I didn’t pause to ponder direction.
I just ran.
I hit an incline and had to climb up. It was steep. I skidded down some loose gravel and found it difficult to get a foothold to keep climbing. It seemed to take a year before I caught an outcrop with the sole of my boot, and heaved myself up, scrabbling on hands and toes.
I made it to surer footing, took my feet and kept running.
I was out of breath. A hitch was slicing through my side.
And I heard, “For an old bitch, you got a great ass!”
“Oh God,” I whispered, pushing onward.
But he ran like the wind, and I was making a lot of noise and…
I slammed into a tree.
I careened off it, lost balance, threw my arms out, my body twisting in a way I didn’t want it to, and I saw him through the mist, gun butt to his shoulder, taking aim.
At me.
The memory of Bohannan’s voice thundered through in my head.
Down! Bellies!
I threw myself down.
The roar of a shotgun blast that seemed preternatural, like it was not one blast but two, pounded my ears.
I closed my eyes tight.
But…
Nothing.
I opened my eyes, turning to him, pushing up on a hand and arranging my feet to launch off again…
And through the mist I saw a man standing over Ray, who was down on a hand and his knees. The man had his shotgun lifted vertical in both hands above him. He brought the butt down on Ray’s head.
I could swear I saw a spray of blood and Ray collapsed to the needles.
The man hit him in the head with the gun again and then immediately tucked the butt into his shoulder, took a step back and aimed it down at Ray.
“You’re good, gal, you’re good. Just sit tight,” he called to me. “Don’t run. You run, you could get lost in these woods forever.”
I was gasping for air, on a hand and hip, staring through the mist at an old man aiming his shotgun at a prone Ray.
Still keeping his eye on Ray, he asked, “You got a phone?”
I pulled in another shuddering breath, then pushed out a “No.”
“Bugger,” he muttered.
What was…?
What was happening?
“Don’t think this boy is right in the head,” he remarked.
I nearly started laughing hysterically.
I would have if I wasn’t shaking uncontrollably.
Moving cautiously, he bent down, grabbed Ray’s gun and tossed it my way. It fell with a robust foof to the dirt and needles a few feet in front of me.
“You get your wits about you, little lady, you get a handle on that. You with me?”
I didn’t care I couldn’t coordinate my limbs.
I clambered to that gun as fast as I could.
When I had it in hand, I asked, “Who are you?”
“Yeah. Sorry,” he replied. “We haven’t met. I’m Paddy. Paddy Tremayne.”
That meant nothing to me, even if I knew I’d love Paddy Tremayne forever.
“And I sure did like you in that TV show,” he finished.
Well.
Damn.
Fifty-Nine
Not from Where I’m Standing
Since I didn’t have a phone and Paddy Tremayne didn’t have a phone, and Ray was unconscious and I had absolutely no intention to get anywhere near him, nor was I going to leave him behind, because no way in fuck was I going to give him any shot at getting away, and I didn’t like Paddy’s chances if Ray came to and charged him since Ray had youth on his side and the body of a pro football player, and Paddy one hundred percent did not have either, we had to wait for Bohannan.
This didn’t take long.
And I felt him before I saw him.
The trees closed in on us, and even Paddy grew more alert and chanced a look around.
He’d kept an eagle eye on Ray (and we’d both kept our guns aimed at him). And Ray had just woken up, groggy.
But it didn’t take Ray long to realize things had gone south for him, what with being shotgun whipped, twice, bleeding profusely from the head, and half his shoulder having been blown off by Paddy’s shotgun shell.
Ray did not keen in pain, whine or moan.
Ray was on his back, cradling what was left of his shoulder with his good hand and not taking his eyes off Paddy.
“Don’t do nothin’ dumb!” Paddy called into the mist. “Got the woman. She’s all right. Got the…whatever he is. He needs an ambulance.”
They formed out of the mist, first Bohannan, Jess, Jace and Harry.
Then Wade Dickerson, Dan, and—fanned out and all around—what looked like every deputy on staff and a couple of dozen other men from town, some who I’d seen around, others I hadn’t, all I didn’t know.
Bohannan’s gaze came to me before it went down to Ray.
Same with Jess and Jace.
Also Harry, but he started talking to Paddy right away.
“You can stand down, Paddy. We got this,” he said, aiming his rifle down at Ray.
Paddy stood down and seemed relieved to do it.
Bohannan tossed the strap of the rifle he was carrying over his shoulder, skirted Ray and came to me.
I noted the men were moving into position to get a lock on Jess and Jace, which I thought was smart, as Bohannan slowly took the shotgun from my hands.
I relinquished it readily.
He handed it off to someone I didn’t know and asked, “You injured?”
“No,” I answered.
“Can you take your feet?”
I stuck out my hand.
He used it to pull me to my feet and held it until I was steady.
When he let me go, I brushed off my jeans at my ass.
Bohannan examined me, fully, but his gaze lingered at the swelling around my eye.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
The trees closed in again, and before they spontaneously combusted due to the fever pitch of Bohannan’s wrath and burned us all to the ground, I said, “I’m fine.”
Along with his continued visual examination, my words seemed to assuage him, until Paddy, God bless him, shared, “Swear to Christ, seen it all now. Some cuckoo-crazy young buck huntin’ a famous woman through the woods. And everyone thinks I’m nutso for keepin’ myself to myself. Now, somebody better tell me, what’s this world coming to?”
And the Bohannan wrath detonated, and it didn’t burn us to the ground, but it took about fifteen men to hold only three of them back.
I defused this by saying loudly, “Boys, I really want to go home!”
Bohannan pushed off from Dan and three other guys and prowled to me.
He gave every indication he was going to pick me up, so, quickly, I said low, so Jace nor Jess would hear, “He carried me in. I need to walk out.”
The expression on his face scared me, but he nodded, and I didn’t hesitate to let him take my hand.
He walked us wide of where Dickerson was working with a field kit to dress Ray’s wound.
Even so, Ray called out, “I still won.”
Bohannan didn’t break stride, nor did he look at him, when he replied.
“Not from where I’m standing.”
And then, holding my hand, the twins at our back, he walked me out of the mist.