Page 80 of Dark Sky

Wagy watched as Cyndy and Zenda looked at each other for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Finally, Cyndy said, “What kind of cargo?”

“Falcons in cages. They’re not that heavy and they won’t bite.”

“I suppose we can,” Cyndy said. “But then we want a ride into town. This night has really turned into a bummer.”

“I’ll meet you in the barn,” Soledad said. When they didn’t move, he pointed toward the back door through the kitchen. “I’ll be right out,” he said.

Reluctantly, Cyndy and Zenda shuffled out of the house.

When the back door slammed shut, Soledad turned back to Wagy.

“Can you walk?”

“I can try.”

“Here,” he said, getting up and putting his beer aside. “I’ll help you get to your feet. Then you can lean on me to get out to the car.”

Soledad walked around the couch until he was in back of him. Wagy felt Soledad’s hands slide behind his shoulders until they were under his armpits.

“Ready?” Soledad asked.

“Ready.”

As Wagy took a breath against the inevitable agony ofstanding up, Soledad’s hands disappeared. They reappeared an instant later, with Soledad cupping Wagy’s chin with his right hand and grasping the surface of his forehead with the other.

Thecrunchsounded and felt like a muffled thunderclap and that was it.

Just like a pigeon.

TWENTY-ONE

An hour later, Earl Thomas surveyed a large clearing that glowed light blue on the snow from the moon and stars. He’d paused his horse and grunted as he dismounted and stepped heavily to the ground.

“Got to piss,” he said to his sons as they caught up with him. Brad pulled up on his right and Kirby on his left. One of the horses in Brad’s string blew its nose and whinnied.

Earl relieved himself between his boots and the odor of warm urine splashing on cold rocks was sharp. He turned his head away.

After burning the cabin to the ground, they’d been riding west down the mountain along a small and intermittent creek bed clogged with round rocks. They’d followed the two sets of tracks left by Joe and Price through the heavy timber and it had been a difficult journey. While the two men they pursued were on foot and could climb over downed timber and dodge throughclosely packed tree trunks, the caravan of horses weren’t as nimble and it had slowed them down.

Finally, though, the timber cleared and the trees became more widely spaced. The tracks they’d followed were clear in the snow until they veered out of the forest to the tiny stream. Then, because the smooth rocks in the creek didn’t capture the snow the way the grass and pine needle cover had, the tracks had become harder to follow. Earl assumed Joe would keep to the creek as he went west, and eventually down out of the mountains to the foothills, but for the last fifteen minutes he’d detected no sign that confirmed it.

Earl could also tell that the morning was going to dawn much warmer than the day and night before. He could tell by how it felt on his exposed skin and by the fact that the condensation clouds from the nostrils of his horse were getting harder to see. The sky was clear and the stars were hard. Soon, he knew, the sun would rise and melt the dusting of snow that covered the ground.

Keeping right on the tracks of Joe and Price would get harder by the hour.

Earl zipped up. This wasn’t working out as he’d planned it. If everything had fallen into place—if Joe hadn’t screwed everything up—he and his sons would have been down the mountain by now and loading their horses into trailers. They’d be back in their homes long before anyone realized Price and his party were missing. It would take days and possibly even weeks or months for investigators to come up with a theory ofwhat happened—if they ever did. All evidence of Price and the hunting party should have been buried or obscured, and the winter weather would bury the terrain in heavy snow within a month. Predators would feed on the bodies and scatter the bones. All the physical evidence that the hunting party had even been up here—the gear and supplies—were all packed away on the string of horses that Brad led.

Eventually, somebody might find some exposed human bones. Or maybe not.

Earl knew he and his sons had only a few hours left to catch Price and take care of him once and for all. Joe didn’t know these mountains as well as Earl—no one did—but Joe certainly knew if he kept well ahead and continued to the west that he’d eventually hit a logging road or the trailhead itself.

Kirby moved his horse closer to Earl and said, “You know, we probably ought to do a post from Price. His followers are going to start to wonder what the hell happened to him.”

Earl made a face. “I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to do that.”

“Well, give me his phone and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t have his phone.”

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