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Trophy Kill
by Terry Watkins
And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
Sharp spears of grass poked at his face when Ryan turned his head. The ground, hard as cement, sent its cold deep into him, into his bones, penetrating to the marrow. With even the slightest movement he thought the hunter’s night scopes would find him.
He turned on his side and looked up at the sky, then over at the mountain across the valley from him where he thought the hunter was.
He rolled over on his stomach.
Suddenly, without thought, he choked back his fear, rose to his knees and launched himself forward toward the girl, a frantic dash across the open field, certain of his own death, aware in a corner of his mind of the hunter who wanted to take away his life and hers and Larry’s.
The crash of a rifle struck terror in him as he flung himself at the rocks where she lay. He heard the bullet, a high-pitched whine as it ricocheted off the rocks behind him.
Ryan landed half on her, half on the horse. He heard her gasp and continue to struggle for a breath she couldn’t find. He burrowed down tighter, more worried about bullets than what he had done to her.
When no follow-up shot came, he got hold of himself. He said to her, “Breathe, c’mon, you’ll be okay. Relax.”
When she didn’t respond, but kept pushing at him, he backed up off her a little to let her get some space. “You’re okay, just breathe slow. Relax, you’ll get it,” he said. He felt her heaving violently. He pulled further off her, feeling himself getting a little panicked.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said calmly now, gently, coaxing her to relax, to let the air come to her. “Okay, good, easy, just let yourself breathe.”
She grabbed air in a violent inhale. When she regained a pattern of breath, she grabbed him by the arm. “Do something to get me free! Don’t waste time staring at me. Get my leg out. Hurry! He’s coming down here.”
“What?”
For the first time he realized she was bleeding about the head. He’d knocked her against the rock when he dove in. “You’ve got some blood—”
“It’s just a cut. Get this horse off me! Hurry up. Somebody will be down here in a few minutes and we don’t want to be here.”
“How do you know—”
“See if you can get leverage. I don’t think my leg is broken, but if I don’t get circulation it will be worse than broken.”
He pushed his shoulder into the horse and a leg against the rock and pushed. Nothing moved.
“Jesus … I can’t …”
“You aren’t strong or heavy enough. You need a wedge of some kind.”
“Okay. Yeah, a rock or something.”
“Don’t lift your head,” she warned, “or you’ll get it shot off. The shooter on the ridge right behind us doesn’t have a good angle if you just stay low.”
“What about the other side?”
“Hawkins is on his way. You fuck around, we’ll die here.”
“I can’t move him.” He looked around for a loose, somewhat flat rock to use as a wedge.
“I might be caught in the stirrup. I have a knife on my belt, under me. See if you can get it. Then you can cut the cinches and the saddlebags. We’ll need that stuff. Hurry up.”
He reached under her feeling for the knife and trying not to put pressure on her.
“It’s under my ass, not my shoulder blade.”
He got his hand under her and found the knife, worked it out of the sheath. Then he turned his attention to the cinches and saddlebag.
The horse lay with its legs away from her, its back pushing her up against the largest of the boulders. Her leg was under it up to the thigh.
He crawled over her, grabbed the saddle and the rock on either side. He reached up and fumbled around with the saddlebag. She told him it had a strap buckle and he found that and got it open.
When he had the cinches and stirrup strap cut, she said, “Get a wedge.”
He scrambled around looking for a loose rock big enough to use. He pulled one back to the rump of the horse. As he worked, he noticed that the horse’s legs were painted a fluorescent orange.
Ryan put his back into the boulder behind him and drove his feet into the flat rock, trying to force it under the rump of the horse.
“Hawkins is down the mountain. He’s coming,” she said quietly. “You need to do something very fast.”
“How do you know he’s coming? Maybe he’s just waiting for me to stick my head up high enough where he’ll get a shot.”
“I can hear him. Don’t argue. Just get me out of here.”
“Horse weighs a ton!”
“Reverse yourself then. Put your legs against the boulder. Use your hands to help lift the horse, and use your butt to push the rock.”
***
Hawkins swung down off the corner of a low shoulder of foothill and headed for the stream that cut the valley in two. He jogged down along the side of the stream to a narrow point, and then leaped across without breaking stride. Little Indian girl’s gonna get hers, he thought jubilantly.
He carried his rifle down at his side as he headed into a stand of aspens, slowing to double-time, measuring in his mind the shortest angle to the open park.
That boy went out there under fire, he thought. Not bad, not bad at all. Just not the right move. A dumb hero is a dead hero.
Hawkins slowed to a walk as he cut through a stretch of timber. He was forced to deal with the tangle of undergrowth and blowdown. He had about a hundred yards of that to cross and he’d be out in the open field where they were.
“You see anything?” he asked Lechy.
“Trees in the way.”
“How did you hit the mule?”
“When the wind moves them a certain way I get about two seconds where I can see the rocks where she is.”
“I’m almost there,” Hawkins said.
“I get a shot, I take it, right?”
“That’s right, you get any kind of shot, take it.”
Hawkins broke into a fast jog now, wanting to get out there and catch them both in the open field, be done with this.
***
Ryan realized she was right; he could get much better leverage with his back and shoulders when he put his hands back under the horse. He’d moved the rock so he could get his ass into it. His arms acted like levers as he pushed back with both legs, driving them for all he was worth, lifting with his arms at the same time and pushing with his butt into the rock. He heard her gasping in pain as she pulled to get herself free.
“Little more! C’mon,” she said, “put something into it.”
He drove with everything he had, lifting himself and the rump of the horse. He felt her pull free.
“I’m out, I’m out,” she said triumphantly. She grabbed the knife and cut into the saddlebag. She pulled out the first aid kit.
“Let’s go. Keep down.”
She tried to crawl out and collapsed. He grabbed her and helped her get to her knees.
“Ribs,” she said, gasping.
They started to crawl out of there to the woods behind them. It was only about twenty yards or so and the shooter above them would be blocked by the trees.
She faltered again, almost immediately, crumbling to the ground with a grunt of pain.
He pulled her up to her knees, got a good hold, pulled one of her arms over his shoulder so he had much of her weight on him. Then he crawled forward, at times just dragging her, knowing she was in terrible pain, but nothing he could do about it. Reach the trees, he thought. Get into the trees.
***
Hawkins stopped. He’d come up a narrow rise with about twenty yards of trees in front of him, but he had an opening and Lechy was telling him in his earpiece that he thought they were moving.
Hawkins stared through the scope looking for movement. He had a good idea where the horse was from his position. Something out there, yes, he had something moving, but he had a bad angle and they had plenty of rocks to crawl through. He fired and then again to slow them down. He had about a hundred and fifty yards to go and they had maybe fifteen or twenty. He wanted one good shot before they reached the trees.
***
The first bullet hit somewhere behind Ryan, triggering an adrenalin surge that propelled him forward.
Another followed and it sounded like it hit the horse with a thud.
Sara collapsed in pain. He grabbed her around the waist and forced her to go with him those last yards.
When he reached the tree line, he paused to let her recover.
“Keep going!” she said, gasping.
Ryan held her back a moment, thinking he might have a clear shot at the guy. He took the Colt and moved behind a tree and stared at the field.
Sara grabbed him. “C’mon, Ryan.”
He pulled away. Hawkins had nearly reached the horse. Ryan braced the gun against the trunk of the tree, using both hands to steady him. He fired. The gun jumped in his hand.
He saw Hawkins shift quickly to his right, dropping behind rocks.
Ryan hoped he hit him. The momentary sense of triumph vanished a few seconds later when the hunter’s rifle boomed and a bullet whacked into the trees a few feet away.
“We have to get back in the deadfall,” Sara said. “It’s the only place he can’t easily hunt us. You’re no match with a revolver.”
She had regained herself enough to stand, though hunched over. He followed her back into the forest, holding her jacket so he wouldn’t lose her.
Ryan didn’t know exactly what ‘deadfall’ meant until they’d gone a couple hundred yards into the thick of this forest. At first they were forced to duck under, around and over fallen trees. But the density increased. Trees lay on trees until they were literally stepping from trunk to trunk, using branches to hold onto.
He could hear her fighting for air. He held onto the jacket or he’d get separated quickly. No light got in here, it was like a giant cave filled with timber, standing and fallen.
She stopped and grabbed him and made him hunch down. They listened and they waited. Hawkins, if he was close behind them, made no sound that Ryan could detect over the thunder of blood rushing past his ears.
They held their position a long time. His exertions had made him sweat, and that sweat turned cold and he started shivering so bad she must have felt it because she opened her jacket and pulled him inside as best she could. She never spoke and hardly moved and he did likewise.
They stayed like that for a long time. Ryan began to get some warmth back, leeching it from her.
She heard something that he didn’t hear. She found a hole down in under the trees and he squirreled down with her.
After a long silence, she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “He’s moving around us, circling. Just be very quiet.”
He could feel the heat of her body and he tried to get inside her jacket again and steal as much of it as he could get. She constantly rubbed the leg that had been under the horse.
Then she pushed him aside, put her finger to his lips, took the gun from him and went back up top. He waited.
She was gone for what seemed like an hour. Then he felt, more than heard her push back down into their cubbyhole. She gave him the gun back and whispered in his ear that Hawkins was about fifty yards above them. “We’re going to be here a little while.”
“You think he’ll find us?”
“No. He won’t crawl in this deep. I wish he would. This is the one place that neutralizes all his equipment. He knows that.” She let him back into her jacket. A woman’s breasts never felt so good.
After a time, she asked, “Do you have cotton on?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t ever wear cotton out here,” she said. “It’s the worst thing when it gets wet. You’re making me cold.”
But she didn’t push him away.
After what seemed like another hour, she said, “I need you to wrap my ribs and tape them.”
“Is he gone?”
“He’s not close. We’re okay here.”
She was trying to get out of her jacket and he tried to help her. Then she removed something from one of the pockets and put it in his hands. Stretch bandage. Then tape, which she kept hold of.
“How do these trees get like this?”
“They get blown down by wind or avalanches. It’s too wet to burn in here, so it just accumulates. The trees that grow up out of this reach two hundred feet and keep it well insulated, dark, wet and cold. The French have a term for the cold side of the mountain—the ubac.”
He worked the bandage around her and she guided his hands. They were embracing like a couple of lovers in the back seat of a very small car. Each go-round with the bandage brought some wincing from her that he could feel.
“Where are your friends?” she asked, her whispery voice warm on his ear.
“Kip is dead,” Ryan replied, the sound of the words surreal to him. “Larry is okay. He’s back in the woods on the other side of the meadow, back of where I came out to get you. He’s banged up. I think his jaw’s broken.”
“I’m sorry about your friend.” she said. “What happened?”
He told her about the confrontation with Gaines, and that he thought the man was also dead.
“That explains what’s happening,” she said.
She fumbled around looking for his hands, and then placed them on her side where she wanted him to start wrapping. He was cheek-to-cheek with her and still couldn’t see her face at all. He could smell her and feel the warmth of her breath and her body. That warmth was all he wanted in the world right now.
She put her finger to his mouth to keep him from talking.
They listened. The wind made a low shrieking sound in the two-hundred-foot-tall forest, shrieking and cracking as if the whole place was on the verge of coming down.
There was so much noise he didn’t know what she could possibly think she was hearing. She indicated for him to resume. He worked the bandage around and around. Her breasts were larger then he would have guessed.
“Wrap tight. I don’t want anything bouncing around, that hurts like hell.”
When he finished and she started putting on tape to hold the bandage in place, she said, “Why didn’t you try and get out. Why did you come back?”
“Larry couldn’t make it. We wanted to get the fanny pack. I had a first-aid kit, gun, food bars, emergency poncho.”
She started to ask him something else, aborted the sentence and put her fingers on his mouth. Then he felt her hand clamp down hard on his wrist. “Fluorescent. Get it off,” she whispered. He removed the watch and struggled to get it into his pocket.
He felt her stiffen.
He’s here! Ryan thought. Fuck. We’re gonna get shot in here like rats at a dump. He took a breath to calm down his wildly beating heart, to stop the roar of blood in his ears.
He had to see.
To hear.
To kill.
***
The weirdest thing was his awareness of how still she was. He couldn’t even feel her heart beating anymore, couldn’t feel her even breathe. It was like she’d turned to stone. He tried to do the same.
A branch cracked underfoot very close.
Ryan choked back fear. He held the Colt in both hands, aimed up through the hole, his finger starting to pull on the trigger. He was sure the bastard was going to poke his hunting rifle in there any second.
The hammer came back to the first tiny click.
Her hand came over and grabbed the top of the gun and he felt her thumb slip down over the hammer to stop if from moving.
They froze in that position. Waiting.
Hawkins was right there, he could feel him. She’d been wrong. The bastard had come into the deadfall.
Ryan removed her hand from the revolver. He grasped it in both hands and aimed above them. In spite of himself he trembled. He clamped down on his sphincter muscles.
C’mon you bastard, look down in here!
***
Motionless between two trees, his senses keened to the forest, Hawkins peered through the night scope into the green undersea gloom. A sound out of place had his attention. He slowly inhaled the rich, cloying rot of trees, the heavy stink of the elk beds.
He was sure he’d heard a faint metallic click.
Handgun?
They were close. Probably too exhausted and injured to run hard, or far, in this stuff. But digging Sara and her boyfriend out in this stuff wasn’t a good proposition. Place like this brings up her Indian blood. She’s probably sitting there like a spider on a log with vegeboy’s pistol in her hands begging him to come on in a little closer
Not this time, sweetheart. Time’s on my side.
No way they could last in here when the temperature fell another ten, fifteen degrees.
He wondered if this was also where the wounded kid and that big mouth Hollywood writer were holed up? Killing that arrogant prick would be a pleasure.
Hawkins listened. A tree cracked like a gunshot in the distance. He heard it crash down, another victim of the wind. Hunters called dead trees ready to fall widow makers, because every year somewhere, some moron was always pitching his camp under one.
He scanned the timber jungle ahead of him one more time with his night glasses. It was like peering into a weed-choked, muddy lake.
Hawkins became convinced she and that vegeboy were right there, maybe twenty feet, that pistol pointed his way. He decided to retreat, let them sit for the next fifteen hours or so until lack of food and water and the freeze drove them out into the open or killed them where they were.
Possibly, if they were lucky, they’d last a couple days. No more.
Hawkins was pissed off about not settling it quickly, but he knew this hunting trip was scheduled for five days. Nobody would be up here looking for them for at least six. Plenty of time.
First thing he had to do was destroy everything that could assist them. Get rid of the remaining stock. He and Lechy could walk out. Destroy whatever they had in the saddlebags.
He headed back toward the field and the dead animals.
***
In her mind Sara watched his retreat.
You see what you hear, her grandfather had taught her. A hunter sees through the ears as the animal sees through the nose. Be still, stay below the sound of the world. Let the forest talk to you through the birds, they are the sentries of the forest.
“He’s gone,” Sara said.
She reached over and eased the hammer of his revolver from her thumb. She’d grabbed it when he pulled back to the first click. If Hawkins had been close enough, he might have heard that. He definitely would have heard a full click of the hammer. “Don’t do that,” she said quietly.
“Sorry.” Ryan whispered. “How do you know?”
“I know. We’re going to wait awhile, make sure he doesn’t circle back. Then we’ll find your uncle and decide what to do.”
She felt the brush of his ear as he nodded.
“Thanks for what you did out there,” she added. “I owe you.”
“Get us out of here. That’ll erase any debt.”
“I don’t know who smells worse, you or me.”
“I think we’re both contributing about equally to the stew. I don’t imagine there are any hot springs around here where we could wash each other’s back?”
She smiled. Anybody who could maintain a sense of humor under these circumstances, even if he didn’t know his dick from a pinecone, was okay by her.
“Are you a member of an anti-hunting group?” she asked. “I don’t care if you are, I just want to know.”
“No. I’m sure I sympathize with most of what they’re doing, but I’m not big on joining groups.”
“Somehow I didn’t really think you were, but you laid just enough circumstantial evidence along the way it began to look like you were.”
“We didn’t think you could hunt in designated wildernesses.”
“Next time, check. This is one of the most hunted wildernesses in the world. A quarter million hunters come through here in a season. Didn’t you see hunters all over the place coming up here?”
“We thought they were going to the national forests. How can there be any animals alive with that many hunters?”
“The animals are smarter than ninety-nine percent of the hunters coming after them. They barely cull the herds to a healthy level. Let’s go.”
“Cull the herds?”
“Take a trip back east. New Jersey is nice. Just keep your eyes on the road. There’s a dead deer about every ten miles or so. With their natural predators gone, and hunting disliked, cars have become the great harvester of deer. We’ll discuss it someday. Right now, let’s get out of here.”
Continued….
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