David Morrell - First Blood

The chase went up a slope of trees, over a spine of rock and down a patch of shale to a stream, then along the bank of the stream, across the stream into more woods, across a ravine. The pain in his chest cut sharply as he jumped across, and he almost slipped down into the ravine, but he pulled himself up, listened for Teasle, heard him and chased after him. Each time his right foot hit the ground, the jolt went all the way up his right side, grating his ribs. Twice he was sick.

Up and down, the pattern of the country repeated itself. Stumbling up a slope of rocks and brush, Teasle felt like he was back on the ledge, trying to get up the rise to the woods. In the dark he couldn't see the top; he wished he knew how far it was; he couldn't keep on climbing much longer. The rain was making the rocks slippery, and he was losing his balance, falling hard. He took to crawling up, and the rocks tore at his pants, cut into his knees, while behind him, down in the trees at the bottom, he heard the kid breaking through the undergrowth.

He scrambled faster. If he could just see the top and know how far he had to go. The kid must be out of the woods now and starting up the slope, and Teasle thought of shooting blindly down to hold him back. He couldn't: the flashes from his pistol would give the kid a target, but Christ, he had to do something.

In one desperate lunge he reached the top but didn't know it was the top until he tripped and barely grabbed a rock in time to stop from rolling down the other side. Now. Now he could shoot. He stretched out and listened to where the kid was rushing up the slope, and he fired six times in a line across the noises. Then he hugged the ground in case he had missed, and a shot came from below, zinging over him. He heard the kid climbing off to the left, and he fired once more at the noise before he started racing down the other side of the slope. Again he tripped, and now he struck his shoulder solidly against a rock and couldn't keep from rolling as he grabbed his shoulder and tumbled to the bottom.

He lay there dazed. The wind was knocked out of him, and he fought to breathe but he couldn't. He gasped and pushed his stomach muscles in, but they wanted to push out, and then he managed to suck in a little air and a little more, and he was almost breathing normally again when he heard the kid clambering on the rocks above. He groped to his knees, then to his feet — and discovered that in his fall he had lost hold of his pistol. It was somewhere up on the slope. No time to go back for it. No light to find it.

He staggered through woods, circling he guessed, going nowhere, winding around and around until he'd be brought to bay. Already his knees were buckling. His direction was wobbly. He was bumping against trees, a crazy vision in his head of him in his office, bare feet on the desk, head tilted sipping hot soup. Tomato soup. No, bean with bacon. The rich expensive kind where the label said don't add water.

It was only minutes now before he'd have him. The noises ahead were slowing, more erratic, clumsy. He could hear Teasle breathing hoarsely, he was that close to him. Teasle had given him a good race, that was sure. He had figured to tag him several miles ago, and here they were still at it. But not for long. A few minutes now. That was all.

The pain in his ribs, he had to slow, but it was still a fair pace, and since Teasle had slowed too, he wasn't bothered much. His hand was over his ribs, helping the belt to press. All his right side was swollen. In the rain the belt was even looser than before, and he had to keep his hand pressing.

Then he stumbled and fell. He hadn't done that before. No, he was wrong about that. He had stumbled at the ravine. Then he stumbled again, and rising to his feet, working on, he decided it might take slightly more than a few minutes before he caught up to Teasle. It would be soon, though. No question about it. Just a little more than a few minutes. That was all.

Had he said that out loud?

The brambles caught him full in the face as he came up to them in the dark. They were spikes lashing into him, and he recoiled, clutching his ripped cheeks. He knew it wasn't rain wetting his cheeks and hands. But it did not matter, because off in there in the brambles was the sound of Teasle crawling. This was it. He had him. He bore to the left along the edge of the brambles, waiting for it to curve down and lead him to the bottom of the patch where he could rest and wait for Teasle to crawl out. In the dark he would not be able to see the surprised look on Teasle's face when he shot him.

But the longer he hurried along the edge of the brambles, the farther it stretched on, and he began to wonder if the brambles covered all this section of the slope. He hurried farther, and still the brambles did not curve down, and then he was sure they stretched all along this rise. He wanted to stop and double back, but he had the thought that if he kept on just a little more, the brambles would at last curve down. Five minutes became what he judged was fifteen, and then twenty, and he was wasting his time, he should have gone right in after Teasle, but now he could not. In the dark he had no idea where Teasle had entered.

Double back. Maybe the brambles did not go far along the other end of this ridge, maybe they curved down over there. He rushed back, holding his side, moaning. He hurried a long while until he no longer believed they would ever curve down, and when next he stumbled and fell, he remained face down in the muddy grass.

He'd lost him. He had given up so much time and strength to come so close and lose him. His face stung from the gashes of the brambles. His ribs were on fire, his hands pulpy, his clothes ripped, his body slashed. And he had lost him, the rain coming down in a gently cooling drizzle as he lay there splayed out, breathing deeply…holding it, letting it out slowly, breathing deeply again, letting the dead weight of his arms and legs relax with every slow exhale — for the first time he could remember, crying, softly crying.

Any moment the kid would be breaking through the brambles after him. He crawled hysterically. Then the brambles got lower and thicker until he had to press himself flat and wriggle. Even so, the lowest branches scraped across his back and snagged in the seat of his pants, and when he twisted to unsnag them, other branches gouged his arms and shoulders. He's coming, he thought, and squirmed desperately forward, letting the barbs dig into him. His belt buckle scooped into the mud, funneling it into his pants.

But where was he going? How did he know he wasn't completing a circle, returning to the kid? He stopped, frightened. The land sloped down. He must be on the side of a hill. If he kept wriggling downward, he'd be headed straight away. Or would he? Hard to think, suffocated in the dense black tangle and the constant rain. You bastard kid, I'm going to get away and kill you for this.

Kill you for this.

He lifted his head off the mud. And couldn't recall having moved for a while. And gradually understood he had passed out. He stiffened and glanced all around. The kid could have crept up to him his stupor and slit his throat just like he did to Mitch. Christ, he said out loud, and his voice was a croak that startled him. Christ, he said again — to free his voice — but the word broke like a crust of ice.

No, I'm wrong, he thought, his brain slowly unclouding. The kid wouldn't have crept up in my sleep to kill me. He would have wakened me first. He'd want me to know what was happening.

So where is he? Watching close? Finding my trail, coming? He listened for noises in the brush and didn't hear anything and had to keep moving, had to keep distance between them.