Hunter's Moon Read online

  Hunter’s Moon

  By

  Billy Kring

  Copyright 2017 by Billy Kring

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by:

  Elizabeth Mackey Graphic Design: www.elizabethmackey.com

  Books by Billy Kring:

  The Hunter Kincaid Series

  QUICK

  OUTLAW ROAD

  THE EMPTY LAND

  TONTON

  HUNTER’S MOON

  The Ronny Baca Series

  BACA

  L.A. WOMAN

  BAD MOON RISING

  Short stories

  THE DEVIL’S FOOTPRINTS–A HUNTER KINCAID SHORT STORY

  JORNADA

  Non-Series Novels

  HELL’S BELLS

  WHERE EVIL CANNOT ENTER (as B.G. Kring)

  COWRITTEN WITH GEORGE WIER

  1889: JOURNEY TO THE MOON

  1899: JOURNEY TO MARS

  You can find these books and more at my website: www.billykring.com

  Want to know when my next novel is available? You can sign up for my new release e-mail list here:

  Click me!

  For my family

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 1

  You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst.

  -William Langewiesche-

  The night vision scope searches left and right over a green-tinged landscape, attempting to center crosshairs on the running man’s back, but he moves rabbit-quick, dodging erratically and using anything he can duck behind to put things between him and the hunter.

  The scope loses the quarry as the man slips behind a boulder and sprints up a narrow side canyon. The sniper guides the drone using the keys and touchpad of the MacBook Pro as he watches the laptop screen rather than using the sensory goggles to guide the weapon. The running man stumbles, almost going down, but continues up the small canyon.

  The sniper follows him with the drone, as patient as a buzzard over a dying animal. It is only a matter of time, the sniper knows, and then the man will die, taking what he has seen with him as he breathes a final time.

  The canyon ends on a level plain, and there is no place to hide, no place to run as the man looks across a flat expanse of desert. He glances back once before sprinting across the open area.

  The green image shows all his actions and the controller accelerates the drone toward the man, pushing keys to move the crosshairs up his back. He pushes another button and the image jiggles at the same time that three dark spots appear on the running man’s shirt. The man staggers as the crosshairs move to the back of the man’s head. The image jiggles again and the man falls. He does not move. The controller circles the drone several times over the man until he is sure, and then he flies the drone from the area. The controller relaxes, turning up his music as the song, Another One Bites the Dust, begins.

  The controller smiled. There will be many more biting the dust before he’s through…

  ~*~

  Hunter first saw the body in the bloody shirt lying facedown on a flat expanse of gravel and thin soil dotted with prickly pear and dark green creosote. The man lay facedown and motionless. Hairs on Hunter’s neck prickled as she looked around, but she saw no other living thing.

  As she waited for her partner to arrive in the Jeep, Hunter squatted on her heels Indian style. She tilted up the brim on the straw western hat and wiped sweat and grit from her face with a handkerchief as she looked over things.

  From his tracks and the position of his body, the man seemed to be heading for Tinaja Prieta Canyon, in the eastern edge of the rugged Chinati mountain range.

  She heard the vehicle coming and stood so he could see her. Gary stopped the Jeep twenty yards from the scene and walked to Hunter’s side. He said, “What have we got?”

  “Looks like somebody shot him with a .22. He’s been hit three times in the back and once in the back of the head. The three are grouped close, like the shooter was right there at his back. I’m pretty sure the head shot was the last one, and he fell and didn’t move after he hit the ground.”

  Gary said, “He’s wearing the wrong clothes for out here.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He went to the body, checking inside the back of the man’s collar. “Dior Homme. That’s a three hundred dollar shirt.”

  Hunter said, “Are you serious? And how did you know that?”

  “I was in California on vacation a couple years ago. We went to Rodeo Drive. You know, to be tourists and gawk at all the pricey stuff. They have a Dior Homme store there.”

  Hunter looked at the dead man, “What is someone dressed like that doing out here?”

  “Maybe a drug deal that went wrong.” Gary looked at the holes in the man’s shirt, “You think it could be a .25 instead of a .22?”

  “Maybe, but look at the one in his head. It’s small. Had to be a plain .22 round, too, because anything more powerful would have exited the front. There’s no blood on his front.”

  “Did you move him?”

  “I checked for vitals, lifted him just enough to see there’s no exit wounds.”

  Gary looked around, “Where are the shooter’s tracks?”

  Hunter gave him a long look. “There aren’t any.”

  “None?”

  “This guy’s tracks, and now yours and mine are the only ones here.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss them?”

  “Knock yourself out. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

  Gary walked over the area for twenty minutes, and then returned to Hunter and the dead man. “I followed his back trail that way for seventy, eighty yards and looked on both sides of his trail. Only found your sign and his.”

  Hunter said, “I’d followed him three miles to here. I went back a couple hundred yards and rechecked. His and mine are all there is.”

  Gary looked the area over again, “This is on a slight rise, after coming out of the canyon, and there is nada for a quarter mile around. You think he was shot earlier and walked this far?”

  “No. Look at the blood. You can tell it leaked while he was in this position. He was shot right here.”

  Gary tilted the hat back on his head. “How can that be?”

  Hunter said, “I’m thinking somebody channeled Chris Kyle or Carlos Hathcock. It’s the only thing I’ve got.”

  “But with a .22?”

  “I know.” They were silent for a minute before Hunter asked, “Who’s coming out on this one?”

  “Sheriff Montoya.”

  “Is Danny bringing any deputies with him?”

  Gary grinned at Hunter for calling the new Sheriff by his first name. Montoya had been Sheriff for six months, and was a little stiff when people didn’t address him by his title. “You just keep asking for it don’t you?”

  “He told me I could call him that, just nobody else can. So, is he bringing anybody with him?”

  “He didn’t say, but I caught radio chatter that several deputies are headed this direction.”

  Hunter pulled the brim of her hat lower over her eyes to help cut the glare, “Let’s wait in the Jeep. It’s so hot out here I’m cooking.”

  Half an hour later, S
heriff Montoya arrived. He had two passengers in the Suburban with him, a sixty-something white-haired man wearing sunglasses, a black suit and narrow black tie, and a shorter, forty-something man dressed the same way.

  These guys watched Men in Black one too many times, Hunter thought.

  They converged at the body, and Montoya introduced the older man. “This is Mr. Jones, he’s with the federal government.”

  Hunter said, “Well what do you know, we’re with the federal government, too.”

  The younger man extended his hand to Hunter, “Ashton Dean.”

  She shook it and said, “Hunter Kincaid. You go by Ash?”

  “My name is Ashton.”

  A corner of her mouth twitched. She introduced her partner to him as she wondered if ol’ Ashton Dean was also with the government, since the Sheriff only mentioned Jones.

  Jones looked at the body for a good minute without talking. Thirty seconds into it, Hunter shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her nostrils flared after fifty seconds of silence, and she glared at the Sheriff. Jones spoke ten seconds later, “Was there anyone else with him?”

  “No,” Hunter said.

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss any tracks?”

  “I’m sure. We double-checked the trail. Was he with someone you need to tell us about?”

  Jones ignored her question and said, “Tell us everything, starting from the beginning.”

  Gary stepped in front of Hunter to keep her from smarting off. He said, “Sure. We started on the River before daylight…”

  It was four AM when Hunter, driving with her head halfway out of the window so she could use the headlight’s low beams to check the silted riverbank for sign, spotted the faint track coming out of the Rio Grande. They were a quarter-mile upriver from the small Mexican village of Las Vibras. At first the tracks were indistinct, hardly more than smudges, but Gary and Hunter figured it was a single person, and probably male because of the stride.

  As they followed the slight indications of passage, with one of them driving the Jeep and the other on foot, the Agents realized this one knew the desert. He’d crossed at night to avoid the heat, and he walked fast, not wavering his direction except to avoid cactus, Spanish daggers, and ocotillo.

  Trading off on who drove and who tracked on foot in the places they couldn’t drive, the two Agents followed the sign by flashlight for three hours until the sun winked a sliver of yellow above the eastern horizon.

  That’s when the man’s trail went crazy.

  He went left, then right, and doubled back, then raced forward to another gulley, where the tracks showed he stayed for a while. Then it was off again, weaving and twisting from one draw to the next, from one patch of cenizo to a cluster of boulders. It seemed he tried to throw someone off his trail, except didn’t brush out any tracks.

  His trail became harder to follow when the terrain grew rougher as they approached the eastern side of the Chinati mountain range. She found fewer and fewer tracks in the rock. They were losing ground on the man, and knew they had to make a decision. Gary said, “I think he’s planning to go through Tinaja Prieta Canyon.”

  Hunter said, “I think so, too.”

  They split up, with Hunter following on foot while Gary drove the Jeep in a wide loop to avoid a series of arroyos and washouts. That’s when he got Hunter’s call about the body. He radioed Headquarters and had them contact the Sheriff’s Office, then drove to Hunter and the dead man.

  Gary finished the story by saying to the white-haired man, “And then you two arrived.”

  Mr. Jones nodded. “Neither of you took anything off the body?”

  “What are you implying?” Hunter asked.

  “I said did you take anything off the body?”

  Hunter put her hands on her hips, “I just wanted to make sure I heard right, that we’re being asked if we’re thieves.”

  Mr. Jones said, “I’ve seen enough, Sheriff. Take us to Marfa.”

  Hunter stepped in front of him as he moved toward the Sheriff’s vehicle. “You never told me your first name. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Someone who’s way above your pay grade.”

  “Oh, shit,” Gary muttered, shaking his head. He felt sure that if he looked close, steam would be coming out of Hunter’s ears.

  Sheriff Montoya stepped between Hunter and Mr. Jones, “We’re leaving. Hunter, you and Gary come by the office later and we’ll drink a cup.”

  He ushered Mr. Jones to the vehicle, and they left as a Sheriff’s Department Ram Charger arrived and three deputies emerged with rolls of banana-yellow crime scene tape and other gear.

  Hunter said to Gary, “That guy ticked me off.”

  “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

  Hunter said, “You’re a funny man.” She went to the older Deputy and asked, “Alonso, who’s that guy with Danny?”

  Alonso, said, “He didn’t talk to us, and the Sheriff didn’t say. But he arrived in Marfa in a helicopter, a fancy one. It was black.”

  Hunter looked at Gary, “A helicopter.”

  Gary said, “No tracks.”

  Hunter walked toward the Jeep. “I can’t wait to hear what Danny has to say.”

  Gary said, “That better be some good coffee he’s brewing or we’ll walk out when the politically correct BS starts. I’ll stay a little longer if the coffee’s good.”

  “I hear that.”

  The Sheriff was good at his word and had a fresh pot finishing in the Bunn when the two Agents walked into his office.

  Danny pointed, “There’s your cups, and Hunter, you know where the cream and sugar’s located.”

  Hunter said, “You’re letting us use your real coffee cups? Wow, this is gonna be some story.”

  Danny shook his head. “You’re giving me a migraine, Kincaid.”

  When they were seated, Danny said, “You didn’t recognize him?”

  Hunter and Gary shook their heads. Hunter said, “Who is he?”

  “His name is Lincoln Jones. He’s made a lot of money, mostly from the large amount of stock he bought early on in both Microsoft and Apple. He keeps his face out of the news, and has for the last two decades. Before that he was a Marine who saw combat, and then worked overseas for the CIA, evidently doing some heavy espionage work for years. He’s still attached to them, and he’s an advisor to the President.”

  Gary said, “I think I remember that name from way back, in Grenada maybe.”

  Danny said, “You’ve got a good memory.”

  Gary said, “My uncle was there.”

  Danny said, “He was a Marine at that time, and did some heroics that were played up in the press. He has the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.”

  “That deserves some respect.” Gary said.

  Hunter said, “Why are you suddenly his chauffeur?”

  Danny put his cup down, walked around his desk and closed the door. “Because I got a call from the White House.”

  Hunter said, “What did they say?”

  “They asked me to extend every courtesy to Mr. Jones.”

  “That was good enough for you?”

  Danny sighed, “Hunter, everything’s not black or white like you think.”

  Gary asked, “What’s he doing in Presidio County at a murder scene?”

  Danny said, “The murdered man is his stepson.”

  Danny and Gary let a moment of silence pass as they looked at Hunter.

  Hunter said, “I feel like such an ass.”

  “You should,” Gary said, and Hunter gave him a light elbow him in the side.

  The Sheriff said, “You don’t have to feel bad. He said he liked your attitude, said you were protective of your organization and your friends, and he admired that.”

  “Huh. I’ll apologize to him if we meet again.”

  Danny said, “It wouldn’t hurt anything if you did.”

  “What do you know about his stepson?”

  “Next to nothing.”

  “Wh
at about Jones’ sidekick, Ashton?”

  “Only that he’s Lincoln Jones’ right hand man. Been with him about ten, fifteen years.”

  They finished their coffee and left the Sheriff’s office. Hunter said, “Let’s call it a day.”

  “I’m with you,” Gary said. They drove to the Marfa station and serviced the vehicle for the next shift, then completed their paperwork and drove to their separate homes. Hunter entered her big two-story home and climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. She stripped down, showered, and put on an oversized white tee shirt with Dallas Cowboys XXL on the front. She slipped into loose shorts made of cutoff gray cotton sweatpants and went down the stairs to make a screwdriver, which she carried to the couch.

  The phone rang, and she took a sip of the orange juice and Tito’s vodka before answering. “Hello.”

  Lincoln Jones said, “Miss Kincaid, Lincoln Jones here. Please meet me tomorrow at noon at the Cibolo Creek Ranch.”

  Hunter sat up, “Mr. Jones, I apologize for my rudeness this morning.”

  “Not necessary. Don’t tell anyone about meeting me tomorrow. It’s important.”

  A hundred thoughts ran through Hunter’s mind. She said, “Okay, I’ll be there.”

  Jones hung up without saying goodbye. Hunter called the office and requested a day of annual leave for tomorrow. The supervisor approved it and she relaxed, not having to worry about informing others now. She wondered what Lincoln Jones wanted that was so secretive. She sighed and drank more of the screwdriver while turning on the television, surfing channels, finding nothing worthwhile to watch. She went upstairs, crawled into the big bed and opened the new book she’d bought in El Paso last week. She opened it to the marked page. After the first paragraph, she rejoined Walt Longmire in Wyoming on another Craig Johnson-written adventure. The story kept her up longer than she wanted because it was so good that she continued reading, telling herself, just one more page, just one more. She fell asleep like that, with the book on her chest, not wanting to quit.

  Hunter woke at seven with the sun streaming in the window and the Craig Johnson novel still cradled on her chest.