The eagles, the bull elk, the wounded does, the bear. It was all coming back to him now. The terrifying helicopter, the double-barreled rifles, and the men who wouldn't take the time to kill their own cripples.
Bastards, he thought.
It took a few more agonizing movements before Lightstone was able to figure out that he was lying in the back of a pickup truck and that someone-presumably Alex and Butch Chareaux-had shoved him in between the bodies of the two bears.
Like one more carcass to be disposed of after the hunt was over, he thought, finding the idea amusing for some incomprehensible reason as his mind started to drift again, reaching out for the darkness and the soothing, painless sanctuary of unconsciousness.
A screen door slammed, and he heard voices.
"Alex, Butch," someone said cheerfully. "It is good to see you both. I was worried-"
"Has Sonny called yet?" Alex Chareaux demanded.
"Sonny? No, I have not heard from him at all today."
"He should be calling here very soon," Chareaux said insistently. "At ten o'clock. It is important that I speak to him."
"It is almost ten now. Come inside. Join me in a glass of wine, and we will wait for his call. Ah," the man said, slapping his hand on the tarpaulin-covered edge of the truck bed, "I see that you do have some work for me after all."
"Two grizzlies, a bull elk, and a pair of eagles," Alex Chareaux said, the tension in his voice seeming to ease now that he knew he hadn't missed his brother's call. "They will make nice trophies."
"I can only assume, of course, that you have all the necessary papers?"
"But of course," Alex Chareaux chuckled. "These are for the clients I told you about. The very wealthy ones with the many wealthy friends. So the mounts, they must be superb. They expect nothing less, and they will pay twice your normal rate for your best work."
Taxidermy, Lightstone realized.
"In that case, we will open a special bottle tonight, and we will not look so closely at your papers," the man declared grandly. "Come in now, we will talk. You can put the truck in the warehouse. We will unload it later."
"Back the truck into the warehouse," Alex Chareaux instructed, "and use his hoist to put the carcasses in the cooler. I want to be in the house when Sonny calls."
"What about Lightner?" Butch Chareaux asked.
"Is he awake?"
"I will see," Butch Chareaux untied the rope at the corner of the truck bed next to the driver's side door, pulled back the edge of the tarp, and looked in. He reached in, fumbled around for a few seconds, then turned to his brother and shook his head as he replaced the tarp corner and retied the rope.
"He is alive, but his pulse is weak and he is very cold. I think that, very soon, we will not have to worry about him anymore."
"Then just leave him in the truck," Alex Chareaux ordered, shrugging indifferently. "Once Sonny calls and tells us about the pilot, we will know for sure what to do. If Lightner is already dead by then, we will bury him in the woods."
Silence.
"Something is wrong?"
"I was thinking that maybe we are worried about the wrong people," Butch Chareaux said quietly. "Maybe we should be more concerned about our new clients."
"Why do you say that?"
"I watched Lightner with the bear today," Butch Chareaux shrugged. "He did not act as I had expected."
"Yes?"
"When things went wrong, he faced the bear with courage. He had the opportunity to turn and run, but instead, he went forward and drew its charge to you and the others."
"Perhaps all the more reason to think that he is not the man he claims to be," Alex Chareaux suggested.
"It was strange," Butch Chareaux continued, a distant look in his cold eyes. "But when he stood there out in the open, facing the bear, he reminded me of the time when you were sixteen and you stood up to Beebee Fontaine and killed him with your knife when he caught us stealing his 'gators. Perhaps Henry is just a crazy person like many other people we know. Like us, even?"
"And the others?" Alex Chareaux asked.
"You saw how they reacted when they realized that one of their bullets hit Lightner. They wanted to get away. It was only the lure of the second bear that kept them there. Of the three," Butch Chareaux snorted contemptuously, "I think the woman was more of a man."
"So you think it is too much a risk to take their money?"
"They can make us rich, but I think they would turn on us instantly if they thought it necessary in order to save themselves," Butch Chareaux nodded. "Of this Henry Lightner, I am not so sure."
Alex Chareaux began to say something when a phone stared to ring in the nearby house.
"That must be Sonny," he said. "Take the truck into the warehouse and then come in. I think we will soon know exactly how to deal with our new partner."
Chapter Twenty-One
Thoroughly distracted by the realization that the lives of Len Ruebottom and Henry Lightstone were hanging in the balance, Larry Paxton stepped out of the phone booth, looked to his right at the Cat's Paw parking lot, and started to run across the street between two parked cars.
He never saw the white car to his left that made a quick turn and began to accelerate toward him.
The sudden sound of screeching brakes was the only warning that Paxton had before the bumper of the Ford Taurus caught his left leg and sent him tumbling up and over the front of the hood. The hood ornament tore through his jacket and the small packset radio, gouging against his ribs before it snapped off.
As Paxton continued on in his tumbling path into the vehicle's windshield, the smoking tires finally got a grip on the asphalt and brought the vehicle to a sudden stop that sent the stunned agent rolling backward off the front of the hood and onto the hard, cold asphalt.
"Jesus fucking Christ! What the hell's the matter with you?" a high-pitched voice demanded as the driver's door of the Bozeman Police Department patrol car was thrown open.
Larry Paxton had managed to get up on his hands and knees and was starting to use the bumper and hood of the damaged vehicle to work himself into a standing position when the thoroughly unnerved police officer finally got around to him.
"Sir, are you okay?" The wide-eyed face that stared down at him under the mildly illuminating glow of the nearby street light was that of a shaken, anxious young officer.
"Yeah, I'm fine. No problem," Paxton said heavily as he straightened upright, his legs wobbly and his vision fuzzy. He tried to blink his eyes clear to read the numbers on his watch, but its supposedly shatterproof face had been crushed by the Ford Taurus's hood.
"Christ, buddy, you've got to watch out where you're going. You could get yourself killed like that," the officer went on in a barely controlled voice.
"Yeah, I know. My fault all the way." Paxton nodded groggily, wondering if he had a concussion. "Had my head up my ass, didn't see you coming. Say, do you know what time it is?"
"Uh, it's nine fifty-eight," the officer said as he glanced quickly at his watch. "Listen, why don't you sit down there by the curb while I get you some help?"
"No, really, that's okay," Paxton smiled weakly, thinking he really ought to lie down. "See, I'm running kinda late, and it looks like your police car's okay, so if you don't mind, I'll just-" Then he blinked and turned away as the young officer turned on his flashlight.
"Oh, Christ."
"What's the matter?"
"You're bleeding. Deep cut over your right eye." Paxton felt his arm being taken in the firm grasp of the muscular and now very concerned officer. "Listen, you sit down over here while I call this in, get my supervisor out here. Then I'll get my first-aid kit and try to patch you up until the medics can transport you to a hospital."
"No, man, I'm telling you, I've gotta go," Paxton said as he twisted his arm out of the officer's grasp.