by Tabor Evans
They rested in each other's arms. Longarm was still nestled inside Jessie.
Twice they thought they heard somebody fiddling with the door, and twice they held their breath, half naked, locked together like Siamese twins, both of them pointing their guns toward the noise. No one intruded, and after both false alarms they giggled like naughty adolescents hiding from their parents.
It was not that they considered their predicament unserious. On the contrary, they both fully realized that they could be discovered and killed at any moment. Accordingly, they were hell-bent on enjoying every moment of whatever amount of living was left for them. Right now, that meant enjoying each other.
"Dynamite," Longarm said.
"Mmm, yes indeed," Jessie said, then realized that he was not looking at her face, but over her shoulder, and he seemed surprised.
She turned her head to see what he was looking at. During their lovemaking, one of the blankets had shifted, revealing black lettering stenciled on the crate beneath: DANGER! DYNAMITE! STORE IN A COOL PLACE.
"I'll be damned," he said. "We've been making love on a bed of high explosives!" He withdrew from her and they dressed, and he used the pry bar to take the lid off one of the crates on which they'd been lying. It was filled with neatly packed cylinders covered in thick waxed paper.
"Look around," he told her. "There's got to be blasting caps around. Probably on the far side of the shack… There! Under those sandbags!"
In the opposite corner of the small building was a pile of sandbags. Longarm knew that blasting caps were always stored away from the charges they were intended to ignite, and that seemed the most logical place. He removed a few of the sandbags, and sure enough, underneath was a single crate of caps, packed in sawdust. Each had a short length of fuse attached to it. Longarm took several of the caps and inserted them into the ends of some of the sticks of dynamite at the other end of the shack. Then he put the lid back on the box of explosives.
"Why did you do that?" Jessie asked.
"Because I'm about to light this cheroot, and I don't want any stray sparks or ashes setting this stuff off before we're ready."
"Where'd you get that?" she grinned.
"Same place I got the matches. That old boy lying behind this shack ain't going to feel like smoking for a while. He lit the cigar, and puffed its tip into a ruddy glow.
Jessie shuddered. "I think you broke that man's jaw."
"Hope so. That'll mean I won't have to try and kill him. A broken jaw ought to be painful enough to keep him out of the action."
Jessie watched Longarm's face. "You don't like to kill, do you?"
"Few men who've killed like it," Longarm frowned. "Mostly the only folks who do are those that never have, but have strong imaginations." Longarm puffed on his cigar and watched her, hoping that what he'd said had gotten through the layers of hate and anger she'd built up since the murder of her father.
"Like me — that's what you're thinking," Jessie accused. "But you're forgetting something. Earlier this evening I did kill, for the first time. I shot two men in that pecan grove. One I shot dead, the other I wounded badly. He may be dead now, for all I know. I didn't like doing it, Longarm, but I knew why I had to." She shrugged, and her eyes grew wet with tears. Tin not saying it was right or wrong, I'm just saying that…"
From outside there came a hoarse shout: "They got away! Search the camp for the prisoners!"
"Uh-oh," Longarm muttered. "Here we go. You've got that gun I gave you?"
"Right here," Jessie answered. Her voice was harsh, her throat dry. "Remember, if anything happens… well, I love you…"
"Nothing's going to happen to us," Longarm assured her. "And I'll save saying how I feel about you until I can prove it." he winked.
He grabbed his gun, and gathered up the sticks of dynamite to thrust them into his back pocket. Just then the door to the shack was kicked in by one of Danzig's men. He stood, his gun in his hand, blinking stupidly at them in the candlelight. Jessie yelped in shock and fear.
Longarm whirled to whip off a shot the man's way. The round chewed a piece of the doorjamb, chasing the outlaw away. As he backed out hurriedly, his boot heels caught on the threshold. His gun fell to the floor as he stumbled out of sight.
Longarm snatched up the fallen gun and held it in reserve as he pegged a shot out through the door. There were targets aplenty. Men — many of them just awakened and still dazed with sleep — were scurrying past. Longarm took his time and fired again. One of his targets clutched at his side and pin-wheeled to the ground.
Jessie took cover on the other side of the doorway. She fired her revolver twice, missing the man she was aiming at both times.
Longarm couldn't help smirking at her. "Need spectacles?" he asked as he sighted at a man crawling across the roof of a nearby building, and fired. The man howled in pain, and slid down the steeply angled shingles to fall somewhere out of sight.
"I'm used to my .38!" Jessie muttered. "This gun you gave me is a .44!"
"Typical of a woman to complain," Longarm laughed.
Jessie swore an oath from between clenched teeth. She gripped her gun in both hands, drew a steady bead, and squeezed off another shot. This time the target she'd been plinking at let his pistol drop as he slumped across the barrel he'd been hiding behind.
"If I use both hands I can steady my aim," she said. "I can handle it."
"Never thought you couldn't," Longarm replied.
Just then one of the gunslicks fired at them. His round slammed into the doorjamb just inches from Longarm's head.
"Do not return their fire!" Longarm and Jessie heard Danzig scream, his accent made thick by anger and frustration.
"Oh, no! My guns!" Brader chimed in. Longarm and Jessie could not see him, but they could hear the helpless flutter in his voice. The pudgy inventor sounded like a mother wailing over her babies trapped in a burning building.
"So that's why they're not shooting back at us," Jessie observed.
"They know what's in this shack," Longarm chuckled. "As much as they'd like to shoot us, they can't risk a bullet hitting that dynamite behind us. Their "coffee grinders' would be blown to smithereens."
"Yep, for now it's a Mexican standoff," he remarked, puffing on his filched cheroot. "They can't shoot us, but we can't escape, either. We'd never get out through that hole fast enough to make a run for it. We'd be spotted for sure."
"Ki will divert them," Jessie said quietly.
"Well where the hell is he?" Longarm began.
As if in answer, the night air was suddenly filled with a shrill wailing screech. The sound ended abruptly with a dull thud, followed by a shout of pain.
From out of the darkness a man yelled, "I've been hit by a fucking arrow! Indians!"
"I could never forget that sound!" Longarm laughed with relief.
* * *
Ki slid down the rocky slope, firing a barrage of "death's song" arrows as he went. He had twenty-five of them packed into one of his quivers. He aimed at a visible target when he could, but for now, just getting the special arrows singing through the darkness took precedence, from his vantage point he had clearly heard and seen the gunfire coming from that windowless shack. The enemy had surrounded it, taking heavy losses as they did so, but they were not returning fire. Clearly there was something valuable — other than Jessie and Longarm — in that shack, something that could be damaged by shots. Longarm and Jessie were safe for the moment, but they were also trapped. Ki wanted to give them a chance to escape, so he kept his dreadful rain of screeching arrows arcing through the night. The technique was called inagashi, or "flight shooting." There were many Nippoese bowmen who could fire thousands of arrows — all of them accurately — during a twenty-four hour period.
He raced about beneath the covering cloak of darkness, firing "death's song" as he went. The enemy had been thrown into confusion by the volley of wailing arrows. It was the same tactic of intimidation that had worked so well, so long ago, in Ki's own country
. He hoped desperately that Longarm had remembered the story Ki had told him, so that he could put Ki's diversionary tactics to good use.
Ki kept careful watch around himself as he attacked. Up above on the slope, he had left one other man dead to keep Joe's kami company. Ki had come upon the man quietly, and snapped his neck before he could make a sound of alarm. Now his head twisted around like a rabbit's as he kept careful scrutiny of his surroundings. His bow made little noise, and there was no muzzle flash for the enemy to zero in on, but all it would take would be one moment's carelessness to put himself in the sights of another's gun. Now that he knew Jessie was alive, he could not afford to become injured — or killed — until he knew she was safe.
Ki fired another "death's song." This one wailed its way close to one of the men keeping his gun trained on the shack. Ki hurried away, but not before he was spotted.
"Get him!" he heard the blond foreigner scream. "Alive or dead — get him!"
Ki spun around the corner of the cookshack. smack into two of the outlaws, one of whom was armed with a Brader gun. Here a large campfire had been built and kept burning to warm food and drink for the men who had been on watch. Ki had lost the advantage of darkness.
He backed out of sight around the cookshack's corner, just as a pistol round send wood chips flying from the place his head had just been. The man armed with the "coffee grinder" began to fire. His chattering weapon sent blue flame and a rain of lead Ki's way.
Ki shielded his eyes from splinters and crabbed sideways, out from the shelter of the shack, to let an arrow fly. It caught the man firing the "coffee grinder" in the belly. He screamed, and jackknifed in two, the "coffee grinder's" long barrel somersaulting the man forward, over onto his back, where he lay convulsing.
Meanwhile, Ki had let go of his bow in order to throw himself upon the ground. The remaining man fired again, in panic, trying to slow Ki down, but the samurai had a shuriken star slicing through the air halfway to its target before the gunslick could get off a third round. The star caught the man in the forehead. He looked cross-eyed at it and began to reach up automatically to pull it out, but then he dropped his gun and pitched forward on his face, burying the star yet deeper.
Ki retrieved his bow just as three more of Danzig's men came careening around the corner to see what all the shooting had been about. Ki went down on one knee to fire off four arrows as many seconds. The last man of the three managed to throw himself back the way they'd all come. The other two went down, two arrows in each of them.
From behind Ki there came two others. Now there was no time to fire an arrow, and they were too close for shuriken. Ki charged in between the two, to confound their attempt to use their pistols. He knocked one of the men to the ground by slamming his bow against the side of the outlaw's head. He turned to jab at the other man with the bow's sharp tip, but the string became entangled with the man's pistol barrel as the outlaw used his gun to block the jab, and the bow was torn from Ki's hands.
Ki stepped in quickly and dropped his adversary with a "sweep lotus" kick to the fellow's chin. He next pulled his nunchaku to meet the renewed attack of the first man, the one he had felled with a swipe of his bow. This one's pistol was far out of reach, but he had managed to grab Ki's bow while the samurai was busy with the other outlaw. Now the man moved in toward Ki, warily swinging the bow before him like an ax handle.
Ki kept the nunchaku whipping in front of him in a figure-eight pattern. His opponent had bashed in more than his fair share of skulls with ax handles and clubs, this Ki could tell, but no matter how the outlaw bobbed and weaved, trying to land a blow with Ki's bow, the swinging nunchaku kept him off balance and at a distance.
Still, the advantage of time was with the outlaw. More men would arrive to aid him at any moment. Ki knew he had to end this stalemate, and fast!
The outlaw feinted with a quick stab of the bow's point toward Ki's chest, but Ki easily blocked it, falling back into a single-footed stance as he parried the jab with the right handle of his nunchaku.
The man jumped back, thinking he was out of Ki's reach. He brought the bow up and swung it back over his shoulder and then around, trying with all of his might to knock Ki's head off his shoulders. Ki did not even have to take one step forward, but merely brought his right arm around as if he were trying to chop at the man's neck with the edge of his hand. His arm was too short to make the distance, but the nunchaku's length gave him the reach he needed. He held the weapon at one end and whipped the other half into the fellow's neck. The bow fell from his stunned opponent's hands, but before he could utter a cry of pain, Ki had closed the distance between them to deliver an elbow strike to the man's chin. Ki kept the nunchaku braced along his forearm to strengthen the blow.
The brawler was now out on his feet, and just in time too. Ki heard footsteps stomping his way. He locked the nunchaku beneath the man's chin, and held his sagging form up as a shield against the onslaught of bullets sent his way. Ki felt the rounds thud into the man's body, which was now dead weight.
"Damn it!" one of the gunmen swore. "Don't get near the bastard. Surround him!"
Ki staggered backward, but he couldn't move at more than an awkward shuffle with the dead man's weight upon him, and letting his shield drop would expose him to the others' guns. But there was really no choice in the matter. In another instant he'd be surrounded anyway, and then the man's body would be useless. He let go his grip, and as the corpse fell away he reached for a throwing star, even as he realized it was a futile gesture. He might get one more of the enemy, but then…
The sky seemed to light up, and the awesome clap of noise came close to bursting Ki's eardrums. From somewhere on the other side of the cookshack, clods of earth and rocks flew up. From that same direction there also came angry shouts, and the terrified whinnying of horses. The men who were about to fire at Ki flinched at the explosion, and all heads swiveled toward the direction of the blast. By the time they looked back, Ki was gone.
"Ki's keeping them busy from one side," Longarm told Jessie inside the armory and explosives shack. "We've got to attack from this side. For that, we need mobility!"
They could hear the banshee wails of Ki's arrows. Next came Danzig's furious commands to his men to hunt the archer down.
Longarm nodded in satisfaction. "Good, he's dividing his forces. This is the best chance we'll have!" He tossed Jessie the extra revolver and told her to keep watch to make sure they were not suddenly overwhelmed in a rushing attack, then hurried over to the collection of "coffee grinders." He fetched two of the weapons, along with extra magazines.
Think you can handle one of these?" he asked anxiously. "I'm going to need covering fire." "Looks a little heavy for me," Jessie said dubiously. "Help me shove a couple of those dynamite crates over to the doorway. I can rest the thing on them…"
"And also guarantee that they don't shoot back!" Longarm grinned. "Great idea!" He shoved a stack of two crates into position, and set the Brader guns upon them. Only the bottom crate held dynamite. The top crate was filled with bullet molds, but Longarm figured one was plenty to keep Danzig from risking an explosion.
Fortunately, Longarm had seen enough Gatling guns to quickly puzzle out the odd weapon's mechanism. He showed Jessie how to turn the cranks, and how to reload a clip into the breech, although with two guns primed and ready, he didn't think she'd have to reload.
"What are you going to be doing?" Jessie asked.
"I'm going to go blow something up," he said mildly. The bunkhouse over yonder looks like a good target, I'll try for that, while you keep me covered with these. I'll run out and throw a stick in that direction. Then I'll come back to work the guns so you can get out…"
"What's the point of that?" Jessie interrupted.
"So I can light the fuse on the dynamite."
"I can do that!" Jessie groaned. She reached up to pluck the cigar out of Longarm's mouth, and then took a few puffs to keep it going. "Not as good as your cheroots," she said, making a face
. "Now you take one of these 'coffee grinders' along with you, find cover once you've tossed your stick of dynamite, and give me cover fire to get out of here. I'll leave one stick with a longer fuse burning in here, and throw the other at Danzig and his men just before I make my break for it." She grinned at Longarm. "It's a better plan than yours!"
"Can you throw?" he asked skeptically.
She looked at him disgustedly. "Just go," Jessie ordered, "before I decide to forget to give you cover fire!" She gave him a quick kiss. "Be careful," she whispered, as he handed her the three dynamite sticks.
"You too," Longarm warned as she handed him back a stick with a lighted fuse.
They both listened to the sound of shots coming from the other side of the bunkhouse, near the cookshack. Their eyes locked — Ki had been cornered.
Longarm shoved his pistol into his waistband, grabbed a Brader gun, and made his break for it as Jessie began to twist the handles on the remaining gun. The weapon shuddered and shook on its precarious carriage of wooden crates, but the steady stream of bullets — coming at Danzig and his men for a change — was more than enough to make them huddle behind their cover.
Longarm ran about twenty yards to a nearby clump of tumbled boulders, and let his stick of dynamite fly. It fell short of the bunkhouse but made a satisfying explosion, nevertheless.
He propped his "coffee grinder" across the rocks, and began to fire. He had a better angle to work from than Jessie did, and he managed to make his burst count, hitting two of the outlaws as the rest scurried around to put something between themselves and Longarm. Jessie, meanwhile, kept firing. Her logic was sound — between them they had Danzig's men trapped in a murderous crossfire — but Longarm cursed her nevertheless. What she'd forgotten was that there was nothing to keep the band from returning his fire. Rounds from rifles, pistols, and the Brader guns controlled by the enemy were ricocheting into the rocks. The whine of the bullets whizzing off reminded him of the sound Ki's arrows had been making. Despite the fusillade, Longarm kept firing. His chances, as well as Jessie's, rested on his keeping Danzig's men from being able to take the time to aim.