Page 5 of Dark Sky

“Oh.”

“We’ll get it figured out,” Joe offered in an attempt to be conciliatory. As he said it, Joannides approached the group.

Price turned to his assistant. “If we need to leave things behind, they’ll be yours.”

“Yes, boss,” he said through gritted teeth as he turned and walked away.

Joe felt embarrassed for the man, which Price seemed to pick up on.

“I hope that’s not the first of many misunderstandings,” Price said. “Sometimes I think Tim tells me what he thinks I want to hear rather than what I need to hear.”

Joe was glad Joannides was out of earshot.

“Since you’ve been communicating with Tim,” Price continued, “it’s important that you know I’m not some kind of prima donna. I take what we’re about to do very seriously and it’s extremely valuable to me. I appreciate you and the wrangler taking your time to do this.”

Joe nodded.

“As I hope Tim conveyed to you, I only want to participate in an authentic, fair-chase hunt. Pretend I’m just a normal person who hires you to guide him.”

Joe started to say that he didn’t usually guide hunters at all, but Price was on a roll.

“I’ve had hundreds of opportunities to just shoot an animal, if that’s what I wanted to do. I’m talking absolute trophies. But that was on land owned by friends and colleagues, or worse, game farms. That is the last thing I want to do.

“I want real,” Price said. “I want the actual experience. Did Tim communicate this to you clearly?”

Joe was torn how to answer without throwing Joannides under the bus.

“I get it,” Joe said.

“Wonderful,” Price said. “Now, do you think you can go get the wrangler and help us unload all of that gear? And be very careful. Some of it is really delicate.”

Joe turned and pushed through the double doors into the terminal. He found Boedecker sitting on a plastic chair reading the SaddlestringRoundup.

The rancher looked up as Joe approached. He said, “Are you sure we can’t get out of this?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

Boedecker put the paper aside and looked around to make sure no one could overhear what he was about to say. His eyes were unblinking.

“You can go,” the man said. “No hard feelings on my part. In fact...”

Joe cocked his head as he waited for more.

“I’d really advise you to go home,” Boedecker said finally. “I can do this without you.”

Joe was puzzled. “I signed on for this.”

Before Boedecker could continue, Joannides stuck his head in the door. He was frantic.

“We need to get this show on the road, gentlemen,” he said.

Boedecker gave Joe a long look that Joe supposed was designed to tell him something. Then he stood up and the two of them walked through the tiny terminal toward the waiting plane.

Joe looked up from the tarmac. A procession of dark clouds scudded across the sky from the north. Soon, it looked like, they’d envelop Battle Mountain.

TWO

Two and a half weeks before, Joe had sat in a leather-backed armchair across from Colter Allen, the governor of Wyoming, in the newly refurbished capitol building in Cheyenne. Game and Fish Department director Rick Ewig was with him.