When McTeague gave the signal, Mariah ran up the hill and tried to follow Greta, though of course Greta had long ago disappeared. But what worked for Greta, a trained and graceful runner, wasn't appropriate for someone with Mariah's generous build. Her breasts flopped wildly, and her knees began hurting before she had gone 200 yards. Jeff and Dozney started after her at a trot.

No use expending too much energy. This was going to be a cinch.



# # #



Things weren't going easily for Davis and Tom, however. They had started quarrelling even before reaching the summit of the low hill that Greta had climbed so quickly. Tom was winded, and he kept yelling for Davis to slow down. Davis, despite his shoulder injury, was all for pressing ahead at full speed.

When he reached the crest of the hill, he saw Greta, far in the distance. She had veered off to the right, down from the ridgeline toward the tree-lined stream. Once in the trees, she could continue north to the broader woods. At that point, tracking her would be difficult.

Davis would be the first to concede that he wasn't really an outdoorsman, and God knows Tom wasn't - fat Tom, in his overpriced safari outfit. Davis complimented himself that at least he wore something appropriate: a grungy camouflage jacket and plaid Bermuda shorts. You were supposed to fucking relax on a weekend like this one.

He heard Tom wailing behind him. He was yelling about how McTeague and Sims had said the teams should stick together. Don't get separated. Yada, yada, yada.

Fuck Tom. Fuck Sims and McTeague. Fuck 'em all. He had paid 60,000 for this hunt, and he wasn't going to let this slow-footed piglet hold him back. He quickened his pace, and Tom's yelling began to fade in the distance.



# # #



One by one, the women fell to the hunters. Mickie was hit in the breast by a tranquilizer dart and carried to the Abattoir, where she would die a slow and agonizing death. Jeff and Dozney caught up with Mariah before she had gone a mile. She turned and surrendered, promising a wide and enticing array of sexual favors. But Dozney stuck a knife in her stomach, and Jeff finished her off by stabbing her in the back. Then they cut off her beautiful breasts for souvenirs. Layla was felled by an arrow in her left buttock while she fled. Paulie and Bob then tied her to a barn door and took turns filling her guts with arrows and crossbow bolts. They produced a nice, tight pattern. Not a single projectile was more than five inches from her navel.



# # #



Davis had followed the creek north, wading upstream in the middle of it, and the going was difficult. The terrain got more and more rugged, and he was being forced to climb. At one point, he had slipped on wet rocks and had reacted instinctively by reaching for an overhanging branch. That reopened the wound in his shoulder.

All in all, the day was not going well. To make matters worse, he kept getting urgent radio messages from Sims and McTeague. They wanted to know where he was. Tom had snitched to them, no doubt. He hadn't heard directly from Tom because the radio system only allowed communication between the hunters and "Base," meaning wherever Sims and McTeague were at the moment. Radio traffic among the hunters would be too confusing, Sims had said.

Fuck him, Davis muttered to himself. Fuck 'em all. He'd track her down and bag her. He'd use his hunting knife to rip her guts out, because he made $250,000 a year doing tax law and he didn't need to be peddling sluts' organs to some fucking medical center for chump change.

Davis was so wrapped up in his internal monologue that he almost failed to notice that he had reached a point where a smaller tributary flowed into the stream. Which way should he go? Greta had angled down from the hill to the stream, and twice since then he had seen her, well ahead of him, splashing as she ran. He was gaining on her, but now he had to decide which way she might have gone.

He looked to the left, up the main stream, which now ran through a deep ravine. He could see something white through the trees. Maybe it was just some kind of water bird, like the egret he's seen a few minutes earlier. But maybe it was her.

The tributary was little more than an unpromising rivulet. He decided to explore that distant splash of white in the green gloom of the main stream.

Greta watched him from atop a rock outcropping above the ravine. She had tied her tank top to some bushes below, hoping Davis would spot it. Her strategy seemed to be working. He was plodding through the water. The shoulder of his camouflage jacket was stained dark red. He must be bleeding.

When he was almost directly below her, Greta picked up the stone she had chosen. It was rounded on one side but had a jagged edge on the other. She guessed it weighed 25 to 30 pounds. She lifted it over her head and stood for a second like some magnificent, bare-breasted Amazon. Then she heaved it just as Davis, who sensed danger, looked up. He caught the rock square in the face, with a sound like an axe hitting a watermelon, and fell backward into the water. His face was a mass of blood.

Greta retreated from the ledge and hurried down a circuitous path that led to the water. She hoped Davis wouldn't regain consciousness before she got to him.

She needn't have worried. He lay staring up at the sky. At least, one eye stared skyward. The other had been knocked deep into his skull. He didn't seem to be breathing.

She reached out and placed her hand on his throat. No pulse. Good. She took his jacket and cap. She would need them. Her fair skin and blonde hair had made her too easy to spot. She took his knife, his radio and his map, too.

She picked up the dart gun, examined it, then tossed it into the water. She had fired guns before, but she hadn't ever seen one like this and there wasn't time to learn how to use it.

Then she pulled off Davis's shorts and underpants and let the water carry them downstream. She considered cutting off his dick, as a warning to her other pursuers, but that seemed too barbarous. They were into mutilation. She'd be satisfied with survival.

She looked at the map. The Ranch was more or less rectangular, longer from north to south than east to west. The stream ran down the middle, from the hills in the north to a lake at the southern edge, not far from the hotel. A smaller stream, flowing from the northeast, joined it near where she was standing. That meant she was about a mile or less from the northern fence line. There were numbered buildings scattered about, mostly in the southern half. From the legend at the bottom of the map, she found the bunkhouse where they had spent the night. About half a mile north of it was another large building. It was called the Abattoir. The word sounded vaguely familiar. There were also a barn and several cabins in this area.

The only buildings in the north were a maintenance shed in the northwest and a second bunkhouse, at the northeast corner of the Ranch, next to the smaller stream that flowed into this one. That seemed promising. She retrieved her top, then headed down to the tributary and began the trip upstream to Bunkhouse Two.



###



It was Dawn who found Davis. She was running upstream, with her two pursuers - a veterinarian named Fred and a restaurant owner named Guido - close behind her. She stopped, transfixed by the sight of Davis's bloody, broken face. Fred, splashing toward her, raised his dart gun but quickly lowered it when he spotted Davis. The three of them stood looking down, a few feet from the body.

"Jesus," Dawn said, covering her face with her hands.

"We better call McTeague," Fred said. He leaned down, felt Davis's throat, then clicked on his radio. He gave a description of where they were, then added, in response to a question from McTeague, "No, he's definitely dead. Might have fallen, but he's wearing no pants. Makes me wonder if he was trying to rape the girl he was chasing - Gertie or whatever her name was - and she hit him with a creek stone or something."

After a bit more conversation on how Davis might have come to such an unfortunate end, Fred turned off the radio and looked at Guido and Dawn. There was an awkward silence. How do you resume a chase - a life-and-death chase - after an interruption like this, Fred wondered. Then Guido, who had been very quiet, answered that question by cold-cocking Dawn with the butt of his dart gun.

She crumpled and landed face first in the stream. Fred picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. "We'll take turns," he said. "It's a pretty far piece to the Abattoir."

"Okay," said Guido. "And maybe we can stop now and then and fuck her."



# # #



For McTeague, the day was going terribly wrong. He had lost a hunter, the first time that had ever happened. And seconds after getting that news, he had received a request by radio from the assholes who had caught the redhead, Tiffany. They wanted to let her go.

Sure. Let her go. Let her go straight to "60 Minutes" and "Good Morning America." Let her be the keynote speaker at the next NOW convention. Let her fuck up all that McTeague had worked so hard to create: a program where successful American men could spend their hard-earned money in healthful outdoor activity, while providing needed transplant organs for those cursed with heart and kidney diseases and other infirmities.

Like hell, let her go. But he told the hunter on the radio, yes, her release could be arranged. Just take her over to Bunkhouse One and ask for Loopy.