Page 26 of Dark Sky

“Excuse me?” Price said in alarm. It was as if Boedecker had rudely derailed his train of thought.

“I’ve got it,” Joe said to Boedecker, picking up another saddle. He’d been slightly mesmerized by Price’s reverie.

“I think I’ll head back and get some water,” Price said. Then he turned on his heel and walked toward the camp and the fire.

“Take it easy on him,” Joe said softly to Boedecker when Price was out of hearing range.

“Why? Did I offend him? We’re busting our asses getting this camp set up and those dudes are either sitting around or yapping too much. Kind of what I expected when I saw ’em get out of the plane. They like to be catered to.”

“Yup,” Joe said. “That’s the job.”

“It don’t mean I have to enjoy it.”

“I find Steve-2 kind of interesting,” Joe said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“He talks more than my wife,” Boedecker said sourly.

Joe started to respond but decided not to. Silence, he’d found, was often the best argument. Tension was natural between members of a hunting party when you’re thrown together into close quarters with people you’ve met just hours before. It was a complicated and delicate dynamic, all those strong personalities in what was almost a closed room. So unless the disagreement was about safety or security, Joe preferred to stay out of it.

He was a little surprised Brock voiced such hostility, though. Brock took inexperienced clients into the mountains all summer long on multiday pack trips. Maybe Boedecker was just a little burned out. It happened often in the guide and outfitter business. Bitterness toward clients brought down as many wilderness enterprises as the economy or loss of access.

“Looks like we’ll need to gather more wood,” Boedecker said after a long glance at the campsite. “That Joannides guy nearly let the fire die out, and now he’s building a bonfire.”

Joe looked over his shoulder. Boedecker had a point. The fire was enormous and throwing showers of sparks in the direction of the tent.

“It’s like taking little boys camping,” Boedecker said.

EIGHT

I don’t know what they’re doing down there,” Aidan Jacketta said aloud to himself as he leaned into his spotting scope and zeroed in on the large campfire. “It looks like they’re trying to burn down the whole forest.”

Jacketta was long and lean with a pointy blond beard and tiny-lens, horn-rimmed glasses. He was on his belly beneath a canopy of low-hanging pine boughs to observe the hunting party’s camp far below. A small white-gas camp stove hissed near his feet, but the water in the pot hadn’t yet begun to boil. His simple one-man tent was set up at the base of a massive ponderosa pine and his sleeping bag and pad were unfurled inside it. His soiled camo cap was tilted back on his head so the brim wouldn’t interfere with the eyepiece.

“Fucking idiots,” a deep voice said from the trees to his right.

Jacketta scrambled to his feet, startled. He was campingalone and hadn’t seen any sign of other hunters, hadn’t even heard anyone approaching.

“I guess you’re watching that group of idiots down there,” the voice said.

Jacketta glanced toward his custom recurve hunting bow, which was strung tight and hanging from a peg on a tree trunk next to his tent. His quiver of ten homemade arrows hung next to it.

The man who’d spoken moved out of the shadows until his bearded face glowed with the reflection of Jacketta’s small stove flame. He glided into the camp as if sliding on a track, without making an audible footfall.

“Brad Thomas?” Jacketta said when he got a good look at the visitor. “Is that you?”

“Aidan Jacketta, right?” Brad said. “I didn’t expect to find you here. I didn’t expect to findanybodyup here.”

Jacketta let out a long breath and relaxed his shoulders. He no longer felt the need to snatch up his bow.

“I didn’t hear you coming,” Jacketta said.

“That’s the idea. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Well, you did.”

“You weren’t thinking of pulling a weapon, were you?” Brad said. “Because I hope not.”

Jacketta could now see that Brad held a short carbine of some kind with the muzzle down. It could be swung up and fired in less than a second.

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