He howled, tears filling his eyes. It was the laugh of a man with no regard for life. His face was red, and he started coughing he was laughing so hard.
“Jesus Christ, you ain’t got the balls to kill me,” he howled. “Literally!”
Angie stared at him, wonder giving way to anger. She felt mocked. She felt shamed. She couldn’t believe that anyone could be so willfully evil. But he stood right there in front of her being exactly that. She raised the rifle and said, “Shut up!”
“Ain’t got the balls to kill me!”
“Shut the hell up. I mean it!”
“She means it!”
Charlie spat at her again, his phlegm hitting her chest, neck, and chin.
Angie said, “Oh, you sorry son of a—”
Suddenly, she heard something about twenty feet behind her. Charlie went on howling, but Angie pivoted around and looked up the shoreline through the trees. She held the rifle in her hands. It was difficult to see. Charlie’s voice dropped to silence, and Angie swung back around.
That was when the butt of the hatchet struck her powerfully across the left side of her head between her ear and her temple. The pain was sharp and blinding, and Angie’s mouth went slack, the rifle fell from her hands, and she crumpled to the ground.
Charlie stood over her, the hatchet in his hands.
Forty-Six
Robert Gonzalez staggered out from the entrance of the mine and fell down on both knees in the clearing. He had a frantic look on his face, and his shirt was soaked with blood. He was alive, but he had seen something there at the end that made him think otherwise.
How long had he been down? Several hours? Since midnight?
It was light outside now, a new day, and he remembered chasing Charlie Rutledge into the mine, and it had been light then, too. He reasoned that he’d been out cold for hours.
Robert looked around for his handgun, and his eyes came to rest on Sheriff Graham Tucker.
“Sheriff?”
It looked like the sheriff was sitting against the wall just inside the mine. Robert must have passed him as he came out, but he was in such a state of mind that he didn’t see him.
“Sheriff Tucker, you okay?” Robert said.
The sheriff sat there with his hands folded over his lap. Robert lumbered up onto his feet and started walking toward him. The sheriff looked to be sleeping. Strange, Robert thought.
He suddenly swung around thinking Angie might still be out here.
“Angie?” he called. “Doctor Rippard?”
But the only reply was a morning dove’s coo in a tree beyond the clearing. Robert glanced at his stomach. His shirt was ragged and bloody. He approached the sheriff.
Robert knelt down in front of the sheriff and started to reach his hand forward to touch the sheriff’s foot. He glanced at the bearded man’s face, at his closed eyes. The sheriff’s mouth kind of slumped to one side like he was dead asleep, and Robert shook his foot to rouse him.
“Sheriff,” he said.
The sheriff’s leg was stiff. Robert realized that he was dead.
“Shit.” He stood up and looked the other way.
Walking another ten feet away, he turned and looked at the sheriff. His hand came up to his mouth.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he said. And suddenly, he started looking around frantically. He felt very alone. Was he the last one? Did Charlie Rutledge get Angie, too?
His legs went weak. Robert’s breathing became thin and his hands shook. The fear that he was stuck out here alone, that Charlie Rutledge had killed the sheriff and Angie—it made his mind reel.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
He walked over to the edge of the woods and looked down the hillside. His horse looked up at him; it had broken its tether and had wandered down the hill.
“Angie?” he called down into the woods.
He felt trapped; he didn’t want to call out too loudly because it might alert Charlie that he wasn’t dead. That is, if Charlie were still alive.
He walked down the hill, petted the horse, and led it back to the clearing. Part of him didn’t want to leave the clearing, didn’t want to wander away. What if Angie had just walked away for a few minutes and came back while he was gone?
But her horse was gone, he realized. Maybe she was gone for good; why else would she take her horse? Maybe she thought he was dead.
He looked all around him up the hill above the mine. He looked at the sheriff again, sitting there stiff as a board.
His horse shook its mane. Robert had to make a decision.
Then he saw Angie’s rifle lying by the rock.
Forty-Seven
Charlie reached down and grabbed the sheriff’s rifle from the ground. Angie lay flat on her stomach, her face buried in the dirt and leaves. Charlie rose up on his one good leg and stared up into the woods in the direction from which they’d heard the sound. He latched his hatchet onto his belt and pointed the rifle into the trees along the shoreline.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” he muttered.
A wind started up across the lake and reached the trees along the shoreline. The treetops rustled and the branches swayed, and Charlie squeezed his finger around the trigger and fired three shots into the woods.
Staring through the trees, he waited to see any movement. There was none. He glanced down at Angie who lay unconscious on the ground. Licking his lips, he rubbed his mouth nervously with his left hand, and hobbled around the clearing making certain that if the mountain lion had been there, it was scared off now.
“Go on, get out of here!” he shouted to the trees.
On the ground behind him, Angie moaned. Charlie checked the chamber, saw there were six more shells, and fired two more shots into the woods. He held his hands up over his head and shouted: “Go on, get out of here! Yahhh!!”
He held the rifle and fell silent, listening for any returning sound from the forest. There was only the sound of water lapping lightly on the shore, and so Charlie turned and looked at Angie Rippard lying face down in the dirt.
He sort of shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“Jesus Christ. You’re going to get it now.”
Charlie knelt down behind her and felt the back of her thighs through her denim jeans. He held the rifle in his right arm, and his left hand rose up to her butt.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
Angie moaned and started to stir. Charlie stood up over her, swung the rifle around, and then brought the butt of the gun down hard into the base of her neck. Angie sprawled out again and ceased moving.
Charlie checked the clearing once more, then looked back at Angie.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered nervously.
Charlie hobbled around in front of her, grabbed her right hand, and dragged her across the clearing toward the log. He braced himself on the log and rolled Angie over on her back. Her eyes were closed, and there was a line of damp blood on the left side of her face where he’d struck her with the butt end of the hatchet. He could tell it was already beginning to swell up, and he reached down, popped the button on the front of her jeans, and managed to unzip her pants.
“Oh, I’m going to give it to you,” he said.
He yanked her pants down to her knees. Angie tried to open her eyes but only groaned.
“Don’t you make a sound,” he whispered, leaning in close to her right ear.
He reached down and snatched his hatchet from his belt. He cut her underwear off with the hatchet blade, wadded them in his fist and flung them on the leaf-covered ground in front of her. He suddenly realized he was so excited he was breathing shallow ragged breaths. His dirt-stained hands shook. He stood up and got Angie bent over the log. Her nakedness was exposed.
Charlie’s eyes were wide, and he licked his lips.
He hobbled around the clearing nervously, excitedly. Angie lay over the log, her jeans down around her knees.
He glanced around the forest and continued to shout up into the woods, his voice echoing over the trees,
up the hill, and out over the lake.
“Yah! Yah! Go on, get out’a here!”
He fell silent and listened to the silence of the forest, and then he started shouting again.
When he was convinced that the mountain lion was nowhere nearby, Charlie swung around and looked at Angie. He hobbled over toward the log and unzipped his pants. He got around front of the log between Angie’s face and the lake, and he knelt down and lifted up her head. Saliva dripped from her mouth, and a low groaning sound came up from her chest.
“You see this blade here,” Charlie whispered. “It’ll cut right through your throat. Now, I’m going to give it to you, and you’re going to take it. But if you struggle, if you fight it, if you try and get away, I’ll cut your throat and leave you here to die.”
He held Angie’s face up. Her eyelids fluttered open. She was not really conscious but managed to slur, “Fuck you.”
Charlie grinned.
“That’s my girl,” he said. And he let her head fall limp again. He hobbled back around the log, back behind Angie, and he dropped his pants to his knees and stared at her nakedness. He was so nervous he was having trouble getting an erection, but he kept working it until he was ready. He leaned in close behind her.
He had trouble finding the spot and so just thrust up and down behind her, feeling her naked and warm beneath him. His dirty left hand came up to the base of her head, and he leaned in close and sniffed at her hair.
“There it is,” he said.
He pushed it in, writhing slowly back and forth, and though only half conscious, Angie’s body tensed up.
She murmured, “Please no.”
“Hush now,” Charlie whispered. “Hush now, my sweet.”
He leaned in behind her, the hatchet in his right hand. He touched the blade to her throat. Charlie thought he heard something and swung his head around. He looked back up the hill and saw nothing but the trees staring down at him, and so looked back around at Angie’s back, grabbed her hips, and pulled himself in as far as he could.
Angie cried out a little, becoming more and more conscious, realizing what he was doing to her.
“Goddamn,” Charlie said.
He started to break a sweat, and the skin of his thighs slapped against Angie’s backside. She groaned in pain.
Charlie said, “Hush now! Hush now, my sweet!”
Angie was becoming fully conscious, and the pain was so intense that her face locked in a grimace. Charlie’s hands shook. He was going fast now. He held the hatchet out to the right side of Angie’s face and kept saying stupidly, “Hush now. Hush now. Hush now.”
The attack came without a sound from the right side of the clearing.
Charlie had a quarter second before he looked up and saw the mountain lion coming at him. He screamed, and the mountain lion struck him full force over his right shoulder. He fell away from Angie and was on his back. The cougar leapt on top of him.
“Get away!” Charlie shrieked.
He batted dumbly at the animal and tried to roll over to his left. He groped around for his hatchet, which had flung out of his hand. Angie fell away from the log and looked back just as the mountain lion’s head came down toward Charlie’s chest.
Charlie’s screams filled the air, and Angie managed to get her pants up around her waist. She glanced quickly around looking for the rifle. It was on the ground to the right of the mountain lion.
Suddenly, the mountain lion’s head swung back toward Angie and parts of Charlie flew through the air, hitting the water behind her. Angie stood and held her hands up over head.
“Whoa, now!” Angie shouted. She staggered backward toward the lake.
The mountain lion took two steps away from Charlie, pivoting to face her. Out of the bottom of her eyes, she could see Charlie’s chest torn open. Blood gurgled up from his mouth, and his hands flailed around futilely. The mountain lion licked its lips, and its solid golden eyes stared at Angie.
“Whoa, now!” Angie said. Her hands were held high above her head, and she took three more cautious steps backward.
The mountain lion stood its ground, just watching her. Angie continued to shout with all the strength she had left, while holding her hands up over her head. She took a few steps away until she reached the edge and felt cold lake water filling her shoes.
The mountain lion stared a moment more. Suddenly, Charlie coughed up a huge mouthful of blood and bolted upright. The mountain lion swung back around, its right front paw landing squarely on his chest. It pushed him back onto the ground, stared into his eyes an instant, and its head lunged down, its mouth wide. It ripped the front of Charlie’s face off in one powerful bite.
Its head swung back and forth mauling him, tearing his face and head apart. Charlie’s arms fell dead at his sides.
Angie grimaced and staggered backward out into the water. She knew that mountain lions were expert swimmers, but she would much rather take her chances in the water than on the ground against this animal. The mountain lion flung parts of Charlie all around the clearing, and then lunged forward again and tore into him savagely.
Angie was knee deep out in the lake before the mountain lion lost interest in Charlie and took two steps away from him and toward Angie. She thrust her hands up in the air and shouted, “Back away! Go!”
The mountain lion raised its nose up and sniffed the air.
Angie said, “No! Go away!”
And then at the top of her line of vision, she saw Robert up on the hill fifty meters away. The cougar’s back was to him, and in a split second, Robert saw Charlie’s body, saw Angie backing into the water, and saw the cougar bearing down on her. The cougar was only twenty feet from her and was ready to pounce.
“Don’t kill it!” Angie shouted, her voice echoing across the clearing.
On the hill, Robert raised Angie’s rifle to his shoulder.
“Don’t shoot it,” she pleaded. “The cat saved my life!”
The cougar took three more steps, crouched, and prepared to leap at her. Angie’s hands came up defensively. The cougar sprang.
The rifle blast erupted from the hillside.
Angie felt the weight of the animal strike her chest, and she fell backward into the water with a splash. She was underwater a moment, shrieking, flailing her arms about, expecting the mountain lion to tear into her. She opened her terrified eyes underwater and saw the cougar.
But it wasn’t clawing at her. It wasn’t moving. Angie found the ground under her feet and rose up from the water. The mountain lion lay before her. It was shot, but it wasn’t dead. Its golden eyes looked up at Angie.
Robert ran down the hill.
Angie staggered up from the water, pulling at the mountain lion’s shoulders, pulling it up from the lake. The animal was huge and must have weighed three hundred pounds. She was only able to lift it partially up onto the bank.
Robert shouted at her to get away, to back away from the animal, but Angie dropped down on her knees and held the mountain lion’s head.
“Oh, my God,” she cried. “What blood is this? Whose blood is this? Oh, dear God!”
She looked around frantically, holding the animal in her arms.
The cougar’s head and shoulders weighed forty pounds. Its mouth moved up and down slowly. Blood poured from it. The rifle shot had struck the cat somewhere near its shoulder blades, and the magnificent animal lay there dying in her arms.
Robert reached the foot of the clearing and stopped. He looked around him at Charlie, at Angie, and at the cougar.
Angie rocked back and forth with the animal held close to her chest. She moaned, crying, “No, no, no.” Tears streamed down her face, and she looked up at Robert.
The mountain lion was dead.
In her arms, it lay lifeless on the shoreline.
Robert, stunned, looked around him and said, “The ground is wet with blood.”
Robert had a look of desperation on his face beyond words. He started to help her up.
“Get away fr
om me!” she screamed.
Robert backed away. “Angie,” he said.
He realized that she would have rather died than to have had this animal die in her arms.
Angie looked at the animal’s body, and she felt shame, humiliation, and revulsion. It was dead and there was something horrifying in the realization that she couldn’t bring it back, that it would lay there and she was powerless to bring it back to life, to ensure that it would live another day. It was just all gone in a single breath, and Angie was filled with frustration and rage.
CLAWS Page 23
