Blood was bubbling up from the creature's shoulder and back. Nothing in the wilderness made those wounds. To Gray's knowledge, the only way a wilderness carnivore — usually the fisher, a large and rare and ferocious marten — attacks a porcupine is to flip it to get to the unprotected wiry hairs on the porcupine's belly. These wounds were made by a man with a knife. Trusov.
The porcupine's blood trail showed the animal had come from the west. Trusov was to the west.
The animal was suffering, grunting and panting and swaying, and was clearly going to die, but perhaps not for an hour or two. The porcupine has an Achilles' heel, a lethally vulnerable spot — its snout. Gray whispered, "Sorry, friend," then brought his rifle barrel down sharply across the animal's nose. It collapsed instantly, dead, a pile of sharp points.
Gray pushed himself up the rotting tree trunk. He was facing north, with the mouth of the bowl to his right and the high ridges all around. The view was only partial, with much of the bowl obscured by trees on the lower south slope. Some of the charred field was visible, and across was the parched north slope. Hundreds of trees interrupted Gray's view, and the Russian might be behind any one of them. Or behind fallen logs or thick brush or boulders or clumps of grass.
Just as he was about to crawl on, a glint of light held him to the stump. The metallic shimmer had been distant and faint; and just as he had felt with the bobcat's footfalls, Gray knew the fleeting light had been a mistake. Something was below him, fifteen compass clicks west, a quarter mile away. The view was through a veil of vegetation, and Gray could make out no forms other than trees and undergrowth. Yet there was the tiny flash again. He moved his head slowly a foot left, then back. The speck of light returned at the center of this motion, and when Gray held himself still, the silver pink light remained. It had been his motion that had made it flicker, and when Gray was still it was constant, but only an infinitesimal leak of light, a thin beam, the smallest of offerings. Gray lifted his binoculars.
Two hours later, in the failing light of evening, Gray's binoculars were still at his eyes. He had lowered them and brought them up again and again to avoid eyestrain as he stared at the dot of light. All he knew was that the source of the light was out of place in the wilderness. It was man-made, and it came from a backpack buckle tongue, a boot's metal eyelet ring, a jacket button, a telescope lens, or a piece of litter.
Two hours studying, all the while growing weaker and more thirsty. Although his stomach and chest and right leg and face had been spared by the fire, every square inch of his skin seemed to emit pulses of pain. The burns frequently pried Gray's mind from the task at hand and allowed it to wander dangerously. Toward the end of those hours, the binoculars were almost too heavy to lift, and Gray slipped lower and lower against the stump. His tongue felt as if it had swollen and he could no longer swallow. He was so thirsty he caught himself daydreaming about a water fountain.
And as he stared at the glint and tried to imagine something recognizable from the surrounding brush, his mind started to play, throwing shadows across the bowl's floor, creating phantoms around the puny light. Ruses of the mind, Gray knew, but the pain carried along his thoughts. If only he could send a bullet at the light and end the waiting, but he could not. A wasted shot would alert the Russian to Gray's location.
The sinking sun was turning the little flash purple. The base of the bowl was in deep shadow and was losing its features. The south wall was a deepening smudge of rock against the dark blue sky.
The pinpoint of light had remained as motionless as a stone for two hours. No human could do that. He needed to decide, and so he decided the light was the reflection off a piece of litter, probably a chewing gum wrapper. It was a fuzzy decision, and a terrible disappointment. He had tapped deeply into his mental and physical reserves to study the tiny light, and it had come to nothing. He was now desperately thirsty and exhausted beyond his ability to make clear judgments. His binoculars came down despite his best effort to hold them in place.
He had to find the strength to move. The sky was as red as blood. Soon darkness would cloak him. But that maddening glimmer was worth one more look. With an effort that fogged his vision from exhaustion, he brought up the binoculars again.
At that moment Trusov caught Gray's scent again, the gratifying odor of badly burned flesh. The wind had been shifting and irresolute for much of the afternoon, but for several hours it had been steady from the south, bringing Trusov reliable information about his enemy. Earlier in the afternoon the Russian had moved out of the scent, but the smell had found Trusov again. Gray was alive, was south of the Russian in the trees somewhere, and had slowly moved west. The odor of cooked skin had traveled.
Trusov would move toward the still-pink sky in the west. His and the American's paths would converge at the western end of the bowl. Because daylight was fading quickly, he would not be able to watch his feet and would have to walk more slowly and softly.
When Trusov lifted his rifle the jaws of the earth seemed to open up, seize him, and take him down its black throat. Trusov fell into the void, vaulting down into the wicked murk. He spent an age falling into the black pool, and then he slammed against the bottom of the pit.
He found himself on his knees on the ground. He had only fallen a few feet, but had been blacked out for the two seconds of the fall.
Then a red sheet fell across his eyes, a veil of blood that blocked his view of the ground. He grabbed at himself until he found the wound, a crease across his forehead a quarter inch deep and pouring blood.
Gray had shot him.
Blood spilled through his fingers onto the ground, a torrent of it that filled his vision with cascading red. On his hands and knees he scrambled blindly, dragging his rifle, downhill until he felt the resistance of a bush of some sort. He let himself fall to the ground and burrowed under the bush.
Again he felt his head. The slash was to the bone, into the bone. He could feel his skull, not for the first time.
Trusov's mouth contorted in rage and pain. Owen Gray's Vietnam shot had marred Trusov, and now the second had crossed the scar of the first. The Russian's head was marked by an X.
Blood splashed to the ground. He pulled off his pack and pressed it against his forehead, trying to stem the river of blood, all the while his face screwed up in rage. Moments passed. The blood ebbed. He returned the sopping pack to his back. Night had come. He could see little in the black basin. Shaking with rage and revelation, he lifted his rifle and moved west, slowly and silently and skillfully.
The bowl was lost in darkness. Owen Gray had tried to find his target again, but Trusov had moved quickly, and the gathering darkness prevented Gray from spotting him. Gray had missed. Sheer luck had given Gray a shot, and he had missed. The shard of light he had stared at had indeed been a piece of litter, probably a gum wrapper. Just as Gray had given up on that target, the Russian had walked into Gray's field of vision. None of Gray's tracking skills had been involved. Happenstance had offered him the target. The Russian just happened to travel over the glint of light, and it had blinked out. Gray had lifted his rifle and fired, quickly, before Trusov was lost in the surrounding vegetation. Too quickly. Gray's rifle had bucked up, and by the time he found the spot again in the scope, Trusov was gone. A miss.