The Hunter from the Woods by Robert R McCammon

Author:Robert R McCammon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

Four

They reached the well when dawn was a thin streak of red across the horizon and the world was made of different depths of darkness.

How far they had come this night, Michael didn’t know. His legs felt ragged. His left arm was a dead weight. He had left his kitbag behind, to save his energy, but he carried both guns in the parachute pack and Gantt—weak and dispirited—had not protested. Every step Michael took might end in a stumble. But he’d kept going, one of three, walking right behind the boy and following behind him the Messerschmitt ace.

The well was not pretty. It lay up under an outcropping of rock and so was shielded from the sun. Uneven stones were built up around a small pool the size of a bathtub in a cheap hotel. Dried animal dung was scattered about where the jackals and wild dogs had unsuccessfully tried to mark their territory.

Pretty or not, the well was full of gorgeous water. Gantt’s cracked lips parted in a gasp of need and he flung himself forward past Michael and the boy.

He hung over the stones and pushed his face into the water. He reached in with both arms and splashed water over his head. He reached down deeper, into the cooler depths, and when his hands came back up Michael saw the entrails roped around them, and suddenly the gashed-open bloodless torso that the entrails had spilled from surfaced in front of Gantt’s face, and also bursting to the surface was a decapitated human head, mouth and eyes open, that bore the purple hole of a rifle bullet.

Gantt shrieked; there was no other way to describe the sound. He fought out of the blue entrails that bound his wrists, and staggering back he nearly fell over the boy, who also retreated—but in utter silence—from the grisly mess that fouled the well. Gantt went down to the ground among the animals’ leavings and clawed frantically at his own mouth until the blood ran from his lips.

Michael approached the well. He had already smelled the beginnings of putrefaction. Desert heat was not kind to a corpse. By the end of another day, the odor would even keep the animals from coming near. There was another scent in the air also: salt. He figured the water had been salted as well as fouled by human remains. He walked a few paces away and knelt down on his haunches to think.

He thought he understood the motive for this brutality. “The Dahlasiffa,” he said to Gantt, who had crawled on his belly a distance away and lay with his hands to his face. “They’ve poisoned this well to keep other tribes from drinking.” In the strengthening light, he found the camel tracks that led southward. “Their own village must not be far. They’ve likely got a well there. They’re probably demanding tribute from other tribes.” He stood up and looked over the hammada toward the south. A muscle worked in his jaw. “We need water, or we’re going to die.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.