Hunter (12 page)

She wondered about what kind of man he was inside, and what he had found out here in the wild. Perhaps it was a simplicity of life that somehow escaped him in the cultured world, but she didn't think so. It was something more. Something deeper. And for the first time in a while, she felt an attraction. Even though she tried to shield herself from such thoughts in the field, she couldn't help but recognize the sensation.

She had read his dossier and was familiar with his documented history. Of the life he had led before he emerged in the public eye, little was known.

Yes, an unusual man ...

She blinked. Then she reached out and gently clutched her rifle, sensing somehow that the strength, the will, and the spirit of this enigma of a man was probably worth more than all of them and their weapons combined.

***

Crouching, monstrous hands clenching, he stared at the camp, studying all he could see in the moon's skull-like light. Silent and unmoving, he saw the big man who led at the front, the man who tracked with such remarkable skill. Then he studied the wolf that lay at the man's side, the black one.

Even in sleep, the wolf seemed alert. Its ears still stood straight and its face was away from the fire. He could not tell if it was gazing into the treeline. The canine black eyes melted into the utter blackness of its face but its posture was decidedly tense, as if it never relaxed. He knew that it was a creature that could possibly deliver a savage battle. As much, even, as the grizzly he had killed earlier in the day.

But by now the wounds that branded him in that fierce fight had healed; only a thin pink scar marked the moment. With his frightfully dim human intelligence—what had been his name?—he estimated that he could recover from almost any wound within a day's time, the hybrid DNA in his system somehow synthesizing to accelerate cell replication and enhanced blood generation.

Slowly, out
lined against the sky, he stood, still gazing somberly on the campsite.

No, he would not attack them tonight. He would wait. He would lead them across the forest tomorrow, allowing them to close. He would lead them and let them think they were cornering him, as he would corner them, in the end. Then, when his stalking was complete, he would launch his first attack, killing several of them before he escaped again.

He did not fear injury, or the soldiers, or the wolf. Though he did, somehow, fear the man.

They would fight fiercely, as all of them did, but the titanic might in his form, in his acutely enhanced senses and his superior intelligence would be more than enough to destroy them.

Yes, to destroy all of them.

He growled as he turned into the night.

* * *

Chapter 7

Bobbi Jo's voice seemed to come from a distance.

"What do you see?"

Hunter didn't move as he studied the tracks intently. The ground was soft on the ridge and he could read distinct impressions—dragging signs of where he had shuffled restlessly, thirsty. Hunter turned his head to stare down over the camp, estimating how long the beast had watched them during the night.

"Hunter?" Bobbi Jo leaned forward. "What do you see?"

"It was here."

"It was here? For how long?"

"Four hours, maybe." Hunter's brow hardened in concentration. "Early this morning."

Creeping up, she knelt beside him. Her dark blond hair fell forward to cover half her face as she stared at the tracks, and for a long time she was silent. Then she raised her head, scanning as her head moved in a precision pattern. "What is this thing, Hunter?" Her voice held the edge of subdued fear. "This isn't natural."

Hunter didn't move.

To lesser trackers, the footprints would only reveal that it had been here. Others could determine its approach, its retreat. But Hunter could determine more, using skills so long adapted into his very being that they were only slightly less than instinct.

He could tell how long it had stood before it shuffled its foot, measuring its patience. He could read from only the slight mulling that its balance was almost perfect, or that it had softly and silently clawed the loam in its silent vigil, and where it had watched the longest. He turned his head to stare down into the camp. And from the cliff's edge, he saw what it had watched the closest. What had been its highest
priority. And knew it was him.

***

A low growl like subterranean thunder came from behind Hunter.

Really not so much a growl as a black vibration in the atmosphere—a dark rumbling inhabited by a pure and savage animal essence. They had been moving steadily, rapidly for hours, close on the beast's heels. Hunter turned his head and gazed back, watching Ghost's distended canines extend past his lower jaw. A snarl twisted the face beneath blazing black eyes.

"What is it, Ghost?"

Moving with massive, deep power, Ghost took a solid step forward. And the snarl continued to build in depth, blending growl and roar into an unusual, cavernous depth. Then a faint trembling tensed the great dark form and Hunter turned his head to search out what lay before them.

With the support team behind him and Bobbi Jo close, Hunter searched the thick stand of white poplars and evergreens that laid an almost impenetrable black wall. He was certain the creature had used this trail to travel south; it was obvious. But the tracks clearly indicated that it had not been hesitating, that it had been moving with purpose.

Holding the rifle tight, Hunter stood from a crouch and moved closer. Even though the sun was still high in the sky, the darkness was almost complete. It reminded him of the triple canopy jungles of South America where sunlight never saw the earth beneath the arboreal giants.

Shoulders humped, hackles rising along his neck and back, Ghost moved beside him. Although the wolf now made no sound, its jaws were distended, open fangs the only threat it gave before it hurtled forward. For now it was in a killing mode, and by instinct it would be silent until it struck. Bobbi Jo, turning slowly, continued to scan the flanks for an ambush.

Hunter spoke quietly. "Don't worry about the flanks right now." His eyes never left the darkness before them. "It's not going to ambush us here. It's moving fast, not even looking to the side."

She stared. "So what's got you so worried?"

"Because it doesn't do that."

"Why not?"

Hunter bent and studied the ground. He could see where an impression was deeper, almost gouging out the ground. The mark indicated clearly that the creature had made a sudden, volcanic move to the right, turning almost in midair.

Hunter stretched out a hand, feeling the age of the track as he subconsciously identified a myriad of smells: ferns, rotting vegetation, pine and mold and ferment, a faded, coarse animal pungency, and something else— something heavy and motionless and moist. It was scent he had come to know well from a life spent mostly in the harsh wild.

He looked down. "Ghost, stay here."

The great wolf stopped in midstride, but the burning black eyes never left the forest wall before it, nor did its tension fade. Slowly, Hunter turned to Bobbi Jo. "Stay with Ghost. Tell the others to hold position."

She tightened almost to a combat readiness; the barrel of the Barrett rose. "What are you going to do?"

Hunter was already moving away, angling deeply to the right. As he twisted a move between two mammoth ferns and into the bush he whispered back to her, "Something died here. I'm gonna find out what it was."

She brushed a lock from her face and looked to him again.

But he was gone.

***

Despite Bobbi Jo's hand signal to hold position, Takakura moved up silently to crouch beside her. Frowning, the big Japanese stared into the foliage, searching. His narrow black eyes revealed only fierce alertness when Bobbi Jo cast a slight glance. Obviously, the commander was at home in combat. His voice came to her calmly and coldly.

"What is it, Bobbi Jo?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

Takakura gave a glance toward the wolf, but it had vanished without a sound in the space of three seconds. It had been here when he crouched and now it was gone; no sound, no sight. The Japanese's disciplined face revealed no surprise. "The wolf
... he is ... like ..."

"A ghost?" Bobbi Jo said, and despite an appropriateness in the reply, she didn't smile.

All that she had, emotion and intellect and will, were too tightly focused on what vague darkness—what shapeless threat—hovered on the far side of that green, mossy dark wall of impenetrable fern. Then Takakura bowed his head, slightly frowning, toward the gathering dark. He took one second to monitor the support team's stillness and nodded. Obviously, their readiness was acceptable.

"What did Hunter say as he moved?" he whispered.

"He doesn't generally say anything when he moves."

A moment, and Takakura seemed to read more into it. Without effort he seemed to understand what manner of man was leading them.

"He is a hard man," he muttered. "There is something in him that moves him. But it, in itself, does not move." He paused. "How long do you think he will be gone? We are losing what little light this canopy allows."

She waited, shook her head. "With him, you can never tell. Sometimes he won't move at all for an hour. He'll just stare at the terrain. Then sometimes he moves so fast you have to be half wolf to keep up."

Takakura grunted. "This I know."

"He'll come back when he's certain," she added, turning her head with mechanical precision to stay alert. "I've learned that much about him. He doesn't ever make a mistake. He says it takes too long to double back and pick up a track if he's wrong."

"The wolf, it helps him."

"Yeah." Bobbi Jo's hands tightened on the rifle at a slight rustling sound. She waited; possibly a falling branch. "Ghost helps him. Or he helps Ghost. One or the other. Either way, they work together."

"So I have seen. How long, do you think, before we are able to target this creature?"

Her voice was softer.

"Probably sooner than we'd like, Commander."

***

Slashed and disemboweled, the mammoth brown-black carcass with protruding white ribs lay before Hunter in the somber gloom.

He stood motionless, measuring the great grizzly's size, judged it to be close to half a ton. Glistening black claws at the end of incredible huge forelegs lay still. Its fangs were fixed in a frozen roar. Its open eyes were glazed by the vicious impact of a sudden and unexpected death.

Circling the area, Hunter had easily discovered the creature's taloned tracks, the ones left after it had killed the grizzly. Almost immediately he had known what had happened, but had done a careful reconnaissance to make sure that the thing, whatever it was, was not lying close to the dead grizzly as a tiger would often do. All around the area he found the grizzly's tracks, half-eaten bushes, and trampled berries. Then, after he was certain that he and the team were alone, Hunter angled carefully back to examine the corpse.

Clearly, reading the overlaying tracks, Hunter could see that it had been a ferocious fight. Not long, certainly, but ferocious—clearly a confrontation of two creatures each of whom struck with horrific force. And for a moment Hunter remembered the two Siberian tigers who had fought to the death as he rolled between them. It confirmed to him that the more powerful the enemies were, the shorter the fight.

The grizzly, normally reluctant to challenge a creature of equal size, had put up a formidable defense. Its claws were caked in dried blood, confirming Hunter's suspicion gleaned from surrounding leaves that the creature he was tracking could indeed be wounded, and had been. And somehow it gave him comfort.

No, he thought to himself, it wasn't un
-killable.

In a surreal silence Hunter bent and froze. Then removed his knife to examine the bear's wounds when he heard what could have been the soft nestling of a bird's wings, so close.

He followed the almost-silent approaching steps and knew what it was before he shook his head, smiling and turning. He angled his head toward the gloom and waited, but there was no more movement. Then, softly, in a voice no human being could have heard if they had been standing six inches away, he spoke into the darkness.

"Ghost. Come here, boy."

One second later a pair of glistening black eyes and a huge anvil-like head, wide muscular shoulders beneath, silently parted the leafy black ferns. Ghost didn't move as his dark animal gaze darted around the torn and trampled glade, rich with the scent of blood. From Hunter's aspect alone, he seemed to recognize that there was no battle to be fought.

Hunter smiled and shook his head. Then he turned to examine the gutted carcass of the grizzly. Its intestines, liver, and heart were gone. And the massive injury wasn't slashed into the massive chest, it was torn, as if inflicted in some demoniacal killing rage. Then Hunter examined the great bear's huge neck and head and found a large indentation in the inch-thick skull. Gingerly, he ran his hand over the depression, attempting to feel through the armor-like fur, before he was certain.

Part of the grizzly's skull had been crushed into powder. Slightly larger than a man's fist, the area ground jagged slices of bone beneath Hunter's probing grasp before he leaned back, shaking his head in amazement that approached disbelief.

Hunter was accustomed to death; it was the way of the wild, the way of his life. And he himself could kill efficiently and without emotion when necessary. And if he hadn't possessed that hard discipline, and will, and skill, the forest would have long ago claimed him. For in the end, always, the strongest survived.

He knew that a grizzly would eat anything, plant or animal or fish or bark or even rotten meat, to sustain its great bulk. Nor did it suffer any adverse effects from the combination. Grizzlies were, quite simply, gigantic garbage disposals. Which is why they rarely challenged large animals; they simply didn't need such quantities of meat when the entire forest was alive with plenteous sustenance.

Reaching out with the
Bowie, Hunter made a larger incision in the stomach and, turning his face from the gastric vapors released, methodically pulled out five handfuls of half-digested berries and the shredded, bony remains of at least six fish, all eaten within the last twenty-four hours.

The bear had obviously been gorging itself, as bears habitually did in late summer and fall to produce the huge layers of fat that would sustain them through hibernation and the harsh winter.

Hunter knew that it would have eaten omnivorously for another two months before it bedded down in what most called hibernation but which was really little more than a long and often interrupted sleep. Even with the protective foldings of fat, it would awaken daily to meander in its den for warmth. It would often clean itself or even spend hours staring into the snow to alleviate boredom, waiting and watching for the first signs of spring. Just as it would stoically endure hunger as its body began utilizing the fat for sheer survival.

Hunter knew what blow had probably killed the beast, though he found it difficult to believe. And, despite his resolute courage, Hunter felt his chest tighten. His skin felt chilled and the hairs along his arms and neck seemed to rise.

He had been gauging this creature's strength all along, but not yet had he seen any act that could approach this. This was monstrous. This was something he had never seen and never imagined. What had done this had no predator. What had done this stood at the top of evolution. Stood where even man himself was simply food; a puny, dying thing.

Unmoving, raising his face only, Hunter stared into the distant forest and searched, knowing he would find nothing. Deep within, he knew a
semblance of a fear he had felt many times, but this time it was joined by something else. Something he refused to accept or recognize, because he knew it would make him weak.