Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Raven went on the hunt.
The chilly air stung her exposed cheeks. Her hands were red and chapped. She shivered as she caked her face and hands with dirt and smeared the bottom of her boots with red clay and mashed leaves and twigs into the mud to mar her footprints.
She strapped the rifle across her chest with the sling, adjusted her pouch of ammunition, and rechecked the tranq gun, still tucked into her waistband. The second tranquilizer gun was tucked into her backpack. She kept the whittling knife folded in her pocket.
While she worked, she remained alert to the sounds of the woods, to the intruders who had so savagely invaded her sanctuary.
Every few minutes, gunshots shattered the early morning air. The Headhunters were loud. They stumbled and thrashed through the underbrush. The men shouted to each other through the trees, followed by the rat-a-tat of semi-automatic weapons.
If they were pursuing wild creatures, they would never have found them. But the captive animals were confused, anxious, and frightened. The alien scents and strange sounds were alarming and disorienting.
They wandered through a foreign land they no longer recalled, frantically searching for a familiar sense of safety that eluded them.
One by one, the Headhunters began to pick them off.
The retort of another rifle cracked. Raven cringed. Another shot. Another animal she loved was being chased down. With every boom and crack of a gun, her heart broke a little more.
This wasn’t hunting.
It was barbaric. It was a massacre.
It needed to stop.
Raven placed the hood of the jacket over her head. With the black jacket and hood, with her dark-colored pants and dirt-smeared skin, she hoped she would fade into the shadows, just like the black wolf.
She knew this forest like the back of her hand, knew the ravines and meadows and streams of the Piedmont Wildlife Refuge, 35,000 acres of woods and hills and trails.
The Headhunters didn’t.
With a deep breath, she set off in the direction of the nearest gunshots.
Moving quietly, darting from tree to tree to shield herself, she made her way westward, heading in the direction of the Ocmulgee River, which ran parallel to the wildlife sanctuary, about a mile west of the rear gates of the zoo.
Shuffling footsteps and a muffled curse alerted her to a nearby threat. Raven took cover behind the thick trunk of a poplar, and eased cautiously around the trunk. Brilliant yellow leaves cascaded over her head.
She glimpsed a human shape about thirty yards to the south. A man knelt with his back to her. He wore a puffy silver jacket and a red baseball cap. His rifle was up, and he peered through his scope at something up in the trees to his left.
The branches of an elm tree shook. A handful of orange-yellow leaves fluttered to the forest floor. A flash of inky fur caught her attention.
It was Newton, one of the bonobos. He perched on a lower branch about twenty feet off the ground. He seemed to be alone, intent on seizing leaves and tearing them to shreds.
The Headhunter was searching for a decent angle before he fired. Raven steadied herself against the poplar tree, widened her stance, fit the stock against her shoulder, and found the target in her sight. She aimed at the back of the man’s red baseball cap.
Time seemed to slow. She breathed in, breathed out. She’d killed a man already tonight. Some soul-deep, bone-weary part of herself dreaded doing it again. But she couldn’t allow this killing spree to continue.
She had the tranq gun, but this was a Headhunter. He was a bad guy.
Raven steeled herself. Her frantic heartbeat calmed as she lowered the barrel slightly. She inhaled, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. A loud boom sounded. The round struck the Headhunter in his right shoulder.
The man shrieked in shock and pain. He dropped his gun. Twisting, he clutched at his shoulder, screaming. He fell to his knees.
Alarmed, Newton screeched. He scooted up the tree limb and leaped to another tree, scampered along a branch, and disappeared deeper into the woods.
Raven blew out a calming breath, aimed, and fired again. This time her round struck him lower, in the back. He dropped to the ground, screaming.
A male voice shouted to her left. Someone ran toward their position, footsteps thudding loud and frantic.
Lowering her rifle, Raven slunk back between the trees. As soon as she was out of earshot, she broke into a run to get a safe distance between herself and the fallen Headhunter.
Every few minutes, she paused to catch her breath, straining her ears to listen to the warnings of the forest surrounding her.
A bluebird twittered overhead. The wind sighed through the softly swaying trees.
Through the crisscrossed branches above her, patches of sky brightened in shades of grapefruit pink and burnt orange.
Raven slunk through the woods, a shadow among shadows. She found another Headhunter alone, his pants down, pissing against a tree trunk. He’d been loud, unused to the forest and its ways, and she’d had no problem discreetly following him until he’d lowered his gun—and his pants.
Sinking to her knees, she nestled the stock against her cheek, let out her breath, and fired. The round struck him in the left thigh. He moaned in pain, attempting to spin, but his feet tangled in his pants, and he collapsed.
She disappeared before he could find his weapon.
An hour later, she spotted Kodiak near the creek. The big black bear lumbered along the bank, snuffling huckleberry and elderberry bushes, searching for berries to quench his hunger.
She watched him for several minutes until she heard the inconspicuous noises of two Headhunters hot on Kodiak’s trail. Warily, she circled back on the Headhunters and stalked them from behind as they stalked Kodiak.
Before either of them got off a shot, she dropped to one knee behind a wide stump for cover, aimed and fired several rounds in quick succession. Two found their mark. The first Headhunter collapsed with a bullet in his lower back. The second took a hit to the right side of his head.
They went down screaming. Neither would be shooting a gun again anytime soon. Without prompt and intensive medical intervention, they’d probably die.
Startled by the sudden screaming, Kodiak took off in the opposite direction.
Raven backed away swiftly and did the same.
More screams mingled with the shouts and jeers echoing through the trees. Confusion and fear were taking hold. Maybe the Headhunters would give up now.
To save their lives, all they had to do was leave.
She hadn’t made it half a mile from the creek when a sound startled her. A few yards to her right, something large growled.
It was close, very close.
A shiver raced up her spine. Raven darted for the cover of the nearest tree. A small clearing lay ahead of her, a break in the trees where bunches of ferns grew in abundance.
The woods grew abruptly silent. The birds stopped singing.
A male voice broke the eerie quiet: “Stay back, now. No closer!”
Maintaining her cover behind the trunk of a massive oak tree, Raven cautiously peered around the corner. Her heart beat rapidly against her throat. Her palms were clammy.
In the center of the grove of ferns, one of the Headhunters stood with a rifle aimed at something she couldn’t quite make out. In his thirties, he wore a khaki jacket, jeans, and work boots, and a floppy brown fishing hat over his short black hair. She recognized him—the one they called Gomez.
Three yards from him, crouched in the ferns at the base of a massive boulder, was a timber wolf. The wolf gave a menacing snarl. Its back was arched, hackles raised.
For a moment, Raven didn’t recognize the wolf, so alien was the ferocious snarl. Meek Suki faced down the Headhunter with amber eyes blazing, fangs bared.
“Go on now! Get out of here!” Gomez’s hands visibly shook. He was terrified. “I said scram!”
Before Raven had the time to get her own weapon up, he could have shot the wolf. Instead, he shifted his aim and fired wide.
The loud boom trembled the leaves. The round struck a tree somewhere off to the right.
Suki skittered to the side. Raven expected her to flee. She didn’t. Instead, she crouched down low, ears flattened, and snarled louder.
Raven hesitated, her weapon raised but her finger on the trigger guard, not the trigger. Gomez wasn’t aiming directly at Suki. He didn’t want to shoot the wolf. He was attempting to scare her away instead.
Damien was right. They weren’t all bloodthirsty killers.
The Headhunter fired again, another wide shot. Bark splintered several feet above Suki’s head. Still, she refused to run. She gave a ferocious growl and crept closer to Gomez. The wolf was the aggressor, not the Headhunter.
Darkened blood matted the fur along Suki’s jaw, mingled with a sickly yellowish saliva. It glistened from her fangs and dripped down her muzzle. It stained the white hairs on her chest.
Dread pooled in Raven’s stomach. Something was off.
Wolves rarely attacked humans. They were wary, cautious creatures. If a human invaded a wolf’s territory or went after one of the pack’s pups, a wolf would defend its pack, but Suki hadn’t been backed into a corner.
She could escape. She could turn and run. Why didn’t she?
Raven stared at the wolf in bewildered horror. She’d never seen foamy, yellowed saliva like that.
Something was wrong with Suki.
The Headhunter seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Damn it!” Gomez swore. “You’re infected.”
Shock flared through Raven. Animals could carry the virus, too. And if they carried it, they could spread it.
But how could the wolf have gotten infected? Zachariah didn’t go inside the enclosure. But her father had. Had he somehow passed the virus on to Suki in the days before he died?
With a vicious growl, Suki sprang at the Headhunter. He dodged and attempted to aim his rifle. The wolf hurtled toward him, jaws snapping. She darted swiftly to the side, only to fling herself at him from another angle. She dodged back and attacked again and again.
Gomez cursed. Abject fear contorted his features. He stumbled back, his rifle flailing wildly. Wherever he aimed, Suki moved quicker.
Then Suki was on him in a flash. It happened in a fraction of a second. The timber wolf pounced. Eighty pounds of fury and fangs struck Gomez in the chest.
He fell backward. The rifle was knocked from his hands. He threw his arms up to protect his face and throat.
Suki’s jaws closed over his forearm.
Gomez howled in pain.
Wolf and man wrestled in a death-lock. Gomez punched at Suki’s muzzle with his free hand. The wolf’s powerful jaws sank deeper into his flesh. With a sickening snap, Suki’s teeth pulverized bone, muscle, and tendons. Gomez shrieked in agony.
Raven shifted her aim between Gomez and Suki, searching for a good shot. There wasn’t one. Man and wolf wrestled in the ferns.
Her finger massaged the trigger, but she didn’t fire yet. Both man and wolf were dangerous. She didn’t want to kill Suki, sick or not. And because Gomez had attempted to spare the timber wolf, she wasn’t certain she wanted to kill him, either.
With his uninjured arm, Gomez fumbled frantically for the holster at his hip. He managed to reach his handgun. He yanked it out and jammed it against Suki’s furred chest.
Before Raven could fire a shot, Gomez pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.
Suki never even whimpered. The wolf dropped on top of Gomez’s chest like a sack of grain, instantly dead.