Prey , livre ebook

First Edition Design Publishing - Mike Smitley

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195 pages

English

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Absolutely captivating from cover to cover, PREY is a compelling survival story/mystery thriller that takes place in the remote wilderness of northern Idaho.

Sujets

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	10 octobre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781937520281
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

PREY
First Revised Edition

Mike Smitley
Copyright © 2011 by Mike Smitley

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ISBN 978-1-937520-28-1
Published by First Edition Design eBook Publishing
October 2011
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

First printing, December 2005
Revised, 2006

Special thanks to Steve Sanders for the cover design.
Special thanks to Josephine Shatanana of the Kootenai Tribe for her assistance.
Most importantly, thanks to my wife, Jana, for her patience and support.

The author, Mike Smitley, can be contacted at: www.fatherspress.com. or mike@fatherspress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other books by Mike Smitley are:
GHOST HUNT , (987-0-9795394-2-8). the sequel to Mike Smitley’s first novel,
IMPLIED CONTRACT , (ISBN: 978-0-9779407-2-1).
DEAD FILES , (978-0-9779407-1-4),
OUR MISSING, (ISBN: 978-0-9795394-4-2) and
THE ENGLISH MAN (ISBN: 97809833739-1-9)

Father’s Press, LLC
Lee’s Summit, MO
(816) 600-6288
www.fatherspress.com
Chapter 1

THE SUMMER OF 1962 had been mild and arid. The weather and scenery around Sandpoint, Idaho made it an obsession for the locals and a prime attraction for tourists in the region.
Situated on Highway 95 forty miles south of Canada and twenty miles west of Montana, this little piece of paradise is nestled between the Bitterroot, Selkirk and Cabinet Mountains and is surrounded by the Kaniksu National Forest.
Tourists looking for an “off the beaten path” getaway like the region’s mild summers for fishing, biking, camping and hiking. With an average annual snowfall of over two hundred inches, the winters offer pristine snow skiing and other winter sports. Both seasons offer magnificent scenery unsurpassed anywhere on Earth.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shelly Casteel was a local waitress who could never make ends meet at the end of the month. She waited tables during the day and prostituted herself at night. Her unreported supplemental income got her by when tips were low.
With a flirty bearing that oozed sex-appeal and a talent for dressing to most effectively showcase her Penthouse-quality assets, she had successfully seduced her share of tourists and locals looking for some horizontal entertainment.
The money was in the pockets of the older men, but she had a fetish for teenage boys. Young Paul LaPierre was a local high school sports hero trying to fit in with the older men in town. His nightly prowls eventually crossed paths with Shelly’s.
She’d been smitten with him since she’d first set eyes on him. She’d looked forward to teaching him the facts of life, but every time she’d seen him, she’d been preoccupied plying her trade with another man.
Saturday night after clocking out, she rushed out of the café and hurried home. She had to shower, change and try to hook a trick before the competition landed the best ones.
As she trotted out the front door of her apartment, she almost bumped into Paul. She smiled seductively and said, “Hey there, lover boy. How’s Sandpoint’s best-looking man tonight?”
Paul blushed and mumbled, “Fine, Shelly. How’s Sandpoint’s best-looking woman?” He tried to be subtle, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from roaming to her breasts and hips.
She stopped and squared up with him. His attraction to her was so obvious that she couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Business had been good the past few weeks and she really didn’t need the extra money tonight. She smiled and shifted her weight to one hip. She put her hand on her hip and said, “You know, Paul? You and I have been flirting with each other for months. Let’s stop that tonight.”
Paul thought this was the chastising that he’d been expecting. He looked down at the ground and tried to think of a witty answer, but she said, “Listen, big man. It’s time that we take this to the next level. Why don’t you come up to my apartment? Let’s get better acquainted?”
He gasped and grinned from ear to ear. This was the invitation that he’d been waiting for. She led him to her apartment and wasted no time in getting him into her bedroom. She undressed him, pushed him back on the bed and performed her most seductive striptease.
After an hour of intercourse, Paul dressed while she smoked a cigarette in bed. He thanked her and let himself out. She thought he’d forgotten something when she heard a knock on her door. She didn’t bother to cover up as she jerked the door open.
Shock overwhelmed her as she looked down the muzzle of the tiny automatic that was staring her in the face. She didn’t get a chance to look past the pistol and see who was behind the trigger. The little gun barked and the shot struck her in the right eye socket, killing her instantly.

~~~~~~~~~~

November was mildly cold in the Bitterroot winter of 1962. Bill LaPierre and his fellow hunting club members had crowded into their lodge and stowed their gear over and under their bunks. Each had brought their share of food and supplies to last them for seven days of prime deer hunting.
Hunting in northern Idaho posed different challenges than in most of the lower forty-eight states. The weather could be brutal, and the terrain could tax even the best conditioned hunters. Aside from the geographic challenges, the Kaniksu National Forest is located at the southern tip of the remaining grizzly bear range.
Since deer season began before all the bears were comfortably nestled in their dens for the winter, they posed a potential threat to hunters, especially if a hunter had filled the air with the scent of blood from a fresh deer or elk kill. For that reason, hunters in bear country were well advised to carry a rifle not only suited for mule deer and elk, but capable of quickly killing a carcass-stealing grizzly with a bully personality.
Hunting in grizzly country in itself is not particularly dangerous as long as a few simple precautions are taken. In the winter of ‘62, however, this little corner of their domain held hidden dangers that swallowed up even the most seasoned woodsmen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bill was the president of the hunting club. Its mission was to pass on the hunting heritage to the youth around Bonner County. The distinguishing characteristic that set Bill’s club apart from other clubs was its members’ commitment to harvest deer and elk with vintage rifles that had been passed down from their ancestors.
The harvesting of game with old family heirlooms brought special gratification to members who were able to keep their fathers’ and grandfathers’ memories alive through the experience.
Not only were members encouraged to hunt with the weapons of yesteryear, they were also encouraged to personally hand-load their ammunition. Many of the old cartridges had long ago been discontinued by commercial manufacturers, so the members had to scrounge components.
Primers and powder were no challenge, but brass was sometimes scarce, and bullets frequently had to be custom molded from bullet molds that were as rare as the rifles themselves.
Bill’s pet rifle was a vintage Winchester model 1895 chambered in .405 Winchester, which had been left to him by his father. It was an early twentieth century weapon popularized by Theodore Roosevelt, who’d used it to harvest numerous African trophies.
The .405 Winchester was a long, hard-punching cartridge that propelled a big .412 diameter bullet weighing between 265 and 350 grains, depending on the purpose and brand. It was more gun than necessary for mule deer, but that assured Bill that anything he hit with it would either drop in its tracks or stagger very few yards before succumbing to hemorrhagic shock.
He had never lost a wounded animal. The .405 cut a large wound channel through the animal that pumped blood out the entry and exit wounds like a garden hose. It was also big medicine for grizzlies that had lost their natural fear of man.
As a matter of tradition, the members had introduced their sons and daughters to the club when they’d become old enough to sit quietly and tolerate the brutal cold.
Bill and his eighteen year-old son, Paul, had only recently patched up their differences enough to bring Paul into the club. Paul’s teenage rebellion had angered Bill and had severely strained their relationship.
Paul’s vintage weapon was a Japanese type 99 rifle chambered in 7.7mm x 58mm. Bill had liberated it during his deployment with the U.S. Marines in the Pacific theater of World War II. Although it was not the ideal deterrent for grizzlies, Bill planned to be close to Paul throughout the season.

~~~~~~~~~~

Opening morning of deer season wasn’t particularly cold, with the mercury hovering around twenty. Paul had fired the old Jap many times and was familiar with the basic firearm safety rules, so there was no need for them to sit together. Still, Bill felt better if he were no more than a couple hundred yards from Paul. He wanted to be close in the event that Paul had problems or killed a deer. He wanted to field dress it for Paul and help drag it to the lodge.
Breakfast was served promptly at five. That gave everyone time to dress and get to their pre-scouted stands a half-hour before there was sufficient light to see their gun-sights.
After breakfast, Paul and Bill left the lodge and walked together a half-mile before angling up the slope of a mountain. They’d been arguing when they’d left the lodge, but hadn’t spoken for the last quarter-mile.
As they reached Paul’s stand, there was an uncomfortable tension between them. Paul wanted to talk, but Bill walked on to his stand, leaving him to settle comfortably under the overhanging limbs of a large cedar.
Paul had sat quietly for about two hours. The sun had finally made its way high enough in the sky to break over the mountain-tops. He’d dressed adequately for the cold, but there were th