The Desert King: A Jack Trexlor Novel

by T. F. Torrey

  “Um,” I said.

  And the sun glinted off their barrels as they leveled the sights at John and Erica and me.

  I launched myself at John and Erica, hitting them with my shoulder to knock them out of the way.

  They were warm. And startled.

  Just as I hit them, twin shots cracked from the hunters’ rifles.

  Chapter 14

  Even as the three of us fell onto the cool desert sand, I had to admire John’s instinct for self-preservation. As we fell he rolled to the side, catching Erica on his left arm and catching me on his right.

  Erica landed softly on his arm on the sand.

  John landed deliberately on the sand between us.

  I landed on John’s right elbow, which he’d positioned firmly in my solar plexus.

  With a twang and a whine, the bullets ricocheted off the bluff behind us. John and I rolled to all fours. I was gasping for breath. He was positioned on top of Erica, who was on her back on the sand, shielding her with his body. She liked it.

  A slight dune in front of us prevented us from seeing them. And them from shooting us. Temporarily.

  “What the hell was that?” John demanded.

  “Poachers,” I said.

  “Poachers?” Erica’s eyes went wide. Now we could hear footsteps scrabbling over the rocks, coming toward us. “Were they shooting at us?” She grabbed John’s left arm apprehensively.

  As if to answer, another gunshot boomed and the bullet spat sand over the dune into our faces.

  “Shit!” I said, ducking.

  “We have to get out of here!” Erica said, her voice everything but calm.

  “Great,” I said. “How?”

  John grabbed a rock in one hand. “Follow me when I move,” he said. He was already moving, rising to one knee, drawing his right arm back. He heaved the rock smoothly over the dune at the poachers.

  We heard the soft thud as the rock found its mark. Another shot cracked over our heads and shattered against the cliff across the river.

  “Let’s go!” John shouted.

  He took off on a dead sprint, dragging Erica by the hand. I sped along behind them. All three of us ducked low as we ran back down to the clearing by the river, where John turned right, following the rocky path downstream.

  A shot echoed off the bluff as we exited the clearing. Under cover of the riverside vegetation, we rushed down the path.

  Suddenly John drew up short, stopping behind a willow tree and peering back in the direction of our attackers.

  Erica and I leaned our forearms against the smooth bark, panting. “Why were they shooting at us?” Erica asked.

  “I don’t know,” John said.

  “Did they think we were deer?”

  John shook his head. “They were too close. They knew what they were doing.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “We’re going to wait here,” John said. “The next move is theirs.”

  “What if they come after us?”

  “We run. If they go around left, we’ll go upriver. If they follow the way we came, we’ll keep going downriver.”

  “What if they split up?”

  “Then we’ll have to take one of them out.”

  Of course! “Why don’t you just shoot back?” I asked.

  He shot me a disgusted glance. “I left my gun in the truck!”

  “Shit!” I said.

  Shit, indeed.

  John’s eyes focused on a point through the bushes to our right. “Here comes one,” he said suddenly, his voice hushed.

  “One or both?” I whispered back.

  “Can’t tell.”

  Then we could hear the footsteps on the path. The attacker trotted down the path toward us, twenty yards away and closing fast.

  “Let’s go!” John said.

  We sprinted away down the trail. Immediately a rifle cracked behind us. The shot went high and wide, exploding into a saguaro. We fled through the spray of cactus splinters.

  “Around the bend, around the bend,” I heard John saying. He was ducking low, dragging Erica by the hand. Ahead of us about twenty yards the trail curved right along the river. Around the corner, we’d be out of the gunner’s sights. If we were lucky, he couldn’t run and rearm his rifle at the same time.

  Apparently he could, but it took some time. Just as we got to the bend, another shot cracked behind us. The bullet glanced off the river to our left, sending a fine plume of water high into the breeze.

  The trail went on, and so did we. To our left, the river bubbled merrily, cold to our desperate plight. To our right, the terrain rose from the river, going to a small hilltop about fifty yards away. I figured that we could outrun the gunman, because he had to slow down to cock his rifle and aim. But I wondered where the other poacher was, and how long our luck would hold.

  Not long.

  We were about two-thirds of the way to the next turn, forty or fifty feet away from it, when the second poacher appeared on the hilltop to our right. I saw him lift his rifle to his shoulder and heard the pop of its report.

  The rocks to our right front exploded and Erica went down. Her hand slipped away from John’s as she fell in a heap on the path. I was running so headlong that I almost ran over her.

  I saw blood and feared the worst.

  She lay on her left side and clutched her right calf with both hands. Blood stained the leg of her jumpsuit and her fingers.

  John stopped in his tracks. “Erica! Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. Her hat had fallen off, and her hair was all in her face, which was contorted into a mask of pain.

  “Are you shot?” John asked.

  She shook her head again. “Hit with a rock.”

  A shot rang out behind us, and we ducked reflexively as another spray of rocks and gravel exploded to our left. The poacher behind us had us in his sights again.

  We half-dragged, half-helped Erica to her feet and tried to run. Before we got four more steps, the poacher on the hill fired again, shattering stones in the path ahead of us.

  “Over here!” John shouted. We dived into a shallow depression among the mounds of sand on the hillside. It wasn’t much, but it was cover for the moment.

  “We can’t just hide here,” I said.

  “We can’t get out, Jack,” John said. “They’ve got us caught in a crossfire!”

  For several moments nothing happened.

  “What are they doing?” Erica asked.

  “They’re waiting for us to run, so they can shoot us,” John said.

  “Why are they doing this?” Erica asked.

  “I don’t know,” John said.

  “We can’t just wait here for them!” I said.

  “What are we going to do?” Erica asked.

  John put it simply: “We have to take one of them out.”

  “How?” I asked. “They have all the guns.”

  “I’ll show you,” John said.

  “John, don’t be stupid,” I said. I’d seen the dog bit and the fight bit and the rattlesnake bit. But these guys had guns, and they knew how to use them.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said, then he added soberly, “If I get caught up, take Erica and run downriver and keep going till the shooting stops.”

  “We can’t just leave you here,” Erica said.

  “I’ll be just fine,” he said. And he meant it.

  He picked up a fist-sized rock from the ground beside us, took a deep breath, and started to get up.

  “Wait!” Erica said suddenly.

  “What?” John said, a bit irritated.

  Erica looked hurt. “Kiss for luck?”

  John smiled. He moved over and kissed her, slowly.

  Here—against tact and discipline, despite all logical reasoning, and in defiance of several important survival instincts—I felt a pang of envy as they kissed. When they separated and John got ready to attack, Erica looked at me. I thought she saw the jealousy there.

  But th
ere wasn’t time to think of it. John leapt to his feet and charged up the hill.

  Erica and I quickly crawled to the edge of the depression, where we could watch the action. We watched as he zigged through the bushes, zagged among the cacti. Erica glared at me, accusation in her eyes. “If you’re hoping they’ll get him,” she said, “I’ll kill you myself.”

  Before I could say anything, the poacher on the path behind us fired. John’s crazy dash had surprised him, though, and the shot hit nothing.

  The other poacher wasn’t so easily fooled. With my heart in my throat, I watched as he tracked John in his sights. I saw the rifle kick into his shoulder as he squeezed the trigger.

  And I watched as the shot splintered a cactus and John kept on charging.

  Suddenly John stopped, cocked his arm back, and hurled the rock at the poacher on the hill. Stationary men are better targets. The poacher saw the rock coming. He tried to dodge it. He fell down in a pile as it pounded against his leg.

  And John was charging again, going for the kill before the poacher could regain his feet. Another shot cracked in the desert air, puffing into the ground right in front of John. The poacher behind us was trying to cut off John’s attack.

  Then the poacher on the hill came up on one knee. John was still too far away! Erica grabbed my arm desperately as the hilltop poacher brought the rifle up to his shoulder.

  John abruptly changed course, plunging back down the hill, zigzagging toward the bend. “Let’s go!” he shouted.

  We went.

  Erica and I jumped to our feet and headed for the curve. She was limping, but limping quickly. I didn’t know if they’d noticed that we were fleeing, but I wasn’t looking back to find out.

  Another shot boomed, and the bullet struck the river, spraying water high into the air like a fountain.

  And we made it. Another shot blasted, missing everything and ricocheting off the bluff.

  John caught up to us and never slowed, grabbing Erica’s other arm and pulling her along. They couldn’t see us anymore, but we kept on going. They could run, too.

  A short distance later, the path dissolved into a mess of water bushes.

  “Great,” I said. “What do we do now?”

  “Take another path,” John said.

  “Where? We’ll be too slow through those bushes. They’ll get us for sure.”

  “We’ll cross the river. It’s not too deep here.”

  “I don’t—” Erica began.

  “Then what?” I asked. “We’d be sitting ducks against that bluff.”

  “We’ll climb up one of the washes,” John said.

  “Then if they try to follow us we can bomb them with rocks!” I said excitedly, glad John was on my side. “Ready?” I asked.

  “Wait!” Erica said. “I don’t think they’re following us anymore.”

  We scanned the hillside. No sign of them.

  “Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not sneaking up on us,” I said.

  “Why would they be sneaking when they think we’re running?” she asked.

  She had a good point. We listened, but we heard nothing. No rushing footsteps. No crashing through the vegetation. Nothing.

  “What’s going on?” I asked John.

  He shrugged. “Maybe they figured out they can’t catch us.”

  “Maybe they ran out of bullets,” Erica suggested.

  “I doubt it,” John said.

  “Then what are they doing?” she asked.

  What, indeed? And why were we waiting to find out? “Couldn’t we figure this out on the other side of the river?” I asked.

  “I can’t—” Erica began.

  “Shhh!” John interrupted.

  Then we all heard it: the whining growl of a truck starting. The roar of its engine echoed heartily off the bluff to us, confusing the direction and distance. I couldn’t tell if the truck was our attackers’ or Macy’s.

  “Is that their truck or Macy’s?” Erica asked, as though she was reading my mind.

  “Theirs,” John said.

  “Are they going away?” Erica asked.

  “Can’t tell yet,” he said.

  “Do you think they’re going downriver to try to cut us off?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” John said.

  “What else could they do?” Erica asked.

  “Lots,” John said.

  We let that sink in. From over the hill and off the bluff came the rumbling of their engine. As we listened, the sound slowly diminished. John squinted, concentrating.

  “They’re moving away,” he said.

  “Are they leaving us alone?” Erica asked.

  John cocked his head, listening intently. Suddenly his eyes opened wide. “They’re going for our truck!”

  “Oh, shit!” I said.

  Erica finished the thought: “Macy and Sharon!”

  “Let’s go!” John shouted.

  We were already going.

  Back over the rocky path we flew. John raced ahead, nimble as a cat. I had to go slower because I was less sure of my footing. Erica ran slower still, hobbling on her hit leg.

  One hundred yards to go.

  I wondered what we were going to do when we got there. They still had guns and we still didn’t. The sound of their engine got louder as we approached. The sound floated heavy in the desert morning air.

  Fifty yards.

  The noise quit suddenly, but the echoes lingered like a nightmare in the morning. John slowed his approach, looking for any sign of the poachers. Erica and I began to catch up to him.

  Thirty yards.

  The pair of vehicles and the two poachers came into view. They had parked some distance from Macy’s truck, back up on the path we had driven in on. They stood in front of their Ram, aiming deliberately at our truck, and fired another pair of shots. There was no sign of Macy or Sharon

  John stopped, stooped, and came up with a rock in his hand. The rock arced, coldly graceful, through the air. It smashed a jagged hole through the Ram’s passenger window, but they didn’t notice it at all, because just then Macy’s truck exploded into a fireball.

  It wasn’t like in the movies. The noise wasn’t a boom, but more of a rapidly escalating, deep, throaty roar. Probably only a few seconds elapsed, but every instant carved slowly into my mind. I stood about fifty feet away. The sun and adrenaline had already heated the air; the explosion heated it more. For a brief moment, I wondered how hot it would get, where it would stop. Hot enough to set my clothes on fire?

  The flaming fragments of our duffel bags tumbled from the sky to the sand. A couple of fishing rods flipped into the river.

  I did the full-body flinch, like a rodent, and the sheer psychological impact knocked me down on my right side. John kept his balance, crouching like a wildcat.

  So did the poachers.

  Out of the corners of their eyes, or somehow, they saw us. They whirled, cocking their rifles, us in their sights.

  Some kind of calculating determination showed on John’s face as he turned on his heel and sprinted back toward Erica and me. I didn’t have any problem regaining my feet to join him in fleeing. We grabbed Erica’s arms and rushed as fast as we could back down the rocky path. I thought we were doomed when I heard the shots ring out behind us, but nobody fell and we made it out of sight of the poachers.

  The only noises I could hear were our feet on the rocks and Macy’s truck burning. It seemed that we were all alone in a crazy game in the big desert.

  And they were winning.

  Erica was limping badly now. “We can’t go much farther like this,” I said. “They’ll catch us easily.”

  “No they won’t,” John said. He stopped running, halting us with him, and looked back up the trail.

  “We’ll be lucky to—” I began.

  “Shhh!” John interrupted.

  Then we all heard it: the sound of the poachers’ truck. The engine growled, and gravel crunched under its tires.

  “They’r
e moving again—”

  “Shhh!” John held up a hand.

  And we heard the approach of someone on the rocks.

  “They’ve split up!” John said.

  Good or bad?

  “Shit!” Erica said. “They’re going to get us from both sides!”

  Bad. Very bad.

  “What now?” I whispered to John.

  The poacher on foot was coming toward us slowly, carefully. He’d be in sight soon. The truck rumbled down toward the end of the path.

  “No choice,” John said. “We’re crossing the river.” He stepped toward the water.

  Erica pulled her arm back in his grip. “We can’t.”

  He frowned back at her. “We have to.”

  “We can't,” she insisted, her voice rising into a panic. “I can’t swim!”

  Fine time to find out.

  ***

  “This,” I said to Erica, “is a fine time to find that out.”

  “Well, Jack,” she shot back, fire in her eyes, “there’s not a lot I can do about the timing.”

  “Sounds like there’s not much you can do about anything,” I returned.

  “Yeah, Jack, like you’re a real master of the desert.”

  “At least I can swim.”

  “You’re not going to have to,” John interrupted. He had stepped into the edge of the water, and he beckoned for us to follow. “It’s wide here, but not very deep, probably not even up past your waist.”

  Erica strutted past me to the water.

  “Come on,” John said. “That dude will be here in no time.”

  John was already a quarter of the way across, hurrying as best he could. Erica followed him closely, slightly more downriver than he was. I plunged in after them. The current was surprisingly strong. It pushed me downstream behind Erica.

  It seemed to take forever to get across. John and I kept sneaking glances back over our shoulders. The poacher was coming cautiously through the brush, afraid of being tricked or ambushed. The timing was going to be close.

  Then Erica was gone. I glanced back at the riverbank behind us and when I looked forward she was gone. Nothing but water between me and John.

  “Shit!” I shouted. “John!”

  He noticed right away what the problem was. “Erica!” he yelled.

  The surface of the water broke between us. Erica’s head popped into the air briefly, her eyes wild with terror. I noticed, and hated myself for it, that with her wet hair all in her face she was beautiful.