David Morrell - First Blood

They had him. They started working farther up the slope.

And that was as far as they got with him. Shingleton all at once yelled and came falling past Orval, slamming into Teasle's chest. They reeled backward, falling, and Teasle lost hold of Orval, and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back at the bottom of the slope, water swelling over him, rocks tumbling painfully against him.

'I couldn't help it!' Shingleton cried. 'The rock slipped out from under me!'

'Orval! The current's got him!'

Teasle splashed toward the cliff edge. He wiped his arm across his eyes, blinking to see in the rain. He couldn't let himself go too near the edge — the current was too strong there. But God, he had to stop Orval.

He slowed, groping closer, wiping his eyes. Lightning flashed. And there, distinct, bright, was Orval's body flipping over the side. Then it was black again, and Teasle's stomach heaved. Hot tears mixed with the cold rain on his face, and he screamed until his throat seized shut, 'God damn those bastards, I'll kill them for not helping!'

Shingleton loomed beside him. 'Orval! Can you see him?'

Teasle shouldered past. He made it to the rise. 'I'll kill them!'

He grabbed for a rock and drew himself up and thrust a foot against a rock and shoved himself up and clawed and dug for handholds through the water sucking past him. All at once he reached the top, bolting into the forest. The din up there was deafening. Wind was bending trees, and rain was shrieking through branches and closeby lightning cracked bright through a trunk with the sharp sound of an ax splitting a solid piece of timber.

The tree crashed down in front of him. He vaulted over it.

'Chief!' somebody called. 'Over here, Chief!'

He couldn't see the face. He only saw the body huddled by a tree.

'Over here, Chief!' The man was waving his arm in wide gestures. Teasle charged over to him, grabbing his shirt front. It was Mitch.

'What are you doing?' Mitch said. 'What's the matter with you?'

'He went over the side!' Teasle said. Drawing back his fist, he punched Mitch hard in the teeth, jolting him against a tree and into the mud.

'Christ,' Mitch said. He shook his head, shook it again. He moaned and held his bloody mouth. 'Christ, what's the matter with you?' he was crying. 'Lester and the others ran! I stayed behind to stick with you!'

Teasle must have made it into the forest by now. Rambo was certain of it. The storm had been going on too long and heavy — Teasle and his men could not have held out on that open ledge. With the rain giving them cover so he could not see to shoot, they must have taken their chance to get up that slope and into the trees. That was all right. They would not be far. He had done a lot of this kind of work in the rain and he knew exactly how to hunt men down in it.

He came out of the bushes and trees, bearing through the rain toward the base of the cliff. In the confusion of the storm, he knew he could escape the other way, deep into the forest if he wanted. Judging from the wide dense cloud cover, he could be hours and miles away before the storm cleared enough for Teasle to track him — so far away that Teasle would never be able to catch up to him again. It was possible that after the ambush and the rain Teasle might not even have the heart to chase after him, but that did not matter: for the moment he was determined not to run anymore, whether he was being chased or not. He had been lying sheltered under the bushes, watching the top of the cliff for another target, thinking about how Teasle had made him into a killer once more and had got him wanted for murder; growing angrier as he thought about all the months, two months at least, that he would have to run and hide run and hide before he reached Mexico; and for now, by God, he was going to turn the game and make Teasle run from him, show him what the hell it felt like. That bastard was going to pay for this.

But you asked for some of it yourself. It wasn't only Teasle. You could have backed off.

For the sixteenth time for crissake? No way.

Even if it was for the hundredth time, so what? Backing off would have been better than this. Leave it alone. End it. Get away.

And let him do this to somebody else? Screw. He has to be stopped.

What? That's not why you're doing this? Admit you wanted all this to happen. You asked for it — so you could show him what you knew, surprise him when he found you were the wrong guy to try and handle. You like this.

I didn't ask for anything. But damn right I like it. That bastard is going to pay.

The land was dark; his clothes clung icy to his skin. Ahead, long slick grass was bent over in the driving rain, and he waded through, the grass slippery on his smooth wet pants. He came to the stones and rocks that led up toward the base of the cliff, and he stepped cautiously onto them. There were streams of water swirling between them and over them, and in the wind it would be easy to slip and fall and hurt his ribs some more. They were throbbing from when he had leapt off the cliff and crashed against the tree limb, and each time he breathed he felt something pressing sharply inside his right chest. It was like a big fishhook in there, or a jagged chunk of broken bottle. He would have to fix it. Soon.

Very soon.

There was a roar. He had heard it back in the trees and had guessed it was from the sound of the wind and rain. But now it was getting louder as he climbed up over the rocks toward the cliff, and he knew it wasn't the rain. The cliff came into gray view and he saw. A cataract. The cliff had become a waterfall, and a flood was cascading down, roaring onto the rocks, spraying mist high up into the rain. It wasn't safe to go any closer; he began working to the right. About a hundred yards along he knew would be the tree he had leapt into. And very near would be the body of the policeman who had fallen off the cliff with his dogs.

He didn't find the body anywhere around the tree. He was about to look in the wreckage of the helicopter when he realized that the waterfall would have swept the body down over the rocks to the long grass. He went down and the guy was right at the border, face down in the water. The top of his head was struck flat and his arms and legs were sticking off at queer angles. Rambo wondered about the dogs, but he couldn't find them. The carcasses must have been washed farther into the long grass. He knelt quickly to search the body.

The guy's equipment belt — he needed it. He held his rifle so it wouldn't drop in the water, and with one hand he pulled the body over. The face wasn't too bad, he had seen worse in the war. He stopped looking at it and concentrated on unbuckling the belt and yanking it free.

The effort set him wincing — his ribs cut inside his chest. Finally he had the belt loose, and he checked what was on it.

A canteen that was dented but not split open. He unscrewed the cap and drank and the canteen sloshed half-full. The water from it had a stale metallic taste.

A revolver snug in a holster. There was a leather flap snapped over the handle: not much water would have got in. He unholstered the gun, impressed by how well Teasle equipped his men. It was a Colt Python: a thick four-inch barrel with a big sighting pin at the end. The plastic handle it was always sold with had been replaced by a stout wooden grip designed not to be slippery if it got wet. The sights near the hammer had also been changed. Usually they were stationary, but these had been made adjustable for long distance shooting.

He had not hoped for this fine a gun. It was chambered for a.357 magnum cartridge, the second most powerful handgun load. A man could kill a deer with it. A man could shoot clean through a deer with it. He pushed the lever at the side and swung out the bullet cylinder. There were five shells in it; the chamber underneath the firing pin was empty. Quickly he slipped the gun back into the holster out of the rain and checked the cartridge pouch and counted fifteen more shells. Then he buckled the gunbelt around his waist and stooped, his ribs biting, to search the guy's pockets. But there wasn't anything to take. Especially no food. He had thought the guy at least might have some chocolate.