Hugh made cowboy coffee in his fire-darkened metal coffee pot. His recipe was simple. Throw a handful of grounds into water just off the boil. Wait a minute. Swirl. Wait another minute. Pour. Drink.
“Nothing better,” he told Buck, and lifted his cup to toast the horse.
As Hugh picked coffee grounds from his teeth, he wondered how things were going at the ranch. By now, he assumed, Jenny had chosen a wedding gown, and had met with the pastor to set a date. Hugh was more than happy to leave to Jenny the details of decorations for the wedding. Choosing color schemes and such was not his thing.
Breakfast completed, and with both man and horse watered, Hugh and Buck turned their attention to scouting the remote areas of the Mann Ranch forested property.
Around mid morning, as they worked their way along a seldom-used trail deep into some of the remaining old-growth forest, Hugh heard a “twang” sound and caught a flash of something shooting underneath his horse. When it thunked into a tree on the other side of the trail he saw it was a crossbow bolt.
“Whoa, boy,” Hugh told Buck. He jumped out of the saddle, and laid Buck down in a deep depression left by a large tree that had fallen down, and that had pulled a root ball up like a wall on one side. Hugh and Buck had practiced the laying-down maneuver many times. Just in case. Always a Marine.
He grabbed his rifle from the saddle scabbard, and peered over the rim of the depression. He didn’t immediately see anyone. Looking back down the trail he spotted the thin wire laid across the path as a trip wire to trigger the crossbow.
Luckily for man and horse, but especially horse, the crossbow had been aimed to catch a walker at a low stomach level, which meant the bolt had narrowly passed underneath the tall buckskin horse’s belly.
A person on foot would have been seriously, or fatally, injured.
Hugh had obviously stumbled upon a perimeter booby trap security arrangement for a nearby marijuana grow. Hugh guessed that the firing crossbow had also triggered a remote sensor to alert the men attending the grow. These cartel guys were all about technology these days.
Within a few moments, Hugh saw Buck’s ears twitch, and then Hugh himself heard the voices of several men speaking excitedly in Spanish. Hugh stood up, and peered over the top of the root ball. He could see several men working their way toward him and Buck.
One of the men spotted Hugh’s head poking just above the root ball cover, and he snapped off a quick shot. Hugh ducked, and recognized the distinctive sound of an AK47 rifle. Same NATO round his Mini-30 used, so they were evenly matched in that regard. It didn’t occur to Hugh to be worried about three or four-to-one odds against him.
“Back off fellas! I’m just passing through. I don’t want any trouble,” Hugh shouted to the men with a menacing tone. He intended plenty of trouble for these guys because he wanted them off his land. But he needed to get out of this predicament first.
No response from the men. Chances were good they didn’t speak English. Hugh was sure, however, they had caught the gist of his warning.
Another shot bit off a chunk of root ball just over Hugh’s head.
“OK. That’s it,” Hugh told Buck. “We’re in it now.”
Keeping low and edging to the low side of the root ball, Hugh peered through a tangle of roots and spotted a red bandana partially concealed behind some leaves about thirty yards away. He put his crosshairs on the red target and pulled the trigger. He didn’t miss.
“One down.”
A fusillade of bullets then began to tear at Hugh’s root ball cover. Hugh heard Buck scream, and he saw the horse had taken a shot across his shoulder. It was only a skin deep gash, parting Buck’s hide with a furrow.
“Easy, boy,” Hugh said to reassure Buck.
Buck was protected by the root ball wall, so that shot meant at least one of the men had worked his way around to flank Hugh on the side where he was unprotected by the root ball. Someone had tried taking him out from that flanking position.
Keeping below the rim of the depression, Hugh tried to spot the flanker, but the thickness of the forest prevented him from seeing anyone. He’d have to hug the floor of the depression and wait them out. Wait for them to make a mistake.
That mistake wasn’t long in coming.
Hugh heard what sounded like two guys rushing to close the distance to where Hugh was concealed behind the fallen tree. He crouched to look around the low side of the root ball again, and saw the two men trying to pick their way over the mass of branches and other forest debris. He put his rifle to his shoulder and took them both down with two quick shots from his Mini-30.
“That’s it,” he told Buck. “Just the flanker left.”
Hugh didn’t have to wait long for the flanker to reveal himself. The man, seeing Hugh had exposed himself from his cover below the rim to shoot his compatriots, took a couple of quick shots at him.
“Damn!” Hugh yelled, quickly ducking back down into the depression. One shot had grazed the flesh of his inner thigh. Hugh padded his bandana over the wound to stop the bleeding, and bound it with his belt.
Hugh didn’t expect help would be coming. His cell phone registered “No Service,” and the noise of the battle would be muffled by the woods. The sound would be reduced considerably as far away as the ranch
