Hauer came walking over to them. “I hit him,” he said. “I am sure there is a blood trail. I will give him a minute to settle, and then I will go into the forest after him. With any luck, he did not get far. It is going to be dark soon, after all.”
“Need help?”
“I can manage,” Hauer said. He looked down at the huge boar that Cole had brought down. Oddly enough, the German did not seem at all bitter that Cole had managed to bag the animal. “Congratulations on your boar. He is a monster!”
“You got that right,” Cole agreed. The tusks were several inches long. They would have ripped him right open if the boar had gotten any closer.
“You stay here,” Hauer said. He held up the walkie talkie. “I will let the others know where we are, and that we will need some help bringing out this game.”
“Sounds good to me,” Cole said.
Hauer nodded and headed off into the forest to track his wounded deer. Finding the animal wouldn’t be easy in the dark, so Cole hoped that it hadn’t gotten far. He was a little surprised that Hauer hadn’t hit the stag harder, with a more accurate shot. Yes, it had been a running shot, but the quarry had been fairly close to Hauer.
Cole smiled to himself, thinking that the old German sniper was finally missing a step — maybe two. Cole had dropped his target while Hauer was having to chase after his stag.
Up on the ridge, the dogs had changed direction and were no longer running toward the valley. The barking faded, then disappeared altogether, as if the dogs were being called back for the day. Was the hunt ending?
Around them, the shadows grew deeper. Through the overcast haze, he watched the sun slip down over a big hill to the west, and it was as if a curtain had been pulled across a window. Dusk arrived instantly. With the last of the daylight fading, the temperature dropped quickly. Cole felt the chill creeping into his old bones.
“Might as well do something with this boar while we wait for Hauer,” Cole said. He took out his hunting knife and with Danny’s help, expertly field dressed the boar. When some of the other hunters and beaters came along, they would be ready to drag the beast out. That alone wouldn’t be an easy task. They were many miles from the lodge, deep in the mountains, and Cole did not look forward to hiking back in the dark, which was how things were shaping up. At least the others would know the way and hopefully, have a flashlight. Cole didn’t have one. They had started out at first light, and now it was growing dark. He hadn’t planned on a full day in the field.
He also had the nagging realization that he didn’t have a map. Maybe Hauer had one? He didn’t know how far these mountains went. He did know that this was a preserved area, essentially the equivalent of a national park, which meant that there were no towns or villages. The setting sun gave him a rough indication of the direction they had come from, but that was about it.
Meanwhile, they kept listening for a rifle shot that would indicate that Hauer had found his wounded stag and dispatched it, but there was nothing.
“That stag must have made a run for Paris,” Cole said. “Either that, or it was already down.”
Night was coming on fast. The valley had become eerily quiet.
“What’s that?” Danny asked, pointing toward the tree line. “I think I see Herr Hauer.”
Cole followed Danny’s finger, saw a shape move among the trees in the last of the light. Definitely two-legged. Definitely making no effort to come toward them. The hair on the back of Cole’s neck raised. They were being watched.
“It’s Hauer, all right,” Cole said.
All at once, realization crashed down on Cole. Hauer had the walkie talkie, which was the only means to let anyone know where they were. Maybe Hauer had a flashlight and a map, too.
What did he have? Nothing. He and Danny were totally unprepared. Hauer had made sure that he held all the cards. Cole wanted to kick himself for being so stupid.
Cole shook his head. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through him. This whole time he’d been thinking that the game between him and Hauer, which they were playing to settle old scores, had been to see who could shoot the most deer and boar in these mountains. But maybe that hadn’t been the quarry that Hauer had in mind. Perhaps the stakes here were much higher than Cole had suspected. Cursing himself all over again, he realized that Hauer had played him for a fool and that he had walked right into a trap — dragging Danny along with him.
Then full-on darkness arrived, flowing through the valley like a tide, and the silhouette at the forest edge was lost among the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cole didn’t like the idea of staying put, but he liked the idea of trying to hike back in the dark even less. One wrong turn, or one fall, could spell disaster. They had no flashlight and no way of calling for help.
While he thought it over, Danny was full of questions.
“If nobody is coming back for us, what should we do?” Danny wondered. “What is Herr Hauer up to, anyhow?”
“I wish I knew what Hauer was up to,” Cole said. “I’m beginning to think he has something planned for us, and it’s nothing good.”
“He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?”
“Not if I can help it,” Cole said.
“We could try hiking back.”
“Keep your voice down,” Cole urged. “Let’s not make it any easier for Hauer to keep track of us. As for hiking back, we don’t know the way and we don’t even have a flashlight. There’s no moon and it’s darker than a well-digger’s ass out here.”
“Huh?”
“If we go off the trail or fall into a ravine, we’d just end up in a worse pickle than we’re already in,” Cole said.
“Hans and Angela will wonder where we are,” Danny said. “The other hunters will figure out that we’re missing and come looking for us.”
“Maybe,” Cole said. “For now, we’re on our own, and that’s a fact. Our friends and family help us when they can, but in the end, the only person you can count on is yourself.”
“And you, Pa Cole,”
“And me,” Cole said with a grin. “I’ll tell you another thing. We aren’t going to sit here and wait for Hauer to creep up on us. We can at least move down the valley to a different spot. He’ll never find us in the dark.”
“Whatever you say,” Danny replied, fear evident in his voice.
“Follow me and keep quiet,” Cole whispered.
The cold and damp was like a curtain that he had to push through. Leaving the spot where they had butchered the boar, he followed the slope of the valley down, Danny on his heels. Moving across the open field wasn’t so difficult, but Cole couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. He stopped when they reached the trees on the bottom half of the valley, moving quietly across a narrow stream that gurgled there. They took time to refill their canteens. He figured the water should be clean enough here in the mountains. As a soldier, he’d drank worse.
Cole felt pleased that Danny barely made a sound crossing the stream.
“Boy, you might not be a hunter, but you picked up a trick or two about the woods, didn’t you? Now, let’s see if we can get into those trees just as quietly.”
Danny didn’t respond, but Cole could almost feel him grinning with pride in the darkness.
They reached the trees and slipped several feet into the forest. He stopped when he felt the ground begin to rise for the forested slope that led up from the valley floor. He wanted some shelter, but at first light, he also wanted to be able to see Hauer moving across the valley.
The Butcher had a rifle, but so did Cole.
He thought about Hauer’s barely concealed disappointment when Cole had announced that he had a rifle and would not need the shotgun that Hauer had planned on him carrying. Now, it all made more sense. If Cole had a shotgun out here and Hauer had a rifle that could pick him off at long range, then Cole would have been as good as defenseless.