Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(25)

“Too bad you saw our faces,” Kirby said. “Too bad you knew Brad and Dad. That’s where things went off the track.”

“I don’t know why,” Jacketta said. “What in the hell is going on?”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“Family business, I guess you could say.”

Jacketta looked over to try and get a better understanding. The last thing he saw was Kirby flattening the blade of the bowie knife and positioning the point of it under his armpit. Before Jacketta could react, Kirby thrust it to the hilt between two ribs and into his heart.

Aidan Jacketta died on his back, looking up at the wash of stars. There were a lot of them.





Monday


   Green / Red Day


        For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

    —Richard P. Feynman





NINE


At four-thirty the next morning, Joe shouldered on his pack in the dark and left Price and Rumy in a tangle of downed timber at the head of a dry wash. They were hunkered down. Rumy had kept completely silent all morning as if he weren’t yet awake and alert, and Price was just the opposite: anxious, excited, curious about what might happen next.

Joe had explained it to him in a hushed tone before leaving. The only illumination in the tangle was from the muted beam on Joe’s headlamp. The light from it was altered by a red filter, and the pink glow on both men created an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere, with deep shadows and discolored eyes. Price had placed his compound bow in the crook of an overturned pine root pan and lined up his high-tech arrows next to it. He was ready.

“You can’t see it right now,” Joe had said, “but facing us to the west is a large meadow on the side of the slope. The meadow gets blown free of snow in the winter, but it grows good grass in the summer and fall. The elk—if they’re there—graze on it during the night and then move into the timber to bed down for the day as soon as it’s light. My plan is to leave you two and circumnavigate the meadow so I can come up behind them. I’ll stay deep in the trees and try not to make any sound. The wind is with me right now, so I shouldn’t startle them before dawn.”

Like all hunting plans, or plans in general, Joe knew it would be a crapshoot. The wind could shift on him while he was making his way there, he could stumble in the undergrowth and snap a branch, or the elk could simply not be present at all.

“Why the red light?” Price had asked, gesturing toward Joe’s headlamp.

“So I can see where I’m going but the elk can’t see me,” Joe explained. “These animals have a wide field of vision and they can see very well in the dark. But unlike humans, they have what’s called dichromatic vision. They only see blue and yellow, and the rest is black and white and shades of both. In the dark, red light is invisible to them.”

“Fascinating,” Price said.

“I’ve still got to be really stealthy and slow getting around them. They know it’s hunting season.”

Rumy scoffed at that, but Joe ignored him.

“Give me at least an hour and a half,” Joe said to Price. He described how the clearing went all the way to the top of the slope summit and a little over to the far side. His plan was to work his way through the timber until he was on the other side of that rise. Then he’d crawl or crabwalk to the top until he could look over at the meadow from the opposite side.

“If the elk are in there, they’ll eventually see or sense me up there,” Joe said. “I’ll try not to panic them. I want them to walk away from me rather than run.”

“You think they’ll come to us?” Price asked.

Joe gestured toward the shallow wash that was below them. “They could come up right here in front of you,” he said. “I can’t guarantee it, because the herd might decide to bolt off to the north or south into the timber instead of coming your way. But the wash you’re looking over serves as a kind of funnel. They might appear right in front of you.”

“How far is the wash?” Price asked. “I obviously can’t see it yet.”

“The edge of it is thirty yards away. The opposite rim is about fifty yards away. Your shooting zone should be right in the middle.”

Price nodded and grinned. His teeth shone pink in the light. “It’s a good plan,” he said.

“As far as plans go,” Joe conceded. “Elk have minds of their own. I’ve seen them do all kinds of things that don’t make any sense, like turn and run right over you. Or in this case, over me. The only thing that’s pretty certain is that, whatever they do, they’ll stick together in a herd.”

“What do we do if that happens?” Price asked. “If they go out through the side or run over your position?”

“Sit tight,” Joe said. “Don’t chase them. You’ll never catch them. If they move on us, we’ll get back together, regroup, and make another plan.

“If the herd does come up here,” Joe continued, “you’ll likely see a big dry cow first. She’s the lead cow. Think of her as their scout. If she senses you up here, she’ll turn or reverse direction. But if she thinks the coast is clear, she’ll lead them in a line right in front of you.”