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“Are you deaf?” Timber asked. “You’re on private property. You’re hunting without permission, and you’re not allowed here. You’ve already injured one animal and left her to suffer, and now I want you to get the hell off my land.”

“ Pfft . You don’t have the means to get us off here,” the leader declared arrogantly, standing up and glaring at Timber. “I told you already,… this isn’t your fucking land, so I don’t care who and what you think you are—”

“Call him,” Timber interrupted. “Call Andy and ask him.”

The blowhard hesitated. Then his buddies looked at him, and he shrugged. “It’s not as if I’ll bother him at this hour of the day.”

“Meaning that you don’t have a clue if it’s still his land or not,” Timber pointed out, with a nod, “and you’re too damn scared to ask him in case it isn’t. I’m telling you right now it isn’t, and now I’m calling the cops and the game warden.” He pulled out his phone and was already texting.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.… What the hell?” asked the second guy, jumping up. “We’ve been hunting here for years.”

“I don’t care if you’ve been hunting here for decades,” Timber added, staring at him. “I told you repeatedly to get off my land.”

The third man, obviously sensing that things were heading south very quickly, immediately got up and started packing up his gear.

The brash one looked at his buddy, staring him down. “No way. I’m not leaving,” he announced, “and no freaking way this guy will make me.”

The quieter one hesitated, then explained, “If it’s his land, we’re in the wrong, and, if we’re in the wrong, he’s in the right, and that means he can shoot us. You may be good with that, but I am not sticking around to get a load of buckshot up my ass.”

“That’s a really good point,” agreed the second one.

“No, it’s not a really good point.” The leader sneered. “He doesn’t have any right to kick us off. I told you before that this is Andy’s land.”

The quiet guy just kept packing up all their gear.

The second guy added, “And if you can’t show us that Andy still owns it, then I’m not sure I believe you.”

The head guy glared at his friends and asked, “What the hell?”

“Yeah.… What the hell?” the second guy repeated. “That’s kind of how we feel too. We came here for a hunting trip, and, right about now, I’m not sure what the hell we have.”

“What we have is some washed-up guy who thinks he’s in the right,” the angry young man said, and all of a sudden a rifle was pointed right at Timber.

He stared at the rifle, looked over at the young man holding it, and stated, “And now you’ve crossed the line. You’ve got about ten seconds to pull back and to get yourself on the right side of this.”

“I’m already right where I should be,” the man said, with a sneer.

“This is not your place. This is Andy’s place, and we are allowed to hunt here.

” When the bark on a tree just above his head exploded all around him, he lost his footing and slammed to the ground, his friends immediately backing up, their hands in the air.

Timber was a quick-draw expert and always carried a gun stowed in his waistband. He rested it in his lap as he studied them all. “I’ve warned you enough. Now get the hell off my land.”

The other two scrambled over to their friend, who was struggling to his feet. He looked at Timber and declared, “I don’t know who you think you are, but believe me that I won’t forget this.”

Timber nodded. “I’ve got a cross already made up with your name on it.”

“You don’t know my name,… so obviously you don’t.”

“Yeah, well, Loser will do.”

And, with that, he moved Sparky back ever so slightly, giving them a little bit of space to pull back and to quickly get their tent down, so they could load up. The other two men didn’t say a word. They were quick to pack up, and Timber waited until they were loaded up in their vehicle.

Still in shock, the head guy didn’t say a hell of a lot, but it was obvious that he was steaming with a fury that would explode at some point in time.

As Timber watched him, he knew he was a rattler in the grass.

He knew plenty of men like that, but they weren’t men he would allow to come back.

“And just in case you didn’t get the message, there’s no hunting on my land. ”

“How the hell are we supposed to know which is your land?” he asked cryptically, snarling.

“I’m sure you noticed, as you drove in, that every mile has a sign posted that says No Hunting Allowed on Private Property.” Timber smiled at him. “No way you didn’t see them.”

“We ignored them,” the third man admitted. “He told me that they were just there to scare away people who weren’t allowed to be here.”

The second man, getting into the truck, glared at his angry friend and muttered, “I’ll remember that.”

The leader flushed, then looked over at his other buddy, the quiet one, who just shook his head at the others. Then he shrugged and added, “This is a bad deal, man. I’m going home.”

“What do you mean, you’re going home?” the leader asked furiously.

“We came here to party, and I came here to hunt,” he yelled, spitting fire.

“You hear me?… Yeah, I think we’ll hunt.

Regardless of whose land he thinks it is.

” And, with that parting remark, he slammed the truck door and drove off in a harsh cloud of dust, leaving ruts behind.

Timber quickly took note of the license plate, pulled out his phone, and texted it to the game warden and the cops.

If he was lucky, somebody would give a crap enough to chase down these guys and to make an arrest. But Timber highly doubted that anybody would care enough.

Most of the people here believed in live and let live, and that worked fine—until it impacted them and their property.

But these losers were gone, at least for the moment.

Timber just wasn’t sure how long that would last.