atlatl in hand, in pursuit of deer, elk, or even mammoths. It wasn’t uncommon to find the flint artifacts of hunters past when the soil on the ranch was turned over by spring rains.
He pulled the powder-filled sock from his hip pocket and gave it a shake to test the wind; it was light but holding. He slipped it away and continued his slow crawl, his bow in his right hand. He put his weight on his knuckles so as not to damage the bow as he moved. It was slow going but now was not the time to rush. Sneaking a peek, he saw that he was sixty yards from the branches of the fallen pine. A good shooter with a compound bow could take a shot on an animal of this size from where he knelt but, with a recurve, even an archer of his talents needed to cut that figure in half. Raife eased back into a crawl and began to close the final yards.
Forty yards. He slipped an arrow from the leather-covered quiver attached to the bow’s frame and carefully nocked it onto the braided bowstring. He held the bow in his left hand, his pointer finger holding the arrow securely on its rest. In ten more yards, Raife would rise to both knees to keep his hips on a level plane and bring the bow to full draw. The buck would stand up and Raife would have a split second to release the shot before the animal bounded out of range. His breathing was rapid, and his mind was totally focused on the next move, the next soft spot to place his hands and knees. Despite the cool morning temperatures, rivulets of sweat ran down his face. To Raife, there was no feeling more natural, more human, than the stalk.
He wrapped two fingers of his right hand around the string and purposefully relaxed his left hand’s grip on the bow. His body rose slowly but deliberately, his eyes focused on the spot where he knew the buck’s shoulder would be. Raife’s head was just clearing the crest of the grass stalks when he saw the buck lurch to his feet; it was always shocking how big these animals were at close range. Raife froze. Something had spooked the buck, but his focus was over Raife’s head toward the ridge behind him. The sixth sense. Morphing from hunter to warrior in less than a second, he sprinted forward as the ground around him came alive, eruptions of dirt showering upward and the unmistakable crack of supersonic rifle rounds passing nearby.
Instincts, hardwired from nearly two decades of sustained combat, took over. His hands released the bow as he sprinted toward the tree that had been the buck’s hiding spot, the Colt coming effortlessly from its leather holster as he ran. He could hear the incoming rounds chewing into the earth around him. Halfway to the tree, he dove the remaining yards, his body going fully horizontal as it flew for the only available cover.
He hit hard on his belly and knees and rolled back the way he’d come, pressing his body against the trunk of ponderosa pine. Rounds impacted the thick wood fibers but, thanks to the velocity they’d lost on their way to the target, none penetrated completely through.
There was no “why me?” or “why now?” clogging the former commando’s consciousness. Instead, he was entirely focused on prevailing. He was lying on his side, body parallel to the trunk of the tree. He turned his head to ensure that no one was moving in on the ridge behind him.
Take a breath, look around, make a call.
Raife took a moment to take stock of the situation. Multiple bad guys with Kalashnikovs; he’d been shot at by them enough times to know exactly what they sounded like. No sign of a belt fed, which was good news. He hoped that they didn’t have an RPG. If there was a sniper among them, he’d already be dead, which meant they probably didn’t have anything more capable than AKs or AKMs.
He had a handgun that was designed when Taft was in the White House. It held seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Two more magazines were stowed in a leather pouch on his belt. The ridgeline where the fire was coming from was an honest 300 yards from his position and it was farther, almost 500, to the next ridge behind him. He was essentially in