Daunting Days of Winter (27 page)

That the snow wasn’t stained crimson with blood he owed to Frank Emory and his safety lecture, and the Kevlar vest Frank had given him. Because the vest was bulky and uncomfortable, Kyle hadn’t worn it once he’d cleared Missoula, but after being held at gunpoint by the survivalists, he’d changed his mind and begun wearing it again. Staring up at a gray sky and waiting to catch his breath, Kyle was grateful he’d changed his mind. Frank had warned him that if he were shot while wearing it the impact would hurt like hell, and it did, and that it’d probably break some ribs, but at least he’d be breathing and not bleeding out all over the ground.

Whoever shot him was good. The flash had come from at least six hundred yards ahead, and to be so close on the first shot and nail him on the second, the shooter was practiced and comfortable with their weapon. Kyle tried to clench his left hand, but his fingers responded minimally, quivering and barely balling into a loose fist. He forced himself to let his head fall back in the snow and to relax, to focus on the trees swaying back and forth overhead in the breeze and on the branches and the birds that flew lazily by, anything to help him think about something other than the pain.

It seemed like an hour, but was more like just a minute or two, before he was sure he was going to live. Kyle rolled slowly onto his stomach and started to assess his situation. He edged gingerly up the bank and peered down the road. Garfield was about eighty yards away on the side of the road, still antsy and unsettled and moving further away. He scanned the direction the shots had come from, but saw nothing in the way of people or movement.

Kyle slid back down the shoulder of the road and did a quick inventory, finding he didn’t have much more than a knife, his handgun, and a short length of rope on him. Everything else he’d brought on his journey was tied to his saddle or in the backpack secured to the horse, now eighty yards away and moving towards the shooter.

Kyle continued to work his left arm, clenching his fingers and flexing at the elbow. It was still numb, but feeling and movement were slowly returning, to the extent that his arm no longer felt like a dead appendage hanging uselessly from his shoulder. Taking his pistol from the ankle holster, he ejected the magazine and counted the bullets. He’d used it that morning to scare off a coyote, firing a couple of warning shots before the young animal dashed off into the bushes. That left him with eight rounds to work with. He plugged the magazine back in the gun, released the safety, and began to plan.

Since he had fallen between the road and the river, Kyle needed to get across to the forested hillside where the trees would provide cover. He ducked low and backtracked, working in the direction he’d come from to a curve in the road that would shield him from view. Once he was sure he was out of sight, he dashed across the road to the protection of the trees.

The forest was thick with pine trees, but only a thin undergrowth of patchy scrubs and nameless ferns covered the forest floor, enabling Kyle to move freely through the trees, though his vision was limited. Kyle knew that with only a handgun he was at a disadvantage, so he ran uphill to try and at least get on higher ground than whoever had shot him and improve the odds somewhat.

Once he felt he was high enough, Kyle turned north and hurried along the mountainside, running as fast as he dared while trying to minimize noise. Because the forest was densely treed, he’d lost sight of the roadway, forcing him to guess at his location relative to his horse and the shooter. The further he went, the more uncertain he became, until he eventually slowed his pace, stopping every few seconds to listen. His mind raced. What if, he thought, the shooter was doing the same thing – circling up high and trying to come in behind him?

A branch snapped up ahead, and Kyle froze in his tracks, holding his breath for a long time, even as his lungs screamed for air. He waited, eyes and ears straining for any hint of movement. After a long, silent moment of nothing, Kyle slowly let out his breath and stepped closer to a tree, watching and waiting. His thoughts flashed back to Colorado, when the tattooed man had trapped him on the side of the road. The same tensions and emotions flooded over him. Kill or be killed. Lose and die forgotten. Or win, and all you get is the chance to do it all again the next day. He hated what life had become.

Kyle cautiously resumed his advance, moving more carefully now, wary of any sound or movement. He descended at an angle, a thirty-degree drop from his highpoint, towards the general area of where the shooter might be. Proceeding from tree to tree, and using the skills he’d been taught in the Deer Creek Militia as a counter offensive to an assault from the tree line, although with only one man and one pistol, the strategy was greatly modified. Reach the cover of a tree, drop down, wait, peer out quickly for signs of threat, count three, peer quickly from the other side, wait, then carefully move around the tree, exposing yourself slowly as you looked more thoroughly for the enemy. If everything was clear, then select the next place of cover, check for obstacles, and make the move.

If done correctly and efficiently, you could move to a new cover spot every thirty-five to forty seconds, depending on how far away the next place you selected for cover was. Of course that was in training, with no threat of return fire. Kyle’s current pace was noticeably slower.

Kyle had been moving forward in this fashion for ten minutes when he caught a glimpse of the road far below through a break in the trees. He paused where he was, studying the forest and what he could see of the road, watching for any sign of someone tracking him or movement in the opposite direction. Reassured he was alone, he proceeded onward, adjusting his course to drop more directly towards the road.

Nervous, he moved forward, selecting the thickest trees for cover, each time having to force himself from their protective shelter and into the open, risking his life with every move. He’d dropped down to about fifty yards above the highway when he heard Garfield snort some distance back. It gave him a feel for where he was, but also strained his nerves further, knowing he was between his horse and the shooter, and that it wouldn’t be far, or long, before the situation was resolved, one way or another.

Kyle leaned back against the tree and uttered a short prayer, something he found himself doing more often, then slowly crept towards a fallen tree ten yards below that he’d selected as his next point of concealment. He reached it and dropped down, breathing hard. The trunk of the tree was large, more than three feet in diameter at the base where he was hiding. The root cluster had torn out of the ground and stood over six feet in the air, the tree having had the misfortune of growing in a rocky patch of ground that had forced the roots out and not down.

His cover was excellent, the tree providing a thick wall of wood and branches to conceal him along with a decent view of the road below. He even caught a glimpse of Garfield, who was now grazing calmly and alone on the side of the river. Kyle knelt down and scanned the area again, peering over the trunk, studying the road, and watching for anyone moving along it. With the fallen tree providing such great cover, Kyle decided he would wait things out. If nothing happened before dark, he’d retrieve his horse and make a quick dash out of there, and if something happened before then, well, he’d just play that out as it happened.

He waited twenty minutes, with every sense on edge and ready to react, but there was nothing. He was about to find somewhere to relieve himself, a need he’d had since arriving at the tree, when he heard the snap of a branch, a sound too loud to be natural.

Kyle shrank back against his cover, his brain filtering out the sounds of wind and water and birds, listening for any additional signs that would indicate a person – a cough, a sneeze, footsteps, voices, anything that would let him know whether to relax or attack. He gripped his gun in both hands, ready, but not anxious to shoot, especially when there was a good chance he could be shot in the exchange.

Hearing nothing, Kyle silently shifted, turning his body so he could look through a gap in the roots of the tree. Moving his head slowly to the side, he peered through a two-inch opening in the direction he expected the shooter to come from and where the noise had originated.

He choked off a gasp as two figures, bundled in hats and heavy coats, with rifles in hand, moved stealthily through the trees no more than fifteen yards away and heading towards him. His heart skipped, and it was all he could do to keep from jumping up and running, so strong was his urge to escape. He stayed motionless, not wanting his movement to draw their attention.

Kyle was confident he hadn’t been seen, as their attention was focused towards the road and away from where he was, and they would likely have been more evasive had they known he was there. Suddenly, one of the figures motioned towards the fallen tree, and they began moving towards him. Kyle drew his head back slowly, his thoughts racing, trying to decide what to do. He could hear their footsteps, careful and methodical and cautious, drawing closer.

One handgun against two rifles was bad odds, even with the element of surprise. Kyle extended his legs, gripped the gun a little tighter, placed a shaking finger on the trigger, and rolled against the fallen tree, tucking under it as much as he could while trying to silence his breathing.

Dirt crunched and twigs popped, sending shockwaves through Kyle’s body as the footsteps drew nearer.

“See anything?” The voice was low and wary.

Kyle placed them no more than five feet away, just the other side of the tree he hid behind. He listened for a reply that didn’t come, the question likely just eliciting a shake of the head.

“Keep watching. I need to take a leak,” the voice instructed.

Kyle lay still, too scared to blink, cold sweat running down his back. He heard the sound of a zipper, then splashing only a couple of feet from his head. They were using the other side of his cover as a toilet. If this had been paintball, they’d have had a good laugh about it later. But the reality was, at least one of them would likely be dead before lunchtime.

He waited, not daring to move, as the splashing became intermittent, then stopped. Pine needles crunched as the man stepped away. Kyle lay still, trying to determine how quick and silent he could be getting to his feet. However fast it was, he was sure it wouldn’t be faster than they could turn and pull a trigger.

There was a different voice, softer, feminine. “You think he’s dead?”

“Pretty sure. You aimed too high, but my shot hit him in the chest. I saw him go down. If I hit the heart, he was done almost immediately. If I missed the heart, then he’s had plenty of time to bleed out. We’re good.”

There was a pause in the conversation, then a question from the woman. “Should we just take the horse and be done, or do we have to make sure he’s dead?”

“I know you hate it, but you always confirm your kill. That’s why we’re taking our time and going this route. The body can take some pretty serious damage before shutting down. We don’t want an unexpected bullet coming between us, do we? Let’s just do this. Stay close, and keep your head up.”

Kyle listened as they walked away, their footsteps growing fainter. He waited and listened, giving them time to move further away before rolling from his cover and getting back into a kneeling position behind the tree.

The two figures traveled sideways across the hill, their attention focused on the road and trees in front of them, their backs to Kyle. He had to act before he was discovered and while they were still close enough for his gun to be accurate. Shooting someone was terrible. The thought of shooting someone in the back, a man or a woman, was hard to fathom, yet here he was. The people were still close, a hundred feet or so, and were big targets he was sure he could hit.

He raised his gun, aimed at the larger of the two, clenched his teeth, put pressure on the trigger, then hesitated. Part of him wanted to run away and just escape, but he needed his horse and everything on it. The targets were getting further away, becoming smaller. Kyle shook his head briefly, whispered “God forgive me,” and began to fire. He pulled the trigger quickly, firing three times before the target reacted, falling forward and down in a violent, jerking spasm.

Kyle heard a scream and fired at the second figure as it launched sideways behind the cover of a tree. Kyle fired again, sending a chunk of wood spinning away and leaving a blonde gash in the tree where the bullet struck. He lowered his head and watched the figure, but could only see a sliver of her arms and legs that wasn’t hidden by the tree.

The body on the ground was motionless and made no sounds of distress or pain. Kyle guessed the man was dead, as his shots had been well grouped in the center of the man’s back, likely taking out his spine and vital organs. Kyle’s eyes jumped back and forth between the figure on the ground and the one hiding behind the tree.

“Please, don’t shoot,” the woman begged. “It wasn’t my idea to shoot you.”

Kyle stared at the two people, and the thought suddenly came to him that there could be others, perhaps more traveling along the road or further up the hill. He grew more nervous, stepping in closer to the fallen tree that concealed him. “How many of you are there?” he called out.

“Just two,” came the reply. “It’s just me and Christopher.”

Kyle looked around. He wanted to believe her, but knew that he shouldn’t. He listened and waited, trying to hear anything unusual. If there were more people, they’d certainly know where the action was.

“What are you going to do?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know,” Kyle shouted back. “I thought I was going to kill you without having a conversation first. It would’ve been easier that way.”

“Please don’t,” she pleaded. “I…I’m sorry we shot you. I tried to stop him.”

“Sounded to me like you took the first shot.”

“I had to. He insisted that I do it. Said he always…” she paused.

“Always what? Shot people?”

There was no response.

“Toss your gun out from behind the tree,” Kyle ordered.