Assassins Have Starry Eyes

by Donald Hamilton

“But—” Natalie glanced at me, bewildered. “He must be trying to protect Ruth.”

  I said, “The way they were acting last time I saw them, it doesn’t seem likely.” I thought for a moment, and grimaced. “Princess, does it occur to you that Larry’s the kind of guy who never looks at what his wife or any other woman’s wearing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if he was going out of the house, and saw a scarf on the closet floor, what would he naturally think? That it was Ruth’s, of course! Larry took the scarf up there and hung it in the tree after shooting Jack, because he wanted everybody, to know why he had done it. He was justifying himself and accusing his wife of adultery—only the scarf turned out to be yours. And when he found Ruth with me the other night and started talking about the scarf vaguely and menacingly, he wasn’t accusing her at all; he was actually hinting that it was he who had killed Jack and if I didn’t lay off I’d get a dose of the same medicine…”

  There was the sound of running footsteps from the tunnel. Nina stepped back, holding her little gun ready. Martinez came trotting into sight, and she relaxed. The man came up to us, and stood guard while she climbed the ladder. Natalie went up next and I followed; and Nina held her gun on us while Martinez climbed up to join us, hampered by his weapon.

  “We’ll go ahead while you set the charges,” Nina said to him as he stood up. “Give yourself plenty of time with the fuses. We’ll wait for you outside.”

  “Sí, señorita.”

  The walk to the mouth of the shaft did not seem as long as it had the evening before; the first trip always seems the longest. Suddenly the opening was before us. Sunlight had never looked so good. We stood in the mouth blinking at the brightness outside. It was like waking up from a bad dream, even with the girl and her ready gun behind us. The sky was blue and without a cloud. Even the barren scenery was beautiful. I had not seen the place before in daylight. It was a deep valley with precipitous sides and a flat floor, in the center of which a small plane was waiting. The propeller was turning over so slowly that you could almost, but not quite, see the shape of it. A man leaned against the fuselage, smoking a cigarette.

  Nina urged us a little way down the hill to one side and stopped to wait. She said, “We’ll fly down into Arizona and wait for darkness before crossing into Mexico. I don’t know the plan beyond that; but there are several routes to choose from. Don’t waste time hoping for rescue. Your friend Van Horn may trace you this far—in fact we intend that he shall—but he’ll think you’re still underground. The north entrance is already blocked by tons of rock, and Martinez is taking care of this one. Even if your friends bring enough equipment to dig their way back in, they won’t find anybody alive who saw you leave; and they’ll never be able to prove that you aren’t in there somewhere, buried in the debris or burned unidentifiably. So they won’t be looking for you very hard elsewhere.”

  Natalie looked at her and shuddered slightly. “You’re going to bury them alive, all of them? Just to cover your trail?”

  “Were they ever alive, Mrs. Gregory?” Nina smiled. “They had already withdrawn from the world into their own little sanctuary. Let them stay there.”

  Natalie stared at her for a moment longer, and looked at the tunnel mouth behind us. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands. I put my arm around her.

  “Sit down, Princess, and take a load off your indignation,” I said. “Nobody in there’s any great loss and you know it.”

  She let herself be led aside, and sat down on a rock. I sat down beside her and scratched my right leg through the damn cowboy boot that was beginning to throw all the muscles and bones of my foot and ankle out of their proper alignment. After all, I’d been wearing the things constantly for almost two days.

  I said, “Personally, I don’t give a damn what happens to them. They’re all a bunch of screwballs as far as I’m concerned.”

  “They’re people, aren’t they?” Natalie said without looking at me. “Whether they’ve been right or wrong, they don’t deserve—”

  The ground shook, and dust welled out of the mouth of the shaft. Through it, Martinez came running, followed by a louder, closer blast, and a third, still closer. Martinez came sliding down the slope with his machine gun. He looked at Nina and bared his teeth in something that might have been a grin. A fourth blast sent rocks flying out of the mouth of the tunnel and rolling down the slope. Then there was silence as the dust settled.

  “I can’t stand it!” Natalie cried suddenly, starting to her feet. “We’ve got to do something—”

  I saw the blue leather jacket fly through the air straight into the dark face of Martinez, who had jumped to intercept her. In the same instant I had the hunting knife out of its sheath in my boot; and I swung it like a scythe at the jean-clad leg of the girl who stood above me. She tried to step aside, but the edge sliced wickedly through cloth and flesh and grated on bone; she screamed and lurched back and lost her footing among the loose stones. I struck at the .22 pistol as it flailed wildly through the air—a backhand blow with my left hand that sent the weapon flying.

  “Take her, Princess!” I cried. “Keep her away from the gun!”

  I was aware of Natalie throwing herself onto the fallen girl who was already scrambling after her lost pistol. But I had no time to help; Martinez had fought his way free of the coat that had briefly blinded him, and the short barrel of the machine gun was swinging in my direction. I caught it with my left hand and shoved it aside and stepped inside it; Martinez grabbed for my right wrist and missed; and the knife went home to the hilt. I felt him stiffen convulsively under the shock; the gun came free in my hand. I stepped back, taking gun and knife both with me, and watched him fall. He was clawing for something under his coat; maybe the place that hurt, maybe another gun. I had no time to take chances with him; I rammed the butt of his own weapon down hard across his neck, and swung to help Natalie. She wasn’t there.

  Neither of the girls was there, and the .22 pistol was gone, also. Then they rolled into sight far down the talus slope, the weapon waving above them. I started down after them, keeping an eye out for the man who had been by the plane. He stuck his head out from behind a clump of sagebrush and aimed a revolver at me. The range was about a hundred yards, long range for a hand gun, but I fell flat anyway and looked at the weapon I had taken from Martinez. The safety was easy enough to figure out. There was another lever that probably switched the thing to full automatic, but I didn’t monkey with that. I heard the sound of the shot during this research. The bullet struck some distance above me: I shoved the knife into my boot, got the butt of the machine gun to my shoulder, lined up the sights at the bush, and pulled the trigger. The recoil wasn’t much but the muzzle blast, from that short barrel, was considerable. The empty cartridge tinkled on the rocks to my right. I squeezed off again, and again, pecking at the bush. On the fourth shot, out he came, running for the plane. It was an easy, straightaway shot. I held it a little higher for the increasing range and brought him down.

  I got up and looked down the hill toward the mine shack near which the girls had been struggling. There was nobody in sight. I started running, and stopped, as a small scarecrow figure came around the side of the structure, leaned against it for a minute, and went to hands and knees; then fought its way up again and came stumbling toward me. I was with her in an instant, sliding and skating down the loose debris of the slope to reach her. She fell against me, sobbing for breath. I held her off to look at her. She had lost both shoes, most of her shirt, and about thirty per cent of her shorts; she was covered with dirt and blood. I pushed the tangled hair back from her face.

  “Princess, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “It… went off!” she gasped.

  “The gun?”

  She nodded, and buried her face in my coat, holding me tightly.

  “Did it… Are you hurt, damn it?” I cried.

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Okay. Why didn
’t you say so in the first place?” I took my handkerchief and started to wipe the stuff off her face, but changed my mind and kissed her hard instead. “Don’t scare me like that, Princess! Here, let me look at those knees. Damned if you don’t look like you’d been through the meat grinder—”

  “You’d better go to her, Greg. I think she’s dying.”

  “Let her die,” I said. “To hell with her.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “No,” I said. “I guess not. But you stay here. Take my coat, maybe fifty thousand bucks will keep you warm.” I got out of it and put it around her and kissed her on top of the head. Then I picked up Martinez’s gun and went down there, swinging wide and turning the corner cautiously. Nina was lying just behind the shack, her knees drawn up and her arms hugged tightly to her chest. I saw the .22 pistol gleaming among the loose stones near by. I moved up carefully and picked it up; then I knelt beside her.

  “Jim?” she whispered.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She turned her head slowly to look up at me. “You had a knife,” she said reproachfully.

  “Uh-huh. I had a knife. A gun and a knife. So that smart little girls who got the gun would think they had it all.”

  “You suspected—”

  “Not really. I was just ready, if it should turn out that way. After all, you’d shot at me once. You’d taken me for a walk once and your brother was waiting when I got back to the car. You were cute as a little round button, but I remember when people try to kill me. I told you that once. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No.” After a while, she said, “Yes. Call—” She fought for breath. “Call me Spanish once more, Jim.”

  “Hi, Spanish.”

  “We would have made a good team, on the same side.”

  “I’d never be on your side, Spanish.”

  “That’s stupid. We’re going to win. Not here, not now; you had a little luck; but in the long run nothing can stand against… against… nothing…”

  She was dying. I couldn’t argue with her. “Sure, Spanish,” I said. “Sure.”

  She did not answer. After a while I stood up and looked around. There was a lot of work to be done. We’d have to get help in here somehow with equipment to dig through the blocked tunnels. It should not be necessary to walk out. Van Horn would have searchers out all over this country. But if the plane down there had a radio we might hurry them up a little; otherwise a smoke signal might help. The shack should burn nicely. I looked down briefly; then I went up the slope to my wife, who was waiting.