The Terror of Living Read Online Free PDF

everywhere. The horse was stunned for a moment, teetering over some unseen abyss, her front legs buckling beneath her. With only time enough to swing free and push himself clear, Hunt was on his feet and running before he heard the next shot. It was a good shot or a bad shot, Hunt couldn't tell. Either the man had meant to hit him, or he'd meant to hit the horse; perhaps he'd just meant to buck the horse and hoped Hunt would fall. It was all unclear and Hunt kept running. He thought the shot had come from the far ridge, but he couldn't be sure. It seemed by the echo of the gun that the shot had come from a distance, but everything was happening outside the boundaries of time.
        He had been riding in the dry cut of the river, where the water flowed in the spring and left loamy soil behind. A stand of young cottonwood and ash sat before him and he ran for that. Another bullet hit and he heard the earth crack and the bullet go in. Again, the sound didn't reach him for a second or more. He ducked in behind the trees and leaned back on the bank, hoping his legs and feet were covered. He looked back at his horse and saw how the sand had gone black there. The horse did not move and he looked away.
        The world seemed to have gone volatile and unpredictable, the catalyst of a chemical reaction he couldn't stop. The horse lay there, still as a rock, blood seeping from a hole drilled clean through her head. He closed his eyes, tried to put the image out of his mind, warm morning sun on his eyelids, the red glow of light beyond. Close by, water rushed over river stones, the buzz of an insect gliding through the air. Open your eyes, he thought, keep moving. Bright sunshine everywhere. What was he doing, what was he doing here?
        He tried to remember what the range was on a rifle like that. Even at a run he'd have no chance if the deputy was riding the other horse. Hunt looked back to where the horse lay and swore under his breath, cursed himself and didn't stop for the better part of a minute.
        Somewhere in that long-ago time, back when he'd just been a man living in a prison cell, he'd realized there was no going back, as much as he'd wanted it all to disappear, for his life just to start over, like pushing a reset button. Life wouldn't give him that pleasure. He'd gone through a door that only swung one way. He thought about this now, held up under the stretch of cottonwood and ash branches, a bank of earth his only protection. He had to keep going.
        The river ran wide and flat and he guessed the depth to be about three feet at its maximum. He was running for it before he knew what he was doing. He knew it flowed down toward Silver Lake, close enough to the truck. The cold hit him in his ankles first and sunk into his boots. The rocks were slippery, and he fell, catching himself with his hand and going forward. The water was up to his shins and it didn't seem to be growing deeper. He went on, keeping himself low to the river's surface, his hands outstretched and the water shooting out in front of him as he ran.
        
        
        DEPUTY BOBBY DRAKE SAT FOR A LONG TIME LOOKING down from the ridge, long enough for the chill of the mountains to sink beneath his clothes, long enough for it to get beneath his skin. He lowered his head and pressed his forehead to the wooden stock of the.270, feeling the cold hardness of the rifle on his temple, the blood in his veins calming, his pulse steadying. For a while, after it was done, he just lay there, looking down at the valley. The man was gone now, escaped. Fir and hemlock stretched as far as he could see, the dull red brown of trees burning up with the season. The dead horse lay down there in the riverbed, the other was waiting close by, waiting to take him back to the kid and the drugs, and Drake had no real idea what he would do.
        He hadn't asked for this life. He hadn't asked for any of this. It was given. He looked out on the forest