Prey (14 page)

Every one of her instincts shrieked at her not to move, not to attract its attention, but she needed that rifle. To get it, she’d have to crawl fifteen feet closer to the bear, and pray it didn’t see her. Slowly, so slowly, she lifted her right hand from the mud and moved it forward. Next was her left knee. Then her left hand, still clutching the flashlight. Right knee. Repeat the process. Slowly, slowly, forcing herself to drag in deep, controlled breaths through her mouth, then silently letting the air ease out of her, not putting any force behind it. If she didn’t make any noise, maybe the bear wouldn’t notice her.

Her hand touched the stock of the rifle. She froze for a moment,
making certain the bear was still preoccupied. The almost constant flashes of lightning showed it in a kind of freeze-frame effect as it bit into Davis’s stomach and slung him around with a toss of its powerful head, tearing flesh free and sending his body tumbling. Like a cat with a new toy, the huge bear pounced on the dead man, completely oblivious to the storm crashing around them.

The bear’s back was to her.
Now
. Angie pulled the rifle toward her. The mud sucked at it, resisted her efforts to lift it. Feverishly, her hands shaking, she tried to wipe the mud away but reality slapped her in the face: She couldn’t fire this rifle until it had been cleaned. The mechanism was too caked with mud.

She almost whimpered, almost collapsed in the mud in despair. Only the thought of the bear doing to her what it was now doing to Davis kept her from dissolving into an unending wail. Silent. She had to be silent.

Just as slowly, deliberately, as she had crawled forward, she now repeated the process in reverse, dragging the rifle with her. She didn’t stop until there were trees between her and the bear, until the blasts of lightning no longer revealed the gruesome scene. Only then did she stand, clinging to a tree trunk and hauling herself up. Her chest heaved with silent sobs, sobs she didn’t dare give voice to.

Think!
she commanded herself. She had to think, or she would die. She couldn’t panic. These next few minutes might well determine whether she lived or died, so she’d better make some damn good decisions.

She couldn’t stay here. Even minus the bear, there was Chad. She’d seen him kill a man; he’d already tried to kill her. The bear might continue on its way, but Chad would come back. He’d have to.

That meant she had to leave. She had to walk off this mountain, in the night, in one of the worst storms she’d ever seen. She
might get struck by lightning, but she’d rather that happen than let the bear get her. And that lily-livered little bastard Chad had taken all the horses, probably hoping the bear would save him the trouble of taking care of her. By the time the bear got through with Davis, would it be possible to tell he’d died from a gunshot wound, rather than being
eaten?
Would there even be an investigation, or would the situation be so self-evident that it would be written off as a bear attack, a second one at that. And if she were the third victim … the rogue bear would be shot, and a murderer would walk free.

She was damned if she’d let that happen.

She needed things from her tent. Her instinct said to run, and run like hell. Her brain said she needed food and water, she needed a way to keep warm, she needed a weapon that actually worked. All of those things were in her tent.

Staying in the trees as much as possible, feeling her way between flashes of lightning and trying to stand motionless whenever the sky lit up, she made her way to the tent. She was completely drenched, her sweatpants soaking up water like a sponge and hanging heavy on her, threatening to slide down her hips. Her hair was plastered against her head, and she could almost feel her body heat leaching away. By the time she ducked into the tent, she was shaking so hard there was no way she could have stood motionless, so it was a damn good thing bears didn’t have great eyesight.

Okay, what did she need? Her saddle bag. She’d have to have dry clothes, and the saddlebag would keep them dry. Her slicker. Her clothes couldn’t get any wetter, but the slicker would help keep her body heat in, and if she found a place to shelter it would keep the rain off her. The pistol. It might not stop a bear, but it would damn sure stop Chad Krugman, and it would make the bear take notice.

What next? Food. She grabbed some protein bars, shoved
them into the saddlebag. Ditto a bottle of water. One bottle wasn’t much, but water was heavy, and she didn’t want to weigh herself down. The flashlight.

She thought of quickly stripping off her soaked sweatpants and replacing them with jeans, but soaked jeans wouldn’t be any better. She hurriedly put some clothes into the saddlebags, added some extra boxes of ammo because regardless of weight extra ammo was always a good thing, then buckled the straps. She pulled her slicker on over her wet coat, slid her muddy rifle into the scabbard and slung it over her shoulder.

Then she opened the tent flap, and eased into the night.

She still didn’t run. She had to put distance between herself and the bear, between herself and Chad, and the best way to do that was carefully. She couldn’t turn on the flashlight, so she placed each step with care.

She couldn’t even stop to think. Both of the killers she fled fell into the “what the hell?” category, but she didn’t have the luxury of analyzing why things had happened, she simply had to get the hell away from there. She had to focus on keeping her footing, on staying downwind of the bear, on not getting hit on the head by a falling tree limb or struck by lightning. She had enough to think about. She’d worry about “why” later.

Lattimore’s place was a long way away, and once Chad discovered she wasn’t here in the camp, he’d have to know exactly where she was heading. All she could do was keep moving, away from the carnage, away from what she’d seen. Caution was more important than speed … but,
damn
, she could use some more speed. The urge to run beckoned her, and still she resisted. She couldn’t run for hours, and she sure as hell didn’t need to try running in the dark, on slippery mud.

Dare Callahan’s camp was closer than Lattimore’s, a lot closer, but she didn’t need shelter; she needed help. Besides, the camp would be locked up tight, and even if she could locate it in the
dark she wouldn’t be able to get in. Heading that way on the off chance that she could get in would cost her precious time, and gain her nothing in reaching help. She didn’t have a moment to lose, because Chad would be coming after her.

If not for the rain, she could stop for a moment and listen for them—the bear and the man—but the thundering rain seemed to overwhelm any other sound. The rain didn’t just splatter, it hammered. The wind whistled. The only good thing was that if she couldn’t hear them, then they couldn’t hear her. The weather hampered her, beat at her, but it was also protecting her by shielding her within its ferocious heart.

She aimed downhill. Where else could she go? She didn’t try to stay on the trail, which followed the path of least resistance, because that was where Chad was likely to be. The going was rough and uneven, so slick she could barely stay upright. She clung to whatever she could get her hand around: bushes, hanging tree limbs, rocks.

The wind shifted. She felt the difference on her face. She stopped, mentally working out the bear’s location. Rain or no rain, the bear would be able to catch her scent if she continued in this direction. On the other hand, if she changed directions she’d be moving away from Lattimore’s place. For that matter, without being able to see the bear, she had no idea if it was still in the same location or if it had moved on—to the west, away from her, or paralleling her movements at a higher altitude, or coming in behind her.

No matter what, she needed to move. She stretched out her left foot, feeling for solid ground, only to find a slope of mud. She tried to catch herself, grabbing for a bush, but she was already in mid-step when her left foot slid out from under her. She tried to catch herself with her right foot, only to have it land in a hole she hadn’t been able to see in the darkness. She lurched forward, completely off-balance. In the split second during which she realized she was going down, feeling helpless and stupid and afraid,
she put out her hands to break the fall but at least had enough sense not to straight-arm herself. The last thing she needed right now was to break an arm or a collarbone. She landed hard, jarring every bone in her body, and for a stunned moment she lay there on the muddy ground, silently taking inventory.

She was jolted in every bone, every muscle, but she was pretty sure she was okay, except for her right foot. It was still in the hole, the toe of her boot caught, her foot twisted. The pain screamed at her, her ankle throbbing inside the boot.

She lay there with the rain beating down on her back and head, with water running under her body. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it, thudding against the wet ground. Defeat pressed down on her. God, she was cold. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to know how bad it was, because if she’d broken that ankle she was as good as dead. Maybe if she just stayed still for a moment the throbbing would ease. She’d sprained her ankle before, and the pain had been excruciating for a few minutes, only to ease and then she’d been able to walk it off.

But she didn’t have the luxury of lying there for more than a few seconds. Angie pushed the saddlebags aside, unslung the rifle scabbard from her shoulder and propped it on the saddlebag, then, very cautiously, she sat up and used both hands to free her twisted foot from the hole. She didn’t pull her boot off. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to get it back on. She wouldn’t be able to see what was wrong, anyway, and wouldn’t be able to do anything even if she could. If she’d broken her ankle, the boot would help brace it, so better to leave things as they were.

With cold fingers she probed at the ankle, trying to feel any break. There didn’t seem to be any one particular place that produced any extra agony when she touched it, but when she tried to rotate her foot pain shot straight to her head and threatened to make her pass out. “Okay, that wasn’t a good idea,” she muttered. She didn’t think it was broken. If it was, maybe it was just a hairline fracture. More than likely it was a bad sprain. On a practical basis,
it didn’t matter which it was. All that mattered was whether or not she could walk on that ankle.

Gritting her teeth, putting her weight on her left foot and steadying herself by clutching a sapling, Angie levered herself upward. She hugged the tree, hauling herself up slow and steady. Bark scrapped against the slicker, snagging and scraping. It was a balancing act, but she made it to an upright position. She reoriented herself, checked the wind, took a deep breath, then let go of the tree and took a hobbling step forward, willing herself to stand the pain, to walk. As soon as she put weight on her right foot that blinding pain shot through her ankle again and it gave out beneath her, sending her sprawling again. This time she wasn’t fast enough to brace herself, and she landed facedown in the mud.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to beat the mud with her fist and howl. Talk about bad karma! What had she ever done to deserve this? Her business was gone, she had to sell her home, throw in Dare Callahan, that asshole Davis, Killer Krugman, and, oh yeah, a fucking
bear
. And now she’d either broken or sprained her ankle, when she had to get off this mountain as fast as possible before either Killer Krugman or that monster bear got her. Beyond any doubt, her life had gone to shit.

If she couldn’t walk off the mountain, which was a tough enough prospect under the best of circumstances, what would happen? What was she supposed to do, just lie here and wait for Krugman or the bear to find her? She had her rifle, but she had to clean it, somehow, before it would be usable again. Still, she had the pistol. She could handle Krugman, as long as she saw him coming. But that bear … yeah, she was more terrified of that huge son of a bitch, any day of the week, than she was of Krugman.

That bear would find her here if she didn’t move.

Son of a
bitch!

Abruptly she was mad. No, not just mad, she was furious. No way in hell would she lie here feeling sorry for herself and wait to die. It didn’t matter why she’d ended up in this position; if she
gave up she was dead. Damn it, no one could accuse Angie Powell of lacking determination or sheer damn stubbornness. She’d get off this mountain if she had to
crawl
.

She sat up, slung the rifle scabbard on her back again, got her saddlebags. Mud had splattered into her mouth when she’d fallen the second time, so she spat it out. Then, on elbows and knees, she began crawling. She tried to keep her injured ankle from banging into anything because it hurt like a son of a bitch if she didn’t, but she kept going even when pain made her grind her teeth together.

She made progress, slow and steady and miserable, but progress all the same. Then her right hand hit nothing but air, and she stopped just short of tumbling over an unseen sheer drop. Panting, she eased back. What was she supposed to do now? How wide was this drop? Was she on the edge of a precipice? She waited for a flash of lightning, and after a few seconds of darkness realized that the heart of the storm had moved on, because the lightning wasn’t nearly as intense or frequent as it had been. Briefly she debated turning on the flashlight, just long enough to see what she was facing. Was the chance worth it? Right now, she was invisible; Chad had no idea where she was. But the flashlight might well pinpoint her position for him. On the other hand, she was stuck unless she could see what kind of obstacle was in front of her.

Before she had to make a decision, a flash of lightning very obligingly lit up the landscape for her. The drop in front of her was straight down—for a few feet. Three feet, max. Getting down without putting any weight on her right foot was going to be tough, but she wasn’t going to let this little cut in the earth stop her.

She dropped her saddlebags, heard them plop in the mud below. Then she unslung the rifle scabbard and carefully let it slide down. Then she turned around, spinning on her belly in the mud, and slid over the edge, her good foot feeling for the ground, her hands digging into the mud to steady herself until she had solid earth beneath her. She stood there a moment, balanced precariously,
and took a deep breath. Maybe she wasn’t moving quickly, but she
was
moving in the right direction: down.