Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

He had a momentary flash of panic — never before had such a thing happened! — and took his eye from the scope to get an unimpeded visual on the fleeing woman. She was much farther away than he had figured; the angle was oblique, dust floated in the air. Impossible shot! Only seconds remained as she and the girl raced toward the pass.

He fought his terror, and instead let the rifle sit, and picked up his secret advantage in all this, a set of Leica binoculars with a laser range finder, since unknown distance shooting is almost pointless, and he put the glasses on her to see the readout as it shot back to him, straight and true. She was now 765 meters, now 770, racing away.

His mind did the computations as he figured the lead, all while setting the binocs down and reacquiring the rifle, flipping through a bolt throw with the shell ejecting cleanly to the right. A lifetime’s experience and a gift for numbers told him he had to shoot a good nine meters ahead of her — no, no, it would be nine if she were preceding at an exact ninety degrees, but she was on the oblique, more like forty-five or fifty degrees, so he compensated to seven meters. A mil-dot — that is, one of a series of dots etched into the crosshairs — in the scope, at this range, was about thirty inches, so when he went back to the rifle, he led her six mils and a mil high, that is, putting her just inside the edge of the solid part of the horizontal crosshair. Impossible shot! Incredible shot! Close to eight hundred meters on a fast-mover at the oblique away from him in heavy dust.

The rifle jolted in recoil and came back to reveal a ruckus of disturbance. He could see nothing. The horse was down, then up, bucking and kicking in fury, dust floating in the air.

He cycled the bolt again.

Where was she? The child was forgotten but that was not important.

He searched the dust, then put the rifle down and seized the binoculars, which would give him a much bigger field of vision.

Where was she? Had he hit her? Was she about? Was she dead? Was it over? He waited for centuries, and without oxygen. But now, there she was, hit — he could see the blood on her blue shirt — and stiff with the pain of the fall. But she had not gone into shock, was not surrendering and, like many who discover themselves in mortal circumstances for the first time, giving up to lie and wait for the final blow. Heroically she moved away from the horse and the dust to the edge.

Soft target. Giving herself up for the girl, who didn’t matter.

She was at the edge.

He put the binoculars squarely on her and had just a glimpse of her face, only the fleetest impression of her beauty. A melancholy closed upon him, but his heart was strong and hard and he put it away. He pressed a button to fire a spurt of smart laser at her and it bounced back and he looked to the readout and got a range of 795 meters, and knew he’d have to hold dead center of the first low vertical mil-dot.

He set the binocs down, went back to the rifle and saw her at the edge, just standing there, daring him to concentrate on her while the daughter vanished into the shadows of the pass. The woman’s foolish courage sickened him. Her dead husband’s insane courage sickened him.

Who were these people? What right did they have to such nobility of spirit? Why did they consider themselves so special? What gave them the right? He put the center of the first mil-dot below the horizontal crosshair on her.

The hatred flared as he pulled the trigger.

The rifle jolted. Time in flight was about a second, maybe a little less. As the 175 grains of 7mm Remington Magnum arched across the canyon, tracing an invisible parabola, unstoppable and tragic, he had the briefest second to study her. Composed, calm, on two feet, defiant even at the end, holding her wound. Then she disappeared as, presumably, the bullet struck her. She tumbled down and down, raising dust, until she vanished from sight.

He felt nothing.

He was done. It was over.

He sat back, amazed to discover the inside of his jacket soaked with sweat. He felt only emptiness, just like the last time he’d had this man in his scope — only the professional’s sense of another job being over.

He put the scope back on the man. Clearly he had been eliminated. The gravity of the wound, its immensity, its savagery, was apparent even from this distance. But he paused. So resilient, so powerful, such an antagonist. Why take the chance?

It felt unclean, as if he were dishonoring someone who might be as great as himself. But he again yielded to practicality: this wasn’t about honor among snipers but doing the job.

He threw the bolt, ejecting a shell, and put the crosshairs squarely on the underside of the chin, exposed to him by the man’s supine, splayed position. This would drive a bullet upward through the brain at eighteen-hundred feet per second. A four-inch target at 722 meters. Another great shot. He calmed himself, watched the crosshairs still, and felt the trigger break. The scope leaped, then leaped back; the body jerked and again there seemed to be a cloud, a vapor, of pinkish mist. He’d seen it before. The head shot, evacuating brains in a fog of droplets. The fog dissipated. There was nothing more to see or think.

He rose, threw the rifle over his shoulder. He gathered the equipment — the ten-pound sandbag was the heaviest — and recased the binoculars. He looked about for traces of himself and found plenty: scuffs in the dust, the three ejected shells, which he scooped up. He grabbed a piece of vegetation from the earth and used it to sweep the dust of his shooting position, rubbing back and forth until he was convinced no sign of his having been there existed. He threw the brush down into the canyon before him, and then set out walking, trying to stay on hard ground so as to leave no tracks.

He climbed higher into the mountains, expertly and without fear. He knew it would be hours at the least before any kind of police reaction to his operation could be commenced. His problem now would be the remote possibility of running into random hunters or hikers, and he had no wish to kill witnesses, unless he had to, which he would do without qualm.

He walked and climbed for several hours, finally passing over the crests and descending to rough ground. He hit his rendezvous spot by three and got out the small transmitter and sent his confirmation.

The helicopter arrived within an hour, flying low from the west. The evac was swift and professional.

He was done.

Bob rode up through the trees and across the barren, high desert to the mountains. He loped easily along, trying to calm himself, wondering if he could make it before the sun rose fully. The black dogs seemed to have gone back to their kennel. They kept no schedule, nothing set them off; they were just there some days and not some others. Who knew? Who could tell, who could predict?

He tried to think coherently about his future. Clearly he could not stay here much longer, because the weight of living off his in-laws was more than he could bear. It turned all things sour and made him hate himself. But he doubted he could get started in his profession, which was running a lay-up barn for horses, not until he sold his spread in Arizona and had the money to invest in an upgraded barn and other facilities. Plus, it would mean getting to meet the local vets, getting them to give him referrals. Maybe the place was already crowded with lay-up barns.

He could sell his “story.” Too bad old Sam Vincent wasn’t around to advise him, but Sam had come to a sorry end in that Arkansas matter which even now Bob had his doubts about starting up. It got a lot of people killed, for not much but the settling of forgotten scores. He had some shame left in him for that thing. Maybe scores weren’t worth it.