by Clay Martin
CHAPTER THREE
The bartender came back out of the kitchen and continued to make small talk with him, edging on the mildly flirtatious. How much was an act to dig deeper into his pockets, how much was boredom, and how much was genuine interest was impossible to tell, and largely irrelevant. Mike didn’t really care either way. He was bordering on tipsy, enjoying himself for once, and you play the hand you are dealt. The bar was deserted except for him and Samantha, one of those times of year a Tuesday wouldn’t bring much business. Time passed, and eventually a scruffy looking man came in through the front door, stopping to size the place up before heading around behind the bar. Not a word was said, but the mood changed instantly. Samantha went from flirty to subdued, once in a while even looking at her shoes. The new man introduced himself as Tim, and asked Samantha to see to busing off the tables since they would be closing soon. It was spoken as a question, but there was no doubt it was a command. “Ah fuck, what kind of shit did I just step in?” Mike thought to himself. Boyfriend? Husband, was this a mom and pop shop? Tim was eyeing him from the moment he came in the door, and Mike knew what kind of evaluation it was. He hadn’t been outright hostile, but it definitely felt like being sized up for a fight. Mike was in no mood for that, and felt his moment of action with the bartender slipping through his grasp. This Tim clown had cock blocked the magic, and a fist fight would put the nails in that particular coffin, no doubt. The guy hadn’t made a further aggressive move or statement, but that probably owed more to Mike’s size than anything. Quite a few men had thought they wanted to go down this road in his life, but most of them backed down once they really looked at him. 6’2 and 240 might not be a giant back in Texas, but most places it was enough to quell the storm. At least once it was apparent Mike wasn’t the backing down type, and might even enjoy it if you didn’t. Unless they were already drunk. For some reason, smaller men really liked to fight bigger men after the sauce took them, and it always ended badly. In the back of his mind, Mike actually hoped this clown had phoned some friends, so this would at least be entertaining if it was inevitable. If his night was going to be ruined, he at least wanted it to be worth it.
Tim asked a few questions of the stranger before he realized he was acting like a total weirdo. He had come back to town to grab some more beer and some steaks out of Bill’s freezer, and hadn’t planned on talking to anyone. It was so hard, barely twenty-four hours off the hunt, to contain his inner self. Christ, his cock was still sore from his turn at the spoils. He was third in line this time so there was still plenty of fight, and for the first time had stuck it in her ass. God that had been tight. Afterward he had momentary concerns that the other guys might think he was a secret homo, but nobody did. The tribe would never think that of one of their own. He was so turned on by it that he got hard again in time for seconds, before the sun came up. After the feast, the guys had sat around talking about how to improve the chase. Bill had suggested a woman with a child, but Dean thought maybe it was time to recruit another man as prey. Maybe if they put a man with a woman, which would make things more interesting. The talk had gone on long into the night, and by the next morning they were out of beer. Normally they didn’t come back to town during the hunt week, but Chief had said it was okay this time. Maybe he was trying to salvage the experience, knowing that the chase had left the guys a little disappointed. When that stupid bitch Samantha called him, he answered mostly in case she had spotted his truck. Didn’t want to seem like you’re acting weird, answer the phone like a normal person Tim. What she told him was almost too good to be true. Large, fit man, passing through, alone, scouting elk locations for next year. Older truck, no wedding ring. That last bit was probably Samantha’s answer to herself, not like it would have stopped the slut anyways. Sometimes he thought maybe she should come up to the camp. Not a fucking chance, Chief said. No one from around here. Not until we are stronger, not until the Return of Kings is upon them. Then it won’t matter. You can do what you want in town, there will be no need for the camp. But not now, no exceptions. Now here Tim was, looking at this guy like he was fresh meat on the auction block. Get it together man!
“Sorry, I just came down from camp myself. You forget how to talk to people being out in the woods that long.” Tim said, throwing back a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves.
“I get that, how long you been out?” Mike responded, still coiled inside waiting for an ambush.
“Bought a week. Needed a resupply.” Tim smiled, holding up a case of beer cans from the bars cooler.
“I hear ya there buddy.” Mike smiled back. It was fake as the day is long, but a poker face was one of his strengths. What kind of a twat needed a beer resupply after seven days at a hunt camp? This Tim dude was a strange one, no doubt about that.
Tim excused himself into the kitchen, and slipped out the back door. This was a golden opportunity he gleamed to himself. The stranger looked reasonably fit, Samantha told him he was in the area scouting elk locations, and wasn’t due back East for weeks. The Bronco in the lot had North Carolina plates, which was a long way from home. Whole lot of miles between here and there for someone to check if he went missing. Decision made, Tim smiled. Alpha males took risks. It’s what they did, how they survived, and only a beta needed a group consensus to act. The boys were in for a surprise tonight!
CHAPTER FOUR
When Tim came back in, he looked like a different man. Animated, friendly even, he started asking Mike all about himself. Mike stuck to a well-worn cover story about being a recently divorced, out of work construction worker. The conversation felt a little bit like a sloppy elicitation attempt, which made it easy to deflect. Still, Mike was a little on edge. Maybe this was the set up while the goon squad assembled out front. Well, if things got to out of hand, there was always the .45 ACP stuck in his waistband. An XD-S chucking ashtray sized bullets tended to even any odds.
Tim grew more and more sure of himself by the minute. The answers this stranger was feeding him were a gift from God himself. It seemed he was all alone, off the beaten path, and hadn’t really told anyone where he was. Finding himself, something all these city boy fucks needed to do nowadays it seemed. Drones, all drones, slaving away for a system built on spend and earn, achieve status, be entertained. They weren’t even really alive. It would be the greatest honor of this loser’s life to get to die in a hunt. Hopefully this one at least had enough fire to die well. The few men that they had hunted before had finally whimpered and cowered when eventually cornered. So sad. They couldn’t even really call themselves men. Why not at least die fighting? That would be a worthy death.
Tim walked to the back of the barroom where Samantha had busied herself cleaning tables, and told her to go ahead and take off. He would close up himself. That had never happened before, but Samantha didn’t want to question it. Tim was acting strange, the new guy Mike was signaling tension in the air, albeit subtly, and she didn’t want to be involved. Not her problem, once she got her purse and headed out the back door. Maybe Tim was about to ax murder this guy, and maybe this guy was about to stuff Tim under the counter. Either way, she wanted to be home and in bed by the time the Sheriff eventually asked what happened. This was definitely a weed kind of night. Smoke a bowl, turn the lights off, and forget this day ever happened.
Mike felt his heart sink when Samantha walked past and said goodbye, noticeable without leaving her number or a house key. If not his heart, certainly his libido. Well, that settled that. Tim was removing the only potential witness from the equation; violence was going to ensue. If this was some kind of unrequited crush, or just a your not local are ya boy kind of situation, the result was the same. He was going to try a be a grown up for once, walk away if this was a threaten “or else” party. Not like he was ever any good at taking a step back, but it beat having to shoot everyone if more than two other guys showed up. Or did it? He was here to probably end his life anyway, what difference did three yokels make? But he was also buzzed,
which had a tendency to mellow him out. His end was supposed to be peaceful, not a last stand on the receiving end of a posse. Nothing else had been, the universe kind of owed him this one.
“No offense stranger, but I need to close up. You might drink like a fish, but one customer still isn’t worth keeping the lights on for.” Tim said with his best Baptist caught holding a beer smile.
“Not a problem, I had best be on my way to.” Mike smiled back. Just a big dumb idiot with no idea what came next. No sir, officer, had no idea how fast I was going.
“One for the road? How about a shot of your choice” Tim considered just inviting him to the camp since it fit his interest. That would solve the Bronco problem, and the guys would subdue him the second he stepped out of it on principle anyway. But nope, not the way things are done. Tim was too smart for that. If something went wrong, he would be in deep shit. This required a bit more finesse. Besides, if they ended up hurting him bad in the take down, the bonus hunt would be shot. Like hitting a deer with your truck the second you get to your corn pile.
“How about Crown?” Mike shook the fuzz off. Probably shouldn’t, but one more isn’t going to make much difference for what happens next. He still had his wits about him, this was going to end fast regardless.
“To the line of Hunters” Tim raised his glass. Mike nodded and swallowed his drink.
“I’ll walk you out so I can lock up.” Tim said, sliding around the bar and coming even with Mike.
Fuck, here we go. So the it was the classic, ambush right outside the door. Well, Mike had seen this one before too. The door pushed in from the outside, hinges on the left side. Tim would open the door, ever the gracious host. Stutter step as they approach the threshold, duck the second his first foot crosses the opening, lunging to the right with a hook flying at ball level. A tiny minority of people were left handed, hence the ambush man would likely be on the right. With a little bit of luck, it would be a bat not a 2x4, and the shorter weapon would carry the hitter through the empty door, smashing Tim’s teeth out for good measure.
Five steps from the door, Mike saw the world start to swim. Four steps and it all faded to black as he crashed to the floor.
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- Chapter 1 -
Jake Silver inched his way across the dimly lit bedroom of his Manhattan apartment.
Stopping by the bed, his eyes were drawn to the woman’s prone form, and beyond to the far nightstand where a pair of champagne flutes—one on its side, the other upright, its silhouette clear through the tiny garment flung over its mouth–recalled visions of an evening well spent.
And, though the night had been special, it had not yet occurred to Jake that it was the first during which his sleep, however brief, had not suffered the nightmare and its aftermath. That this gutsy woman had chosen to remain by his side, would serve as adequate good fortune for the moment. Though they’d known one another a mere 36 hours, Jake felt an uncommon affinity for Sandy McRea.
The bedroom was comfortably warm against the crisp autumn dawn, so Cassandra—as the decidedly unaffected Ms. McRea would soon become known—had let the bedclothes slip below her waist. Jake made no move to raise them, but instead allowed his eyes to wash slowly over his new lover’s sculpted upper back, indulge the ivory sweep of torso, the narrow waist, the sensual, summoning breadth of hips laid bare by the retreating folds of linen.
He wanted to wake her, lift her to him. But he knew she’d need her rest if only to survive the upcoming day of job interviews at what seemed every ad agency in town. So Jake ever-so-gently moved an amber curl away from her face and bent to softly kiss her cheek.
Opening one eye, Sandy smiled sleepily. “Is it morning already?”
“Not for you. Not yet.” He adjusted her blankets.
Reaching up to touch his face, she said, “You slept well, peacefully.”
“I was tired. Can’t imagine why,” he teased.
“Well, you think about it,” she countered, suppressing a mischievous grin, hoping he’d find himself able to think of little else.
Both eyes open now, she girded her courage and asked, “Will I see you again?”
“We both know that answer,” he whispered, pleased as much by her candor as her interest. “I’m flying back tomorrow night. We’ll put on our big-boy pants and celebrate your success.”
“Success?” she laughed. “I haven’t landed anything yet.”
“You will,” Jake said. “You’re beautiful, brilliant, and talented.”
“Right,” she yawned, a hint of cynicism aimed less at the choice than the order of his words. “Maybe the last two qualities will carry the day for once.”
Their faces nearly touching, Jake understood the distraction such a face as Sandy’s might impose upon a hapless interviewer of either gender, especially those unable to see the aspiring artist as anything other than an “aging” ingénue. He smiled. “I’ve seen your renderings, kiddo. Those drawings are gonna knock ‘em dead.”
With that bit of encouragement, they shared one long and lingering last kiss before Jake playfully pushed Sandy’s distracting face into the overstuffed pillow, teasing, “Now, stop pointing that thing at me, or I’ll never get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow night... and remember, big boy pants.”
They exchanged a smile, she closed her eyes, and Jake turned to leave.
Suddenly, in wrenching contrast to the moment, he recalled the horror and the visions that had overwhelmed him two nights past. As he stood in the doorway, his back to the bedroom, vivid images of the recurring dream shattered his idyllic morning.
Once again the specter emerged and walked toward him. Once again he saw its wet garments, its shredded hand beckoning, looming, horribly cold as it drew near. But this time, like no other time, the hand had touched his face. With no little embarrassment, Jake recalled how he’d awakened then to pitch his sweaty, shaking, combat-veteran’s fit, all of it playing out before the wide-eyed and terrified Sandy.
Now, a full day and night later, Jake tried to shake the memory as he turned back to have one last, bittersweet look at the extraordinary person still sharing his bed, and despite himself, despite the nightmares and learned caution, despite Sandy’s earlier terror, despite all of it, he allowed himself to feel the rush of new romance.
Stepping back into the bedroom, Jake picked up a pen from the nightstand, and scribbled a few words of endearment, along with an admonition—his second—that Sandy use the apartment for her remaining few days in New York. He closed with a promise to call when he got to LA.
Tucking the note under his alarm clock, he also left a key.
It meant taking things another step, leaving that key. But, he clearly cared for this woman, eight years his junior. He wanted her to feel at home at his place, safe, comfortable, naked, but most of all here when he returned.
Setting the key atop the note, he checked the night table drawer. His pistol was there. Sandy, who liked to call herself a country girl, should have found that New York made her nervous. Since it didn’t, that made Jake nervous. So, and since this Iowan knew how to handle a weapon, he’d decided to leave the gun out of its locker for her quick access.
With slight apprehension, he slid the drawer closed, and left the apartment.
It was slightly past 6:00 a.m. when Jake stepped from the building’s lobby and into a fast-building rain shower.
A few cabs drifted by. None were available.
Then, just as he turned back for the shelter of the lobby and was about to ping Uber, a medallion taxi pulled up to the curb, discharging a man.
His hat pulled down against the weather, the guy left the cab’s door ajar while gesturing for Jake to do the same with the apartment building
’s door. On impulse, Jake obliged, but regretted his rote courtesy the moment the stranger disappeared into the building. Uttering a muffled, “Dammit,” Jake ran for the cab.
“Airport this morning?” the cabbie asked, recognizing Jake’s uniform.
“Yeah, JFK,” Jake responded, absent mindedly while looking back and making a mental note to find a new place, one with a doorman.
As the cab wove its way east through an awakening Central Park, Jake peered from the window, impressed by the number of people out jogging so early on so dismal a morning.
He recalled having once shown similar discipline as a light heavyweight boxer in New York’s Golden Gloves.
Always disdainful of bullies and bullying, young Jake had found amateur boxing a sensible outlet for his adolescent-male aggressiveness. What began as an outlet grew to an avocation he’d later carry into intercollegiate competition. But despite his emerging pugilistic promise, everything changed when, in the final second of the final round of an otherwise unexceptional bout, a blow to the head caused Jake’s vision to flood white.
And though he’d neither gone down, nor lost consciousness his clearest recollection was of a doctor shining a light into his eyes as he sat on his stool in a corner of the ring while the referee raised his opponent’s hand in triumph.
Given that the study of head trauma to athletes was in its infancy, Jake was simply declared fit, sent on his way and no medical record established. Only later did he learn that following the blow, he’d continued throwing punches despite that the bell had rung and his opponent had returned to his own corner as the crowd roared with laughter. The revelation so disturbed and embarrassed Jake that he’d never climbed into a ring again.
So, these days, Jake Silver liked to boast that he kept his fitness regimen limited to the rigor of chewing an occasional airline steak.