Checking that Ellie remained oblivious of our conversation, I said, ‘I’m going back, Nicole.’
I expected her to argue, to plead for me to stay with them, but Nicole concurred with a nod. I wasn’t the only one who could pick up on a hidden meaning. Nicole understood why I was going back, and knew what it signified if I did. Maybe she wasn’t merely resigned to the idea but actually embraced it.
‘I can’t let them leave, otherwise they might disappear and they’d never be brought to justice,’ I went on.
‘Are you going to kill them?’
I didn’t answer, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out what my silence meant. The moment stretched out, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. We were of like mind.
Finally, I said, ‘If I don’t come back it will be down to you, Nicole.’
Nicole hugged herself, the only sign that she feared such an eventuality.
‘I’ll leave you the shotgun. When it grows dark I want you to lead Ellie to the south. Don’t go back near the ranch. Go that way.’ I pointed across the desert towards a distant range of hills. From the maps I’d studied in my motel room in Holbrook, I recalled there was a small town just beyond those hills. ‘There’s a place called Dilkon. You’ll find it, or you’ll find a road. You’ll be safe when you get there.’
‘They could still come after us,’ Nicole said.
‘Not if I stop them.’
‘When you stop them, you’ll come back for us, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then why are we having this conversation?’
‘Just in case.’
‘I don’t want to think like that.’ Nicole placed her palms over her face. For a second I thought she had started to weep, but when she lowered her hands her eyes were dry. She looked at me with a forthrightness that demanded the answer she sought. ‘You have to stop them, Hunter. Not for me, not even for that girl in there, but for the other girls they’ll do the same to in the future. It’s too late for us now. Stop them for every other girl’s sake.’
‘I intend to.’ I rose from the floor and offered her my hand, not to seal a bargain but to help her up. ‘But if they get me first, then you have to do everything you can to take Ellie to safety.’
We were at an impasse but both glad of it. Nicole took my proffered palm in her delicate fingers. She stood elegantly, as if accepting my hand to dance, and I guided her over the uneven floor of the cave. Ellie still hadn’t moved, other than to lift the bottle and cradle it against her cheek.
‘Can you help her to dress?’ I indicated my bare chest. ‘I think I might need my shirt back, or I won’t have to worry about the Logans: the sun will do their job for them.’
Earlier Nicole’s mind had been in some other place, and as I’d noted, her nakedness hadn’t been an issue. Not until a genuine possibility of salvation was on the cards had her natural instincts kicked in; now it was as if my semi-naked torso was a reminder of her previous situation and she blushed a second time. Or was it that? Her gaze had lingered for a few seconds while tracing the contours of my chest and shoulders. I wasn’t averse to a beautiful woman eyeing me in approval but part of her embarrassment must have rubbed off on me, and I retreated quickly to the mouth of the cave.
I heard a low howl, but couldn’t pinpoint its source, the reverberation effect of the cave making that impossible. It could have been the cry of an animal from somewhere back in the hills but I didn’t think so: more likely it was Samuel’s or Carson’s voice carried on the breeze. All I could be certain of was that it came from some distance away. Behind me I could hear the girls conversing softly, followed shortly by the sounds of clothing being pulled on. For the sake of their privacy I busied myself with the S&W, checking it for dirt and finding it clean. Nevertheless, I kept checking until Nicole returned and handed me my shirt.
I slipped into it, feeling the prickle of sunburn on my flesh. I’d only been out in the direct sunlight for half an hour but it had done its work. I pulled my rucksack back in place, and then took Nicole to the opening to give her a crash course in handling the shotgun.
From this distance there was no way that we could be seen by anyone at the ranch, but I still wasn’t happy about Samuel’s no-show and wondered if he was nearby. The pick-up that had only been a glint in the sunlight earlier had now arrived back at the ranch. There was however, no sign of Carson, and I guessed that he’d already gone inside. I wondered how he’d feel when he found his son lying face down in the mess from his split skull. I waited for a shout of rage, but it didn’t come. Perhaps Carson had cried out while I was busy putting on my shirt and I’d missed it, or that was the odd moan I thought I’d heard. Maybe he wasn’t the type to scream, but had sunk down in silent grief, or, worse than that, was so cold and psychotic that his son’s death had no effect on him. Those were the most dangerous of enemies. But then they weren’t the only ones who could be cold, calculating killers.
Taking the shells from the gun, I encouraged Nicole to take a couple of dry shots. I told her to keep the stock snug in her shoulder and not to allow it any play otherwise it might knock her on her backside. I tried to imagine the target she formed in her mind’s eye as she squeezed on the trigger. One thing I knew for sure was I didn’t want to get on her wrong side, not when the steel edged into her irises and her jaw tightened like that.
‘It’s a sawn-off,’ I pointed out. ‘You don’t have to be too specific about where you aim, but the range isn’t that great.’
‘Don’t worry, Hunter. I won’t shoot till I’m looking them dead in the eye.’
I smiled, but it was more of a grimace. Then again, so was the death’s-head grin she returned.
24
The sky had turned to a milky haze on the far horizon, the distant hills purpling into evening, while behind me the sun was a fiery ball in the west. If you stood still, closed your eyes for a minute and opened them again, you’d see that the sun had dipped perceptibly. Not that I had the time or inclination for such games. Recalling other times I’d been in deserts, I knew that night fell rapidly and that darkness would soon be upon the land. The low visibility would help, but I reconsidered the instructions I’d given to Nicole. With luck she wouldn’t take my words literally and set off for Dilkon the second the sun set, because it would take me longer than that to get into position, kill the Logans, and then return for her and Ellie. If my mission was successful, I didn’t fancy having to track them across the desert afterwards. Forget about later, I told myself. Kill the Logans first: that was what I must concentrate on.
The rocks at the base of the escarpment offered plenty of cover as I made my way towards the ranch, but there was an open area of perhaps a quarter-mile where I’d be in the open. I trusted that, having returned to the ranch and found Brent dead and their hostages gone, Carson would be on high alert. He would recognise the killing shots as being from a handgun and correctly assume that someone else had freed the girls. Maybe that was why he hadn’t screamed in rage: he was anticipating a second assault on the house and was even now preparing to defend himself. It could be that he was moving from window to window, trying to detect movement out here.
A set of desert cammo fatigues would have come in handy, but all I had was the clothes I stood up in. Thinking ahead, I’d left my rucksack with the girls at the cave in order to have a lower profile approaching the ranch, because there was only one way I could do it and that was on my belly. Taking a lesson from nature, my mission was to hunt the Logans the way a wild beast stalks its prey. My friend Rink is a master when it comes to insertion into enemy territory, and I’d learned a thing or two from him. Keeping low, moving very slowly, it’s surprising how easily you can foil even the most alert sentry. Like a lion moving in on a herd of gazelle, you creep in as close as possible, then go for a dash at the final moment, and that’s what I planned now.