Wolfe looked over to Chareaux for guidance.
Chareaux spoke into his packset radio, held the speaker against his ear for a few moments, then extended his hand toward a large boulder at the edge of the tree line. It was about two hundred yards out at eleven o'clock.
"To the right of that boulder, this side of those tall pines," he whispered. "Very soon now. Be ready."
From his position a few yards to the left of Chareaux, Henry Lightstone watched the bull elk burst out of the clearing, swing his wide span of antlers in their direction, and then turn to lunge away just as the concussive roar of the woman's. 375 Rigby echoed through the trees.
But the magnificent animal reacted too late, and the copper-jacketed soft-point bullet slammed into the midpoint of the bull's massive rib cage, the force of the impact and the subsequent hydrostatic shock sending him staggering forward to his knees.
He started to come back up, shaking his huge antlers and bellowing with pain and rage, and Lightstone heard the oiled clack of the Rigby's silk-smooth bolt action as the woman smoothly ejected the spent casing and fed another round into the chamber.
Standing back at a distance, Lightstone found himself thoroughly impressed by the spirit and resilience of Lisa Abercombie, whom he had initially only been able to imagine as scantily clad in a bedroom. He could tell that the Rigby's sharp recoil had severely jarred her arms and shoulder. But as he watched in amazement, the seemingly unfazed woman brought her weapon back up into firing position without hesitation.
That's it, take your time, Lightstone thought to himself. Keep it tight against your shoulder. Gentle pull, nice and easy.
Lisa Abercombie had the cross hairs of the scope centered at the point where the bull's thick neck joined its shoulder and was about to squeeze the trigger once again when the sound of Chareaux's voice held her back.
"No, he is finished," he said, "but watch out for-"
At that moment, a pair of young females burst into the clearing.
Caught by surprise, Abercombie tried to bring the cross hairs back around to bear on the first of the panicked animals, but they were moving too fast and the shot went high and to the right.
Then, before she could eject and reload for a third shot, Dr. Reston Wolfe brought his Holland and Holland double-barreled rifle up to his shoulder and triggered off two quick rounds.
The first of the 410-grain bullets caught the rearmost elk in the hindquarters, sending her tumbling to the ground in a frenzy of dirt clods, kicking legs, and thrashing torso. The second round-nosed slug struck the lead elk across the side of the head, tearing off most of her right ear and sending her stumbling forward for a few steps before she managed to regain her balance.
Then, seriously injured but still on her feet, she continued to run in a staggering gait away from the direction of the terrible noise and pain.
Lightstone shook his head slowly.
When Alex Chareaux had finally gotten around to introducing his three clients to Lightstone, indicating that their names were Reston Walters, Lisa Allen and Morrey Asato, it had been impossible to miss the fact that only the older Japanese man seemed able to remember his last name well enough to respond in a reasonably timely manner.
Which really didn't matter, Lightstone thought, because even though this Reston Walters-or whoever the hell he was-had absolutely nothing to do with their investigation against the Chareaux brothers, he had already decided that he was going to track the man down some day and give him a lecture on hunting ethics if he couldn't talk McNulty into including the arrogant asshole in the indictment.
Lightstone had watched the man he knew as Walters quickly break open the double-barreled weapon and feed two heavy. 416 Rigby cartridges into the side-by-side chambers, which meant that he had two live rounds ready and available that he could use to put both animals out of their misery.
But the pompously arrogant hunter simply stood there, holding the outrageously expensive rifle against his hip, the still-smoking barrels pointed skyward. He shook his head.
"Too small. Not worth bothering about," he commented with an indifferent shrug, apparently having lost all interest in his prey as he reached down to pat Lisa Abercombie on the shoulder, congratulating her on her shot.
For a few long moments, Henry Lightstone watched as the severely injured female on the ground continued to thrash around while her crippled but still mobile companion struggled to put more distance between herself and the hunting party.
Then finally, out of pure revulsion, Lightstone brought the. 300 McMillan up to his shoulder with the intention of finishing off both animals, when Alex Chareaux's voice made him pause.
"No," Chareaux whispered as he came up beside Lightstone. "Not yet."
As Lightstone watched the crippled female elk stumble away, the two male hunters continued to hover around their own female companion, the Oriental offering his congratulations, while the other man-the ever-pompous Walters-made a show of rubbing her almost certainly bruised shoulder. Then, after a couple of minutes, all three of them walked over to Chareaux and Lightstone, their rifles in their hands.
"We'd like to move over toward those rocks," Reston Wolfe said to Chareaux, pointing toward a large pile of boulders about a half mile east of the clearing. "That's where your brothers saw the bear last night, right?"
"Yes, in that area," Chareaux nodded. "Go on ahead. We will check the kills and then be over there with you in a moment."
Chareaux waited until the three had gone about fifty yards. Then he walked over to the tree that Lisa Abercombie had used as a brace and poked around with a stick until he had located all four of the spent casings. After picking them up and slipping them into his jacket pocket, he waited again until the three hunters had disappeared from sight before he brought the small packset radio up to his mouth.
Moments later, a shot rang out from the general area where the buck had first emerged, and the staggering female elk dropped to the ground and lay still. A second shot, moments later, ended the agonized thrashing of the other one.
Lightstone couldn't tell one rifle shot from another, but he figured that the killing slugs would probably turn out to be from an old 7mm Winchester Model 70. The one that Alex Chareaux had given to his youngest brother, Butch, many years ago.
"You disapprove," Chareaux said, slipping the packset radio back into his jacket pocket as he came up beside Lightstone. The way he spoke the words, it was a statement, not a question.
"If I had ever let a cripple run like that when I was a kid, my grandfather would have taken out his razor strop and beaten me half to death," Lightstone said, aware that he was allowing some of his own background to merge into his Henry Allen Lightner persona.
"Yes, mine also. But I must tell you that most of my clients have had no such training. That is why I must be sure that my brother is always there with his rifle."
"But you waited," Lightstone said half-accusingly.
"The animals are there to be hunted. That is why they are put on this earth." Chareaux shrugged. "And besides, one must always be a businessman first," he added as if that explained everything.
Which it probably did to a cutthroat opportunist like Henry Allen Lightner, Lightstone thought, reminding himself to stay in character.
"So what was that last one, a five- or six-hundred-yard shot?" he asked, making a deliberate effort to shift the topic of conversation.
"Perhaps," Chareaux nodded. "Butch is capable of that, certainly."
At that moment, four quickly spaced shots rang out. Both Lightstone and Chareaux turned in time to see the pair of soaring golden eagles tumble through the sky in a burst of feathers before spinning down to the ground.