The Ranger - Ace Atkins [79]
Ditto smiled so big he felt like his face might break apart, slipping his frozen hands into his pockets and stamping his feet onto the frozen, eroded ground. “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Taylor Swift?”
They came for Quinn at dawn.
He’d been waiting for the last four hours at the tree line near the old farmhouse and found the time sort of peaceful, seeing that first light bleeding across his frosted land and up through the base of the forest at the roots and then spilling up onto his worn boots. He’d brought nothing but his compound bow, a nice Mathews HyperLite that could send an arrow at 350 feet per second, and had dressed head to toe in camo, shielding part of his face with a camo ski mask. He was thankful for the morning light. Despite the thick clothes, he’d grown cold in the woods, and he’d hoped for some action just to move for a bit.
He breathed slow and even, heartbeat steadied, just like it had always been.
He’d heard their cars and trucks from a mile away. But they’d taken it in their minds to hike over from the main highway, maybe a half mile over some creeks, and then cut into the land, checking the farmhouse, finding it empty, and then heading across the break in the trees by the burned-out barn and up into the woods and the old oaks where Quinn waited. His bow drawn and ready as they walked right past him, following a deer trail up into the hills. Quinn counted fourteen of them.
He and Boom had decided to split the men, keeping most in a nice choke point of empty ground bordered by thick trees and briars and backed by a steep incline into the hills. The small clearing would’ve been a perfect place to put a deer stand, the men walking right into it, standing there talking and pointing, far from any cover.
Quinn smiled when he heard that motor start and saw his uncle’s old four-wheeler come zipping and spinning wild down the hill trail, riderless, but scaring the hell out of Gowrie’s boys, who let into it with shotguns and AKs they’d probably bought at backdoor gun shows.
They huddled over the toppled four-wheeler, lying on its side, motor high-pitched, oil spurting and wheels spinning, and Gowrie scouted the trees. He looked right at Quinn but didn’t see him, instead just squinting into the light and spitting, pointing up the hill for some of his men to follow. Perfect.
Two cracking shots. A man yelled.
Quinn smiled. Boom was having a time, having found the right spot for the deer rifle, loaded, balanced, and sighted right down that path. Gowrie sent more men up the hill, keeping most of his boys in that open space that would become Quinn’s kill zone.
Quinn took a breath and steadied himself, letting the string go and zipping an arrow right into Gowrie’s shoulder blade, knocking him forward and then backward to his knees, the AK chattering away up into the laced branches overhead.
Quinn smiled again and reached for another arrow. Gowrie’s men looked to the shitbag for some direction. He was just squirming and screaming.
The men had turned, feet planted on the hill, unsteady and off base and pointing. Some of them had dropped to the ground and covered their heads. The big fat guy had the bloody dish towel still wrapped around his missing thumb, and wore a shirt so tight it exposed a large hairy belly. He started marching toward Quinn and pointing.
“There he is. Git ’im.”
Zip.
Quinn got him two inches away from the groin. The man screamed his dick had been shot.
Up the hill, Boom shot three more times. Gowrie’s men let loose on him, but Boom had some solid concealment, enough to play with them until Quinn was ready.
Ten or so boys started to walk away and scatter from the kill zone but then turned back to where the fat man had pointed. Gowrie was on his feet, finding cover behind a fat oak, touching his bleeding shoulder and aiming the barrel of his AK toward the grouping of old oaks. He raked the ground, Quinn seeing he was just shooting, not aiming, not knowing from where the arrow had struck.
Quinn stayed concealed, still invisible and silent.