Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) (4 page)

Riley looked back out across the crowds and processed the information. She went through the details she had observed as he paused at the top of the stairs. Flat nose, sharp cheekbones, and a Fu Manchu mustache. He was Southeast Asian of some sort, but she did not think he was Thai. Most men here were small, but there was something more solid about this man. He wasn’t tall—only about her height—but he seemed to take up more space. Broad shoulders, narrow waist. Long hair, mostly gray with black streaks, pulled up into an odd knot at the top of his head. She put him in his late forties. Blue jeans, leather sandals, a denim shirt with sleeves rolled partway up his forearms
showing the blue ink of tattoos. And he carried a tooled leather satchel embossed with an exotic primitive design slung over his shoulder.

She was pleased with the number of details she had been able to recall. It was important to her to keep in training. After two tours as an MSG, some behaviors were so ingrained, she would probably not be able to give them up if she wanted to. She didn’t really think he was any threat, but her training had taught her not to make that judgment too soon.

Turning her head away from the lower terminal, she pretended to check the time on her watch. He was sitting at a table off to her left and slightly behind her. An unopened bottle of water stood on the table in front of him.

She stood and walked toward the stairs. As she passed him, the man looked up and their eyes met. His eyes looked hard and flat as black glass. Riley walked on and continued down the stairs.

As she crossed the terminal floor, following the signs that directed her to the Metro, Riley took one last glance at the second-floor coffee shop. The man was standing at the rail watching her. When she reached the top of the stairs leading into the tunnel, he still had not moved.

The Red Dog Ranch
Virginia City, Nevada

November 15, 2012

During the last mile of their walk, Tess had been running off, nose to the ground, hackles raised, and disappearing into the pinyon and juniper woods on either side of the trail. Elijah Hawkes hoped his dog hadn’t found herself a bear or a bobcat. He had his boot knife, as always, but he hadn’t brought his bow, and he’d damn himself for that if the opportunity presented itself. Elijah had always wanted to bag a bear—he’d even reserved a spot for the head on the wall in his game room.

The shadow of the ridge was already upon them. It was only late afternoon but night came on early here deep in the basin. Elijah whistled for his dog and heard her trotting through the underbrush before he saw her.

“Heel, Tess.”

She fell in line, just off his left boot. Tess was a great dog. All German wire-haired pointers were smart, and they were good hunters, too, but few matched this one. At age four, she was seventy-five pounds
of pure muscle under her white and liver-spotted coat. Her face was what gave her character, though, with her reddish-blond bushy eyebrows and beard and her golden-yellow eyes.

Those eyes looked up at him now as she whined softly.

He was about to ask her what was wrong when he heard the
yip-yip
from the mountain far above them.

Coyotes.

Elijah stopped and swung his head around to pinpoint the direction of the pack. He knew it would be that pack. There were four coyotes he recognized who roamed the hills around his ranch, and one of these days he was going to send his hired man Caleb out to shoot them. They were pests who stole his chickens and spooked the horses.

“Come on, Tess. You pay them no mind. Let’s get home.”

When Elijah started up the trail this time his pace was quicker. It was no good slowing down and getting lost in thought when this walk was a cornerstone in his daily regimen to keep his body in top shape. That was a requirement of his business—at least of what his business had evolved into. And he was very good at everything he did. Now, it would be best to get Tess inside away from that damn pack. He took his hands from his pockets and swung his arms at his sides as he lengthened his strides. The cold air stung his lungs and the bare flesh of his fingers. It would certainly dip below freezing tonight.

Soon the trees thinned and he could see the two-story wood-framed ranch house in the clearing halfway up the side of the ridge, smoke puffing from the stone chimney and the yellow lights in the windows welcoming them back. The house,
his
house, nestled into the hillside like it belonged there, like a God-made natural part of the ridge. Caleb would be setting the table for his evening meal. Elijah could see his own breath now as he climbed the hillside. He slowed his pace when he rounded the barn and the empty horse paddock. Tess trotted ahead and sat by the kitchen door. All of this belonged to him. He’d come a long way from that troubled kid getting into fights on the
streets of Reno, running away from his older sister and guardian. He’d done all right for himself.

Elijah settled into his comfortable leather chair in front of the fire in the game room that doubled as his study. Elijah found that when he needed to write reports or read difficult mining texts, the heads of the deer, wild boar, mountain lion, and all the others calmed him, put him into a sort of transcendental state. There were times when he even talked out loud, though he’d not admit to anyone that he was in fact talking to the animals. He’d done his best work in here.

He stretched out his legs and admired his new boots. They were handmade black Lucchese American-alligator boots, and they’d cost him over four grand. Right now they looked pretty much like any pair of dusty cowboy boots, and that thought made him smile. Caleb would clean them later. Yes, he thought, looking around the walls of his favorite room, the good Lord had favored him.

Tess trotted in and placed her wet muzzle on his knee. He didn’t scold her. Caleb would have filled her water bowl after the long walk, and she deserved the drink. Elijah reached for the scotch he’d poured himself earlier, and thought,
We’ve both earned our drinks after that trek.
Tess would eat her evening meal later when he did—though hers would be out in the kitchen with Caleb. He scratched her ears, and she closed her eyes in bliss. Though his servant might feed her and care for her while Elijah traveled, it was clear to him that the dog recognized and revered her master. She was a purebred animal, after all.

“All right,” he said. “That’s enough.” She turned for the door, then stopped, ears up, head cocked to one side, staring at the black window. Elijah didn’t hear a thing, but he had grown accustomed to his dog’s supersonic hearing. If it was a serious threat, she would let him know. Most of the time, she was just being curious about the night sounds of the wilderness.

“Tess, go on. Go lie down.”

From the end table next to his chair, he retrieved a folded-back copy of
Western Miner Magazine
, and he returned to studying the advertisement for the double-layer trommel with submersible water pumps and a hydraulic-powered belt for the hopper and sluicing box. It was for sale up in the Yukon. They were asking half a million, and he wondered what they’d really take for it.

His phone pinged and vibrated. He straightened out one of his long legs and pulled the phone out of his jeans pocket.

It was a text message from the Brightstone Security Group, the corporate front for his real employers.
Problems at the Benguet Mine in Baguio. Booked you on 11:30 a.m. flight San Francisco to Manila.

He leaned back into the soft leather and a small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Back to the Philippines. This was good. He’d wanted to go back for several months now. Much as he loved the ranch, winter was setting in and Caleb wasn’t the best company. He closed his eyes and pictured Esmerelda, the young girl he’d met the last time he was in Manila. She was fascinated with the dragon tattoo on Elijah’s back. It had that effect on Asian girls—his preference. Esmerelda was a tiny little thing who barely spoke more than a few sentences in English. But what a body. Much better company than Caleb.

Elijah looked up when he heard a long mournful howl not far from the house. The
yip-yipping
started up again—more excited now, it sounded almost like screaming. Then he heard Tess’s deep warning bark, also from outside the house.

Elijah flew up out of the chair and stormed into the kitchen. “Goddammit, man, why did you let the dog out?”

Caleb Penn stood at the kitchen sink washing lettuce. He wore a black apron over his blue work shirt. As he stepped to turn, his right shoulder dropped and he hitched his body around, swinging his artificial leg with it. “She was scratching at the door. I figured she had to pee.”

“What kind of a moron are you? Are you deaf as well as crippled?” Elijah yanked opened a drawer and rummaged around until he found his LED flashlight.

“Tess can handle herself against a coyote, I reckon.”

Elijah grabbed his coat off the peg. “But not against a pack.”

When Elijah stepped outside, his eyes weren’t yet accustomed to the dark. The night was pitch-black, but he knew his way around the ranch blindfolded, so he took off at a trot. Tess’s barking sounded close; he figured they had her surrounded in the woods on the other side of the paddock. He’d heard that a lone coyote would often come into the yard acting all doggy-friendly-like to lure the domestic dog off to the spot where the pack waited. It sounded like that spot hadn’t been very far away this time.

When the barking stopped, he slowed down. He didn’t want to come on them so fast they’d turn on him—he hadn’t brought a gun. He had only his boot knife with him, but in his hands the blade was all that would be needed. He was at the tree line anyway, and he couldn’t hit a target he couldn’t see, regardless of the weapon. Though his eyes had adjusted to the night’s darkness, it was darker still inside the woods.

Ahead of him he heard low growling. It was Tess. They must be closing in, and she didn’t like it one bit.

At once the night exploded with yipping, growling, and cackling that sounded like maniacal laughter. The coyotes had moved in for the kill.

He clicked on the powerful flashlight. More than a hundred feet ahead, through the trees, the beam reflected off a pair of sly eyes that glanced in his direction for a second. Then the animal’s head turned away from the light, and the beast lunged forward. In the shadows he saw a blur of moving fur.

The beam of light bounced as Elijah ran yelling at the snarling pack. He heard Tess yelp once and then growl and snarl. He figured she was giving as good as she got. When he was about fifteen feet away from them he saw one animal slink off into the darkness. Another followed after.

He was surprised the other two hadn’t fled also. They seemed not to notice him in their bloodlust. Tess was standing her ground, teeth bared and hackles raised. She was bigger than both of the coyotes and was swinging her head from one to the other, daring either of them to attack.

Elijah reached into his boot. When one animal stepped forward to nip at Tess, Elijah drew back, aimed, and let the knife fly at the other. He felt satisfaction from the sharp cry. There weren’t many men who possessed his strength or skill with knives. The knife had plunged deep into the fur at the base of the coyote’s neck, and the beast’s legs collapsed. The blade must have injured the spinal cord.

The last coyote fled into the trees.

Tess limped toward the downed animal, her low growls loud in the suddenly still night. In the light from his flashlight, Elijah saw her ear was torn and bleeding.

He called her name. When he reached her side, his dog gave his hand a single lick, then she turned back, lowered her head, and growled again at the injured coyote.

Elijah patted her side, then passed the light over her body, checking for damage. He saw numerous blood spots in the wiry hair on her back. Closer inspection showed them to be puncture wounds. One of her back legs had a bone-deep gash. He waved her back and told her to stay.

He knelt next to the downed animal and saw the white-rimmed eyes and flared nostrils as the coyote struggled to move his paralyzed body. The tongue hung out the side of his mouth and clouds of foul-smelling steam puffed out from his labored breathing. Elijah
reached his arm out slowly, not sure how much movement that head and mouth were still capable of. Then in a single, quick movement, he pulled the knife out of the flesh. He heard the animal’s breath catch as the head twitched and blood oozed out across the matted fur.

Tess whined. Elijah stood and swung the flashlight around. In the beam of light he saw his dog lying in the dirt, licking at the gash on her leg. He heard a low animal-like noise and realized it was coming from deep inside him.

Elijah turned back to the filthy beast and felt his jaw muscles tighten. The flashlight fell from his hand.

He grabbed the bloody fur at the nape of the coyote’s neck, then yanked up the head and pulled his blade across the taut throat. Blood sprayed over the ground. Elijah grunted and shook the head. The body, attached only by the bones of the spine, appeared to dance in the dirt. Then he dropped the carcass and stood still, breathing in the cold night air through his nose, smelling the overpowering scent of fresh blood.