Page 143 of South of Nowhere

Bear aimed slowly.

Who would he target, the brother or sister?

His and Dorion’s eyes met. He squeezed her hand.

“Damn it, Colter. Remember the rule: Never get sentimental. Ashton told us—”

Her words were cut off by the huge rolling boom of a hunting rifle.

Dorion gasped.

Colter froze.

Neither had been hit.

She said, “Look.”

Pointing to the hillside where Bear was standing.

The big man was wincing in pain—and dismay. His rifle had been shot out of his hands. A slug had slammed into his receiver and splinted the stock, sending it flying. His hand appeared broken.

His face was eerie. He looked as if a friend had just been shot. He stared at the corpse of the rifle, shattered, on the ground near his feet.

“Who?” Dorion called.

Mary Dove. That was who. Her shot—from her .308—had hit the stock of the big man’s rifle.

She was shaking her head—a message to the man.

Bear was frozen in position, staring down at the woman.

A moment passed during which neither of them moved.

No, Colter thought to Bear. Don’t.

He crouched, drew his Colt pistol and began to lift it.

He didn’t even get ten degrees to target before his mother’s rifle bucked again.

The bullet struck Bear in the middle of the chest.

The man looked confused. Betrayed. He dropped to his knees and picked up his own wounded rifle…He didn’t lift it in an attempt to fire the gun. He clutched it to his chest and then fell forward. He went still.

“No! Don’t shoot.” A woman’s voice. Olsen—or whoever she really was—had shouted.

Apparently, Mary Dove’s shooting had convinced her and the corporals that more police would arrive.

“Don’t shoot!” she called again. “We’re surrendering.”

Apparently she had no idea that the reinforcements did not involve a phalanx of SWAT officers but a woman in her sixties, who weighed at most one hundred and ten pounds.

—

Mary Dove replaced her Winchester in the rack, thinking of the hundreds of times she’d used it to put food on the table in the Compound.

In all her forays into the autumn fields over the years, she had never felt the least emotional about bringing down a buck, merely concentrating on aim to make sure the creature didn’t suffer.

And she had not felt any emotion now. From the glove compartment, she retrieved her pistol, resting in a ruddy holster she herself had tanned, cut, and stitched. She’d stitched the gun belt too, which she now strapped on.

---