Laurann Dohner - Slade

They left the thick brush finally and she spotted a clearing with a tent set up and the fresh remains of a small fire. Trisha smelled food and her stomach rumbled. A coffeepot sat in the dead ashes of the crude fire pit they’d built with stones in a circle. Trisha paused, turned her head, and met Sully’s mud-brown eyes.

“He’s inside the tent so get your ass in there and help him. Pat, we’re here and the doctor is coming in. Don’t go blowing her brains out before she can tend you.”

Trisha limped toward the tent but nearly screamed in real pain when a fist grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her body back. She stumbled and collapsed to her knees, forcing Sully to release her. Tears blinded her for seconds as she grabbed the back of her head, guessing he’d torn out some of her hair. She looked at Sully in shock when she could see him past the tears.

He had his gun pointed at the tent. “Pat? Call out now.”

Trisha shifted her attention to the tent when no one answered. The tent door had been zipped closed. Sully inched forward and leaned down. He unzipped the tent flaps and jumped back, shotgun pointed inside as he eased back a little more.

“Pat? I want you to call out now.”

65

Laurann Dohner

Silence.

“Bill? Tom? Call out now,” Sully roared.

“Here, sir,” Tom yelled. He stepped out of the woods about twenty feet from where Trisha and Sully were.

Another man, in his forties, balding, with a pot belly, stepped out from the woods across the camp. Trisha guessed that had to be Bill. He nodded at Sully. The three men glared at the tent. Sully nodded to Tom and jerked his head at the tent, keeping his shotgun trained on the opening.

Tom moved forward, shoved his handgun into his shoulder holster, and unfastened the large hunting knife on his thigh. He gripped it firmly and crouched to the side of the tent. He reached out with his left hand and jerked up the zipper, opening the flap to peer inside.

“He’s gone.” Tom gasped.

“Didn’t you raise him on the radio?” Sully sounded pissed.

“No, sir. He didn’t answer. I thought maybe he was sleeping or taking a shit. He can still get around pretty good even with his arm all busted.”

Sully spun to point his gun at Trisha. “When did the animal abandon you?”

She swallowed. “He took off sometime during the night. I fell asleep with him there but when I woke right before the sun rose he’d abandoned me.”

“He’s far from here.” Bill had a deep voice with an accent that hinted at him being Texan or maybe Southern. It was hard to nail down. “As soon as he stopped carrying her he would have taken off like the wind. They can move, Sully. He’s probably put ten miles on us by now. Another team will get him for sure though.”

“Son of a bitch.” Sully lowered the gun he held. “Let’s spread out and find Pat.

Think he’s delirious? He had a fever this morning.”

Bill nodded. “Could be. I told you one of us should stay with him. We’ve been gone since dawn and he could have made some time. One of us will have to stay here with the woman and she can work on him when we find him.”

“We should have carried him out,” Tom muttered. “I told you he could die. What if he gets himself killed out there?”

“I ain’t going to blow that fifty-thousand-dollar reward because Pat is a fool who couldn’t watch where he was going.” Sully’s tone came out harsh.

Bill nodded as he stared at Trisha were she remained sitting on ground. “I’ll stay with the woman while you two split up and search for Pat. I’d guess he would go downhill since it’s easier to travel that way. Maybe he panicked and is hunting for another team, thinking someone will pack him out or maybe he thought he could head to the highway to flag down a motorist.”

“Fuck!” Sully yelled. “Why don’t we just forget him, kill the bitch, and go track our animal? I want that fifty-thousand-dollar reward for one of those animal bastards.”

66

Slade

Trisha kept quiet but reeled from shock. Someone paid a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on Slade? Who would do that? Why? She swallowed. She hoped they would forget she existed. She hated Sully for wanting to just kill her outright.

“You forget,” Bill sighed, “Pat is Thomas’ son. If we don’t go find that asshole, he’ll never give us any reward money for one of those bastards. We need to keep the woman alive until she can patch him up. We have to find that asshole and catch the animal. The animal has been using the ravines and he’ll keep to pattern. We’ll catch up to him along the ridges. Look how much time we’ve gained on him.”

“But he had the bitch slowing him.” Sully ground his teeth together and uttered a curse. “Okay. Let’s do this. Bill and I will split up. You head toward the highway in case Pat headed there. I’ll head after the animal to see if I can catch him. Hopefully he’ll stay low and I can gain on him using high ground. Tom can stay here with the bitch.”

Bill shook his head. “Look at the jerk. He can’t keep from staring at her tits.”

Trisha turned her head toward Tom. He stood there holding his knife, gawking at her breasts again. He grinned.

“I’ll be happy to stay with her.”

“See?” Bill cursed. “We want her alive, dumbass. I’ll stay with the woman while you two split up to search. Tom, head for the highway.”

“Fine,” Sully agreed, shooting a glare at Tom. “You better find his ass though. I’ll hit the ridge to the west to catch the animal faster.”

“But I want to stay with her.” Tom wasn’t happy and it sounded in his high-pitched protest.

Sully pumped the shotgun. “That wasn’t you refusing to take an order, was it? I fucking hate whiners. Your daddy isn’t the moneyman on this deal and nobody gives a rat’s ass if you get shot.”

Fear settled on Tom’s baby-face features. He shook his head vigorously. “I’ll head out now.”

Trisha watched Sully and Tom pack light supplies and then both men took off in different directions. That left Bill to guard her. Trisha studied the man who stared at her. He sighed loudly.

“Hungry? Thirsty?”

“Please,” Trisha urged softly.

Bill stormed to the tent and quickly returned. He carried a soda and a plastic zip-lock baggy containing some kind of sandwich. Bill stopped a few feet from her.

“Catch.”

She held out her hands. He tossed her the soda carefully. Trisha caught it and set it on the ground next to her knees. She held up her hands again and he threw the sandwich. She gave him a grateful look.

“Thank you so much.”

67

Laurann Dohner

“Shut up,” he ordered. “I hate it when I get to know things I have to kill later on.

Just eat and be quiet.”

Trisha hated peanut butter sandwiches but she didn’t complain as she chewed. She was starving and was too hungry to care what she ate. She popped the top of the soda and took long sips. She tried not to scarf her food.

She knew Bill had taken a seat on the ground about ten feet from her and silently watched her every move. She finished her sandwich and tried to save some of her soda.

She didn’t want to drink it all in case Bill wasn’t generous later.

68

Slade

Chapter Seven

“Damn it,” Slade growled softly, watching the males from beneath some brush where he hid. His sense of hearing came in handy as he listened to them make their plans. They had Trisha. Rage gripped him and he fought back the urge to leap into the camp to kill them all.

They weren’t the same men who’d run them off the road. That meant more humans had joined in the search for him and the doc. It worried him not knowing their numbers. The camp setup alarmed him as well. They’d made a base of it in a short time, it meant they were organized, and the danger increased exponentially.