Free The Slickers by L. Ron Hubbard Page B

looked back and risked a fall by shooting his beam along his trail. The five-foot orangutan was hunching along on all fours, jaws still foaming. As he looked, Bill heard the brute grunt loudly. Almost two hundred pounds of death was matching speed with the pursued.
    And again Bill ran, even faster. He didn’t know that he had lost his soft felt hat. He didn’t know that his shoes were crammed with snow. He only knew that if he stopped, he would be crushed and broken in the powerful arms of a brute gone mad.
    When his first terror had paled through his growing weariness, Bill turned at right angles to his trail and raced along for a hundred yards. He snapped out the light and dodged in between the dim, moaning shapes of giant trees. He went on for some distance before he stopped.
    His breath was coming with harsh gasps, but he stilled the sound. He could run no longer without a rest, and he hoped against hope that he would be able to get away before the orangutan spotted him again.
    He could hear nothing above the wind and the whisper of sleet and though his finger itched against the button of his light he forced himself to remain in the dark. Some sound would tell him when the brute came too close.
    He waited until the beating of his heart grew less. Out there the mad orangutan was hunting for him, trying to find him so that he could be the victor of a second fight against man. Once more Bill Lacy saw the vision of that huddled body along the road.
    And then the snow crunched close at hand and Bill Lacy was once more running. He snapped on the light and shot it behind him and saw that the brute was still coming.
    The newspaperman wove his way among the grim trees and kept his course, as nearly as he could judge, toward the road. The limbs here were too high to offer a tree-road for the ape, and Bill was thankful for that at least. Apes could travel like the wind in trees.
    Ahead was a shallow gully, scarcely more than a shadow against the bluish white carpet. Bill Lacy saw it, but misjudged its depth. He went through the brittle willows at its edge expecting to cross the obstruction in a short leap. But the snow was crusted and an oxford went through. Bill tripped and sprawled through space. His head was down when he struck the soft bottom, but that didn’t save his ankle, and when he tried to struggle to his feet he found that he couldn’t stand. With a grunt he sank down and shut off his light. It was impossible to go far on a twisted ankle.
    Through the whisper of sleet and the low sigh of the wind he tried to catch the sound of the running ape. He knew that the warning would do him little good for he was a helpless prisoner, trapped by a damaged foot. He would have to lie there and wait for death to overtake him. Bill Lacy had never felt so all alone.
    A shadow came and stood on the rim of the gully, looking down. A shadow which was five feet tall and whose arms reached down to the snow-packed ground. The orangutan stood still for several seconds.
    Under that scrutiny, something in Bill Lacy snapped. He tried to struggle up to his feet, but the ankle wobbled and let him down again. Sick with apprehension, he did not even feel the pain of his effort. Helplessly he lay back and threw his arms across his face.
    The ape was struggling down through the willows and the snow was crunching harshly under his heavy weight. Bill heard it, but couldn’t bring himself to look up. In an instant those arms would go around his neck, he’d feel bristly hair against his face and that would be the end of the world for him.
    Sniffing filled the night about him. He caught the strong smell of the ape as it circled him. Occasionally he could feel the brush of an arm against his rigid body. Time was standing still. Once or twice, Bill attempted to cry out, but the effort caught in his tight throat. No use of that. It would merely enrage the brute.
    And then a low sigh came to him. Something was trying to lift a corner of