"Just what we need."
"Si."
"That's what cavalry is for," Sapp said.
"Cavalry," Bernard said from the stove. "I can't ride no fucking horse."
"Get you a pony," Sapp said.
He looked at me.
"You get what I mean?"
"Yes," I said. "Bring a lot of force to bear on a small section of the enemy by moving a small force around rapidly."
Sapp shot me with his forefinger and thumb. He nodded several times.
"Mobility," he said.
"That what you meant whyn't you say so?" Bernard said. "Stead of that pony shit."
"Who we got for cavalry?" Vinnie said.
"Us," Chollo said.
"So," Hawk said, "we don't figure out what to do with them. We figure out what to do with us."
I put some more ketchup on the hash. You can't have too much ketchup on hash. I ate some and had a bite of toast and a swallow of coffee. Balance is important. I didn't say anything. One of the things I'd learned from Susan was the creative use of silence.
"How about you, Kemo Sabe?" Chollo said to Bobby Horse. "You got any Kiowa battle secrets?"
"Get them to circle the wagons," Bobby Horse said. "And ride around and around them."
"I got firing points laid out," Vinnie said. "So the field of fire covers all the approaches to the house."
"But we stay in the house we still back to six on one," Hawk said.
Vinnie nodded. My breakfast wasn't coming out even. I took another piece of toast from the platter Bernard had put on the table.
"So we need to get out of the house," Chollo said.
"We probably in better shape than they are," Hawk said. "We get higher than them, they going to be laboring they have to chase us uphill."
"Especially," I said, "if they have to chase us a lot."
Chapter 59
I WAS ALONE on the front porch when Dean Walker pulled his cruiser up in front of the house. Hatless, he got out and came up the front walk, his eyes masked behind his aviator shades.
"Holding the fort?" he said.
"Valiantly," I said.
"You still got troops?"
"Yep."
"Handy?"
"Yep."
"Good," Walker said. "You'll need them."
"Because?"
"Because today's the day," Walker said.
"For?"
"For the Dell to come down on you."
"How many?"
"All of them."
"When?"
Walker smiled.
"Can't say for sure," he said. "But they aren't early risers."
"But you know it's today."
"Yeah."
"How would you know that?" I said.
"I'm the police," Walker said.
"And where do you stand?" I said.
"Out of the way," Walker said.
"So why'd you warn me?"
"Civic duty," Walker said.
I nodded. We looked at each other for a moment. Then Walker turned and walked back to his car and got in and drove off. I watched him go. Then I picked up my Winchester and walked up the hill behind the house. The desert was empty, sprawled in harsh metallic silence under the oppressive sun.
Bobby Horse was on lookout with binoculars around his neck and his BAR leaning in the shade of a rock.
"Where's Hawk?" I said.
"Down near the road. They're running things through."
I said, "The Dell's on its way."
Bobby Horse scanned the landscape with his binoculars.
"Don't see them," he said.
I picked up the walkie-talkie from the shade beside the BAR.
"Hawk," I said.
He answered.
"Bring everyone back up to the lookout," I said. "Dell's coming."
"'Bout time," Hawk said.
"After Bobby Horse spots them with the glasses," I said when we were gathered, "it'll take them about fifteen minutes to arrive."
"What if they come another way?" Bernard said.
"There isn't another way," I said, "except over the mountain behind us. They're not that industrious."
Hawk nodded.
"We put Vinnie on the right, Chollo in the center, and Bernard Whosis on the left."
"Fortunato," Bernard said. "Goddamn it, Bernard J. Fortunato."
"Right," Hawk said. "You on the left. Me and Sapp and Bobby Horse start in the center, behind Chollo, and bust our ass left or right, depending on what's going down."
"Like in Zulu," Sapp said.
"Tha's where I learned all my military tactics," Hawk said. "Spenser?"
"I'll freelance," I said.
"I sort of guessed that," Hawk said. "We already have water and ammunition stashed at each firing position."
He had forgotten his jive accent again.
"Drink a lot of water," I said.
"That way," Chollo said, "we run out of ammunition we can piss on them."
"What you gonna do freelancing?" Vinnie said.
"I thought I'd hide under the bed until you guys won," I said.
"We'll let you know," V'mnie said.
"But in case I'm not under the bed," I said, "I'll be down below the house, behind them if they come in."
"And?" Sapp said.
"And I want to be the first one to shoot."
"If possible," Hawk said.
"If possible."
I turned and started down the hill. After ten steps I turned and said to Hawk, "Good hunting."
To my ear I sounded amazingly like Stewart Granger.
Hawk grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.
"Gringos watch too many movies," Chollo said.
"African Americans, too," Hawk said.
"Si."
I went on down the hill.
Chapter 60
THEY CAME IN a long, relentless line of trucks and motorcycles. As they moved past me onto the dirt road to the house, dust lingered behind them, kicked up by their passage.
Mongol hordes.
I lay behind my rock in a clump of cactus as they passed, with the sun pressing down on my back and the Winchester laid across the rock. I had a bag of ammunition and some water. I wore a Browning 9mm on my right hip, and the Smith Wesson.38 butt forward on my left side. The line pulled up in front of the house and spread into a wide semicircle, the motors still running. The thick smell of exhaust fouled the intense desert air. They were so used to intimidating people, and they had arrived in such numbers, that they were arrogant, and arrogance made them stupid. They put out no scouts, and paid no attention to the possibility of ambush. Their only concession to the possibility that we might put up a fight was to dismount their vehicles and stay behind them, except The Preacher. He sat upright and almost regal in the passenger seat beside the Mexican driver, while Pony threw a leg over the side, and climbed out of the back seat of the Scout, and waddled fearsomely to the front door, carrying an assault rifle. The collective motors grumbled in the silence.
"Spenser," Pony said loudly.
Nothing.
"Preacher's here," Pony said.
Nothing.
The Preacher gestured and nine men moved out from behind the vehicles and clustered behind Pony. All of them had long guns.
"You come out or we come in," Pony blared.
We didn't come out. Pony jacked a shell up into the chamber of the assault rifle, kicked open the door and went in. The other nine guys crowded in behind them, bumping into each other and jamming up in the door before they got through. It didn't appear that they'd given this a lot of planning. In three or four minutes they came back out, this time taking turns through the door.
"Looks like they run," Pony said.
The Preacher began to look up the hill.
"They didn't run far," he said. "Spread out. Look for them."
I levered a round into the chamber of the Winchester. The Mexican driver heard the sound and jumped from the Scout with a long-barreled revolver in his hand, in a half crou
ch, looking toward my rock. I eased the rifle over the rock, aiming so that the Mexican driver was sitting on my front sight. He saw the movement, and snapped off a shot that spanged off the rock. I shot him in the middle of the chest and he fell straight backward and lay on the ground beside the Scout. The remainder of the Dell surged toward my rock, and my colleagues opened up from the hillside. The Preacher sat bolt upright in the Scout.
"Pony," he said, "take five men and clean up behind the rock. The rest of you spread out up the hill. Don't bunch up."
With my ammo and my water I moved down from behind my rock, and crossed the road behind them and took new shelter in a small wash behind the house.
The gunfire from the hill badly damaged the center of the Dell advance. Stalled, the survivors pinned down behind whatever cover they could find. I could hear the fast boom boom of Bernard's street sweeper. Then the firing stopped. The silence was startling. From the wash I could see Pony and his team moving carefully up behind the rock where I had been. From the hillside the gunfire erupted again, and the right flank of the Dell line washed back and hunkered down. But the left flank surged forward as if responding to the ebbing of the right, and now their gunfire was on the top of the hill. From behind my former rock I heard Pony yell to The Preacher.
"He's not here."
"Then get your asses up the hill," The Preacher said.
The gunfire was dense, and almost entirely from the left. My guys must have clustered up on that flank. The Dell line in the center began to move again, and the right side surged back as if having reached low tide. It was making its natural rebound. There were too many of them. We were in danger of getting overrun.
I squirmed along the wash and scuttled, bent nearly double, up the hillside on the right. Twenty yards behind the advancing Dell troops, I took up residence behind another rock and began to snipe the advance. I knocked two of them down before they realized where I was shooting from. I saw four of them peel off and head cautiously back down the hillside, looking for me. I had a map of the area in my head. I'd walked it days ago. I knew where every rock was, every depression in the ground, every growth of arid vegetation sufficient to hide behind. I picked off one of the people looking for me, and dove and rolled into a little gully with a fringe of brush along the lip. Gunfire scattered around the rock. The smell of it hung heavy in the stifling air. My eardrums hurt.
From the other side of the line, behind the advancing left flank of the Dell forces, I heard the crack of a rifle, close enough to me to be sharp against the general din of arms. Somebody had gotten behind the Dell lines on the left and was picking them off from behind as I was on the right. It was as if everything were balanced precisely until the second sniper showed up. He was too much. The balance teetered. The Dell assault held for a moment, hanging on to the top of the hill, and then broke. These were not professionals. It started as a hesitation, then a halt, then a withdrawal, and, as the withdrawal moved back down the hill it picked up speed, and turned very quickly into a running away. Two guys ran right past me as I lay in my gully. They were intent on leaving. They paid no attention to me. I didn't shoot them. I stood and ran through the rout, weaving among the running men like a kick returner. I was looking for The Preacher.
I found him standing stiffly upright beside the Jeep, as his troops flowed past him. He was making no attempt to stop the route. He seemed frozen by it. I stopped beside him holding the Winchester muzzle-down but cocked.
"Now you know how Custer felt," I said.
The Preacher turned his head and stared at me. He didn't say anything. The retreat tumbled past us and then it was gone. My ears rang from the firing. The smell of the gunfire was everywhere. My shirt was soaked with sweat and clung to my back. I could hear my breath heaving in and out. Up the hill there was movement. My side. The first person I saw was Tedy Sapp. He was shirtless, carrying Bernard J. Fortunato in his arms, as if Bernard weighed no more than a puppy. Bernard's right pant leg was wet with blood and a piece of a shirt, presumably Tedy Sapp's, was tied around his thigh. Hawk was behind him, one arm around Bobby Horse, who leaned on him heavily as they edged down. Vinnie came behind them with Chollo. Chollo was bleeding on one side of his neck.
"They shot me," Bernard said, as they came up to where I stood. "Fuckers shot me right in the goddamned leg. In the fucking leg. Hurts like a bastard."
"Great shooter," Sapp said. "Hit a target as small as you."
"Bobby?" I said.
"Tore up my left knee," he said.
Chollo stood in front of The Preacher for a moment and then grinned at him.
He said, "We deal in lead, friend."
The Preacher showed no sign that he'd heard Chollo, or that he knew we were there. He was still rigid beside the ratty Scout. Tedy Sapp put Bernard down in the shade of the Scout and let him lean on the front right tire. Hawk helped Bobby Horse onto the ground beside him. Bobby didn't lean. He lay flat on his back and stared straight into the pain. I looked at my watch. The whole fight had taken twenty minutes.
"What about your neck?" Vinnie said.
"A piece of rock," Chollo said, "chipped off and nicked me."
There was movement on the left periphery. Five of us turned to shoot; and Dean Walker came out of the scrub, where not so long ago the deer had walked, carrying an AR-15, and looking a little sweaty. His radio was strapped to his belt, the microphone clipped to one of his shoulder epaulets.
"I already called for some EMTs," he said.
He spoke to The Preacher.
"You're under arrest," he said, "for assault with deadly force, for trespassing, and probably for leading an insurrection. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney…"
From out of sight, faintly at first, down the road toward town, I could hear the whoop of the ambulance siren growing louder.
Chapter 61
SHOWERED AND SHAVED, comforted by ten hours sleep behind me and six buckwheat cakes, I sat in Dean Walker's office drinking coffee from a white mug that said Santa Monica on it in red script. He drank from one just like it.
"Been a cop too long," Walker said. "I couldn't let it slide."
"Good," I said. "How about the Dell."
"Most of them have split," Walker said. "I managed to convince the county that the ones left were squatting on county land, and there's a bunch of sheriff's deputies up there now evicting them."
"Also good," I said. "How about your cops?"
"They resigned," Walker said.
"Didn't care to fight the Dell?"
"Not at these prices," Walker said.
My coffee was gone. I went over to the Mr. Coffee on the top of the file and poured another cup. I brought it back and sat down again across from Walker.
"I wish I owned a swell cup like this," I said.
"I know," Walker said. "I feel very lucky."
"Preacher got anything to say?"
"Not yet."
"He will," I said, "when it's time to save his ass."
Walker smiled.
"How cynical," he said.
"I'm trying to change," I said.
"Never too late," he said. "Cawley Dark's coming down to talk to The Preacher about Steve Buckman."
"I don't think The Preacher did it," I said.
"He did something," Walker said.
"I don't want to bag him for something he didn't do," I said.
"I'll take what I can get," Walker said.
We were quiet. We drank some coffee in the cool empty room. Mr. Coffee had done a nice job. The coffee was good.
"What about Mark Ratliff?" I said.
"I don't got Mark Ratliff in a cell," Walker said. "I got The Preacher."
"And you're willing to railroad him?"
"The Preacher's a creep," Walker said. "He was out to kill you. He's probably killed a lot of people. Just because maybe he didn't kill Stevie Buckman is no reason not to hang him for it."
"How cynical," I said.
"I'm trying to change,"
Walker said, and smiled.
We drank some more coffee. The hushed sound of the air-conditioning made the room seem even quieter than it would have with no sound at all.
"Ratliff's missing," I said.
"That's what his secretary says."
"You been looking for him?"
"I'm a one-man department," Walker said. "I been kinda busy."
"I owe you for that time in the street," I said. "And I owe you more for showing up when you did yesterday."
Walker nodded and said nothing.
"But I don't owe you everything there is."
"You don't owe me nothing," Walker said. "I was doing what I'm supposed to do."
"And now you're not. I came out here to find out who killed Steve Buckman, not just clear the case."
Walker was silent.
Then he said, "I think maybe it's time you went home."
"Not yet," I said.
"Whatever you might think," Walker said, "I'm what this place has got for law. I could shoot you dead for resisting arrest, and no one would say shit."
"Someone might," I said.
Walker smiled again, but not because he was happy.
"You're an optimistic bastard," he said.
I finished my coffee and put the empty mug down on the edge of Walker's desk and stood up.
"Persistent, too," I said.
Chapter 62
IT WAS OUR last breakfast together. We were eating omelets with onions, made, and beautifully, by me. Everyone was at the table in the kitchen, except Bobby Horse, who was propped up on a couch that Chollo and Hawk had dragged in from the living room. A local doctor had done what he could for Bobby Horse, put a cast on the knee, and had given him a large supply of Percocet. The Percocet made him quieter, which I would have thought impossible.
Bernard J. Fortunato wasn't as badly hurt. The bullet had gone through his thigh without breaking any bone. It had destroyed some of the tissue around the entry hole, and it would take awhile to heal. Bernard had Percocet too, and its effect was to make him more talkative. Between him and Bobby Horse, they averaged out about normal.
"So what I wanna know," Bernard said, sitting sideways at the table with his injured leg sticking out toward the stove, "didn't we ambush those Dell guys and shoot them up pretty good?"
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