Silk and Secrets(166)

Startled by the racket, the jungle cats bolted away through the undergrowth, passing less than a dozen feet from Ian. An instant later a shotgun blasted after them. As pellets shredded leaves and slammed into tree trunks around him, he cursed and dived to the ground, rolling to get out of the field of fire.

The gun thundered again, and this time the shot came closer. Ian crouched behind a tree and studied the darkened clearing. The torch had been dropped or burned out, and all he could see were horses and bullocks rearing and tugging at their tethers, their solid forms silhouetted against the campfires. The only man he could discern was less than twenty feet away, and a flicker of light along the barrel showed that the damned fool was raising a rifle and aiming it directly at Ian.

Apparently the gunman was trying to protect the camp from some imagined danger, and Ian had wandered into the middle by accident. Under the circumstances retreat would be the better part of wisdom, but he had always preferred offense to defense. He was also royally irritated at being shot at. That being the case, no sooner had Ian seen the movement of the rifle than he broke from cover and dashed toward the gunman, keeping low.

After two swift steps, he launched himself in a flat dive.

His shoulder caught the man squarely and they both crashed to the ground, with Ian landing on top. As they fell, he wrestled the rifle away, the weapon discharging deafeningly into the air.

The skirmish was over almost before it began. Only then, as Ian used one arm to pin his opponent to the grassy turf, did he discover that the slim form beneath him belonged not to a gunman but a gunwoman.

"Bloody hell!" he swore as he hastily rolled away. The clearing was too dark to distinguish details, but clearly the woman was European, with a pale face and a cascade of light-colored hair. Judging by her lush curves, she was too old to be Pyotr's niece Lara; perhaps Stephenson had remarried and this was his second wife. Speaking in English, Ian said, "Sorry to have knocked you down. Are you all right?"

"You're English," she said stupidly as she raised herself to a sitting position.

"Scottish, actually." He sat back on his heels. "I do hope that you don't intend to revive the old English custom of using Scots for target practice."

"I... I thought you were a tiger," she faltered.

"You should have looked more closely," he said dryly. "I lack two more feet, a tail, and quite a lot of stripes." Glancing up, he saw that several natives had been drawn by her scream, but when they heard English speech, they stopped a dozen feet away.

Ian stood and grasped her hand, easily lifting her to her feet. "Thank God you're a dreadful shot." He released her fingers, which were icy cold. "Why were you blasting away? No tiger would attack a camp this size."

"Th... there's a man-eater in the neighborhood," she said in a husky, uneven voice. "We were shifting the animals away from the forest when one of the men thought he saw a tiger. I heard roaring and something moved in the undergrowth, so I fired."

"Having had a front row seat, my best guess is that a curious panther and a caracal were investigating the camp," Ian said. "Their paths crossed, so they tried to outroar each other. When you started shooting, they wisely took off."

"A caracal?" she repeated.

Beginning to wonder if the woman was drunk or dim-witted, Ian said impatiently, "Surely you've heard of caracals. They're rather like overgrown house cats with long tufted ears." He handed her rifle back. "The next time you use this, remember that the first law of hunting is never to shoot at something you can't see clearly. You didn't manage to kill anyone, but next time you might not be so lucky."

"I'm s... sorry," she said, her voice on the verge of tears.

Embarrassed by her reaction, Ian said, "No harm done." Glancing around, he found that apparently every Indian in the camp had come to watch, but there were no other Europeans; not the collector, and not young Lara. "Where's Kenneth Stephenson? I need to talk to him."

"You... you can't." Her voice broke.

Trying to control his irritation, Ian said, "This is his camp, isn't it?"

"M... my father's dead." She bent her head and ran distracted fingers through her wild hair. "He... he died of cholera. A few minutes ago. Perhaps an hour."

"Dear God," Ian said softly, feeling like a clumsy idiot. No wonder the young woman was disoriented; with her father barely dead, it was amazing that she could string a coherent sentence together. She had even attempted to defend the camp against possible danger, and while the results had been incompetent, he gave her full marks for gallantry. "You're Laura Stephenson?"