Red rock walls rose to the north and south, a dry riverbed running down the vale's center. Ramage got to his feet as scrub pine, juniper, and devil grass gave way to a thick stand of desert willows. The bush-like trees had spindly windswept trunks, with tangled branches and deep green narrow claw-like leaves, but most of the leaves were dead and there were no flowers this time of year. Ramage was familiar with the tree from Texas, and knew they weren’t common this far north. Desert willows typically grew in sandy soil in basins along rivers, and with a little imagination he could picture the pink-white flowers and spring rains in his mind’s eye, the flowing stream, the sheltered environment.
The forest of thirty-foot trees packed the narrow canyon wall to wall, and Ramage plunged into the darkness. None of the trees were climbable thanks to their spindly trunks, but the explosion of dead leaves clinging to branches atop each tree deadened sound and cut the wind to a sparrow’s fart, so he’d hear Rolly and crew coming no matter how stealthy they were.
Ramage threaded through the trees, the hardpan covered in dead bronze leaves and dried pink and white flower peddles. He thought about making a spike pit trap, but the ground was hard and packed with roots fighting for water, and he didn’t have the time. He could hide and shoot Rolly and crew, but after the first shot that plan would be problematic. A series of traps and snares filled his mind, but each one took time to construct, and required supplies he didn’t have. He had some rope in his pack, but no saw or axe, and making spikes or setting snares would make noise. He needed to stay silent. That was the one thing he could control. There were hours of dark left, and he was up 2-0, but for him it was sudden death OT. Patience. He’d draw them in, wait until Rolly made a mistake… another one.
He hiked to the edge of the valley and climbed into the foothills, where he found a thick patch of weedy purple three-awn the locals referred to as devil grass, the thin deep-green blades sighing and clicking together in the breeze like a miniature xylophone. Ramage inched into the grass, wiped the ground with his gloved hand, visions of hairy spiders dancing in his head. He laid on his stomach, fished out the night binoculars, and scanned the mesa and surrounding area. From his raised position he’d see Rolly and his merry band of assholes as they crossed the plain to the forest. That is if they followed him and didn’t give up.
The wound on Ramage’s thigh thumped in rhythm with his heart, but it didn’t hurt too bad. He pulled up his pant leg and pushed down his sock. The pellet of buckshot had entered through his right leg’s lower thigh, two neat holes where the BB sized piece of metal had passed through the outer part of his calf muscle. Blood dripped down his leg, and he rinsed the wound before drinking the last of the water. He triple-folded his sock as a bandage knowing it would slip, but given the situation he had bigger problems.
Ramage settled in, his eyelids drooping, the cold settling into his muscles and joints like water in sand. He loaded the rifle and set shells on the ground before him, placing them in a neat line so they’d be ready to grab when he needed to reload.
An owl hooted, the moon arcing overhead. His mind drifted, the cold numbing his fingers and toes. The blood stain on his pants made him think of Rex; numbers, blood types, usage statistics and storage requirements filling his head like static.
A cold hour slipped away, and Ramage was starting to think Rolly had put away his marbles and gone home, when he saw a glint between two patches of juniper at the mouth of the narrow valley.
Ramage peered through the binoculars. In the darkness he wasn’t concerned about a lens flash, but his nerves still jumped like a klieg light was trained on his position.
The binoculars were cheap, and the green and white terrain was filled with shadows and dark spots. He adjusted the focus, and that helped.
A dark shape slipped from the cover of the underbrush, creeping over the rock-strewn hardpan, hiding in the shadows, using the scrub pine, devil grass, and juniper patches for cover.
He raised the rifle, trying to hold it steady with one hand and aim while peering through the binoculars. It was impossible. The rifle’s barrel dipped and swayed, and he couldn’t get an accurate bead on his moving target, so he put the binoculars down, and waited for his eyes to adjust.
If he fired Rolly might pinpoint his position. Guns had their place, though he wasn’t a big fan, but if the world had to have guns, he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to have one. They were tools—dangerous killing machine tools—but Ramage had never seen a gun kill anyone on its own.
His current situation required a more personal touch.
He checked his bag, stuffed the bullets in a pocket, and slipped the rifle over his shoulder. Desert rats gnawing at the inside of his stomach, Ramage worked his way along the hillside, slowly moving in behind the canary Rolly had sent into his coal mine.
A semi thundered down RT-6 a mile distant, the truck’s headlight beams cutting a tunnel through the darkness. It seemed so far away and it reminded Ramage how alone he was.
A pair of white-rimmed eyes appeared in the darkness, a growl echoing over the hills.
Ramage froze, arms out like he was walking a tightrope over a cake his mother had spent all day decorating.
The coyote got low, its eyes sinking to the ground as it coiled. It snarled as it came forward and Ramage raised the rifle.
It was open season on coyote all year round in Utah, and at times there was a bounty of up to $100 per coyote carcass turned in, which made hunting the overpopulated, vicious creatures lucrative. So Ramage had no qualms about shooting the beast right between the eyes, but there was the sound thing.
Ramage glanced down slope, but he couldn’t see the guy advancing into the canyon. The coyote took a hesitant step forward, growling, teeth glinting in the moonlight. He glanced around for a stone, found nothing, then flipped the rifle in his hands, holding the barrel, turning the gun into a weapon of an earlier time.
He swung his makeshift club, came up way short, but the coyote paused, muscles rippling beneath its white and grey-black fur. Ramage lunged forward a few feet, thrusting the gun out before him like a lance, aiming for the beast’s eyes. He came up several feet short, again, but the coyote had stopped rumbling, its shining eyes studying Ramage in the darkness. When your enemy is startled, hesitant or confused, attack is often the correct option, and as Ramage coiled to spring the coyote took two shuffling steps backward.
Moonlight cut through the trees, and in the distance, he thought he heard yelling.
Ramage surged forward, gun out, growling like he was the leader of the pack and wasn’t in the mood to take any shit.
The coyote backed away.
He thrust the gun forward again, only feet from the beast’s snout. Ramage smelled the animal’s rank breath, felt its fear.
The coyote turned and ran, disappearing into the underbrush.
Ramage sighed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. The moment of peace didn’t last long. Where there was one coyote, there was more. They were like rats.
A gunshot rang out and a bullet whizzed through the vegetation. Ramage dropped to the ground, scanning the valley below, but shadows danced, and moonlight cut across the forest like walls, their glow hiding what lay beyond. He brought up the binoculars, but they were useless.
He backtracked, moving in an erratic pattern to confuse his pursuer. Ramage was halfway down the hillside, desert willow trees rising all around him, when he saw a dark shadow creeping through the trees to the south. The guy was picking his way, going tree to tree, but it was comical. Even the biggest desert willow provided little cover below its first set of branches, which were several feet off the ground. He had a flashback to a Bugs Bunny cartoon, or was it the Pink Panther?
The lack of cover was also a problem for Ramage. With no place to hide, there was no way to sneak up on the guy, take him out before he knew what hit him.
Ramage hid his backpack in the crux of a broken tree and covered it with dead branches. He hung the loaded rifle over a shoulder and h
eaded deeper into the forest.
In spots the trees were so close together Ramage was forced to retrace his steps and go around, but he managed to head steadily east, the foothills boxing him in. Rolly was no doubt feeling comfortable. Every sound echoed in the thin valley, but the thick layer of dead leaves covering the hardpan made his trail hard to follow. Not that it mattered, unless he sprouted wings, there was only one direction to go.
He wasn’t sure what cut he’d entered, but most of the small valleys in the basins east of the Wasatch Plateau ended in cliffs or met foothills that climbed steeply to higher elevations. He had to assume there was no outlet.
Branches snapped and a coyote howled, the sound of hurried footfalls echoing through the gorge. Rolly and crew were getting close. There were so many trees around him he felt relatively safe from a bullet. Even if the dumbasses could get Ramage in their sights, the odds of hitting a target as it moved through a thick forest in the dark was a zillion to one.
The Tahoe hadn’t fired up, so he guessed—
Gunshots rang out, the crack and rip of wood splintering, and bullets thwacking into sand filling the stillness. The shots had been focused on a position to the south, and Ramage peered through the underbrush, trying to catch a glimpse of what Rolly and his merry band of dipshits were firing at.
The guy flew from the thick vegetation like a cat, bursting from the foliage and slamming into Ramage, knocking the rifle from his grasp. The gun hit the sand with a crunch as Ramage brought up his fists, striking out as the guy wrapped him up and drove him to the ground.
Ramage bucked and heaved, but the guy was a python, and he pushed Ramage’s face into the sand. The two men rolled across the hardpan and slammed into a tree, their arms and legs a tangle.
An owl screamed, followed by a call, “Jerry? You OK?”
“Got him,” yelled Jerry.
“You ain’t got shit, Jerry,” Ramage said. He went limp, like he’d been sucked under a big wave, the ocean having its way with him. With the tension in his muscles gone the guy’s grip loosened for a heartbeat. Ramage wiggled free and vaulted to his feet. His opponent was just as fast, but as soon as the guy was upright Ramage thrust himself forward and headbutted him, a massive blow that snapped the guy’s head back. Blood flew, the thug’s white eyes going wide in the blackness.
The guy reached for a pistol in a hip holster, but Ramage locked his hand over the guy’s wrist and twisted his arm.
The mercenary screamed as Ramage continued to force the man’s arm behind his back. A crack echoed through the woods, the distinct sound of bone ripping from cartilage.
Ramage spun the man around, putting him in a chokehold as he leaned back and lifted the guy to his toes.
“What was it you were saying? Something about having me?” Ramage squeezed harder.
The thug clawed at Ramage’s arm, realizing he was in trouble, his toes scraping the sand, trying to find purchase as he struggled to breathe.
Ramage applied more pressure. A strangled wheeze escaped the guy’s lips as Ramage crushed his windpipe, and let the corpse fall to the hardpan.
He stood in the darkness, panting, the rage of fury in control. A chill spread over him, the adrenaline ebbing like the tide. He’d just choked a man to death. Ramage puked, his breakfast spraying over the sand and the dead man’s body. Head pounding in rhythm with his heart, throat burning with bile, Ramage wiped away a mucus strand hanging from his mouth.
Gunshots tore through the trees, and a flashlight beam arced across the basin.
“Give up, Ramage. There’s no way out of here except in a body bag,” Rolly said. “Actually, I’m going to leave you for the vultures.”
Ramage scooped up the rifle and fired in Rolly’s direction, reloaded, and headed north. He needed to get to higher ground, get his advantage back. He yawned as he bolted into a thick copse of desert willows, their dead leaves rattling in the wind. Thick clouds moved in, the night becoming darker as he ran on.
“Shit!”, Rolly screamed, his voice bouncing around inside the canyon. He’d found his dead man, and Ramage figured even a hopped-up fartknocker like Rolly had to at least be considering turning back. Giving it all up and heading back to his trailer in Texas. It wasn’t like the Sandman was a sister he was sleeping with.
“I can’t wait to kill you,” came the head moron’s yell on the wind.
So much for figuring. Ramage climbed, slipping in loose gravel, staying in the shadows.
Now it was four on one, but fate dealt Ramage a savage blow, and it began to snow.
Chapter Seventeen
Ramage stuck out his tongue, letting powder-like snowflakes settle there, their icy sweetness moistening his mouth. Snow swirled in the wind, and stuck to the ground, the hardpan a dirt-covered block of ice, the sun a distant memory. The dried leaves clinging to the desert willows rattled in the wind, a never ending clicking and tapping and snapping, and beneath it, the faint rumble of voices.
With a dusting of snow covering every vertical surface, keeping his path hidden would be impossible. If he moved, Rolly would find his tracks and he’d lose the element of surprise. He settled in under the boughs of an evergreen tree, its limbs dipping to the ground. He peered through a gap in the tree, using the binoculars, darkness pressing in around him. He couldn’t see Rolly, but Ramage heard him and his posse steadily making their way into the foothills.
His mind drifted, the snow covering him in a familiar blanket. His father had taken him bow hunting when he was a boy, and though Ramage hadn’t been a big fan of shooting defenseless animals, he enjoyed every other part of the outings. The preparation with his dad the night before. The hikes into the woods to scout locations and setup tree stands. Then the hours upon hours of just sitting with his father, sometimes talking, but usually just hunting in silence. That was the best part. Ramage and his dad had been able to sit and not talk. Not an easy thing for a parent and a kid. He missed his dad, who’d been dead going on fifteen years. Ramage liked his mother’s boyfriend, David, but they’d never frozen their asses off on Thanksgiving morning together, trying to catch a turkey that they wouldn’t have eaten even if they’d been successful, which he and dad never were.
Sitting beneath the boughs of the tree, snow coating the world, he was reminded of Pennsylvania, where he’d grown up. The trees looked different, the ground, everything, but there was a peace, a serenity that can only be found in the woods, away from civilization, and it made the place feel familiar. Ramage thought he might want to come back out this way someday, when there wasn’t a pack of human coyotes hunting him.
A branch snapped to his right, and Ramage swung the binoculars around. Two men worked their way up the hillside, moving in a zigzag pattern between boulders and thickets of underbrush. If he stayed where he was, the guys would pass by him and Ramage could come in behind them.
The ground was slippery, but tracking the men would be easy with the coating of snow. Several minutes slid by, but the guys didn’t change course and they passed thirty feet from where Ramage lay hidden.
He gave the goons a three-minute head start, then crept northeast, falling in behind them. He hadn’t smelled Rolly’s cologne, and Shelly would be rearguard. Both losers were probably waiting by the mouth of the canyon, sending in soldiers while they sat back. Well, that shit was about to end. He was cold, hungry, tired and pissed-off, and he was done being fair. It was time to take the fight to Rolly.
It was time for the hunted to become the hunter.
Ramage’s calf stung, the wound throbbing, but it wasn’t slowing him down any. He dipped under branches, slid around patches of devil grass, and skirted a thicket of juniper so twisted he didn’t think a desert rat could sneak through it. The two guys ahead of him were making good time, but they were being cautious, stopping every few moments, using the shadows and vegetation as cover.
The mercenaries approached an open patch of hillside that led to a sheer cliff face, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee would have to make a decisi
on soon. Head north or south in an attempt to get around the cliff, or head back.
He found a desert willow with a low branch and used it as support, sighting the rifle on the hillside. In the darkness aiming was impossible, and the Remington only had one shot and reloading took time, which would give his targets plenty of time to react. He had to get closer, wait for a gap in the cloud cover. Ramage looked back downslope, the forest a dark blanket, the red rock walls of the canyon streaked gray in the starlight.
A dark form moved through a gap in the underbrush ahead and Ramage fired. Loaded the Remington and fired again.
Yelling and cursing, some of it in a language Ramage didn’t understand, but thought was Russian. Like Texas, there were shale oil rigs all over Utah, and if there was one thing Russians were good at, it was squeezing money out of stones.
Tree branches snapped as gunfire tore through the forest, clipping leaves and plunking into tree trunks. Ramage slammed the Remington’s bolt home and fired at the muzzle flash that arced from one of the shadowy figures like he was pissing fire.
A scream of pain and the gun fell silent, the stray pop and crack of a handgun echoing through the valley.
Ramage charged forward, heading for the base of the cliff face where the other guy was sure to be. He chugged, weaving around rocks and patches of underbrush until he reached the rock wall.
Pistol shots popped, bullets smacked the rock face, and stone shrapnel sprayed like frozen rain. Ramage ran for the cover of the trees, bullets zipping and ripping through the vegetation around him. When he reached the forest, the gunfire stopped. He jogged through the stand of trees, working his way off the hillside to the valley floor.
Sandbagged: A Theo Ramage Thriller (Book 2) Page 12