Page 68 of Red Boar's Baby

“What is he planning ondoing?” She tried to keep her voice low, but the noise of the plane gearing up for a takeoff helped cover it anyway.

Costa couldn’t have provided a better distraction if he’d tried—and perhaps that was part of what he intended. Among the rocks, on the hillside and a ways off to her left, the gunmen were straightening up and frantically turning around. Someone snapped off a wild shot at the running boar, but as far as Diana could tell, it didn’t come even close to hitting him.

There was a majestic quality to a running boar, especially a huge one like Costa. He was nothing like the javelinas Diana occasionally saw in the hills around Tucson, roly-poly piglike animals that bounced across the ground in an almost comical way. There was nothing funny about Costa at full gallop. His legs were much longer for his size than a domestic pig, his shoulder high and humped; it was almost more like watching a charging buffalo than anything that might deserve to be grouped in the same category as a pig.

The pilot probably didn’t see him at first, but when the plane began to swing around into the wind for takeoff, the charging boar came into the visible field of view from the cockpit. Diana guessed the moment when the pilot saw him because the plane abruptly slammed into high acceleration, wheels churning up great rooster tails of sand, and the nose jerked up sharply in preparation for takeoff.

“Too soon, you fool,” Diana murmured with professional scorn.

The plane wasn’t going fast enough to take off yet. Instead the wings partly caught the air, the entire machine lifted off the ground for a moment in a bunny hop and then slammed back down, hitting harder on one side than the other. The wing dipped almost to the sand, and the machine went into a wide-swinging skid.

The change of direction and delay was the only thing that allowed Costa to catch up. A boar at a hard gallop couldn’t outrace a motor vehicle running under full throttle. But he was able to gain enough advantage to come alongside the plane.

Diana realized she was holding her breath.

The boar leaped and slammed into the side of the plane, not headfirst, as Diana was half expecting, but rather striking it a powerful glancing blow with his shoulder. Airplanes were built similarly to cars but were lighter for their size, especially a smaller machine like this one, with an aluminum airframe and lightweight metals and plastics used throughout. A car would be better able to withstand a collision with rampaging wildlife, but they were meant to. There weren’t a lot of charging wild animals at 20,000 feet.

The collision with Costa literally spun the plane around. It rotated like a top, and Diana discovered a sudden new source of terror as Costa (who apparently hadn’t expected that either) came within a shaggy whisker of being grazed by the lethal, spinning propeller.

He missed it, and as the plane turned an entire revolution, Diana could see a great dent in the side where the boar had hit it. The pilot must be having fits.

The engine revved and the plane sped away. Costa lurched into motion again. However, now the gunmen had reached the edge of the sandy area and were shooting at him from considerably closer.

“We have to help him,” Diana said breathlessly.

She started down the hill, mincing painfully in her bare feet over the rocks and thorns. She felt something stab her big toe, a sharp agonizing jolt, but didn’t dare stop.

“Wait!” Farley stayed with her. “Those guys have bigger guns than yours—er, mine. Do you really think you can win?”

“I’m not letting Quinn fight them alone. I?—”

She didn’t see it coming. She had completely let her guard down. So when Farley grabbed the gun, she was too shocked to do anything for the instant that it took him to turn the gun on her.

“Hey!” he yelled, backing away, gun pointed at Diana. “Hey, guys! She’s up here!”

“You—youcad.” Diana gauged the distance between herself and him. With his broken arm and other injuries, she thought she could probably beat him in a fight. But she didn’t like the odds of jumping on him when he was holding a gun on her. “We helped you! We could have just left you to die.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.” Farley looked agonized—but the gun didn’t waver. “I’ve got my family to think of.”

“Costa can protect your family, you idiot!”

“You don’t know how well connected these guys are. I can’t afford to take the chance.”

* * *

Costa was not exactly having the time of his life, but there was something satisfying, after the kidnapping and the helplessness of their situation, about finally having a target on which to vent his fury—even if it was many times bigger than he was.

And, he hardly could believe it, he was winning. The pilot was managing to avoid him for the most part, veering around in the sand like a rally driver, but couldn’t get up a good enough speed to get off the ground. Every time the airplane started to straighten out for a run at takeoff, Costa charged again.

He was aware that he was being shot at, but so far no one had even come close. They had pistols, not guns meant for distance shooting. And absolutely nobody wanted to get anywhere near a boar-vs-airplane duel. The tremendous dust cloud further confused their aim.

It was a standoff, though. The pilot couldn’t take off, but Costa also wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to capture the plane this way. He needed to get close enough to shift and grab a door or handle so he could board it, and he’d be extremely vulnerable as soon as he did that.

He became aware that the shooting had stopped. A minute later, there was a shout from the edge of the sandy area which had become churned up with tire tracks and boar hooves.

“Hey! Hey, pig boy! We’ve got your girl!”

Costa spun around, snorting furiously.

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