Get the fu… away, Graham thought.
Dalton was a man of extreme cusswords under duress, not Graham. That just wasn’t his style, but he’d given up on wishes and was hoping for more success with silent demands. That wasn’t working either.
The two figures approaching were close enough that he recognized the automatic weapons they held too loosely, and Graham could tell by their thin, lanky frames beneath their black robes that they were just kids toting rifles too large for them.
He didn’t want to shoot them. He didn’t want to take their lives. If they neared the building beneath the woods, he would end them quickly. He’d hesitated once long ago with Campos and he’d never make that same mistake again. But gunfire would draw attention to Tehya’s hideout, and he could not let that happen.
A cloud of breath puffed through Sheriff’s muzzle.
Then, in his periphery, Graham noted the brush-covered ivy of the building across the trail and made a decision.
He tapped the ground to get Sheriff’s attention, and laid his palm flat.
The old boy’s eye met his.
Anything to save her…from them.
Twenty-three feet away, twenty…
Graham laid his rifle down on the ground next to Sheriff, who lay unmoving and looked up at him as he walked onto the trail.