Luke stepped outside, Laura right beside him, and glanced at his watch. 2:48 A.M. He should be somewhere in Eastern Europe, working his previous assignment. Instead he was on a rock in the Mediterranean doing God knows what. He still wore the shirt, shorts, and shoes from this morning, which didn’t make him look out of place, though he’d felt a little odd being inside the cathedral dressed that way. They stood in what was noted on a placard as St. John’s Square, maybe fifty people milling about beneath the glow of overhead lighting. The cathedral itself, lit to the night, was surrounded by streets on all sides. Plenty of opportunities for unfriendlies to make a move.
“Let’s check the perimeter,” he said. “All the way around.”
His Beretta was tucked at his waist beneath his shirt. Laura was likewise armed, having acquired a weapon from her people while they’d waited for Malone to arrive. He was actually glad to be outside. Malone was onto something and that was Pappy’s problem to solve. He had his own to deal with, and she was standing right beside him.
“I’ll go this way,” he said. “You take the opposite and we’ll meet on the far side of the building.”
She nodded and hustled off.
He walked through the cobbled square, but stopped beneath a stand of trees, using one of the trunks for cover. A quick glance back and he saw Laura heading for the building’s corner where she would shortly be out of sight, around to the other side.
His mind drifted back to when he was eleven years old. He, his father, and his three brothers were in the last few hours of the last day of his first hunting trip outside Tennessee. To Nebraska. In bone-chilling cold. They’d been at it for three days, chasing deer across the breaks just above the Republican River Valley. They’d sat in blinds for two mornings and an evening, and not a single deer had wandered by. His father and brothers had already taken their limit. Still nothing, though, for him. Frustrating since it was the first hunting trip where he could legally carry a gun and shoot on his own.
Just one chance, that’s all he wanted.
So his father decided to do what any self-respecting Tennessee hunter would do.
He took them into the hills for some stalking.
They chased deer for two more days, pushing them from one draw to the next. But no matter how clever his father seemed to be, the deer always stayed one step ahead. Eventually, his father began to understand how, when, and where the deer were moving.
And he got ahead of them.
Two shots came from the far ridge.
His father checked the wind and noted that it was still blowing straight down the draw. Perfect.
“Other hunters just pushed ’em,” his father had said. “In just a minute or so, those deer are going to come right down this draw. It’s your turn, son.”
He smiled recalling that first opportunity, bestowed upon him by the man he admired most in the world.
All five Daniels made their way toward the cedars at the edge of the draw. His father hiked uphill about twenty yards for a better view and gave them five fingers, representing the number of animals, and pointed from where they were coming. He could still feel his grip on the .30-30 Winchester 94 rifle. Tight. Almost a stranglehold. His brother Mark had shook his head and motioned for him to loosen up.
“Hold it like a baby.”
Laura rounded the corner, out of sight. He fled the cover of the trees and headed off in the direction she’d gone, lingering long enough to give her a head start.
More memories of that hunt flooded his mind.
The deer approached through dried leaves and leftover snow.
Their breathing, puffs of clouds with each exhale, strong and steady. The lack of their awareness as to the danger that awaited them. How they stopped just above the narrow draw, twenty yards away. The cocking of the rifle. Slow. Quiet. The stock nestled to his shoulder. Him sliding out from behind the cedar, trying to get a clear shot through the trees, fighting the cold that ate away at his face.
Then pulling the trigger.
The bang and retort.
Stronger than he imagined, tossing him back on his heels.
Two does and a yearling scattered, but his shot found the buck’s front shoulder, clipping the spine, dropping the big deer in its tracks.
Everything about that day had stuck in his mind.
His first kill.
Made even better by his father and brothers being with him.
And the lessons learned from that trip.
Lessons he never forgot.
Asking a dumb question is far better than doing something dumb. Watch and learn from other people. And never use everything offered to you. Instead, make that knowledge work for you, in your own way.
Good advice then, and now.
He found the corner of the cathedral and peeked around, seeing Laura about thirty yards ahead, halfway to the next corner. He watched, hoping he was wrong and she would turn right and continue her patrol of the perimeter, supposedly catching up to him. But she hooked left, doubling back toward him, just on the opposite side of the street.
He shook his head, both pleased and disappointed that his instincts had been right. He quickly retreated to the line of trees so he could use the shadows for cover, watching as she hustled down the sidewalk, past the church and the square, negotiating an intersection, then entering, through a side door off an alley, one of the many shops lining Republic Street, all closed for the night.
Interesting that she possessed a key to the door.
Like those deer, she’d been flushed back. But not by some other hunter’s shots. This was done solely on her own. Thankfully, he was waiting, downwind. And like those deer, she had no idea what awaited her.
He reached back and palmed his Beretta.
Holding it gently.
Like a baby.