P Deutermann - Spider mountain

There was a crash in the underbrush and, as I took the monocular away from my eye, I caught just a glimpse of a doe, all pumping, tawny motion with a flashing, oversized white tail, blasting its way up the slope, followed immediately by my two shepherds. I whistled for them, but it was too late-instinct had overcome training, and they disappeared up the slope in hot pursuit. All too aware that my eyes had just deserted me, I unlimbered the rifle and looked around. Something had spooked that deer, and it hadn’t been the dogs. Or at least not my dogs.

A moment later, four of Nathan’s dogs appeared out of the underbrush, noses down, intent on the deer’s trail. They stopped and milled around about a hundred feet in front of me, happily unaware that I had them in my rifle sights, and then set off in the same direction my shepherds had gone. I wasn’t sure that was good news until I heard a voice in the woods in front of me. A scruffy-looking and extremely thin man dressed in black coveralls and a tattered Army jacket appeared out of the woods, holding a single dog on a leash. This dog was following the trail of his buddies, and the man was having a tough time restraining him. The pair stopped in the same place the other dogs had stopped while trying to sort out all the scent. The man encouraged the dog to get on with it, and finally it lurched to the left and followed what had to be by now a virtual parade of scent up the hill. Then a second man appeared, holding a shotgun in one hand and a walking stick in the other.

Unlike the first guy, this one was looking around, so he was quick to spot me sighting down the barrel of my rifle at him. He was almost as tall as Nathan and had an enormous black beard that covered his entire lower face. He pulled up short and called the first man, who turned around and was then nearly yanked off his feet by the big dog, which was still intent on getting that deer. For a moment, we formed a tense tableau, the bearded guy standing in midstride, the dog handler wrestling with his anxious beast, and me ready to perforate the both of them with as many. 308 rounds as I could load before they hit the ground.

“Hey, now,” the dog handler said, finally pulling hard enough on the leash to make the dog behave. It struggled for a few seconds and then caught sight of me. It barked once and started pulling in my direction.

“Where’s the woman?” I asked, aiming my question and the rifle at the dog handler, since he seemed to want to talk. The other guy was leaning on the walking stick and staring at me, but he’d made no move to bring that shotgun up. Yet.

“You lookin’ fer that woman, is that it?” the handler said. The dog was growling now and making it clear that he knew what his new mission was. I thought I saw the bearded man’s hand begin to move, so I swung the rifle over to cover him. He had the shotgun, which made him the far more dangerous adversary here.

“Tell me where you’ve got her, or I’m going to shoot fuzzy-wuzzy and then you, in that order.”

“Well, hey now,” he said again. “Ain’t no need for that. We’ll tell yer, won’t we, Jacky. Take it easy, now, mister, everythin’s gonna be okay.”

The handler looked pointedly over at Jacky, as if for corroboration of what he’d just said, and Jacky, never taking his eyes off me or the rifle, nodded once in slow, deliberate fashion. I almost fell for it. What that nod had really meant was for the handler to turn loose his baby-killer, which he did with a bare twitch of his hand. The dog lunged forward even as Jacky began to swing the scattergun.

I didn’t hesitate. I fired one round at Jacky, which spun him around and sent him rolling down the slope with a howl of pain. I jacked in a reload and shot the dog through-and-through when it was no more than twenty feet away, and then I drew down on the handler, who was still, amazingly, standing there with his mouth wide open and a shocked expression on his face. I worked the bolt and took aim at his face. I was vaguely aware that the bearded one was flopping around down there in the weeds, still yelling, and made a mental note to put eyes on that shotgun. Just in case, I moved to the right, putting a boulder between me and where I’d seen Jacky fall, and then asked the man again where they had put Carrie. The dying dog began to cry miserably.

“Y-yonder,” he croaked, staring almost cross-eyed at the muzzle of my rifle. “In the glass hole.” He pointed behind him in the direction from which they’d come.

“You lead me to her,” I ordered. “Now! Move it!”

I knew I had very little time. Those gunshots would bring Nathan and whatever other hired help he’d brought with him, and they’d probably be a little more competent than this scarecrow trembling in front of me. The problem was that they would probably be coming from the same direction I needed to go.

“Awright-awright, I’ll do her,” the man pleaded. “Anythin’, mister, just don’t shoot me. That there woman’s Nathan’s bizness, none o’ourn. He’s the one shot that other fella, too.”

“Where’s the hole?” I asked.

“T’other side that there big rock,” he said, glancing sideways toward where Jacky had disappeared. He pointed with a trembling hand in the direction of the formation, which rose over the trees like a big black cloud. “Yonder it is.”

I’d obviously hit Jacky, but I had no way of knowing how badly. The problem was that 1 couldn’t see him anymore, or, for that matter, hear him, and a quick look revealed that he hadn’t turned loose of that shotgun, either. Although even a flesh wound from a. 308 would pack a hell of a punch, he was still out there in the weeds with a shotgun.

“You,” I said. “Go find your buddy. Haul him out here where I can see him.”

“Me?” he squeaked, looking around as if to see if there was anyone else out there. I had a bad feeling that there might be, but if somebody was going snake hunting in close quarters, it wasn’t going to be me.

“Yeah, you. Or how about I shoot you right where you’re standing and then go find him myself? Now do it, and keep those hands where I can see them.”

He kept his hands out in front of him, as if ready to be cuffed. He started moving down the hill toward the lake. I remained in the boulders until he was within a few feet of disappearing into the dense underbrush, and then, perforce, I had to follow him. Behind me I heard the dog expire with an ugly noise.

My tactical situation wasn’t terrific: As soon as that guy figured out that I couldn’t see him, he’d run for it. Or he’d miss Jacky entirely, and then Jacky’d get a shot at me as we walked by wherever he was hiding. If he was hiding-he might have taken off, too. As I entered the thicket, I put my rifle on safe, slung it over my back, and got out Mose’s little pocket gun. The rifle wasn’t of much use in dense underbrush. Jacky’s shotgun, on the other hand, was just about perfect.

I could hear the other guy pushing his way through the branches and brambles in the general direction of the water’s edge. I kept a lookout for any blood trails and cursed my own dogs for taking off. I heard a rustling in the bushes ahead and stopped to crouch behind a tree. As I strained to listen, a shotgun boomed in the underbrush, and I heard the dog handler make a mortal noise. I hit the deck and lay very still. Apparently Jacky hadn’t taken kindly to being fingered, or he’d mistaken the handler for me. I could hear the handler groaning up ahead, and he couldn’t have been that far ahead of me.

The tower of black rock rose above the trees ahead, and I guessed I was maybe a hundred yards from its base. I tried to imagine my previous line of advance and then began to crawl off in a direction at right angles to that line. It was awkward with the rifle slung over my back, but I needed my hands free to push bushes and branches out of my way quietly while I tried to work around Jacky’s position. I was pretty sure he was wounded and maybe even down, but he was obviously not in such bad shape that he couldn’t fire a shotgun, as his ace buddy had just discovered. I got as flat as I could, pushing through grass, gravel, briars, and baby trees. I kept stopping to listen, but all I could detect was the sounds of the dog handler groaning.