Pardners

by Roy F. Chandler

  By all the gods, Bravo was snapping back, so Byrne's response was caustic. "I appreciate your confidence, Shepard."

  Alpha again caught Bravo under his arms and levered him erect. "Can you stay up, pal? Can you make it to the lounger?"

  "I can make it, but I am so thirsty I could drink a river." Byrne went for water. He doubted any metal or bone had flown into Shepard's guts where water would do harm, and the wounded man needed to stay hydrated until Byrne could at least get some saline into him.

  Bravo tottered to Byrne's favorite Lazy Boy and started to sit down, but Byrne was all over him.

  "Damn it, Shepard you're blood soaked as a throat-cut hog. Wait until I get something on the upholstery." He went for an old drop cloth used for painting and quickly spread it over the chair. With a gasp of relief, Bravo collapsed into the lounger.

  "Now, this is better, Byrne, but I'm lodging a complaint about your bedside manner. You are about as compassionate as Hitler's Doctor Mengele."

  Byrne was worrying aloud. "This misery is nothing, Bravo. Wait until I have to haul you up through that ceiling hole to get into my operating plaza. Now that is going to be hard."

  "I saw your ladder."

  "Yeah, but you won't be climbing at your best. Relax for a minute while I check the windows. I didn't get everybody, and some of their survivors might be hanging close."

  Bravo asked, "I got mine, what happened to yours?"

  Byrne tried not to sound chagrined. "I haven't had time to find out. I think I saw two of them. I poured thirty rounds into them at a little over a hundred yards, but I also think two crawled away. I should have killed somebody, but just blazing away is usually disappointing."

  Bravo suggested, "Maybe you had better get after them. If you'll feed me a powerful pill or two, I'll be comfortable here. You can work on me when you get back."

  Byrne was short with his friend. "Two things wrong with that. First, if I don't get to patching and sewing and get some electrolytes into your dried out carcass, you may not hang on until I get back. Remember shock, pardner? You were hit hard, and your wound is no joke. It needs attention, and the quicker the better.

  "The second reason why I can't just start hunting as if I were out for rabbits is that these are bad hombres, Bravo, and I won't be able to just go out and pick them off. Hell, if I got careless, they could nail me.

  "Either or both of the people I saw could have been unhit, and even if they were tagged by a bullet, those kind of south-of-the-border thugs fight like cornered rats. I'll lace you back together, then we'll think it over, and finally, we, or I, will go get them."

  Alpha brought the pickup close and loaded Bravo into the passenger seat. He drove to the mine entrance, opened the gate, raised the ceiling rock, and hauled Bravo inside.

  As Bravo struggled a single step at a time, up Alpha's portable ladder and levered himself into the secret rooms, Byrne pushed on his friend's behind.

  "Damn it, keep humping, Shepard. One of those miserable bastards could step into this mine at any instant and we'd be standing here like statues."

  Bravo's voice was ragged with strain. "I thought we weren't going to let them know about us getting inside here? Hell, they'll see the pickup out there, and they are probably planning it all out right now."

  Byrne was short. "Conditions change. They might believe we are in this mine, but they will never find these rooms. Patching you has got to be first."

  Byrne pushed Shepard's legs onto the upper floor, raised his ladder, and swiftly lowered the massive stone plug.

  — — —

  Jesus Christus was not watching. He was escaping. His course led into the mountains, but he was not trying to hide his route. How could he with Jose dripping blood as steadily as his heart pounded? Dogs would be put on their track, and they would smell Jose's drippings as clearly as if he stood in his footprints.

  Yet, Christus did not want another Mexican American body found in these woods, and Jose might still be of use. Even if he became almost immovable, Jose could be part of a planned diversion that might allow Christus to reach safety, to hole up and wait, and wait some more, until the chase died and he could finish what he had started.

  As he hiked, Christus developed a better plan. He would use Jose and his blood trail as part of his getaway. For the moment, however, distance was most important. How long would it take to have search parties formed and working? Many hours, Christus expected. Until then, his closest threat would be the machine gunner who had certainly survived and might be striding on his trail.

  Jesus Christus had had months to prepare, and he had perfected a hideout that would see him through. He wished now that he had stocked it more thoroughly with food, but there would be enough, and he had blankets for warmth.

  Raul had helped him create the safe place, but Raul now lay dead or terribly wounded in the doctor's yard. How, Christus again wondered could his two men have failed to kill one old gringo?

  Even if he lived, Raul, the only companion who could pinpoint Christus' hideout, had no reason to expose Christus to anyone.

  Three miles, and they would be safe. Two miles to the stream where he would pretend to hide their route. No matter how hard he tried, Jose's bleeding foot would betray them to dogs that could follow scent even up a stream.

  Christus hoped they were good dogs because the smartest of them would best follow the blood scent, and that false trail would allow both Christus and Jose to escape.

  Chapter 30

  Alpha's operating platform would be his steel armorer's table. He needed Bravo's body flat and extended with his chest arched a bit. He flipped a wool blanket over the table's oiled surface and spread a clean sheet for Bravo to rest against.

  At least the lighting was good. He had adjustable spots and a pair of fluorescent lamps to make his gun work shadowless. He even had a forehead light for close and exacting adjustments.

  Stripped down, laid out, and cleaned off, Bravo appeared less injured, but the bullet's route was long and deep. Bruising along the edges of the wound was massive, and Byrne could see where the slug had bitten deep into the muscle and meat across his friend's body. Still, Bravo had been fortunate. An inch deeper and he would have suffered a death wound. The projectile, probably an expanding hunting bullet, had opened as it plowed a long and nasty channel. It had been a bigger bullet, Byrne recognized, probably a 7mm or a .30 caliber.

  Byrne explained as he worked, and occasionally Bravo grunted acknowledgment that he heard.

  Byrne said, "I'm going to put you out with ether, pardner. It's all I've got stored away, but it's worked well for about a hundred years." Alpha snorted as he examined his bottle, "In fact, this stuff I'm going to use is so old it may be part of the original discovery."

  Bravo hissed through his teeth before responding. "I'll take anything, Byrne, just get on with it. Damn, this hurts."

  Alpha arranged a cotton-filled paper cone over Bravo's nose and mouth, then complained, "Cripes, I'll probably inhale so much of this stuff I'll fall asleep halfway through my sewing."

  Shepard was feeling too poorly to answer.

  Cursing his primitive maneuverings, Byrne dripped ether into the cone and began a countdown that Bravo would hear. He hoped the slow count would encourage his patient to nod off. Bravo's breathing slowed, and Byrne rolled back an eyelid to test Bravo's response. Out cold, and going deeper, Byrne decided.

  At least he had rubber gloves and disinfectant. Byrne poked a needle into a vein and began a saline drip. Salty water was not a decent substitute for lost blood, but it would keep Bravo from mummifying. Alpha promised himself to repeat that thought to Bravo when he woke up.

  Doctor Don Byrne went to work. He scissored away torn or battered flesh. He sealed off a number of leaking capillaries, and he probed deeper to determine if there were more serious injuries.

  There was shattered bone—a rib. Byrne cursed and went after the pieces. When he had most of them, he snipped the rib end smooth and used suction to cleanse his
operating theatre. His suction was lousy, so Byrne shifted to washing out the wound with sterilized water, and that worked better.

  Byrne sewed rapidly. He stopped the ether before he was finished, checked Bravo's pulse, and found it strong. He needled a decent dose of morphine into the saline dripping into his patient's arm. The morphine would keep Bravo drowsy and ease his pain. It would also curb his complaining and carping over suspecting his doctor of spell-casting or beheading chickens. Shepard often included voodoo rites in his descriptions of Byrne's medical education.

  Byrne lightly bandaged Bravo's wound and hoisted his partner's lax frame to the closest bunk. Alpha massaged an aching back. He was getting too old to heave dead weight around. Bravo would owe him for this.

  He should probably have been thinking about the lurking killers, but Byrne's mind stayed on his friend of so many years.

  God, the adventures they had taken on! The army had provided excitements with the parachuting and the demanding schools and courses—plus travel to strange places, of course, but it was what they had done on their own that glowed in memory. Shooting into the Santos had been daring, and going twice for the Santos money had been remarkable. Now this—shooting people dead, getting shot and shot at, and still nowhere near finished.

  How fortunate he was to have a friend to stand with him. How, Alpha wondered, would it turn out in the end? Only in bad movies did a few heroes escape enemy armies untouched and unbowed.

  Well, if there was a penalty, Bravo had paid up first. Assuming he did not infect, and that the Jesus Christus gang did not take them down, Bravo would survive with a lengthy scar to brag about.

  Byrne was beaten down, and he, too, needed sleep, but not yet. Two bodies lay in his front yard. Had they already been discovered? Did emergency lights from ambulances and search parties light the encroaching night? He had to remove the dead and do it now before their mangy carcasses were noticed. Would Christus and his men be waiting for his reappearance? Cheee!

  Had they a chance in hell of disguising all of this shooting and killing, so that no one ever found out? Byrne groaned to himself.

  Byrne raised the great stone plug and lowered it behind him. Bravo would remain safely sealed in place. He drove the pickup back to the house. The dead lay where they had fallen, and no bullets from the dark sought him. He used the truck's head and spotlights to guide his body loading.

  Byrne held his M3 sub gun ready as his best Surefire flashlight explored the ground where he had sprayed his targets with .45 ACP bullets. There was blood but no bodies. He hoped their wounds were terminal. God, thirty rounds, and no one dead. Machine gunning sounded better than it killed.

  Byrne re-drove the short rise to the mine entrance, and wished he could move the pickup inside the tunnel, but the truck was too tall. It might grind its way inside, but the light bar and the cab top would be crushed and ruined.

  To hell with it. Byrne turned on the tunnel lights and muscled the stiffening bodies into the trunk of the old green car. He slammed the trunk lid and risked exposure to leave the mine and lock the pickup's doors. He again raised the great stone, turned out the lights, and climbed into the safety of his hideout. The stone plug settled into place, and he was home.

  Doctor Don Byrne checked his resting patient. Shepard's skin was cool to the touch. Good, there was still no fever. Byrne added an antibiotic to the saline drip and crawled into the next bunk.

  Tomorrow would be "Find Christus Day." He would be alone on the hunt. At best, Bravo would be sidelined for days, and then he would not be fit for much more than sitting with a weapon in hand.

  If only they could call in the power of the law, but they could not. The explanations would be unending, and there were too many graves and unexplainable vehicles standing around. There were . . . it was impossible. Alpha would have to finish it himself.

  — — —

  Christus, too, huddled within the earth, but he was far less comfortable. Generations earlier, miners had pick and shoveled test holes throughout the mountains. Few such efforts had led to active mining, but hundreds of hollows and caves existed. Christus's hollow had been a half-cave barely deep enough to squeeze into. He and Raul had increased its size, floored it with leaves, and created a habitable and decently weather-protected shelter for two.

  Christus had picked the semi-cave because it had been dug above a narrow choke of a ravine where water ran. A million tons of fallen and broken rock disguised any probability of something unnatural near the upper rim. Even a close observer would see only an uninterrupted fall of stone, and the observer would move on.

  Christus' escape and evasion plan had been simple. He had allowed Jose's ruined foot to bleed as it would. When they had reached the stream and turned up it, Christus made no effort to keep Jose in the water where blood would have washed away. Even if washed away, good dogs could often follow bleeding upstream to its source, and Jesus Christus wanted the dogs to follow the blood trail.

  They passed through the narrow cut, above which Christus's hideout was dug into the cliff face, and proceeded another three hundred yards before Jesus called a halt. There, Christus took care in binding all of Jose's leaking wounds. He used the wounded man's hat roped over his blood soaked shoe to make certain there would be no further dripping.

  Jesus Christus had his own annoying wound. The bullet that had cut through his shirt had parted skin and some flesh at the top of a shoulder. The injury was painful and irritating, but it was not debilitating. Christus hoisted Jose onto his back in piggyback style and hiked swiftly back down the stream for nearly a hundred yards. There a shallow rivulet turned aside toward a draw that meandered alongside Christus's hideout ridge. Jesus turned up it, and pushed himself even harder.

  It was of utmost importance that Jose did not bleed along this route. A tracker, especially the dogs, would follow the blood spoor and finally lose it beyond Christus' turn off. If they backtracked, there would be no trace of anyone having turned up the small run.

  No blood, no trail, Jesus Christus figured. He and Jose could hole up in the cave until the hunt died. If Jose died, or if Christus decided he needed to die, his body would lie buried within the hole they hid in.

  Night closed around them, and they lay chilled with Jose at times feverish. Blankets helped and they ate a little. Christus had two canteens and they would not go for water until they could believe they had escaped at least the first and most diligent of the many search parties that would soon arrive.

  During the first night Jesus Christus slept little. He listened to Jose's restlessness and realized that his companion was almost constantly awake. How long could the man last? Of course, he might recover. Men like Jose were as tough as boot leather, and it was a mistake to underestimate them.

  What to do next? Attack again, was Christus's plan, but if it had been tricky before, it was more difficult now. Why on earth had one of the men come to the back door with a sub-machinegun? Who could have warned them? Who had betrayed Christus to his enemy? After he killed the lone survivor, he would find out.

  Christus pondered the possibility of capturing the man and squeezing information from him. He could enjoy that, but capturing a killer armed with a machinegun could be almost beyond managing.

  Jose, whose last but seldom used name was Dominguez, forced himself to remain awake. Christus had kept him alive, and that was encouraging. He had almost believed that Jesus Christus would drive a knife between his shoulders and leave him in the forest. That was Christus' reputation, but he, Jose, lived, and if he could regain strength and be useful, he could continue to survive.

  In time they would kill the cunning Doctor Byrne. Then he, Christus, and Esteban would return to the city and enjoy the rich rewards they had been promised and had surely earned.

  Jose Dominguez hoped that he would be privileged to kill the doctor who had shot him into pain-filled rags.

  Chapter 31

  Few days go as planned, and dawn of Alpha's "Find Christus Day" began no different. B
ravo was suffering, so Byrne packed him with antibiotics and codeine. Byrne chose codeine because the drug would dull pain, but unlike morphine, it would also leave its user reasonably alert. Alpha would be gone most of the day, and Bravo might have to respond on his own.

  Byrne spent nearly an hour thoroughly hosing away two blackened blood pools on his gravel drive where the dead thugs had bled out. Then Alpha turned to the hunt.

  Unless he had fled through the night and left Idaho, Christus would be in the mountains. Chasing and bringing him down could mean close-in firefights among aspens or open shooting on hillsides. There could be long range stuff across valleys. How could he arm for those multiple possibilities? Alpha supposed he should have a gun bearer.

  As Byrne dressed in bow hunter's camouflage, Bravo watched with drug-dulled but still critical eyes. Byrne chose a mottled wool watch cap, and he tucked a stick of brownish camouflage grease in a pocket. Bravo thought he should wear a Marine Corps boonie hat, but Alpha had found a hat brim could interfere. The naval watch cap pulled down tight and close over his ears gave warmth and broke outline, but never limited his vision.

  To fight in the varying terrain he might encounter, Alpha chose the way of many Vietnam era snipers. He would use his M3 sub-machinegun for everything close and pack a slung sniper rifle of very special design for reaching out long distances.

  Alpha taped a pair of M3 magazines together, end to end. That gave him sixty rounds of fast firing before he had to fumble for more ammo. He had a second pair of magazines, so he taped the extras the same way and placed them in a small infantry cargo pack that would ride against the small of his back.

  When he opened a Pelican hard case and withdrew his rifle, even the seriously doped Bravo perked up. Shepard said, "What in hell is that, Byrne? You never showed me that gun."