Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(78)

Kirby stirred slightly and winced. “Yeah.” But he seemed distracted, she thought. He was too busy trying to get a good look at her on the other side of Nate.

“Are you okay?” Nate asked Kirby, as if on to his game.

Before Kirby could answer, Earl said with a chuckle, “He’s fine. He’s usually quite the chatterbox, especially when there’s a nice-looking female around. But he had a bit too much whiskey last night. He’s a hurtin’ unit this morning. Aren’t you, son?”

“Yeah,” Kirby grunted. He looked away. Sheridan was grateful for Nate’s intervention.

“I hope you take that as a compliment, miss,” Earl said as an aside to Sheridan. She didn’t respond.

“What about you two?” Earl asked Nate. “Have you run across anyone else on your way up here? I assumed you must have started at Oh-Dark-Thirty this morning to get up this creek so far.”

“We did, and no, we haven’t seen anybody but you,” Nate said.

“Seen any elk?” Earl asked.

“A couple of cows and calves down low,” Nate said.

“If you see some big bulls, please give me a shout,” Earl said with a grin. “I’ll put my clients on ’em, and I’d be happy to drop off some tenderloin as a finder’s fee later on.”

Nate didn’t respond. She observed him. He looked carefully from Earl to Kirby and back to Earl in silence.

She didn’t anticipate an explosion coming, but she couldn’t rule it out, either. The entire exchange had felt forced and false to her. She knew Nate could draw his weapon and thumb the hammer back to aim with one swift movement and blow them both out of their saddles. But neither man seemed concerned, which didn’t make sense to her, given the circumstances.

Then it hit her. It explained why both men just sat there, seemingly calm. And it was something Nate had obviously already figured out.

It wasn’t because Earl and Kirby didn’t perceive a threat from Nate, or that they were incapable of drawing first. It was because someone farther up the hill was filling his rifle scope with Nate’s head—or Sheridan’s. Just waiting for a twitch.

Sophia had been the youngest, but she had two older brothers, Sheridan recalled. Kirby was in front of them. So where was the other one?

“Your daughter doesn’t say much,” Earl observed while trying to crane his neck to the side so he could see around Nate toward Sheridan.

“Your son doesn’t, either.”

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“Neither Kirby here, nor the one up the slope with the rifle.”

Sheridan studied Earl carefully for his reaction to Nate’s statement. While Kirby had remained still, Earl’s nostrils flared for a millisecond. A tell. Nate was right.

“I don’t know why you think that,” Earl said.

“Because we’re day riders,” Nate said. “We don’t have pack animals with us. But if you two are up here scouting elk for a few days, you’d have a lot more stock and gear with you. I’m guessing the guy up on the slope is in charge of all of that.”

“Maybe we have a camp,” Earl said. “Did you think of that?”

Nate hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I didn’t,” he said, looking abashed. “I didn’t think of that at all. Now I’m embarrassed. I’m just being extra-cautious this morning, I guess. My apologies.”

Earl seemed confused by Nate’s sudden back-down, as was she. Earl narrowed his eyes for a moment, trying to determine if he was being played. Then he said, “You’re right. My oldest son, Brad, is up there with the packhorses. We didn’t want him bringing them all down here at once. You know how it is when a bunch of unfamiliar horses get together. They’ve got to establish who’s boss of the herd and so on. We didn’t want to have a rodeo break out. I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure—we see a lot more injuries from horse accidents than anything else up here.”

Nate nodded his head as if that made sense, his smile still rueful.

Finally, Earl said, “How about we let you two go on up the creek and we’ll stay out of your way?”

“Sounds good,” Nate said. “But please keep an eye out for Joe Pickett. If you see him, please tell him we’re looking for him.”

Earl cocked his head to the side. “I don’t believe you told me your names.”

Nate said, “We didn’t,” and clicked his tongue to get Gin moving.



* * *



—

Sheridan fell in behind Nate and they continued up the drainage. Her back felt like it was burning because it was so exposed. The two of them were easy targets.

But Nate rode along calmly, swaying a bit in the saddle. Without turning around, Nate whispered, “Are they still back there?”

Sheridan didn’t crane around. Instead, she straightened her legs in the stirrups and leaned forward as if adjusting Rojo’s bridle. While she did it, she shot a glance back under her armpit.

“They’re still there,” she whispered back. “Standing there by the creek watching us go.”

“Good. We’re going to ride away, okay?”

“Okay, I guess.”

When she presumed they were far enough from the Thomases not to be overheard, Sheridan said, “What are we doing? They were lying to us. I know they were.”