Horn Of The Hunter Quotes

Just because a guy rings your bell, doesn't mean you have to toot his horn.

Where are you anyway? (Acheron) I don't know. I hear some godawful kind of music from outside, horns blaring, and I'm in a house with a Mohawk cuckoo bird, a transvestite, and a knife-wielding lunatic. (Valerius) Why are you at Tabitha's? (Acheron)

I smiled,"Deoch, my heart is made of stronger stuff than glass. When she strikes she'll find it strong as iron-bound brass, or gold and adamant together mixed. Don't think I am unaware, some startled deer to stand transfixed by hunter's horns. It's she who should take care, for when she strikes, my heart will make a sound so beautiful and bright that it can't help but bring her back to me in winged light.

I blew the horn a few times, hoping to call up an iguana. Get the buggers moving. They were out there, I knew, in that goddamn sea of cactus--hunkered down, barely breathing, and every one of the stinking little bastards was loaded with deadly poison.

So if the punks come here, they’re going to dance with the devil and get the short end of the horn. (Zarek) No one better than my Zarek to rip someone’s head off. You two should get along famously. (Astrid)

It's noon, Valerius. We both should be asleep?" Acheron paused. "Where are you anyways?" "I don't know," Valerius said. "I hear some godawful kind of music from outside, horns blaring, and I'm in a house with a mohawk cuckoo bird, a transvestite, and a knife-wielding lunatic." "Why are you at Tabitha's?" Acheron asked. "Excuse me?" "Relax," Acheron said with a yawn. "You're in good hands. Tabby won't hurt you." "She stabbed me!" "Damn," Ash said. "I told her not to stab any more Hunters. I hate it when she does that.

I swear if that's a pair of demon horns digging into my belly and stabbing me right now, Ash, I'm going to beat you after it's born." 'Cause face it, horns on the head didn't come from my side of the family or genetic code.

I don't know," Valerius said. " I hear some godawful kind of music from outside, horns blaring, and I'm in a house with a mohawk cuckoo bird, a transvestite, and a knife-weilding lunatic." "Why are You at Tabitha's?" Acheron asked

Don’t fail me. (Stryker) You don’t fail me. (Jericho) So do we let you two lock horns and butt each other off the mountaintop now? (Tory)

Getting up too early is a vice habitual in horned owls, stars, geese, and freight trains. Some hunters acquire it from geese, and some coffee pots from hunters.

You are not human,” the demon announced. “You have no soul.” “Thank you for the obvious. Did you know you have horns on your head?

I swear if that’s a pair of demon horns digging into my belly and stabbing me right now, Ash, I’m going to beat you after it’s born.” ‘’Cause face it, horns on the head didn’t come from my side of the family of genetic code.’ – Tory

to whatever extent the Hell’s Angels may or may be latent sadomasochists or repressed homosexuals is to me--after nearly a year in the constant company of outlaw motorcyclists--almost entirely irrelevant. There are literary critics who insist that Ernest Hemingway was a tortured queer and that Mark Twain was haunted to the end of his days by a penchant for interracial buggery. It is a good way to stir up a tempest in the academic quarterlies, but it won’t change a word of what either man wrote, nor alter the impact of their work on the world they were writing about. Perhaps Manolete was a hoof fetishist, or suffered from terrible hemorrhoids as a result of long nights in Spanish horn parlors…but he was a great matador, and it is hard to see how any amount of Freudian theorizing can have the slightest effect on the reality of the thing he did best.

I miss my family. (Gallagher) I miss mine too. My mama was good people. ‘Simi,’ she would say, ‘I love you.’ Akri loves me too. See, akri even gave me hornay warmers so my horns wouldn’t get cold. You want some hornay warmers too? (Simi) I don’t have horns. (Gallagher) I could give you some real colorful ones. Akri has some black ones, but he doesn’t let other people see them. (Simi) Ash has horns? (Gallagher) Oh my, yes. They are quite lovely. Not as lovely as mine, but they are still very nice. The Simi would say she hopes you see them, but if you ever did, you’d be dead and I think the Simi would miss you. You seem very nice too. (Simi)

Intuition is nothing more than a person’s sense about a situation influenced by experience and knowledge.

Then at last the opening music came again, with all the different instruments bunched together for each note like a hard, tight fist that socked at her heart. And the first part was over. This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored--a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of insturments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again.

Aah, woodpecker! Help!” Cedar shouted. “Woodpecker! Girl made of wood! Not a good combo!” “I’ll help you!” Hunter cried. “Here we go,” Cupid said, rubbing her hands together. “It’s shirt-ripping time.” Sure enough, Hunter ripped off his shirt and posed. Invisible horns played a heroic fanfare. Hunter lifted his ax and chased the woodpecker. Which was chasing Cedar. “Aah, ax!” Cedar said, still running. “A woodpecker! And an ax! Aah!

I call myself Mandarb.” He could not stop the guffaw that burst out of him. Those tilted eyes regarded him with heat. “I will teach you something, farmboy.” Her voice remained level. Barely. “In the Old Tongue, Mandarb means ‘blade.’ It is a name worthy of a Hunter of the Horn!” He managed to get his laughter under control, and hardly wheezed at all as he pointed to the rope pen between the masts. “You see that black stallion? His name is Mandarb.” The heat went out of her eyes, and spots of color bloomed on her cheeks. “Oh.

Soldier gave her a week or two to get over the golden haired Prince with the character of a horned toad and the soul of a slug

Perhaps Manolete was a hoof fetishist, or suffered from terrible hemorrhoids as a result of long nights in Spanish horn parlors … but he was a great matador, and it is hard to see how any amount of Freudian theorizing can have the slightest effect on the reality of the thing he did best.

Gary Klein is a renowned and expert researcher on decision-making and cites the following aspects that experts have the ability to see which novices do not.196 1. Experts see patterns that novices do not detect. 2. Experts see anomalies—events that did not happen. 3. Experts see the big picture (situational awareness). 4. Experts create opportunities and improvisations. 5. Experts have the ability to predict future events using their previous experiences. 6. Experts see differences too small for novices to detect. 7. Experts know their own limitations. With an understanding of the differences between the experienced and the novice, we can begin to design a plan to overcome the shortfalls. Fortunately, understanding that it isn’t a “matter of intelligence, but a matter of experience” means that we can systematically set about gaining the experience necessary.

A good heuristic decision is made by 1) knowing what to look for, 2) knowing when enough information is enough (the “threshold of decision”), and 3) knowing what decision to make.

Identifying threats means establishing a baseline and looking for anomalies. A baseline is what is normal for an environment, situation, or individual.

I tried to call out to them, but instead heard myself saying, "Thank you, I'd love a ride," loud enough for all the ghost hunters to hear.

The three steps can be summed up with a few simple questions: First, what is going on here? Second, what would cause someone to stand out and why? Third, what would I do about it?

Never Forget. Never Quit. Semper Fidelis.

She didn't have butterflies in her stomach; she had unicorns. They ran in circles and charged her insides with their horns, gouging her as they rampaged.

I am still vaguely haunted by our hitchhiker’s remark about how he’d “never rode in a convertible before.” Here’s this poor geek living in a world of convertibles zipping past him on the highways all the time, and he’s never even ridden in one. It made me feel like King Farouk. I was tempted to have my attorney pull into the next airport and arrange some kind of simple, common-law contract whereby we could just give the car to this unfortunate bastard. Just say: “Here, sign this and the car’s yours.” Give him the keys and then use the credit card to zap off on a jet to some place like Miami and rent another huge fireapple-red convertible for a drug-addled, top-speed run across the water all the way out to the last stop in Key West … and then trade the car off for a boat. Keep moving. But this manic notion passed quickly. There was no point in getting this harmless kid locked up—and, besides, I had plans for this car. I was looking forward to flashing around Las Vegas in the bugger. Maybe do a bit of serious drag-racing on the Strip: Pull up to that big stoplight in front of the Flamingo and start screaming at the traffic: “Alright, you chickenshit wimps! You pansies! When this goddamn light flips green, I’m gonna stomp down on this thing and blow every one of you gutless punks off the road!” Right. Challenge the bastards on their own turf. Come screeching up to the crosswalk, bucking and skidding with a bottle of rum in one hand and jamming the horn to drown out the music … glazed eyes insanely dilated behind tiny black, gold-rimmed greaser shades, screaming gibberish … a genuinely dangerous drunk, reeking of ether and terminal psychosis. Revving the engine up to a terrible high-pitched chattering whine, waiting for the light to change … How often does a chance like that come around? To jangle the bastards right down to the core of their spleens. Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

He could not sit still, but got up, clutching the rifle in his sweaty hands. The good Lord God in heaven could damn his soul to hell if he didn't make an end of that red-tailed bastard tonight; and he, Nunnely Ballew, could be a man again, working his land and raising his family, instead of a piece of pore white trash getting drunk under the stars, and cursing the coming of daylight because every bone in his body ached for sleep. To hell with his loud brags and all the fine things he had said back yonder five years ago when Zing first got scent of King Devil. He'd thought then it was a red fox he had to catch, not a red devil.

Getting left of bang requires two things. The first is a mindset and mentality to actively search your area for people that don’t fit in. The second is the knowledge to know what causes someone to stand out from the crowd. I

I nurtured my dinomania with documentaries, delighted in the dino-themed B movies I brought home from the video store, and tore up my grandparents' backyard in my search of a perfect Triceratops nest. Never mind that the classic three-horned dinosaur never roamed central New Jersey, or that the few dinosaur fossils found in the state were mostly scraps of skeletons that had been washed out into the Cretaceous Atlantic. My fossil hunter's intuition told me there just had to be a dinosaur underneath the topsoil, and I kept excavating my pit. That is, until I got the hatchet out of my grandfather's toolshed and tried to cut down a sapling that was in my way. My parents bolted out of the house and put a stop to my excavation. Apparently, I hadn't filled out the proper permits before I started my dig.

Regardless of what situation you find yourself in, or what role you are playing at the moment, you must have a set of pre-established decisions to make based on what you observe. Otherwise, you’ll freeze, take too long, or make a decision that is not in your best interest.

Knight’s helmet and hunter’s horn, Wise words of those grown old, Rage between brothers, The lute-playing of women’s souls. Branch upon branch urged on, Nowhere disentangled ... One is free! Oh, climb! ... oh, climb! ... Ah, but they break off. Yet one, reaching the top, bends Into a lyre.

As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him.

Condition Black. Condition Black is characterized by when a person’s heart rate reaches a point that is counterproductive (above 175 beats per minute) and that person begins to lose awareness of the surroundings. A person in Condition Black can no longer cognitively process information and may completely shut down.7

The combat profiling threshold is called the Combat Rule of Three: When you observe three anomalies or indicators, you must make a decision. Do not wait for more information. Three indicators are enough information with which to act. Does this mean that you must have three anomalies to make a decision? No. In some situations, one anomaly or indicator is sufficient. For instance, following the usual rules of engagement, if an individual exhibits a hostile act or hostile intent, one indicator is enough. Someone presenting a weapon in a hostile way toward a Marine on patrol or cop on the street is all it takes to engage that individual with deadly force.

Anomalies that rise above the baseline are things that 1) are happening that shouldn’t or don’t normally happen or 2) are present that shouldn’t be or aren’t normally present. Anomalies that fall below the baseline are things that 1) are not happening that should happen or normally occur or 2) are not present that either should be or normally are present.

Milly nodded absent-mindedly and stared into the fire. She was thinking now of Suse, busily bossing the candy and crackerjack making in the kitchen. Aye, Lord, it would be better never to have a girl child; they saw nothing but pain and trouble and work, and so many went wrong, or else married some good-for-nothing little feist when they were too little to know that kisses come easier than victuals and that a houseful of youngens comes easiest of all.

I wanted to ask you more questions about your hallucination." "Please tell me it's the one I have where you mistake my body for a popsicle." She let out a short laugh. "Where did that come from?" Easy. The image he had in his head right now of her naked in his bed. "A bear can dream, can't he?" "A bear can dream. But those dreams can also get him skinned." "Will you be naked when you skin me?" She shook her head. "Does everything come back to being naked?" "Not everything. Just when a beautiful woman's involved and only if I'm really lucky.... Any chance I might get lucky tonight?" She let out a short "heh" sound. "You sure you're a bear and not a horn dog?" He laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm not usually quite this bad." "Why don't I believe you when you tell me that?" "Probably because I've been really bad tonight." He winked at her. "I'll stop. You said you have a question that unfortunately does not involve nudity?

Understanding the limbic system and its core freeze, flight, or fight responses is the first phase in detecting a threat. It’s important to remember that the enemy stalking a Marine on patrol or a seemingly helpless woman on her way home is under duress. This stress manifests itself in physical actions. If we look for these particular physical actions when our limbic system gives us the “heads up, something’s not right” signal, we’ll be able to operate effectively “left of bang.

The first question: is anyone an obvious hostile threat? If so, what is your plan to deal with it? If not, then is anyone giving off three (or more) behavioral indicators that they are an anomaly? Remember, when you observe three indicators, you have to act! Decide which type of behaviors would warrant different responses. Action may simply be contacting the person to ask some questions and observing them up close. But do not wait until further indicators are exhibited because it may be too late.

But the thing was not leaves but a great red fox, brightened by the sun. As if eager for her to see him, he stood still among the red leaves, head turned toward her, fiery-tipped brush lifted, mouth open, happily, pleasantly, like a dog. He looked at her and she at him; he was so close she could see the hairs in his eyebrows, the teeth shining in his half-open mouth, and the green fire in his coolly appraising eyes; with the red sunlight playing on his lifted tail, his back and shoulders, his pointed ears, he looked big, big as a half-grown cow; she looked more closely and saw the nicked left ear. King Devil it was, the fox Nunn had chased in hatred and in anger for the last five years; he had stolen from every family in the country, led many hounds to their death; every hunter was sworn to kill him; many had seen him long enough to learn his mark, but never had he stood so still and close as this. With a last cool glance, he dropped his head and picked up a hen, one of Nancy's White Rocks, fresh-dead and limber.

The trees were still, bodyless and motionless as reflections now that the wind had dropped; waiting pagan and untroubled by rumors of immortality for winter and death. Far, far away across the October earth a dog howled, and the mellow long sound of a horn wavered about her, filling the air like a disturbance of still waters, then was absorbed into silence again leaving the dark world motionless about her, quiet and slightly sad and beautiful. Possum hunters, she thought, and wondered as it died away if she had heard any sound at all.

They are the pure wild hunters of our world. They are swift and merciless upon the backs of rabbits, mice, voles, snakes, even skunks, even cats sitting in dusky yards, thinking peaceful thoughts. I have found the headless bodies of rabbits and blue jays, and known it was the great horned owl that did them in, taking the head only, for the owl has an insatiable craving for the taste of brains. I have walked with prudent caution down paths at twilight when the dogs were puppies. I know this bird. If it could, it would eat the whole world.

We do not claim to be experts. We only claim that we are striving to become experts and are taking the same journey that we hope we have inspired you to take. It isn’t a journey that any of us will ever complete. As soon as you believe that you are in expert in your field, you will no longer have the drive to keep learning. Humans are diverse, adapting and changing; there is always something to learn. The six domains of combat profiling and the content in this book should provide you with the foundation to grow in this pursuit. Good luck. Never Forget. Never Quit. Semper Fidelis.

I recken Nunn's gone, too,” Lureenie said as they walked along. Her voice rose in shrill anger. “Rans went a fox-hunten with th others, an him with nary a hound, an I heared em a comen an I went to th door an he stopped jist long enough to tell me he wasnt' comen in. Aimen to foller that gigglen fool of a Willie Cooksey over th river to J. D. Duffey's still; that's where they was a goen.” She added bitterly, “An in all this cold an th youngens all croupy an not but two sticks a wood for th fireplace, an th ax so dull I cain't make it cut, an him spenden money for that foxhound, an then liquor an hardly a bite to eat in th—” She stopped and bit her lip and walked quickly ahead.

There are other noteworthy characteristics of this rock art style: Anthropomorphs without headdresses instead sport horns, or antennae, or a series of concentric circles. Also prominent in many of the figures' hands are scepters--each one an expression of something significant in the natural world. Some look like lightning bolts, some like snakes; other burst from the fingers like stalks of ricegrass. Colorado Plateau rock-art expert Polly Schaafsma has interpreted these figures as otherworldly--drawn by shamans in isolated and special locations, seemingly as part of a ceremonial retreat. Schaafsma and others believe that the style reflects a spirituality common to all hunter-gatherer societies across the globe--a way of life that appreciates the natural world and employs the use of visions to gain understanding and appreciation of the human relationship to the earth. Typically, Schaafsma says, it is a spirituality that identifies strongly with animals and other aspects of nature--and one that does so with an interdependent rather than dominant perspective. To underscore the importance of art in such a culture, Schaafsma points to Aboriginal Australians, noting how, in a so-called primitive society, where forms of written and oral communication are considered (at least by our standards) to be limited, making art is "one means of defining the mystic tenets of one's faith.

Before the eyes of monks intent on meditation, what is the meaning of those ridiculous grotesques, those monstrous shapes and shapely monsters? Those sordid apes? Those lions, those centaurs, those half-human creatures, with mouths in their bellies, with single feet, ears like sails? Those spotted tigers, those fighting warriors, those hunters blowing their horns, and those many bodies with single heads and many heads with single bodies? Quadrupeds with serpents’ tails, and fish with quadrupeds’ faces, and here an animal who seems a horse in front and a ram behind, and there a horse with horns, and so on; by now it is more pleasurable for a monk to read marble than manuscript, and to admire the works of man than to meditate on the law of God. Shame! For the desire of your eyes and for your smiles!

On that note, the three decisions that a combat profiler may make are Kill, Capture, or Contact—in that order. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that the first thing that combat profilers do is kill. It means that, in any given situation, in a potentially hostile environment, the first decision that combat profilers should make is to kill or prepare to kill. If an individual does not commit a hostile act, demonstrate hostile intent, or provide indicators of an immediate threat, then the combat profiler moves to the next decision—capture. If the individual does not give off indicators of a potential threat or if the person does not appear to be of significant intelligence value, then the combat profiler moves to the next and final decision—contact. If, for some reason, the individual gives off further indicators, then the combat profiler may move back up the decision tree to capture or kill if necessary. This simple decision tree can be depicted as such:

Jack took two steps towards the couch and then heard his daughter’s distressed wails, wincing. “Oh, right. The munchkin.” He instead turned and headed for the stairs, yawning and scratching his messy brown hair, calling out, “Hang on, chubby monkey, Daddy’s coming.” Jack reached the top of the stairs. And stopped dead. There was a dragon standing in the darkened hallway. At first, Jack swore he was still asleep. He had to be. He couldn’t possibly be seeing correctly. And yet the icy fear slipping down his spine said differently. The dragon stood at roughly five feet tall once its head rose upon sighting Jack at the other end of the hallway. It was lean and had dirty brown scales with an off-white belly. Its black, hooked claws kneaded the carpet as its yellow eyes stared out at Jack, its pupils dilating to drink him in from head to toe. Its wings rustled along its back on either side of the sharp spines protruding down its body to the thin, whip-like tail. A single horn glinted sharp and deadly under the small, motion-activated hallway light. The only thing more noticeable than that were the many long, jagged scars scored across the creature’s stomach, limbs, and neck. It had been hunted recently. Judging from the depth and extent of the scars, it had certainly killed a hunter or two to have survived with so many marks. “Okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Five bucks says you’re not the Easter Bunny.” The dragon’s nostrils flared. It adjusted its body, feet apart, lips sliding away from sharp, gleaming white teeth in a warning hiss. Mercifully, Naila had quieted and no longer drew the creature’s attention. Jack swallowed hard and held out one hand, bending slightly so his six-foot-two-inch frame was less threatening. “Look at me, buddy. Just keep looking at me. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come this way, huh?” He took a single step down and the creature crept forward towards him, hissing louder. “That’s right. This way. Come on.” Jack eased backwards one stair at a time. The dragon let out a warning bark and followed him, its saliva leaving damp patches on the cream-colored carpet. Along the way, Jack had slipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, hoping he had just enough seconds left in the reptile’s waning patience. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” “Listen to me carefully,” Jack said, not letting his eyes stray from the dragon as he fumbled behind him for the handle to the sliding glass door. He then quickly gave her his address before continuing. “There is an Appalachian forest dragon in my house. Get someone over here as fast as you can.” “We’re contacting a retrieval team now, sir. Please stay calm and try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements–“ Jack had one barefoot on the cool stone of his patio when his daughter Naila cried for him again. The dragon’s head turned towards the direction of upstairs. Jack dropped his cell phone, grabbed a patio chair, and slammed it down on top of the dragon’s head as hard as he could.

It hovers, creeps in, comes close, withdraws, turns on tiptoe and, if I reach out my hand, disappears: a Word. I can only make out its proud crest: Cri. Cricket, Cripple, Crime, Crimea, Critic, Crisis, Criterion? A canoe sails from my forehead carrying a man armed with a spear. The light, fragile boat nimbly cuts the black waves, the swells of black blood in my temples. It moves further inward. The hunter-fisherman studies the shaded, cloudy mass of a horizon full of threats; he sinks his keen eyes into the rancorous foam, he perks his head and listens, he sniffs. At times a bright flash crosses the darkness, a green and scaly flutter. It is Cri, who leaps for a second into the air, breathes, and submerges again in the depths. The hunter blows the horn he carries strapped to his chest, but its mournful bellow is lost in the desert of water. There is no one on the great salt lake. And the rocky beach is far off, far from the faint lights from the huts of his companions. From time to time Cri reappears, shows his fatal fin, and sinks again. The oarsman, fascinated, follows him inward, each time further inward.

The central ceremony of Ritual Witchcraft was the so-called "Sabbath" - a word of unknown origin having no relation to its Hebrew homonym. Sabbaths were celebrated four times a year - on Candlemass Day, February 2nd, on Rood Mass Day, May 1st, on Lammas Day, August 1st, and on the eve of All Hallows, October 31st. These were great festivals, often attended by hundreds of devotees, who came from considerable distances. Between Sabbaths there were weekly "Esbats" from small congregations in the village where the ancient religion was still practiced. At all high Sabbaths the devil himself was invariably present, in the person of some man who had inherited, or otherwise acquired, the honor of being the incarnation of the two-faced god of the Dianic cult. The worshipers paid homage to the god by kissing his reverse face - a mask worn, beneath an animal's tail, on the devil's backside. There was then, for some at least of the female devotees, a ritual copulation with the god, who was equipped for this purpose with an artificial phallus of horn or metal. This ceremony was followed by a picnic (for the Sabbaths were celebrated out of doors, near sacred trees or stones), by dancing and finally by a promiscuous sexual orgy that had, no doubt, originally been a magical operation for increasing the fertility of the animals on which primitive hunters and herdsmen depend for their livelihood. The prevailing atmosphere at the Sabbaths was one of good fellowship and mindless, animal joy. When captured and brought to trial, many of the who had taken part in the Sabbath resolutely refused, even under torture, even at the stake, to abjure the religion which had brought them so much happiness.

Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons. A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.

When a person feels threatened, scared, nervous, or begins to experience some other negative emotion, that person will display discomfort. This is part of the second category of clusters that combat profilers attempt to identify. Just as dominant behavior resulted from the limbic system’s fight response, uncomfortable behavior comes from a person’s flight response. People who perceive a threat will either want to remove themselves from the situation or do something to protect themselves. Distancing behaviors, using barriers, and pacifying behaviors are clear indicators that someone is uncomfortable. However, any combination of three indicators from the following list should immediately identify someone as uncomfortable.

Many problems and situations in life do not have perfect solutions, and the best solution is unknowable. Many situations are so complex, it is impossible to examine every piece of information—or so dangerous that looking for more than a few pieces of critical information risks lives.

Learning is impossible without humility. We encourage confidence, not cockiness.

He turned around to see the bass drum popping and the horn sections pointing their instruments to the balconies and sending glorious notes to the rooftops.

Well damn,” Lozen says softly as she saunters over. “Look at the stones on you.” I look at the hunter as I put away the horn. “What are you talking about?” “Staring down a dragon all by yourself.” Lozen grins. “You idiot, you don’t even know how that horn works. For all you know, you could have been telling that dragon that you were a steak dinner, extra rare. With fresh peppercorns. And butter. And cream. Damn, I’m hungry.” “Well, I guess I got lucky.” “I guess so. Idiot.” Lozen punches me on the arm, still grinning. “Now can we get back to bed, please?

Getting left of bang requires two things. The first is a mindset and mentality to actively search your area for people that don’t fit in. The second is the knowledge to know what causes someone to stand out from the crowd. I hope that this book and the webpages that accompany these pages help provide you with what you need to do both.

I got to thinking that maybe this was what God had in mind when He invented religion, instead of all the don’t and must-nots and sins and confessions of sins. I got to thinking about all the big churches I had been in, including those in Rome, and how none of them could possibly compare with this place, with its brilliant birds and its soothing sounds of intense life all around and the feeling of ineffable peace and goodwill so that not even man would be capable of behaving very badly in such a place. I thought that this was maybe the kind of place the Lord would come to sit in and get His strength back after a hard day’s work trying to straighten out mankind. Certainly He wouldn’t go inside a church. If the Lord was tired, He would be uneasy inside a church.

from around the precious plants. The fresh air was exhilarating and John’s aunt chatted merrily about times gone by and what Italy had been like when she and John’s mother were children. ‘But that was before the war,’ she sighed. ‘It is far behind us.’ As Mary Anne pulled Mathilda’s blanket a little higher around the cherry-pink face, a thought occurred to her. ‘I think I have something that used to belong to your sister – perhaps to you too.’ ‘Oh?’ Maria eyed her quizzically. ‘Yes,’ said Mary Anne, and went on to tell her about the time John had come to borrow money against a silver crucifix that she’d guessed had belonged to his mother. ‘He’d wanted the money for Daw’s engagement and wedding ring. I gave him the money but never sold the cross on. I couldn’t do it somehow. I kept thinking that one day he might want it back.’ ‘You have this?’ said Maria, her eyes shining. ‘You remember it?’ Maria clapped her hands together. ‘Of course I do!’ ‘Michael found it in the ruins of the pawn shop. I still have it.’ She turned and looked with gratitude into Maria’s dark eyes. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. You must have it back.’ Maria’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It is a pleasure. I cannot thank you enough.’ They sat on a park bench. Mathilda was sitting up, observing everything with unusual interest. ‘She’s a lovely child,’ said Maria. Mary Anne murmured a reply. Her eyes were elsewhere, her attention caught by a man in a trench coat walking along the path at the side of the bowling green. She fancied he had been staring at them. 19 Lizzie and the wing commander had been travelling between airfields, ‘co-ordinating events’ as Hunter liked to call it, when he’d spotted a dog fight in the distance. Streaks of white vapour trail criss-crossed the sky as the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire locked horns above the English countryside. In their midst was a low-flying bomber, the bone of contention between the two. Hunter got out a pair of binoculars. Lizzie shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘They’re chasing the bomber.’ ‘Correction,’ Hunter said slowly. ‘The Spitfire is chasing the

Giovanni put his scissor hand to his face, so the blades stuck out from his forehead like a silver horn. A unicorn: virtuous, pure, utterly unsuited to survive the guile of hunters. I spent a lot of time in the library as a child. These images stick with you.

Liz giggles. “Oh my god, you are so cute.” The base of my horns grows hot. “I am a hunter. We are not cute. We are strong. Brave. Fearless. We—” I pause as she lifts her small foot into the air. “What are you doing?” “Can you rub my foot? It’s cold and your hands are warm.” I take her foot and begin to rub it, caressing the small whitish-pink toes and kneading the sole. “As I was saying—

OODA, stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. This is also called the Boyd Decision Cycle. This process, articulated by Colonel (Ret.) John Boyd, describes the four main steps that a person, group, or organization takes from observing a phenomenon to responding. This is a very helpful way to envision how people observe their surroundings (Observe), make sense of what they see (Orient), decide what to do (Decide), and then execute what they’ve decided (Act). However, just as BAMCIS simply tells a Marine to begin and complete a plan without teaching them how to plan, OODA states that a decision must be made without explaining how to make that decision or what Marines should be seeking to decide intelligently.

simply

Neolithic hunters/gatherers set out to create a holy place. They found a quarry, and began digging up multi-ton megaliths with flint flakes (sharp-edged, palm-sized,

So, here you are, in this mysterious now. With your history receding like the sound of a hunter’s horn along the wind, with your future rushing toward you like the next season, now is the moment, the only moment that exists, in which becoming can be and in which consciousness can make a difference. Perhaps the highest achievement of consciousness is not the self-serving reiteration of its own glories, its agenda of regressive reinforcement in the face of the large, intimidating cosmos that is our home, but rather its capacity to acknowledge that it has been called to witness, and to serve, to serve something much larger. There is in you room for a second, timeless, and larger life. For, as the poet Walt Whitman wrote in “A Clear Midnight”: This is the hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.

In a study conducted by Northeastern University network scientists, it was determined that human behavior, regarding patterns of movement and mobility, is 93 percent predictable. By using information collected from cell phones, physics professor Albert-Laszlo Barabási determined that human movement patterns are predictable regardless of distance traveled or demographic categories (such as age, gender, urban versus rural, etc.).37 In short, “humans follow simple reproducible patterns.”38 Not only do people follow patterns, but also humans are reluctant to change those patterns until the behavior becomes unproductive.39 In fact, even if faced with clear failure, people often follow the same behavioral patterns in the hopes they will work again.

Humans have significant cognitive limitations. It has been shown that imposing cognitive load can help uncover liars. A liar must create a story and monitor the fabrication to ensure it sounds believable while attempting to maintain a believable appearance. While telling a lie, the liar must monitor the interviewer’s reaction to assess how he or she is doing; the liar is also taxed mentally because a lie requires continuous effort whereas telling the truth is automatic. So as thoughtful questions are brought to the table, forcing the liar to spend more mental energy creating a lie and keeping the lies straight, the liar becomes vulnerable to leaking emotions and other indicators that can alert us to deception.40 Additionally, humans cannot divide their attention well. The more tasks a person divides his attention between, the poorer he will perform any of those tasks. Another example is short-term memory. Humans can only remember, on average, between five to nine items using their short-term memory. All of this is important

Humans will run, fight, or freeze. Humans are driven by fight-or-flight responses, which translate into certain autonomic responses and behaviors. We will discuss these responses later as well as the autonomic responses to stress. For now, it is sufficient to say that our bodies often exhibit uncontrollable, automatic reactions to our emotions in response to the situations we are in. Because these reactions are automatic and uncontrollable, they are reliable indicators

Humans are not generally spontaneous or random. This principle is related to the second principle above. As much as we think we are unpredictable and random, we really are very predictable and follow regular patterns. A study that tracked 10,000 people via cell phone concluded that people display a very high degree of regularity when they travel, because they return to only a few, very frequented locations.43 A more mundane example is the game Rock, Paper, Scissors. Research shows that, even in games that rely on being unpredictable, humans are, in fact, very predictable and not at all random. We involuntarily mimic others, and we predictably attempt to come back from losses—at least in Rock, Paper, Scissors—by doing whatever beat us in the last round.44 This means that our enemy will set patterns that, if we take the time to analyze,

Humans are not good at multitasking. In general, humans only look natural when naturally focused on doing one thing. Furthermore, multitasking is a myth. This relates to the principle above that humans have significant cognitive limitations. People can only do one thing at a time well; when they attempt to do more than one thing at a time, focus, ability, and productivity suffer. When your attention is divided, and you’re concentrating on doing more than one thing, your behavior and speech will appear unnatural. For instance, if someone is actually reading a paper, then their attention and mental energy will be focused on reading the paper. If, however, that person is only acting as if they are reading the paper and instead is attempting to conduct surveillance, then that person’s behavior will not look natural. Or imagine, for instance, conversing with someone attempting to discreetly watch someone in the crowd of people around you to get some type of subtle direction from that person. The person to whom you are talking will not be focused on the conversation. Instead, his mental energy will be divided. His action will be jerky, and his speech will seem choppy, broken, or slower than normal. His brain will have to switch back and forth between activities.

[Tailgrabber] looked up at the others, fixing them with a stare that she hoped carried every last drop of the hatred she had been saving up in her heart for herself.

Left of bang” means before the bad stuff happens. That’s where you want to be—alert, ready, prepared to respond to protect yourself and your loved ones.

There are two main reasons why our decision making tree begins with the most violent course of action. First, humans have an internal reluctance to kill. In On Killing, Dave Grossman writes about the nature and effects of killing in humans, and states: “I began to realize that there was one major factor that was missing from the common understanding of killing in combat, a factor that answers this question and more. That missing factor is the simple and demonstrable fact that there is within most men an intense resistance to killing their fellow man. A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it.

Understanding the limbic system and its core freeze, flight, or fight responses is the first phase in detecting a threat. It’s important to remember that the enemy stalking a Marine on patrol or a seemingly helpless woman on her way home is under duress. This stress manifests itself in physical actions. If we look for these particular physical actions when our limbic system gives us the “heads up, something’s

But for a combat profiler to identify the anomalies that influence his decisions, he needs to establish a baseline of behavior.

good heuristic decision is made by 1) knowing what to look for, 2) knowing when enough information is enough (the “threshold of decision”), and 3) knowing what decision to make.

Three specific skills were identified and focused upon: enhanced observation, combat tracking, and combat profiling.

Identifying threats means establishing a baseline and looking for anomalies. A baseline is what is normal for an environment, situation, or individual. Generally,

An anomaly is any variation from the baseline—and what we are primarily searching for is anomalies.

And for the partridge there was the sun suddenly shut out, the foul flailing blackness spreading wings above, the roar ceasing, the blazing knives driving in, the terrible white face descending – hooked and masked and horned and staring-eyed. And then the back-breaking agony beginning, and snow scattering from scuffling feet, and snow filling the bill’s wide silent scream, till the merciful needle of the hawk’s beak notched in the straining neck and jerked the shuddering life away. And for the hawk, resting now on the soft flaccid bulk of his prey, there was the rip and tear of choking feathers, and hot blood dripping from the hook of the beak, and rage dying slowly to a small hard core within. And for the watcher, sheltered for centuries from such hunger and such rage, such agony and such fear, there is the memory of that sabring fall from the sky, and the vicarious joy of the guiltless hunter who kills only through his familiar, and wills him to be fed.

Sue Annie sighed. “Child, th world cain't git along without doorsills to walk on; that's why th good God made women; but it's allus seemed to me that all women, when they die, they ought to go to heaven; they never have much down here but hell.

Lureenie smiled, almost gaily. "Me, I don't want to last a long time. I think I'd like to go out like a cedar bush in a brush pile than wear out slow like a door sill." Sue Annie sighed. "Child, the world cain't git along without doorsills to walk on; that's why the good God made women; but it's allus seemed to me that all women, when they die they ought to go to heaven; they never had much down here but hell." "Aw, Sue Annie," Milly said,"men has their troubles too." Sue Annie spat into the fire. "Nothen hurts a man much; if it does, it kills him.

Down a winding cobbled street from the church trips the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, the most evocative and strangely dramatic of all morris dances, performed for perhaps hundreds of years, conceivably for thousands. They are led by a single fiddler, dressed in a rag coat, playing a tune that is childlike and simple, but also full of sadness and an ethereal, mordant power, like the soundtrack of a dream. Behind him come men carrying antlered fallow deer heads in front of their faces. Behind them, a man-woman, a hunter and a hobbyhorse. They dance in silence, slowly. The hunt turns and turns, casting patterns in the moonlight. You feel its mossy, shadowed meaning beyond understanding. A ghost dance, a silently keening sadness. The things we misplace always bear a heavier loss than the things we choose to grasp with white knuckles. And in the darkness, quite unexpectedly, I feel tears of mourning on my cheek.

When man made fire, he lifted himself up, over, and above the animals. Fire is actually too good for people. Let us sit in front of one of these tiny, gleaming blazes and drink a little gin.

Any application of combat profiling in other situations, by other security personnel, or even the average person wanting to be more aware and stay safe on a daily basis will have to adapt the decisions to their particular circumstances. On that note, the three decisions that a combat profiler may make are Kill, Capture, or Contact—in that order. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that the first thing that combat profilers do is kill. It means that, in any given situation, in a potentially hostile environment, the first decision that combat profilers should make is to kill or prepare to kill. If an individual does not commit a hostile act, demonstrate hostile intent, or provide indicators of an immediate threat, then the combat profiler moves to the next decision—capture. If the individual does not give off indicators of a potential threat or if the person does not appear to be of significant intelligence value, then the combat profiler moves to the next and final decision—contact. If, for some reason, the individual gives off further indicators, then the combat profiler may move back up the decision tree to capture or kill if necessary. This simple decision tree can be depicted as such:

using the ticket she purchased for you! She will also try to open some doors for me once we arrive. I am speechless. Beyond words.” She dashed at a tear that had slipped from her eye. “Well, I’ll be,” Hunter said. “That’s pretty nice. That leaves us some time to have a few more shows.” Dichelle laughed. “That is exactly right, my amico. That’s precisely what we will do. A few more golden eggs for the Bright Nugget.” Gabe Garrison rode down the street with a ranch hand from the Broken Horn, a sack tied to the back of his saddle. The two stopped in front of the laundry house, dismounted, and untied the sack. They disappeared

Malcolm Gladwell skillfully demonstrates in his book Outliers,

There’s no way to tell from one Marine to the next who will have the keenness of intellect to make good decisions on the battlefield and who will fail. Currently, it’s not entirely based on the training they receive. A Marine’s ability to make decisions is mostly due to his or her life and experiences. The Marine cannot control much of this. Some Marines can quickly identify certain patterns in Afghanistan because they have, for instance, experiences staying safe in dangerous areas of New York or L.A. They have what we call “thick file folders,” a significant amount of relatable experiences they can quickly access in similar situations abroad. But certain Marines having these experiences is simply coincidental—they just happened to have grown up in a dangerous environment. Other Marines aren’t so lucky and do not have the experiences needed to make the same decisions driven by intuition.

She flushed and looked away and saw on Sue Annie's wash bench, packed tightly in the scant space and perspiring from the heat, a row of the neighbor women, school mothers Sue Annie had put near the hearth in a place of honor...Suse studied them, then shivered and looked away; she would never be like that, dull and dead and uncaring; she thought of Milly sleeping at home; she would fit well with the others on the bench. Had she or any of them ever heard the trains blow far away and sad, calling you to come away, calling so clearly you wanted to cry? Or had they ever wanted to run and run through the woods on a windy moonlight night in spite of what God would thin and the neighbors say? How could they sit so quietly now? How?

Every situation must be considered potentially dangerous, and you must be constantly ready to take action if a threat emerges.

A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later.

immediately forthcoming. Sheridan did all he could to meet the treaty obligations. "An abundant supply of rations is usually effective to keep matters quiet in such cases," he wrote in his Memoirs, "so I fed them pretty freely." The Indians had food in any case, for the buffalo still roamed the plains, despite the herds killed by Cody and other professional hunters. The Indians themselves were responsible for some of the slaughter inflicted on the buffalo. On occasion they would stampede a herd over a cliff, to pile up in heaps of meat. A German visitor to the plains in 1853, Baron Mollhausen, described the typical Indian buffalo hunt: "The buffalo has many enemies, but the most dangerous is still the Indian who has all manner of wily tricks. Buffalo hunting for the Indian is a necessity; but it is also his favorite pastime. Life holds no higher pleasure than to mount one of the handy, patient little ponies ... and gallop into a herd dealing death and destruction. Everything which might interfere with the movements of man or horse is flung away. Clothing and saddle are cast aside; all the rider retains is a big leather strap ... which is fastened around the pony's neck and allowed to trail behind. This trailrope acts as a bridle, and as a life-line too, for recapturing the horse should its rider be dismounted. In his left hand the hunter carries his bow and as many arrows as he can hold; in his right a whip with which he belabors his beast without pity. Indian ponies are trained to gallop close alongside the buffalo, providing an easy shot; the instant the bow twangs the pony instinctively dodges to escape the buffalo's horns, and approaches another victim. Thus the hunt continues until his pony's exhaustion warns the hunter to desist." Buffalo Bill often followed the Indian's hunting tactics closely, riding in near his target, bareback and with only a bridle to control his mount. Originally the several species of bison ranged from the Great Slave Lake in Canada to the Chihuahua in Mexico; they were also found in northern Nevada and eastern Oregon. Sometimes in pre-Columbian days they wandered into the grasslands of Kentucky, Tennessee, and even as far east as Ohio. A few may even have migrated as far as the shores of Lake

It’s on his wings that he carries the souls of the dead when they can’t reach the horned serpent,” Kee Granny said. “Treat him with tenderness.

Byron guarded both bodies, stepping away from the priest to face the surrounding woods when the first ripple of energy reached him. Someone approached, someone of power, which wasn’t entirely unexpected when their prince lay in a pool of blood. Hunters would be gathering from all over. Still, he trusted no one, not when both the prince and Gregori were at risk. Byron watched as a large horned owl circled the ruined building, and then settled on the crumpled wall. Slowly the wings folded and the owl’s round eyes surveyed the scene below. The talons flexed, relaxed. He positioned his body between the owl and the two Carpathians he was guarding. The owl had unusual coloring, the feathers tipped in gold, the eyes ringed with gold. A slow smile softened the hard lines in his face. “I should have known you would come,” Byron greeted. Coming back to his own body, Gregori lifted his head and studied the large owl. He spoke the Carpathian’s name softly in acknowledgement. “Aidan.” Byron crooked his finger. “Veri olen piros, ekäm--blood be red, my brother.” It meant, literally, Find your lifemate and see in color, a formal greeting between male Carpathians. The owl’s shape lengthened, shimmered, formed a tall, tawny-haired man with glittering gold eyes. His blond appearance was unusual for a Carpathian. He carried his body like a soldier, his manner sure and confident. Aidan stepped forward and clasped first Byron’s forearms and then Gregori’s in the traditional greeting of warriors. He looked over Gregori’s shoulder to their fallen prince. “Who dared to do this?” he demanded. “Vampire hunters who have fallen, ironically enough, in league with a vampire,” Gregori answered.

A man and a gun and a star and a beast are still ponderable in a world of imponderables. The essence of the simple ponderable is man’s potential ability to slay a lion. It is an opportunity that comes to few, but the urge is always present. Never forget that man is not a dehydrated nellie under his silly striped pants. He is a direct descendant of the hairy fellow who tore his meat raw from the pulsing flanks of just-slain beasts and who wiped his greasy fingers on his thighs if he bothered to wipe them at all. I wiped my greasy fingers on my thigh for practice. This is the only deeply rooted reason I can produce for the almost universal