Page 44 of Dark Sky

Joe turned back to the map, studied it, then tilted his head up and scanned the skyline of a steep rocky ridge to the north. It was two to three miles away and the granite outcropping rose out of the timber.

He chinned north and said, “I assume the Thomas clan will figure we’re taking the most direct route. That’s whatI’dassume. My suggestion is that we turn ninety degrees and climb that outcropping and drop down the other side. The north drainage will take us down out of the mountains a few miles away from the trailhead, but I think we can find it if we don’t overrun the location. That route will add a lot of time to get to the trucks, but it’s less likely they’ll look for us over there.”

Price put his hand to his brow to block out the morning sun.

“That looks steep. Are you sure we can climb out of here?”

“No,” Joe said. “And we have to be careful we don’t rimrock ourselves so we can’t climb either up or back down. But it’s harder to track a man in the rocks than it is on the forest floor. And one thing I know about Earl Thomas is he’s a hell of a tracker.”

Price put his hands on his hips and slowly turned around, taking it all in: the mountain ridges on both sides, the sea of trees before them, the aspen grove they’d just hiked through, the cloudless big sky overhead.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s too bad we have to see it like this.”

“Hmmm,” Joe said while carefully folding up his map and putting it back in the plastic bag. As he’d guessed, Kirby had removed the Leatherman tool from the side pocket of his daypack.

The morning was cool and sunny at the moment with little wind, but he knew the weather could change at elevation in a heartbeat and they weren’t equipped for it.

Price said, “Is it true an aspen grove is one of the largest living organisms on earth? That all of the roots are interconnected so that it’s all a single entity?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So it’s kind of like the Internet,” Price said.

That made Joe pause.

“Except right now we can access the aspen grove, of course,” Price said with a sour chuckle.

For the first time that morning, Joe smiled. But it wasn’t a happy smile.

—

Joe shouldered his pack and started walking east again. Price dutifully followed. After a half mile, Price said, “I thought this wasn’t our plan.”

“Just for a while.”

“Can you give me a little more than that?”

Within fifty yards Joe could hear the furious rush of a small spring-fed creek coursing down the center of the drainage over and through large rocks. He turned in that direction until he found a wide bed of smooth, tumbled stones. The tiny creek was feisty and the only glimpses he actually had of it were pillows of foam between river rocks and a few droplets spitting into the air between them.

“In the spring, this is a big creek,” Joe said. “There’s even a waterfall down below. But right now there’s not much water to speak of.”

“I see that,” Price said.

“This is where we cross and go north,” Joe said. “They’ll be able to track us to here and they’ll figure we followed it down. If we do this right, I think it’ll take them a long time to realize we didn’t.”

Price nodded slowly and gave Joe a thumbs-up. “I like it,” he said.

“Step from rock to rock,” Joe said. “Try not to lose your balance and fall. We don’t want any broken bones.”

“No, we don’t.”

Joe dropped to his hands and knees and pushed aside adying fern that covered a six-inch-wide opening between the rocks. The stream was clear and no more than three inches deep. He bent down, closed his eyes, and sucked in ice water until his throat hurt.

When he was done, he climbed back to his feet and gestured to Price to do the same.

“Is the quality of the water something we should worry about?” Price asked.

“Maybe,” Joe said. “But I think we have more things to worry about right now.”

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