of four bloody furrows that Amparo had clawed into his cheek. An expression of wonderment showed on his face as he gingerly, almost delicately raised a hand to touch the afflicted area. He held his hand to the firelight, ruby droplets of blood beading his fingertips as he fought to focus his gaze on them. A shadow flickered across his face.
Roaring, he turned back toward the girl, thrusting his arms down and grabbing her neck in both hands. He jerked her to her feet and held her up in the air, throttling her. His expression was maniacal. Noises escaped from him as he strangled her.
The only other time Fierro had heard noises even remotely like that, they had come from a man who was burning to death in a house on fire.
Amparo’s small sneakered feet thrashed in empty air as Choey held her at arm’s length, wringing her neck. Something snapped and her feet stopped kicking.
Gomez stood there open-mouthed, motionless, staring stupidly. Cursing under his breath, Fierro started forward.
Marisol, standing to one side of Amparo, picked up a softball-sized rock and slammed it against the side of Choey’s head. It made a wet, chunking sound.
This time, Fierro cursed out loud. In a lightning-like flash, he could see his entire life before him if a fatal blow had indeed struck down Choey Maldonado, whose brother Rio had charged Fierro to protect Choey at all costs. A flash was all that was needed, for what would remain of Fierro’s life was sure to be short and unpleasant.
Choey was still on his feet. Amparo had fallen from his suddenly slackened grip. Marisol, a study in grim determination, raised her arm to deliver another blow with the rock.
One thing Fierro didn’t have to think about was gunplay. That was his stock in trade. In one smooth blur of motion, he drew his holstered sidearm and, firing from the hip, triggered three quick blasts into Marisol’s middle. Any one of the shots would have been fatal; the three of them nearly cut her in half.
She went down without so much as a whimper. Choey, still standing, started screaming. From the way he was carrying on, it seemed like he was the one who’d been shot. He looked like a crazy man, eyes bulging like they were going to pop out of their sockets.
Fierro knew better. He was a dead shot and when he fired at something, he hit it. He knew his shots had all gone true. Choey was being hysterical, that was all. Fierro found his shrieks deeply reassuring, since it meant he wasn’t dead or unconscious.
Choey fell silent, his open mouth gazing. His eyes came back into focus. He shook his head, as if to clear it. He looked around the scene. Fierro, Gomez, Lina, and Carmen all stood frozen in place, like images from a still photograph.
Marisol lay sprawled on her back, face upturned. Amparo lay in a huddle on her side, head twisted at an angle no living person could attain.
Choey’s face convulsed, features scrunching up. He looked like he was going to burst into tears. Instead, he started laughing. Howls of mirth escaped him, belly laughs that doubled him up. Big gusts of laughter that were almost as hysterical as his screams a moment before.
That broke the spell. Gomez went to him, gripping him by the arm to help keep him up on his feet. “You okay? Choey, you okay?” said Gomez, who looked like he was going to be sick.
Carmen was a picture of shocked horror. Lina quivered with tension, dark eyes flashing as she looked for an opening, an opportunity to make a break. She made eye contact with Fierro, who shook his head no. She let her breath out slowly, shoulders slumping with resignation.
One side of Choey’s face glistened wetly reddish-black with blood from where the rock had struck him in the head. Gomez still clung to his arm, repeatedly asking him if he was okay.
Choey’s laughter subsided. Snarling, he tore loose from the other’s grip. “I’m okay,” he said.
Gomez piously raised his eyes heavenward. “The Holy Father be praised!”
Choey’s eyes narrowed, peering around until he found what he was looking for: the tequila bottle, which stood undisturbed on the rocky shelf where he had set it. He took a long pull from it, guzzling it, draining it dry. He tossed the empty to the ground. He looked crafty, malicious. “You know what we have to do now,” he said, speaking to Fierro. It was not a question.
“We’ve got to get rid of the other two. Can’t leave any witnesses alive,” he said.
Fierro nodded. He knew it was true. Lina and Carmen could tie him to the murder of Marisol. And Choey to that of Amparo. Oh, they’d swear by the cross and the rosary and all the saints never to breathe a word of what had happened here. People will say anything to save themselves. But the eternal truth applied: Only the dead tell no tales. He realized that he was still holding his gun leveled hip-high, where he’d been holding it when he shot Marisol.
He swung the muzzle toward Lina, shaking his head sadly. What a waste! Trust Choey to screw things up so it had to come to this. No way around it, though. What had to be, had to be.
Something hit Fierro with the force of a thunderbolt, and before he realized he’d been struck, he was dead. Stone dead before he hit the ground.
The flat crack of a rifle report sounded somewhere in the black hills east of the campfire.
Before the echoes fell still, there was a second shot. Simultaneous with it was a juicy thud like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef, the sound of a round tagging Gomez. The impact knocked him sprawling, gut-shot with a tennis ball-sized bullet hole.
Fierro and Gomez had been downed one-two, one right after the other, bang-bang! Came a pause then, one lasting several heartbeats, not long, just long enough for Choey to realize what had happened to his sidemen and to grasp the implications for himself. Not long enough for him to do anything about it, though.
One might almost have thought that the unseen shooter had done so deliberately, to let Choey know that his time had come. Choey looked around madly for cover, for some avenue of escape. He opened his mouth to scream.
Bang! The shot tagged him dead center, knocking him back against the boulder. He bounced off it and measured his length facedown in the dirt.
The third shot’s echoes died away. In the silence, the wood on the campfire hissed, sputtered, and crackled. That was all.
A hundred yards or so to the east, from where the shots seemed to have been fired, the stark black foothills and the slightly softer black of the canyon mouth remained unbroken by a single gleam of light or hint of motion.
Time passed; the stillness remained unbroken. he phantom shooter was just that—a phantom, unseen as the wind. Choey Maldonado, Fierro, and Gomez were dead. Lina and Carmen were alive, alone with night and the desert.
Night, the desert, and Death.
TWO
Too many cooks spoil the broth, or so the old saying goes.
And too many hunters?
That was the question for Steve Ireland. He had time to think it over, plenty of time, because he was on a hunt and the one thing a hunt requires is patience. Hunting is mostly a waiting game, waiting for the time and the place and the prey to align in the optimum combination for a sure kill.
Steve’s hunting ground wasn’t a wilderness far
