SavageLust (16 page)

“My guess,” Ric said, “is whoever is masterminding this
wants to create the impression that the creature is everywhere. But focusing on
Texas might be a matter of convenience if their headquarters is somewhere in
the state.”

“That’s a lot of miles to cover,” Mark grunted. “And if they’re
in West Texas they could be any-fucking-where.”

“Agreed. And we don’t even know yet if Melinda and Lisa are
the only women they’ve taken,” Ric replied.

A heavy silence fell over the room.

”I have an idea.” Everyone looked at Randi.

“Go ahead,” Ric told her

“Do we have pictures of the two women?”

“I have one of Lisa,” Regan said.

“And I have pictures of Melinda on my phone,” Chloe Guitron
added.

Ric quickly called up pictures of Melinda, Chloe Guitron’s
friend, and Lisa, Reed Fortune’s fiancée, side by side onto the screens.

There was a muted collective gasp as everyone took in the
images.

“They’re so similar! I suspected there might be a reason
these two women were taken, but…” Randi shuddered. “Ric, if I can get copies of
those pictures, I can do a generic sketch of their common features. Then we can
list their physical description and maybe send it out to law enforcement
agencies in the target states, asking if anyone of that description is missing
in their areas.”

Beside him, Dante felt Regan tense and her hand sought his.
He squeezed it with as much reassurance as he could, but the idea that this
might involve more than the two women—women of very obvious physical
characteristics—was as shocking to him as it obviously was to everyone else in
the room.

“You’re absolutely right,” Ric told her. “Holy fucking shit.
I thought it was bizarre enough that they took the two women, but the thought
there may be others?”

“Damn it!” Sam Brody smashed his hand on the table. “Randi
might be right. They could be looking to create a very specific physical type.
But why?”

“For easier access to populated areas, maybe,” Randi
guessed. “I mean, who would suspect a pretty blonde of anything?”

Everyone sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

“Okay,” Ric said finally. “Our situation hasn’t changed. It’s
just more urgent. We all know we’re not just tracking down the devil beast. We
also have to find out where this madman might be doing his thing. And hope that
whoever he’s taken is still alive and relatively safe.”

No one gave voice to what they were thinking but Dante knew
both Regan and Chloe were engulfed in a living nightmare.

“They were both taken in Texas,” he added, “so again, it
seems to be the center of activity.”

“I can take care of sending out the request for missing
women who fit the description,” Garth told them. “We’re tapped into nearly
every database except for the smaller places.”

“Great idea.” Ric nodded his approval.

“Won’t your chief get pissed off?” Dante asked.

Garth gave a humorless chuckle. “He’s got the governor crawling
up his ass on this one. He authorized me to work with you all, if I do it
discreetly and it helps get the monkeys off his back. That means as long as the
media doesn’t get hold of it, he’s good with whatever we do.”

“No guarantees,” Ric warned.

“We’ll have to take some chances,” Garth replied.

“Okay. Randi, give me a few minutes here and I’ll get the
photos for you. Meanwhile, everyone else, go over again the information Garth
has brought to the table as well as Regan’s notes on her brother’s research.
Everything’s plugged into the system so get to it. Somewhere, there has to be a
clue we can follow. I hope.”

“Is there any way to put people on their guard, like we
tried to do in Maine?” Sophia asked.

Garth shook his head. “We’ve got signs and flyers out,
warning people to be on the lookout for any wild game. But if we tried to tell
people to be on the lookout for a legendary beast, they’d either laugh or send
us to the loony bin.”

“And people are unlikely to listen,” Ric pointed out. “I
grew up in an area similar to this. You’ve got everything from coyotes to wild
hogs running around so they’re used to weird animals.”

“But this is more than just a ‘weird animal’,” Rebecca put
in. “It’s…” She threw up her hands. “It’s a nightmare!”

You got that right
, Dante thought. One they all lived
every day.

“Most ranchers keep a rifle handy and shoot anything that
looks dangerous,” Garth said. “They’re confident they can handle whatever comes
along. At least they’ll be armed. I can also post on the Rangers Facebook page.
People have gotten in the habit of checking it for news updates. We also send
out warnings of danger in any area. Every farm and ranch has someone who checks
it daily. We know because we did a labor-intensive survey.”

“It’s been five days since Reed Fortune was killed,” Dante
reminded him. “We’ve already lost more time than we can afford. If we’re going
to do something, we should do it pretty damn soon.”

“Let’s see if Garth can flex his Texas Ranger muscle and
call some of the sheriffs’ departments. Ask them if there have been reports of
small animal carcasses discovered. The beast feeds on them in between human
kills.”

“I can do that,” Garth said. “In fact, I can start on that
tonight. Let me pull up my list from my tablet and get going on it. I’ll post
on the Facebook page too.”

Ric played with one of his special keyboards and in a
moment, more maps appeared on the screen. Dante studied them then pushed
himself out of his chair and walked to the front of the room.

“Let’s all take a look at this map.” He pointed to one that
showed the ranches and population centers of Gillespie and Kendall counties. “I
know I’m not a native here, just a city boy, but I’ve been running a lot, as
you all know. And driving around. I’ve gotten a pretty good visual on the
topography of the area.” He began tracing a line across the map.

“We know from past experience it hunts within a defined
area,” Ric reminded them.

“It will avoid the population centers,” Dante agreed. “We
know that. And I don’t think it will show up in an area like the state park
again. So how about Ric and I assign some of you to check the outskirts of the
few towns in the counties? See if there are outlying places that would be
targets? Isolated farms and ranches too. They’d be excellent hunting grounds.”

“Good idea,” Ric agreed. “We can start on towns and ranches
at dawn, then figure out how to cover the rest of the area.”

“We used snowmobiles to cover a lot of the area in northern
Maine,” Rebecca reminded them. “But I guess there’s too much space to cover
here.”

“And the landscape is divided by pasture fences so we wouldn’t
have clear paths,” Ric pointed out.

“Not that people would listen to us anyway,” Sophia said
with bitterness. “You remember all the trouble we had in Maine getting people to
pay attention.”

“At the moment,” Dante said, “it’s all about identifying
hunting grounds and hopefully spotting a trace of the beast. Then we can figure
out how to alert people in a way they’ll listen.” He turned to Ric. “How about
doing some runs with the helicopter? Maybe we can catch it out in the daylight
like we’ve done a couple times before.”

“Sure. Why don’t you figure out which teams you want to send
where come morning, Garth can get busy on his calls and emails, and I’ll start
plotting some flight paths. I want to get close enough to see if the creature’s
hiding in any of the trees or underbrush but not enough to scare the cattle.
The ranchers would shoot me.”

“Good. We’ll get started.”

As Dante settled in for a long night of checking maps, he tried
to suppress the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that by morning, they’d
be too late.

* * * * *

Harley Shaw was damn glad to see the line shack come into
sight. He’d been riding fences all day, stopping when he needed to in order to
mend breaks in the barbed wire. They’d be moving some of the cattle into this
pasture tomorrow and they couldn’t afford for any of them to get loose. Or
worse, get caught on torn wire and injure themselves. Cattle weren’t as smart
as some people thought.

He’d stopped earlier near a tiny stream, giving his horse a
chance to rest and drink, while he sat beneath a tree and ate his lunch. Most
of the hands didn’t like riding fences by themselves but Harley had learned
long ago to be comfortable with his own company. He didn’t need to make
conversation or laugh at anyone’s bad jokes. He could eat where and when he
wanted and work at his own pace. After twenty-five years of ranching, he pretty
much had his patterns set.

Now, with the sun getting ready to dip below the horizon, he
reached the line shack, where he planned to spend the night. Tina Hammond had
packed food for him, the cabin was kept supplied with staples and while the
bunk provided wasn’t hotel grade, he’d slept on it before and it more than
served his purpose.

He unsaddled his horse and led him into the single-stall
structure built specifically to stable one horse overnight. To protect the
animal from marauders, it was completely enclosed once the door was shut. Tiny
slits near the roof let in fresh air but could be closed in winter.

Harley pulled hay from one of the bales stacked to the side
and scattered it on the floor. After filling a bucket with oats and a pan with
water, he closed the gate on the stall and was closing the door of the
structure when the gelding stamped his feet nervously and whinnied, tossing his
head.

“What’s the matter, boy?” Harley asked, opening the door
again. “We’ve had a long day. Settle down and rest.”

He started to back out again but the horse continued to move
around uneasily. Harley stepped into the single stall and spent a few minutes
scratching the animal’s forehead and rubbing his flanks. Finally settled, the
horse was quiet when Harley once more closed the stall gate, then the door of
the small building.

He made his way to the porch of the shack and
stretched—before suddenly pausing to look around. Whatever the hell was making
his horse uneasy suddenly tickled his own nerve endings.

Walking the length of the porch, he looked off across the
meadow then checked again from the other direction.

Nothing.

Even the breeze had died down.

Doing his best to ignore the sudden itching between his
shoulder blades, he entered the cabin and went about preparing supper for
himself. He ate it while sitting on the porch, watching the last rays of the day
fade away. The gelding once more stamped his hooves in the stall, so Harley
spent a few more minutes soothing him before going inside for the night.

Tossing his shirt and jeans onto a chair, he made sure his
rifle was loaded and propped it against the wall next to the bed. Crawling
beneath the covers, he closed his eyes and within seconds was asleep.

He wasn’t sure what woke him sometime later, but Harley was
abruptly jerked into wakefulness.

Then the gelding’s terrified cries split the air, his hooves
pounding so hard against the wood of the stable, Harley could hear it inside
the shack with the door closed.

And over that sound was an unearthly screech that made the
hair on the nape of his neck stand up.

What the fuck?

Nothing could get in there. Harley had made sure of it when
he’d stabled the gelding for the night. So what in god’s name was making the
horse cause such a commotion? Grabbing his rifle and cocking it, he eased open
the front door.

At first all he saw was the pitch-black night, illuminated
by a three-quarter moon and diamond-like stars.

Then, before he could even move, a creature leaped onto the
porch, an abomination that looked like the spawn of the devil, freezing him in
place. In that moment, as he stared at it, Harley knew what real terror was.

As the odor of turpentine overwhelmed him, the creature
pounced. Pain worse than anything Harley had ever felt stabbed his throat, and
then in seconds he was dead.

Dante studied the map of Gillespie and Kendall counties that
Ric had enlarged the night before, throwing in the edge of Blanco County for
good measure. They had blocked out the dense population centers, concentrating
on open ranch spaces and the outskirts of the few towns. Then Dante had marked
the open areas into sectors, and this morning, he and Ric were doing their best
to prioritize them.

“This won’t be that easy,” he warned. “I don’t think I’ve
really taken a good look at the total geography of this area before. Crap, Ric.
This state is a feeding trough for the beast. There are ten million places for
it to hide and hunt.”

Garth snorted. “Texas is the second largest state in area.
Almost two hundred and seventy square miles. That means lots of wide open
acreage. Or, as we used to say in poker, aces and spaces. So yeah, a playhouse
and feeding ground for the Chupacabra.”

Dante tried to ignore the chill that crept up his spine. The
possibilities for devastation were endless. Somehow, someway, they had to make
a dent in this.

“Okay.” He turned to Ric. “You’re the pilot. Where do you
suggest starting?”

“I think here.” Ric stabbed his finger on the map where
Pedernales State Park was, then drew it from Blanco County into Gillespie.
“Then across the ranches. I’m calling up a diagram that shows where every
single ranch is in these counties, so I’ll fly from the park into Gillespie
County to here.” He pointed on the map again. “That’s for a first pass.”

“Okay.” Dante looked at the others. “Let’s divide into
teams.”

Mark Guitron spoke up. “I know Chloe will want to go with me,
and Dakota with Jonah.”

“Good point. Okay, the rest of you, choose your partners.”
He looked at Ben and Randi. “Ric will be up in the helo and will need someone
with him using binoculars. How about one of you man command central here and
the other fly with Ric?”

“I’ll stay here,” Randi volunteered.

“Good enough. Ben, you’re with Ric then.”

“You don’t want to ride with me?” Ric asked.

Dante shook his head. “I’m going to stick with Regan. We’ll
go back toward Wolf Mountain and scout around Johnson City then back this way.”
He looked at Regan. “I’m going to assume you know the area pretty well since
your brother and Lisa hiked there.”

“I do. He left a detailed map he’d been studying before they
left on their hike.”

“That works, then. Ben, you ride copilot with Ric. And take
the Hannibal. Are you up for it?”

“I can handle it,” Ben assured him.

“So.” He looked at the others again. “Blanco has two centers
of population—the town of Blanco itself and Johnson City, which, as I said,
Regan and I will take. Gillespie has Fredericksburg and Harper. Blanco and
Harper are barely dots on the map so lots of hunting ground. As always, look
for places at the edge of civilization with cover for the beast.”

“Everyone take satellite phones,” Ric reminded them. “You
know how bad cell coverage is around here. The ranch number is already
programmed in.”

“Let’s do it, folks,” Dante told them. “Pick your spot to
check out and get moving.”

* * * * *

Russ Hammond walked into his parents’ kitchen and helped
himself to coffee. He pulled out a chair at the table where Dan was just
finishing breakfast.

“Harley not back from riding fence?” he asked.

Dan shook his head. “No, come to think of it. He probably
stayed at the line shack last night. We keep the place stocked, so it’s
comfortable.”

Russ rubbed the back of his neck. “Call me crazy but I’ve
got this niggling feeling that something’s wrong.”

“What could be wrong? He’s on the ranch and he’s ridden
fence a number of times.”

“I said it’s crazy. And we shouldn’t even be looking for him
until later today. But I think I might take a ride up there. It won’t take that
long. I may be seeing goblins where there aren’t any but something’s biting my
ass.”

“Probably that yappy little dog we haven’t been able to get
rid of.” Dan laughed. “By the way, did you see it out there just now?”

“Nope. Not a sight or sound of it.”

“Maybe it found its way home.”

“If it
has
a home.” Russ sipped from his mug. “Do me
a favor. Try to raise him on the radio, will you?”

“Why? Harley’s a big boy. He’s been doing this a long time.
He’ll get pissed at me for treating him like a kid.”

“Humor me. If everything’s okay I’ll take the heat from
him.”

Dan sighed but picked up the small radio lying near him on
the table and thumbed the transmit button. They’d taken to the small handhelds
a long time ago, what with cell reception as spotty as it was in the grazing
pastures.

“Harley? One of my kids here thinks you can’t wipe your nose
by yourself. You need to holler back and get him off my ass.”

He released the button so he could receive and stared at the
little piece of equipment, waiting.

After a moment, he tried again. “Harley?” His voice was
louder. “Don’t play games with me, you old fool. Come on.”

More silence.

Dan frowned. “This isn’t like him. Harley doesn’t mess
around. Let me try him one more time.”

But the third time didn’t prove to be the charm.

Russ pushed away from the table. “I’m telling you, something’s
wrong.” He pulled his own radio from his belt. “I’ll give Ron a shout. See
where he is and ask if he wants to ride up with me. And I think we’ll take the
off-road if it’s okay with you.”

“Have at it,” he said. “Just don’t traumatize the cattle.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Russ joked. Then he sobered.
“I’d take my horse but the off-road will get me there faster. And I’ve got an
itch that’s telling me it needs scratching right away.”

“Okay. Get your brother then. Radio me when you find Harley.
Tell him he needs to do a better job of keeping in contact.”

“Will do.”

As he walked out of the house, Russ was already talking to
his brother on the radio, telling him to get his ass to the house right away.

* * * * *

Ever since Night Seekers was established, Craig Stafford had
made it a priority to ensure they had the very best equipment in every area.
Whatever they needed, he made it available. The latest addition was a
two-seater Robinson R22 helicopter that was perfect for what Ric had on his
plate today. They still had the Bell 407 but it turned out to be too large for
hunting the Chupacabra. For that ride, they needed only the pilot and a spotter
with a rifle.

He was glad to have Ben Crater in the copilot seat today.
The former Marine had seen the devil beast close up, had been through hellfire
in Afghanistan, was more than proficient on a number of firearms and kept a
cool head. Resting between his knees was a fully loaded A-Square Hannibal .577,
a Tyrannosaur that could stop charging rhinos and rogue elephants. Certainly
enough stopping power for the Chupacabra. Craig had added it to their arsenal
recently. Today would be a good time to try it out.

As Ric flew his first pattern, Ben sat with a pair of Nikon
StabilEyes VR binoculars glued to his eyes, scanning the landscape below.
Typical Texas scrub formed dense clusters here and there on the open range, the
surface broken by hills and by forestation that included oak of many varieties
mixed with other species only found in this area. They grew thickly together,
providing shade for the cattle as well as the indigenous animals. But they also
provided multiple hiding places for the devil beast.

“Nothing yet,” Ben said when they’d completed the first pass
from Wolf Mountain into Gillespie County.

Ric banked the helo. “I’ll fly a grid until we cover every
inch of this sector, then move to another one.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Ric lined the copter up and began moving over a parallel
area, Ben studying the ground below them.

“I’ve got something.”

The words startled Ric. He hadn’t actually expected they’d
find anything. Other times they’d gotten lucky, but only after long searches.

“Is it the creature?” he asked. “Where is it?”

“No. But see that line shack down there?” He pointed through
the windshield.

Ric shifted his gaze. The log cabin came into view. Next to
it was a single-stall stable.

“There’s a body on the porch,” Ben added. “Wait. Holy fuck,
Ric! The devil beast got it. Whoever the poor bastard was, he’s torn from stem
to stern. Jesus Christ!”

Ric banked the helicopter slightly and moved in, looking for
a place to land. To the right, beyond the barbed wire fence that came into view,
a massive herd of cattle was moving in a rolling sea of dark brown. And on the
porch, just as Ben said, the body of a man who knew what the meaning of hell
was.

“Off-road vehicle coming up on the left,” Ben warned.

“I see it.”

He sat the helo down carefully in a cleared space in front
of the cabin and shut off the rotors. They were still winding down when he and
Ben jumped to the ground. The ATV reached them at exactly the same time. Even
seated, the driver was a big man who looked seriously unfriendly. The man
riding behind him, just as large and powerful, appeared to be even more so.

“Hold it!” the driver shouted, driving his vehicle right up
to where they stood. “Don’t go one step closer to the cabin.”

The passenger hopped off before the ATV had completely
stopped and yanked a gun from a holster on his belt.

Ric lifted his hands and noted Ben did the same.

“We’re not trouble,” Ric said in a clear voice. “I assume
this is your place?”

“Our line shack.” The man’s words were curt. “You’re on
private property, so you’d better get back in that thing and take off before I
call the sheriff.”

Ric inclined his head toward the porch. “If that’s your
friend lying there, you’ve got more trouble than just two strangers. And I can
promise you, we didn’t have anything to do with what happened to him.”

“Yeah? What do you know about it and why did you land here?”
Over his shoulder, he said, “Ron, go take a look and see if that’s Harley up
there. And check out the gelding. He’s kicking up a damn fuss.”

He kept his gun trained on Ben and Ric while the driver
hurried to the porch.

“Jesus H. Christ!” the man named Ron shouted. He promptly
bent over and lost the contents of his stomach.

“What?” the man with the gun hollered back at him. “Ron,
what the fuck’s the matter with you?”

“He just got a closeup of what happened to your friend,” Ben
commented.

“I know you don’t have any reason to trust us,” Ric said in
a slow, even tone. “But if you’ll just let me get my wallet, I can at least
prove who we are.”

The man in front of them was obviously torn, wanting to see
what had made the other guy toss his cookies, wanting to see what happened to
their friend, and worried that if he let down his guard, the two strangers
would be all over him.

“Okay.” He let out a breath. “Take your wallet out with two
fingers only. Tell your friend to keep his hands in the air.”

Ric extracted his wallet and flipped it open. “My name is
Ric Garza. I’m a former Texas Ranger.” He held out the wallet. “All my
identification is there plus a business card for the agency I now work for. You
can call any of the numbers to check. But you’d better hurry because there’s
trouble hanging around like you’ve never seen before.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not me. I’m here to help, believe it or not.”

Ric glanced sideways and saw the other man was seated on the
porch steps, head down, dragging air into his lungs, the body behind him.

“Okay.” The man handed his wallet back. “And your friend
here?”

“Ben Crater.” Ben answered for himself. “Former Marine.”

“I’m Russ Hammond,” the man told them. “That’s my brother,
Ron. Our family owns this ranch. So you want to tell me what the fuck happened
to our ranch hand? And what the hell you’re doing, landing that helicopter on
private property?”

“I will, but you’ll have a hard time believing it.” Ric
paused. “We spotted the body from the air. And your ranch hand is the second
victim in this area killed the same way, and by the same creature.”

Russ scowled. “What do you mean, second victim? What
creature? Exactly what in the
hell
is going on here?”

Ric glanced over to see the brother leading a horse from the
smaller building, petting it with hands that, even from this distance, were
visibly shaking. But at least the animal had quieted down. Ron Hammond led it
to a spot away from the shack, hooked a lead to its bridle and hitched it to a
tree branch. The horse continued to stamp and snort but at least it had stopped
the high, sharp neighing.

“You heard about the body found on Wolf Mountain Trail?”

Russ Hammond’s eyes widened. “The news said the guy was
killed by a wild animal.”

Ric snorted. “Yeah, only it wasn’t any wild animal like you’ve
ever seen before. If you promise not to shoot us, we’ll tell you something you
won’t want to believe and will have a hard time dealing with. But I promise you
it’s the truth.”

“Okay.” He lowered the gun. “You can put your hands down but
I’m still holding on to my gun. Just in case.”

“Just let me give you details and show you some pictures
before you tell me I’m insane.”

As concisely as he could, Ric explained about the
Chupacabra, Night Seekers, Craig Stafford and the ongoing hunt, including the
events that had led up to this morning. The disbelief on the man’s face was
evident, skepticism dark in his eyes. But then Ric pulled out his cellphone,
which he’d loaded with pictures from previous killings. Just in case.

For a moment, he thought Russ Hammond would pass out.

“This is some kind of joke, right?” He rubbed his face. “A
trick. That’s it. You’re playing a trick on us! What do you want? Our land? Our
cattle? Well, you’ll never get it, no matter what kind of craziness you pull.”