Sniper's Justice (Caje Cole Book 9) Page 18

  “Pa Cole, if you don’t like him, then why are we here?”

  “I think Hans said it best,” Cole responded. “I’m here to fight a duel.”

  Danny stopped walking. “What?”

  “It’s not the kind of duel where you count off twenty paces and shoot each other,” Cole said. “I suppose we’re here to show which one of us is still the best shot.”

  “In that case, I feel sorry for the deer and boars.”

  In the morning, Cole and Danny were up well before dawn, eating a hearty breakfast with the other hunters in the lodge. Hans and Angela were not there. Having opted out of the hunt itself, they had decided to sleep in.

  This European form of hunting was unlike anything that Cole had experienced. He was used to heading off into the woods alone. As a boy, Cole had hunted for subsistence. Anything he shot that had meat on it, they ate—like as not in a stew if it was something like possum.

  He still hunted deer to fill the freezer, but the truth of it was, they wouldn’t starve anymore if he came home without a buck.

  At most, Americans hunted in pairs or in a trio. Like as not, even then, they would split up to try their luck alone.

  The hunt in the Vosges was nothing like that. In fact, it was more of a communal event, a group hunt carried out with help from dogs and drivers. This was the traditional way that hunting had been done for centuries.

  An electric current of excitement seemed to fill the morning air and Cole felt caught up in it. The entire operation gathered just past dawn on the forest edge and received direction from the master of the hunt. Their quarry today would be stags and boars. Everyone wished each other luck, and then the “dog men” and drivers started out to get into position, with the hunters to follow. To Cole’s surprise, many of the dogs were dachshunds. He didn’t know how they covered so much ground on their short legs. He never would have considered them proper hounds, but they were eager hunters and he learned that the breed had been bred for just this purpose.

  More than a dozen hunters had gathered. Cole had worried that they would all be Nazi fossils like Hauer, but to his surprise, they were a friendly, hale and hearty bunch. Some were French rather than German. Hauer was just the friend of a friend. Cole had been puzzled about how Hauer had landed an invitation, until he realized that the German had provided a case of premium Russian vodka and some bottles of rare schnapps. That alone seemed to be Hauer’s ticket for admission.

  The other hunters gladly welcomed Cole as a novelty. They had never hunted with an American.

  “Let’s see what Americans are made of, yes?” they kidded him.

  “Where are your buckskins and coonskin cap?” another asked with a laugh.

  The jibes were friendly and Cole could see that the other hunters were mostly beefy businessmen dressed up in new hunting clothes. “I’ll see if I can keep up.”

  He soon saw that the kidding had not been idly spoken. To get into position, there was a great deal of hiking, mostly uphill, as they climbed from the lodge into the higher elevations. Cole wished that he was twenty years younger. Danny didn’t seem to have any trouble, taking to the trails like a mountain goat. He spelled his grandfather by taking the rifle for a while and slinging it over his own shoulder. The rifle couldn’t have weighed more than eight pounds, but after a couple of hours of hiking, Cole felt his shoulder sagging under the weight.

  Although the fall morning was chill, Cole soon found himself sweating inside his hunting coat. The autumn woods proved to be a reward in itself for all of this exertion. The trail passed through heavy stands of pine and fir, making the air smell fresh and alive. Their feet scarcely made a sound on the matt of damp, fallen pine needles. A few deciduous trees blazed among the pines in vibrant tones of yellow and orange. With no roads nearby, the only sounds came from the footsteps of the men, occasional guffaws at quiet jokes, the twitter of birds, and the rush of the streams they passed. As Cole fell into the rhythm of the march, his heart and legs pumping, he felt intensely alive. He was in his element.

  By the time they were deep into the hills, it was already past noon. Sandwiches were handed out. After a few shy appearances, the sun had hidden itself for good. With the short fall days, they would only have a couple of hours to hunt before having to start back to the lodge.

  Once they were in position, the hunters spread out into smaller groups. He and Danny found themselves stuck with Hauer. After all, this was to be an unofficial shooting competition, so it made sense that they were together, although Cole would have preferred the company of just about anyone else.

  “Good luck,” Hauer said. He had seemed amused before, but now there was another look evident on his face, as if he was enjoying some private joke.

  “Just watch what you’re shooting at today,” Cole reminded him. “Make sure your targets have four legs.”

  Hauer just smiled.

  After following a narrow trail, they were set up in a pretty little valley, or what Cole would have called a “bowl” back home, a low, open area facing the edge of the forest rising beyond. He, Danny, and Hauer seemed to have the valley to themselves. The baying of dogs came closer.

  Through the trees, they caught a blur of movement. Cole felt a thrill of excitement as he realized that it was game. He looked more closely and saw a dark shape rushing through the trees toward them.

  It was a boar. Cole had seen wild pigs before, but never anything this size. The boar must have weighed at least a couple of hundred pounds and was the size of a German Shepherd. It burst from the trees and ran right at him, lowered its head, and charged. He could see ivory tusks jutting in front of the boar’s mean, dark eyes.

  “Pa Cole, he’s headed right for us,” Danny remarked nervously. His grandson stood just behind him and hadn’t brought along a gun.

  “Hold tight,” Cole said.

  He raised the rifle to his shoulder and tracked the boar through the scope. That pig could move. The boar had already covered half the distance across the clearing. This morning with the hunting master, they had all agreed on zones of fire. This boar was squarely within Cole’s zone. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Hauer with his own rifle nestled in the crook of his elbow. If Cole missed his shot, that boar was going to plow right through him. It was clear that he wasn’t getting any help from Hauer in stopping the boar.

  A running shot from the side was one thing, but a running shot with an animal coming straight at you was far more difficult. First of all, it meant that the animal wasn’t running away but charging at you. Each second that one waited required another instantaneous mental calculation about where to aim to adjust for the trajectory of the bullet. Also, the boar coming at them made a small target from the front.

  “Pa Cole!” Danny said nervously.

  This was the point where some men might have run for it. Others would have shot blindly in desperation, hoping against hope that one of their bullets would strike true, stopping the tusked nightmare steaming toward them at full speed.

  But Cole stood his ground, his crosshairs steady. He waited until the charging boar’s head filled the field the view, then squeezed the trigger.

  The boar made a sound that was like a grunt of frustration and rage, then skidded to a stop, not twenty feet from where Cole stood. His ears ringing from the crack of the rifle, he finally allowed himself to take a deep breath. So much of this trip had reminded him of his age, especially the hike up into these hills, but he suddenly felt like a young man again.

  “I’ll be damned,” Cole said, inspecting the boar. He felt adrenalin surging through him, making him feel twenty years younger. “He was an ornery critter.”

  “I thought for sure he was going to plow you over.”

  “Close,” Cole agreed. “If I’d missed him, this would be a different story. Wouldn’t that be a way to go?”

  “But you don’t miss.”

  “Not if I can help it, boy.”

  Cole looked in Hauer’s direction. Hauer saw him and ga
ve him a nod, but his attention was soon claimed by more movement among the trees. The dogs and drivers were still at it, and this time they saw the flash of a stag’s white tail, like a flag in the woods.

  The mountain stag was running far ahead of the hounds, right in their direction.

  “Here he comes, Pa Cole!” Danny whispered intently. Caught up in the excitement, he seemed to have momentarily forgotten his opposition to hunting.

  Danny was right. The stag seemed to be headed right at them.

  Cole raised his rifle, lining up the shot. Unlike the boar, the stag had no intention of leaving the cover the woods and charging them, but ran along the treeline, presenting its flank to Cole. Although the stag was farther away, this running shot was easier in some regards. All he had to do was lead the target. The fine optics of the Leica scope made the stag spring closer, gathering all the light of the overcast day.

  Then at the last moment, the stag broke to the left and into Hauer’s quadrant. Cole lowered the rifle, leaving the stag to Hauer. Off to his left, Hauer’s rifle cracked. He saw the stag stumble, but it kept right on going. Before Hauer could fire again, the stag disappeared deeper into the forest.

  Hauer came walking over to them. “I hit him,” he said. “I am sure there is a blood trail. I will give him a minute to settle, and then I will go into the forest after him. With any luck, he did not get far. It is going to be dark soon, after all.”

  “Need help?”

  “I can manage,” Hauer said. He looked down at the huge boar that Cole had brought down. Oddly enough, the German did not seem at all bitter that Cole had managed to bag the animal. “Congratulations on your boar. He is a monster!”

  “You got that right,” Cole agreed. The tusks were several inches long. They would have ripped him right open if the boar had gotten any closer.

  “You stay here,” Hauer said. He held up the walkie talkie. “I will let the others know where we are, and that we will need some help bringing out this game.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Cole said.

  Hauer nodded and headed off into the forest to track his wounded deer. Finding the animal wouldn’t be easy in the dark, so Cole hoped that it hadn’t gotten far. He was a little surprised that Hauer hadn’t hit the stag harder, with a more accurate shot. Yes, it had been a running shot, but the quarry had been fairly close to Hauer.

  Cole smiled to himself, thinking that the old German sniper was finally missing a step—maybe two. Cole had dropped his target while Hauer was having to chase after his stag.

  Up on the ridge, the dogs had changed direction and were no longer running toward the valley. The barking faded, then disappeared altogether, as if the dogs were being called back for the day. Was the hunt ending?

  Around them, the shadows grew deeper. Through the overcast haze, he watched the sun slip down over a big hill to the west, and it was as if a curtain had been pulled across a window. Dusk arrived instantly. With the last of the daylight fading, the temperature dropped quickly. Cole felt the chill creeping into his old bones.

  “Might as well do something with this boar while we wait for Hauer,” Cole said. He took out his hunting knife and with Danny’s help, expertly field dressed the boar. When some of the other hunters and beaters came along, they would be ready to drag the beast out. That alone wouldn’t be an easy task. They were many miles from the lodge, deep in the mountains, and Cole did not look forward to hiking back in the dark, which was how things were shaping up. At least the others would know the way and hopefully, have a flashlight. Cole didn’t have one. They had started out at first light, and now it was growing dark. He hadn’t planned on a full day in the field.

  He also had the nagging realization that he didn’t have a map. Maybe Hauer had one? He didn’t know how far these mountains went. He did know that this was a preserved area, essentially the equivalent of a national park, which meant that there were no towns or villages. The setting sun gave him a rough indication of the direction they had come from, but that was about it.

  Meanwhile, they kept listening for a rifle shot that would indicate that Hauer had found his wounded stag and dispatched it, but there was nothing.

  “That stag must have made a run for Paris,” Cole said. “Either that, or it was already down.”

  Night was coming on fast. The valley had become eerily quiet.

  “What’s that?” Danny asked, pointing toward the tree line. “I think I see Herr Hauer.”

  Cole followed Danny’s finger, saw a shape move among the trees in the last of the light. Definitely two-legged. Definitely making no effort to come toward them. The hair on the back of Cole’s neck raised. They were being watched.

  “It’s Hauer, all right,” Cole said.

  All at once, realization crashed down on Cole. Hauer had the walkie talkie, which was the only means to let anyone know where they were. Maybe Hauer had a flashlight and a map, too.

  What did he have? Nothing. He and Danny were totally unprepared. Hauer had made sure that he held all the cards. Cole wanted to kick himself for being so stupid.

  Cole shook his head. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through him. This whole time he’d been thinking that the game between him and Hauer, which they were playing to settle old scores, had been to see who could shoot the most deer and boar in these mountains. But maybe that hadn’t been the quarry that Hauer had in mind. Perhaps the stakes here were much higher than Cole had suspected. Cursing himself all over again, he realized that Hauer had played him for a fool and that he had walked right into a trap—dragging Danny along with him.

  Then full-on darkness arrived, flowing through the valley like a tide, and the silhouette at the forest edge was lost among the shadows.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cole didn’t like the idea of staying put, but he liked the idea of trying to hike back in the dark even less. One wrong turn, or one fall, could spell disaster. They had no flashlight and no way of calling for help.

  While he thought it over, Danny was full of questions.

  “If nobody is coming back for us, what should we do?” Danny wondered. “What is Herr Hauer up to, anyhow?”

  “I wish I knew what Hauer was up to,” Cole said. “I’m beginning to think he has something planned for us, and it’s nothing good.”

  “He’s going to kill us, isn’t he?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Cole said.

  “We could try hiking back.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Cole urged. “Let’s not make it any easier for Hauer to keep track of us. As for hiking back, we don’t know the way and we don’t even have a flashlight. There’s no moon and it’s darker than a well-digger’s ass out here.”

  “Huh?”

  “If we go off the trail or fall into a ravine, we’d just end up in a worse pickle than we’re already in,” Cole said.

  “Hans and Angela will wonder where we are,” Danny said. “The other hunters will figure out that we’re missing and come looking for us.”

  “Maybe,” Cole said. “For now, we’re on our own, and that’s a fact. Our friends and family help us when they can, but in the end, the only person you can count on is yourself.”

  “And you, Pa Cole,”

  “And me,” Cole said with a grin. “I’ll tell you another thing. We aren’t going to sit here and wait for Hauer to creep up on us. We can at least move down the valley to a different spot. He’ll never find us in the dark.”

  “Whatever you say,” Danny replied, fear evident in his voice.

  “Follow me and keep quiet,” Cole whispered.

  The cold and damp was like a curtain that he had to push through. Leaving the spot where they had butchered the boar, he followed the slope of the valley down, Danny on his heels. Moving across the open field wasn’t so difficult, but Cole couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. He stopped when they reached the trees on the bottom half of the valley, moving quietly across a narrow stream that gurgled there. They took time to refill th
eir canteens. He figured the water should be clean enough here in the mountains. As a soldier, he’d drank worse.

  Cole felt pleased that Danny barely made a sound crossing the stream.

  “Boy, you might not be a hunter, but you picked up a trick or two about the woods, didn’t you? Now, let’s see if we can get into those trees just as quietly.”

  Danny didn’t respond, but Cole could almost feel him grinning with pride in the darkness.

  They reached the trees and slipped several feet into the forest. He stopped when he felt the ground begin to rise for the forested slope that led up from the valley floor. He wanted some shelter, but at first light, he also wanted to be able to see Hauer moving across the valley.

  The Butcher had a rifle, but so did Cole.

  He thought about Hauer’s barely concealed disappointment when Cole had announced that he had a rifle and would not need the shotgun that Hauer had planned on him carrying. Now, it all made more sense. If Cole had a shotgun out here and Hauer had a rifle that could pick him off at long range, then Cole would have been as good as defenseless.

  That old Nazi bastard was full of tricks, wasn’t he?

  If he spotted Hauer first and shot him, maybe Cole could call it a hunting accident. He had a pretty good idea that this was just what Hauer planned to do to him and Danny. It wouldn’t be the first time that a hunting trip had been used as cover for a murder.

  Cole took stock, cursing himself for not being better prepared. They had nothing to eat. No blankets. Not even a match to light a campfire—then again, the last thing Cole wanted was a fire with Hauer out there. What he did have were the canteens, a knife, and a damn fine rifle. In the end, what more did he need? Maybe legs that were decades younger, for a start. For that, he might have to depend on his grandson.

  “I’m sorry you got dragged into this, Danny,” Cole said.

  “What’s this all about anyhow, Pa Cole? Why would he be trying to kill us? Is he some sort of madman?”

  “He’s a madman, all right, but there’s more to it than that.” Cole had not gone into his background with Hauer, in part to shelter Danny from some ugly stories. It was clear now how well that had worked out. It was time to come clean. “Herr Hauer and I have some history,” he said. “You know that we crossed paths back in the war. Right near here, as a matter of fact, in the closing chapter of the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans were winning at first, and then the tables turned on them. You know how a cornered animal gets.”