Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(37)

Price said, “Is it true an aspen grove is one of the largest living organisms on earth? That all of the roots are interconnected so that it’s all a single entity?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So it’s kind of like the Internet,” Price said.

That made Joe pause.

“Except right now we can access the aspen grove, of course,” Price said with a sour chuckle.

For the first time that morning, Joe smiled. But it wasn’t a happy smile.



* * *



—

Joe shouldered his pack and started walking east again. Price dutifully followed. After a half mile, Price said, “I thought this wasn’t our plan.”

“Just for a while.”

“Can you give me a little more than that?”

Within fifty yards Joe could hear the furious rush of a small spring-fed creek coursing down the center of the drainage over and through large rocks. He turned in that direction until he found a wide bed of smooth, tumbled stones. The tiny creek was feisty and the only glimpses he actually had of it were pillows of foam between river rocks and a few droplets spitting into the air between them.

“In the spring, this is a big creek,” Joe said. “There’s even a waterfall down below. But right now there’s not much water to speak of.”

“I see that,” Price said.

“This is where we cross and go north,” Joe said. “They’ll be able to track us to here and they’ll figure we followed it down. If we do this right, I think it’ll take them a long time to realize we didn’t.”

Price nodded slowly and gave Joe a thumbs-up. “I like it,” he said.

“Step from rock to rock,” Joe said. “Try not to lose your balance and fall. We don’t want any broken bones.”

“No, we don’t.”

Joe dropped to his hands and knees and pushed aside a dying fern that covered a six-inch-wide opening between the rocks. The stream was clear and no more than three inches deep. He bent down, closed his eyes, and sucked in ice water until his throat hurt.

When he was done, he climbed back to his feet and gestured to Price to do the same.

“Is the quality of the water something we should worry about?” Price asked.

“Maybe,” Joe said. “But I think we have more things to worry about right now.”

As he said it, he recalled that he had a plastic bottle with a Katadyn water purification filter in his pack. He hadn’t used it in years, but he thought the filter would still be okay. Joe dug it out and handed it to Price. “Better use this,” he said.

Price reached for it and froze with his hand inches away from the Nalgene bottle. Joe noted that Price’s eyes were focused on something over his shoulder.

“What?” Joe asked.

“I saw movement over there in the trees,” Price said, his tone rising with panic. “I think they found us already.”



* * *



—

Get down,” Joe said, placing his hand on Price’s shoulder and forcing him to his knees. Joe dropped with him until they were both on their bellies on the edge of the creek. They were low enough that the exposed rocks in the creek bed shielded them from being seen by someone at the same level from the other slope. The ground was cold and his body heat instantly thawed the frost from the bunched-up grass.

Joe mouthed, “Where?” to Price, and Price chinned toward a long finger of aspen on the other side of the water. The finger went down the slope until it petered out as it approached a wall of spruce and mountain juniper.

After removing his hat, Joe raised his head until he could see over the top of the rocks in the creek. It took a few seconds before he saw movement—something in the aspens among the trunks. The form was vertical, unlike the blocky outline of an animal. Dark color strobed between pale tree trunks at a slow but steady pace. It was a man and he was moving from east to west, the same direction they’d come.

As Joe watched, the vertical form became Brock Boedecker as he shouldered around a tree trunk and walked toward them. Boedecker gave no indication he’d seen them yet, and his attention was focused up the slope to the east, where the Thomas clan would no doubt come from, Joe thought. Boedecker had left the shelter of the aspens and was now in the open. It was as if Boedecker had been drawn by the water, just as Joe and Price had been.

“He’s coming right at us,” Joe whispered to Price over his shoulder.

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is he with us or against us?”

“Don’t know,” Joe said. “Stop talking.”

Boedecker was forty feet away, directly across from them on the other side of the stream. He halted at the edge of the rocks and squatted down to fill his water bottle. Joe recalled Earl ordering the man to give up his sidearm, and he couldn’t determine if he had any other weapons. Like Joe, Boedecker had a small daypack.

Boedecker stood and drank. He was so close, Joe could hear the glugging. The rancher refilled his bottle and then, as he lowered it to slip it back into the side pocket of his pack, his upper body turned, and their eyes met.

Boedecker froze. “Joe?”

Joe reached back and indicated to Price with a hand wave that he wanted him to remain flat on his belly and out of Boedecker’s sight. Then he rose up until he and Boedecker faced off eye to eye. Boedecker made no threatening movements.