by Hazel Hunter
Finally, there he was.
But as Logan watched the pitfall in disbelief, the man’s stride went completely over it.
Dammit.
The choke point had been narrow enough. The trap was perfectly concealed. But the man’s stride was huge and random luck had worked against Logan.
Suddenly the man stopped and bent over.
The glasses.
This might be Logan’s only chance. One more try with the pitfall. His eyes darted over the ground in his vicinity. He crouched, snatched up a rock, and hurled it backhand, upslope, where the man had just come from. It landed with a plop and rustled the leaves. Logan heard the heavy breathing stop. Then a loud cracking of the branches over the pitfall was followed by a bellow of pain.
As Logan emerged from the cover of the trees at a run, he had a clear view of the results. The man’s left foot had landed in the pit. Whether or not he’d hit the axe, Logan couldn’t tell but it didn’t matter. He rushed the man. Though his pursuer had lumbered like a moose, his hand wasn’t slow. He immediately raised the pistol and fired.
• • • • •
It wasn’t the kind of cane Jules would recommend to patients but it worked. Holding the heavy rifle in both hands, off to her right, she jammed the end of the barrel into the ground as her right foot came down. Although there was less pain now that she’d wrapped the ankle, it was still sprained.
But she didn’t stop moving. The sedative wouldn’t last forever, especially on a man Frank’s size. She’d run in the direction she thought Logan would be, into the forest. As blood pounded in her aching head and she gasped for every breath, she heard his voice.
Never say die.
Where is he now? Is he okay? He has to be somewhere on this side of the airstrip. Somewhere between it and that canyon. But where?
Nothing looked familiar. They must have come this way but she couldn’t remember. The dense foliage was identical in every direction. But the airstrip was behind her. That she knew. Though her lungs burned, she kept moving. She was so tired and every muscle ached.
An enormous fallen tree trunk blocked her path, as tall as her and stretching off left and right into thick bushes.
“Oh god,” she muttered and leaned heavily on it.
Standing on one leg, breathing hard, she looked down at the rifle under her right hand. At least she knew how to use it. Her father had taught her how to shoot when she was a kid and he’d had a gun with the same kind of bolt action.
Her good leg began to shake. It was doing all the work. If she could only lay down, just for a few minutes, give it a rest and get off her ankle. But she knew what Logan would say. He’d say to keep going.
There was a sound behind her.
“Logan?” she gasped.
She spun, her back against the dead tree.
But it wasn’t Logan.
In fact, it wasn’t even human. A giant grey wolf was approaching.
“Oh my god,” she said, raising the rifle–but too late.
As Jules swung the barrel of the gun upward, the wolf leapt. Ears back, fangs bared, and downy fur rippling, the animal sailed through the air, directly at her.
MOUNTAIN WILDS
An Erotic Expedition Novella
PART 3
By Hazel Hunter
CHAPTER EIGHT
The muzzle flash of the pistol was bright in the shadowy forest. Though he blinked, Logan kept his eyes focused on the weapon. He grabbed and wrenched the gun sideways as his shoulder slammed into the shooter’s chest. The man screamed in pain as the gun came loose in Logan’s hand.
The pitfall had worked.
Whether the man had broken his ankle or he’d actually stepped on the blade of the axe planted at the bottom didn’t matter. He was immobilized. As Logan’s massive upper body collided with the shooter’s, it forced him back and his leg bent at an awful angle.
Logan landed a roundhouse blow on the man’s jaw and followed it with an upper cut under his chin with the pistol. As though the strings of a puppet had been cut, the man collapsed in a heap.
Though Logan had been ready to hit him again, he pulled the last punch. Breathing hard, he stared down at the immobile form below him. He blinked at the warm pistol he gripped in his hand and suddenly felt a burning in his leg. He looked down at a red stain spreading on the outside of his right knee. The jeans had been sliced cleanly open, as though someone had used a pair of scissors. The injured man’s aim had been wild and the bullet had almost missed Logan but a deep gash about two inches long was bleeding. Another centimeter over and his kneecap would have been shattered. A centimeter in the other direction and it would have missed him completely.
Lucky.
Logan’s eyes unfocused and he saw a similar scene in a very different place. His CC-130 had gone down under enemy fire. Wick, his co-pilot, had been killed instantly, shredded by shrapnel. The outside of Logan’s right leg had been peppered with it. He’d limped into the back of the plane just as two Iraqi soldiers had entered the damaged tail gate. The shooting had started immediately.
Logan blinked and stared at his knee and then at the unconscious man on the ground. This wasn’t the Iraqi desert. This was the mountain wilderness of British Columbia. He and Dr. Julie Moore had crashed at a remote airstrip and, before search and rescue could find them, drug traffickers had.
Although it was unlikely the unconscious man would be able to walk when he woke up, Logan wasn’t going to take any chances. Using a combination of his belt and the man’s, he secured his hands and feet, and then hog-tied them together behind him.
Satisfied with the work, he took another look at the gash on his knee. The blood still flowed but not as freely as before. He’d live. Though he’d been about to look away, something shiny caught his eye.
“What?” he muttered, moving the ripped jeans away for a better look.
For a second, he could hardly believe it–metal. A jagged, little, silver triangle protruded from the trough created by the bullet. He reached down, pinched it tight between his index finger and thumb, and pulled. To his amazement, it moved, though not without pain. As he grit his teeth against the burning, he kept pulling. The triangle widened as it slowly emerged until, finally, it popped free.
Logan stared at the bloody piece of shrapnel. About the size of a quarter but roughly square, it was paper thin. He turned it over, as though that might help to identify it, though he knew that was pointless. Thousands of pieces of metal and other material had come loose. It was impossible to know where this had come from. As he glanced at his knee, he pocketed the fragment. There was no time to worry about it now. It was time to find Jules.
• • • • •
Jules screamed as the rifle went off and the wolf thudded into her chest. Its weight knocked her back against the massive fallen tree where she’d been trapped. As the air left her lungs in a single long rush, she grunted, cutting off her own scream. Expecting any second for the snarling fangs to sink into her neck, she tried to bring her hands up to fend it off and finally realized she was still gripping the rifle. As she slid to the ground, she dropped the rifle and shoved at the fur of the wolf’s neck. To her shock, it dropped to the ground next to her. She scrambled frantically to the side, pushing away from it any way she could. Only when she was several feet away, scooting sideways like a crab, did she realize it hadn’t moved.
She came to a stop and convulsively sucked in a breath. And then another.
“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Oh my god.”
With adrenalin still coursing through her, she got to her feet by leaning on the tree trunk and staying off the sprained ankle. Slowly, she limped back toward the still form on the ground. It wasn’t breathing.
I must have…
Her hand went to her throat as she peered at the dead animal and backed up a pace.
I must have killed it. I must have pulled the trigger.
In the mossy green of the ground cover, a red stain was starting to spread. Jules watched
in horror as it slowly seeped toward the butt of the rifle. The barrel of it was under the animal, where she’d dropped it. Before the blood reached the gun, she limped forward, grasped the wood stock, and pulled back. The wolf had landed mostly on its stomach but, as she dragged the gun from underneath it, the body rolled limply to the side and a gaping red hole appeared. Jules quickly backed up, tugging the gun clear, and could hardly believe what she saw. The barrel of the rifle had exploded. She dropped it and backed away. The barrel was split in two, open like a giant fleur-de-lis, curving back on itself in two circles. It was like some cartoon.
“What?” Jules muttered, staggering back.
But as she looked at the enormous wound in the wolf’s belly and the twisted metal of the gun, she remembered using it as a crutch. She’d jammed the barrel into the ground, over and over, packing it with mud.
“Fool,” she muttered.
You’re lucky it didn’t explode in your face.
Her legs began to tremble and she leaned heavily on the dead tree. There was a sound in the forest off to her right. Someone was coughing.
• • • • •
Logan surged through, around, and over the forest undergrowth.
Hang on, Jules.
The trees flew by to either side of him as he dodged and ran.
The airstrip can’t be far.
He was covering ground at a furious pace, moving much faster than he and Jules had been able to do. Although each pounding step brought new burning to his knee, he didn’t slow. It was no worse than the shrapnel pain he’d dealt with since the war. If anything, it made energy pour into his veins all the quicker.
He felt the smooth, wood handle of the pistol in his grip, slick with sweat. It was so different than the knurled black plastic of the Inglis 9mm. Though the forest continued to flash by, he no longer saw it.
He was in the back of the downed CC-130, warm blood running down the outside of his right leg, soaking his sock and boot, the 9mm in his hand. The loadmaster’s body lay unmoving near the payload as an Iraqi soldier stepped over it. Tunnel vision took over, from the cockpit entry to the aft loading door. The webbed seats at the sides of the hold disappeared and only the bright center of the tunnel remained, the two Iraqi’s backlit, their bodies just dark outlines. The 9mm came into view and it fired.
Suddenly, Logan emerged from the forest into the airstrip, skid to a stop, and took a few steps back. Chest heaving, he crouched. The truck was still here.
Good.
But where was Jules?
He moved sideways toward the lean-to, skirting the edge of the clearing, keeping at least a few trees between him and it. There was no movement anywhere. The plane didn’t look like it’d been touched or the truck moved.
Didn’t they make it back here?
He crept up to the back of the lean-to, looked around the grass field one more time, and then stepped to the side of the lean-to and looked in. Jules’ bag had been emptied onto the blanket and then tossed aside. He looked at the scattered contents, frowning, as his eye landed on something strange.
He stooped and picked up the uncapped syringe.
A shot?
Suddenly, the loud report of a weapon echoed through the forest. Its booming and explosive sound reverberated as Logan leapt to his feet. He peered into the forest at the direction of the blast. The man with Jules had the rifle.
“Jules,” he muttered.
• • • • •
Frank ducked at the sound of the rifle.
Dammit! Was that bitch shooting at him?
He stifled a cough and peered around his vicinity. He hadn’t heard the bullet strike anywhere near him. Slowly, he moved forward.
Did she take ammo? No. She wouldn’t have known where to find it. How many shots are left?
He tried to remember. One? Two? The Winchester held five. How many shots had he taken? He shook his head to clear it. Whatever she’d given him, he still couldn’t think straight–except for one thing.
When Seth finds out, he’s gonna kill me.
Frank picked up the pace, heading in the direction of the gun shot, his weapon raised. It had sounded close. He saw movement in the trees–a flash of red in the dim light.
That’s her.
Frank smirked as he moved to the left. He could still be all right. Seth never had to know. All he needed to do was kill her. As he neared a giant tree trunk across his path, he saw the wolf’s carcass.
“What in the…” he muttered.
The rifle was on the ground. No longer interested in the animal, Frank bent over the curved and ruined barrel of the Winchester. He glared at it and then the carcass of the wolf.
She killed it? And the gun exploded?
The hacking cough returned with a vengeance. Running had made him overheat. He coughed and spit, looking down at the rifle again. He’d have to make up some story for that. Say he’d shot it himself. It didn’t matter. He turned and stalked off in the direction he’d seen her go. No sense in being quiet. She didn’t have a gun.
CHAPTER NINE
Never say die, Jules thought. That’s what Logan had said.
She lurched to the next tree over the uneven ground and put her shoulder against it, barely able to catch her breath. She didn’t want to die but…
Her legs felt like rubber. Her lungs burned with each gasp. And her concussion felt like it could explode. She closed her eyes against the pain and kept the weight off her ankle. There was noise behind her. Her eyes snapped open and she pushed away from the tree but her foot caught on something. She immediately found herself sprawled face down in dead leaves and pine needles.
Although she scrambled to get up, a sharp blow between her shoulders sent her back down. Without enough energy to cry out at the pain, she simply thudded into the ground. Someone took hold of her arm, flipped her over, and grabbed the front of her jacket.
“What was in the shot?” Frank breathed into her face as he jerked her torso off the ground.
She couldn’t get her breath and tried to grab his arm. He shook her, rattling her vision.
“What did you give me?” he yelled.
“Antiviral,” she gasped.
Something was jammed under her chin, forcing her head back. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Liar,” Frank hissed. “You tell me or I’m gonna blow your head off.”
Her eyes snapped open.
“Nem-bu-tal,” she finally managed to get out. “Antiviral.”
The pressure under her chin gave way but suddenly she was being yanked off the ground. Her back collided with a tree.
“Liar!” Frank yelled as a few pine needles rained down.
He was holding a shotgun that he laid horizontally across her throat.
“Al-ler-gic,” she choked. “Re-ac-tion,” she managed to finish.
Although the pressure on her larynx lessened because Frank only held the gun with one hand, in a few moments she understood why. His fist landed in her stomach. A grunting cough escaped her and she wanted to double over but she couldn’t. The rifle pressed into her throat. But as the intense pain of the blow radiated outward and she struggled to get a breath, her legs buckled. Even the shotgun couldn’t keep her from sliding down the tree. Frank started to cough again and the metal across her throat finally disappeared. She slumped forward, rasping, coughing, the pain in her midsection the only thing she could feel.
“I was just gonna kill you,” she heard Frank wheeze. “But I don’t think so.”
She felt him grab her hair and yank. A sharp yelp escaped her throat as her hands flew to her hair to stop the pain but in moments she was standing against the tree again.
“Antiviral,” he breathed into her face and he punched her stomach again.
A strangled cry was wrenched from her as the forest whirled by in her narrowing vision. She pitched forward but, before she could hit the ground, Frank caught her and threw her back against the tree.
“Liar,” he yelled, as he punched her again.
Instead, she felt Frank yank her to a sitting position. He unzipped her jacket, drug it halfway down her arms and pushed her sideways to the ground. Using his foot, he pushed her onto her back. With her arms tangled in the jacket behind her, she painfully rolled onto them. Frank stood over her, one foot to either side of her hips. He slowly knelt and sat back on her thighs. Then suddenly, he ripped the front of her blouse open, scattering the buttons.
“Yeah,” he half-chuckled, half-coughed. “That’s more like it.”
Oh god, Jules thought, closing her eyes. I’m going to die.
What happened to Logan?
His boyish face flashed in front of her eyes as tears slipped from under her lids.
Is he even alive?
“Crying,” Frank spat. “Why is it always crying, huh?”
She felt a sudden stinging slap on the side of her face and her eyes opened.
“I asked you a question,” he said, glaring at her.
She blinked away the tears and felt anger rise.
“Because I was thinking of the man I love,” she yelled. How had she not realized it until now? Until it was too late? A sudden rush of frustration and loathing filled her. “Because I have to look at you.”
She watched as Frank’s face contorted in anger and he reached to his belt. Something near his hip snapped and a wolfish grin spread across his thin lips. With a flick of his wrist and a clicking sound, he showed her a knife–long, thin, and glinting. Slowly, he lowered it to her chest.