THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! by J.T. Brannan

better for them if they were killed quickly. Inefficient cartridges would only prolong the agony, the animal limping off to safety before succumbing to its painful wounds perhaps days later.
    I still wasn’t sure what I thought of hunting anyway. In a way, it was a part of our human history, encoded in our very DNA. The hunting – and then cooking – of meat had enabled us to evolve shorter guts than our primate cousins, allowing us in turn to use the spare energy to evolve ever larger brains. In a way, hunting animals is what made us who we are today.
    But that was to eat , to survive . I had no problem with cultures or societies that killed things in order to eat them; it made sense to do so. And hunting also made sense if it was used as part of a tactic to limit animal populations, such as the legal hunting of cougar in several US states.
    Trophy hunting, however, was something I struggled to come to terms with; especially here, where the animals were supposedly protected, quite often members of an endangered species.
    I’d killed my fair share of men, yes; I had even sometimes hunted them down.
    But it was never as a trophy. The men I’d killed – and sometimes women too – were dangerous, a threat to others. Terrorists, assassins, the leaders of criminal gangs – they were my targets, and the world was a better place without them.
    The animals here were supposed to be protected, to have sanctuary so that their numbers could be rebuilt; it seemed wrong to hunt them, to kill them.
    But, I supposed, if I was willing to kill my own fellow human beings – sometimes in cold blood – what right did I have to preach to others?
    Kane nuzzled me from the side, and I stroked his warm fur.
    That’s right , I thought to myself. Animals are innocent .
    And some humans aren’t.
    Kane’s body jerked under my hand as a muffled shot rang out in the still night air, and I saw the thermal signature from Garner’s rifle through my sight.
    I quickly swept my rifle toward the big cats, praying that a lion had not been hit.
    I adjusted the focus, and was relieved to see that the animals were running, along with the antelope as they all reacted to the shot.
    But one of the lionesses was moving slowly . . . Too slowly.
    ‘Yeah baby,’ the spotter to my left breathed lecherously, ‘that hurt the bitch for sure.’
    I watched helplessly as she managed to crawl twenty feet from the killing field . . . thirty . . . and then she stopped moving altogether, collapsed to the floor.
    I stared through my scope, saw the chest continue to rise and fall; and then, finally, that stopped too.
    ‘It’s a kill shot,’ I heard Badrock announce through my earpiece. ‘Delta team, approach on foot and confirm. All other teams keep watch.’
    I confirmed the message with a blip of my radio, then swept my sight back to the raised hillock, saw the two men still in their positions, Garner’s rifle still trained on the animal.
    I looked again toward the lioness, once so proud and majestic and now just meat, to be sliced up and put on Garner’s wall, and felt slightly nauseated by the thought.
    ‘Good fucking shot,’ the man next to me said admiringly, but I just ignored him; it was safer for him that way.
    Two men then emerged from concealed positions near to the river, and approached the animal. One knelt by its side while the other aimed a shotgun at the big cat’s head.
    But there was no need – the first man’s hand swiping across his own throat in the classic ‘kill’ symbol confirmed that the lioness was dead.
    Back on the hillock I saw that Garner was on his feet now, rifle pumping up and down in the air in a victory celebration, stout little legs hopping about in a sick little dance.
    ‘One shot,’ I could hear him across the plain even from this distance, ‘one fucking shot! Fuck yeah!’
    I watched him through the scope, the reticle sighted directly on his chest.
    It took everything I had not to pull the trigger.

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