next, off any designated trail. The way it would hop if the sun was glinting off a piece of metal or binoculars. Or a rifle scope.
Silly me, right? Yet I squinted, and either saw or imagined the person connected to it, a long ways off. It moved twice more as if looking for the right spot. Then it stopped. Getting into position.
Outlandish as they may seem, like I had told Coleman, at a time like this you can ignore your instincts or go with them. Suspecting that Peasil had been sent by someone else to kill me gave me a little more confidence in those instincts. If I was right, I had several seconds to act. The angle of the shooter, if shooter it was, meant that we were exposed here on the small mesa. If we stayed low, we had enough cover to buy some time until I could figure out how to get the three of us out alive. On the other hand, dropping down would alert the shooter that I was aware of his presence. But if I was correct in my assumption it was either that or death. All that I thought in a flash with maybe a second and a half to go.
I’m not sure of the precise sequence of the next few events:
I slipped off the bench so I was on a level with the Pugs.
A gunshot cracked across the mountains.
I heard it punch into something with a splurting sound.
One of the Pugs screamed.
My head hit the other Pug, who yelped without as much anguish as the first.
The Pug that had screamed was now writhing in the dirt.
I drew my weapon from the back of my pants with my free hand and tried to find that reflection that I had seen before I hit the dirt.
All the while I was yelling, “Is he hit? Is he hit?” without knowing who would answer.
I had no cover unless you counted the flimsy bench. I was holding a revolver against what was certainly a rifle with a scope. Hardly an even hand, but all I had to work with.
First assess the damages. I risked exposing myself further by crawling the few feet to where the Pug was gnawing desperately at his leg, whimpering. “Hello puppy, hello you sweet puppy,” I whispered, glad that he was still conscious but looking for the blood.
“Ouch, fuckin’ goddamit,” I said. Instead of the ricochet wound I was expecting I got stuck by a lump of cholla cactus embedded in the Pug’s front haunch. The bullet must have hit a nearby cactus and turned it into a projectile. The spines had little barbs on the ends that wouldn’t let go, and it was too deep to pluck out without getting it stuck further into my own hand.
Trying to keep an eye out for the shooter at the same time, I managed to double up a shirttail and get the hunk of cactus out of the dog’s flesh despite his squirming with the pain. I knew it would take too long to get the cholla dislodged from my shirt so I didn’t bother for now. I crawled back to the illusory cover the bench offered, tugging the stubborn Pug after me, and tied both their leashes to a leg of the bench.
Damn cactus removed from the damn dog, I could now turn my attention back to saving our lives. Novel situation, this. Mostly in the past I’d had to worry about myself, not two pathetic excuses for animals, both of whom I could outrun on a bad back day. I was, shall we say, concerned. One of them whimpered. “Shut up, I won’t leave you,” I said, while murmuring “Goddam fuckin’ piece-a-shit,” as I used a stone to get a bit of stubborn cholla out of my shirt so it wouldn’t distract me from business.
That done, I rolled onto my stomach under the bench so I could look across the valley to the mountain from where the shot had come. I held my weapon with the muzzle pointing up alongside my head and waited.
I heard another shot, from a different direction, and was further alarmed to think I was being caught in a squeeze play. Then I realized, or at least told myself because it was what I could handle, that the second shot had come from the Pima Pistol Club adjacent to the park just south of where I was. As if to confirm, I heard another bark of what was unmistakably