Force of Nature Read Online Free

truck and called another game warden to come out and pick him up. The Mad Archer, Joe had said, was both evil and bloodthirsty. He was suspected of using his arrows to kill dogs and cats as well, and had wounded the dog Joe rescued, a Labrador/corgi mix named Tube. Nate had heard Joe use the Mad Archer’s real name, but he couldn’t remember it.
    The man flushed. “That might have been,” he said, “but it was before I went straight. I play by the rules now, man,” he said, gesturing toward his orange hat. He patted his back pocket. “I even got my license back if you want to see it.”
    “Show it to Joe,” Nate said as the bow of the boat came within reach. The gargoyle expected Nate to grasp the bow and pull the boat to the bank. Instead, Nate shoved it away and the boat swung back into the current. A redheaded duck had swum out of the reeds with ten little ducklings in tow in a straight line behind her, and she angled to her right to avoid the floating boat.
    “Keep moving,” Nate said to them.
    “Hey, what about my dad?” the gargoyle asked, his face contorted. He did several front-strokes on the oars to pull the boat back into the calm eddy. “You’re fuckin’ heartless.”
    “I’ll call the clinic and have them send an ambulance to the take-out,” Nate said, stepping backward toward the bank, keeping the men and the boat in front of him. “They should be waiting when you get there. You’re not saving any time bringing him onshore now and calling them, anyhow. It would take them longer to get here than it will for you to float to the take-out.”
    Nate didn’t want the Mad Archer anywhere near his house. If the man was as unstable as Joe claimed, his friends Paul and Stumpy were suspect as well. Men who hunted together shared certain characteristics and values, and this was guilt by association with the Mad Archer. Nate had never been troubled making judgments of this kind.
    Plus, he’d been seen and the men would talk. Which meant the minute they were gone, he’d have to clear out.
    The Mad Archer glared, his fists clenched at his side. As Nate neared the shore, his boot slipped off a river rock and he had to wheel and crow-hop to keep standing.
    Then before Nate could look back over his shoulder at the boat and the three men to confirm they were floating downriver, he heard a single whispered word:
“Now.”
    Nate spun around in the river and reached across his chest for his weapon. The soles of his boots again slipped on the moss-covered rocks, and he stumbled to his left but not far enough. An arrow tipped with a razor broadhead sliced through the air and hit him between his left shoulder and clavicle.
    The figures in the boat who had been still just a moment before were now a blur of motion. The gargoyle was sliding a pump shotgun out of a saddle scabbard that had been hidden beneath his boat seat. The old man Paul was awake and standing, and his long coat was open and he was swinging the muzzle of a military-style carbine toward Nate.
    The Mad Archer cursed because his shot had been misplaced dueto Nate’s stumble, and he was frantically fitting a second arrow into the nock of his bow before drawing the bowstring back again. Because both the old man and the Mad Archer were now standing, the boat pitched slightly from side to side.
    Although his left shoulder screamed with pain, Nate pulled his big revolver out from its holster and cocked the hammer and leveled it with a single motion and fired.
    The first bullet hit the Mad Archer in the right center of his wide forehead and blew his orange hat straight up into the air. His body collapsed forward across the casting platform.
    Nate cocked the revolver on the down stroke from its tremendous kick and swung it left and shot the old man through the heart. Old Paul stiffened and sat straight back onto his swivel seat. His rifle fell into the water. Blood, bits of bone, and tissue pattered across the surface of the water behind him. He slumped