Page 91 of Dark Sky

“I’m glad you like something.”

From twenty yards behind, Brad called out, “Wud are you guys togging about?”

Earl stopped and turned swiftly in his saddle. His eyes flashed. “Keep your voice down.”

Brad clamped up and lowered his head, chastised. Kirby hung back to tell his brother what their strategy was in a low tone.

“Jesus,” Earl grumbled to himself. “Let’s all ride along in profile on the top of this ridge and yell at each other as loud as we can. That’ll fucking help.”

—

They rode along the length of the ridge for two miles at a good clip, with Earl pushing the pace of his horse and his sons and the pack string keeping up with him. He guessed that they were now well ahead of where Joe and Price should be.

He looked for a trail down to the creek as he moved, and finally found it, the mouth of it located between two truck-sized boulders. Descending on the gentle grade was much easier on the horses than the climb up the ridge had been. Earl leaned back in the saddle and let his horse pick its own way down. Horses were sure-footed that way. They didn’t want to slide down the slope, either.

He knew he’d made a mistake to make that climb, but he’d never admit it. Earl didn’t acknowledge his errors. He just pressed on.

—

The party was halfway down the slope and strung out on the trail when Earl looked down the drainage and saw movement in the trees below. Something was passing through a thick grove of aspen downstream of the drainage path. He narrowed his eyes but kept moving.

Had they pushed a small herd of elk out in front of them? he wondered. Had Joe and Price somehow gained superhuman strength and gotten much farther ahead of them than he thought possible?

Then he heard Kirby say, “Riders. Two of them.”

And Earl now saw them. Two people on horseback coming up the drainage from below. One large, one small. The small one in front.

Earl turned. Kirby was right behind him and Brad was twenty yards in back, leading the string. The section of the slope they were on was wide open. If the two riders looked up, they’d see them for sure. There was no time to move his party out of the clearing and into the timber out of view.

“Who is that?” Kirby asked. “Looks like a big guy and his daughter.”

At that second, the lead rider raised her head and stopped her horse. She’d seen them.

Earl thought for a second. Then he waved at the two riders with as much friendly enthusiasm as he could fake.

“Brad, you stay back with that string of horses. Pull over in that thick timber below and get set up to cover us. Kirby, you come with me.

“Let me do the talking, boys,” he said over his shoulder.

TWENTY-FIVE

Joe had been scrambling clumsily down the creek for fifteen minutes, stepping from rock to rock, his lungs aching and his breath ragged, with Price struggling to keep with him ever since he’d heard:

“Wud are you guys togging about?”

“Keep your voice down.”

It had been the Thomases, above them. On top of the ridge just ahead of where they were in the drainage. Something was wrong with Brad’s voice and Joe guessed it was a result of his injury. But the exchange had been between Earl and Brad, for sure. As he moved, he stole glances up the slope to his right, fearing that he’d see the riders silhouetted against the dawn sky. He never saw them, but he knew they were there.

Either Earl would come down the slope and literally run into them, Joe thought, or the Thomases would arrive downstreamand just ahead of them and cut off his and Price’s route. Neither scenario was any good.

Joe stopped and leaned forward, his gloved hands on his knees. He was exhausted and he knew he didn’t have the physical strength to climb another ridge in order to proceed down the mountain in another drainage.

When he raised his head and studied Price, Joe determined that the man couldn’t make another climb, either. Price was hurting. His face was drawn and pale. The wound in his shoulder had helped to take everything out of him.

Joe gestured to the top of the ridge and mouthed, “They’re right there.”

Price’s eyes widened, and he looked for a second like he was about to break down.

---