Cutting Edge

by Robert W. Walker

  “Damn,” he tried to joke it off, “now when they find my body and they do the autopsy and try to learn my last meal, they won't find a damned thing...”

  “Nobody's going to find your body. Remember? They're going to stuff us all below a manure pile by the stables. We'll never be located. We will have simply disappeared.”

  “You really know how to comfort a guy,” he replied, and then began to laugh hysterically.

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Darlene. I'm in love with her. She loves me. My screwed-up life was just getting in order. Now this. Now I'm a dead man.”

  She was in tears. Randy crawled to her, exhausted, frightened, cold with the chill of a cold Texas night breeze sprinkling raindrops like confectioners' sugar on his bare skin. He tried to comfort her, but she pulled away, saying, “We've got no time for tears and self-pitying blubbering damn it! We've got to help Lucas.”

  Randy looked stricken. “Are you crazy? He told us to get the hell out of here, led them off in his direction so we'd have a fighting chance to get to the road, flag down help. It's what he wants.”

  “He could be dead by the time we get help.”

  “If we go after him, we could be dead even sooner.”

  “I'm not arguing this. I've got to find Lucas and help him. You do whatever you think best, Randy. Go on, get to the road, get help! It's a good plan.” We saw a hell of a lot of traffic out on the road leading in, she sarcastically thought but did not say. She shoved at him, nodding, telling him it would be smarter.

  “No, no, no... He said for us to both find the road, get help, remember? He wanted me to take care of you.”

  She almost stated the cruel and obvious truth, that he could not in his wildest dreams take care of her. “You find the road. I'm going to find Lucas.” She pulled away from him.

  He chased after her, tackled her, and held on. “You can't! I won't let you!”

  She pounded him with her fists. “Randy, I'm not leaving him to the... to the dogs.”

  Randy was over her now, pinning her arms, staring into her eyes, breathing wildly, a human umbrella against the falling raindrops. “Are you just plain crazy, Meredyth?”

  In the distance, a lightning bolt streaked across the sky.

  “Let me up! Let me go, Randy, now, damn you!” God, but she hated the helplessness of her female weakness against his male strength.

  Randy found himself helplessly drawn to her, despite his professed love for Darlene. Meredyth just felt good beneath him, and she was down to her bra, and Randy was getting randy for her. He held her there longer, staring down at her, saying, “God, Meredyth, you... you're even prettier when you're mad.”

  She pushed and shouted. “Goddamn it, Randy, let me go!” She kicked out, her knee catching him in a vulnerable place, sending him reeling in pain.

  He relented, rolling to one side, helplessly groaning as she skittered away. In a moment, however, his groans turned to laughter at her.

  “What is so bleeding funny?”

  “You…... you and me. What possible good can we do here, Meredyth? We're unarmed, and even if we were armed, neither one of us can shoot straight.”

  “Lucas gave me some lessons,” she said defensively, even knowing he was right.

  “Just the same, we have no weapons. A stick and a stone against a hunting dog is one thing, but against five mad humans? Please, please be reasonable and come away with me.”

  The silver drizzle began slanting in at them from the south, from the direction where the road must be. Dark clouds overhead swirled as if stirred, a celestial cauldron filled with gray, black, and purple ingredients. She said nothing, mulling over his words, Randy hoped.

  “It's suicide, Meredyth, and even if you never knew it or never acknowledged it... I... I love you... and if anything should happen to you... I'd never forgive myself...”

  She stared at him, realizing for the first time why he had gotten himself so deeply involved in this most deadly of games, why he had never once said no to her. “Damn you, Randy Oglesby,” she muttered, found her footing and stormed away, running off in the direction the horses had taken. Randy was left with the blank night and the unconscious dog and his tree limb. He finally decided to follow Meredyth, the rain drenching them but also drenching any odor trail left by Stonecoat for the dogs to follow. Had Lucas Stonecoat somehow conjured up the rain? Randy wondered. Did he know the rain was imminent when he had so heroically made off with their clothes to create a false trail for the dogs to follow?

  Randy wasn't so sure that the Indian didn't possess some magic or medicine bag of tricks he kept tucked away. In any case, Randy was now shivering, sloshing through a black forested area in the cold rain in his skivvies, one part of his brain wishing he were a little kid again, at home with his parents yelling up the stairs for him to come away from his computer games and down to dinner, another part of his brain wondering why he was not going in the direction of safety but in the direction of danger in senseless pursuit of a woman whom he could never have, trying to keep up with a woman who often had made him feel weak and foolish, a woman who had saved him from the fanatical fangs of a wounded and angry dog, a woman who was tough and resourceful and beautiful and stubborn as hell.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Lucas knew the dogs were on his heels, and he also knew that he had little chance of surviving this night, but he'd be damned if he would go out alone. He wanted in the worst way to take Bryce out with him, and maybe that bitch doctor and some of the others.

  As he ran, he scattered Randy's clothes here, Meredyth's there in a continued attempt to keep the dogs—both animal and human—confused. Confusion now was his best and only ally, that and his native intellect. He hadn't given up his Bowie knife, which had been hidden the entire time in the sheath at the center of his back. It was his one hope, but a knife, however well he might wield it, was no match for sighted, laser-targeting, high-tech crossbows.

  He led his pursuers deeper and deeper into the most rugged terrain he was able to find here. The forested area gave way to a dry riverbed, the sort of gulch that filled in an instant during a flash flood. He had little hope of seeing a flash flood here tonight, although the ancient riverbed was soggy and gave way beneath his feet as he raced on. Still, with the rain increasing, he hoped his scent and his tracks might be obliterated, but the hounds seemed on a scent and direction from which they could not be dissuaded—slowed, perhaps, but not dissuaded.

  Out of the earth, like spirits from another world, a spectral fog began to rise, the earth being too quickly cooled by the rain. Lucas blessed the sight. It would provide more cover, and from the gloom, he might more readily strike. One more ally for him.

  He continued into the rocky, pitted foothills, his arms free of the last vestiges of Meredyth's clothing now. He concentrated on locating a weapon, anything he might arm himself with, but the boulders here were all too large to handle and there were no tree limbs lying nearby.

  One of the dogs had caught up to him; another was just behind. The first one attacked, leaping straight for him. He could hear the horses coming at a gallop, the shouting of excited hunters who smelled blood.

  Lucas brought the Bowie knife up to strike the wild-eyed dog, but he missed, the speed of the animal too much for him. He tumbled over, the dog held away from his throat, yipping, biting out viciously, then Lucas brought the huge knife up and into the animal's gut, twisting and yanking upwards as if zipping the animal open. The result was immediate shock for the animal, and its whimper was painful to hear. Lucas lifted the dog while lying on his back and hurled it at the second dog, striking and confusing it.

  Lucas got to his knees, the knife held out threateningly toward the animal, which was obviously trained well to please its master. The dog hurled itself at Lucas and was suddenly struck down in midair over Lucas, taking the arrow meant for Lucas when it jumped into the path of the laser beam.

  Lucas felt the weight of this dead animal thud into him and he im
mediately yanked on the arrow shaft in the dog's back, rolling to his left, dragging the dead carcass with him, over once, twice, and into a small crevice between the rocks here. The dog was hung up overhead now, the arrow pointing straight down into the crevice. Lucas pulled it free, the animal's blood flowing over him, painting his features in wild color.

  There was an exit behind Lucas and he crawled for it, taking the steel arrow with him, still holding firmly to his knife as well. Above and around him, he could hear the clatter of horse hooves and the voices of his assassins.

  Bryce was shouting, 'The red devil's killed my dogs! That son of a bitch is going to suffer for this. Find him, find him and kill the bastard. Fan out!”

  Lucas rolled and crawled and pulled himself along, staying low among the rocks. He heard the noise of a babbling creek and went toward it at a run.

  Behind him, he heard the woman shout, “There! There he is!”

  He felt the pain as an arrow tore across his calf, cutting a swath but veering off, not penetrating. He lunged into the creek, already soaked, hoping the water was deep enough and swollen enough to take him downstream. The hunters behind him had abandoned their horses for the moment, coming straight for him.

  The water was deep and the current swift. He allowed himself to be carried along.

  A singing arrow bit the water before his eyes. A second one slapped the water harmlessly beyond him. Several other shots were fired, and Lucas wondered how long his pursuers would take before they began using high-powered rifles that could open a hole in him the size of a grapefruit.

  Lucas was slammed into a tangled nest of brambles, dead tree limbs, and growth in the stream, and he hung on, trying to catch his breath. The water felt soothing on his wounded leg and his shoulder where he'd torn out his stitches. He felt his blood streaming along with the cool waters now.

  He heard Washburn, Dalton and Bryce taunting him now, calling out racial sneers. Besides being murdering assassins, they were also a pack of bigots, he thought.

  He pulled himself along the shallows and found a bevy of reeds and cattails. It was shallow enough here to stand, the bottom mushy but holding. He quickly cut a reed at both ends and descended below the surface in the best of Indian traditions.

  His hearing was impaired by the water, but not by much. He sensed that two or perhaps three of the deadly hunters now had passed his location. He waited patiently for any others, but he could hear and sense nothing. Finally, he gave up the vigil and surfaced.

  He now moved with the stealth of a cat, slowly, making no sound as he found the true shoreline and inched his way from the water. Rain still pelted the world, and darkness and gloom and fog lay over the creek, smearing the woodlands here with grim despair.

  From what he could gather, from the number of horses he'd heard and seen thundering up, Bullock and Price had come along on the hunt. Some odds, he mused, five to one. Any betting man would not give him much of a chance.

  He gave a moment's thought to how he had become embroiled in this horror, thought of Meredyth, pleased that the hunters had come after him in the mistaken belief they were all still together. Lucas wondered if he'd ever see her again, if she and Randy had made it out to the road, or if they were dead and lying somewhere beneath the cold rain. He had counted three dogs from the yelping and yet there were only two lying back there among the rocks. But he had to keep focused, keep his mind on survival. There were five deadly Questors, five murderous, live Helsingers in these black holes all around him, just waiting for him to step on a dry twig so he could be drilled through the heart by their arrows.

  Again he blessed the rain. It had shielded him thus far, saving his life. He wondered if there wasn't some distant ancestor looking out for him.

  A blazing eruption suddenly burned an image into Lucas's mind, an image of a man being electrocuted as a tree exploded within fifty feet of Lucas, a lightning bolt having caused the explosion. The lightning filled his nostrils with ozone even as it sent Lucas sprawling several feet and onto his back. It lit up the entire area, the fiery tree sending deadly shards in all directions and sending both a flaming body that looked the size of Stu Price and a burning tree limb cascading around Lucas's prone body. Lucas felt the other man's body whiz by like a twig, and he felt both lucky and vulnerable at once. Had anyone seen him?

  The burning tree was lighting up the sky with crazy lights that flickered bright and low, now high and mighty, then dipping into a near-dark death with the wild rush of wind the fire itself had created. The raindrops hissed as they touched the fire.

  The light was dangerous for Lucas, and the shock wave from the lightning strike had thrown him down so hard that he could not find either his knife or the arrow now ripped from his grasp. His singed eyes sought out the body near him, but Price, his body sending up a smoke cloud, had no crossbow fused to his hands. Lucas tried to frisk the smoking corpse for a gun, but the body was extremely hot, and it suddenly erupted once again into flames, sending Lucas scurrying back.

  Now without weapons, he saw Pierce Dalton, silhouetted against the light from the fire. He came directly toward Lucas. Had he seen or heard Lucas's shout? Lucas couldn't recall if he had shouted, but it seemed likely, given the impact. His ears were still ringing.

  Pierce Dalton didn't shout for Bullock or the others, but Lucas could hear the other three at a distance, shouting for Dalton and Price in the wake of the lightning strike. Perhaps they thought their comrades had been struck by the bolt or disoriented by it, and if so they were half-right. Perhaps the others feared that, in the tumult, Lucas had managed to get his hands on one or the other's crossbow.

  Lucas thought it not a bad idea, so he worked his way around, slithering snakelike toward the burning tree. The closer he got to the tree, the more lit-up and exposed he felt. Still, if he could locate Price's crossbow, he thought he might have a fighting chance.

  And there it was, lying at the base of a rock not far from the inferno. He inched toward it.

  So far, Dalton hadn't seen him. Dalton had, however, found Price's body, and he was turning the dead man with his foot, gazing down into the shocked eyes, the still-burning hair. Dalton had been close to the flash as well, and he appeared shaken.

  Lucas made a grab for the crossbow, found it blazing hot, burned his hands, and dropped it all at once, knowing the noise alerted Dalton. Dalton wheeled as Lucas rolled into a deep shadow created by a nearby overhang of rock and brush. Everything outside the firelight now was darker than ever, the black shadows multiplied tenfold by the flames.

  Counselor Pierce Dalton, who no doubt had given Judge Charles Mootry his last legal advice before killing the man, came ever closer to where Lucas lay in the deepening shadows of this area. A second smoldering limb lay just out of Lucas's reach, but its jagged, pointed edge made for a tantalizing prize. Lucas dared inch toward the limb.

  Dalton kept coming as if he had his eyes trained on Lucas, as if he could see into the empty wall of blackness here, but Lucas saw no evidence of the telltale red laser beam rising from his weapon. Closer and closer the malevolent man and the powerful crossbow came at Lucas, who now feared Dalton would see the whites of his eyes.

  Dalton turned sharply in a 180-degree turn, hearing another sound directly behind him. He instantly lifted his bow and readied to fire, searching for the source of the noise. Lucas had heard it, too, but could not worry about it. He had only a split second in which to make his move.

  He rolled to the burning limb, lifted it and himself toward Dalton's back, and as the man turned, his crossbow ready, Lucas jammed the pointed end of the burning limb into Dalton's gut and rammed it upwards with all his might.

  Even as Dalton's scream pierced the air, his cocked arrow twanged into a nearby tree as he keeled over like a felled tree, the limb sticking from him, still afire, its blaze suddenly sparked, it seemed, by the fuel of the man's blood. Lucas instantly tore the crossbow and arrow pouch from Dalton's lifeless, staring body, half expecting to be fired on from the other
three killers. But from the darkness came only a terrified deer, suddenly skittering away like a graceful, saving angel.

  Lucas raced back up along the creek, placing some distance between himself and his remaining pursuers, entertaining some thought at taking their horses. But with the lightning strike, it was doubtful the horses would have remained, most likely having returned to their stable by now. Once he located a safe place to catch his breath, Lucas saw that Dalton had only two arrows left in his pouch. In the distance now, he heard Tim Bullock cursing the sky over Dalton's body, shouting, “Stonecoat! Stonecoat! You bastard! I'm coming for you!”

  Lucas, his bad shoulder throbbing now, fought with the stringing of the crossbow to ready his first deadly arrow for flight, realizing the math was all wrong—two arrows to fell three assassins who believed vehemently in their cause. The one-handed struggle with the bow was extremely difficult, taking precious time, but finally he managed to get the weapon prepared.

  He lay on his back now among some boulders and overhanging trees. He didn't see Sterling Washburn or hear her approach; it was as if she'd been there all along, waiting for him, knowing he'd select this exact spot to nestle down into to hide and regain his strength. It was obvious she had not been with the other two, who had gone south, further along the river, hunting for Lucas in the shallows as he'd hoped they would. And now their eyes met, and his bow was down, lying across his chest, while hers was pointed, the red beam making its way to his heart.

  She fired just as he lifted the slate stone beside him to cover his heart, knowing that she and the others always aimed for “the demon's heart.” The powerfully strung bow sent the steel shaft into the stone with incredible force, shattering it into two separate pieces and piercing Stonecoat's chest over the heart. It failed to penetrate beyond a centimeter, however.