by Landslide
I hauled Banks off him and felt a bit dizzy myself. It occurred to me that if I kept thumping people on the skull, sooner or later I'd come across someone with thin bones and I'd kill him. Yet it was a risk I had to run. I had to impress these guys somehow and utter ruthlessness was one way to do it -- the only way I could think of.
I took off Banks's belt and hog-tied him quickly, then took off with the shotgun after Novak and Scottie. I don't think more than four minutes had elapsed since they had left. I had to get to the place where the trail crossed the marsh before they did and, because the trail took a wide curve, I had only half the distance to go to get there. I ran like a hare through the trees and arrived breathless and panting just in time to hide behind the tall reeds by the marsh and at the edge of the trail.
I heard them coming, not moving as quickly as they had done at first. I suppose that four men hunting a fugitive have more confidence than two -- even if they are armed. Anyway, Novak and Scottie were not coming too fast. Novak was in the lead and caught sight of the trail I had made in the marsh. "Hey, we're going right," he shouted. "Come on, Scottie."
He plunged past me into the marshy ground, his speed quickening, and Scottie followed a little more slowly, not having seen what all the excitement was about. He never did see, either, because I bounced the butt of the shotgun on the back of his head and he went flat on his face in the mud.
Novak heard him fall and whirled round, but I had already reversed the shotgun and held it on him. "Drop the rifle, Novak."
He hesitated. I patted the shotgun. "I don't know what's in here -- birdshot or buckshot -- but you're going to find out the hard way if you don't drop that rifle."
He opened his hands and the rifle fell into the mud. I stepped out of the reeds. "Okay, come here -- real slow."
He stepped out of the mud on to dry land, his feet making sucking noises. I said, "Where's Waystrand?"
Novak grinned. "He's coming -- hell be along."
"I hope so," I said, and a puzzled look came over Novak's face. I jerked the gun, indicating the prostrate Scottie. "Pick him up -- and don't put a finger near that shotgun lying there, or I'll blow your head off."
I stepped off the trail and watched him hoist Scottie on to his back. He was a big man, nearly as big as I am, and Scottie wasn't too much of a load. "Okay," I said. "Back the way you came, Novak."
I picked up the other shotgun and kept him going at a fast clip down the trail, harrying him unmercifully. By the time we reached the others he was very much out of breath, which was just the way I wanted him. Banks had recovered. He looked up, saw Novak and opened his mouth to yell. Then he saw me and had a shotgun pointing at him and shut his mouth with a snap. The guy with the broken leg was still unconscious.
I said, "Dump Scottie over the edge."
Novak turned and gave me a glare but did as I said. He wasn't too careful about it and Scottie would have a right to complain, but I supposed I'd be blamed for everything. I said, "Now you go over -- and do it real slow."
He lowered himself over the edge and I told him to walk away and keep turned round with his back to me. It was awkward lowering myself but I managed it. Novak tried something, though; as he heard the thump of my heels he whirled round but subsided when he saw I still had him covered.
"All right," I said. "Now take off Scottie's belt and tie him -- heels to ankles, hog fashion. But, first, take off your own belt and drop it."
He unbuckled his belt and withdrew it from the loops of his pants and for a moment I thought he was going to throw it at me, but a steadying of the shotgun on his belly made him think otherwise. "Now drop your pants."
He swore violently but again did as I said. A guy with his pants around his ankles is in no shape to start a rough-house; it's a very hampering position to be in, as a lot of guys have found out when surprised with other men's wives. But I will say that Novak was a game one -- he tried.
He had just finished tying Scottie when he threw himself at my legs in an attempt to bring me down. He ought to have known better because I was trying to get into position to thump him from behind. His jaw ran into the butt of the shotgun just as it was descending on him and that put him out.
I examined Scottie's bonds and, sure enough, Novak had tried to pull a fast one there, too. I made sure of him, then fastened up Novak hurriedly. There wasn't a deal of time left and the helicopter would be coming back any moment. I took a shotgun and splintered the butt against a rock and then filled my pocket with shotgun shells for the other gun. On impulse I searched Novak's pockets and found a blackjack -- a small, handy, leather-bound club, lead-weighted and with a wrist loop. I smiled. If I was going to go on skull-bashing I might as well do it with the proper implement.
I put it in my pocket, confiscated a pair of binoculars Scottie carried and grabbed the shotgun. In the distance I could hear the helicopter returning, later than I thought it would.
On impulse I pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled a message which I left in Novak's open mouth. It read: IF ANYONE WANTS THE SAME JUST KEEP ON FOLLOWING MB -- BOYD.
Then I took off for the high ground.
No one followed me. I got a reasonably safe distance away, then lay in some bushes and watched the discovery through the glasses. It was too far to hear what was being said, but by the action I could guess at it. The helicopter landed out of sight and presently another four men came up the trail and stumbled across my little quartet. There was a great deal of arm-waving and one guy ran back to stop the helicopter taking off.
Novak was roused and sat up holding his jaw. He didn't seem to be able to speak very well. He spat out the paper in his mourn and someone picked it up and read it. He passed it round the group and I saw one man look over his shoulder nervously; they had made a count of the guns and knew I was now armed.
After a lot of jabber they made a rough stretcher and carried the guy with the broken leg back to the clearing. No one came back, and I didn't blame them. I had disposed of four men in under the half-hour and th at must have been unnerving for the others; they didn't relish plunging into the forest with the chance of receiving the same treatment -- or worse.
Not that I was in danger of blowing myself up like a bullfrog about what I had done. It had been a combination of skill and luck and was probably unrepeatable. I don't go for this bunk about "His arm was strong because his cause was just." In my experience the bad guys of this world usually have the strongest arms -- look at Hitler, for instance. But Napoleon did say that the moral is to the physical as three is to one, and he was talking out of hard experience. If you can take the other guys by surprise, get them off balance and split them up, then you can get away with an awful lot.
I put away the glasses and looked at the shotgun, then broke it open to see what would have happened to Novak's belly if I'd pulled the trigger. My blood ran cold when I withdrew the cartridges -- these were worse than buckshot. A heavy buckshot load in a 12-gauge carries nine pellets which don't spread too much at short range, but these cartridges held rifled slugs -- one to a cartridge.
Some hunting authorities don't allow deer-hunting with rifles, especially in the States, so the arms manufacturers came up with this solution for the shotgunner. You take a slug of soft lead nearly three-quarters of an inch in diameter to fit a 12-gauge barrel and grooved to give it spin in the smooth bore. The damn' thing weighs an ounce and enough powder is packed behind it to give it a muzzle velocity of 1600 feet per second. When a thing like that hits flesh it blows a hole out the other side big enough to put both your fists into. If I had twitched the trigger down at the marsh Novak's belly would have been spattered all over the Kinoxi Valley. No wonder he had dropped his rifle.
I looked at the slug cartridge with distaste and hunted through my booty until I found some small buckshot to reload the shotgun. Fired at not too close a range that would discourage a man without killing him, which was what I wanted. No matter what the other guys did, I had no intention of looking at a noose in a rope one d
ark morning.
I looked out at the empty landscape, then withdrew to head up valley.
Chapter 4
For two days I dodged about the North Kinoxi Valley. Howard Matterson must have talked to his boys, putting some stuffing back into them, because they came looking for me again, but never, I noticed, in teams of less than six. I played tag with them for those two days, always edging over to the east when I could. They never caught sight of me, not even once, because while one man can move quietly, six men moving in a bunch make more than six times the racket. And they took care to move in a bunch. Novak must have told them exactly what happened and they were warned about splitting up.
I made half a dozen deadfalls during those two days but only one was sprung. Still, that resulted in a broken arm for someone, who was taken out by helicopter. Once I heard a barrage of shots from a little ravine I had just left and wondered what was happening. If you get a lot of men wandering about the woods armed with guns some fool is going to pull the trigger at the wrong time, but that's no excuse for the rest of them loosing off. I discovered afterwards that someone had to be taken out with a gunshot wound -- someone had shot at him in error, he had shot back and the rest of the boys had let fly. Too bad for him.
The looted food supply was running out and I had to replenish. It was dangerous to go back to the logging camp -- Matterson would have it sealed off tight -- so I was heading east to Clare's cabin. I knew I could stock up there and I hoped to find Clare. I had to get news to Gibbons about what Howard was doing; he wouldn't look kindly on a manhunt in his territory and he'd move in fast. In any case, I wanted to find out what had happened to Clare.
Twice I made a break to the east, only to find a gang of Matter son's loggers in the way so that I had to fade back and try to circle them. The third time I was lucky and when I got to the cabin I was very tired but not too tired to approach with extreme caution. I had not had much sleep in the last forty-eight hours, mostly restricting myself to catnapping an hour at a time. That's when the loner comes off worst: he's always under pressure while the other guys can take it easy.
It was dusk when I came to the cabin and I lay on the hillside looking down at it for some time. Everything seemed to be quiet and I noted with disappointment that there were no lights in the big cabin, so evidently Clare was absent. Still, it seemed old Waystrand was around because a bright and welcome gleam shone from his place.
I came in to the cabin on a spiral, checking carefully, and was not too stupid to look through the window of Way-strand's cabin to make sure he was alone. He was sitting before the stove, the air about his head blue with pipe-smoke, so I went round to the door and tried to walk in. To my surprise it was locked, something very unusual.
Waystrand's voice rumbled, "Who's that?"
"Boyd."
I heard his footsteps on the wooden floor as he came to the door. "Who did you say?"
"Bob Boyd. Open up, Matthew."
The door opened a crack after bolts were drawn and a light shone on me. Then he flung the door wide open. "Come in. Come in, quick."
I stumbled over the threshold and he slammed the door behind me and shot the bolts. I turned to see him replace a shotgun on the rack on the wall. "Have they been bothering you, too, Matthew?"
He swung round and I saw his face. He had a shiner -- the ripest black eye I've ever seen -- and his face was cut about. "Yeah," he said heavily. "I've been bothered. What the hell's going on, Boyd?"
I said, "Howard Matterson's gone wild and he's after my blood. He's got his boys worked up, too -- told them I hammered the daylights out of old Bull."
"Did you?"
I stared at him. "What would I want to hit an old man for? Right now I want to massacre Howard, but that's different. Old Bull had a heart-attack -- I saw it and McDougall saw it. So did Howard, but he's lying about it."
Matthew nodded. "I believe you."
I said, "Who gave you the shiner, Matthew?"
He looked down at the floor. "I had a fight with my own son," he said. His hands curled up into fists. "He whipped me -- I always thought I could handle him, but he whipped me."
I said, "I'll take care of Jimmy, Mr. Waystrand. He's second on my list. What happened?"
"He came up here with Howard three days ago," said Matthew. "In that 'copter. Wanted to know if you were around. I told him I hadn't seen you, and Howard said mat if I did I was to let him know. Then Howard said he wanted to search Miss Trinavant's cabin, and I said he couldn't do that. He said that maybe you wore hiding out in there, so I asked him if he was calling me a liar." Matthew shrugged. "One thing led to another and my boy hit me -- and there was a fight."
He raised his head. "He whipped me, Mr. Boyd, but they didn't get into the cabin. I came right in here and took that shotgun and told them to get the hell off the place."
I watched him sink dejectedly into the chair before the stove and felt very sorry for him. "Did they go without any more trouble?"
He nodded. "Not much trouble. I thought at one time I'd have to shoot Jimmy. I'd have pulled the trigger, too, and he knew it." He looked up with grief in his eyes. "He's gone real bad. I knew it was happening but I never thought the time would come when I'd be ready to shoot my own son."
"I feel sorry about that," I said. "Did Howard cause any ructions?"
"No," said Matthew with contempt. "He just stood back and laughed like a hyena while the fight was going on -- but he stopped laughing when I pointed the shotgun at his gut."
That sounded like Howard. I took off my pack and dumped it on the floor. "Seen anything of Cl -- Miss Trinavant?"
"Not seen her for a week," he said.
I sighed and sat down. Clare hadn't been back to her cabin since this whole thing started and I wondered where she was and what she was doing.
Matthew looked at me in concern. "You look beat," he said. "I've been going on about my own troubles, but you sure got more."
I said, "I've been on the run for six days. These woods are crawling with guys hoping for a chance to beat my brains in. If you want to earn a thousand dollars, Matthew, all you have to do is to turn me in to Howard."
He grunted. "What would I do with a thousand bucks? You hungry?"
I smiled faintly. "I couldn't eat more than three moose -- my appetite's given out on me."
"I got a stew that just needs heating up. Won't be more'n fifteen minutes. Why don't you get cleaned up." He took some keys looped on a string from a box, and tossed them to me. "Those will open the big cabin. Go get yourself a bath."
I tossed the keys in my hand. "You wouldn't let Howard have these."
That's different," he said. "He ain't a friend of Miss Trinavant."
I had a hot bath and shaved off a week's growth of beard and then looked and felt more human. When I got back to Matthew's cabin he had a steaming plate of stew waiting for me which I got on the outside of at top speed and then asked for more. He smiled and said, "Outdoor life agrees with you."
"Not this kind of life," I said. I reached over to my coat and took from a pocket one of the rifle slug cartridges which I laid on the table. "They're loaded for bear, Matthew."
He picked up the cartridge and, for the first and last time in my experience, he swore profusely, "Good Christ in heaven !" he said. "The goddam sons of bitches -- I wouldn't use one of those on a deer." He looked up. "Old Bull must nave died."
I hadn't thought of that and felt a chill. "I hope not," I said sincerely. "I've been hoping he recovers. He's the only man who can get me out of this hole. He can stand up and tell those loggers that I didn't hammer him -- that he had a heart-attack. He can get Howard off my back."
"Isn't it funny," said Matthew in a very unfunny and sad voice, "I've never liked Bull but he and I have a lot in common. Both our boys have gone bad."
I said nothing to that; there wasn't much I could say. I finished eating and had some coffee and felt a lot better after this first hot meal I'd had in days. Matthew said, "There's a bed for you all made
up. You can sleep well to-night." He stood up and took down the shotgun. "I'll have a look around -- we don't want your sleep disturbed."
I turned in to a soft bed and was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow and I slept right through until daybreak and only woke with the sun shining into my eyes. I got up and dressed then went into the main room. There was no sign of Matthew, but there was coffee steaming on the stove and a frypan already laid out with eggs and bacon near by waiting to be fried.
I had a cup of coffee and began to fry up half a dozen eggs. I had Just got them ready when I heard someone running outside. I jumped to the window, one hand grabbing the shotgun, and saw Matthew making good time towards the cabin. He crashed open the door and said breathlessly, "A lot of guys ... heading for here ... not more'n ten minutes . .. behind me."
I took my coat, put it on, and hoisted my pack which felt heavy. "I put some grub in your pack," said Matthew. "Sorry it's all I could do."
I said quickly, "You can do something else. Get into Fort Farrell, get hold of Gibbons and tell him what's going on up here. And see if you can find out what's happened to McDougall and Clare. Will you do that?"
"I'll be on my way as soon as I can," he said. "But you'd better get out of here. Those boys were coming fast."
I stepped out of the cabin and made for the trees, slanting 208
my way up the hill to the place from which I had looked down the previous night. When I got there I unslung the glasses and looked down at the cabin.
There were at least six of them that I could see when I sorted out their comings and goings. They were walking in and out of Matthew's cabin as though they owned the place and had broken into Clare's cabin. I presumed they were searching it. I wondered how they had known I was there and concluded that they must have had a watcher staked out, and it was the lights in Clare's cabin when I had a bath that had been the tip-off.