Lightning

                The jeep bounced violently as I hit a rough spot in the dirt road I was traveling on. The Lamar fire road led to the deep back country forests of Yellowstone Park where the wolves had been released earlier that year.  I was traveling too fast for the road but I knew that I had to get to the lake at the end of the road before dark. I now had my best chance of catching Lightning.

                As I drove along the rough road my mind drifted to the previous day’s events. A day that would live in infamy for the rest of my life.

                Chip Silicon and I were in hot pursuit of the man we called Lightning. We called him “Lightning” because every animal he killed he would cut the head off and shave a lightning bolt into the fur of the animal. We had been tracking him for three months now and we were right on his tail.

                We had him cornered in the Spectrum Ridge area when it happened. He had nowhere to run and we were bearing down on him. He came walking out from behind a tree on the trail in front of us. Chip and I pulled out our revolvers and aimed at him. Chip told him to put his hands in the air. That was when he pulled out his rifle and shot.  I heard the bullet whiz by my head. Chip and I dove for cover on opposite sides of the trail. Another shot was fired and Chip cried out in pain. I leaned out into the trail with my revolver pointed towards the spot where Lightning was standing.  Lightning wasn’t there. I waited a minute to make sure he was gone and then I ran over to Chip and saw that he had been hit in the chest. He was bleeding badly. He looked at me and said,  “Get him for me, Don.” As I looked into his eyes I could see the life drain out of them.

                Chip and I had been best friends for thirteen years.  We did everything together, but Lightning had taken him away from me.

                My attention returned to the road as the jeep left the ground for a split second as it went over a mound in the road. The jeep surged to the left but I fought the steering wheel and managed to keep the jeep under my control.

                Sunset was in less than an hour and I had to get to the lake before it got dark. I stomped on the accelerator and the jeep surged with the sudden burst of power. The jeep bounced around in violent waves but I kept it under control. Tonight was the night.

                I reached the lake just as the sun went behind the mountains. I parked the jeep behind some bushes and turned on the interior light. I took the .22 rifle out of its case and made sure the clip was full. I put a few extra clips into my pocket, turned the interior light off and got out of the jeep.  I threw some leaves and tree branches over the jeep and headed towards the other end of the lake.

                At the far side of the lake I found a small campsite. I took cover in some bushes nearby and settled in for a long wait. I knew that this was Lightning’s campsite and that he would be here in a few hours. Lightning came into the camp about an hour after sundown. He was carrying a giant elk head. He put the head down and gathered some wood to start a fire. He lit the fire and sat on a log that he had pulled up to the fire pit. He scanned the bushes around the campsite. He stopped turning his head when he came to the bushes I was hiding in. He gave the bushes a long look and I was worried he had seen me.  I brought the .22 rifle up to my shoulder as quietly as I could. He picked up his rifle and I tensed up waiting for a bullet to come flying at me. No bullet ever came.  Lightning took the clip out of gun and pulled a cleaning kit out of his pack. He started to clean his gun and periodically he would look around at the bushes.

                I waited for the right moment to take him when he was the most defenseless. He put the rifle down and turned his back to me.  I knew that I had to take him now or never. I jumped out of the bush and told him to freeze. I told him to turn around and put his hands on his head. He turned around very quickly and had two pistols in his hands. I fired my rifle at him as soon as I saw the pistols, but it was too late. He was already diving into the bushes. He fired at me and winged my right leg. It was not a serious wound but it hurt. The pain was so great that it brought tears to my eyes. I dropped back into the bushes and tried to regain my composure.

                I could hear Lightning running around to the back side of me and I knew that I had to move quickly if I were to survive this ordeal. I ran in a crouch towards the nearest pine tree. A shot rang out just as I took cover behind the tree. Splinters exploded out of the tree just inches from my face. I fell to the ground and tried to get a fix on Lightning’s position. It was too dark to see him but I could hear him moving around to the side of me trying to get a better shot at me. I crawled around to the other side of the tree and aimed at the rustling bushes where I thought Lightning was. I saw a tree branch move and I shot. I fired three times without even thinking. A flash of orange light came out of the tree I was shooting at and a bullet pierced my left shoulder. I rolled behind a fallen tree and took a minute to see what damage had been done. I could barely move my left arm and it put me in grave danger. I knew Lightning was still out there and he knew he had hit me. I looked over the fallen tree at the spot where the shot came from and I saw nothing. I was breathing so heavily that it masked any sounds that Lightning might have made. I tried to calm down my breathing so that I could hear any move that Lightning made but I could not. I was in a lot of pain and I felt a darkness starting to close in on me.

                Suddenly there was a rustle behind me. It was very close.  A twig snapped and I knew that it was Lightning. I held my breath and hoped that he hadn’t already heard me. The sound of his footsteps kept moving away from me.  The noise was about twenty feet away when it stopped.  I saw the gleam of Lightning’s rifle as it caught the pale moonlight.  I quickly rolled over and aimed my rifle at him. I shot four times and I saw Lightning go down. I crawled towards him as quietly as I could just in case he wasn’t dead. I reached the spot where he was lying and I could see that he was hurt badly. I stood up and approached him. He was out cold.  I put my rifle down to my side and rolled him over on his back with my foot. Suddenly, his eyes popped open and he grabbed my rifle. He yanked it out of my hand and jumped to his feet. He pointed the weapon at me and smiled with an evil grin.

                The sound of the shot sounded like a stick of dynamite going off in my head. Lightning fell dead. I turned to see who had shot him and found that it was Ranger Tibbs. I started to walk towards him when darkness overcame me.