The Threepersons Hunt

The thin high air chilled him through his soaked shirt. He winced now when the trees dislodged moisture onto him; he moved along quickly, watching the ground, watching the forest shadows ahead of him. Joe had passed here, and here, and again here: his track was becoming easier to read because the trees were thi

It kept turning from side to side. Once Joe’s knees had made dents in the earth at the crest of a rise where he had paused to survey his own back trail. How long ago? Had he seen Watchman coming?

Angling farther to the right the trail went briefly into thicker scrub pine and then the trees became clumps with wide slopes of mud separating them; he could have followed Joe’s track here on a moonless midnight. He had discarded caution; the trail led uphill at an angle across the slope on an almost steadily exact course, west-northwest; these weren’t the splashed-out prints of a man in panic. Joe was making the best time he could and that meant he now had a specific destination in mind.

Pulse thundered in Watchman’s eyes and breathing was painful. The shirt lay matted against his back and the wet Levi’s rubbed his thighs. The climb got steadily more sheer. At the end he was using his hands as well as his feet and when he reached the top at last he squatted on elbows and knees, just puffing.

The plateau ran west away from him, spotted here and there with growth. Up here the wind blasted the flats constantly and allowed no forests to take root.

The figure was out ahead of him, small, maybe a mile ahead, bobbing along at a steady run. When Watchman’s eyes cleared of pressure he could make out the rifle strapped diagonally across the ru

Watchman gathered himself and climbed onto the table and put himself into the agony of the run.

6.

A Hereford steer was half-decomposed and the passage of the ru

His muscles worked only in spasms. He was ru

By the time the angle widened enough for him to see Joe he had gained a quarter of a mile, which put him something like nine hundred yards away.

Joe was down on one knee, sighting through the Bushnell ’scope.

Watchman kept going. Nine hundred yards was a possible shot with that rifle from a benchrest but the wind was gusty and Joe was out of breath and weak and that one-knee position wasn’t the steadiest.

Half the sun burned, perched on top of the horizon. Joe’s silhouette crouched to the right of it, shimmering against the red-banded sky. Watchman began to tack. Eight strides on a northerly quarter, six on a westerly quarter, seven to the right again. He counted them because he wanted a random pattern to the changes and if he didn’t count he’d fall into a regular rhythm; the body always chose symmetry and you had to reject it consciously.

Eight hundred yards. He was angling across the line now to put Joe farther to the right of the sun. At this angle of incidence he could almost see the sun’s movement; another fifty strides and it would be down.

Seven hundred and fifty. He began to zigzag more violently but he didn’t drop the pace. His shoulders were lifted to give him more lung space and sharp pains laced across the collar muscles. He hadn’t much feeling left below the hips. He didn’t credit Joe with a decent shot at more than six hundred yards under Joe’s present circumstances; at that point he’d start ducking from scrub to scrub but in the meantime Joe was giving him a good chance to close up some of the distance and Watchman was taking it.

Seven hundred. Joe fired.

Watchman heard the crack. It was startlingly loud for the distance but the wind was at Joe’s back and carried the sound. It was all Watchman heard of the bullet—there was no nearby sonic bang; either the slug had rammed into the earth ahead of him or it had gone far wide of him. He suspected the latter: Joe had fired a warning shot.

Tack right, tack left. Six hundred and fifty. Joe fired another.

It was still the amiable warning shot because by now he could have made it come pretty close if he’d wanted to. With luck he could have made a hit.

Watchman saw why Joe had chosen that spot to stop. The rim of the plateau was just behind Joe.

Did that mean he was trapped with his back against an open precipice?

No. Joe’s run had been too purposeful for that. He had a destination in mind: probably the Land Cruiser, parked below the rim somewhere.

Six hundred, judged by a hunter’s eye. Watchman made an abrupt quarter turn to the left and dodged among the little scattered trees. With the blood slamming in his ears he pounded from clump to clump, zigzagging sharply.

The magnum roared again and this one came closer. He didn’t hear the bullet but he saw it crash through a juniper maybe fifteen feet ahead. Pieces and twigs fell off the plant where the big leaden projectile had severed them.

Joe’s shot was a five-hundred-yard one now but the target was moving erratically and the field of fire was interrupted by all the clumped junipers and scrub oaks; they dotted the plain like tufts on a bedspread. It made for unlikely shooter’s luck and no hunter would try that shot on a ru

Still there was the possibility of luck and if Joe fired enough bullets he’d hit Watchman.

But Joe wasn’t blazing away. He was taking his time and after a while Watchman began to realize that Joe was not shooting to kill. Joe was still trying to scare him away or at least force him to keep his distance. An earnest kill-try would have come a lot closer than any of Joe’s bullets had.

Watchman made the circle a little wider because he didn’t want to corner Joe against a panic. For a little while he was actually ru

He was still a quarter of a mile from Joe, making a ragged quarter-circle; he had the sunset spectacle ahead of him.

A bullet made a spout in the earth ahead of him. He jazzed to the left.

The ankles were wobbling now and he wasn’t sure how much he had left in him but he wasn’t going to give it up before the legs did. He was fighting for oxygen; the altitude was probably seven thousand feet. The earth began to buckle as it approached the top of the escarpment and he watched for pitfalls. Off to his right Joe’s rifle was stirring; Watchman dodged to the side. He heard the shot but not the bullet. Possibly it had gone behind him.

Joe had fired seven. Watchman had handled that rifle, he had unloaded it himself, but he couldn’t remember how many the tube-magazine held and that irritated him. Right now it didn’t matter because Joe had had plenty of time to reload between shots but the time might come when that was important.

His left ankle tipped and he stumbled but he got his footing and went on. Only a hundred yards to the rim now, the length of a football field; he was going to make it that far at least.

Joe discerned the same thing and when Watchman glanced that way he saw Joe on his feet, turning. Watchman instantly abandoned his tacking and made a straight run for the nearest point on the rim but Joe was already going over, dropping from sight; he’d seen he wasn’t going to dissuade his pursuer so he was taking advantage of what lead he had left.

Watchman’s legs weren’t going to handle an abrupt stop. He slowed down like a train approaching the yards and when he walked the last two paces to the rim his legs felt absolutely boneless under him.