26
DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST
EARLY TUESDAY AFTERNOON
“Get down!” Jack yelled, and threw himself on Chief, rolled both of them behind a low outcropping of rock. More shots, bullets ricocheting around them. Cam heard a bullet smash a rock not two inches from her head. Her heart kicked into her throat as she dove behind a boulder to the ground.
Duke was soon on his belly beside her, his Beretta in his hand. He called out, “Is Chief all right?”
“Hit in the side,” Jack called back. “I don’t know yet how bad it is. Both of you, stay down!”
Duke said, “Sounded like a handgun, from some distance. Did you see a flash, anything to give us their direction, Jack?”
“No. There’s open ground ahead, and they’ve got the advantage of camouflage in those trees and a good line of sight. We’re too exposed to move. Stay down, I’ve got to get the bleeding stopped.”
Cam came up on her knees and looked around the edge of the boulder, scanning. Another shot blew apart a small rock a foot from her knee. But not before she saw a flash.
She called out, “Shooter about thirty yards, one o’clock from my position. Not from the ground—maybe from that oak tree.” She didn’t wait. “Lay down cover for me, Duke.”
Duke set down the Remington, raised his Beretta, and fired six fast rounds toward the oak tree as Cam reared up and fired toward where she’d seen the flash of light. Another barrage of bullets came from her left and sent shards of rock blasting like missiles into the air, one striking her arm. She felt a slap of icy cold, then nothing. She pulled back, called out, “Two shooters firing now. From one o’clock and three o’clock. The three o’clock’s on the ground, in that knot of maples. Jack? Is Chief all right?”
Chief himself called out, “I’ll be okay, Cam, you guys stay down.”
Was this a standoff? They couldn’t move out, they’d make easy targets. Cam felt a jab of hot pain, stared at the blood streaking down the back of her hand. A spike of rock was sticking out of her arm. She looked over at Duke still hugging the ground, taking quick looks around the big rock in front of him. “Sorry, Duke, do you think you could help me a minute?”
Duke looked back at her, saw the rock arrowed into her upper arm and rolled over to her. “Damn. Sorry, Cam, I didn’t even notice, I’ve been looking out there—”
“I just noticed myself. Pull it out, okay? I’ve got another shirt in my backpack to tie around it. Duke, do it really fast.”
He helped her shrug out of her backpack, pull out a shirt, and rip off a sleeve. His eyes widened. “Cam, what’s that over there?”
She jerked her head to look and Duke pulled the shard of rock out of her arm. She felt a brutal shock of pain but kept in the scream. When she could breathe again, she said, “That was good, Duke, thank you.” She swallowed bile, steadied herself as he pressed down hard on her arm. One of the shooters must have seen movement, because more bullets struck the rocks in front of them.
Then there was silence.
Cam whispered between gritted teeth, “Do they think they’ve put us out of commission? Killed one of us?”
Duke said. “They had to have heard Jack tell us Chief’s wounded in the side. I don’t know what they think about us, the rock shard was an accident.”
He tore off the other shirtsleeve, wrapped it tightly around her arm. Despite the pain, she grinned at Duke wadding up the first bloody shirtsleeve and stuffing it along with the bloody rock shard into his bio bag. He said, “Chief’s got the first-aid kit in his backpack. Your arm should be okay for a while until we can get some antibiotic for the wound.” He knotted her shirtsleeve a bit tighter. “How does it feel, Cam?”
It hurts like crazy, but she said, “I’m good to go. It’s been maybe three minutes since they’ve fired. Manta Ray’s safety has got to be their first concern. Do you think they’ve hauled him out of here? Or do you think they’re waiting for one of us to stick his head up?”
“Let’s see.” Duke hooked Cam’s backpack over the barrel of his Remington and raised it in the air.
No bullets. Duke waited a moment, then tossed a rock off into the bushes. Still nothing.
Jack and Chief were listening, too. “You think they’re gone?”
“Let me finish here and we’ll find out,” Jack said. “This might hurt a bit, so feel free to curse a blue streak.” Chief let loose while Jack treated the wound. Jack was grinning when he said, “I never heard that said about a mule before, Chief. Your wound isn’t bad, through and through, a ridge plowed through the flesh on your side. The bleeding’s about stopped. I’ve had medic training, so I know what I’m doing.” Jack wrapped one of Chief’s shirts over the gauze bandage and knotted it off, tightened his belt over the padding.
“How does that feel?”
“I’ll live. You’re a sadist, but you’re fast. Thanks, Jack. I owe you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jack knew they were lucky only one of them had been wounded in the ambush. He said what both of them were thinking. “If you hadn’t leaned down to look at those tracks, it would have been worse.”
“Yeah, call me Mr. Lucky,” Chief said. “My wife’s going to blow a fit.”
Duke and Cam crawled over to Jack and Chief. Duke said, “I’ve been showing them a target for a couple of minutes, no takers. And they didn’t fire at me and Cam just now.”
“No reason to take any chances,” Jack said, never looking up. “Let’s stay down until I finish bandaging up Chief and we’re ready to go. When we move out, I think it’s safer to flank them to the south if we’re going to move toward that tree line—” He looked up, spotted the bandage on Cam’s arm. He felt a leap of alarm, swallowed. “Tell me what happened.”
She saw the fear in his eyes and said quickly, “Nothing much, don’t worry. Duke fixed me up.”
Duke said, “A rock shard speared her. I pulled it out. Now we need what’s left in the first-aid kit. Any alcohol?”
“No,” Jack said, “but we’ve got some more alcohol gauze pads. Hold still.” He cleaned the wound with a sterile gauze and water from his canteen. He heard her hiss, but she said nothing, made no other sound, only watched the bloody water run down onto the rocky ground. “Now, some antibiotic ointment and I’ll get you bandaged.”
When he was done, he studied her face a moment, then looked to Chief. “You guys need to stay here, hidden. Duke and I will track them.”
Wrong thing to say. “What? You want me to smack you in the head? Forget it, Jack. Chief is badly wounded, I’m not. I want to get these bastards as much as you do.”
Jack looked at Chief, who sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I can move, but I’d slow you down. I’ll be fine by myself. Know what I think? These people aren’t stupid. I don’t think they expected to kill all of us. They wanted to bring one of us down with a serious wound, force all of us to stop. So you guys have to move out now.”
Jack nodded. “And they targeted you. Like I said, if you hadn’t leaned down the instant they fired, you would have been gut-shot and that would have stopped us in our tracks.”
Duke said, “I still think they’re headed to Clover Bottom Creek Road, about two miles from here. There’s a private airstrip about five miles to the east of there. Now that they know we’re behind them, they’ll get someone here fast to pick them up and drive them to the airstrip. They could be in Virginia in under an hour.”
Jack said, “Then we don’t need to track them, we want to get to that road the fastest way you know.” Jack saw Chief was holding his side, breathing light, shallow breaths, in obvious pain. “Chief, we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Chief didn’t like it, but his side hurt like a bitch and he knew he couldn’t keep up. “Duke, you need to make some calls on the run, get men to barricade Clover Bottom Creek Road. Go, guys; get those bastards for me.”
They left their backpacks with Chief, no more need for them now, and they would move much faster through the shrubs and the twisting terrain without the weight. The pain in Cam’s arm eased to a dull throb, one of the benefits of her adrenaline rush, as they hiked as quickly as they could through the rocky terrain.
Twenty minutes later, Jack stopped, raised his fist. They gathered around him to look through the trees down at Clover Bottom Creek Road.