Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(71)

Kirby was upright on his saddle, but Joe thought he could detect a slight wobble in him as he rode, as if his bones had softened. Joe knew Brad had been hit in the face by the .22 bullet he’d fired.

For a moment, Joe thought about raising the rifle and taking a shot at Earl. But what if he missed? Or what if the cartridge was another dud? Earl’s head was hard to see in the darkness, and as Joe thought about it the man passed out of view behind a snow-covered spruce tree. Kirby followed him and was soon out of clear sight as well.

But there was Brad, just about to ride his big draft horse across a patch of snow glowing with starlight that would frame him perfectly for a second or two. If Joe shot Brad again and Brad fell, the packhorses with their weapons and gear might be available to catch, he thought. Joe didn’t know if he could scramble down the slope fast enough to get to his weapons before Earl and Kirby turned and came back, but it just might be worth the risk. Even if he couldn’t get down there, thinning the immediate threat from three men to two could change the dynamics of the situation. Earl and Kirby would have to contend with how to deal with the severely wounded or dead body of Brad and the string of horses. That was in addition to hunting down Price and Joe.

Joe weighed the odds, then raised the rifle and cocked it and pressed the stock against his cheek.

“What are you doing?” Price whispered.

Because of the darkness, it was hard to see the blade of the front sight to line it up with the slot in the back site, Joe found. But when aligned, and his aim settled on Brad’s head and neck area, he let his breath out slowly and squeezed the trigger.

Snap.

The cartridge was another dud.

Joe peered down the rifle sites at Brad, who’d cocked his head at the sound.

Joe thought, It’s over now.

But Brad didn’t react further. He looked up the slope in Joe’s direction and then up the facing slope without spurring his horse or reaching for his shotgun. He wasn’t alarmed. And he continued to slowly ride alongside the creek.

Either Brad hadn’t heard the sound of the misfire, or he’d heard something but had no idea what it was. He rode on.

Joe sat back with his heart beating in his ears. He closed his eyes and was grateful things hadn’t gone horribly wrong. Price, to his credit, seemed to realize what had just happened, but he didn’t say a word.

After a minute, Joe said, “Okay, that cartridge didn’t work. They’re all old. But we’re fortunate the Thomases passed right by and we bought some time.”

“Where do we go from here?”

Joe chinned toward the timber above them. “Back over the top into the drainage we started out in. They’ll figure it out at some point when they don’t find any tracks, but at least for a while they won’t be breathing down our necks.”

Price nodded dutifully and rolled to his feet. He moaned as he did so. “This is like a nightmare that won’t end,” he said.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s starting to really hurt.”

“There were a few ibuprofen packets in your first-aid kit,” Joe said. “Take some of those.”

While Price dug in his cargo pants for the pain relievers, Joe ejected the bad cartridge from the .22 and let it drop to the soil. He made a point of grinding it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. Then he grasped a handful of six or seven cartridges from his pocket and stared at them in the palm of his gloved hand.

“You pick,” he said to Price.

“Why me?”

“You might be luckier than I am.”

Price grimaced. “Look at us. I don’t feel very lucky at all.”

He touched the rounds with the tip of his finger and rolled them around. He selected one and handed it to Joe.

“Who knows?” Price said.





TWENTY-THREE


Nate and Sheridan drove in the dark into the mountains with Marybeth’s horse trailer hitched behind the utility pickup Liv had borrowed from a neighbor. Sheridan had a paper napkin spread over her lap with a crude drawing Joe had left behind indicating which trailhead he’d planned to use to lead the hunting party.

“You’re sure this makes sense to you?” she asked Nate at the wheel.

“I think so,” Nate said. “I’ve seen him sketch out his routes before.”

“It’s a good thing my mom found this.”

Nate grunted his agreement. “I think I can find the trailhead, but your guess is as good as mine where they went from there.”

Sheridan used the illuminated screen of her phone to study the sketch of the map. It showed a dotted line going east from the trailhead—which was marked with an X—up into the Bighorns. There was no indication of where they intended to camp or hunt. She guessed her dad had a plan but didn’t feel the need to share it. Sheridan wasn’t really a hunter, but she’d heard her dad say more than once, “You hunt where the elk are, not where you think they’ll be.” Which meant the entire eastern slope of the Bighorns was target-rich.

“I wish Steve-2 would post something on his feed,” she said. “I know there’s a way to get the exact geographic location of a satellite phone. Mom would know how to find it through her networks of contacts. But if the phone stays off—that doesn’t do us any good.”

She scrolled through her ConFab feed, hoping there would be a post from its founder since Enjoying the big sky and the mountain air. It’s fun to be off the grid for a while, but there hadn’t been. She found that post to be atypical, illogical, and insipid. As if Steve-2 was off his game.