Hatch scaled the jagged edges of the biggest boulder. The red of the raft disappeared into white froth and out of sight as Hatch followed the boulder's cool stony contours around and to the right. The sands of time fell more rapidly, matching the speed of Hatch's feet. The burning exhaustion stinging her muscles earned her the high ground. And as Sanchez had predicted, the sniper nested below.
The killer's wide-brimmed black hat cloaked the man in shadow. He knelt in the gap between the devil's fist and thumb knuckle. If these two boulders were truly The Devil's Hand, then Hatch stood thirty feet above the webbed gap between them, like the gauze-wrapped hole in her left hand.
The red appeared in her vision while she drew her Glock from the small of her back while navigating the uneven terrain on her path to high ground. But just as time ticked away and Hatch brought her gun up on the cartel boogeyman, she slipped.
Hatch's wet boot lost traction. Instinctually she reached out with her non-gun hand to catch herself. Hatch's left hand found no purchase with the sun-warmed stone; the wet, blood-soaked a gauze mitten had seen to that. Hatch fell down the side of the boulder. A loud cracking sound rose above the churning whitewater.
The loud crack was not that of a rifle, but instead came from Hatch's pistol. It smacked the rock which knocked it out of her hand. As the last grains of sand in the hourglass finished their descent, Hatch landed flat on her back. Her gun was out of her hand and rested on the wet water-smoothed pebbles within arm's reach. It didn't matter. It wouldn't have mattered if it was in her hand.
Action always beats reaction. Hatch survived un-survivable encounters by the grace of that principle instilled by her father and refined in the fifteen years of battle she tested it against. In those trials, in the world of combat, no truer fact existed. Action beat reaction and the hand of the devil literally held Hatch.
Forty-One
Hatch lay flat on her back. Her stone mattress wet with the angry water's spray reminded her, painfully so, of the journey it had taken her to get from the ridge thirty feet above to where she now lay, looking up into the end of the killer's rifle. The legendary El Vibora. The Viper, serving his dark master's command, had turned his aim from the raft to her. One slip had shifted favor to the hand of the devil.
On the wet, rocky shore of the Rio Grande River, Hatch heard the words whispered to her on the wind brought to her from the churn of whitewater. As with all words of wisdom, they are only considered wise at the point in time where wisdom is needed. Hatch had used her father's wisdom to find strength in dark times and resolve when her measure was tested.
Many times, her father's lessons, living long beyond the twelve years they had shared together, had enabled Hatch to cheat death. This did not appear to be one of those times.
Laying on the rocky riverbank with the setting sun slowing descent and setting the sky ablaze, Hatch found that for the first time in her life, she had no way to capitalize on the words her father said in the woods behind their mountain home.
The first punch often ends the fight.
He'd been going on that day about action versus reaction and the importance of always striving to be on the offensive. It didn't make much sense to the young Hatch, at least not then and not as it did now. But on this day, it seemed the message he'd sent had been received by the man in the wide-brimmed black hat, standing above her.
His ghostly, nearly translucent skin peeked out from under his hat. Two distinctively lighter marks paired underneath his right eye. Dark storm clouds brewed in the eyes sighting down the long barrel of the rifle now pointed in the direction of her forehead.
The first punch often ends the fight.
El Vibora won the draw. The advantage was clearly in his favor, and the first punch was about to hit Hatch’s forehead in the form of a bullet-shaped fist, traveling two-thousand-seven-hundred and ten feet-per-second from the end of the rifle.
Hatch met the eyes of her killer. In the brief unspoken exchange, two killers, regardless of their cause, locked eyes. Like rams locking horns, their souls were momentarily locked in the age-old battle of good and evil. Hatch stood face to face with The Viper in the open door separating life from death. It appeared to Hatch that Murphy's law had reared its head once again, this time tipping his hat in favor of the devil.
She tried to retrieve the image of Dalton Savage's face to replace the ghostly one hovering above. His face flickered but wouldn't hold. Her mind, in battle with itself, refused to drift.
El Vibora stood silhouetted by the warm oranges and deep reds of the setting sun. But that's not what caught her attention. It was the hole she’d placed with her sixth shot during their first encounter.
The sun sent its final goodbye to the day in the form of a cord of gold beaming like Zeus's lightning bolt through the small opening she'd created with her Glock. The goldenrod sailed a short journey until it found its end in the reflective surface of Ayala's father's watch from the raft. The reflection of light was intensified by the frothy mist created by the whitewater.
The beam bounced back toward the hole it had come from but at an angle, putting it in line with the devil's hitman's right eye. Then Murphy's Law changed hands with the devil and passed favor to the supine Hatch. And in the light reflecting off the Peacock Man's watch, El Vibora, The Viper, blinked.
A flood of tears marched down the killer's face, stretching a river across his cheek.
The first punch often ends the fight.
In the frozen speck of time Hatch realized something. It was the nagging part that wouldn't let her give way to her end. It was why she couldn't hold the image of Savage's face in her mind’s eye. She couldn't do those things, because there was a second part to the message her father sent, a message the devil's right hand never got.
If you happen to take the first punch, you better make sure you damn well finish the fight.