B00C74WTKQ EBOK (16 page)

Linda was amazed that Brownie obviously understood Frank’s instructions.
That’s one damn smart dog, understands English.
Brownie snuffled and grunted and even growled but didn’t let loose with her full voice or bark. Linda had heard Brownie howl more than once when on a trail and she had a beautiful deep voice. It always gave her pleasure to listen to it, but Frank was right—they didn’t want to announce their presence miles ahead of time.

Brownie trailed the thief for several hours, not losing the trail or hesitating. Linda and the other men followed, all carrying slung rifles and holstered pistols. They had brought along a pack of food and two tarpaulins for shelter if needed. Tim carried his pack easily, even at sixty plus years he was in excellent condition. Roman and Linda carried the canteens. Frank carried one of Matt’s converted shotguns that were designed to instantly kill the largest of wild boars with just one shot. He was a tough old hunter, used to long trails in the deep woods, and not a man to trifle with. His shotgun, loaded with slugs, never left his left hand and the dog’s leash never left his right.

Two hours before sunset, they were crossing a creek when a shot rang out and they dove to the ground. Frank was quickly back up and scrambling for cover with the rest of them when another shot from a different spot cracked the air.

“Found them.” Frank said ruefully as they all hunkered behind cover. “At least two of ’em, anyway.”

Lind asked with concern, “Are you hit?”

“Yes’m, but only a scratch across my arm. Lucky thing, not bad at all.”

Tim said, “Tie your dog off, Frank, so she doesn’t get hit when we go after them. They’ll want to shoot Brownie so they can escape. I’d rather not see that happen. Or maybe it’s best if you stay here or go back.”

“I’ll tie her off,” Frank replied tightly. “No son-of-a-bitch shoots and me and gets away with it—hand me a canteen and I’ll fill her a bowl of water and leave her some food.” With that Frank pulled two bowls and a package of dog food from his own pack. He made Brownie comfortable then told her, “Stay still and be quiet, I’ll be back soon.” Brownie laid down and curled up comfortably.

Once again Linda was amazed
. Brownie understands and minds better than Scott.

“Linda,” Tim continued, “you and Roman move to the left, try to spot and neutralize the man that fired from your side. Frank and I’ll go right and do the same. If anyone gets into trouble, sing out.”

Linda said, “Roman let’s go over there and spread out about thirty yards and cross the creek in a rush at the same time, then join up again across the creek and work our way up the hill single file with me in front. When we spot our man we’ll spread out again, depending on the terrain, and get him in a cross-fire. Assuming the asshole hasn’t run away.”

Roman whispered, “They won’t run knowing we have a trail dog, they have to stop us right here. Okay, let’s go.”

They crawled into separate positions, spotting good crossing points for themselves. Linda looked over and saw that Roman was ready, she gave a hand signal and they burst out of the woods running, splashed across the creek and dove into cover again. Two quick shots were fired at them but neither was hit, although Linda heard the sonic crack of a bullet only inches from her ear.

Linda signaled to Roman to join her. He crawled laterally to her, staying under cover. “Okay, now we work our way up the hill, you follow me by a few yards and I’ll signal if I see him.”

For the next hour they carefully moved up the hill in that fashion. Linda stayed low and took her time. She kept her head below the brush line, occasionally looking ahead from the side of a bush. Raising her head up would be asking for it. The problem with this method was that she had to navigate towards where the shots had come from by memory. She had been anxiously awaiting sounds of shooting from the right where Tim and Frank were but hadn’t heard anything.
Apparently they crossed the creek further up, out of sight of their bad guy

Linda signaled Roman to move up beside her. “I think he’s about fifty yards ahead, by that big pecan tree. We’ll split here. You crawl around to the left in a semi-circle and try to flank him. I’ll move over to the right and do the same. Be careful and stay low. Either one of us gets a bead on him open fire. The other will support.”

Roman gave her a thumb’s-up and began slowly crawling away to his left. Linda began moving to her right. It was slow, arduous work, and she had to stop several times to pick thorns from her hands and arms.
Crawling looks easy, but damn it’s hard,
Thirty minutes later she was in a position where she could see the base of the pecan tree but she couldn’t make out the shooter. She inspected the brush under the tree carefully, picking through it visually almost leaf by leaf, looking for anything that didn’t belong there. After a long time she thought she saw a hand, but it was deep in the shadows of the brush and difficult to make out in the now-fading light.
Time to do something, anything. It’ll be dark soon.

Trying to determine where the shooter’s body would be in relation to the hand she thought she might be seeing, she carefully sighted in and squeezed off a shot. Bingo!
Got him, or at least made him move!
She quickly followed up with two more rapidly fired shots and waited to see if he moved again. She heard another shot from her left.
Roman. He must have him in sight, too.
Suddenly the shooter rolled from the brush and Linda pumped another shot into him, knowing for certain she hit him this time.

The man’s body lay still, his rifle had fallen and slid down the slope a few feet ahead of him. Not knowing where the other shooter was Linda didn’t stand up, but crawled carefully towards the body. Within minutes she spotted Roman doing the same. They met in the brush in front of the body. As they came together they heard a single shot from well off to their right.

Linda whispered to Roman, “Bet’cha they got theirs, too.” A few minutes later they heard Tim shout in the distance “We got ours! If you need help fire a shot.”

Linda stood up. It felt good to stand after so long on the ground. She started to shout back to Tim when she heard the crack of a rifle and simultaneously felt a stinging sensation in her leg. Linda and Roman dropped down and got behind cover. Roman looked at Linda’s leg. “You’re hit. Let me look.”

Linda felt the pain and looked down to see blood staining her pants. She pushed the leg over to where Roman could inspect it. He slid her pants leg up to her knee. “Through the outer edge of the calf. Small hole, same size on both sides. It’s going to hurt for a few days, but it should heal up okay.”

Roman wrapped a clean bandanna around the wound and said, “Keep it as clean as you can until we can get a better bandage on it. I’m going after the guy who shot you. I know where the shot came from, see that small boulder over there by that dead tree? He’s behind it, got a glimpse. I’ll move around to get behind him, you stay here and keep the boulder covered. Watch for Tim and Frank, they’ll have heard the shot and think it was a signal for help so they’ll be coming along directly.”

Linda nodded her assent and Roman quickly moved off. She lay in the prone position, rifle trained just above the rock.
Damn that stings!

Roman had been gone fifteen minutes when Linda spotted Tim and Frank coming in from her right. Risking getting shot again, she rose, quickly waving to them, then pointing to the rock before dropping back down. Just as she hit the dirt there was another shot, the bullet buzzing close over her head from the boulder. She had gotten lucky and caught the shooter off-guard. A moment later, she heard Roman’s rifle crack and saw brief motion from next to the boulder. Then Roman casually walked to the boulder
. Got him.

Linda stood and limped towards Roman. Frank and Tim quickly caught up to her, obvious concern on their faces.

“Flesh wound, minor but annoying is all.” Linda said calmly.

They arrived at the boulder where Roman was turning over the body. “Look at that, just a kid. Probably only fifteen or sixteen years old.” Roman looked distressed.

Linda replied, “He chose his path, shot at me twice trying to kill me. Would’ve, too, if he’d been a better shot. Don’t feel bad about it Roman, his fault not yours. He was old enough to have run away instead of attacking, and the little son-of-a-bitch tried to kill me so damn him. Him or us Roman, him or us. Thank you for taking care of him for me.”

Chapter 18

T
he girls were gathered in
a semi-circle facing Race. They were wearing their camouflage and had striped their faces with grease mixed with ashes. Each face was striped horizontally exactly the same way.

They’re scary enough looking
. Race thought.

“Okay girls. We’re going to keep calling ourselves Adrian’s Angels in public—but from here on we call ourselves Adrian’s Rangers in private, as we agreed. He taught us to take care of ourselves, protect each other, hunt food, and be on our own. We’re free and independent but only because of him.”

Race saw in their faces a fierce pride, a justified pride. “For the next two days we’re going to practice scouting and locating the enemy. We’ll go out on patrol from here and make a two day loop back. On day three we’ll rest and clean up then drive back to the ship.”

“Why do we have to go back to the ship?” Alana asked.

“Because we gave our promise to Adrian. We don’t need the ship and they don’t need us, but we promised Adrian and we keep our promises. Don’t we Alana.”

Alana nodded somberly, “Especially to Adrian.” She said quietly. The other girls nodded along with her in full agreement. “Especially to Adrian.” Another of the girls said.

The next morning the girls were moving by first light. They walked single file through the mesquite brush, spaced as far as they could and keep in sight of the girl ahead. The second oldest girl brought up the rear of the line to make sure the younger ones didn’t fall behind. They moved slowly enough to be completely silent and used hand signals for communication.

Race suddenly got a whiff of mesquite smoke and raised her hand to halt the column, each girl in turn raising her hand to signal those behind. She stood for a minute sniffing the air, it smelled fairly close. She signaled a sit-down halt and then moved back down the line checking each of the girls, making sure they had their rifles loaded with one in the chamber and the safety on.

Race chose Lila and Celia to accompany her and ordered the rest wait where they were. With the two girls behind her she began cautiously working her way through the brush following the smell of what she thought must be a campfire.
Excellent, a perfect training opportunity to practice reconnoitering an enemy position.

As she moved towards the smell she eventually spotted smoke curling up from a low spot nearby. She and the two girls moved closer to the smoke, constantly stopping and scanning every opening through which they could see. She was looking for guards, but found none. When they had gotten close enough to hear muffled voices they advanced by crawling. They crawled fifty yards before seeing the camp. Watching for a few minutes and looking for guards the girls slowly and silently crept up to a position from which they could see the camp clearly.

Three men were moving around the campfire. It was a long-term camp, apparent by the amount of debris the men had scattered around it. Two tents stood back of the fire a short distance. The men were bearded and had long shaggy hair, wore filthy clothes and showed no outward signs of being interested in hygiene. Animal remains near the fire suggested that they were living by hunting, and little else. Race didn’t want anything to do with men like these, yet she was completely unafraid of them. As long as she had her rifle she was at least equal to them, possibly superior given her training.

She could now clearly hear the men talking. “Time to go huntin.” One of the men announced as he picked up his rifle. Another man said, “I’ll wait here, don’t feel like hunting today. Stomach’s not right.”

The second man picked up his rifle and snarled at the sick man, “Do your business further off than yesterday, and do it upwind this time damnit.”

The two men with their rifles slung over their shoulders began walking out of camp towards Race.

Damn the luck. They’ll walk right up on us in a second.
She whispered to the other girls, “Safety’s off and fingers on the trigger, but don’t shoot unless I do.” She took her own rifle off safety as she said it.

When the men were twenty feet away Race quickly rose to her feet, followed by the two girls. “Hold it right there mister,” she said in a completely calm voice.

The two men were startled and began to un-sling their rifles. Race raised her voice this time and said, “Freeze! One more twitch and I start shooting.”

“Why, hello, darling! Now isn’t this a sweet surprise?” the first man said after freezing like a statue.

“Hell, no, it’s no surprise. Been watching you for a while now. You two put your rifles down on the ground slowly and without getting anywhere near a trigger and you might get to live to see tomorrow.” Race recognized the look of growing lust on the men’s faces and was disgusted.

“Now sweetheart, don’t get excited. We’ll do just as you say.” Moving slowly the two men lowered their rifles to the ground and let go of them.

“Holler at your man by the fire to come on up here, unarmed.” Race commanded.

When the three men were standing together Race said, “Move over there by that mesquite tree and stand real still. Walk slow and keep your hands on top of your heads.” The men grudgingly complied. This moved the men far to one side.

“Lila, pick up their rifles, get the one in camp and check in the tents for more. Could be more men in there so do it carefully. Bring all their guns back. Don’t hesitate to shoot if you have to, and shoot to kill.”

The lead man cleared his throat and began to speak, but Race cut him off at the first syllable. “Shut up. You have nothing to say that interests me. You just listen with your mouth shut. We’re going to leave you men standing right there. We’ll take your rifles off a ways and leave them for you to find. Do not, and let me make this very clear,
do not
try to follow us. If you follow us we’ll shoot you down like pigs.”