Wild Country tq-3

by Dean Ing

  At least the diesel fumes were not so strong now. He recited an old service ditty, "Lady Luck She Is a Fickle

  Bitch," in his head. He might be running a fever now, complete with headache and cottonmouth, but by taking care in that semidesert sun, he was still clear-headed enough to think. So think!

  He was still licking his own sweat; a good sign. When you quit sweating, your dehydration was well and truly advanced. He'd spotted a bark-hided lizard — locals called it a "boomer" — touring the edge of his outcrop, but it kept clear of him. It wasn't poisonous and it was full of body fluid, and if it got within reach, he fully intended to do what the Apaches did: bite in like Dracula and suck the poor critter dry. It wasn't as disgusting as the idea of becoming delirious out here in a single afternoon, as many a good man had done before.

  Keep thinking! Their firepower was overwhelming, and they'd sent a lot of rounds under the cycle in a hurry; yet they hadn't hit him once. They could have tried flanking him and hadn't. If they weren't plain cowards, maybe they really didn't want him dead. If they'd been drugrunners, they would have kept out of sight to begin with; either that, or they'd have taken their chances and flanked him early. Chances were that these were Garner waddies, ordinary ranch hands. Yes, that fined the patterns. Good thinking. Too goddamn bad he hadn't given more candlepower to thinking about weapons when he'd set out on this infernal idiotic quest that was hardly less stupid than Wardrop's, rot his soul. Jee-ms, but his head ached. Come just a little closer, Mr. boomer lizard, and I'll explain all about vampires. He laughed to himself, a little dizzily, and then he slept.

  He did not wake when a slug sent a light shower of dirt onto his back. Nor when the sun slid down to peer under his improvised headgear, blistering the bridge of his nose. Nor when the lizard flickered across in front of him, within easy reach. What woke him was the sound of hovercycles.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  He'd known worse headaches, but couldn't recall when; could not recall anything very clearly, to admit the worst to himself. At least he knew he was impaired, so maybe using the jacket for shade had kept him from delirium. And now the breeze was almost cool on his blazing cheeks, and the sun was sinking into the near horizon.

  Several cycles had just moved in; maybe three, from the sounds of them. He was in no condition to leap up for a fast visual check. He made himself crawl back toward his overturned cycle, more as a physical test than anything else. Dizziness, a headache that threatened to pop the top of his skull off like a champagne cork, physical weakness, and a desire to give up: all, for Quantrill. extraordinary signs.

  The loud-hailer sought him again. "All right, pocho, we're sending men down under the bluffs behind you." A bluff was a low cliff — but cliffs could be climbed, and the man might be lying anyhow. "We got nightscopes for us, and flares for you, in case you're waiting for dark. Couple of flares into that cycle of yours will ruin your whole day. Or would you rather come out before that? You won't be hurt 'less you do something stupid."

  Quantrill kept silent, playing for time. In another half hour, the shadows might be deep enough to cover a vertical descent. Or might not; whatthehell, whatthehell, he was too dizzy to care…

  "On the other hand, maybe you're played out already, and Mul Garner wouldn't like to know we done that to you, so in that case we'd just as soon burn the cycle and you with it. If you don't want the Fourth of July around you — better sing out."

  Quantrill kept quiet until he heard a sound like a wet bag popping, then saw a green fireball arc through a sunset sky the hue of beaten copper. It hit the caliche twenty meters from the fuel-soaked area and fragmented before burnout. No harm done, but if they kept that up, sooner or later they were bound to flush him from cover. He stuck the Nelson's muzzle over the outcrop and fired it. Then he called out. "You want boosted slugs from this scattergun? Just use those flares again."

  They already thought he had a shotgun, and boosted buckshot from a smoothbore could take you out from two hundred meters. And anybody who triggered a flaregun gave his position away to the world at large. They could not be certain he was pinned down too low to spot them. So far, so good; but before long it would be dark, and they would be wondering why his "shotgun" blasts did not emit any muzzle flash. Especially if he were supposedly using ammo with a second-stage boost just beyond the muzzle. No, he had worked that coldgas rifle scam for just about all it was worth. He stowed all the spare darts in the rifle's hollow stock and decided he still might use it. The man it hit, with a load of tranquilizer gauged for a big horse, would never be revived.

  The sun was dipping below the horizon now, even as a hovercycle thrummed away somewhere off to his right, seeking a way down into that steep narrow valley. These people seemed to have little stomach for risk, and perhaps they really did prefer not to whack him out, given their druthers. But with several men surrounding him, he would soon be flushed without a safe exit.

  A long sliver of shadow swept up over Quantrill, and with sudden clarity he realized what he would've known before if not for this skull-splitting headache and sun-induced fever. His pursuers were looking more or less into the sun and might not see a stealthy low form crawling to the lip of the ravine. In another minute or so the sun would be gone, and moments later their vision would be much improved. He might have a better chance later — but this was the only one he'd had yet, with any appeal.

  He took it. Slowly, sliding backward, feeling with his toes as he went. If someone did see him and take a shot, at worst he would be hit in the leg.

  He did not hear the pop but saw his world lit from behind with an artificial crimson glow; remained perfectly still as the red flare, fired from somewhere down in the ravine, spent its fury overhead and died in the air. He began his slow progress again now, moving as an angler moves near a trout pool, each motion so drawn out that it seemed no motion at all. He paused, hearing a single rifle report, then realized that the round had struck his cycle. At least one sniper was looking in his direction but shooting several meters wide. He hoped it meant that no one had seen him sliding out on his belly in a sunset that was now the color of blood, feet first into the open, pulling the Nelson rifle behind him.

  Now he lay completely exposed, turning the rifle so that it lay mostly under him, its muzzle safely beyond his nose. If he could haul the rifle down into the ravine with him, he just might liberate himself a hovercycle with it.

  Then, horrifyingly near, another loud-hailer: "He's goin' over the lip, Longo!" Someone had moved far to Quantrill's left, almost to the ravine. He probably had a weapon as well, and he had finally seen his quarry's stealthy movements.

  No time to consider it. Quantrill burst into a backward crawl, feeling his feet and legs protrude out into nothingness, and let go of the rifle as he braced his arms to take his weight. The man who'd seen him obviously saw that he couldn't shoot back after committing to the lip of the bluff. No question about it now: the bluff was a ragged drop-off.

  Quantrill heard footsteps pounding toward, him, looked over his right shoulder, saw that he hung over a vertical drop as high as a two-story house. Below that, stony ground angled away at a forty-five-degree angle toward thick brush in the throat of the ravine. He found a foothold; lowered himself enough to get his head below the ravine lip; located crevices for his hands and lowered himself two meters before the footsteps paused above him. The man was too cautious to poke his head over the edge.

  "He's gone," called the man, not using the loud-hailer and not needing to. Someone called a reply. Another green flare hurtled up over the ravine, and Quantrill, looking down into the shadowy depths, saw a ledge of caliche which the flare had tinted a ghastly shade of bile green. The ledge was the width of his hand. Standing on that ledge, a man might drop to the slope and then into cover without breaking every bone in his employ. He found two more footholds, heard someone shout from below, and dropped onto the ledge.

  Caliche is rotten stuff for compression loads. The ledge crumbled instantly, and Quantril
l smashed both elbows against what was left of it on his way past. The impacts checked his fall but turned him slightly, and then he struck the steep slope at a hopeless angle, cartwheeling, hands outthrust to protect his head. He never saw the ragged hunk of caliche that powdered against his skull just above his left eye. and after that gigantic white flare burst inside his head he saw nothing at all.

  Chapter Forty

  Familiar pain… faint pressures of hands exploring his body… blankness… splash of lovely cool wet stuff. Vaguely, Quantrill knew he was swallowing water.

  Bits of talk from several male voices.

  "Nothin' broke that I can tell."

  "Beats me why the sumbitch ain't in more pieces than a china doll."

  A deep low voice: "He will be, if I know Jer."

  "I seen this one someplace, Billy Ray. Rocksprings, maybe."

  "Well, take his feet, goddammit; you expect me to tote him thru this brush and shit all by myself?"

  Rough handling then, not vicious but clumsy, and a slow passage through foliage as tough as an acre of wire brush. Then curses, grunts, and cushions under his butt. The aft cockpit of a cycle, perhaps. A wave of nausea, then blank-ness again.

  Later, Quantrill realized he was trussed and in a safety harness as a diesel thrummed in the chassis; headlights swept across him from time to time from a following cycle, and a cool wind fanned his face as they proceeded in darkness. When they stopped for a break, he managed with a struggle to sit up. They gave him more water, and a strip of salt jerked meat to chew. Against all odds, he still had teeth to chew it with.

  "I think you're gonna make it, pocho," said one of his captors, half in wonder. The man was roughly Quantrill's age and, checking the swelling on his captive's forehead, clucked to himself. "You hearing any of this?"

  Quantrill nodded, and thought his head would roll off onto the ground.

  "What do they call you?"

  Quantrill croaked the first thing that came into his head: "Sam Coulter. More water…"

  From nearby, the strong deep voice: "Watch the fucker, L. J., he might sandbag you."

  "And him hogtaped like this? Ease up, Longo, I'm just givin' him water." Quantrill took the canteen, his wrists taped together, and savored a full quart of it.

  From what little he could see in the multiple glows of running lights, Quantrill estimated there were five of them; taciturn hired hands, men he had perhaps nodded to at Saturday dances or on the streets of Rocksprings. At least, none of them seemed to know his name.

  "Gettin" on to eight o'clock," said the leader, the one others called Longo. "If that radio of yours is fixed, Billy Ray, call Concannon. Tell him we're an hour out." He mashed a cigarette underfoot, drew on his gloves, and swung into the forward cockpit of the lead cycle. Quantrill kept the canteen and managed during the next ten minutes to empty it without heaving any water up. He had been thoroughly bound with the modern cowpoke's standby, filament tape, his upper arms bound to his sides. He could not get his wrists anywhere near his teeth, and the effort was exhausting. He tried to stay awake but eventually slept again.

  He woke in a modern, well-lit equipment barn as his captors were stowing their cycles. His driver, the wiry young man they called L. J., freed him from the harness, cut the tape at his ankles, and helped him stagger onto a cement floor. Then they prodded him forward, out the folding doors into a packed-earth yard bathed by an overhead sodium-yellow light. Standing alone, fists on his hips as he studied the latecomers. Cam Concannon shook his head as he looked into Quantrill's face.

  Longo, the one with the resonant basso and a barrel chest to push it, jerked a thumb toward the captive. "Says his name's Sam Coulter. Poking around where that S & R crew picked up the limey."

  Concannon's eyes flickered. "Coulter, huh? That's a good name, I reckon. Well, Mr. Coulter, you got some explaining to do." He turned to the other men, considering his words carefully. "You boys find fencecutters on him? Any brush-popper hardware?"

  Quantrill stood there, weaving a bit, shaking the kinks from his legs as the men made their report. They'd found very little to suggest more than simple trespass. It seemed they had taken a careful look around his cycle. Billy Ray, it turned out, had brought the vet kit and the Nelson rifle along as evidence.

  "This damn rifle of his sounded like a twelve-gauge, but it's just one of them vet guns. He coulda been tryin' to knock over a few beeves," Longo rumbled.

  "Oh, sure," Concannon said, running a hand through his hair as he considered the idea. "Nothing to skin a beef, not even a balisong or fencecutters; how the hell was he gonna dress out anything more than a few steaks and get over a Garner fence with it?"

  "I could've told them," Quantrill began, "but the first warning I had—"

  Not loud, but fierce: "You shut the fuck up. Coulter," said Concannon. "You're a major pain in my ass. Think more and talk less 'til I get you in front of the old man." His gaze augered into Quantrill's. It said a little about fairness and a lot about caution when talking among these men. Quantrill sighed and brought up his hands to show the tape at his wrists.

  "I see it," said Concannon, and laughed. "Hell, I ordered it. Damn good thing you didn't bag any Garner hands out there, or the tape coulda gone over your nose and mouth, too." Asphyxiation was a terrible way to die; as bad, perhaps, as the death of the skins. The foreman was telling him, as clearly as he could, that on Garner land a rough judgment might be followed up by summary execution.

  And there were still more judgments to be made.

  Quantrill had few illusions about that; he had already made a rough match between the deep-chested Longo and some records he'd studied in Junction. If he had carried his wallet with him, they'd have known his name immediately — and Longo might've whacked him on the spot. Maybe that was why Concannon was pretending to buy the "Sam Coulter" charade.

  After a few more questions, and praising the men for a job well done, Concannon told them the cook was waiting with peach cobbler and waited until Longo had followed the others away into distant shadows. Then, with a shove on Quantrill's shoulder, the foreman aimed him toward the main house.

  Chapter Forty-One

  A big rectangular two-story pile of quarried limestone, Mul Garner's home loomed out of the dark, solid as some medieval fortress, its upper windows lit like hollow eye sockets. The place seemed all of a century old, with ornate woodwork tracing the eaves of its broad wooden porch. A tangle of rosebushes, all evidently dead of neglect, flanked the porch like barbed wire. The house might stand for centuries more, but the porch had seen better days.

  "I'll just keep the tape on 'til the old man sees you this way. You need all the sympathy you can get, Quantrill." It was the first time Cam Concannon had indicated their earlier acquaintance. "I told you before, you and me never met."

  "Right."

  Concannon knocked, waited a moment, then opened first the screen door and then the big wooden door with a squall of hinges that had forgotten the taste of oil. Inside, the hallway floor was honest oak, innocent of covering, scarred from generations of men wearing spurs — some with Spanish rowels, to judge from the dotted scars. A broad staircase angled down to the big hallway, but Concannon steered his prisoner into a library the size of a bunkhouse. No, it was a parlor, but one built to entertain whole families. It spoke in a hollow voice musty with age of quilting bees and tired ranchers toasting their boot soles before a great fireplace that now yawned cold and blackened between bookshelves at one side of the room.

  "We brung him in, Mr. Garner," the foreman called, mocked by echoes in two corners where antique floor lamps lit the recesses with rawhide lampshades. "In the sittin' room." He turned; saw Quantrill sniffing the air. "Them goddam Cuban cigars of his," he said with rough affection.

  "They don't do his emphysema no good, but…" He finished with a shrug.

  Quantrill, toeing the enormous hooked rug underfoot: "Nice old place."

  Concannon, guiltily: "Needs fixtn'. When the missus was alive she kept me
fart in' around here a day a week. But I can't be ever'place at once." He looked up, as if he could see through the high ceiling, following creaks of footsteps above. As the steps began to move down the staircase he added, "Wild Country Safari don't even know who-all's on its payroll, it's that big. They could have a dozen Sam Coulters for all I know, but you got your ownself into this, and your story's your problem."

  Quantrill nodded silently, knowing that spoken thanks would be rejected. This way, Concannon could deny — even to himself — that he was helping this troublemaker.

  The old rancher who stepped into the room had once been a giant of a man? Even with the big shoulders stooped he stood well over six feet in the western boots that poked out from worn denims, his turned-up sleeves revealing the corded forearms of a man who had wrestled many a fencepost into its socket. But from all appearances, Mul Garner no longer spent his days in the sun. He was pale, with a mane of white hair and sideburns he probably trimmed himself. His eyes were pale too, a piercing light blue of a color sometimes seen in Siamese cats.

  Concannon stepped away from Quantrill; smiled half in apology like a disappointed hunter. "This is what the boys brung in, Mr. Garner."

  But the old man — not so very old in years, though he had not been kind to his body — was already staring at Quantrill. "Goda'mighty. Cam, how dangerous can he be?"' He took Quantrill by one arm, looked at the livid bruise with blood now dried and cracking near Quantrill's left temple. Speaking now to Quantrill, pacing his words with the short breaths of a man with half the lungs he should have: "My foreman carries that hogleg forty-four, 'cause he can use it. I want your word he won't need to."

  "I won't cause trouble," said Quantrill, with the faintest stress on the word "cause."

  "Already did," said Mul Garner, and passed his hand across his leather vest. A flash of brass and polished bone, a flick, and the rancher had opened his balisong, the long-bladed Philippine equivalent of a switchblade.