Andrew Peterson - First to Kill

Nathan’s plan was simple. Since Leonard couldn’t be in two places at once, he and Harv would separate. He’d head toward the money cache while Harv doubled back to the helicopter. Through a series of purposeful ploys, he planned to lure Leonard to his end of the canyon, leaving Harv free to fly Grangeland to safety. He hoped Harv was ready for his first solo flight.

Setting that thought aside for now, Nathan crawled down the length of the fallen log, shouldered his rifle, and scoped the canyon’s southern wall. Although he had a pair of field glasses, he always used his rifle. If he saw his mark, he was instantly ready to send a bullet. If his opponent was on the move, he didn’t see any evidence of it. The few sandy areas he could see were virgin, lacking discernable footprints. He steeled himself for what lay ahead, that damned thirty-foot expanse of sand and brush. If he were going to get nailed, he knew it would happen out there. It looked as vast as the Sahara Desert, but there was no avoiding it and no way around it. He had to traverse it. Simple as that.

Here goes.…

Moving no faster than a foot every five seconds, he started his crawl across the sand.

He ran the math through his head to distract himself from the pain and wet sensation in his arm. Thirty feet times five seconds per foot. One hundred and fifty seconds. Two-and-a-half minutes. That’s not so long really, after all, it’s-

Halfway across the sand, he froze.

Had he heard something behind him?

A crunch of leaves?

If Leonard was back there, he was a sitting duck out here in the open. He knew his ghillie suit transformed him into a shrub, but what about the tracks he left crawling out here? Moving his head slowly, he snuck a look over his right shoulder and was surprised when he didn’t see any deep tracks. He hadn’t remembered brushing them flat with his legs at he moved, but he must have. He’d done it on autopilot, on pure instinct from his old training. I’ll be damned , he thought.

There it was again.

A crunch of dried leaves.

He was certain this time.

Staring through the thinly spaced stalks of underbrush, he watched for any sign of movement. Expecting to see a pair of combat boots, a chill raked his spine when he saw the source of the noise.

A mountain lion.

And a damned big one. Two hundred pounds of solid muscle, sharp claws, and yellow ivory was a mere twenty feet away.

Taking slow, deliberate steps, the animal slinked forward with its head low, its eyes searching for the source of blood it smelled. Had the rifle shots awakened it? Nathan knew mountain lions were mostly twilight predators. The rifle shots should’ve spooked it, made it haul ass out of here, but a fresh blood scent triggered a powerful instinct, especially if it was hungry.

When it reached the edge of the fallen log Nathan had traversed a minute earlier, it sniffed the ground and froze. Then it looked him straight at him.

Go away, damn you. Go away!

Like something out of a developing nightmare, it took a step into the sun-bleached sand.

Moving as slowly as humanly possible, he eased his hand down to his gun belt and pulled his Sig Sauer. There was no way to unsling his rifle without significant body movement, which would certainly make the animal charge. It would be upon him in one bound. He searched his database of survival training on encounters with mountain lions. Never run was at the forefront of his memory.

Now less than two body lengths away, the animal kept coming. Being concealed in his ghillie suit didn’t matter. The cat’s eyes weren’t guiding it.

Something else shot through his mind. Movement. The cat was a damning source of movement, and movement is what catches the eye.

From deep shadow on the south rim of the canyon, Leonard followed the lion through his rifle scope and smiled. It seemed to be following an invisible scent. Quite possibly his opponent. He watched the animal pace the length of a fallen log and approach the edge of a dry streambed that fed the larger stream in the middle of the canyon. It froze for a few seconds before stepping out into the sand.

If Nathan were going to shoot this lion, he’d better do it within the next two seconds while he still had the angle to manage the shot from the hip. If he wasn’t precise with his aim, he could easily blow a hole in his own foot. Damn it, he didn’t want to kill such a magnificent predator. In many ways, they were just alike, but his own survival and that of Harv’s took priority. He also knew as soon as he pulled the trigger his cover was blown because if his first shot wasn’t fatal or severely crippling, he’d have to shoot the animal a second time, and possibly a third. The first report would alert Leonard to his general location, but the second and third reports would pinpoint him. He might was well stand up and wave a flag.

Both his options were equally unpleasant.

He could lie here and be mauled to death, literally eaten alive or he could shoot the cat, and in turn be shot himself. All things being equal, he preferred the second option, but it had already expired. The animal was directly beside him now, he no longer had the angle to shoot it.

He heard the sound of its paws on the sand.

He buried his face into his shoulder and stopped breathing. If he played dead, maybe it would lose interest and move on. Deep down, he knew it was wishful thinking. A mountain lion will just as soon scavenge for food than hunt it.

The cat brought its face to within inches of Nathan’s head.

Its hot breath penetrated the strips of his ghillie suit and brushed the skin on his neck.

It issued a low, growling murmur deep in its throat as it realized it had found the source of the fresh blood. An easy meal.

The cat issued a second, more forceful growl and jabbed Nathan’s neck with a paw. It was funny what the human mind was capable of thinking at times like these. With bizarre detachment, Nathan thanked God it had missed his wounded arm, but that thought died when he felt cool air on his skin. The cat’s jab had opened a hole in his ghillie suit.

The animal pushed again. Harder.

His lungs screaming for air, Nathan continued to play dead. If things kept going like this, he wouldn’t have to play dead.

Go away!

When he felt the cat’s sandpaper tongue lick the back of his exposed neck, he’d had enough.

With as much strength as he could muster, he simultaneously issued a war cry, the loudest, most fierce sound he could make. He snapped his body to the left and cracked the cat in the nose with the butt of his gun.

* * *

Leonard watched the animal traverse the sand and stop at some sort of low shrub. It lowered its head and sniffed. Had it lost the scent? If it had been following someone, where were the tracks? Looking for human footprints, he swung his scope back to the edge of the underbrush where the cat had emerged, cranked it to maximum zoom, but saw only the cat’s footprints.

At the left edge of Leonard’s magnified image, he caught sudden movement. He swung the rifle back. “What the fuck?” he said aloud. The mountain lion jumped six feet into the air. When it landed, it bolted away from the shrub at a full gallop.

The shrub went vertical and began sprinting across the sand. Not a shrub, a ghillie suit and a damned fine one at that. “Oh, you’re good,” Leonard said. He placed the crosshairs slightly ahead of the green mass.

And pulled the trigger.

Nathan’s timing had to be perfect. He needed to vary his speed as he ran. Now! Five feet from the safety of cover, he hit the brakes and nearly skidded to a stop. A split-second later, he heard the telltale crack of a supersonic arrival. Out in front to his right, the sand exploded from the impact. If he’d kept running at the same speed… Using his left hand, he pointed the Sig at the ground slightly left and ahead of his path and fired five shots. The sand burst into the air. It wasn’t much cover, but it would have to do. He dived into the underbrush on the opposite side of the wash and scrambled behind the thick trunk of an oak. He pressed his back against its form as a second bullet tore past his position on the left.