A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58

That usually meant they hunted hard men who weren't stupid and who had no issues with shooting back.

Slick was a little different, however. He traveled in a circuit, from town to town, the same ones, completing the loop about twice to three times a year. He wasn't really looking to settle down because he already had. He just kept up the appearance.

Standing well over six feet in height and weighing in at a solid and hard 250lbs, Slick was a handsome man who tended to grow a thick dark beard that he kept closely cropped, but his occupation kept him from having much of a personal life at first glance. There weren't a lot of women who wanted to take up with any sort of professional killer. He knew this.

Well, it only stood to reason if they knew what his trade was. Somebody like that, if they weren't extremely thorough, could gather a few enemies in his time, and one day might become the hunted himself, to say nothing about his woman or their children. Whenever a Barrett Gunner was shot, nobody said much of anything about it. There was just that sort of aura about them that made most folks want to just leave well enough alone and give them a wide berth. As a result of it all, most Barrett men tended to be extremely self-reliant trackers and observers.

And there was no such thing as a Barrett Gunner who was anything less than a superb marksman.

What made Slick a little different again was that he had a woman who knew what it was that he did to keep them alive. He just made sure that nobody knew about her. That way, there was a little safety there for her. Even so, he often smirked whenever he thought about it; his woman wasn't exactly defenseless either. She could shoot the ears off a mouse with a pistol – and that was just for starters.

When he wasn't looking for a walking paycheck, Slick wasn't above being on the lookout for targets of fortune – as he termed them, people who might have something of value and who lived in a fairly remote manner. Some gunners were little more than killers who shot first and then walked over to see what they could liberate from the corpse.

Slick wasn't one of those, necessarily, but he still kept an eye open all the same. One never knew.

He wasn't there today out of any untoward intention, specifically. He had just been on his way by when he noticed a lone – and armed- figure out walking the long flat section of concrete for some reason which wasn't immediately clear to him, and being that he was a curious sort, he'd just climbed up to watch for a while.

What he saw made him even more curious. There was a person out there who was walking along a little slowly and whenever they saw the stalk of a plant sticking out of the ground, they'd walk over and cut it off with a rough-bladed knife. He watched carefully to see if the plants meant anything or had any value, but the person just gathered a few stalks of several varieties and carried them to the edge of the concrete to toss them. It made little sense. Like almost every other person alive then, Slick had never seen an aircraft fly, so the clearing of a runway where such a thing took off and landed took the appearance of a little lunacy to him, not knowing what the long slab was for.

He looked for a long while and then he saw something which caused him to climb down for a minute, before climbing back up with his rifle. The optics on his binoculars were very good, but the scope on his rifle had better ones. What he saw now made him wonder even more.

That person out there was dressed in some dark gray coveralls of a sort, but Slick kept seeing a bright flash of yellow every so often and using the rifle scope, he was able to see that it was caused by a, ... bracelet which slid down whenever the person was bent over to cut off one of the plant stalks.

As well, whenever they were done with the stalks in one area and were about to walk to the next growth, he'd see the person stand up and lean back a little, as though out of a bit of fatigue from the effort. Whenever that happened, they'd look around a little – to keep an eye out for demons, he guessed as he waited for the next time that it happened.

When he saw it, Slick almost dropped his rifle as he stared. The person was a girl and wore small stud earrings. He also noticed that she had blue eyes and that the sides of her head were shaved. It made him smile. She wasn't gorgeous, but he thought she was very pretty from this distance in an offbeat sort of way. His own interest stopped there, knowing there was no point. He'd never met a woman yet whose interest in him lasted longer than it took her to find out what he did for a living and he didn't believe in lying, other than what it might take to get him closer to his prey. The long hair and the shaved sides told him something, however, but it didn't make sense right away.

But then he saw a motion a little behind her and refocused his scope so that he could get an accurate reading as to the range. There was a cougar behind her that she hadn't seen because she never looked directly behind her. Cougars aren't known to be especially brave as big cats go, but if they were driven by extreme hunger, ...

He saw another slight motion and refocused again, not believing the scene. About thirty yards behind the cat, stood a rather young and small doe. She was looking at the cougar, which was looking at the girl.

Slick thought for a second and focused on the cat again, just as it tensed to spring. 425 yards, he read in the reticule. He waited only for the girl to bend over once more, not really liking the narrow target angle.

He drew back the heavy-springed cocking handle and let out a long, slow breath as he looked through the scope with the gun braced on his raised knee there on the tree bough.

Talon heard a sound from almost above him and it sounded like a whip cracking. He stood up straight and then he noticed the mountain lion coming to rest behind him in an unnatural position. As he looked at it and saw a forelimb twitch he heard the boom of a heavy rifle. Before the sound could even register in his head, there was another crack beside him now and he watched a deer tumble backward. Then there was another boom.

Talon dropped to lie prone and unslung his own rifle at the same time, looking from left to right though a narrow quadrant in front of him, since that was where the sound had come from. He didn't move; he only kept his eyeballs sliding back and forth.

Nothing happened for over ten minutes.

Slick had come down from the tree and begun the hike over to where the girl lay on her front with a rifle up. He wasn't stupid and he came from a different direction which would allow him to get closer without having to walk the whole way while in a frightened person's sight picture.

It caused him to think a little more as he walked and he realized something.

Unless she had back problems which were not noticeable otherwise, ...

That was no girl out there.

It was just something that he'd noticed over a long time at this. He'd been at this game now for almost eight years, starting out when he'd been twenty. Men – as a slightly flexible rule – tend to possess more upper body strength than women of the same overall size if one allowed for physical condition. It allows for the way that they can work at tasks which are generally above waist height, but it's also a drawback for some tasks – like working for long periods of time while bent over.

Whereas women, due to their wonderful hips, can work that way till the cows come home, feeling tired too after a day of it; but much better able to work like that than any man ever could and not needing to stand up straight anywhere near as often.

He suddenly smiled to himself.

A man who wore earrings and bracelets and shaved the sides of his head, he thought as he slung his long gun over one shoulder and unslung his lighter one from the other to cock it and set the safety.

There just had to be a story in there someplace.

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The wait for something to happen was causing Talon to get antsy, but he knew that unless he could manage to jump up and sprint to get to cover behind him someplace, standing up now would be a bad idea. Who the fuck was out there and why? He kept looking, but saw no one.

Several more minutes later, he thought that he heard a boot scrape softly once over the concrete and he swung around to his left. He groaned a little to see that there was a man there and that he was now looking at a rifle held at the ready and pointed at him.

"Lay that shooter down, son," the man said, "I'm pretty sure I just saved your ass, so I think it would be a mite wasteful from an economic standpoint to have to drill you now."

"Why would you have to shoot me?" Talon said, doing his best to force a little beef into his tone. He figured that they were at a little bit of a stalemate here, both pointing weapons at each other.

The man smirked, "I don't imagine that being under my gun can be pleasant. It's the same for me. I didn't come here to die, so if you don't put that down, I'll shoot. That's not why I came here, though."

The muzzle on the man's rifle didn't move. Talon could see that he wasn't even aiming it – he was just holding it in his hands and yet he could see a fair distance into the darkness of the barrel, meaning that it was pointed unerringly at his face. Talon doubted if his gun was even anywhere close to being pointed that well.

So much for the standoff.

He held his M-16 up a little and made a bit of a show of setting the safety and then laying it down on its side.

"You all right?" the tall one asked, "You CAN stand up, cantcha? I hate seeing people lying on their faces and they're not dead. Makes me nervous."

Talon didn't move, "Why?"

"People near me on their faces are usually that way because they're dead. Live ones tell me that I haven't done my job well."

The man smiled and to Talon's slight annoyance, he liked the smile, which remained as the man stepped over, pointed his weapon away and extended his left hand to help Talon up. Talon took the hand in his and grew more annoyed with himself – because he liked THAT now. If he'd been alone here, he'd already be talking to himself.

"Why would it be a waste to shoot me?"

The smile was still there and Talon was more annoyed with himself because he still liked it.

"I wasn't hunting that cat, and he's of no value to me alive or dead. The doe over there is something I can eat, though I don't need her right now. But I thought that you might and I guess it's my way of saying I'm sorry for all of this.

I shot 'em both from a little over 400 yards and fifty cal rounds cost over a gold each. The smaller round that I'd have to kill you with costs less. It would be a big waste for the shots and if I had to kill you anyway, I'd rather that I didn't shoot at all and just let that boy over there tear you up. He must have been starving, 'cause that's what he was fixing to do when I shot him. You were doing ok to look for demons in the air now and then, but you weren't looking directly behind you and that's where he was stalking you from."

Why do you keep calling it a he? Might be female," Talon said, feeling a little argumentative.

But the man shook his head, "Not with balls like he's got there and anyway, he's too big to be a girl. The whole thing is a little nutty. He might have been hunting the doe but he saw you. I don't know about that exactly, but when I shot him, she was just twenty yards behind him, and she was watching him while he was looking at you.

Anyway, the angle was bad and I didn't have time to move and make it better. I had to wait for you to bend over before I could drill him."

Talon was still annoyed, but he could see the situation now and he knew that he likely owed this man.

"Thanks for saving my ass then," he said.

The man reached out his hand, "I'm Slick Peterson."

"Talon Caldwell," the smaller one said in reply, "You a Barrett Gunner?"

It was a slightly dumb question given that the long barrel and fat muzzle brake at the end of it stood up over Slick's shoulder and there are no other hand-held weapons which look like that. But Slick let it slide and just nodded, "Ain't here to hunt you, though."

The remark relieved Talon a little, though he didn't think anyone would know him enough to want him dead and that was what he'd be if Slick were hunting him. He was sure of it.

"Well, there's a doe cooling off right over there, Talon," Slick said, "If you want her, I'll help you with it if you like."

The way that Talon had it figured, any Barrett Gunner had to be a good hunter and not always from hunting people. As such, he guessed that he stood to gain a little by learning what he could about butchering a doe. All that he knew was that he could manage to keep himself alive by doing it, but there had been times when the meat had tasted off to him and anyway, it had always been a bitch to get done.

It didn't surprise Talon that Slick had the art down to some simple mechanics, but all the same, he was surprised that Slick went a little slowly once Talon had asked to be shown the right way. Slick didn't mind and he explained the reason for the taste and it was from Talon's way of doing it and not knowing to stay away from the scent glands.

"Once you get to this point here, Talon," the man explained, "it's all about getting the guts out as quick as you can – unless that's what you're after. Ya gotta get the body cavity empty so that the meat can start cooling down. The longer you wait, the worse the taste at dinner time. If there was a lot of snow on the ground, I'd tell you to pack the cavity with that."

With Slick showing him, it didn't take all that long and then it was time to carry it off. Since he was giving it to Talon and seeing as it hadn't been a large doe anyway, it fell to Talon to carry the carcass over his shoulders and with a little help from Slick to get it there, Talon was off, walking back with Slick beside him.

"Have you got a place to hang her for a few days? She'll need to age a little if there's a cool place."

Talon nodded, "Yeah, I got a place, but I don't know how to hang it up right. You're the only person who's ever shown me how to do all this. Anything I know, I just picked up from having to eat."

Talon was a little nervous about having a stranger around, but once they had the meat hung up, Slick took his leave.

"Gotta go, Talon," he smiled, "I've got a bit of time to make up and I didn't expect to be here at all. I'm glad to meet you, though. Ok if I drop by on my way back?"

"Yeah," Talon smiled, "I'd like that and if it's in a few days, maybe I can make something good to eat out of what you helped me with." He was pleased now to meet someone and he found himself liking Slick in a way, but he was also aware that he'd likely be dead of badly injured without what the bounty hunter had done and Talon knew that he'd been kind to have gone to the expense of shooting when he had.

He was also a little surprised at himself to feel just a little hope that Slick would come back.

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As he walked to his horse and slid his weapons into their scabbards, Slick smiled to himself and mounting up, he made for the lawman's office in the next town. With a little luck, he'd have his next job or jobs and looked forward to getting them over and done, hoping to be able to return here in a few days. Just before he climbed into the saddle, he made a few marks, leaving symbols on the ground in a particular place.

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Talon worked at cleaning things up a little, but he didn't plan to go back to the runway clearing that day anymore. He was thinking a little about abandoning his plans or at least, putting them on hold for a time.

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For the first time in a little while, Talon had a good meal that evening. As he sat there afterward, he thought that he heard a few faltering and softly scraping footsteps outside of the door for a moment and then there was silence again.

Talon's eyes went straight to the locks and he saw that he'd left them undone. He'd always been careful to make certain that the damn door was locked. For a moment, he was at a loss until he remembered that he must have forgotten to lock up when he'd come with everything – the meat and a few vegetables from his cold storage bin, his rifle and all to cook his supper on the woodstove . He remembered not having enough hands for everything and after getting inside, he must have forgotten to do them up.

He felt the beginning of the cold sweats and the prickling scalp which was something that he'd always felt during the onset of fear.

He looked over to where his rifle leaned against the next chair and he reached for it, his eyes alternating between the rifle and the door. When he felt his fingers close around it, he lifted it up and seeing that the safety was still on, he moved the selector with his thumb to the three round burst position and he raised it to his shoulder.

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Her eyes went to the door as well, though she had to hang down a bit from the ceiling to see from where she was.

She knew what was outside.

She'd noted the three demons earlier as they'd passed overhead maybe an hour ago while she took a quick look out of the window as she heard Talon approaching.

She saw him and ducked back a little, meaning to turn and hide in the overhead beams again when she'd just seen them pass a fair distance away in the sky and she guessed that they'd noticed him and must have been looking ever since.

She moved upside down, passing under a beam to get closer to the door yet still on the other side of the room, up against the top of the wall and the maislin beamwork up there. She did it while barely daring to breathe. Any noise from her drawing a breath was more than covered by the sound of Talon's fearful breathing. She looked up – which was really down because she was inverted where she was and she saw that Talon was settling down in his chair, the rifle in his hands and he was aiming solidly at the middle of the door.

It pleased her to see that the muzzle of his rifle wasn't quivering much, just barely moving at all as he waited. She waited too, wondering how this would work out. She knew that he had no other magazines in here for the thing, so assuming that the magazine was full, he had thirty shots.

She wanted more than anything to be able to tell him to shoot sparingly if he had to shoot at all, but since he didn't know that she was here ...

She knew that she'd be lucky if he didn't shoot her as well. It was up to him now, she decided.

So when the doorknob began to turn very slowly, there were two sets of eyes locked on it instead of one.

The knob reached the end of its travel and stayed there for a moment. She took a breath and saw that Talon did as well.

Then the door swung inward and they had their first look at the now five demons who were out there – one on the doorstep just moving through and the four others behind him.

The one on the doorstep looked annoyed at being pushed from behind, but he looked around the room for a second before his eyes fell on Talon. He drew a breath to screech and Talon opened up.

The nearest one took two bursts and began to fall, but Tallon kept pulling, firing off burst after burst almost as fast as he could pull, let go, and pull again. The noise in the closed in place was awful and she couldn't see much for the muzzle blast out of the rifle lighting up everything.

She knew that he was being really wasteful out of his fear and near-panic. She wasn't a stranger to firearms herself and knew that what he was shooting was designed to kill and pass through to hit the ones behind. But there was no point in offering him any instructions now, ...