Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(72)
The #WheresSteve2 hashtag had now risen in rank and was trending in the top three, she noted. Users had pasted photos of his face on iconic symbols from all over the world: on Mount Rushmore, replacing Roosevelt; on Lady Liberty, beneath her crown; blinking on and off at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
* * *
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Gin and Rojo, two of Marybeth’s horses, were in the horse trailer and their saddles and tack were in the bed of the pickup. Sheridan and Nate had packed light with no camping gear because they didn’t anticipate being in the mountains overnight.
“Tell me about the personality of your horses,” Nate said as they left the paved county highway and turned onto a rough two-track dirt road into the trees.
“They’re my mom’s horses.”
“Tell me about them. I’m no horseman, but I know they can be as quirky as falcons.”
“True. Dad’s riding Toby,” she said. “Toby’s pretty much the boss in the pecking order, even though he’s getting older. He’s a tobiano paint and he’s bombproof in the wilderness.”
“I remember Toby,” Nate said. “Four white socks with black spots on them?”
“That’s him.”
“What about the horses we have with us?”
“Rojo in the back is a gelding and he’s pretty quick and athletic,” she said. “He’s also nervous and flighty at times. He worships the ground Toby walks on and he’s probably upset and all riled up that Toby’s gone. I’ll ride him.”
“Good.”
“Gin’s our mare. She’s highly trained, but she’s lazy. That’s why she’s the fattest. She can do everything you could want a horse to do, but she doesn’t want to. She’s not going to be spooked by anything, though.”
“I’ll take Gin,” Nate said. “You know, horses are complicated and unreliable.”
“I know that. Would you rather walk?”
Nate didn’t reply for a minute. Then he said, “You lead, I’ll follow.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking,” she said.
Nate wore his shoulder holster with his huge .454 Casull revolver in it, and there were three long guns in the cab, all belonging to Nate: his 6.8 SPC Ruger ranch rifle with a fifteen-round magazine, a scoped .270 Winchester bolt-action elk hunting rifle, and an ancient open-sight lever-action Henry saddle carbine chambered in .30-30. The rifles were all placed muzzle-down on the bench seat between them.
“Gee,” she said to Nate, “I think we have enough guns along.”
“Bite your tongue,” Nate said. “One never has enough guns.”
* * *
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Sheridan was filled with relief when they turned from the tight mountain road into an opening and the headlights swept over her dad’s green Ford F-150 pickup as well as a new-model Dodge with a long horse trailer hitched to it. They’d found the right trailhead. There was also an empty Suburban.
They parked parallel to the Dodge and climbed out. It was always coldest just before dawn in the mountains and she zipped her coat to her chin and pulled on a pair of gloves. Nate walked straight to her dad’s pickup and she followed. Although the truck was locked, Nate quickly located the keys on the top of the driver’s-side rear tire, where Joe always hid them. He did it to guard against losing his keys while out on patrol and getting locked out of his own vehicle. Her dad had enough problems with his trucks as it was.
Nate unlocked the driver’s-side door and opened it and the dome light came on inside. She watched through the passenger window as Nate studied the inside of the cab and rooted through the box of hunting regulations and other official Game and Fish Department material. She heard him say, “No more sketches” as he reached over and unlocked the passenger door.
Nate found an old topo map in the door compartment and spread it out across the front bench seat. She opened the passenger door and leaned in.
“It’s old, but I doubt the terrain has changed very much,” he said.
Inside the cab she could smell a whiff of her dad’s Labrador, Daisy. It gave her an eerie feeling to be inside her dad’s truck without him in it.
While Nate studied the map, she opened the glove compartment and found a citation book, cigars stored in a ziplock bag to keep them from drying out, a canister of bear spray, and a stubby five-shot hammerless .38 revolver in a black nylon holster. She recalled seeing the weapon before and she knew he used it as a concealed backup gun. Sheridan turned so it wouldn’t be pointed at Nate and checked the cylinder to confirm it was loaded, then she slipped it into her coat pocket. The bear spray went into the other.
“It’s all about drainages,” Nate said inside, following the largest one down the length of the map and pressing the tip of his finger into the bottom of the sheet.
“We are here,” he said. “It makes sense that they’d go directly up this big drainage where the trail is. Their camp is probably on it or not far from it.”
“Okay,” she said.
“So that’s where we should go first.”
* * *
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Her fingers were stiff through her gloves as they saddled the horses from the light of her headlamp and a small flashlight Nate clamped between his teeth. She checked Nate’s cinch strap to make sure it was tight enough while he lashed two saddle scabbards onto his saddle, one on each side, and one to hers. He slid both the .270 and the ranch rifle into his scabbards and the .30-30 into hers.