Ridley Pearson - Killer View

He climbed a tree to verify his position, keeping the pack and both rifles with him. From his position thirty feet up, he had an unobstructed view of a cirque of rock to the south, bejeweled and glistening in the spectacular afternoon sunlight; to the east, a semiforested expanse that trailed down toward the small town of Challis, just the roofs of a few small buildings visible. Dead center, looking southeast, stood a small log cabin in a sea of white, alone at the top of an escarpment, looking to him like a mole on a man’s bald head.

Carefully scanning the area with a pair of binoculars, he spotted the elk herd slightly north, watering at a spring above the bald man’s left ear. A mighty herd at that-thirty to fifty head. He located the herd’s only buck, carrying a monstrous twelve-point rack that he’d have loved to have on the wall of his own cabin. But that was for another day.

He returned to the snow and moved deeper into the forest, working his way silently to the very edge of the trees, less than fifty yards from the front of the cabin and the apron of snow that surrounded it. The snow was deep, so he climbed fifteen feet into a lesser tree and found a perch. He sighted the CheyTac and strapped it to a branch so that it was firmly locked onto the lower-left corner of a window to the left of the cabin’s front door. At this distance, he could have shot a screw out of the door hardware, if he’d chosen to.

Next he readied the dart rifle directly alongside the CheyTac, slinging a pouch at his waist carrying four extra darts. It was a double shot: the CheyTac would shatter the window so the dart could travel through smoothly and on target, a difficult, technical shot that only made it all the more attractive to him.

He had no plans to kick in the door. Playing Bruce Willis was definitely Plan B. Patience was a hunter’s true gift. His best tool: the ruse. He doubted he could coax the good doc to come outside onto the porch, but that was why he’d brought the two rifles. The double shot would do the trick.

He rechecked the sights of both rifles-the CheyTac was strapped in place, the dart rifle free. He spent fifteen minutes getting the setup just right: the CheyTac would be triggered with his left hand; the D93S aimed and fired from his right. He’d have just the one chance because of the single dart. After that, like it or not, he’d have to pull a Bruce Willis on the cabin. The narrator inside his head favored this second option. The hunter opted for the first.

With a piece of Velcro holding the barrel of the dart rifle in place, Coats produced a double-reed elk bugle from his pack and held it to his lips. The bull elks bugled when in rut, and, though the season had just passed, the snow had come early, and it was not impossible that a male might still be out here, sounding his call. A vet would know this. Only the most effective bugling would ensure success.

But he was a professional hunter. Few understood the art of duplicating the wailing oboelike sound of an adult bull elk as he did. He believed any vet, any hunter, would be drawn by the chance to see a bull elk up close. There were few animals as beautiful and regal.

The procedure took some practice: sound the bugle; secure the device in his belt, reach for the D93S, and pull his eye to scope. Bugle, belt, rifle, scope. He waited. He tried another dry run. It took five seconds for him to get the bugle stashed and his eye to scope. It would take a person in that cabin at least a few seconds to get to a window upon hearing it.

Bugle, belt, rifle, scope.

He was ready.

He let out an enormously loud bugle, quavering with tremolo- more of a shriek than a cry. His eye focused on the cabin window… waiting… waiting.

No one came.

Another try: a second loud bugle-a trill up and down an out-of-tune scale, a screech, like fingernails on a blackboard.

Eye to the scope.

Light shifted on the far side of the window. It was an incredibly subtle change, but something was moving inside the cabin. Coats exhaled and then drew in a deep breath, his index finger moving from the trigger guard to in front of the trigger.

Demonstrating the patience of a martial arts master, our hunter slows his bodily functions in apprehension of the shot.

Steady.

His trigger finger never falters as he holds himself as still as a statue.

Another change of light. A slight movement of the curtain.

There! The curtain was pushed aside. Seen through the scope, the hand looked gigantic. A head moved into the frame: a man. Middle-aged. He could see the day-old whisker stubs on the man’s cheeks.

Aker.

The scope’s crosshairs stopped a few centimeters from dead center. He trained this magnified empty space on Aker’s chest, his own heart thumping wildly. His left hand came up and found the CheyTac’s trigger. He had yet to breathe, still working on the same breath. He squeezed: left, then right.

The CheyTac’s recoil ripped it off the limb, but that scraping sound was the only noise it made. The D93S popped, sounding like one strong handclap.

Through the scope, he saw flashes of blinding light as the window shattered. Pieces of glass rained down both inside and out. The curtain fluttered.

Then nothing.

No indication of success.

No indication of failure.

Nothing.

He jacked the CheyTac into place, ready to unload the magazine, if need be. If he’d missed with the dart, if the doc made a run for it…

He waited. One minute… Two…

He had no choice.

Time for Uncle Bruce.

THE BARREN, SNOW-COVERED HILL ROSE STEEPLY FROM THE locked gate like a bubble of shaving cream. A primitive road had been cut into the winding hillside, jutting out like a frown. Walt saw what might have been tracks-it could have been game or people-but there was too much drifting snow to know for certain.

The top of Mark Aker’s four hundred acres abutted the western edge of the Challis National Forest. A quarter mile to the west ran Yankee Fork Road, a dirt track, snowed in for the winter, that connected the town of Challis to the abandoned mining town of Sunbeam. To the east were a few sprawling ranches. This was God’s country, the last vestiges of community before the National Forest spread north and east for hundreds of square miles.

“No sign this gate’s been opened recently,” Brandon complained. “You still want to go through with this?”

A sharp but distant rifle report sounded. Small-gauge, Walt thought, as he connected the sound to the one he’d heard the night of the search: like a limb snapping. If anything was the Wild West, it was Challis, Idaho; the sound of a rifle, even out of hunting season, would normally have been of no interest. The reverberating dull echo prevented Walt from determining the direction of origin, but its proximity to Aker’s cabin put a spur in his backside.

“Hurry!” It had taken him all morning to round up Brandon and to make the three-hour drive. The sound of a gunshot fueled his impatience.It made sense that Mark might hide his family here-with the property listed under Francine’s maiden name there was little chance it would be connected by others to Mark-but maybe they hadn’t been the only ones to figure it out.

They vaulted the gate. Walt pulled his snowshoes through and was strapping them on as Brandon beat him to it and started up the unplowed road.

Walt charged off and quickly caught up, the technique more familiar to him. Larger and heavier, Brandon sunk down more deeply and couldn’t find a rhythm to his mechanics. Within a minute or two, Walt found his pace and passed Brandon. Brandon then leaned into the hill and regained lost ground, pulling even with Walt. It didn’t escape Walt that they were acting like schoolboys, but it didn’t slow him any either.