Drawdown

By J. Gunnar Grey

Something’s not right in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Captain Kelly Bonham, a NATO electronics officer and combat zone veteran, knows there’s a problem. A certain group of hikers are disappearing and then reappearing on the park’s marked trails, and when she tries to follow them, poof! — they’re gone. Where are they hiding, and why? At the same time, some evil person shot a mama coyote in the park, leaving Bonnie to babysit the four surviving pups with some questionable help from her retired bomb sniffer, Pojo.

Bonnie’s hunting for the reason behind the weirdness. But that reason is far darker and more twisted than she expects. With her life and others’ on the line — Pojo, the pups, her ranger friends — how can she stop the killers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dingbat Publishing
• Release date: Dec 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215441299

Book preview

Drawdown

J. Gunnar Grey

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2023 by J. Gunnar Grey

Dingbat Publishing

Humble, Texas

DRAWDOWN

Copyright © 2023 by J. Gunnar Grey

Dingbat Publishing

Humble, Texas

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

eBooks cannot be sold, shared, uploaded to Torrent sites, or given away because that’s an infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this e-book can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are entirely the produce of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual locations, events, or organizations is coincidental

In memory of my beloved.

1

December

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Culberson County, far West Texas

No. Neal, no. Noooooo—

Ranger Neal Thomas grunted beneath the weight of the massive dog crate. He paused outside her cabin’s front door, skewered her with a sideways glare, hefted the crate higher, and slid it and his blocky body through the doorway.

…leaving Bonnie standing outside, yelling at nobody. A breeze whispered through the alligator pines, and blustering branches sprinkled light and shadow across Neal’s massive white pickup truck, slanted across her driveway, tailgate down, unbuckled canvas straps tossed aside. Late afternoon sunshine poured across her and the cabin’s windows, but cool air chilled her bare arms. He’d blocked the driveway; otherwise, she could’ve just started up her Willys MB and hightailed it off into the park. As it was…

Damn, damn, damn. She trailed behind him into the cabin’s dissipating warmth, from the pine-scented exterior to the Christmas pine-scented interior, and arrived in time for Neal’s exaggerated care as he set the crate in the geographic center of her cabin.

I am getting too damned old for this. The ranger straightened with one hand on his lower back. Behind him, her little Christmas tree’s lights flashed on and off in random bursts, backlighting him then dropping him into shadow. It had taken her hours to hardwire the lights into her old netbook and arrange the different colored bulbs in a repeating pattern, but only moments to initiate a randomizer program for each color. Somehow, with Neal’s invasion of her cozy little cabin, her success no longer made her feel quite so clever.

Neal pointed at the crate. There’s four of them. Their mama was found in South McKittrick Canyon, peppered with bullet holes from some kneejerk tenderfoot without the sense God gave a rattlesnake. He glared at her again; this time Bonnie knew he wasn’t lecturing her, but the kneejerk tenderfoot who unfortunately wasn’t present to hear it. "You don’t shoot something unless it’s food or it’s threatening you, and even then, unless your life’s in immediate danger, you fire a warning shot first. Whoever killed mama coyote was just plain cussed mean." He pronounced it ky-oat.

Neal, I don’t know a thing about coyotes. She pronounced it the way everyone else on the planet did.

You own a dog, so you know more than anyone else within ten miles. He glanced at Pojo, lounging on the sheepskin rug by her bed.

Pojo didn’t return the favor. He stared at the crate, his too-large ears pricked and pointing. His winter-coat ruff flared around his neck, hiding his collar, and his amber eyes gleamed. Even from across the room, Bonnie couldn’t miss the way his nostrils fluttered.

The rescue group can’t pick them up for a few days. Neal yanked off his Rangers cap, combed his fingers through his thinning pelt, then settled the cap back on his head. But they should be gone before Christmas day.

She blocked his path to the door. "I have not agreed to babysit those — those creatures."

No need. You’ve been democratically elected by me and Terri. That’s two out of three and majority rules. No electoral college out here. He pushed past her, but at the door he hesitated, rough hand on the brass knob, and fixed her with another stare. Further spasms from the multicolored lights flashed red on the right side of his face, yellow on his left. "Christmas dinner is at four. Be there or be square. You’ll get to meet our