by C L Daniels
A small veer and the cat presented perfectly. Vikram squeezed the trigger.
“Shit!” His left arm jerked the barrel aside just as the bullet lunged from its chamber. He was already setting up a second shot even as the tiger stumbled. A streak of blood bloomed across its shoulder. When the cat recovered two steps later, Vikram knew for certain the first bullet had only grazed it.
He tried to sight again, but again his left arm went out of control, this time slipping entirely off the barrel and flailing wildly.
“No!” His cry followed the retreating cat as it leapt through the snow.
The tiger arrowed toward the far end of the pen where the fence jutted rudely. It hurled itself up, but the timbers, slanting sharply inward to prevent it from gaining a purchase, were too high to clear. It snarled as its heavy body fell back to the ground.
From the iron-barred blind, Vikram watched the cat — his cat — and cursed.
CHAPTER 2
THE WIRY KEEPER MONITORING the hunt flipped open his phone. “Got a wounded tiger in Sector B.”
“Need help?” came a prompt reply.
“Nah.” The keeper, Lim Chiou, watched the cat pacing the fence line. “I’ll tranq it and see what Mr. Shankar wants to do.” Hunters missed shots. Not frequently, but it happened. Lim didn’t think Mr. Shankar was the type of man who would want to shoot a tranquilized animal, but he had paid for the kill. Others had taken that cheap shot and then talked up the hunt at dinner, never admitting the circumstances of the actual kill. Many of the hunters here ran multi-billion-dollar companies and failure in any form — including just the appearance of failure — was not an option.
Lim grabbed the rifle leaning against the watchtower wall, scooped up three loaded darts and headed out. The iron gate swung closed behind him. He didn’t bother to bolt it. Not only was the tiger at the opposite end of the pen, but Lim counted heavily on the experience he’d gained in the Army Marksmanship Unit during active duty a half-dozen years ago. It had been a long time since he’d missed a shot of any kind.
He pushed his palm out toward the blind where Vikram still sat, cursing his arm, the cat and anything else that came to mind. “Stay there until he’s down. It may take a few minutes once he’s hit.” Gripping the rifle comfortably, Lim walked out a few hundred feet, stopping within easy range of the pacing cat, where he loaded a dart into the gun.
The tiger edged away from Lim, following the fence. Putting the rifle to his shoulder, the keeper took aim, then fired, looking for the dart to embed itself in the cat’s muscular flank.
Instead, the dart nosed into the snow several yards short of its target.
“What the —” Lim stared at the dart, grimacing at the naked cartridge. A quick scan of the white ground turned up its bright red tailpiece about 40 feet away. Darts didn’t often fail, but even tailpieces from the best manufacturers were known to occasionally break apart from the hypodermics they were supposed to be guiding.
This, Lim decided, was setting up to be a perfect storm.
Agitated, the cat bounded across the pen, leaping at the fence, looking for a weakness, a break. It hit the unlatched gate and the timbers bounced on their hinges.
For a tantalizing moment, a sliver of an opening appeared.
Lim grabbed another dart to load.
In the blind, safe behind stout bars that kept hunter and prey apart, Vikram swore in frustration. Knowing the cat was beyond the range of his rifle, he raised the stock to his shoulder anyway, drew in a steadying breath and sighted.
The big cat swatted at the gate, causing it to bounce again. This time the cat hooked a paw through the narrow space that appeared between the gate and the fence. Then it froze, holding the gate partially open, unsure what to do next.
In the center of the pen, a rifle cracked. A single bullet ricocheted against the gate’s iron frame and fell harmlessly away. Startled, the tiger flinched, snatching back its outstretched leg. A claw caught in the frame, dragging the gate open along the arc of its retreating paw.
Without hesitation, it shouldered past the gate and sprang beyond it. A heavy dart flew after the fleeing cat, catching on the edge of the gate that swung closed behind it.
By the time Lim hit the gate at a run with his third dart loaded, the white tiger had disappeared into the Dakota hills.
=o=
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Table of Contents
FireCall
SoulFire
