by Nathan Jones
It had only taken a few hours for the squad that was pursuing him to catch up again. Hearing that gunshot in the distance behind him, heralding the return of his relentless enemy, had been one of the worst moments of his life as the fleeting hope he'd felt turned to ashes.
A bullet whined past and impacted a tree twenty yards away, followed closely by the distant crack of a rifle, and he cursed and once again changed direction. It was a bad sign that his pursuers had remained close enough to take potshots at him for the last hour, even from an extreme range where it wasn't likely they'd hit.
Aside from the throbbing impact wound on his back, of course. He remembered what Brandon had told him about skirmishing what seemed like a lifetime ago: “Shooting men in the back while they're taking a dump . . . it's going to be the ugliest sort of fighting.”
Well, the shoe was on the other foot now. Now that he'd been about to take a dump, of course, not in his current situation. In fact, he hadn't had enough of a reprieve to even consider easing the pressure in his bowels, and had a feeling before long he'd be soiling himself on the run.
For that matter, with his bladder feeling like it was going to explode, he hoped to gain even a slight lead to duck behind a tree and empty it real quick. Although if it was a choice between that or taking another bullet, like as not one where he wasn't wearing body armor, he'd endure the humiliation of peeing his pants while fleeing for his life.
Assuming he lived long enough for that to happen.
Between trying to outrun them, trying to throw them off his scent, and only rarely spotting flashes of them in the distance, Skyler hadn't had time to even consider trying to pick any of them off. He had a feeling if he tried, he'd be the one getting picked off instead. There were just too many of them, too spread out and in unknown locations, and operating at a level of skill and tenacity far beyond any soldiers he'd hunted before now.
To make matters worse, he had to consider that the enemy might be coordinating with other squads in the area to cut him off. And of all the directions he could go, he couldn't even consider heading in the direction of Camptown and the help there. To be fair, he couldn't have made it back to where Gray's fighters might be able to lend a hand, anyway. Not unless he'd made a beeline for safety the moment they started chasing him.
Which didn't matter; no way he'd risk bringing terrifying killers like these anywhere close to where they might pick up a trail that would lead them to the bowl valley.
As if all that wasn't bad enough, he was getting dangerously close to the eastern edge of the mountains. His pursuers were well aware of it, too, and seemed to be specifically trying to herd him that way. They had to know that if he ever got there, he'd be in even worse trouble since he'd probably find a bunch of bloodies in vehicles waiting in the valley below. Maybe even in the foothills if they could find good roads.
No, wherever he went he'd stay in his mountains. He just wished he felt more confident they'd protect him like they always had; this was the first time since coming here, five years ago, that he'd felt truly unsafe on these forested slopes. Even the cougar had felt like something he and Trapper could handle together.
Trapper.
Skyler could admit that what he really wished was that he was back in Camptown. With his family. That he'd never had the stupid idea to go out skirmishing on his own, with no one to watch his back and nowhere to turn when disaster inevitably struck, like it had now.
Sure, he'd killed more than a few bloodies, disrupted several squads, and led the enemy away from the bowl valley or its defenders on more than one occasion. He might've even contributed to ensuring they hadn't found the place yet, and if so he could be proud he'd lived up to Trapper's legacy and done his part to keep his loved ones safe.
He just wished it didn't have to end this way.
Gritting his teeth, he quickened his pace, bolting over logs and between trees on rubbery legs at a reckless speed to buy some distance from his pursuers. He wasn't about to give up and say it was over yet, no matter how hopeless things looked. He wasn't beaten until he was in the ground; until then he'd show these Sangue scum that they were dealing with a mountain man who called these peaks his home.
He was scaling a slope up to a ridge to the east, just a few ridges over from where the mountains gave way to foothills. With the squad of bloodies hot on his heels, and half of them running themselves to death in smaller fireteams to get ahead of him and cut him off from the sides, it seemed like a stupid idea to waste time dropping low and shimmying up to peek over and make sure he wasn't heading into danger.
But Trapper's training had taught him that when things were bad and he was most panicked was the worst time to forget sensible precautions. So he hurried up the last eight or so feet of the slope in a crouch and poked his head up behind a bush, peering between its leafy branches.
He was immediately glad he had.
The far side of the ridge directly in front of him and stretching eastwards was a rolling meadow, dropping down into a deep valley to the north and with a thick stand of blue spruce and Douglas fir marching away to the south.
Coming up the meadow only a few hundred yards downslope was another squad of bloodies, in a line with each soldier spread ten yards apart, weapons already out and held at the ready.
Skyler cursed to himself, slowly lowering his head out of sight. The squad chasing him must've guessed where he was going and radioed ahead to these new guys. And while his pursuers had been running themselves ragged just like he was, this new squad looked fresh.
What did he do now? He was effectively surrounded, and it would be impossible to slip past the bloodies across the open meadow in front of him, no matter how blind and incompetent they were. As for going any other direction, he'd already seen for himself that his pursuers weren't the sort you just snuck past.
Was it time to consider some sort of last stand?
No, forget that.
Skyler grit his teeth and peeked up over the ridge again. To his dismay, the squad ahead must've either been contacted by his pursuers or caught some sight of him, because they'd quickened their pace from a cautious walk to a trot, making their way up to the ridge.
Well, if he had any hope of getting away he needed to make those SOBs more cautious. So he found a good spot to steady his AK-47's bipod, selector set to automatic. He heard gunfire from behind him as his pursuers finally caught up, the splintering crack of a bullet smashing through a branch ten feet away. The bloodies in the meadow below shouted at each other and raised their weapons towards the ridgeline.
Skyler acted first, holding down the trigger and sweeping the muzzle of his rifle along the line of exposed troops. He wasn't expecting to hit much, or anything really, for multiple reasons: first, he wasn't aiming through the scope, or even really sighting along the barrel. Second, at that range hitting anything with automatic fire was more luck than intent. Third, they were so spaced out he emptied the magazine before sweeping the muzzle across more than half of them, and the ones he aimed at quickly dropped prone to avoid the bullets, which at that angle made them pretty much impossible to hit.
And fourth, most importantly, the moment he opened fire he heard more gunfire from behind him and to either side as his pursuers confirmed his position.
Skyler ducked back down and hastily reloaded, slapping in his last full magazine. A frantic look around showed him a figure popping into view along the ridge to the north, rifle pointed his way, and he popped a desperate shot off at him.
To his surprise and relief, his shot hit the man in the head and he dropped like a ton of stones.
That was probably the best opening he could hope for under the circumstances; he took off directly for the enemy's body, ducking through trees as bullets whipped past leaves and into tree trunks on all sides, and thudded into the ground at his feet.
Adrenaline gave him a surge of energy, lending strength to rubbery legs and grace to clumsy steps. He ducked between trees and even dove beneath a dead tree leaning agains
t two living ones, rolling once and coming back up in a sprint.
Even if he managed to get away from this current desperate situation, he wasn't sure what he was going to do beyond the next five minutes. He was exhausted from almost no sleep over the last couple days since this squad began hunting him, and how long he'd been awake before the hunt began. The tension was mounting as well, making it harder and harder to think rationally and keep his cool.
Worst of all, he was at the end of his strength. No matter how good of shape he was in, or how much experience he had moving on these mountain slopes, even he couldn't go forever without proper breaks for food or rest or to relieve himself. His eyes stung with sweat, his lungs burned with every heaving breath as he fought to get enough air to keep up his wild dash, and his legs had the sort of deep ache creeping through them that suggested they'd give out on him at any moment.
With two squads now after him, one of them fresh, he wondered how long it would take before he collapsed and they caught him.
Skyler could admit that up to this point he'd been lucky. Going up against the odds he'd faced, the sheer numbers of enemies he'd constantly poked and prodded until they were swarming after him tirelessly in an effort to run him down, it was only a matter of time before his luck run out.
Even so, he almost didn't understand it when a blunt force like a punch to his left arm made him lurch sideways and slam shoulder first into a tree, losing his grip on his rifle. In the confusing muddle of his thoughts he knew instinctively that there was only thing it could be, since there were no trees or other obstacles nearby he could've run into.
But there was no pain, nothing. Was it possible it had actually hit his flak jacket, and he just thought it had hit his arm?
Then a terrible sense of wrongness spread through the limb. Skyler felt a cold, liquid sort of numbness spreading from the source of the hit, as well as a hot liquid spreading across his skin. He looked down and saw blood soaking his sleeve and dripping down his arm, onto his leg.
And then the pain hit, like a hammer, so intense that even with the adrenaline surging through his veins he had to clench his teeth around a scream. He hugged the tree with his good arm to keep on his feet, panting through gritted teeth as he struggled to regain control of his body through pain and shock.
His mind was screaming that he needed to keep going. That more bullets would follow the first if he kept still like this. So as his vision reeled and blood dripped off numb fingers, he shoved away from the tree and continued his stumbling run.
Skyler nearly ended up falling flat on his face with the first step, tried to catch himself with his injured arm on a branch and with horror realized he had no strength in it; he could still move it, he just couldn't make it do anything.
And he could feel it. Holy cow, could he feel it.
He fell, barely caught himself on his good hand and knees, and with a growl of determination launched himself forward again, staggering into a clump of trees as the sawing buzz of automatic fire ripped into the forest around him. A heavy punch against his lower back made him nearly fall again, joined by the throb of another bruise beneath his body armor, but compared to the pain of his arm it was nothing, and he shrugged it off and kept going.
Ten yards. A hundred. He reached a dangerously steep downward slope, clear of any obstacles, and in an act of pure desperation threw himself down it.
Rolling down a mountain slope was nothing like rolling down a grassy hill. Not that Skyler had had much experience with the latter. Or the former, when he could avoid it. For one thing, the slope was so uneven he was constantly being bounced up and then slamming back down, usually right on his wounded arm.
For another thing, mountain slopes were littered with protruding rocks, and hitting one of those at high speed was like getting pounded by a club. One particularly big one nearly stopped him in his tracks with a jolt hard enough to make him bite his tongue, adding the metallic taste of blood to the acrid bile burning in the back of his throat.
Skyler did his best to keep from rolling too fast, to control his bouncing so he didn't break bones as he landed each time. He also had to avoid rolling around to where he was going head or feet first. And on top of the unmitigated delight of all that, he heard gunfire and the whine of bullets pinging off rocks around him.
To make matters even worse, at some point the saddlebags strapped across his back snapped free and went flying away. In his current state he missed the scant protection they offered against slamming into the ground more than the vital provisions they offered, since he might never have a chance to use those.
He didn't even consider stopping to retrieve them. Not only was that a great way to catch a bullet on open ground, but he knew if he stopped this insane tumble he didn't think he'd have the strength or courage to start it again. So he grit his teeth and focused on reaching the stream at the bottom of the slope without breaking his neck.
On the plus side, the sheer unpredictable chaos of his barely controlled tumble made him a hard target to hit. On another plus side, he made it down the few hundred yards of steep slope in what felt like half a minute, none the worse for wear aside from bone-deep bruises, a few burning scrapes, and the throb of a potentially sprained wrist on his injured arm.
So all in all, he'd come out ahead in the gamble.
Skyler clawed back to his feet and splashed into the stream. He just barely had the presence of mind to resist the temptation to take the path of least resistance downstream, back into the arms of his enemies. So he took the more difficult path upstream at a stumbling walk, cold water seeping into his boots, in the full knowledge that now that he was committed to it he'd never leave it.
He was too exhausted to fight his way through the dense vegetation clogging the mountainsides to either side of the water, too exhausted to try to climb up the slope he'd just rolled down. He was barely willing to acknowledge the fact that his pursuers, of whom he'd gained only a small reprieve, would be hurrying back down to find a position from which they could shoot him.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
Before long Skyler reached a cut as deep as his shoulders, the banks densely overgrown with bushes on both sides to the point that all he could see was a narrow line of sky directly overhead. It offered good protection against enemies coming down the slope at him, since the only way they could get to him was either following him upstream or cutting him off from downstream.
That illusion of protection turned out to be a cruel trick, since he'd barely gone ten feet into the cut before his last spark of hope died. Up ahead a dead tree had fallen down one bank, then caught enough branches and other detritus to block off the path, the stream flowing merrily beneath the blockage that was as good as an impassible barrier to a man at the end of his strength.
He sagged back against the bank, despair dragging him down with a leaden weight he barely even wanted to fight anymore.
So be it. This little cut was going to be his last stand.
He grit his teeth and yanked his belt free, struggling one-handed to tighten it above the wound on his left arm. Tending it seemed like a waste of time under the circumstances, but he didn't want his strength to fail before he had a chance to shoot some of the bloodies coming from him.
Once that was done, his numb arm now throbbing to his heartbeat, he fumbled his Glock out of the holster at his hip and struggled to hold it steady with one hand, aiming downstream. Then he waited for the inevitable.
On the plus side, at least he'd have one last chance to catch his breath before the end.
Chapter Seventeen
Trapped
Positioned on the western slope of the valley, Tom lay prone staring through the scope of his AK-47, ready to put a bullet through the closest soldier approaching the deep cut in the stream bed below where Skyler had taken refuge.
One step closer, and the man was dead. He wouldn't be the last, either, one way or another.
It had torn his heart to see his son stumbling throug
h the water, arm bloody from a wound that didn't look trivial. His face had been ashen, drawn with pure exhaustion, and he'd been lurching like a drunk man on the verge of blacking out, obviously on his last legs.
The monsters on the opposite slope had done that to him, and as long as Tom drew breath not one of them was getting within a hundred yards of that stream.
Just before he pulled the trigger, however, a sharp order from a Sangue farther south made the half dozen or so soldiers pause. Tom watched as they vacillated, clearly angry at the order, before swiveling his rifle around to find the source of the shout.
He found a full squad of bloodies, clean and fresh-looking as if they'd just joined this fray, a few hundred yards down the valley. A man who was obviously an officer was dressing down a far dirtier, more exhausted looking counterpart, the two arguing furiously and pointing north along the stream in the direction Skyler had fled.
Tom watched them, baffled. Was it possible they didn't realize the cut below was a dead end, and they thought Skyler was still fleeing upstream and getting away from them? That they didn't know his son was trapped and at the end of his rope and they just had to amble over and finish him off?
Whatever the case, the leader of the fresh squad seemed to win the argument. His soldiers turned and trotted due west, angling down the slope and starting up the far side. After a tense half minute or so of staring after them, the leader of the more weary-looking squad began barking out orders, and his soldiers filtered out of the surrounding undergrowth and grouped together in orderly lines, following their counterparts west.
Only the two or three soldiers closest to the cut where Skyler hid hesitated, as if tempted to ignore orders and continue their hunt. Tom focused his aim back on them, preparing to open fire and give them more encouragement to be on their way.
Then a soldier who might've been a fire team leader barked out an order, sounding frustrated. The soldiers slunk off westward, angling down the slope and then up the far side, headed westward after the others.