A Game of Authors (12 page)

“And likely discourage El Grillo in the bargain!” snapped Luac.

“Not if Maria explains this to him.”

“I explain,” said Maria Gomez.

“This is a mistake,” said Luac.

“
Porque la luz?
” asked Medina.
Why the light?

“So they see me.”

“They’ll think she’s escaping,” said Garson.

“She’ll be a nice clear target,” said Luac.

“Maybe you shoot at me, too,” she said.

“No!” snapped Garson. “They know we wouldn’t shoot at you. If we did shoot, they know we couldn’t miss. It’d give the whole show away.”

“
La luz, Choco,
” she said.

“What about it,
Patron?”
asked Medina.

“I refuse to have any part of this. Make your own decisions!”

“A flare would be a smart move,” said Garson. “If she went out there in the dark, they’d think it was one of us and just open fire.”

“There can be nothing smart about an act of stupidity!” snapped Luac. “They will shoot her anyway.”

“I weel go,” she said.

“Then I’d better give her the light,” said Medina.

“Suit yourself!” said Luac.

Medina found the flare gun, loaded it, turned to Maria Gomez. “
Vaya con Dios, Abuelita.
”

Go with God, little grandmother.
Garson shuddered, almost called out to stop her.

Anita Luac moved up beside him. “I’m afraid!” she whispered.

Again a flare arched over the lake, swung lazily downward.

Immediately, Maria Gomez moved out the door and across the terrace, going rapidly in her curious shambling walk.

They watched her unchain the boat, clamber into it, take up the oars and begin rowing across the lake.

“I told you they wouldn’t shoot!” said Garson.

“You are speaking too soon,” said Luac.

The rowboat reached the halfway mark, crossed it. Suddenly, a bullet fired from the ridge splatted the water beside the boat.

“You see!” barked Luac.

Another bullet smacked into the stern of the boat at the waterline. The old woman redoubled her efforts, rowing frantically.

“You made a mistake,” said Luac. “The boat is sinking!”

“The
caribe!”
said Garson. “If the boat sinks . . .”

“She may yet make it,” said Luac. “Nita!”

“Yes, Father.”

“Let Choco out the rear door. Maybe he can silence those men on the ridge.”

They ran across the room, into the darkness of the hall.

“Why’s Raul shooting at her?” asked Garson.

“Because it’s obvious that she’s going for help.”

Garson looked up at the swaying flare—another ten minutes of light. “We should’ve shot the flare out lower!”

Another shot hit the rowboat alongside Maria, showered her with water. They recognized the sharp splat of Raul’s Luger.

Now, they could see that the boat was sinking rapidly.

“Why doesn’t he just kill her and be done with it?” demanded Garson.

“That’s not Raul’s way,” said Luac. “He likes to see the
caribe
get them alive!”

Anita Luac returned from the rear of the house, stared out at the lake, turned and buried her head against Garson’s chest. “I can’t look!”

Another shot from the Luger smacked into the rowboat at the stern. It was followed immediately by the roar of a rifle, and another fusillade sounded from the ridge.

Less than a hundred yards separated Maria Gomez from the opposite shore.

They could see groups of men along the other dock and on the shore watching her plight. The rowboat showed less than an inch above the water, moved sluggishly in spite of the old woman’s frantic efforts.

“Why don’t those men over there do something?” demanded Garson.

He stared at Maria Gomez struggling beneath the blue-white torment of the flare.

“What can they do?” asked Luac. “They fear that if they go onto the lake, they will become targets.”

Garson’s eyes caught movement to the right, pointed. “El Grillo!”

The gnome figure of the little Mexican bent over a paddle, shooting his dugout toward the sinking rowboat.

“I think he will be too late,” said Luac.

Anita Luac looked up, stared fascinated for a moment, again hid her eyes against Garson.

Something flashed silver and splashed across the foundering gunwale of the rowboat. Maria stood up, struck at it with the oar. She turned, screamed at El Grillo, who redoubled his efforts.

“Why doesn’t Raul shoot at El Grillo, too?” asked Garson.

“Choco may be keeping them occupied.”

Another silver flash leaped the sinking gunwale. Maria tried to climb onto the rowboat’s seat. Her foot slipped, and she fell sideways into the lake. One hand reappeared, vanished.

Even from the peninsula they could see the water boil with
caribe
.

El Grillo’s canoe shot across the disturbed water. He looked down once, then stared at the peninsula. A flick of his paddle turned the canoe back the way he had come.

The flare came down to the lake, seemed to hover there for a moment, then hissed into the water.

Garson stared into the darkness, a sick feeling in his stomach.

Anita Luac looked up at him, a question in her eye.

Garson shook his head.

She shuddered.

“That’s torn it,” said Luac. “We may all be fish food before morning!”

“I don’t like the quiet on the ridge,” said Garson.

“That fiend,” said Anita Luac.

“Do you have any more brilliant ideas, Mr. Garson?” asked Luac.

“Shut up!” barked Garson.

As long as he lived, Garson knew he would carry that scene in his mind: the old woman struggling, falling, the water boiling with the terrible fish.

“Someone’s coming,” said Luac. “It’s Choco.”

Medina slipped in the door. “I winged Raul!”

“What’re they doing up on the ridge?” asked Luac.

“They’re staying put!”

“Is Raul seriously injured?”

“I don’t know. He fell, but then he crawled away.”

“Did you see the . . . lake?” asked Garson.

“I saw.”

“If we could only signal El Grillo,” said Garson.

“Ah, hope,” said Luac. “The carrot on the stick leading us into eternity!”

“There may be a way,” said Garson. “El Grillo told me to signal him with a white cloth if I wanted him to come for me.”

“Well, you just go right out there and wave to him now,” said Luac.

Garson ignored the jibe. “He told me to hang the cloth on a limb near that mudbank where he let me out.”

“And you believe this will bring him?”

“Why not?”

“He might do it, Father,” said Anita Luac.

“And the sun may rise tomorrow in the west!”

“Give me a revolver,” said Garson. “I’m going to try to tie a handkerchief on one of those bushes. I’ll want both hands free.”

“I will do it,” said Medina.

“You’re wounded,” said Garson. “This one’s easy. It’s away from the ridge where Raul and his men are.”

“They could be working around behind us right now,” said Medina. “I don’t see why they haven’t already tried.”

“Maybe you discouraged them,” said Garson. “Give me a revolver.”

Medina went into the darkness at one side of the room, returned with a bullet-studded belt, a holster and a gun. “This is my last spare thirty-eight,” he said. “Try not to lose it.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Garson.

“And this time, aim two inches lower,” said Medina.

Anita Luac came up beside Garson. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“This is another stupidity!” said Luac. “El Grillo will not come for us. He may very well think we’re the ones who killed his sister just now.”

“Then does he believe in personal revenge?” asked Garson.

“He’s Mexican!”

“Then he’ll come.”

“But if he thinks I . . .”

“He’ll come,” repeated Garson. “For one reason or another, he’ll come. Because he has a price, or to get revenge on you—he’ll come.”

“Ahhhhhh,” said Luac. “Now I am relegated to the role of bait! Not yet bait for the worms, but soon enough that, too, eh?”

“Do you think he could stand against four of us?” asked Garson.

“He could stand against a thousand who trusted a fool to guide them!”

“Maybe there’s a better way,” said Anita Luac.

“Oh, let him try,” said Luac.

“Perhaps it will work,” said Medina. He was staring at the shadows of the far shore. “They still are not coming.”

“They’ve just had an object lesson on why they should stay off the lake,” said Luac. He pointed to the moon-silvered hills beyond the lake. “But they will have their darkness soon. See those clouds.”

They all moved closer to the window, looked at a line of black clouds moving in across the hills. “It is early for the rains,” said Luac. “But this is the kind of luck we may expect!”

“What will Raul be doing now?” asked Garson.

“He is like a wounded tiger,” said Medina. “He is waiting for his moment to leap from ambush!”

Garson studied the far shore.
We’ll be caught like a nut in the jaws of a nutcracker if we don’t get out of here before Raul’s men come down from the ridge and across the lake! And if they catch us on the lake . . .

He shuddered.

“The sooner the better,” said Medina.

Garson buckled the cartridge belt around his waist, settled the revolver in its holster.

“As soon as I get back, we can shoot up another flare so El Grillo will see the signal.”

“For luck,” said Anita Luac. She handed him a white scarf. “Tie that to the bush!”

“The knight goes forth!” muttered Luac.

Garson stood by the door for a moment. The moonlight on the terrace suddenly seemed to take on the brightness of a searchlight.

“Stay low and hug the wall,” said Medina.

Garson nodded, slipped outside, crouched and ran to the right, paused in the shadows at the corner of the house. The muggy warmth of the night seemed to hold a special menace. He steeled himself against the fear that tortured his nerves, moved back along the house to the garden wall, paused.

The sounds of the insects came to him amplified out of all proportion by his fear-tuned senses. He crouched, crossed an open space to the shadows of a line of bushes, felt the sand of the trail under his feet.

Stealthily, listening at every step, he worked his way down the trail to the lakeshore. He came to the log where he had hidden the empty revolver, froze as he thought he heard movement behind him. The darkness revealed nothing.

He turned back to the lake. It lay before him smooth as a piece of luminescent oiled silk. The far shore was a bank of grotesque shadows between the lake and the moon-silvered hills.

Garson stepped forward, bent back a limb of a bush at his side and let it whip back into place. He crouched, fearful of the noise his movements had produced. And now, he noticed with an abrupt choking sensation of fear that the sounds of the insects behind him had taken on an irregular pattern. It was like the movement of a zone of silence toward him.

With infinite care, Garson stooped, crawled forward, drew his revolver and stretched out behind the rotten log.

Something grated on the sand of the trail.

Light exploded above the lake.

Garson cursed under his breath, believing in that moment that Luac had betrayed him. Then he saw the pattern of falling sparks from the rocket. They formed a zig-zag tracing back to the ridge above the hacienda.

We’re not the only ones with flares!

The bushes above Garson cast a meager shadow. He tried to move farther back into the obscurity, froze at a low voice from the swamp on his left.

“Ah, Mr. Garson!”

Raul Separdo!
Garson tried to probe the blackness of the swamp, saw only twisting shadows and the reflection of the flare from glistening leaves.

“Drop your gun, Mr. Garson.”

The low voice, despite its emotionless flatness, carried the heaviest threat that Garson had ever heard. His fingers seemed to open of their own accord. The revolver plopped into the leaves.

Separdo, dragging his left foot in a twisting limp, came out of the swamp, crossed to a position beside Garson, bent and retrieved the revolver.

“Now, we will wait for Choco to come to the rescue,” said Separdo.

He grinned down at Garson, his face like a hole-pierced mask in the blue-white glare.

Separdo’s alone
, thought Garson.
One of those dugouts couldn’t hold more than three persons. Choco accounted for one of them. Someone on the ridge fired the flare. That means one against one here if I can trick him off guard!

“Be very cautious about your movements,” whispered Separdo. He backed away from Garson into the shadows of the bushes. Separdo’s left leg dragged heavily. He grimaced at every step.

A wounded tiger!

Garson looked up the sanded line of the trail.
Choco will come! He’ll wait for a reasonable length of time, then he’ll come searching.
He twisted his head very slowly, looked up at the dazzling brilliance of the flare. It had been fired lower than the others, but there was still five minutes of light.
Maybe Choco will wait for the darkness.

Evidently Separdo had the same idea. He whispered from the darkness: “Choco will wait until the light is gone. But I have the ears of a cat, my friend. Do not disturb the leaves around you. And when Choco comes, give no warning, or my first bullets will be for you!”

Garson swallowed in sick impotence, abruptly recalled the empty revolver he had hidden beneath this log. He guessed the position of it to almost where his left hand rested on the leaves. Slowly, Garson moved his hand into the damp earth beneath the log. The leaves rustled.

“What are you doing?” hissed Separdo.

“Something crawling up my sleeve,” whispered Garson.

“Perhaps a scorpion,” said Separdo. “Leave it alone.”

Garson’s questing hand encountered only the earth.

The shadows from the flare crept across the ground, darkness blotted out the scene.

Garson’s heart hammered. He could feel clammy perspiration running down his jaw line, down his neck, along his sides. It felt like so many running insects.