Lori Armstrong - Merciless

We adjusted the comforter and piled on the pillows. I stood on the step stool to take down the sheer baby-blue curtains with layers of ruffles and hung the navy-blue and hunter-green plaid panels.

“It looks great, Mercy. No remnant of me in this room at all.” She smiled wistfully and balled up the curtains. “Levi would’ve loved to have another boy around.”

I experienced that crushing sensation around my heart again. “Think Lex will push boundaries with me because I’m not his mother?”

“Yes. But you’ve got the tough love down pat, sis. Levi called you a ball buster, but he knew you’d give it to him straight. You expected more out of him than I did.”

Joy screeched and added a ma-ma-ma-ma-ma that sent Hope scurrying. When I heard my niece bouncing up and down with happiness at seeing her mama, I smiled. The baby girl’s name was apt; she’d brought such joy into all our lives.

• • •

Dawson and I were up well before the crack of dawn on Saturday, eager as two kids on Christmas morning for our first hunt together.

He hadn’t had a chance to scout the ranch for the best place to find antelope. Although it’d been several years since I’d done any hunting, I figured animal behavior patterns probably hadn’t changed. I’d find antelope in the same place I had two decades ago.

We opted to use the ATVs rather than drive a pickup. Antelope were smaller than deer, and we could each easily strap a carcass onto the back of an ATV and haul it home before the meat spoiled.

By first light, we’d arrived at my suggested starting point and left the machines parked at the bottom of a small hill. At a balmy forty-five degrees, it didn’t feel like November. The wind blew like a bitch, which was actually good-antelope have a finely tuned sense of smell. With the fastest animal land speed in North America, once antelope catch a whiff of human, all you see are those white butts bouncing away.

Antelope prefer wide-open spaces, so I’d chosen a two-mile-long bowl-shaped draw with water at the bottom and great vantage points above. The grass was tall in some places, providing excellent cover and hidden resting points as we zigzagged over the terrain.

I’d slung my H-S Precision.308 takedown rifle over my shoulder. As a kid I’d hated using a shoulder strap. I preferred to carry my gun as I belly crawled. As an adult I wanted both hands free.

Dawson wasn’t one of those never-shut-up types of hunters. The ones who really don’t give a damn if they shoot anything. For them, securing a hunting license, slipping on camo clothes, and toting around a fancy gun were really just excuses to hang out with the guys and drink beer.

I kept my binoculars trained on the area around the water, while he kept scanning the ridges and hidden dips in the vast landscape. There wasn’t a speck of snow on the ground, allowing the antelope to hide in plain sight. The dead grasses with hues ranging from the faded gold of dried corn stalks to the darkness of coffee grounds provided perfect camouflage. The one advantage we had? This time of year the males were slaves to their baser instincts and deep in rut. The bucks were constantly sniffing for females, which meant they were always on the move, looking for more action. And if they couldn’t fuck, then they’d lock horns with other horny males of their species, trying to keep them from fucking.

Dawson tapped my arm and pointed.

I refocused, making minute adjustments for the change in distance and my eyes. About twenty antelope were hunkered down, on the edge of a ridge. But they were a good fifteen hundred yards away.

Over the next ten minutes, we watched the group, comprised of does, probably hiding from the amorous attentions of the bucks. But rest assured, our targets were very close by.

Target. How quickly I slipped back into sniper lingo when I wore camo and held a gun in my hand.

We moved our position closer to the watering hole. Ducking low. Moving slowly. Creeping quietly. My guess was the bucks would wander from their hidey-holes to the water and quench their thirst before seeking out the herd of females. The harem was farther downwind than we were, so chances were good we’d have first crack.

After we settled into our new position, I nudged Mason and whispered, “We didn’t talk about who gets first shot.”

“I’m sure you think you do, Sergeant Major, since you outrank me.”

“Yep.”

“Not a fuckin’ chance,” he hissed. “I should get the first kill since I applied for the hunting licenses.”

“Yeah? You wouldn’t be hunting if not for the fact I own this chunk of land, Sheriff.”

“How do you suggest we decide this problem, now that you’re a crime-solving specialist in the FBI?”

A pause.

We said, “Rock, paper, scissors,” at the same time.

Dawson grinned at me, and I grinned back.

Hands out, fists on palms, we locked gazes, whispered, “One, two, three,” and looked at our hands.

He’d chosen rock.

I’d picked paper.

I won.

I leaned over and pecked his puckish mouth. “Don’t pout. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and I’ll miss.”

He snorted. “Not likely. And that’s the first time I’ve ever had a huntin’ buddy kiss me. It’s kinda weird.”

We returned to our watchful stance.

As much as I loved the pulling-the-trigger part of hunting, I also loved this quiet time. I might’ve felt differently if I was stretched out on frigid snow-covered ground, trying to hide my white puffs of breath as the cold seeped into my bones. But I was content, lying on my belly in the tall grass, scanning the area with my binoculars, grateful my hood blocked the wind from my face.

I never thought I’d miss spending my days and nights in the great outdoors. While lying in the sand or on a rooftop, or standing in the back of an assault vehicle, I had dreamed of a soft mattress. Of crisp sheets that carried a freshly laundered clean scent. Of cool, puffy pillows beneath my weary head. Of one night of uninterrupted slumber. Of early-morning tendrils of light teasing through the window blinds as a gentle wake-up call. Not mortar rounds. Not machine-gun fire.

After all the years I’d spent in the army, my days and nights fighting heat, cold, bugs-intestinal and the creepy-crawly types-insurgents, insomnia, cramped quarters, and no quarters, and the weeks without a shower, I swore I’d never willingly subject myself to such primitive situations ever again. No camping, no hiking, no wilderness treks for me. My new idea of roughing it would be no complimentary breakfast at my vacation hotel.

So why was I stretched out in the dirt, weeds poking me in the face, surrounded by the warning scent of male animal urine?

Because my man had done something special for me, reminding me that I’d missed this. Reminding me this reconnection with nature and where I was raised also defined me.

I hadn’t been to this part of the ranch for years. I suspected the watering hole had dried up during the almost decade-long drought. For a few decades, the Gunderson family had hayed a small section at the bottom, leaving the bales as emergency feed if any of the cattle got stranded during a blizzard. This area didn’t produce enough feed in comparison to other areas with easier access, so it’d been allowed to go fallow.

Fallow was good for wildlife. With access to water, and a stand of scrub oak and pine trees to run and hide in, this was an ideal place for them to gather.

Time passed in a pleasant void. I wasn’t getting antsy as much as worried our entry into the animals’ domain hadn’t been stealthy enough. Were the bucks hunkered down watching us?

I considered asking Mason how long he wanted to wait these animals out, because he had to leave for Denver today, when three big bucks picked their way to the edge of the water.