Bounty Hunter Honor

Andy pointed out the crumbling old mansion. “Game likes to hide in there,” Andy said. “One time during a javelina hunt, I cornered something in there with red eyes, and I thought I had me a pig. It turned out to be a possum.”

“They make a good stew,” Rex said, trying to get into the spirit of the conversation, though hunting animals had never appealed to him. He found it much more sporting to hunt something with an equivalent level of intelligence to his.

“So, who referred you to the Payton Gun Club?” Andy asked conversationally.

“Ace McCullough,” Rex answered. “He’s been a member a long time.”

“I’ve heard of him, of course,” Andy said. “He’s kind of a legend. Never met him, though.”

“I know another guy who’s a member here,” Rex said. “Peter Danilov?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, I know Peter. He’s out here a lot.”

Was there just the tiniest hesitation when Andy answered? “You know, I tried to get hold of that guy recently, and the number I had for him was no good. I thought maybe he’d moved away. Has he been around lately?”

“Yeah, I saw him a coupla weeks ago,” Andy said. “When I see him again, I’ll tell him to get in touch with you.”

“And that friend of his, Vlad—ah, hell, I can’t remember his last name.”

“I know who you’re talking about. I couldn’t tell you his last name, either—all those Russian names sound alike to me,” he added in a good-ol’-boy twang that didn’t fool Rex.

Andy made a show of checking his watch. “Oh, hell, I gotta go. Y’all just take your time, have a good look around. Freesia, we’d love to have you on our team. You too, Dennis,” he added as an afterthought.

Yeah, right. Maybe Rex would join the club after all. With some practice he could at least learn to shoot a paper man with some degree of accuracy, even if he couldn’t shoot a real one.

“So,” Nadia said as they scuffed their way along a faint path that wove through an open field of tall prairie grasses, “Peter’s been here recently. If we had Vlad’s last name…”

“We might be able to weasel it out of the front desk guy,” Rex said, just as something whizzed by his left ear.

His reaction was instinctual and instantaneous. He threw Nadia onto the ground and fell on top of her. The distant report of a high-caliber rifle reached his ears before he’d finished falling.

Chapter Four

“Crawl,” Rex ordered, easing his weight from her so she could push up to hands and knees. He positioned himself next to her, between her and the old house, which was where the bullet had come from. Somehow he dragged the gun case along with him, grateful he’d obeyed his instincts and not let Andy talk him into stowing the gun in a locker.

“We need cover,” he said. “We need to make those trees.”

Nadia didn’t question him. She crawled, and she did it quickly. Rex hoped the tall prairie grass would conceal their movements, but if their marksman was any good, he would see the grasses rippling in their wake.

If he’d been the sniper, he’d have fired into the grass. But no more shots came.

Then Rex realized why. The gunman had been shooting at Rex. He couldn’t risk shooting at grass because he might hit Nadia—and Peter needed Nadia.

They were thirty yards from the nearest trees. But Nadia was agile and covered the distance quickly. They plunged into the woods several yards before stopping to catch their breath.

“Is there a very stupid hunter out there?” Nadia asked in a hoarse whisper. “Or was someone shooting at us on purpose?”

“With us in these orange vests?” Rex whispered back. “I doubt it was an accident. Anyway, bird hunters use shotguns, not rifles.” As Rex spoke, he pulled the Magnum from its case and loaded it with a fresh magazine. “Maybe I should give this to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Shooting at a target is a lot different than defending against a live shooter.”

She didn’t know the half of it. If she had any idea of his history, she’d yank the gun out of his hand so fast…

“Someone must have been watching for me to show up,” Nadia said. “That kid at the front desk, do you think?”

“My guess is Andy Arquette.”

“He did seem a little…insincere,” Nadia agreed.

“Did Peter have any contacts in law enforcement?”

“He used to get a speeding ticket at least once a week, and he never had to pay them,” she said.

That was all Rex needed to know. “I’m willing to bet Peter’s power base is right here. We guessed right.”

“For all the good it will do us if we don’t get out alive.”

“We’ll get out. But we need to move—as quickly and quietly as possible. And we need to get rid of these damn vests.” The neon orange, designed to prevent hunting accidents, could have the opposite effect in their case. They shed the vests.

They couldn’t get out the way they came in. That path involved too much open prairie, and Rex wanted to avoid the old mansion, which afforded their shooter an excellent bird’s-eye view.

Rex knew approximately where they were on the property, based on a map he’d seen near the front desk. He also knew the only way they were getting out of this place alive was over the fence—unless they killed the person hunting them, and Rex didn’t want to think about that. He’d had more than his fill of killing.

They cut through the woods, which was thick with undergrowth. It offered good cover but made for slow going. Tree branches and mesquite scrub scratched them as they blazed a path.

At one point they stopped to listen, as they’d been doing every few minutes. Before, they’d heard nothing. Now, Rex discerned two sounds that concerned him. One was a barking dog. It was a good bet some of the hunters who hung out here had tracking dogs. The other sound was unmistakably running water. Rex had seen a stream or river on the map, but he couldn’t remember now precisely where it had run. They would probably have to cross it to get to the perimeter fence.

“Dogs,” Nadia whispered.

“Let’s keep moving.”

Rather than avoiding the water, Rex headed for it. If they waded or swam in the steam, the dogs might lose their scent. Of course, they might freeze to death. It was maybe fifty degrees out, not terribly cold, but the water in streams around these parts came from mountain springs way up in Colorado and would turn them blue in no time.

When they reached the stream, it turned out to be a very shallow, fast-running creek. They scrambled down the limestone bank as the dogs’ baying—definitely more than one dog—grew louder.

Rex grabbed Nadia’s hand. “Let’s run along the creek. Maybe the dogs won’t be able to follow our scent. At least it might slow them.”

“Do you have the slightest idea where we are?” Nadia asked. “Because I don’t.”

“I know exactly where we are.” It was an exaggeration, but he needed Nadia to be optimistic and confident. He couldn’t afford for her to fall apart in despair.

They splashed along the stream for maybe a quarter mile, until the water got deeper and they couldn’t move quickly enough. They climbed out on the opposite bank, using protruding rocks and roots and small bushes to pull themselves up. Then they started running again, shoes squishing with water.

“I can still hear the dogs,” Nadia said, panting slightly. He was amazed at her stamina and wondered what she did to stay in shape.

“We can’t be far from the fence now.” And they weren’t. He saw it looming ahead, and his heart sank. He’d been hoping to discover a chain-link fence with some sort of baffling behind it to prevent stray bullets from escaping the gun club’s grounds. What he saw was a sheer sheet-metal wall, ten feet high and extending as far as he could see in both directions. With razor wire at the top.

Nadia stopped and stared at the fence. “Bozhe moj, we’ll never get over that.”

“It seems excessive for a hunting club,” Rex observed, wondering why the Payton Gun Club needed this degree of fortification. It called to mind some crazy cult, preparing to barricade itself inside a fortified compound with lots of weaponry and await the revolution. But there was no time to ponder the gun club’s motives. The dogs were getting closer—Rex could see them now. The foray into the creek hadn’t fooled them—they were probably tracking their prey on the wind anyway.

Rex looked up and down the fence line until he spotted something promising. “How good are you at climbing trees?”

NADIA WAS ACTUALLY VERY GOOD at climbing trees, or she had been when she was twelve. She’d been something of a tomboy as a child. Her American grandfather in Michigan had owned an orchard, and she’d spent many a fall day climbing high into the branches to snag apples the pickers had missed. When she saw what Rex had in mind, she didn’t hesitate. She kicked off her athletic shoes and socks and climbed barefoot, gripping the old pecan tree’s trunk with her feet like a monkey, using the barest of handholds. The skill came back to her without effort. She even remembered not to look down.

Rex was right behind her—and the dogs right behind Rex. No sooner had he cleared the ground than two enormous black-and-tan hound dogs leaped through the underbrush toward them. Moments later they were at the bottom of the tree trunk, baying loudly. Fortunately their human counterpart—the one with the gun—was far behind.

Nadia headed for one high branch in particular that reached out almost over the perimeter fence. She could walk out onto it a short distance, holding on to a branch above her for balance, but soon she lost her handhold and she had to sit on her branch and scoot. Unfortunately, the branch bent lower and lower with her weight. By the time she reached the wall, she was below the top. This wasn’t going to work.

But Rex had the solution. He had grabbed on to the sturdier branch above and was working his way toward her, hand over hand, as if he were on playground monkey bars. “Grab on to my leg!”

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