Stars & Stripes (Cut & Run 6)

“Engine.”

“You think it’s them?” Annie asked, looking around too.

Ty nodded. There was no way an animal control vehicle would have been dispatched this quickly, not this far out. It had to be the poachers, out looking for their escapee. Ty took a deep breath. If they came across a vehicle with three to six armed men in it, he was outgunned by a long sight. There wasn’t much he could do about it, and though they could hear the engine, it gave little warning to the vehicle’s presence because of the odd distortion of sound in the hills. It could be two miles away, or two hills away.

“The tigers liked you, Ty; try calling out for them.”

Ty hesitated, wondering if it would be imprudent to call out since they obviously weren’t alone out here. He decided it was worth the risk, though. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted the names of both tigers as loud as he could, and then stood listening to the echo fade across the hills. He strained to see movement, but there was too much real estate to cover.

He sighed and went back to his survey of the ground. He could find no trace of the tiger’s passing. It was as if the cat had mounted the hill and taken flight. It was frustrating, and not a little embarrassing after Zane had made such a fuss about his tracking skills. It also crossed his mind that they were too late. That engine may have been carrying both tigers away as they stood here.

He was on the verge of giving up when he found a divot in the earth, tiny trails where a few small pebbles had rolled from the edges of the depression. And on the lip of the innocuous circle was a tell-tale gouge. A claw.

“Got him!”

Annie came rushing over. She patted him on the back excitedly and then looked out over the land in the direction Ty was indicating. The hills made it hard to see far, and it made him uneasy that something as large and vicious as a tiger could be lurking behind the next knoll.

They picked their way down the hill, trailing their horses behind them. It would have been easier to let the horses find the way down, but Ty wanted to be certain he had the trail. They bottomed out into a wide arroyo, the first flat ground he’d seen that was longer than a football field since they’d left the preserve fence behind.

He stood and breathed out, trying to think. His horse jerked at his reins, then sidestepped and whinnied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of vibrant color amidst the tan and green of the land.

He whipped his head around to see the tiger speeding toward them.

“Oh shit,” Annie gasped. She turned toward the panicking horses and fumbled in her saddlebag for the case of tranquilizer darts, and managed to jerk it out before the horses broke and fled back up the hill.

Ty’s hand was on his sidearm, but it was a last resort. They were here to save the cat, not kill him.

The tiger bounded over cacti and scrub brush, and every time he leaped into the air and came back down, the skin of his face would lift and reveal razor-sharp teeth. His deadly claws dug into the earth for traction.

Annie handed Ty the dart gun, her fingers trembling.

Ty was surprised he wasn’t flashing back to the last big cat who had charged him: the cougar in the mountains of West Virginia. But it had been dark then, and he hadn’t seen the cat coming. Now, he stood frozen, waiting for the tiger to come within range of the darts. He was oddly calm, his body not yet recognizing the danger.

It was unusual for the tiger to charge over open ground, in daylight no less, but Ty couldn’t guess at the behavior of an animal who’d been held captive all its life. He lifted the dart gun, his fingers less steady than they had been a moment before. Annie ducked behind him.

A gunning engine rent the silence, and the tiger made a sharp turn, retreating from the 4x4 tearing through the open end of the arroyo. The 4x4 careened to a stop, and a man hanging off the roll bar in the bed of the truck pointed a long-barreled rifle at the fleeing tiger.

The 4x4 displayed no markings. The men within it were armed, their faces covered. This was definitely not an official vehicle.

Ty dropped the tranquilizer gun and reached for his sidearm, drawing and firing with practiced speed. He hit the side of the truck, sending sparks flying. The shooter in the 4x4 shouted and turned his rifle on them.

“Shit,” Ty muttered as the other three men in the truck, all of them bristling with weapons, took notice of them. “Annie! Get down!”

Behind him, Annie screamed. Ty grabbed her and pulled, stepping in front of her to take the shot from the first man’s rifle.

It hit him in the chest, the shock of the impact knocking him backward into Annie. She caught him under his arms with another scream, but they both went tumbling backward.

Ty looked down at the dart in his chest. He grabbed it and yanked it out, surprised at how much it hurt. “Run. Go,” he panted, words harsh as he pushed himself to his knees and began firing. He felt Annie turn and run, hopefully after the fleeing horses where she could make a clean escape. His vision was already beginning to go dark, but he continued firing. He hit one man and saw him go sailing into the bed of the truck, rattling two large cages. Then he hit the windshield, and next a tire. He fired until his clip went empty and he sank back into the scrub grass. The world around him was turning a grayish purple.

He was distantly aware of the sound of retreating horse hooves and the truck’s engine idling. Several men stalked toward him. He fumbled for his other clip, but his fingers were numb.

“Used all my damn darts,” one man snarled as he pulled a gun. He sounded garbled, like he was speaking through a synthesizer.

“What do we do with him?”

“Take him. When he wakes up we’ll make him track down that damn tiger for us. Then we’ll use him as kitty chow.”

They drew near, one of them carrying what looked like a burlap sack. Someone knelt next to Ty, and though his face wavered and morphed, Ty didn’t have to see his expression to know he was in trouble. He pulled his knife from his boot—his last-ditch resort—and jammed it into the man’s thigh.

The man screamed.

A sound somewhere near them echoed it, a scream of anger and agony. Something primal in Ty knew what that was: the roar of an enraged predator. The men all stopped, looking up and around in a panic before turning and running back toward the safety of their vehicle, dragging the man Ty had wounded behind them.

And suddenly Ty’s vision was blue. It took him a moment to realize he’d fallen over and was on his back, staring at the cloudless sky. He couldn’t move. Not even his fingers would twitch. He was paralyzed, losing consciousness, in the middle of the desert. Alone.