Hunter's Moon by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Hunter picked up a cottonwood branch from the pile of mixed pine and cottonwood he’d gleaned from the woods and set it in the fire. The dry wood instantly flamed, the fire building, snapping, and crackling as the orange flames chewed at the seasoned wood.

He sat back against his saddle and picked up his coffee cup, held it up in front of his mouth but did not sip. The bear was still circling the camp, giving its occasional roar punctuated with mewls and snarls and threatening growls.

Dietrich sat on the far side of the fire, wrists tied behind him, ropes binding him to the tree. He stared at the ground, his features tense and sweating.

The kid, Danny, sat with his back straight up against the tree, staring forward at nothing, eyes as wide and bright as before, lips drawn slightly back from his crooked, white teeth. Sweat shone on his pale cheeks.

Hunter glanced at Red Otter sitting on the other side of Kentucky from Hunter. The Indian lay back against the wool underside of his saddle, hat pulled down over his eyes. His broad chest rose and fell slowly, but Hunter knew the man was not sleeping. Maybe semi-dozing. There would be no sleep for either of them tonight.

Hunter finished his coffee and tried to ease the tension in his bones and muscles. With that bear out there trying and doing an admirable job of scaring the holy hell out of him, it was not easy. But he did manage to relax enough that he found himself in a doze until a sudden cry pulled him up out of the semi-slumber like a baited hook impaling and dragging a trout from a weed bed into the startling air above a creek.

He snapped his eyes open and looked up to see Danny bolting to his feet and casting away the shredded ends of the rope that had bound his wrists and his body to the tree. Dropping a six-inch knife he must have sequestered in a hidden sheath, the kid bolted forward, leaped the fire that had burned down to three dancing orange flames. His boots struck the ground to Hunter’s left. As he ran past Hunter, on Hunter’s left, Hunter rolled that way and lunged for the kid’s ankles.

His fingers brushed one of the kid’s pounding feet, but then the kid, screaming incoherently and sobbing, was gone, sprinting off into the darkness beyond the fire.

“Dammit, kid,” Dietrich wailed. “Why didn’t you cut me loose, you yaller dog!”

Lying belly-down beside his mussed blanket roll, Hunter looked up to stare into the darkness where the kid had disappeared. The pounding of the kid’s feet and the kid’s agonized cries dwindled gradually.

Silence save for the soft crackling and snapping of the fire.

Hunter turned to where Red Otter sat against his own saddle, staring back at him incredulously.

“How in the hell did he manage that?” the chief asked Hunter.

“Hideout knife.”

“Fool move.”

As if to corroborate the Indian’s assessment of the kid’s ploy, a great roar vaulted across the night.

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