Prey

Chapter Eleven

Chad Krugman’s heart was pounding so hard he thought he’d vomit, and he couldn’t take a deep breath. It was raining in a way he’d never seen it rain before, the drops hitting his face like tiny rocks being blasted at him. He had a flashlight but he couldn’t see where he was going, even with the almost constant lightning, because the rain was so heavy. Finally, to save the batteries, he turned off the flashlight and stuck it inside his coat.

He had his hands full, anyway. Guiding three horses while riding one bareback—he’d chosen to mount the horse he’d ridden to camp, figuring it would be easier than getting used to a new one, but nothing about this was easy—keeping a constant sharp eye out for a goddamn bear and a woman with a rifle was tough, possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done. At least the horses had calmed down, now that they were away from the bear. At first he’d thought it was the storm that had spooked the horses, but since the storm continued but the bear was behind them, he figured it had to be the animal that had stirred them up.

He couldn’t blame the horses. That damn bear had freaked him out, too.

He’d been prepared to kill, to do what had to be done in order to survive—that had never been in question. But he’d never expected to see anything like that monster of a bear tearing into Davis’s body. God, that thing had been big. Chad didn’t feel one minute’s regret about killing Mitchell Davis, but to be torn apart that way, to be eaten … that was sickening. And horrifying. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, and, yes, Mitchell Davis had been his worst enemy.

Shit, shit, shit! Things had gone all wrong. If Angie Powell hadn’t found that body up the trail and insisted on going back to town in the morning to report it, he would’ve had a chance to kill Davis while they were out on the hunt, so his body would be more difficult to find. Angie’s body, too. He’d always planned on killing her, too; there was no way around it. He did feel some regret over that, but not enough to influence his plans. By the time anyone thought to look for them, then mounted a search, and finally found their bodies up on the mountain, he would have been long gone.

His plan was to ride back to that rancher’s place where they’d left the SUV—arriving after dark so he wouldn’t be seen—then he’d turn the horse loose and simply drive away. He might even have left the horse about a mile up in the mountains and walked the rest of the way down. He’d been practicing his riding with this whole plan in mind, since right after he’d gone on that first hunting trip last year. When the rancher got up in the morning all he’d notice was that the SUV was gone, but Angie’s truck and trailer would still be there, so he’d probably assume that one of the hunters had had enough and opted out, but Angie had stayed on with the other client—and the rancher would have no way of knowing which client had left. He probably wouldn’t think another thing about it until Angie failed to show up a week later.

By that time, Chad would have been long gone—first into Canada, and from Canada to Mexico. Once in Mexico, he would simply have disappeared; he had the money to do it, and in certain parts of the world disappearing was a lot easier than it was on the North American continent. He’d collect his passport from the post office box in Butte, along with all of his account numbers and passwords. He wouldn’t have any trouble at all, if he just had that week or so before their bodies were found.

Angie was the perfect guide for this particular trip: Her outfit wasn’t top of the line; he’d noticed that she didn’t have a satellite phone or a personal locator, both of which could be used to summon help fast. He got the idea that money was tight for her, which was great for him.

But all of that had been in the perfect world of his plan, and now his plan was all fucked up, he didn’t know if he’d wounded Angie or not, he was riding through blinding rain leading three horses who didn’t like the situation at all, and he didn’t know where the hell he was. Worse, riding like this at night was a good way to end up with a broken neck; all it would take would be for his horse to stumble and they’d all go down, and he’d be at the bottom of a four-horse pile-up.

Slowly he reined in; when the horses had all come to a nervous stop, with the three horses he was leading milling around and jerking hard on the leads he held in his left hand, he forced himself to take several deep breaths and hold them until his lungs protested, pushing the panic away. The horses knew he was scared and that was making them harder to handle.

Sitting on horseback out in the open, with huge flashes of lightning popping all around, was pretty much stupid, but he had no idea where to go. Taking shelter under some trees would be even more stupid. If the rain would let up, the lightning might reveal a rock overhang or something, but as it was he could barely see ten feet in front of him.

Just as he was thinking that, the huge sheets of rain lessened—not by a lot, but the next lightning flash revealed some rock formations ahead. With any luck, there would be some overhang that he could shelter under. He’d tie the horses to something and they could tough it out. It wasn’t as if they didn’t stand around in pastures all the time getting rained on, anyway.

With a goal in view and his panic lessened, he turned his reluctant horse’s head toward the rocks and nudged him into moving forward. The other three horses didn’t like being bunched together the way they were, they didn’t like the weather, and they almost pulled him backward off the horse before reluctantly getting with the plan. Chad cursed and considered just turning them loose now, but he hadn’t had time to think things through yet, and he didn’t want to jump the gun on anything else. He might let them go, he might not. Right now he couldn’t think of any reason why he’d need all four of them, but that didn’t mean something wouldn’t occur to him once he’d calmed down and had time to assess the situation.