The Cold Kind

By Daniel Luther Jackson

An old rancher looking for a lost cow stumbles across a sight that sends him on a race for his life. After an intense battle and narrow escape the story takes a twist he never expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781300283393

Book preview

The Cold Kind

The Cold Kind

By Daniel Luther Jackson

Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Luther Jackson

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-300-28339-3

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

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Cover Illustration by Daniel Luther Jackson

Made in the United States of America

PROLOGUE

The aircraft came in low and fast on a trajectory as direct as a spear thrust into a school of fish. If terrestrial radar had been able to detect its descent, it would have been clocked at an air speed of over 8000 miles per hour. It came blazing in from the southeast with lethal intent. Ten miles before it reached the city, it released two missiles. They shot away from the craft and traveled along a course towards pre-set coordinates of two target locations in the city.

One missile shot towards the air base on the southeast side of town. The other’s target was the downtown area. By the time they both detonated, the aircraft that had delivered them was gone and back in the upper stratosphere of the planet. The simultaneous explosions that followed were not laced with the traditional earth elements of fire and brimstone. They were more sublime in nature but more singularly directed at the eradication of all life within the kill radius of their blasts.

At ground zero, huge bubbles filled with two million tons of carbon dioxide burst. Cloud waves of the noxious gas rapidly spread out in ever increasing circles along ground level; like the smoke emitted by a smoke machine from some gargantuan music stage. Any living thing within a seven mile radius from the epicenter of the two blasts suffocated from a lack of oxygen. Every man, woman, child and family pet in the city that lived at ground level died in their sleep that Sunday morning.

Those few that slept on the second floors of their homes or even fewer those that had been working at that time Sunday morning in hi-rises downtown survived the attack.

As far as the outside world was concerned, no one issued any alarms until well after noon that day. For the survivors, the hours from sunup to sundown that day became dark memories that could never be erased…or forgotten.

1 - INTRODUCTIONS

The man rode across what he called the north eighty acres of his place. He sat astride a large Appaloosa gelding named Stu who walked with an easy gait. The sun beat down on Stu and the man who rode him without relief. Other than the occasional postage stamp cloud floating overhead, there was little shade to be found. There was the occasional mesquite tree or cat claw bush but their foliage was thin and scant casting only a thin shadow on the baked Texas earth.

Stu and the man saw no other animals along the trail as they made their way across the barren landscape. A pair of buzzards zigzagged back and forth on the rising thermals of air above, but they were the only witnesses to the pair’s passage.

The man scanned the horizon ahead for signs of movement.  His given name was Felton, but since he had been a little boy, he had always been called by his nickname, Man. He was searching for a pregnant cow that had disappeared the night before during a thunderstorm. Somehow the cow had managed to lift the latch on the gate of her pen and escape captivity.

With the heavy rainfall from the overnight storm, most of the old cow’s tracks had been washed away, but every now and then under Man’s watchful eye he was able to find the random hoof print or pieces of broken underbrush from the big animal’s passage. He kept following her trail across the big pasture until he came to the ravine of the dry wash (or draw as they call them in West Texas) that split the north eighty acres of his place. The line of the wash stretched diagonally across his place from southwest corner to northeast corner effectively dividing the ranch into right triangles that met at their common hypotenuses.

Stu descended into the wash following the cattle trail into its bottom and back up the other side. As the man and horse came out of the draw, they spooked a jack rabbit lolling in the sparse shade of an agarita bush. Stu snorted his disapproval as they passed and the rabbit ran up about fifty feet farther up the rail and stopped, regarding the ones who had disturbed his foraging. As Stu and Man continued their slow approach, the rabbit turned and ran into the thick cover of a patch of prickly pear cacti.

Man could see that the trail was more distinct here and from the direction of the tracks it looked like the damn cow was headed for the river that bordered the north line of his property. If she had broken through the barbed wire fence barrier, Man knew it would be a formidable task getting her back through the fence and headed back to her pen.  The fence was all that prevented her from getting into the tall grass in the bottomland of the river. Once the cow began feasting on the juicy river grass, no amount of feed bucket shaking would get the bovine’s attention. She would try to stay overnight in the river bottom. There she would be fair game for any predator that came along.

This concerned Man greatly for he had heard coyotes the night before howling a cacophony of bitter protests regarding their empty bellies. The old cow might survive an assault by the shifty coyotes, but if she had a newborn calf, it’s chance for survival from such an attack would be minimal.

Man and horse continued their course and soon found the break in the fence where the cow had busted free. The animal had slid down the slippery slope from the evidence of her hoof tracks and the grooves they had made in the river mud as she slid down the embankment. As for the cow, she was nowhere to be seen.

Man nudged Stu gently with his knees as they passed through the gap in the fence. They zigzagged back and forth down the embankment until they reached the bottom of the slope. There, they paused while Stu bent his head and drank deeply from the shallow water of the river. Man leaned down on one side of the horse and dipped his hat in the water as well, bringing the hat up to his head and pouring the cool liquid on his hot scalp to cool himself off a little. He pulled a canteen from his saddle and drank deeply of the contents; wiping his lips afterwards.

Man felt better and found temporary relief at least from the intense heat. Even though he had lived in Texas all his life he still took exception at the audacity of the weather for already reaching over a hundred degrees temperature Fahrenheit by mid morning. He looked up and down along the channel of the languid river but still saw no sign of the pregnant cow. He noticed some movement north across the river and realized it was his neighbor’s son riding around on a four wheeler kicking up a dust cloud about three hundred yards away. When he saw Man, he waved and made his way to where Man and Stu stood looking out across the pastures of the two ranches. The kid’s name was Roy and he came roaring up on the four wheeler, twisting the wheel of the little ATV at the last minute and stopping in a cloud of dirt and dust that fell just shy of Stu’s hooves. Stu snorted again, as was his habit, disapproving of the boy’s driving skills.

How’s it going, Mr. Baker, he said politely as he got off the ATV.

It’s going good, Roy, Man said, How have you and your Dad been holding up?

Not bad, said the young man, You get any rain from that storm last night?

Oh yeah, Man said with feeling, We had about an inch and a half according to the rain gauge this morning.

Yes sir, the boy replied, That’s about what ours said too. You lose any cattle last night?

Just the one, Man answered, I’ve got a pregnant cow that got loose sometime in the thick of it last night. That’s what I’m doing now is trying to find the silly thing. I don’t suppose you may have seen any signs of the animal?

No sir, Mr. Baker, Roy answered, But I’ll keep an eye out for it. If we see it I’ll let you know.

I would appreciate any help I can get, Roy, said Man, It’s going to be hell getting the damned thing back across the fence. Roy went back to the ATV and got back on the machine. He started the engine back up and put a hand on the steering wheel.

Will do, Mr. Baker, he said, You tell Sam, I said hello.

I will, said Man. Sam (also known as Samantha) was his daughter and she was about the same age as Roy. The two kids had been playmates for so long they didn’t know any different. With Sam getting older and becoming more of a woman every day, her interests were straying from her old playmates.  He didn’t have the heart to say as much to Roy, though. He would find out soon enough on his own. The boy went east along the north bank of the river. Man decided to go west and turned Stu’s head in that direction and nudged the horse in the sides with his boot heels gently. Stu snorted and began to meander in the direction Man had indicated.

The bank of the river gently sloped down to the flat bottom of the river channel and Stu picked his footholds carefully as he sidled down the bank. Once down in the river bottom there was a little shade from the mesquites and live oaks that had gained a foothold with their deep tap roots in the river bottom. The water was shallow along this stretch of the river and Stu drank freely from the river water each time Man paused to catch his bearings and try to get a glimpse of the lost cow. The river stretched to the west in a long easy curve south getting deeper the further south it went.

Man decided to follow the river around the bend until he got to its deeper parts. If the pregnant cow had come this way she would be blocked by the deeper part of the river. He clicked his teeth with his tongue to signal Stu to begin walking again and they rode another hundred feet or so along the curve of the water. As they rounded the curve they could see further around the bend. They continued moving slowly like this through the river grass; the sounds of their progress drowned out by the rushing water and the sound of singing cicadas in the trees.

Man saw Stu’s ears pitch forward. The horse heard something up around the unseen bend of the river. The horse voiced a guttural sound deep in its throat. It was the sound a horse made when it heard a rattlesnake in the grass. Man pulled back on the reins of Stu’s bridle and brought the big gelding to a halt. Man listened to the sounds of the water and the flutter of the slight breeze parting the leaves of the trees and then he heard it. It sounded like a woman’s voice rising in pitch and volume and then it cut off in the middle with a gurgle.

Man quickly and silently dismounted from the horse. Cougars had been known to scream like a woman in pain and he wanted to make sure he didn’t walk up on a cougar feeding.   Man pulled out his granddad’s thirty-ought-six from its holster behind Stu’s saddle. He checked the rifle and flicked the safety off. He chambered a bullet and looked over his shoulder in the direction of the scream he had heard earlier. His granddad had always taught him when approaching an unknown danger with a loaded gun to use a spoonful of caution, but faced with an angry animal, the time wasted in removing the safety could be the difference between life and death.

Man pulled on Stu’s right rein until the big horse had turned a full 180 degrees and was facing back the way they had come. He walked Stu back a hundred feet or so and tied a rein to a sapling mesquite tree. Stu dropped his head and began to munch on the grass. At least here, the horse would be quiet and less likely to whinny revealing their presence to the unknown element around the bend in the river ahead.

Man walked back to the spot he had first heard the scream with the rifle pointed ahead. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the high grass until he could see around the bend in the river and see if there really was a woman ahead. He peered between tall bunches of Johnson grass to see the scene ahead.

In times of extreme duress, it is amazing to see the reaction of the human mind and body when a normal day goes bad. The blood drained from Man’s face and his heart felt like it had taken a two foot jump up his throat. He was pinned to the spot halfway between terror and duty trying to make a decision as to what course of action to take.

The river widened out into a wider stream ahead and the water was deeper. Grassy banks ran the length of the bend on each side of the river, free of cacti and mesquite, making a quiet place for livestock to drink and wade in the cool water.

The river was tranquil here and the water stretched wide devoid of ripples. It ran through a green glade where two large oak trees grew on opposite banks from each other shading the small meadow. It was a peaceful scene until Man’s eye had noted the two nude women standing waist deep in the river. They were both blonde and from the distance to where Man crouched they looked like sisters, possibly even twins. One faced away from the other. The other sister stood behind her sister holding her in a tight embrace. Man watched in horror as the other sister appeared to be ripping away the skin from her sister’s back. She stopped the rending of her sister’s flesh long enough to seize her by the throat and strangle the life from her unfortunate sibling.

All the while, Man watched frozen to the spot where he lay hidden in the tall grass. The rifle protruded from the clump of grass, but it was just another shadow in the grass from this distance. He had been helpless to help the poor woman before her evil sister had killed her. The murdering sister slowly sank the body of her sister into the deeper water of the river, muttering words to her sister’s corpse that Man couldn’t quite make out from where he lay. The murderess kneeled in the water and washed the blood from her hands.

While she was faced away from him, Man slowly and silently brought the rifle up to bear so he could look through the scope and get a better look at the woman. He peered through the sights of the gun to see a beautiful woman in every sense of the word.

She turned towards him oblivious of his presence over two hundred feet away. She was bare and the nipples of her breasts were rigid from the cold water. Man found no excitement in her nudity and in fact he felt a chill run up his spine as she turned and seemed to stare directly at his location, directly at him. He froze watching her through the scope of the thirty-ought-six as he held his breath. Finally she turned her head a little and he relaxed although he did not move or otherwise reveal his position in the tall grass.

He observed her with more focus and noted that she was blonde, a natural one it appeared and with eyes a brilliant green. Everything about her seemed normal and he wondered at his own unease on seeing the woman direct her attention his way. Then he noticed her hands. They seemed to be longer than normal with an extra joint down their length. Her fingers ended in sharp nails that were shaped into talons and he understood a little better how she was able to flay the skin off the back of her now dead sister with her bare hands.

As she emerged from the water completely, Man noticed that her feet had the same element of strangeness about them and even though he couldn’t quite put his finger on the exact item that caused his revulsion, he felt secure in his thoughts that what he saw before him was not normal, maybe not even of this world. Fear gripped his heart with icy fingers as she turned in his direction and raised a hand in his direction.

At first he thought she was waving at him to come from his hiding place and then he realized she held some kind of hand weapon that he had never seen before. In her eyes Man saw the most evil look he had ever seen on the face of a person and he knew in his heart without any doubt that the woman was as cold and unfeeling as the stones that lined the thalweg at the bottom of the stream of the river.

With a loud cry she fired her weapon and Man’s latent years of army training kicked in and he fired back reflexively. He had a good bead on the blond woman’s head, but she seemed to sense his finger as he pulled the trigger and she moved, jumping back quickly. His shot that was aimed as a head shot became a shoulder wound