Page 28 of Montana Delta Rescue
She opted to stay put and hoped whatever it was would draw them off long enough for her to move away from them without them hearing.
Thunder boomed again making her jump. But she stayed down, close to the earth. Humidity in the air along with her fear made sweat drop from her face onto the leaves below her. She watched it and thought about how she had no water, no food, and no weapons to defend herself. Not even anything to camp with, to sleep on or under, and a storm was moving in. Instead, she was wearing a flimsy sundress and heels. Not what you wanted to wear when spending time in the mountains.
She pulled her cell phone out to look at it again.
Still no bars.
No way to tell anyone what was happening or where she was.
Are they even looking for me? And if they are, how will they know where to look?
The dark clouds had now fully moved in, and the sky had turned dark.
She looked up.
I hope this makes it harder for Tony to find me. I might be a city girl and know nothing about camping, but Tony is a city man. I bet he doesn’t know much either.
She’d once asked him to take her to see Red Rock Canyon just outside of Vegas, when they had gone to Vegas for a weekend. She’d thought a picnic there would be pretty and romantic.
He’d curled his lip in a snarl and said, “What do ya wanna go there for? I’ll take ya to a nice restaurant here. Fancy French place.” And that had been the end of that.
Now she was glad he wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman type of guy. She hoped he’d get tired of being on this mountain.
A chirping had begun below her to her left.
Maybe the men had disturbed some birds and the birds were talking to each other.
She listened, thinking how strange it was to be on the ground listening to birds and trying to hide from two killers. The sounds were kind of cute.
Then she heard a hiss followed by a growl.
There’s a house cat on this mountain. How strange. And no more birds chirping.
She looked down and over to where the sounds had come from.
Bang!
Bang, bang, bang!
Two guns went off and something was now crashing through the trees toward her.
“Did you get it?” Tony shouted.
As she lay there wondering whether to move, a large mountain lion came into view as he leapt up and over her, all eight feet of him, his long tail trailing over her.
“No! Missed,” Cleo called. “You?”
She froze, horrified by the sight of the lion, her ears still taking everything in.
“Missed!” Tony yelled back. “Wrong pussycat anyway.”
Cleo laughed really hard. “You wanna have her one more time before I take her out?”
“Nah,” Tony said. “Plenty more cats out there.”
They were closer or she wouldn’t have heard them without them shouting. She stayed frozen, on the ground, listening. Wondering what she could do if they found her.
Rock and Herculeswere just beginning their search for Marilyn when he heard the shots. Ordinarily Rock would have given Herc Marilyn’s blouse to sniff and then spoken the command for him to go and find her. Herc would have been off like a rocket to do just that.
