It was that weird sixth sense that you get when you feel somebody is with you. You feel eyes boring into your skin, making it crawl as if worms writhed beneath it. For a second, he froze, not wanting to look, afraid to see what it was behind him. But he knew he had to. There was somebody in the ship with him. And he sure as hell wasn’t taking them with him. Slowly, he moved his hand over to the rail pistol in his shoulder holster.
Easy ... easy … now!
As he turned in the seat, he brought the pistol around, ready to fire at the first thing he saw. He never had a chance. He caught just a vague glimpse of reddish-orange and white fur before the pulse rifle discharged and everything went black as one, last, frustrated thought ran through his head.
Mothafucka!
***
Tiger did as he was instructed and froze half-in, half-out of the car door, his hand hovering just above his pistol. “You got me!” He made sure the disembodied voice knew he’d heard him. “I’m not moving!”
“Shut your mouth, ya thievin’ varmint!” came back the angry reply. “I’ll do the talking! Now move your hand away from that there hog leg!” The speaker had a drawl, but it was not the usual Alabama dialect. Tiger had flown in and out of Houston enough to recognize it though. The man was a Texan.
Slowly and carefully, he raised his hand up and away from his pistol. Once he did, he felt the unyielding business end of what appeared to be a double-barreled shotgun press into his abdomen. It was a sick feeling.
“Now don’t you move,” the man above him commanded. “I’m an old man and I’d hate to kill you just ‘cause you spooked me. You know what kind of damage a twelve-gauge would do to you at point blank rage?”
“I’m not moving!” Tiger said as calmly as he could. He just knew, at any moment, this old geezer was going to let his finger slip and blow him in two. Or worse, Amber would walk in and surprise him and the gun would go off. Speaking of which … Where the hell was she? How did she let this old bastard get past her?
Still keeping the shotgun gouged into Tiger’s gut, his captor reached down with his other hand and relieved him of his pistol. He then backed up. “Alright!” he snapped. “Stand up! But keep those dick skinners high!”
Tiger worked his way out of the car and stood up. In doing so, he was finally able to get his first look at his captor. The old man was probably in his early sixties and looked like the Marlboro Man’s grizzled older brother. His face was rugged, the texture of rawhide. A walrus mustache completely covered his upper lip. Long, gray hair sprouted from beneath a Stetson and fell in curly locks down to his shoulders. He wore a bathrobe over a pair of old boxers and a faded Lone Star beer t-shirt. His scrawny legs, interrupted midway by two knobby knees, ended in a pair of scuffed-up old cowboy boots.
“You picked the wrong ol’ fart to steal from, boy!” The old man snarled. His blue eyes were bright and intense, with no sign of the dullness that old age and inactivity sometimes brings. Tiger had the uncanny notion that this wasn’t the first time the man had held a gun on someone.
“Look, sir,” Tiger knew this was no time to be macho. “I know this looks bad … but it’s not what you think.”
“So you weren’t trying to steal Ol’ Betsy there?” The old man sneered sarcastically. “What were you doing, wiring up a new sound system for me?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I admit … I was trying to steal your car. But, it was for a good reason.”
“Oh? Do tell,” the man scoffed. He pulled a PDC out of his bathrobe. “Tell it to the cops.”
“No! Please! I’m telling the truth!” Tiger exclaimed in a voice desperate enough to make the man pause. “I’m trying to keep someone from getting killed!”
The old man smirked and shook his head. “Well, aren’t you just the good guy on the white horse, young buckaroo? And just who, pray tell, is gonna get killed if you don’t get to steal my car?”
“She is,” Tiger replied, a sly smile crossing his face, as the old man suddenly felt the barrel of Amber’s Spacehawk against the back of his head. He’d never heard her slip back into the garage and up behind him. Tiger instantly saw the quiet anger in the man’s eyes. He was not a man used to someone getting the drop on him. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it; not one little bit.
Tiger was impressed. She moved with the nimbleness and stealth of a cat. When it counted, she was a sight to behold in action.
“Lower the scattergun, Wild Bill,” Tiger instructed. “We ain’t here to hurt you. Don’t force us to … please.” The last word he added with a pleading urgency. “We’ve seen too much blood already.”
With a frustrated reluctance, the old man eased the hammers of the shotgun off and lowered it slowly. Keeping the barrel of the gun in contact with the man’s head, Amber moved around him and relieved him of both guns. As she did, he got his first look at her. Not surprisingly, his eyes grew wide.
“What in tarnation?” the man’s jaw dropped, as he took her in, the beautiful face, the fur, the tail. “What the hell are you?”
Amber gave him a slight smile and a bat of her eyelashes handing Tiger his pistol back. As she did, he gave her a quizzical look.
“Where the hell you been? How’d he get past you?”
