Lori Armstrong - Merciless

Hello, boys.

They didn’t seem to be in a hurry. When they were spread out, I whispered, “Mine is the far right.”

“I’ll take the left side.”

Chances were high this would be our only shot today, so we had to make it count. “You sighted in?” I asked Dawson, keeping the antelope in my crosshairs.

“Yep.”

“Count of three.”

“One,” he said.

“Two,” I said.

“Three,” we said together.

Ba-bam. Ba-bam.

Near perfect symmetry.

My buck dropped.

Dawson’s animal struggled and acted confused. By the time it staggered a few steps then lay down, the third buck was long gone.

As soon as Dawson’s buck quit twitching, we grabbed our stuff and hightailed it down the hill.

We stopped first and looked at his buck. Nice clean kill, a few inches behind the front leg, which was a perfect heart/lungs shot. The buck had a decent set of horns. Then we walked to my kill.

Dawson said, “Jesus, Mercy. That’s fuckin’ nasty.”

My shot had been a head shot. The buck’s brain had exploded, horns hanging off what was left of the skull. I found Dawson staring at me strangely. “What?” I asked.

“Why would you shoot…?”

Because I was used to taking head shots.

Other snipers might talk about hitting center mass. But at ranges below two hundred yards, I always aimed for the head.

A habit that was hard to break, apparently. I also had no intention of having a mount made. Another habit I shunned-showing off a kill. Just knowing I’d hit my target satisfied me.

But maybe… I should’ve done it differently. Should I pretend I’d missed the spot I’d aimed for?

“If I’da known you weren’t interested in mounting it, I’d have gotten you a doe tag.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Good thing I brought a hacksaw. No need to drag the head back now,” Dawson said dryly.

“Yeah. Good thing. ’Cause all I brought was a knife.”

Mason stood and smirked at me.

“What?”

“Is that your way of asking me to gut your antelope, little lady?”

“Fuck off.” I unsheathed my knife. “And just for that smart-ass remark, I’ll race you. Let’s see who gets their kill cleaned up fastest.”

“God, I love you.”

I blew him a kiss before my hands were covered with blood.

As soon as he stood above his buck, I said, “Ready?”

“Yep.”

“Go.” I dropped to my knees. I rolled the buck on his back and carefully sliced through the hide and muscle, starting at the sternum and ending at the tail. Then on the second pass, I separated the tough membrane covering the body cavity. Using the tip of the knife, I cut around the anus and the genitals, mindful not to cut into the urinary tract or the poop chute. Then I sliced into the body cavity itself, turning the blade side up as I cut, so the knife didn’t go in too deep and nick the stomach. I scored the breastbone with the blade three times and pushed down, cracking it.

I took a break and glanced over at Dawson, who already had his hand in the cavity and was pulling out the guts.

Son of a bitch.

He flipped his buck over to drain the last of the blood, resting on his haunches.

I half expected him to throw up his hands like a tie-down roper.

Mason ambled over, and I still hadn’t gotten to the gut-removal portion yet.

“Lagging behind, Sergeant Major.”

I grunted, then made the cut across the esophagus that allowed my hand to get inside that still-warm cavity and start yanking out innards.

Point for Dawson that he didn’t offer to help.

Minus two hundred points that he started whistling “No Guts, No Glory” while I was shoulder deep inside my kill.

“It’s too damn warm out to let these hang once we get them back to the ranch,” he said. “We’ll have to get the meat cleaned up and frozen as soon as possible.”

“I’ll bow to your expertise. To be honest, I’ve never butchered my game.”

“Never? Why not?”

I rubbed the end of my nose. “My dad usually struck a deal with someone at Baylor Brothers Meat Processing.” That wasn’t the whole truth. For some reason, it hadn’t bothered my father to watch me kill something, but it’d bothered the heck out of him to watch me butcher it. In fact, counting this antelope, I’d only gutted a kill three times. My father had taken over, gutting the animal himself. Which seemed strange, because Dad never treated me like a girl who might be squeamish. I hadn’t been, but that hadn’t mattered. Every time we’d gone hunting, I made the kill shot; someone else cleaned up the mess.

It struck me, then, how I’d carried that mind-set with me during my sniper years.

Dawson made a disgruntled noise and pulled me back to the present. “It ain’t that hard to butcher. There’s not that much meat on antelope anyway.”

I finally scooped the last of the innards out and rolled my buck to let the blood drain out.

He crouched down and scrutinized my kill. “This is one plump little sucker. He’ll have more meat on him.” Then he said, “Hold still,” and took out a handkerchief. “You’ve got blood on your face.” He dabbed at it. “It’s gone.”

“Thanks.”

“You want that hacksaw now?”

“Yeah.”

Really didn’t take much effort to lob off the head.

We both pushed to our feet, and he handed me another hankie to use on my hands and arms. “Seems crazy that we both got our bucks on the very first shot.”

I shrugged and wiped at the blood. Didn’t seem that odd to me. The one shot, one kill mantra had been drilled into my brain during sniper training.

“Did you bring another gun?” Then he laughed. “Of course you did.”

“You wanna have a little shooting contest? I gotta redeem myself somehow since you whipped my butt in quick field dressing.”

“What’d you bring?”

“H &K P7. Nine mil.”

Dawson shook his head. “I’m not easily intimidated, but Christ, woman, you have a lot of guns.”

“Think of it as the equivalent of other women’s obsession with shoes.”

He laughed again. “Show me.”

I let him go first.

I still won.

By a lot.

Even with my bad eye.

Luckily, my man was a good sport-even if I was a much better shot. We wrapped and strapped up the kills, then started toward the ATVs. Packing out the animal was probably the worst part of hunting. I was surprised birds weren’t already circling above the two piles of guts, waiting for us to leave so they could fight over a quick-and-easy meal. The birds would get the first go, and then the bigger predators would come in and chase them out.

Circle of life and all that shit.

Dawson shouted, “Double time, Sergeant Major, you’re lagging behind.”

• • •

At the ranch, we had to lock up the dogs.

I watched Dawson part out the carcass. He’d rinse and cut and rinse some more. Antelope were hairy creatures, and nothing ruined a piece of meat like a bunch of hair frozen to it. But luckily, antelope hair was very fine, and once it floated to the top of the water, it could easily be skimmed or poured off.

His expertise didn’t surprise me, but his efficiency did. He had both bucks skinned, butchered, cleaned, and parted out in two hours. I helped as much as I could-or as much as he’d let me. I was secretly happy I wouldn’t have to walk past an animal kill for several days waiting for the meat processors.

As soon as he finished, he hit the shower. By the time I cleaned myself up, Mason was packed and anxious to go. It’d take at least seven hours to reach Denver.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” he asked.

“It’s best if you and Lex have time to talk, without his mother or me around.” I kissed his cheek. “Besides, you’ll be back in twenty-four hours. I can find something to occupy myself.”