I guess you’re watching that group of idiots down there,” the voice said.

Jacketta glanced toward his custom recurve hunting bow, which was strung tight and hanging from a peg on a tree trunk next to his tent. His quiver of ten homemade arrows hung next to it.

The man who’d spoken moved out of the shadows until his bearded face glowed with the reflection of Jacketta’s small stove flame. He glided into the camp as if sliding on a track, without making an audible footfall.

“Brad Thomas?” Jacketta said when he got a good look at the visitor. “Is that you?”

“Aidan Jacketta, right?” Brad said. “I didn’t expect to find you here. I didn’t expect to find anybody up here.”

Jacketta let out a long breath and relaxed his shoulders. He no longer felt the need to snatch up his bow.

“I didn’t hear you coming,” Jacketta said.

“That’s the idea. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Well, you did.”

“You weren’t thinking of pulling a weapon, were you?” Brad said. “Because I hope not.”

Jacketta could now see that Brad held a short carbine of some kind with the muzzle down. It could be swung up and fired in less than a second.

“I’m not rifle hunting,” Jacketta said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Jacketta pulled a headlamp from the pocket of his cargo pants and strapped it over his cap. He turned it on to the lowest light. Since the beam went wherever he turned his head, Jacketta deliberately avoided staring at Brad full-on. Blinding someone temporarily with a headlamp was rude camp etiquette.

Instead, he shined the beam on his recurve bow and quiver.

“See?” he said.

Brad moved over into the light and reached out and fingered the leather-wrapped grip of the bow and tapped on the extended stabilizer.

“Nice bow,” Brad said. “Did you make it yourself?”

“I did,” Jacketta said with some pride in his voice. “That was my winter project. I made the arrows, too.”

Brad hmmmed his appreciation. “Looks like a piece of art. I didn’t know you had that in you. Can you hit anything with it?”

“I can hit a target. It’s got a sixty-five-pound pull.”

Brad hmmmed again. “Seeing anything?” he asked.

“I passed on a spike this morning,” Jacketta said. “He walked up to me at twenty feet and just stood there staring for a while. It would have been a fairly easy shot.”

“But you want something bigger,” Brad said.

“I’d like a big bull, but I could live with a big lead cow. This is about meat, for me.”

“Yeah, I know.”



* * *



—

Jacketta had tangled with the Thomas clan at a Game and Fish Department public meeting the year before. Jacketta was a software engineer who’d moved from Boulder to the Twelve Sleep Valley to, as he put it, live a more basic existence. He was a low-impact kind of guy: light packs, no footprint, pack out everything he packed in. The Thomas operation was big and old-school: wall tents, stoves, ATVs, rifles. They prided themselves on delivering trophy elk for out-of-state hunters. Meat was a long way down on their list, Jacketta thought.

Jacketta was new to the area, but he considered the Thomases to be the last of a dying breed. They were second-or third-generation guides and outfitters who seemed to have the impression that the Bighorn Mountains belonged to them, even though most of the terrain was public national forest land. The family had well-established camps in the mountains in choice locations and they were known for scaring off and intimidating anyone who dared to use the locations without their permission.

Earl, the patriarch, was cantankerous and loud and he didn’t seem to care who he offended. After Jacketta had stood up at the meeting and said he lived in the valley and appreciated the mountain resource as much as the old-timers did, Earl had said to him, “You millennials with your beards and flannel will come and go. And when you’re gone, we’ll still be here.”

Jacketta wanted no trouble with the Thomases. He wanted no trouble with anyone. He just wanted to hunt for his own food and stay above the fray when it came to disputes about territory or tradition. He’d never attended another public meeting, nor had he spoken out after Earl had dressed him down. He’d done his best to avoid all of the Thomas clan. Which reminded him of something he’d heard about the family, something about a sister . . .

“I see you’ve got a little camp stove,” Brad said, nodding toward the hissing unit. “I suppose it works okay if you’re cheap and needy. Our camp is about a half mile away. Do you want to come and eat with us? We’ve got steaks instead of the freeze-dried crap you’ve got.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Jacketta said. “But I’m fine. I want to go to sleep early tonight so I can get up at three-thirty and go find an elk.”

“What are you planning for dinner?”

“Ramen noodles,” Jacketta said. He wished he’d said the name with more authority, like he was proud of it.

“Really?” Brad said. “You’d pass on a steak?”

Jacketta shrugged. “And the whiskey that comes with it, I would guess. I want to be clearheaded.”

“Very sporting of you,” Brad said. Jacketta detected a half sneer in the dark. That was something he’d learned about the Thomas clan: they were arrogant. He didn’t know Brad well, but he could hear Earl’s voice talking through the bearded mouth hole of his big son.