Winter Prey

close, to make sure, this time. Nothing fancy. Just a quick hit and gone.

    The ride to the hospital was wild. He could feel himself moving like a blue light, a blue force, through the vortex of the storm, the snow pounding the Lexan faceplate, the sled throbbing beneath him, bucking over bumps, twisting, alive. At times he could barely see; other times, in protected areas or where he was forced to slow down, the field of vision opened out. He passed a four-by-four, looked up atthe driver. A stranger. Didn’t look at him, on his sled, ten feet away. Blind?
    He pushed on, following the rats’ maze of trails that paralleled the highway, along the edge of town. Past another four-by-four. Another stranger who didn’t look at him.
    A hell of a storm for so many strangers to be out on the road, not looking at snowmobiles . . .
    Not looking at snowmobiles.

    Why didn’t they look at him? He stopped at the entrance to the hospital parking lot, thought about it. He could see Weather’s Jeep. Several other cars close by; he could put the sled around the corner of the building, slip out into the parking lot.
    Why didn’t they look at him? It wasn’t like he was invisible. If you’re riding in a truck and a sled goes tearing past, you look at it.
    The Iceman turned off the approach to the hospital, cruised on past. Something to think about. Kept going, two hundred, three hundred yards. Janes’ woodlot. He’d seen Dick Janes in here all fall, cutting oak. Not for this year, but for next.
    The Iceman pulled off the trail, ran the sled up a short slope, sinking deep in the snow. He clambered off, moved fifteen feet, huddled next to a pile of cut branches.
    Coyotes did this. He knew that from hunting them. He’d once seen a coyote moving slow, apparently unwary, some three or four hundred yards out. He’d followed its fresh tracks through the tangle of an alder swamp, then up a slope, then back around . . . and found himself looking down at his own tracks across the swamp and a cavity in the snow where the mutt had laid down, resting, while he fought the alders. Checking the back trail.
    Behind the pile of cuttings, he was comfortable enough, hunkering down in the snow. He was out of the wind, and the temperature had begun climbing with the approach of the storm.
    He waited two minutes and wondered why. Then another minute. He was about to stand up, go back to the sled, whenhe heard motors on the trail. He squatted again, watched. Two sleds went by, slowly. Much too slowly. They weren’t getting anywhere if they were travelers, weren’t having any fun if they were joyriders. And there was nothing down this trail but fifteen or twenty miles of trees until they hit the next town, a crossroads.
    Not right.
    The Iceman waited, watching.
    Saw them come back. Heard them first, took the .357 from his pocket.
    He could see them clearly enough, peering through the branches of the trim pile, but he probably was invisible, down in the snow, above them. They stopped.
    They stopped. They knew. They knew who he was, what he was doing.
    The lifelong anger surged. The Iceman didn’t think. The Iceman acted, and nothing could stand against him.
    The Iceman half-stood, caught the first man’s chest over the blade of the .357.
    Didn’t hear the shot. Heard the music of a fine machine, felt the gun bump.
    The first man toppled off his sled, the second man, black-Lexan-masked, turning. All of this in slow motion, the second man turning, the gun barrel popping up with the first shot, dropping back into the slot, the second man’s body jumped, but he wavered, not falling, a hand coming up, fingers spread, to ward off the .357 JHPs; a third shot went through his hand, knocked him backwards off the sled. And the gun kept on, shots filing out, still no noise, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth . . .
    And in the soft snow, the bumping stopped and the Iceman heard the hammer falling on empty shells, three times, four, the cylinder turning.
    Click, click, click, click.

CHAPTER

27
    He’s moving, he’s moving, he’s moving fast, what happened what happened?
     
    The radio call bounced around the tile corridor, Carr echoing it, shouting, What happened, what happened —and knowing what had happened. Weather sprinted toward the emergency room, Lucas two steps behind, calling into the radio, Stay with him stay with him, we might have some people down.
    The ambulance driver was talking to a nurse. Weather ran through the emergency room,