Linda Howard: Prey

Angie had just acquired Chad in her scope when he screamed; a split second later, he disappeared in a blur of motion. She jerked the rifle from her shoulder and stared in frozen horror at the nightmare taking place in front of her.

It was happening again, just as it had happened the night of the storm, the hellish images bombarding her brain and savaging it, swamping her with blind panic. She thought she screamed, but her throat wouldn’t work and the scream stayed inside, tearing its way through her heart and stomach and mind. She could hear Dare-she thought she could hear him, but she wasn’t certain, she couldn’t make out any words because something in her mind had simply disconnected.

The bear tore Chad Krugman apart. Time slowed to the speed of molasses and the attack seemed to last forever, though deep inside she knew only seconds had passed, seconds that were all such a powerful predator needed to kill its prey.

Then -God !-the bear tossed Chad’s remains aside and began coming down the hill toward them.

The horse. The bear smelled the horse, and maybe Dare’s blood, though how it could smell more fresh blood when its snout was covered with gore, she didn’t know. She didn’t know how she could think at all. She didn’t know how she could move.

But she did. Every movement felt as if she were caught in the mud she’d dreamed about, the stupid idiotic cake icing, but she lifted the rifle to her shoulder, looked through the scope, acquired her target, which was looming larger and larger as it padded down the slope. This was a bad angle, almost straight on; the perfect shot was heart and lungs but its head was down, swinging back and forth. She couldn’t wait for a perfect shot. She inhaled, let part of her breath out, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The firing pin snapped, but nothing happened. Shit! What had she done wrong? Hadn’t she completely locked the bolt home? Swiftly she worked the bolt, ejecting a cartridge, slammed the bolt home. The bear was closer, making a deep grunting, barking sound in its chest, forty yards away, getting ready to charge.

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

She heard herself swearing, heard Dare saying something and some instinct had her moving from behind the boulder, drawing the bear’s attention to herself, God, anything to keep him away from Dare-

“Angie!”

She heard the roar, jerked her head a little to the side just in time to see Dare’s blood-drenched face as he grabbed up his own rifle with his left arm and tossed it to her. The weapon seemed to sail in slow motion through the air toward her, sunlight glinting on the barrel, the glass lens of the powerful scope.

The bear was at thirty yards.

She caught the rifle, jerked it to her shoulder, took a split second to settle the crosshairs on the bear’s head, and fired. Before the powerful explosive crack of the shot had faded she ejected the spent cartridge, slammed the bolt home again.

The bullet caught the monster in the shoulder. It roared, spinning around, then abruptly charged straight toward her.

Angie fired again, hit him again. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” she screamed, answering it roar for roar because by God she wasn’t going to run, she wasn’t going to let it get to Dare. She worked the bolt one last time. This was it. If this last shot didn’t take him down, they were both dead. A wounded bear could do massive damage. She wanted to panic, maybe she had already panicked and just didn’t realize it yet, but she didn’t have the luxury of time to do anything other than place her last shot straight into his brain.

The massive animal kept moving, sheer momentum keeping it going, then its front legs buckled and it skidded to a halt not ten feet away.

She stood there staring at it, the unbearable stench almost making her gag, but her feet were rooted to the ground and she couldn’t make herself move.

Dare struggled to his feet and staggered toward her, swiping at the blood that had turned his entire face into a red mask. “Angie.” His rough voice was as gentle as it would ever be, could ever be. “Nice shooting, sweetheart.” Very carefully he took his rifle from her, propped it against the rock, then eased his left arm around her.

Her knees buckled, but he was there, his powerful body providing support. Her head swam, and she clutched his coat, afraid she might pass out. She couldn’t faint; she refused to faint. But now that it was over, she could panic. She deserved a little panic. Her vision swam a little, her heart pounded. The temperature was still cold, but her palms were sweating. She’d almost lost Dare. That was all she could think. He’d been bleeding and the bear had been going straight for him, and she’d almost lost him. She’d just found him, and that damn bear-No, she couldn’t even complete the thought, not after watching what it had done to Chad.

She tried to say something, but couldn’t. Dare wrapped both of his arms around her, even the arm that was bloody, and pulled her in close and tight, and she sighed. She cried, but just a little, because she wasn’t a crier. Taking a page from his book, she cussed a blue streak, and felt better for it. She tried to stop shaking, but couldn’t. Finally she simply allowed herself to tremble. She’d earned it, damn it.

When she could think, she said, “Damn it, Dare, you’re bleeding all over me. If you bleed to death I’ll never forgive you.”

He said, “Yeah, I love you, too.”

There were things to do, things she had to do. Afterward she couldn’t be certain exactly when she forced herself from the shelter of his arms, but she did. She made him sit down. She wiped at the blood on his face until she could see the gash above his right eye; it would definitely need stitches. When she questioned him, he admitted that he had a little bit of double vision, so he’d probably given himself a mild concussion when his head hit the rock. She helped him take off his coat and both shirts, so she could examine that wound. It was actually bleeding less than the cut on his head, but it was an ugly wound, purplish and jagged, tearing through the pad of flesh just under his arm. She washed it with some of their drinking water, then tore his T-shirt into strips and tied a thick pad over the wound, then did the same for the cut over his eye.

When she was finished, he said, “If we don’t move away from that stinking fucker, I’m going to choke.”

The smell was overwhelming, but she’d ignored it by focusing instead on taking care of Dare. Now that he’d mentioned it, though, she suddenly found herself gagging, and they moved farther downhill as fast as they could.

Her mind hummed with details, unable to settle on anything. Her rifle hadn’t fired, and she couldn’t figure out why. Dare had cleaned it, reassembled it. The firing pin had worked; she’d heard it.

She’d never handled his rifle before. She hadn’t known at what distance he’d sighted in his scope, she hadn’t thought about it, she’d simply aimed and fired.

The bear had spooked the horse, of course. That was why-

The horse .

“Hey,” she said, “we have a ride.”

“If you can catch it.”

She gave him a withering look, trying to act normal even though it was an effort. Her insides felt like gelatin. “Of course I can catch it. It’s my horse.”

“Then you do that, while I figure out why your rifle wouldn’t fire.”

He needed to be sitting still, conserving both strength and blood, but she didn’t waste time arguing with him because she knew it wouldn’t do any good. They needed to know why her rifle hadn’t fired; Chad was dead and the bear was dead, but that didn’t mean there would be no more danger crossing their path. They had his rifle, sure, but what if something happened to it? The wilderness wasn’t forgiving; for safety’s sake, they should have a backup.