Wild Country

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 Quantrill 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.