Cut and Run 6 - Stars and Stripes

trembling.
    Ty was surprised he wasn’t flashing back to the last big cat who had charged him: the cougar in the mountains of West Virginia. But it had been dark then, and he hadn’t seen the cat coming. Now, he stood frozen, waiting for the tiger to come within range of the darts. He was oddly calm, his body not yet recognizing the danger.
    It was unusual for the tiger to charge over open ground, in daylight no less, but Ty couldn’t guess at the behavior of an animal who’d been held captive all its life. He lifted the dart gun, his fingers less steady than they had been a moment before. Annie ducked behind him.
    A gunning engine rent the silence, and the tiger made a sharp turn, retreating from the 4x4 tearing through the open end of the arroyo. The 4x4 careened to a stop, and a man hanging off the roll bar in the bed of the truck pointed a long-barreled rifle at the fleeing tiger.
    The 4x4 displayed no markings. The men within it were armed, their faces covered. This was definitely not an official vehicle.
    Ty dropped the tranquilizer gun and reached for his sidearm, drawing and firing with practiced speed. He hit the side of the truck, sending sparks flying. The shooter in the 4x4 shouted and turned his rifle on them.
    “Shit,” Ty muttered as the other three men in the truck, all of them bristling with weapons, took notice of them. “Annie! Get down!”
    Behind him, Annie screamed. Ty grabbed her and pulled, stepping in front of her to take the shot from the first man’s rifle.
    It hit him in the chest, the shock of the impact knocking him backward into Annie. She caught him under his arms with another scream, but they both went tumbling backward.
    Ty looked down at the dart in his chest. He grabbed it and yanked it out, surprised at how much it hurt. “Run. Go,” he panted, words harsh as he pushed himself to his knees and began firing. He felt Annie turn and run, hopefully after the fleeing horses where she could make a clean escape. His vision was already beginning to go dark, but he continued firing. He hit one man and saw him go sailing into the bed of the truck, rattling two large cages. Then he hit the windshield, and next a tire. He fired until his clip went empty and he sank back into the scrub grass. The world around him was turning a grayish purple.
    He was distantly aware of the sound of retreating horse hooves and the truck’s engine idling. Several men stalked toward him. He fumbled for his other clip, but his fingers were numb.
    “Used all my damn darts,” one man snarled as he pulled a gun. He sounded garbled, like he was speaking through a synthesizer.
    “What do we do with him?”
    “Take him. When he wakes up we’ll make him track down that damn tiger for us. Then we’ll use him as kitty chow.”
    They drew near, one of them carrying what looked like a burlap sack. Someone knelt next to Ty, and though his face wavered and morphed, Ty didn’t have to see his expression to know he was in trouble. He pulled his knife from his boot—his last-ditch resort—and jammed it into the man’s thigh.
    The man screamed.
    A sound somewhere near them echoed it, a scream of anger and agony. Something primal in Ty knew what that was: the roar of an enraged predator. The men all stopped, looking up and around in a panic before turning and running back toward the safety of their vehicle, dragging the man Ty had wounded behind them.
    And suddenly Ty’s vision was blue. It took him a moment to realize he’d fallen over and was on his back, staring at the cloudless sky. He couldn’t move. Not even his fingers would twitch. He was paralyzed, losing consciousness, in the middle of the desert. Alone.
    He blinked, barely able to force his eyes open again.
    From somewhere, a horse neighed, and hope rose in his chest. Perhaps Annie had seen the poachers retreat and had come back for him.
    A blur of color entered his field of vision. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating, but then the figure made another chuffing sound, mimicking the neigh of a horse almost perfectly. Ty realized that he wasn’t hallucinating, and he wasn’t alone. He was merely staring into the black and orange face of a Bengal tiger with one floppy ear.

    Zane was surprised when the trail they were following made an almost 180-degree turn. The truck had circled around, heading farther into the ranch and not off it, picking its way through the nearly flat gullies between the hills. The longer they tracked it, the more