Off the Edge

Fall 1999 Horseshoe Basin-2

He moved in slowly. Move and stop, move two more paces, and stop. His eyes never left the cowboys, who glowed in the light from the campfire. Behind him, he heard a horse whinny. Although he could not see her in the darkness under the trees, he knew Najma was keeping pace with him. She was a professional. Her only fault was that she seemed to enjoy killing too much. He knew his decision would be making her happy. It was making him less than happy as he had expected to cross this wild area undetected. It wasn’t as if he cared about killing, and he knew that some of his team had been blunted by seeing so much death and dying. But he suspected that some of them enjoyed killing for its own sake. Najma killed slowly when she could. He needed their ruthlessness, but he understood that he had to keep in mind their limitations.

He was close now to the edge of the firelight. One of the American hicks in his western garb threw a piece of wood on the fire, increasing the warm glow. Farasie stood dead still. He watched in amazement as one of the cowboys drooled brown juice from his mouth and then spat. The American rednecks were disgusting. He decided to kill the oversized chewer first. He depressed the trigger. The rat-a-tat-tat of the nine-millimeter bullets gave him a small surge of adrenaline. If it was possible to love a g*n, he loved this one. The big ugly guy fell. He fired to his right next and then swept to the left, hitting another in the chest. Najma was not as close as he was when she began to fire methodically. He saw the older cowboy behind the white-haired man fall, but he was sure he had not killed him. His attention was diverted back to the cowboy who was moaning and twitching in the dirt. As he moved over to him, he quickly shot him in the head. He turned to his right and saw one of the hicks holding his face. He had a shock of white hair sticking up above his hands. The one behind the tree squirmed and was tugging at the white-haired man, trying to pull him behind the tree with him. Farasie’s first burst had apparently completely missed him. Farasie pulled the trigger again and two red spots appeared in the front of the old man’s head. The tree was spattered with blood and shards of bone as a small clump of white hair drifted to the ground in the firelight.

Farasie quickly moved left and swore as the cowboy behind the tree ran off into the darkness. He fired a short burst but only hit trees. He looked to his left and could see Najma’s leer as she looked at the old cowboy on the ground holding his knee. She shot him in the stomach and watched him look at the spot where the bullet entered.

‘God!’ Budd exclaimed.

‘Soon enough for you, old man,’ she said, as she took her time and fired a double burst into his head.

Farasie signaled her to move left after the running man. She could see that he was heading up a small rise north of the camp. The Sheik, her nickname for Nalaba Sharib, was already moving toward the man. They would have him cornered in no time.

Where in the hell is the last man? thought Farasie, as he instantly realized it was the kid who was missing. He scanned the area. Farasie had assumed the kid was in the shadows but still in the camp.

However, young Ben was not in the camp, having left to take a leak. He was standing next to a large pine as steam arose from the cool, moss-covered ground. There was a small trickle from a stream nearby as it emerged from a rock-spring and then meandered slowly through the meadow toward the floor of the basin. This was probably what saved him; the water noise had obscured his sounds. Just as he finished and was about to pull his zipper, a shadow moved off to his right. He froze as a cold chill ran down his spine. What was wrong with him anyway? The night was nothing to be afraid of. It was probably just Craig or one of the others taking a leak, too. But something about the shadow, something sinister, kept him from moving.

He stared into the blackness. The shadow was a man but moved like an animal. It stopped every few steps and stood stock-still. Something was wrong and he wanted to run, but he felt frozen to the ground and stayed perfectly still. Maybe it was one of the environmentalists goofing around and sneaking up on their camp. If that was the case, he would scare the hell out of the creep.

Ben started to feel better. Yes, that must be it. This might even be fun. The shadow moved slowly between Ben and the camp. Ben could hardly contain his excitement now. He decided he would move a little toward Rock Mountain and then come in behind the man. He moved slowly; the way Craig had trained him on their hunting trips. Pete was a blowhard, but he was big, and it made Ben less afraid knowing he was here. Together, they would scare the guy so bad that he would never play games with them again. That would teach him to sneak up and spy on his camp. He moved cautiously a few more feet. The man was now clearly silhouetted by the fire and a chill ran through Ben.

It looked like the guy was holding some sort of g*n. It appeared short but had a bulbous barrel. He didn’t know what to do. A second later, the man made the decision for him.

He heard muted staccato gunfire. As he watched in horror, Craig fell to the ground. Whitie was half-propped against a big old tree and knocked his hat off as he grabbed his face. Pete was a big mound lying silently on the ground. Another figure moved over to Budd and said something indistinct as Ben heard a shot and then two more. Jesus, what was happening?

Whitie was yowling and slowly moving his legs in the dirt. The half-moan crying sound that Whitie made was the scariest thing Ben had ever heard. Even though he had just peed, a small wet spot appeared in Ben’s crotch as he realized they were all going to die.

He moved incautiously toward the large blocks of rocks at the base of the mountain. Ben knew he should be quiet, but he was trembling and just too scared. He frantically started to run, stumbling over a fallen tree. One of the sharp stubs painfully punctured his shin. He was panting and couldn’t catch his breath as he got up and ran for his life.

By the time Farasie started wondering how he had been so careless, Ben was almost two hundred feet away and running like a deer along the south base of Rock Mountain. He was now too far away to be heard.

Craig felt like he, too, was sprinting as fast as a deer. In reality, his sixty-two-year-old legs were not up to the challenge of running very fast or far. He was sure the guy was not following him. He angled left from the shimmering, starlit lake. There was a little knoll where he had sat many times enjoying the view of Louden Lake and Arnold Mountain. As soon as he started up the little mound, his legs felt like rubber. He stumbled to the ground by a gnarly lodgepole pine. He was gasping for breath. The adrenaline was wearing off and tears welled as he thought of Whitie and Ben.

What was happening anyway? Loretta had been right not to come with him. If only he could be with her now. Somehow, the woods and mountains that he loved had betrayed him. They were no longer a haven. They had become cruel and foreboding, leaving him a small, insignificant, scared, and helpless man. He felt a little comfort sitting by the old tree. Some strength returned to his legs. His mind told him he had to get farther away.

A cold shiver passed through his body. Sweat from fear and the cold rested on his forehead and trickled down inside his shirt. He knew he must move. He wouldn’t stop until he was out of the basin. He was heading home to Loretta, to their special dinner tomorrow night, home to his other friends. It was time to leave. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, overcoming a nearly paralyzing fear.

Najma moved toward him like a cat stalking its prey. She had seen the older cowboy running for the lake. He looked as though he would run right into the Sheik. But at the last minute, he disappeared in the black smoke of night. Craig had miraculously turned left up the knoll seconds before it would have been too late.

She stopped to listen, breathing soundlessly. The man had stopped. She thought she heard someone breathing hard, mixed with the breeze through the trees. She looked toward the lake and could see the dusky giant image of the Sheik against the lake’s soft, shimmering surface. If she circled to her left, the quarry would be between them. Her lips gave a little twist up and a small shiver of anticipation ran through her body. She moved silently toward the knoll. She placed each foot carefully, avoiding twigs and pinecones. The shadow of the Sheik was moving, too.

As Craig pushed himself up, he was comforted by the old tree and unaware of being stalked. He got himself moving again. He would go home and hold Loretta and never let her go. Then he froze as the dark outline of a very large man appeared below the knoll. He was moving in his direction. Craig took two steps back and ran right into the arms of a cold, smiling Najma. He was startled beyond belief at the sight of a woman. In the dim moonlight, his first thought was that maybe he was being rescued. The smiling woman brought a momentary sense of relief. However, something seemed not right; while her lips smiled, there was only a metallic reflection in her cold eyes. Craig had always liked women. He felt comfortable with them. It was inconceivable to him that a pretty lady would be his demise.

She held a stubby, fat-barrelled g*n in her left hand. In her right hand, a flash of moonlight glinted off steel. Craig realized his mistake as the ice-cold blade penetrated his side. He not only felt helpless, he felt betrayed: by women, and mountains, and everything that he had ever loved. There wasn’t much pain as he slid to his knees, as much from exhaustion as anything and then lay slowly back on the bed of frosty needles. Najma looked down at the fallen man. He was nothing. Hardly worth her attention. A weak man with no future. The Sheik walked up.

‘Finish him. We need to get going.’

‘You get going. I’ll be right behind you.’

The Sheik shrugged and moved back toward the camp.

Najma continued to observe the man. He was looking back at her while holding his side. At least he wasn’t making any noise. If he had, she would have had to finish him quickly. This way, she could play with him for a short while before watching his eyes go dull in the moonlight. She unzipped her jacket seductively revealing a tight black, low-cut shirt that matched her coal-black eyes and contrasting caramel skin. She straddled the man as her ample cleavage gleamed in the brightening moonlight. She touched his mouth with her finger as his bewildered eyes looked back at her, marveling at her beauty. As she seductively turned her head, Craig saw a red-raised birthmark behind her left ear shaped like a small hand. She’s been branded, he thought. He was confused as shock from the wound began to wear off, leaving a searing pain in his side. At the same time blood ran to his groin as this sensuous, exotic woman caressed his lips with her fingers and brushed him with her breasts as she moved closer.

Najma would have liked to play this game of teasing and slowly watching as his life ebbed, but she had already stayed too long. She was breathing a little faster. The more pain she caused, the more pleasure she felt. She reached back and felt for the man’s crotch. Through his jeans, she could feel him getting hard. He was getting as aroused as she was at his impending death. She sat straight up and watched the man stare at her in bewilderment as she caressed with experienced fingers. She knew the effect her long hair and well-molded breasts had on men. As she massaged with her left hand, she placed her small, double-sided dagger at the point of the throat just below the Adam’s apple. She forcefully slashed upward, destroying the man’s ability to talk or yell. She could spend only a few more seconds. She squeezed as hard as she could with her left hand as terror, mixed with pain, distorted his kindly face. She repositioned the blade over his jugular vein. Craig’s mind was crying out, but no sound was heard. His last realization, as his life slipped away, was that he would never embrace Loretta again.