Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [27]
The big man dragged him another half dozen feet, dropped him, and grabbed his left arm this time. Another clink! and another cry of pain.
The big man ripped two trap anchors from the ground, then stood and stepped back. Jameson rose to his knees and began trying to remove the leg-hold traps from his hands, whimpering as he found it impossible.
“You can’t do this, Foster!” he screamed. “You have no right!”
Foster? Was this Old Man Foster himself?
“No?” Mr. Foster said. “If I catch you trapping on my land again, you’ll go home with one of your traps on your face. Now get!”
He held up the traps locked on his fingers. “But my hands!”
“Get!”
“My traps!”
Mr. Foster growled and took a step toward him. Jameson jumped and hurried away, dragging the trap anchors and their chains with him. Mr. Foster watched for a moment, then turned and strode toward Jack, his expression fierce.
“And who are you? Related to him?”
Jack jumped to his feet and backed up a step. This guy was scary—scarier than that piney by a couple of light years.
“N-no way! Just passing by.”
He could see now that the man had blue eyes and olive skin—the two didn’t seem to go together. He wore green work pants, a blue work shirt, and a worn brown corduroy jacket. His blue gaze bored into Jack.
“You had to be doing more than that for him to start beating you—although anyone who angers Jeb Jameson can’t be all bad.”
Jack pointed to the young coon, still panting and cowering on the ground.
“I was just freeing that little guy when he jumped me.”
Mr. Foster stopped when he saw the animal. His expression softened as he squatted for a closer look.
“Broken legs.” He shook his head. “Damn him.”
In one smooth motion, with a gentleness in jarring contrast to the violence he’d inflicted on the piney, he scooped up the terrified animal and tucked it inside his jacket. As he rose he glanced at Jack.
“Follow me.”
Something in his tone made disobedience unthinkable. Jack followed and they wound up at the pickup he’d spotted on his way by.
“I was wondering who owned this.”
“I found the traps and I’ve been waiting around to see who set them. I figured it was Jameson and wasn’t surprised. Mark my words, he’s going to come to a bad end, that one.”
“I’ve run into him before. He said he was your son.”
Mr. Foster barked a harsh laugh. “That’s rich.”
He opened the passenger door and gently placed the injured coon on the floor in front of the seat. Then he pulled a knife with a gleaming blade at least ten inches long from a sheath attached to his belt.
Jack stiffened and stepped back. “You—you’re not gonna kill it, are you?”
“This little fellow?” He stared at it. “A good argument could be made for that—it will never survive on its own—but I feel somewhat responsible. I’ll bring him home to my wife. She’s good with animals.”
He grabbed a paper coffee cup from a holder and sliced off all but the bottom inch of the base. He opened a bottle of water, rinsed out the shortened container, then filled it and placed it before the little coon. The creature drank greedily.
“The lord of the land returns,” said an old woman’s voice. “Finally.”
Jack turned to see Mrs. Clevenger and her three-legged dog approaching. The elderly woman wore her usual long black dress and a black scarf, which made no sense in this heat. The dog moved with odd efficiency despite its missing foreleg. Jack realized that Mrs. Clevenger’s cane was sort of an extra limb, giving the pair the normal complement of eight limbs between them.
“Is that you?” Mr. Foster said, squinting at her, then the dog.
She nodded. “It’s me.”
“You turn up in the oddest places.”
“No place is odd for me.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Weird conversation, Jack thought. But then, every conversation with Mrs. Clevenger was odd.
As she and Mr. Foster continued talking, her three-legged dog stepped forward and nudged Jack aside. It stuck its head inside the pickup