Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

head. “What makes you think I’m responsible?”
    “I’ve never seen Zane as happy as he is right now. Even when he was with Becky. You’ve been good to him, and you’ve been good for him. And no matter what Mother or anyone else has to say about it, or what Mark says about your past, I want you to know that I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving my brother a reason to live again.”
    Ty swallowed, surprised to find his throat tightening. “Well. He did the same for me.”
    Annie smiled. “You’re not nearly the hard-ass you want everyone to believe.”
    Ty rolled his eyes and waved at her. “Might as well get down, take a little rest. This might take me a while,” he said, voice still hoarse as he tried to stop thinking about Zane and start thinking about the tiger on the loose again.
    Annie dismounted and stood beside him as he gazed out over the rolling terrain, mind churning. He glanced at Annie. “I love him very much.”
    She smiled. “Good. I—”
    Ty held up a hand, shushing her, and cocked his head at an odd buzzing sound in the air. He had the sense it’d been building for a while, but his conscious mind had only now taken notice. It was far off and echoing, so there was no way to tell where it was coming from. He peered out over the endless hills, and after a moment, he realized what it was.
    “Engine.”
    “You think it’s them?” Annie asked, looking around too.
    Ty nodded. There was no way an animal control vehicle would have been dispatched this quickly, not this far out. It had to be the poachers, out looking for their escapee. Ty took a deep breath. If they came across a vehicle with three to six armed men in it, he was outgunned by a long sight. There wasn’t much he could do about it, and though they could hear the engine, it gave little warning to the vehicle’s presence because of the odd distortion of sound in the hills. It could be two miles away, or two hills away.
    “The tigers liked you, Ty; try calling out for them.”
    Ty hesitated, wondering if it would be imprudent to call out since they obviously weren’t alone out here. He decided it was worth the risk, though. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted the names of both tigers as loud as he could, and then stood listening to the echo fade across the hills. He strained to see movement, but there was too much real estate to cover.
    He sighed and went back to his survey of the ground. He could find no trace of the tiger’s passing. It was as if the cat had mounted the hill and taken flight. It was frustrating, and not a little embarrassing after Zane had made such a fuss about his tracking skills. It also crossed his mind that they were too late. That engine may have been carrying both tigers away as they stood here.
    He was on the verge of giving up when he found a divot in the earth, tiny trails where a few small pebbles had rolled from the edges of the depression. And on the lip of the innocuous circle was a tell-tale gouge. A claw.
    “Got him!”
    Annie came rushing over. She patted him on the back excitedly and then looked out over the land in the direction Ty was indicating. The hills made it hard to see far, and it made him uneasy that something as large and vicious as a tiger could be lurking behind the next knoll.
    They picked their way down the hill, trailing their horses behind them. It would have been easier to let the horses find the way down, but Ty wanted to be certain he had the trail. They bottomed out into a wide arroyo, the first flat ground he’d seen that was longer than a football field since they’d left the preserve fence behind.
    He stood and breathed out, trying to think. His horse jerked at his reins, then sidestepped and whinnied. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of vibrant color amidst the tan and green of the land.
    He whipped his head around to see the tiger speeding toward them.
    “Oh shit,” Annie gasped. She turned toward the panicking horses and fumbled in her saddlebag for the case of tranquilizer darts, and managed to jerk it out before the horses broke and fled back up the hill.
    Ty’s hand was on his sidearm, but it was a last resort. They were here to save the cat, not kill him.
    The tiger bounded over cacti and scrub brush, and every time he leaped into the air and came back down, the skin of his face would lift and reveal razor-sharp teeth. His deadly claws dug into the earth for traction.
    Annie handed Ty the dart gun, her fingers