Angie heard the horses moving around a little, adjacent to the camp that she and the sheriff had set up.
“You know if you stay like that, Sheriff,” Angie said. “You’re liable to become a permanent fixture of that tree.”
Sheriff Tucker grunted, moistened his lips, and spat.
Suddenly, there was a long slow, deep rumble of thunder from far on the horizon. Angie’s eyes rose up at the sound. She looked at the treetops, which started to rustle in the strengthening wind. She glanced at the sheriff. The sheriff tucked his head down behind his duster’s collar like a bird settling into its nest before a coming storm.
Angie listened to the shifting sounds around the forest. She turned and glanced down the night-darkened hillside through the forest’s trees. She thought she saw movement down the hill, but it might just have been the wind dancing with the branches, pulling shadows one way and then another. Then, the sky lit up with distant lightning, and a long slow rumble of thunder rolled out ahead of it. Angie shivered.
An owl hooted in a nearby tree, and Angie glanced back in the direction of the mine.
“We’ve got a storm coming,” she said.
The sheriff looked at her, but said nothing.
The rain started in earnest twenty-five minutes later, and Angie realized they were in for one hell of a night. She tended to the horses, and Sheriff Tucker stood up and walked toward the mine entrance.
“Charlie Rutledge!” he called into the mine. “We’re waiting for you, and we ain’t gonna leave!”
Angie held her horse’s reins in her hand. She stood beside it and patted its head to reassure it. She looked across the way at Sheriff Tucker. Rain poured down on the big man, on his duster, and his cowboy hat, and it poured over the brim as though around the lid of a barrel.
There was a flash of lightning, and Angie’s horse started moving around nervously.
“Whoa, big fella,” she said.
The horse took a couple more steps up the hillside into the clearing right in front of the mine. The rain beat down on them. Angie started to shout something at Sheriff Tucker, when a noise came from behind her. Angie swung around and saw the mountain lion standing atop the rock she had been sitting on earlier that day.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
She let the reins go, and the horse swung around and rose up on its hind legs. The mountain lion stood up there motionless, and all of a sudden, the sheriff was shouting at her to look out, to get out of the way.
The horse struck her broadside, and Angie fell to the ground. Her bare hands touched mud and rocky earth, and the horse came down and rushed over to the side of the clearing.
Angie heard the crack of the sheriff’s rifle behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder and saw the big man standing in the middle of the clearing. He held his rifle up, and Angie climbed quickly onto her feet.
“Look out, Angie!” the sheriff said.
She ducked out of his way. Her rifle stood against a tree twenty feet away. She ran for it, but she saw the big cat take two agile steps down off of the rock and land powerfully on the ground. The big cat stood ten feet in front of Angie.
Because of the cat’s position, Angie couldn’t get to her gun. The gun was on the other side of the mountain lion.
She stared at the big animal. Rain pattered off of the ground around it, around her, around the clearing at the entrance to the mine. Two or three seconds passed, and Angie couldn’t understand why the sheriff hadn’t fired on it again.
She knew that if she looked over her right shoulder to see what Tucker was doing that the big animal would coil and pounce on her. She stood her ground and slowly raised her arms up over her head to make herself look as large as she possibly could to the creature. The big cat stared at her.
It took two steps forward, and Angie felt her whole world collapse. She wanted to scream at the animal.
What the hell was Tucker doing?
She saw her rifle leaning against a tree on the other side of the mountain lion, and then, the mountain lion veered to its right and stepped down into the darkness and the trees. Rain continued to hammer the ground, but Angie refused to look away from where the mountain lion vanished into the woods. It was probably standing just beyond the edge of the trees, circling the clearing.
She wiped rainwater away from her face and glanced once more quickly over her shoulder.
Sheriff Tucker lay face down in the mud. An ax rose from his back. The blade was buried between his shoulder blades. Angie swung around and ran to him.
“Sheriff!” she cried.
She knelt down over him. With her hands, she turned his face over, and she realized that he was dying. His eyes looked up at her, and his mouth tried to form words, but only a harsh little gasp of wind exited his throat. His lips moved up and down. Angie held him close, kneeling.
She looked around the clearing, expecting Charlie Rutledge to emerge from the shadows, expecting the mountain lion to pounce. But everything was still, except for the pouring rain. She glanced back toward the mine and saw nothing but darkness. And then she looked down into the sheriff’s eyes. He was a handsome man, handsome in that rare way that honest men look. He had eyes that were true, and he was going to die in Angie’s arms.
“No,” Angie said. “No! Stay with me sheriff. Stay with me now!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raspy.
Angie said, “Oh God. Oh, dear God!”
The sheriff shook his head slowly back and forth and looked into her eyes.
Angie glanced around the clearing. She saw the sheriff’s rifle lying seven feet away.
“Angie,” the sheriff whispered.
Angie looked at him.
“I can’t feel my legs,” he said.
Angie looked at him frantically, but there was nothing she could do.
“I’m so scared,” he said.
“Sheriff?”
Angie pulled him close and felt the life go out of him.
Lightning flashed across the sky, followed quickly by a terrible crash of thunder. Rain hammered them both.
Forty-Four
Charlie Rutledge hobbled down the hillside, slipping and sliding, but somehow managing to stay up on his one good foot. Two hatchets dangled from either side of his belt like shiny six shooters. He’d left his Bushman EZ-Grip in the sheriff’s back. He lurched from one tree to another.
Rain poured down on him through the forest canopy. Charlie fell against a pine tree and stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He clung to the tree. He heard something coming down the hill toward him. It was weaving right and left through the trees, and Charlie realized it was one of their horses.
He hobbled out away from the tree, dragging his bad leg behind him. He threw his hands up to try and stop the horse. It was twenty feet away from him, coming down the hill.
“Whoa!” Charlie shouted. “Whoa there!”
At the last second, the horse saw him and came to a stop.
• •
Angie pulled Sheriff Graham Tucker’s body over to a dry spot right inside the mine. She removed the ax from his back and sat him up against the wall. She folded his hands for him down across his lap. She stood up and looked at him. He was dead.
She looked out across the clearing in front of the mine, and she trotted out into the rain and picked up his rifle. She ran back to the dry spot a few feet inside the mine and checked the rifle. She saw that it was loaded.
Her horse had taken off down the side of the hill into the woods, but the sheriff’s and Robert’s horses stood leashed to a pine tree at the side of the clearing. Angie carried the rifle and walked over to the horse. She cupped her hand up over her eyes and stared down the hill through the driving rain.
She saw Charlie Rutledge.
He had stopped her horse and was mounting it. Angie unleashed Sheriff Tucker’s horse from the tree. The horse took two powerful steps up toward the clearing.
A bolt of lightning ripped through the sky and stru
ck a tree fifty meters right of Charlie. Sparks exploded into the air. A huge chunk of tree cracked and fell powerfully to the ground.
Angie swung up over the saddle of the big horse, cocked the rifle, and took off down the hill toward Charlie Rutledge.
• •
Charlie Rutledge balanced himself atop the horse and took off down the hill. He didn’t think the woman had it in her to really cause him any harm, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
The horse carried him swiftly down the hill, weaving right and left through the trees. The rain was cold and heavy, but he knew that if he gained any distance on her, he’d lose her completely.
• •
Angie was fifty meters to Charlie’s back and right. She saw him through the trees, through the rain and darkness, and she heeled her horse faster, dodging trees right and left.
Her horse leapt over a log. Angie held on tight and drew closer to the cold-blooded killer. She held her rifle in her right hand and managed the reins with her left. She got the rifle up on her shoulder and fired off a shot.
The sound of the rifle ripped through the forest, but the shot missed. With her right hand, she cocked the rifle again and tried to take aim atop the galloping horse.
Suddenly, everything went out from under her. The horse made a terrible sound, and the ground flew up at Angie. She hit the ground, and the wind rushed out of her.
She rolled three times and struck a tree. Dizzy, she tried to climb quickly to her feet. She staggered and braced herself against the tree. She saw the horse climbing to its feet. She glanced back and saw the swath in the mud and the steep drop-off they’d slid down, and she thought for certain that her horse had probably broken its leg.
But the horse stood up. It shook its mane. It walked tentatively for a moment, but its legs seemed to be okay.
“That’s a good boy,” she said.
She reached down and picked up the rifle. She got back on the horse and started down the hill again, this time a little more slowly.
She couldn’t see Charlie Rutledge anywhere, but she knew roughly where he had been, and so she got her horse pointed in that direction and started onward through the trees and driving rain.
• •
Three hours later, she was utterly lost. The horse walked onward slowly. The rain still poured, and she was soaked. She was cold, alone, and afraid. And she had no idea where she was in relation to the mine, the cabin, or the lake to the south. Everything was dark and wet, and she leaned forward and hugged closely to the horse’s neck.
“Where are we, boy?” she said. “Where are we?”
Forty-Five
She saw him by the lake an hour before sunrise. The rain was thin, cold, and constant, but Angie’s mind was so numb she didn’t even feel it anymore. She was on a ridge about a quarter mile up from the shoreline. She looked down through the trees and saw Charlie Rutledge sitting on a log by the bank. He removed his boot from one foot. His back faced her.
His horse was ten feet to his left, and Angie quietly slid down off of her horse and began walking down the hill. Carrying Sheriff Tucker’s rifle in her right hand, she called: “Charlie Rutledge!”
Rutledge swung around on the log. He saw Angie coming down the hill toward him, and he grinned. She was careful with her footing on the steep hill. Angie motioned with the rifle.
“You’re just planning on riding out of here?” she said.
He acted like he wanted to get up, but Angie raised her left hand.
“Sit,” she commanded.
She gazed out at the lake. It was wide and its surface was smooth, one hour before sunrise. It was ten miles across from where she stood to the bridge at Roosevelt Dam. She could see the bridge like a thin line far on the other side of the lake. That dam controlled water for three reservoirs forty miles northeast of Phoenix, Arizona.
Her ice blue eyes came back to Charlie.
• •
The mountain lion stood perfectly still, staring at the woman. Her back faced it. The cat stood in a thicket of trees forty feet down the shoreline from the woman and the man. It licked its lips, its golden eyes alert and clear.
The mountain lion took three silent steps forward.
• •
“You’re a goddamned, no good whore,” Charlie muttered.
Angie stared into his eyes.
“Women like you are going to be the downfall of our country. There was a time when you knew your place. There was a time when you realized you were nothing. You and your fancy degrees and elected positions. Women are nothing! Do you hear me?”
She felt sorry for him. She felt pity for him, but she kept the rifle aimed at him and remained quiet and listened. Even as exhausted as she was, she still clung to the hope that there was something good in the man. But this man just went on spewing out anger and hatred.
“You’re nothing,” he said, “and if it was up to me, I’d rape you right here on the spot. Because it’s the only thing you’re good for. And apparently you ain’t even good for that. You can’t keep a man. You don’t deserve the job you have. You ought to be lying on your back. That’s the one thing you’re good for in this lifetime.”
Angie listened to his insults.
“You’re a goddamned ignorant—”
“Enough, Charlie,” Angie said.
Charlie stared at her with hatred in his eyes. Angie didn’t doubt that this man would rape her. Her heart pounded in her chest because she realized if she let up, he would probably turn the tide and do exactly that. He would rape her, spit on her, kick her in the ribs, and then laugh at her as she lay there dying. Some men were just that cruel. Some men, it seemed, had a black void inside their chests where they should have had a soul.
She just wanted to shake him, shake him out of his evil, and make him see the world the right way, make him realize that she was just a person, just like anyone else, and she was only trying to make it through this life.
“On your feet,” she said.
Charlie sat there realizing he could win this little game.
“I don’t think you’ve got it in you to shoot me,” he said.
“Don’t you have any good in you,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you, but you’ve killed two people, Charlie. You killed two of my friends, and you’re going to pay for that. Now, we’re going to walk all the way around this lake. I’m going to climb up on that horse. I’m going to keep this rifle aimed at you. And you’re going to walk. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”
Charlie smirked. “Like hell,” he said.
“On your feet.” She motioned with her rifle. “Come on.”
“My ankle,” he said. “I can’t walk. I think I broke it.”
“You’re telling me you can’t walk?”
“I’m telling you my ankle’s hurt.”
Angie took a step closer to him, and then realized it might be a trick.
“Come on,” she said. “On your feet.”
Charlie braced himself on the log and tried to stand up on his one good leg. Angie stood less than five feet from him. She could see the pain in his eyes, and then he looked into her blue eyes as though asking for her compassion. And again, Angie felt sorry for him. She took another step closer and then saw Charlie’s mouth tense up.
He spat in her face.
Angie stepped backward a couple steps, raised her left hand up, and wiped his saliva from her face. Charlie threw his head back and howled with laughter.
“No good, goddamned woman,” he shouted. “That’ll teach you. Why don’t you come over here; I’ll bend you over this log and give you a ride like you never had!”
Angie was about to lose her cool, but she just stared at this horror of a human being with wonder and pity in her eyes.
“That’s what you need. That’s what your problem is; you ain’t been fucked properly. I’ll give it to you; I’ll make you scream.”
Charlie stood there laughing at Angie Rippard like it was the last laugh he would have in his life.
“Stupid goddamned woman,” he kept saying. “Stupid goddamned woman!”
CLAWS Page 22
