Stone Cold, page 14
Stone stared at him and said, “Until Katy gets well enough to return, I have the final say. As far as I can see, you’ve wasted a whole damned day.” He paused. “I’m heading into town now, when I get back, I expect to see work started, or you’re gone as well. Family or no family, I’m working in Katy’s best interest. Got it?”
The man nodded reluctantly. Stone had reached the rank of master sergeant in the Airborne Rangers, and he knew how to use his voice to make a grown man tremble, and it wasn’t all about shouting. Just the level of voice and conviction of statement. “I guess,” he replied.
“Then why the fuck are you still standing here?”
Stone watched Don walk back to the ATV that he would use to ride back to the cut. Excavators and trucks were expensive to run, and Stone had noticed the men ferrying themselves back to the recreation room for toilet breaks, lunch and at the end of the shift like they were Uber drivers for each other. Stone had noticed two quad bikes were parked up under a tarpaulin and now the men would use these and potentially save a fortune on profitless fuel. He had felt psyched relaying this to the crew, feeling he at least had addressed an issue to the financial security and smooth running of the mine, even if he did not have a clue how to effectively get the gold out of the ground.
Stone headed for the edge of the claim and started to climb the wooded slope to the top of the ridge. When he reached the summit, he was afforded a view of trees and grassy clearings, of lakes and mountains, and as he turned to his left, he could see distant glimpses of the Pacific. It was quite something, but he had not climbed the slope simply for a panorama of middle Alaska. He turned his eyes back to the western end of the claim. Duke Tanner’s mine was running and there was a hubbub of men and equipment and vehicles. The police were still not there, and Stone was confident they had not been there earlier and would not be turning up anytime soon. The email had not been sent and he needed to find out why.
The road back to the highway had been constructed decades before from tailings – the waste stones and rocks left over from running the pay dirt through the conveyors and bars and grates that separate the gold and fine sand from the waste – and had been compacted over the years. It was as good as tarmac, but the top inch or so was mud that washed down from the slopes and whether it was wet mud, or bone-dry dust, the surface always felt loose, and the truck drifted through the turns like riding on ice. The grip of the vehicle never actually gave completely, but it always felt like it would. It was enough to contend with. Which was why he did not notice the pickup truck in his rear-view mirror until it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Stone could feel the truck pulling towards the ditch lining the road and he knew that the offside tires had been shredded. The truck was both difficult to control and acceleration had been affected. He glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw the truck gaining on him. Forest lined the road and ahead of him the mountain range loomed. Lame Horse was behind him, too far to get to with the shredded tires and besides, he had to get the truck turned around and avoid the two men in their own vehicle. Not an option. He turned his eyes back to the mirror and could see one of them leaning out of the window and aiming the automatic weapon. He had managed to successfully hit Stone’s rear tires, had reloaded, and was getting ready to fire again. Stone knew the man’s chances were good. There was only seventy yards separating them, and they were gaining on him quickly. He pulled the truck over to the left, forcing the man to lean further out and aim across the hood. Stone swung the truck back, then snaked back over to the left. The man was way out of the window and attempting to get a decent aim with the rifle. Stone veered right, slammed on his brakes, and waited for the driver to take evasive action. He stood on the brakes, swung to the left to avoid a collision, and the man with the rifle was cast sideways out of the window. Stone saw flailing limbs and the weapon fly through the air, and then the man landed in a heap and skidded on the dirt road. Stone already had the shift in reverse and the last thing he saw was the man scrambling in the dirt to get clear. There was a noticeable bump as he hit the man with the tailgate and towing hitch and even above the rumble of the V8 engine as Stone selected drive and floored the gas, the man could be heard screaming.
Stone only drove another twenty yards before slamming the gear shift into park and stepping out with the shotgun. He raised it to aim but was met with a barrage of bullets from the driver, who had simply fired his weapon through the windshield of their truck and was getting more accurate by the second. Stone flung himself clear of the truck and returned fire, peppering the windshield, and forcing the driver to duck down into the passenger seat. Stone pumped another round into the chamber and fired again, this time catching the other man in the road as he scrambled for cover. The shot hit his right butt cheek, and he arched his back and screamed as he disappeared behind the rear of the truck. The driver had got back into the fight and was firing again, but a shotgun was no match for an AR-15 assault rifle and Stone made the split-second choice to get into the cover on the fringe of the road, as most of the rounds were directed towards the truck. As he landed in the brush and crawled forwards on his belly, he could smell fuel and suspected the fuel tank had been ruptured. There was a pause in the shooting and Stone knew the man would be switching to another magazine. He knew what was coming next, and he was up and running for the thicker trees, reaching them as an entire magazine was unleashed in his direction, thirty 5.56mm high-velocity bullets cutting through the undergrowth, some pinging off into woods as they ricocheted, having a second chance to find their intended target.
More rounds came after a short pause in the volley of fire, but Stone was already working his way down a steep hill with plenty of trees behind him to stop a bullet’s path. As he reached the bottom of the slope, he heard the ‘woof’ of ignited fuel and a secondary explosion. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw a large mushroom of acrid, black smoke rising high in the air. They had set fire to his truck, or the vapors from spilt fuel had ignited on something hot – perhaps the rims of the wheels had become hot enough with the tires shredded – but either way, his transport was gone and everything he carried onboard. After another hundred yards, a large fallen tree provided Stone with a lying up place where he could evaluate his situation and provide himself with cover and observe whether he was being followed. There was moss on one side, and he knew from being in the northern hemisphere that side would most likely be pointing north. Moss thrived under damp conditions with the least amount of sunlight. He had fallen for this before though, as it can sometimes be other factors that prevented the light breaking through, such as overhangs, fallen trees or even the forest canopy itself, so he looked around him and saw other tree trunks with a semi-circular wrap of moss – enough for him to make an informed decision which way was north, and in doing so, a ballpark direction back to Lame Horse, which was the nearest town.
Stone checked his pockets. He had three shotgun shells in his jacket, and he took two and loaded them into the underside of the shotgun, where they nestled up against the other shells in the tube and were held in place by a smooth flap of metal on a spring-loaded hinge. The shotgun now had a round in the breech above and four in the tube. He rested the shotgun against the trunk of the fallen tree and continued to check. Apart from his folding lock-knife he had a hundred dollars in tens, his cellphone, and some pocket change. He checked his cell phone signal, and he had a single bar and over half the battery. But who was he going to call? He was a wanted man. He was on his own. He only ever used the phone when he could use the Wi-Fi in a motel or public area and wondered why he even bothered carrying it with him, but he already knew the answer to that, and that one person was laying broken and bruised and mending in a remote cabin on her own and waiting for him to return. For a moment he wondered whether that would be their next move – to backtrack and go after Katy while he was alone and on foot with no transport. That was what the smart money would say. But in answer to his fears, he heard the unmistakable sounds of someone pushing through the brush in the direction he had come. Stone picked up the shotgun and crouched slowly, not making any unnecessary or sudden movements. His phone vibrated, a text delivery showing with only a partial number. He frowned, assumed it was junk mail and switched off the phone before pocketing it and tightening his grip on the shotgun. Stone then turned his eyes to the undergrowth and waited for the fight to come to him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As the distance between them closed, Stone’s advantage with the shotgun increased. Only ever effective up to fifty yards, a shotgun was better up close. The closer the better. Loaded with any kind of birdshot it was the most devastating weapon imaginable at twenty feet, and utterly redundant at a hundred yards. But his enemy knew this, too. And at fifty yards, Stone caught a movement behind fronds of bracken and thin saplings, all enough of a barrier to slow or deflect the shot at this distance. He did not want to waste a shell unless he could guarantee a ‘stop shot’.
There was movement to his right, also. Which meant although he had hit the man in the butt, he had not been put out of action. Maybe the guy’s wallet had taken some of the sting out of it. Whatever had happened, Stone could not afford to be flanked. He did not imagine that they had seen him, but the two men knew enough about terrain and the wilderness to know a killing ground when they saw one and they had held back. Which told Stone two things. The men knew how to hunt. And now they were hunting him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Stone was bugging out. A tactical withdrawal. He was lying prone on his stomach, the shotgun cradled in the crooks of his elbows, and he eased himself from side to side, his elbows and knees doing the work as he almost slithered out from behind the fallen tree and into the brush behind. Sound was the most important thing now, hearing the most valuable sense. With his back to his pursuers, he needed to hear them approach. But he had been given no choice but to give up his hide. With assault rifles and the two men unwilling to cross the open ground, Stone knew that their next move would have been to start putting some rounds into the undergrowth. Stone’s shotgun would not penetrate much in the way of the foliage – even the saplings, let alone larger branches - but the 5.56mm bullets from their AR-15’s would devastate such cover and reach out far beyond. Stone needed them closer, damn near close enough to see the whites of their eyes.
Stone had barely made it twenty yards when the first gunshot rang out, closely followed by two more. He quickened his pace, then when he came to a short slope, he held the shotgun close to him and rolled down the slope, splashing down into a shallow creek. The water made him gasp. Icy glacier water, not much above freezing temperature. He had enough gradient of the slope above him to get to his feet and take off up the creek, the water hiding his footprints and eliminating the chance of stepping on dry twigs or branches that could give him away. Behind him, the gunfire erupted into a melee, and Stone could tell from his combat experience that both weapons had unleashed on the clearing. He used this to his advantage, racing hard up stream, confident he would not be heard and still unseen from the ridge above. By the time the gunfire subsided, he had enough distance between himself and his pursuers to step out of the creek and run flat-out up the incline, where he threw himself onto his stomach with the shotgun ready at his shoulder. He was now looking down on the clearing and the fallen tree that he had used as cover. He had line of sight to the edge of the clearing. Forty yards with thirty feet of elevation. At the fringe of the clearing, he could see broken branches and cuttings of bracken from where they had unloaded on and around the fallen tree.
But no gunmen.
Again, Stone wondered whether the two men had returned to their vehicle, but got his answer when a shot rang out, followed by three more in quick succession. Clods of earth and leaf debris flung up into his face and he rolled away from it, hoping he had moved further away from the gunman. He registered the noise to his right and fired a return shot, more of show of force and to make the gunman duck for cover than to expect a successful result, and he rolled further away and started to scramble back down the slope. Another volley of gunfire came from his left, and Stone realized that despite his best efforts, he had been pincered. He knew the ramifications of this, had trapped Taliban fighters himself when he had operated as a small recon team in Afghanistan. It never panned out well for the man with his enemy on either side of him. Stone fired at the movement and pumped another round into the shotgun as he slid back down the slope and made for the fallen tree. He loaded his last round into the weapon, fired a shot in both directions, then jacked the final round into the chamber. A lot of effort. All of it wasted. He was back where he had started, and his enemy now knew exactly where he was.
“Come out and we’ll talk!” shouted one of the men.
“Yeah, real friendly, like!” the other shouted.
Stone said nothing, but he now had a good idea of where the two men were. He looked around him, but he could hear them making their way hesitantly through the brush.
Perhaps it was time to talk…
Stone hastily unthreaded his boot laces and tied the two ends together. He applied the shotgun’s safety, attached one end around the trigger and nestled the shotgun into the crook of a branch on the fallen tree, the barrel poking out a few inches and two feet off the ground. He made sure the butt was firmly wedged, then threaded the laces back around a sapling and then off to one side at approximately forty-five degrees. He looked up and listened. One of the men had started tentatively down the slope. Stone looped the end of the lace around the toe of his left boot, then bent down, flicked off the safety and grabbed a handful of leaves and shook them out over the lace. He then opened his folding lock knife, placed it on the ground and stepped on it with his right foot. He could tell one of the men was near and sure enough, the older and larger of the two men edged out from behind the tree and Stone raised his hands, keeping eye contact with the man.
“I lost my shotgun when I fell down the embankment,” Stone said. “I’m unarmed…”
The man looked past Stone at his brother who had just made it down the slope. The younger man limped, grimacing in pain and his brother said, “Frank will want to have words with you,” he growled at him. “Seems you put a dozen or more BBs in his ass…”
“Fuck yeah!” Frank replied, stepping around Stone and giving him a wide berth. “Where’s his gun?” he asked his brother without taking his eyes off Stone.
“The pussy lost it when he fell…”
“Is that a fact?” the younger brother said. “I didn’t see it, Kurt…”
“Well, it ain’t in the son-of-a-bitch’s pocket!” Kurt snapped. “But you can check him, anyhow…”
“Put your hands on your head, you fucking pussy…” Frank put down his rifle and looked at his brother. “Just make sure you cover me, Kurt.”
“It’s done. Now check the son-of-a-bitch so we’s can have us some fun…”
“Couple of good’ol boys like you want to make me squeal like a pig…?” Stone sneered. “The film Deliverance is just a family documentary for you guys. I bet prison sex is all you pair of idiots are used to…”
Frank frisked him firmly and quickly, then stepped back and picked up his rifle before saying, “I made that bitch of yours squeal, though…” He paused, then grinned when he saw Stone’s expression. “Right… she didn’t tell you!” he laughed. “How about that, Kurt? The dumb bastard doesn’t know she’s spoiled goods!”
“Women sure do keep their secrets…” Kurt said dryly. “Normally I don’t go along with Frank’s ways, but…” He shrugged haplessly. “That Katy McBride sure is a sweet piece of ass… I just couldn’t say no.”
“But she sure did!” Frank wailed.
Stone watched Kurt take a step closer. He was aching inside, his heart thudding at the revelation. Was it true, or were they just trying to irk him? It would certainly go with her lack of involvement last night. But surely if what the two men said had happened really did, she would not have wanted to sleep with him last night. Stone tried to put the thought aside. “You’re a couple of big men, aren’t you? So, you raped a woman. Taught her a lesson. What, was that on Duke Tanner’s orders?”
“What the hell does it matter to you?” the older man asked. “You ain’t getting out of here, boy.”
“I guess that’s the case.” Stone shrugged. “So, indulge me…”
Kurt shrugged. “Tanner wanted her softened up.”
“But did he order you to rape her?”
“He wanted her beaten to a pulp. He was pretty darn specific about that, and that’s what he got.”
“So, you raped her as part of that arrangement?”
Kurt shrugged. “He knows us. Knows what we’ve done in the past, seen our rap sheets. He didn’t hire a pair of fucking monks.” He paused. “Frank has a liking for pretty women like Katy McBride, even if women like her don’t tend to share the same attraction. Duke Tanner knew what Frank went to jail for, what he did to that young girl...”
Stone felt his neck and cheeks flush, his heart hammering against his chest. He could feel his legs stiffening, the stress threatening to incapacitate him. He had seen it before, felt it before, even. Kneeling before a Taliban commander, watching the ground where the shadow wielded the sword above his head. A split second before SEAL Team Six had rescued him. But there would be no rescue today. He was on his own.
“You’ll pay for that,” Stone said coldly. He stared at the older man in front of him. “You and your pervert brother…” He was cut short by a jab to his kidney with the barrel of the assault rifle which nearly felled him. But he could not afford to go down. That would be the end of it for him if he did. He steadied himself and said, “I get that this piece of shit does what he does. But surely as his older brother, you should steer him clear…” He paused. “Mothers expect that of sons.”
