Page 11 of Dark Sky

The pavement gave way to gravel, then eventually narrowed into a two-track road. The pine trees closed in on it and branches swept by and sometimes scratched the exterior of Joe’s pickup. Each time it happened, Joannides flinched as if he expected a branch to break through the windshield and impale him.

Joe drove slowly and cautiously as the trail switchbacked upthe mountain. At clearings he slowed to look ahead for oncoming vehicles—there were too many places where trucks meeting on the road would have no place to pull over or back up.

As they made a sharp turn to the right on the side of the slope, the Twelve Sleep Valley opened up to the east. The vista was almost overwhelming, even for Joe, who had experienced the view many times before. Depending on the weather, the time of day, and the cloud cover, the look of the valley changed every time. The tree-clogged river zippered through the bottom and the small town of Saddlestring shimmered in the sun in a distant cluster of sun-glints. Thirty miles away, another mountain range emerged from low-hanging clouds.

The magnificence and vastness of the scene was lost on Joannides.

“I brought the green smoothies for tonight since you said we might be getting to camp late,” Joannides said, not even looking up. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Good. I packed a sandwich.”

“Monday, tomorrow, is green/red day. Veggies and red meat.”

“Got it.”

“Tuesday is chicken paprikash and spaetzle,” Joannides said with a roll of his eyes. “Zsolt insisted on it and he claims he makes the best dish you can find outside of Budapest.”

“I bought all the ingredients,” Joe said.

“And Wednesday we fast.”

“You can fast all you want,” Joe said.

“Thursday I’ve written down ‘fresh elk.’ Will we have fresh elk meat by then?”

Joe shrugged. “It depends on our good fortune and Steve-2’s aim.”

“If not, you bought free-range chicken?”

“Either that or roasted pine grouse,” Joe said. “There’s a bunch of them up there where we’re going.”

Joannides made a pained expression at the deviation in his menu.

Joe said, “Look up and you’ll see a little bear.”

In fact, a small black bear, likely a yearling, was running up the middle of the road ahead of them. Its coat shone in the morning sun and the pads of its feet looked like pink slipper soles.

“A what?” Joannides said.

“A little bear.”

The assistant glanced up from his iPad just as the bear ducked into the timber to the left. “It didn’t look very scary,” he said.

“It isn’t a grizzly.”

Joannides shrugged and continued. “Friday is oily fish night.”

“There are a dozen cans of sardines in the panniers,” Joe said.

“Sardines? I asked for wild-caught oily fish.”

“I didn’t have a lot of options at the grocery store. We’re a long way from the ocean.”

Joe didn’t want to bring up the fact that all of the food he’d purchased for the ConFab group had been paid for out of his own pocket. Eventually, perhaps, the state would reimburse him. Marybeth had been concerned about it since it was themiddle of the month and their budget was already stretched—they had a car repair bill due on her van and Lucy’s tuition payment. It was an issue that probably hadn’t even occurred to Joannides or Steve-2.

“Maybe we can have more fresh elk meat on Friday,” Joannides clucked while he updated the dinner schedule on his iPad. “Then we get to Saturday. We should be done and back on the jet by then, right?”

“If it all goes well,” Joe said. “No guarantees.”