THE SCREAMERS WERE inching closer, hitching themselves forward slowly on their bottoms.
“I’m going to set up a deadline for you critters,” Duncan called out. “Just two feet farther, up to that rock, and I let you have it.”
He’d get all six of them, of course, but the shots would be the signal for the general rush by all those other animals slinking in the brush.
If he were free, if he were on his feet, possibly he could beat them off. But pinned as he was, he didn’t have a chance. It would be all over less than a minute after he opened fire. He might, he figured, last as long as that.
The six inched closer and he raised the rifle.
But they stopped and moved no farther. Their ears lifted just a little, as if they might be listening, and the grins dropped from their faces. They squirmed
