Pardners

by Roy F. Chandler

  Byrne shouldered his rifle, sighting through its variable power scope with comfortable familiarity.

  "This, Bravo, is the latest and best piece of gear you are likely to come across. This, my dopey friend, is Colonel N. A. Rock's top-of-the-line sniper rifle. You are looking at a titanium M-700 action with a Hart .308 barrel only sixteen and a half inches long with an over-the-barrel suppressor. This sweetheart is quiet as a tomb, it is short and light weight, and it shoots sub-minute of angle out to one thousand yards."

  Alpha held up more. "This is the famed UNS night sight that can go on the mount you see in front of the scope. Using it, I can clearly see, and therefore shoot, human-sized figures at eight hundred yards in the dark of night."

  "Holy hell!" Bravo was impressed, but he remained worried. "Don't let that accurate gun make you over-confident, Byrne. Christus isn't going to pose for you out in the open. If you find him, you'll be in brush digging him out, and he will be shooting back."

  Byrne packed three ancient C-Ration cans in his pack. He examined their dates and found they were from the Korean War era. Ah well, Cs were good forever.

  His only night vision goggles were Russian. Now, there was better night vision equipment, but time had swept by, and he had not kept up. Byrne swore at his failure to upgrade, but he expected that Hayzoo would not have even that antiquated rig. After dark he could have an advantage, but tangling with a wasp like Christus at night did not sound well-reasoned. The Russian night vision monocular went into his pack.

  Alpha operated the stone plug, left the mine, and began his hunt from the blood-blasted spot where a day earlier he had tried very hard to end their war. He had a trail to follow. Although the blood spatters and drops were widespread, and now a day old, Byrne was a hunter. He was not a man stalker and tracker of the Marine Corps' Neal Morris caliber, but he had worked out many a wounded animal's route, and he hoped to do it again following this even better marked trail.

  The route led straight into the mountains, and that pleased Alpha. The thought of killers still lurking about his home and the mine was more disturbing than that of men running and hiding in little disturbed wilderness.

  He had been right. He followed two men, but only one was wounded. That one bled more than a little, and he limped badly—shot in the foot or the lower leg, Alpha decided. The escapers moved steadily, but not at a wild or mindless run. Alpha paused to think about that.

  His targets were not panicked. They had a plan and perhaps a destination. A hide? A shooting hide? Alpha kept his eyes ranging ahead. Ambush was his worst fear, but for now, he expected he could move with cautious speed. His enemies had passed this way many hours before, and they were not likely to be waiting just up the hill for whoever might or might not follow them.

  The probability was, the runners would be expecting the might of Idaho law enforcement to rain down on them. They should expect helicopters, bands of horsemen, and ATV mounted marshals. They would not attempt ambushes against radio-connected law enforcement hordes. Alpha took the risk and kept moving.

  It became clear that Alpha's quarry was heading for the closest stream. Actually, it was the only stream, and Byrne wondered if Christus knew that.

  Of course, the men fleeing would try to hide their route by walking in the water. Anyone who had ever read anything knew about walking in water—and it could work. Alpha doubted he could unravel clever schemes fast enough to catch up or even determine where Christus had gone.

  Surprise! At the stream the blood trail remained visible on surface stones and along banks. Christus, if that was who he chased, had made no outward attempt to hide their route. Byrne slowed and sharpened his vision. An ambush could lie ahead.

  — — —

  Jesus Christus could scarcely believe. Where were the dogs and the hunter packs? No helicopters? Had they gotten cleanly away, or were authorities waiting them out? Waiting until the stupid foreigners tired of hiding and tried to escape along roads. If that happened, the law officers would simply scoop them up without strong resistance.

  The sun had passed its high point. Jose rested slumped in on himself, obviously in severe pain, but silent in his suffering. Christus believed the man had developed a fever. Why wouldn't he? His wounds had not been treated. Christus had no medicines, and wrapping in soiled clothing healed little.

  Still, no skilled trackers with baying hounds appeared. The forest was normal in all ways. So, what should he do? Christus scratched his stubbled chin. Delay with powerful reasonings might not be the way. Attack now, while the other side doddled and planned could be the right answer.

  Strike and disappear while Jose could still be useful sounded increasingly sensible. Christus worried through a scheme and described its simplicity to Jose Dominguez.

  "We will wait in this place until we can safely leave, my amigo. That could be tomorrow or the next day. That no one follows us means that the gringos are hiding all that happened and that they will wait for us to show ourselves in their towns or on their roads.

  "When we leave our shelter, you will carry this shotgun." Christus put one of their two shotguns in Jose's hands. "You know this kind of gun. If you wish, you can shoot both barrels at once. Here are shells called Single Ought Buckshot. If you are within fifty meters you will kill and you cannot miss.

  "I will be about my own work, which may mean that you will have none, but your task will be to creep very close to the American at the house and kill him with the shotgun. There will be no hurry, but the sooner you kill the man who shot you, the quicker we can take their truck and find medical care for your wounds."

  Christus reminded, "Your pain will help you move against the gringo, Jose, because your wounds will need professional care, and the sooner we find it, the better it will be for you."

  — — —

  Alpha was stumped. He had followed the stream and its blood trail until it entered a narrow gorge where the sides rose steeply and the water was swift. No one but a fool would step into such a trap. Rifle unslung and ready, Alpha climbed a side hill, tramped across its broken stone face, and descended beyond the ravine.

  There was again blood, and peering back down the small canyon, he could see that the wounded man had bled during his travel through the gorge. Switching to the fast shooting M3, Byrne again took the trail, but after only a few hundred yards all traces petered and were gone. Petered out was not the right term. The blood trail simply ended. There was sign. Here, the wounded man had been bandaged, and he ceased bleeding along his path.

  So, where did they go? Alpha ranged ahead and behind, but he could find nothing. He was forced to proceed with caution. He could almost taste a trap, but where? No clues appeared. Perhaps he had it wrong and Christus and his companion, if that was whom he followed, were hurrying beyond his reach. While he poked and piddled in fear of being shot at, they scurried away.

  Byrne hated it, but he continued his careful search. He might lose them, but he did not intend to die over excess enthusiasm.

  In later afternoon, Alpha chose to call it a day. His legs were weary and his nerves exhausted. Bravo would be worried and could need his attention. He would begin again in the morning. He would return to the spot where he had lost the trail and try again. Often, a little time and distance exposed details that weariness had disguised.

  Byrne wondered how far a man as wounded as the one he followed could actually travel? Alpha's expectation was that the man could not hike long distance. Experience told him that his quarry had to be close—holed up somewhere in one of the many diggings that cluttered the mountains?

  Alpha turned for home. He moved swiftly, covering the three miles back to the safety and comforts of his mine.

  Damn, he was hungry. Tomorrow he would bring more rations. Four cans sounded about right for a man hiking his butt off over rough country.

  — — —

  Jose Dominguez had survived another night. He had sweat like a pig. Then he had chilled as if dunked in ice water. His wounds burned and looked
inflamed, but he believed he had gained strength. The sun had risen, and he had eaten. His mother had claimed that an appetite indicated improving health.

  Jesus Christus brooded on his side of their small cave, and despite his leader's explanation of how they would succeed, Jose Dominguez knew that a bronco hombre like Christus would do what served him best, and he could never be trusted. Dominguez was comforted by his possession of the deadly shotgun.

  Jose watched the sun move across the narrow canyon. Unlike the barren rock surrounding their hide, the opposing cliffs bore brush and an occasional scrub tree. Earlier, Dominguez had seen a deer make its delicate way across the steep slopes, and Christus had pointed out that the animal's presence proved that no one else was about. Jose decided to use the emptiness of all he could see as evidence that they had only to endure another night at the most before they broke free and finished their work.

  — — —

  Don Byrne was again hunting. He had returned early to the end of the blood trail. He had ranged outward from the streambed. He worked in ever larger arcs, attempting to discover a single indication of human passage that might give him direction.

  By middle afternoon, he had tried all that he could think of. He climbed onto high ground above the narrow gorge where the stream ran strongest. He chose a handy rock, removed his pack, and set aside his short-range gun. Using his binoculars, he would begin a lengthy and exacting study of every inch of land that he could see. Somewhere out there a wounded man, and probably his companion, were concealed. Even their slightest movements might reveal them.

  — — —

  Fever had arrived. It burned in Jose Dominguez chest. It dried his lips and parched his tongue. His head pounded with agony behind his eyes. Their water was gone, but Christus would take no risks. He had denied requests to refill the canteens until nightfall had come.

  At times Dominguez hallucinated. He dreamt of California and of people he had known, but the nightmares turned evil, and he was relieved when he woke to find them only imaginings. Could he last? Doubts intruded, and he suffered recurring visions of horrible deaths with great suffering.

  Jose Dominguez awoke, broiling with fever, his eyes wild from dreams to terrible too recall. In relief, he sought the peace of the silent and distant slope.

  Gradually Jose's eyes focused. For a horrified instant, he believed he was again dreaming, but then he saw with clarity. From the opposite slope an armored figure with his hands holding binoculars held to his face stared directly at him. They were discovered!

  Panic burst in the sickened mind of Jose Dominguez. He knew he screamed in fear and expectation of bullets smashing into his body. He exploded to his feet and charged desperately from the cave to reel wildly across the talus slope, falling, scrabbling, regaining his feet, clutching his shotgun, and lunging for cover in brush and woods seemingly beyond possible reach.

  Snatched from his own uneasy dozing, Jesus Christus registered his companion's panicked and explosive departure with confused disbelief. The maniac had screamed aloud and torn himself through the small cave entrance and away in a maddened clawing and falling rush across the stone rubble to disappear into heavier vegetation.

  "What in hell?" Christus found himself dumbfounded, but not so confused that he stepped outside to look around. Barely raising himself, Christus remained within the cave while attempting to judge why the obviously mad Jose had completely lost his mind.

  There was movement across the canyon, and it jerked Christus' attention from his companion's panic into gut-shrinking awareness that Jose, the fool's, terror had exposed their almost perfect hide.

  The stranger? A warrior garbed in camouflage and bearing weapons. Jesus Christus knew with debilitating certainty that the soldier studying Jose Dominguez' departure was the fast-gun shooter from the house.

  If Jose had remained unmoving, their hide would have been undetectable. But Dominguez's mindless terror had betrayed their presence. Christus made himself small in case the killer began shooting into the cave and firmed his plans for yet another escape.

  Jesus Christus had of course considered the possibility of being trapped in his hide. His best response was to unexpectedly rush across the rock fall and into the upstream woods, to crash through small growth and disappear into a field of cane that covered marshy land. From that temporary sanctuary, he might worm his way into genuine timber and run as if the devil were reaching for him.

  If he could reach the cane and flee through it, and if he could cross a number of ridges without being shot, he would descend into another valley's drainage, and his chances of escape would leap into probability.

  The fighter held a rifle, Christus believed. If that were the case, with the range from the shooter to himself a full four hundred yards, his chances of escaping hastily-aimed bullets was good.

  He watched the distant figure closely. The shooter could look away, perhaps to don his equipment. Christus saw a second weapon at the man's feet.

  When his enemy turned, Christus would explode from his hide even faster than Jose had run, but he would be wiser, and he would disappear behind folds in the earth before the distant killer could shoot.

  It could happen that way, but Jesus Christus's guts knotted at the dangers. Christus gripped his Winchester and gathered his muscles.

  — — —

  Don Byrne had been caught flatfooted. He had stood exposed where everyone in the world could see him, and if the scarecrow that had blasted from a hillside of seemingly bare rock had chosen to shoot instead of flee, Alpha, former Ranger, jumper, veteran of piratical warfare could have been dropped in his tracks.

  Don Byrne knew himself to be an incompetent doofus. The ragged scarecrow diving into the forest was his wounded enemy. With his binoculars, Byrne had seen the man's blood-blackened clothing with rags tied over what must be still open wounds. Damn, the M3 hadn't done so badly after all.

  Stunned by the appearance, humiliated by his personal, skill-lacking exposure, Byrne hung immobile—petrified he believed, by his own incompetence. And, as he stood frozen, a second figure hurled itself from an unseen crevice and barreled out of sight in an opposite direction.

  Defeated by his own inaction, Byrne sat down. Good God, he had let them both get away. There they had been, right under his gun, and he had stood, rooted like a tree, unable to do anything more than watch.

  Calming his shattered confidence, Don Byrne evaluated what had gone on. The two he had followed had taken cover in some sort of cave only a few hundred yards from where their trail had ended.

  If they had remained in place, he would never have found them. Why had they fled? The first, the wounded man, had more staggered than run, but he was armed. A shotgun? It could have been. Alpha's astonished senses had not picked that detail.

  The second had carried a rifle, a lever action of some kind, and he had sprinted as if he had a plan in mind. The second runner, the one with a scheme, would be Jesus Christus.

  Byrne took hold. Christus was the real target. He could run down the half-dead staggerer later—maybe.

  Alpha hoisted his rifle and his cargo pack. He slipped the belt around his waist and slung the M3. Once, his load would have felt insignificant. Now he felt burdened, tired, slow, and he had to face it—slow.

  Ah well, Christus waited, and Don Byrne knew the nearby cane field he would head for. He had hunted it a dozen times. There were weaknesses to hiding or maneuvering within the cane, and Alpha doubted Christus would discover them until too late.

  Chapter 32

  Jesus Christus hit the cane thicket and almost bounced clear. The cane was dense and resisted penetrating. Like a weasel or an otter, Jesus got low and slid on his stomach into deep cover. His heart pounded from even the short run. He had not sprinted frantically—probably since his youth among the guerillas—and it took more than a little out of him.

  He rested. He needed to carefully consider his situation. A mistake now could end it all. Escape was, of course, his only option. Jose'
s insanity had changed everything, and the hounds, canine or human, howled closer. He had to get away—far away. Later? Who cared? Now he had to stay alive.

  Jose Dominguez re-entered his mind. What had the sick fool seen that forced him into panic? A man with binoculars? Jose had surely lost his mind, but Dominguez was a city man, and he had never functioned as well beyond his familiar barrios.

  They had both been seen by the man watching them. Was it the shooter from the house? Armed as he was, the observer was no simple hunter wandering the woods. Yet, no bullets had come, and Jesus had heard no firing. That could mean that the hunter—Christus chose to think of him by that title—was careful and acting professionally. Or, the hunter might have gone after the wildly fleeing Jose Dominguez.

  Christus liked the latter concept, and it was not improbable. Jose would have seemed the easiest to catch, and his route would be quickest to intercept.

  Unexpectedly, mosquitoes rose as if from nowhere, and swarmed about him so thickly he feared to inhale. Christus cursed. The stinging horde disrupted his thoughts and would surely strain his patience. This he had not foreseen.

  He dared not leave the cane, but he began to crawl. It would be best to reach the farthest corner of the field—if he could stand the stinging, buzzing insects, and he had to be careful not to move cane tips in any discernible pattern or he might discover the hunter waiting for him.

  Christus twisted and wriggled ahead. It was a big field, but it was not endless. The ground became increasingly soggy, so he must be nearing the cane's center where beavers had once lived. They had cleared a pond that was now degraded into a mucky swamp. Christus's escape route led through it.

  — — —

  Alpha hustled down-slope and crossed quickly to hurry along higher ground bordering the cane thicket. He watched the mass of cane tips, seeking movement that might reveal Christus struggling beneath the canopy of leaves and branches. He saw nothing, but his goal lay close ahead.