– lay down up to seventeen rounds without the need to reload. When I’d purchased this old-time gun from the rednecks at the truck stop it hadn’t occurred to me to check for a rapid loader. I was going to have to feed each bullet into the six chambers manually every time I depleted the ammo.
Hell, it was as though I was preparing for a war. There were only three Logans, and two bullets aimed at the right places were enough for any man. Of course, the opportunities for perfect shooting were few and far between in a real conflict, so maybe I’d need to reload many times before they were finished. Then again, that was assuming that the Logan family had anything to do with the missing women. With luck there wouldn’t be any shooting, but I couldn’t deny the old Boy Scout in me.
I chugged down another eighth of the water, and then took a leak against the rock overhang. I wasn’t marking territory, just detoxifying. When the container was back in the rucksack on my shoulder, I set off again. Passing beyond the ravines, I came on to a wide boulder-strewn plain dotted with mesquite and ironwood shrubs. Scott Blackstock had told me to watch out for a huge mushroom-shaped mountain that marked the head of the trail before entering the Logan property. There was a likely contender about half a mile ahead, though through the dust I could only make out the upper cap that shimmered through the haze like an alien Mother Ship. Using it as a landmark, I followed the northern edge of the plain, staying close to the ragged mesas in case I had to go to ground in a hurry. When I was parallel to the giant mushroom I turned south, using the towering boulders as cover. The land was parched, but judging by the way the mountains had been weathered and the proliferation of boulders deposited on the plain, I guessed that in some dim prehistoric time flood waters had regularly teemed through here.
The sun was a milky disc in the heavens, high cirrus giving it an indistinct appearance, but none of its heat was diminished. Having lived in the subtropics of Florida for the past couple of years I’d earned a decent tan, but it was no defence out in the desert. My exposed skin prickled, and the constant trickling of perspiration down the small of my back caused me to move my gun from my usual carrying position to the front of my jeans.
More water went into my gut; it didn’t surprise me how much I’d consumed already. I’d fought in deserts before and knew that it was a constant necessity to replace lost fluids. What was sometimes neglected was the need to also replenish essential nutrients and salts, and I hadn’t given that much thought before setting off. Already I could detect the first buzz of a headache behind my ears; as a result of dehydration it could progress to migraine proportions. Not that I foresaw a problem, because I’d no intention of wandering round in a furnace all day. I set off again, intent on reconnoitring the area, to determine if my hunch was right and then decide how I was going to play things after that.
The military are planners. Before a mission is launched every detail is analysed to the nth degree. It is then conducted with strict purpose with each problematic facet taken into account beforehand. Yet missions often fail due to the intrusion of a previously unidentified snag, usually the enemy responding in an unpredictable way. For that reason I wasn’t a firm believer in forward planning: I’m not talking about going into a hazardous situation with my eyes closed, but with the knowledge that if something could go wrong it probably would. I was often in conflict with my commanders, but it was my arse, and often those of my friends, that were on the line, so I preferred to prepare for the unexpected by entering a mission firmly in the red zone. Expect to kill or be killed: that was the ethos I subscribed to. Therefore I only had one objective in mind: if the Logan family were holding the women, I would go in
Hell, it was as though I was preparing for a war. There were only three Logans, and two bullets aimed at the right places were enough for any man. Of course, the opportunities for perfect shooting were few and far between in a real conflict, so maybe I’d need to reload many times before they were finished. Then again, that was assuming that the Logan family had anything to do with the missing women. With luck there wouldn’t be any shooting, but I couldn’t deny the old Boy Scout in me.
I chugged down another eighth of the water, and then took a leak against the rock overhang. I wasn’t marking territory, just detoxifying. When the container was back in the rucksack on my shoulder, I set off again. Passing beyond the ravines, I came on to a wide boulder-strewn plain dotted with mesquite and ironwood shrubs. Scott Blackstock had told me to watch out for a huge mushroom-shaped mountain that marked the head of the trail before entering the Logan property. There was a likely contender about half a mile ahead, though through the dust I could only make out the upper cap that shimmered through the haze like an alien Mother Ship. Using it as a landmark, I followed the northern edge of the plain, staying close to the ragged mesas in case I had to go to ground in a hurry. When I was parallel to the giant mushroom I turned south, using the towering boulders as cover. The land was parched, but judging by the way the mountains had been weathered and the proliferation of boulders deposited on the plain, I guessed that in some dim prehistoric time flood waters had regularly teemed through here.
The sun was a milky disc in the heavens, high cirrus giving it an indistinct appearance, but none of its heat was diminished. Having lived in the subtropics of Florida for the past couple of years I’d earned a decent tan, but it was no defence out in the desert. My exposed skin prickled, and the constant trickling of perspiration down the small of my back caused me to move my gun from my usual carrying position to the front of my jeans.
More water went into my gut; it didn’t surprise me how much I’d consumed already. I’d fought in deserts before and knew that it was a constant necessity to replace lost fluids. What was sometimes neglected was the need to also replenish essential nutrients and salts, and I hadn’t given that much thought before setting off. Already I could detect the first buzz of a headache behind my ears; as a result of dehydration it could progress to migraine proportions. Not that I foresaw a problem, because I’d no intention of wandering round in a furnace all day. I set off again, intent on reconnoitring the area, to determine if my hunch was right and then decide how I was going to play things after that.
The military are planners. Before a mission is launched every detail is analysed to the nth degree. It is then conducted with strict purpose with each problematic facet taken into account beforehand. Yet missions often fail due to the intrusion of a previously unidentified snag, usually the enemy responding in an unpredictable way. For that reason I wasn’t a firm believer in forward planning: I’m not talking about going into a hazardous situation with my eyes closed, but with the knowledge that if something could go wrong it probably would. I was often in conflict with my commanders, but it was my arse, and often those of my friends, that were on the line, so I preferred to prepare for the unexpected by entering a mission firmly in the red zone. Expect to kill or be killed: that was the ethos I subscribed to. Therefore I only had one objective in mind: if the Logan family were holding the women, I would go in
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