Setting that thought aside for now, Nathan crawled down the length of the fallen log, shouldered his rifle, and scoped the canyon’s southern wall. Although he had a pair of field glasses, he always used his rifle. If he saw his mark, he was instantly ready to send a bullet. If his opponent was on the move, he didn’t see any evidence of it. The few sandy areas he could see were virgin, lacking discernable footprints. He steeled himself for what lay ahead, that damned thirty-foot expanse of sand and brush. If he were going to get nailed, he knew it would happen out there. It looked as vast as the Sahara Desert, but there was no avoiding it and no way around it. He had to traverse it. Simple as that.

Here goes.…

Moving no faster than a foot every five seconds, he started his crawl across the sand.

He ran the math through his head to distract himself from the pain and wet sensation in his arm. Thirty feet times five seconds per foot. One hundred and fifty seconds. Two-and-a-half minutes. That’s not so long really, after all, it’s—

Halfway across the sand, he froze.

Had he heard something behind him?

A crunch of leaves?

If Leonard was back there, he was a sitting duck out here in the open. He knew his ghillie suit transformed him into a shrub, but what about the tracks he left crawling out here? Moving his head slowly, he snuck a look over his right shoulder and was surprised when he didn’t see any deep tracks. He hadn’t remembered brushing them flat with his legs at he moved, but he must have. He’d done it on autopilot, on pure instinct from his old training. I’ll be damned, he thought.

There it was again.

A crunch of dried leaves.

He was certain this time.

Staring through the thinly spaced stalks of underbrush, he watched for any sign of movement. Expecting to see a pair of combat boots, a chill raked his spine when he saw the source of the noise.

Chapter 27

Chapter  27

A mountain lion.

And a damned big one. Two hundred pounds of solid muscle, sharp claws, and yellow ivory was a mere twenty feet away.

Taking slow, deliberate steps, the animal slinked forward with its head low, its eyes searching for the source of blood it smelled. Had the rifle shots awakened it? Nathan knew mountain lions were mostly twilight predators. The rifle shots should’ve spooked it, made it haul ass out of here, but a fresh blood scent triggered a powerful instinct, especially if it was hungry.

When it reached the edge of the fallen log Nathan had traversed a minute earlier, it sniffed the ground and froze. Then it looked him straight at him.

Go away, damn you. Go away!

Like something out of a developing nightmare, it took a step into the sun-bleached sand.