Dark Sky, page 25
part #21 of Joe Pickett Series
“I’ve heard of them,” Price said. “I thought they were extinct.”
“They’re rare. I’ve never actually seen one in the wild, but there have been sightings of them here in the Bighorns. Pound for pound, they’re considered the most vicious predators in the Rockies.”
“I can vouch for that,” Price said. “I’m going to have nightmares about that if we . . .”
He didn’t finish his thought. No need, Joe thought.
“Will he come back?” Price asked.
“I think it’s a she,” Joe said. “She’s probably going to give birth to kits in the spring. So yes, eventually I’m sure she’ll come back.”
“Are you hurt?”
“My back is torn to shreds, I think.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Right now,” Joe said, “I’m going to think about how magnificent it was to see one of the rarest predators in the country up close. I just want to appreciate that for a minute.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yup.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Before Joe could come up with an answer, he felt a vibration in the rock similar to what he’d experienced earlier.
He chinned to the ceiling of the den and mouthed, “Horses. Right on top of us.”
Price closed his eyes. His bottom lip trembled. Joe could tell the man was on the precipice of his breaking point and his personal abyss was within sight.
* * *
—
Outside the mouth of the den, Joe watched as horse after horse passed by. He could see only legs because his low angle prevented him from seeing any riders. He knew who was up there, though: Brad. Still leading the string of Thomas packhorses and the stolen mounts they’d gathered along the way. Joe’s heart filled when he recognized Toby’s unique white socks covered with dark spots.
For a second, Joe considered how tough and resilient Brad Thomas was: still riding and leading horses after being shot in the face. The thought scared him.
Then, from the dark behind Price, came another low growl.
There were two wolverines. This one, Joe guessed, would be the male. Males were known to be bigger, stronger, and more dangerous.
“We’ve got to get out,” Price hissed.
Joe agreed, and the two of them broke and crawled toward the mouth of the den as quickly as they could. The growl behind them settled into an agitated hum, and in Joe’s mind’s eye he could envision the big male wolverine pacing back and forth while choosing which human victim to target first.
Joe spilled out of the dark into the cold morning high-altitude air with Price right behind him. They emerged on a bed of flattened brown meadow grass studded with protruding rocks. The male charged just as they cleared the mouth, but chose to juke to the side and run back up the mountain instead of tear into them.
Before Joe could breathe a sigh of relief at escaping the close call, he realized that by exiting the den, the two of them had emerged less than thirty feet from the last of the string of horses Brad led slowly down the slope. A line of horse rumps bobbed ahead as the animals worked their way down.
But Joe and Price were completely exposed.
Joe glanced up to see that Brad rode with his broad back to them and apparently hadn’t heard them get attacked or clamber out of the den, nor the retreating wolverines. The footfalls of the horses and the breeze in the high branches of the trees must have drowned out the sounds.
He got to his hands and knees and stood up with a wobble. The fresh morning air stung the cuts and scratches on his back. Price remained down in the scree, apparently trying to get his bearings after the trauma they’d just experienced.
Joe attempted to size up their situation on the fly. The caravan of horses moved slowly down the slope, stepping carefully with their heads down, looking for firm footing. Although the rear horse—a gelding Joe recognized as being Boedecker’s—had looked back at him, the horse hadn’t spooked or whinnied.
Brad could decide to check out his string and therefore look behind him any second, and the two of them would be easy open targets.
Down on the floor of the drainage, Earl and Kirby Thomas sat mounted next to each other. They were conversing, and neither had yet looked up to monitor Brad’s progress. But they could at any moment.
Joe thought: The Fog of War. He had no idea whom Earl and Kirby had engaged with earlier or where the visitors had gone—if they were even there at all. Likewise, Earl and Kirby had no idea he and Price were up there. Neither did Brad.
He had three choices, he thought. All of them were bad. He could hunker down with Price and hope against hope that none of the Thomases would see them out there in the open. Or he could try to escape like the wolverines had by running up the steep slope with the hope they could find cover.
Or he could take on Brad while the man’s back was turned.
Joe didn’t hunker down and he didn’t retreat. Instead, he spotted the familiar gait of Toby two horses ahead of Boedecker’s gelding. The panniers on Toby’s sides bulged with his weapons and gear.
Painfully, Joe jogged ahead. He kept his head low and passed Boedecker’s gelding, then a roan packhorse the rancher had brought along, until he got to Toby’s painted flank. His horse seemed to recognize him and acknowledge him, but he couldn’t and didn’t slow down.
While walking alongside, Toby turned his head and tried to nuzzle Joe beneath his chin. Joe turned away.
Instead, he skipped along at the same pace as the horses, trying to unbuckle the straps that held the panniers closed. He hoped to open the stiff container and find his Colt Python, or his bear spray, or at the very least his satellite phone. It was hard to make progress because of the movement of the horses, and he tried to keep his footing as he did so.
Joe loosened the strap and threw the cover back. He reached down into the bag and his fingers felt clothes, extra boots, his sleeping bag, but nothing hard and solid like a weapon. He determined the items he needed must be either in the opposite pannier—or carried by other horses.
Joe glanced up in frustration at the same moment Brad began to turn in his saddle to check the string.
Joe ducked and moved in as close as he could to Toby and tried not to get stepped on. Joe gave Brad a few seconds to look back, then cautiously raised his head as he walked along.
But Brad hadn’t resumed his position facing forward. Instead, he glared at Joe in surprise and his eyes got big. Brad’s mouth opened to call out, but instead of a cry a thick dollop of blood rushed out and spilled down his chin through his beard.
Before Brad could swing his rifle around, Joe raised the .22 and aimed it at a spot under Brad’s right eye and pulled the trigger.
Snap. Another bad round.
Price couldn’t pick them, either.
Joe tossed the rifle aside and rushed Brad’s horse. As he did, he drew the broken spear out from his belt and gripped it with the point facing up. He ducked again as Brad fired and the concussion itself nearly broke Joe’s stride, but he knew intuitively that Brad’s awkward position had resulted in a miss right over the top of his head.
Winding up as he ran, Joe thumped headlong into the side of Brad’s horse’s flank, while at the same time arcing the spear across his body. The tip buried into Brad’s upper thigh, but missed bone. Instead, it stopped solidly as the point buried into the skirt of Brad’s saddle through the flesh of his leg.
Brad howled while he bolted another round into his rifle, and he spun his horse away. The lead rope he’d been holding for the pack string fell to the ground.
Joe stayed with him out of pure fear, because he didn’t know what else to do. When Brad swung the rifle down again, Joe reached up and grasped the warm barrel and pulled, hoping to wrench it away from Brad’s grip.
But the man was too strong. Instead of letting go, Brad jerked back and nearly pulled Joe off of his feet. But as he did, he howled again as if the pain from his thigh and his shattered jaw both hit him at once.
Joe placed the sole of his boot on the side of Brad’s horse for leverage and leaned back and yanked on the barrel again. This time, it dislodged the big man and he tumbled out of the saddle toward Joe. Brad let go of the rifle as Joe wrenched it free, but the weapon stuck muzzle-first into the ground at Joe’s feet.
Brad didn’t fall on him with all of his weight because the spear through his leg pinned him to the saddle. Instead, Brad swung down like a pendulum until he was upside down for a second. Then the spear came loose and the big man fell to the ground in a heap.
“Hey! No! Goddammit!” Earl shouted from down in the drainage. He spurred his horse and started to charge up the slope with Kirby falling in right behind him. As he rode, Earl pulled his rifle from its scabbard and brandished it.
Joe quickly examined the rifle he’d taken. The muzzle was packed tightly with mud. He had no way to clean it out, and if he pulled the trigger it would likely explode in his face.
The string of packhorses resumed their journey and continued to walk along as if nothing had happened. Horse after horse passed by as Joe stood there with Brad at his feet.
Boedecker’s gelding walked past and Joe found himself in the open with Earl and his younger son charging up the slope directly at him. He tossed the useless rifle aside.
As if oblivious to everything that was going on, Price suddenly lurched into Joe’s field of vision. He lurched because he was unbalanced from hefting a heavy rock the size of a football above his head with both hands. Which he smashed down on the back of Brad’s head with a sickening hollow sound, and the man trembled and went still.
Then Joe caught a glimpse of movement in the drainage, up the creek from where Earl and Kirby had been.
Two figures, one on foot and one on horseback, emerged from a dark tight stand of trees. They charged straight for a place halfway up the slope where they could intercept the Thomases. The rider was Sheridan, her hat flying off her head and her hair streaming behind her as she rode.
To Joe, she looked like a younger, faster, female version of John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.
The man on foot with his big revolver out was Nate.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Sheridan swung wide on Rojo just below the tree line when she heard: “Hey! No! Goddammit!”
She’d spurred her horse into a full gallop and the gelding had responded as if this was what he’d been waiting for his entire life: to be unleashed. It was hard for her to stay on his back while also seeing what was going on below in the drainage.
Earl and Kirby had also erupted into action. Earl shouted again and barreled up the slope from the creek. She could see he had a rifle in his right hand and the reins in his left. Kirby was behind him and to the side. They were both headed to the same place she was: up the slope, where her dad stood in a clearing with another man near a pile of slab rock.
Was that other man Steve-2?
She leaned forward in the saddle and rode straight toward them. She was moving too fast and the ride was too wild even to consider drawing the rifle out of her saddle scabbard or pulling the pistol. That could come later when she reached her father.
The situation she was in reminded her how unrealistic movies and television shows were when they depicted riders in full gallop drawing their six-shooters and firing away. She was an experienced rider and she could barely hang on.
She noted in her peripheral vision that Earl had pulled to a sliding stop halfway up the slope. At the same time, she realized the reason he’d done it was because he saw her cutting across the incline toward the two men. Earl raised his rifle and he swung it in her direction.
There was a sharp crack as a bullet snapped through the air just ahead of her. Then another behind her that thudded into a tree trunk to her right.
Sheridan leaned forward and hugged Rojo’s neck, trying to make herself a harder target to hit.
* * *
—
Nate saw Earl stop and aim his rifle at Sheridan. She was moving fast. Two hurried shots rang out, but she didn’t stop. At the same time, Kirby spotted him jogging along the creek and the younger son peeled away from where his father was. He turned his horse toward Nate and spurred it.
As Kirby charged, Nate could see that he’d drawn a rifle out and he held it at his side with a stiff arm. The rifle bobbed up and down as the horse ran toward him.
Nate stopped, steadied himself into a shooter’s stance, and leveled his weapon. Kirby was coming hard and fast and he was leaning into it, pressing himself forward along the neck of his horse. Nate thumbed the hammer of his .454, but couldn’t get a clear shot. All he could see coming was the horse’s head, its nostrils flared.
He hated to shoot a horse, he thought.
But: BOOM.
Kirby’s mount cartwheeled forward in a violent and complete somersault, throwing Kirby through the air. Kirby was launched and he hit the ground headfirst. Nate clearly heard Kirby’s neck snap as he landed. The rifle left his hand and clattered on the rocks of the creek bed.
Kirby lay facedown in the rocks and grass with his limbs thrashing in spasms.
* * *
—
Sheridan, no!” her dad yelled to her when he turned and saw her coming. “Go back!”
She had seen the horse tumble below her and she knew Kirby was down. Nate was now approaching the injured man, following the muzzle of his revolver.
Earl had seen what had happened to Kirby, too, and he’d turned his attention from Sheridan back to her father. He swung his rifle that way, but not before her dad shoved the other man to the ground and dived down himself.
Another shot cracked out. She saw a puff of grit and a shower of sparks on the rocks behind her dad, but she didn’t think he got hit.
As she rode within twenty yards of him, she glanced toward Earl and saw the man drive his horse into a thick stand of tall trees. It walked in with a stiff-legged gait.
Then she lost sight of him.
* * *
—
Kirby was breathing but badly broken. Nate nudged him with the toe of his boot until he could see Kirby’s pale, slack face. His nose was broken and bleeding and his head skewed to the side unnaturally.
There was no doubt to Nate that Kirby was motionless because he was paralyzed, his spine snapped at the base of his neck.
Nate looked up briefly in time to see Earl move his horse into the stand of trees. It was a thick group of mature ponderosa pines rimmed by buckbrush in full fall color. The isolated stand stood well above the spruce and lodgepole in the drainage. But the copse was surrounded by clearings on all four sides. There was no way Earl could ride away within the cover of the forest without exposing himself.
“Now that it’s all gone to hell, will your dad stand down?” Nate asked Kirby.
A spit bubble formed on Kirby’s lips, but his eyes flashed. “No way.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants to be with Sophia,” Kirby croaked. “That’s all he’s ever wanted.”
A round snapped past Nate’s head from the copse and he dropped and flattened himself on the ground next to Kirby. He placed his revolver on Kirby’s back and used it as a rest while he moved his front sight through the trees where the shot had come from.
“Get away from me,” Kirby hissed. “He can’t hit you without hitting me first.”
“That’s the idea,” Nate said.
* * *
—
Sheridan arrived at where her dad was hunkered down and she dismounted on the fly. She hit the ground running, almost stumbled, but ran to where he was and dropped to her hands and knees beside him.
He looked terrible, she thought. There were rips in his clothing, streams of blood coming from fresh cuts on his back and shoulders, and his face and hands were filthy. But he didn’t look seriously hurt. And his expression was as warm as ever.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “Keep down so Earl can’t see you.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“I’ve never been shot at before.”
He chinned toward the man lying next to him. “Sheridan, this is Steve Price. Steve-2, this is my daughter Sheridan.”
“I know who he is,” Sheridan said. She realized she was blushing and she couldn’t believe it.
Price was distracted and didn’t greet her. He had raised his head and was looking down the slope to where Nate was.
“Isn’t he your friend?” Price asked.
“Nate?” her dad said. “Yes.”
“Then why is he aiming at us?”
Sheridan focused on Nate to reveal that, yes, he had shifted his position and was now pointing his pistol in their direction.
BOOM.
Sheridan wheeled in time to see Brad Thomas get hit in the chest and fly backward. Brad had managed to get to his feet and had been approaching them from behind with his shotgun.
“That man is really hard to kill,” her dad said.
* * *
—
Back off!” Earl shouted to Nate. “Get away from my son. I’ve got ’em pinned down up there and if you don’t retreat, I’ll pick them off one by one.”
Nate shifted back to where he’d been before and he concentrated on the stand of ponderosas where Earl lurked within. He couldn’t see the man clearly amid the tree trunks, and he guessed Earl was behind them. Nate’s fear was that from where Earl was, he could position himself to get a clear shooting angle at Joe, Sheridan, and Price up in the rocks. And shoot them all, as he threatened to do.
Nate squinted, trying to will himself to see better than his vision allowed. And while he couldn’t get a good look at Earl himself, still astride his horse, he could make out a contrast of shapes within the vertical trunks.
