False Dawn (31 page)

“Do you want the Winchester?”

He gave the rifle an affectionate pat. “I’ve used a .30-.30 since I was a kid. My father used to go game hunting when he was in Asia. Mainly on private preserves kept for that sort of thing. It was an honor to be asked to kill there. He always accepted. I went with him.

I didn’t like it as much as he did.” He was interrupted by a second burst of fire, and Evan took up his place on the opposite side of the room. “Remember, the one we have to get is Mackley. Kill him and we’ll rout the others. As long as he’s standing, as long as he can give orders, we’re in trouble.”

And then they were silent, watching their enemies come toward them. At last they were close enough, those organized men, and Thea opened fire.

The smoky half-light made her work difficult. She pulled her window farther open and leaned out for a better sight line. This time it paid off and her next bullet took one of the attackers in the leg. That brought an answering volley from the Pirates and she retreated into the room, leaving herself just enough space by the window for good aim. She knew she had to be careful, that she could not afford to waste any shots. She forced herself to be calm, then took up her ammunition once more.

“Those fuckers!” Evan started loading the 10-gauge shotgun. “They’re going to stay underneath us They need a shock..” He had seen Mackley give a signal for this and he was determined to stop it. Taking the shotgun, he climbed out onto the balcony, ignoring Thea’s protesting cry. He braced himself at the empty place where the stairs had been and fired directly down. The explosion sounded even louder than it was, and it sent the Pirates scattering. Quickly Evan reloaded and fired again for good measure.

“Give up!” came a shout from below. “Maybe we’ll let you live!”

“You’re lying!” Evan shouted back. “I’ve seen what you do to captives. You saying you won’t kill us?”

The laugher that greeted his challenge was voiced by half a dozen voices, and a volley of shots.

One of the bullets grazed his thigh where he had braced it. He swore, then steadied himself, shouting, “Mackley! Mackley! It’s Montague!” Then, wiping a trickle of blood from his leg, he waited.

The firing from the ground straggled to a halt. Then Mackley shouted up to him, “Montague’s dead!”

“No! I’m still alive! You and your saw didn’t finish the job before Chico. You and Cox botched it. You only got my arm then, and it grew back.” As he shouted he motioned to Thea to get a line on Mackley. “Those are my men you’re leading, Mackley. They follow me.”

“Not any more,” Mackley taunted. “They’re mine. They left Cox and Spaulding and Lui to come with me. Cox was as weak as you are.”

“Left Cox? Left? Don’t you mean murdered him?” Out of the corner of his eye, Evan could see that Thea was in the window above him. He wondered if Mackley were in her sights. He raised his voice again. “Murder, that’s your way, Mackley. You don’t allow a fair fight.”

“I see him,” Thea said softly.

Evan nodded, and continued his mocking. “Murder is the coward’s way out.”

“It’s my fight now, Montague. Cox has nothing to do with this!” Defiance stung his words and he pushed his fist into the air. The men around him who had been quiet for this exchange now let out a shout in response to their leader’s signal

Evan had started crawling backward, edging his way toward the door. He knew that Mackley had sent out a sniper to get him, and he could feel those stalking eyes watch him from the mountainside as he climbed.

“Do you hear me, Montague?”

“I hear you.” His hand was on the door now, and his knees banged against the sill. Thea’s hand touched his shoulder as he eased back into the lookout station. A bullet followed him, leaving a furrowed path along the floor. “Now!” Evan shouted, and she fired.

A howl of outrage went up from outside below them and the shots rang once more.

“Did you hit him?” Evan asked breathlessly as he loaded the Winchester. He had found a new vantage point that used one of the cupboards for cover.

“I think so,” she said. “Not in the head: I couldn’t be sure about that. He kept moving around, but I think I might have got him high in the leg or the side of his hip.” She jumped as two more windows shattered. “This noise is giving me a headache,” she said without rancor. “I wish they’d all just shut up.”

The fight continued and Evan’s leg stiffened where the bullet had scraped it. Thea moved back and forth between her two guns, firing the 10-gauge and returning again to the Savage. She seemed impervious to fright or fatigue, but Evan had seen this calm efficiency before, and was not fooled by it. They would have to decide this fight soon, one way or the other. Neither he nor Thea could keep up this pace for long.

Once more there was a heavy thud as the Pirates’ .375 ripped into the walls, leaving a swath of ruin behind it. “Where’d they get a big-game gun now?” Evan asked aloud as the sound came again. He’d only used that heavy new Winchester once in his life, and he knew what it could do.

Judging from the sounds below they knew they had hit a few of the Pirates, but not enough of them, and not critically. They had not stopped the attack, they had not sent Mackley and his men back toward the leaden water of Lake Tahoe. When little more than an hour had gone by, Thea turned to Evan. “I’m almost out of shells for the Savage,” she said as she moved back to her post at the window.

Evan nodded as he fired and had the satisfaction of hearing a shout that told him his bullet had gone home. By his estimation they were now up against five or six armed, whole men. That was too many.

There was a spurt of light on the other side of the room, and Thea, holding her crossbow, fired the flaming wad of cloth toward the center of the Pirates’ assault group. There were more shouts then, followed by a muffled explosion and in a moment a small, black cloud rolled upward.

“You got something,” Evan said proudly, hoping that it was ammunition. He knew that they had to balance the odds somehow. “See if you can drive them out into the lake. Let the water spiders take their minds off us.” There was a feral light in his face now, almost a pleasure that fed his determination.

Thea muttered her response, then sent a ball of fire toward three men who stood together near the edge of the lake. One of them was wounded, the other two supported him. They could not move fast enough to escape the flaming quarrel, and fell screaming as their clothes burned and skin charred.

There was another explosion, and this one rocked its way up one pylon, jiggling the lookout station like a puppet on a stick. Both Thea and Evan were thrown to the floor, and when the motion stopped, the whole station canted at a strange angle.

“They’ve blown up one of the legs,” Evan said as he surveyed the damage, making his way over the tilted floor with care. “They’re going to try to bring us down leg by leg.”

“What do we do?” she asked, watching him as she hung onto the window and fired once more, letting the shot go wide.

“We have to discourage them before they try it again.” Saying this, he wrenched open the door and climbed out on the deck at the side of the station. From here he could see the men below him working on their next charge. Taking careful aim with the powerful Winchester, he wounded two of the men before they could run from his fire; once away from the pylon, they began shooting back.

“I’ve slowed them down a little,” Evan announced as he lumbered back into the room, the crazy angle of the floor making it hard for him to walk.

“Slowed for how long?”

“Not very,” he admitted. “But there’s two fewer of them now, and it’ll take them a lot longer to get the next charge ready.”

“What about this?” She held up her crossbow and mimed the release of the trigger. “It hasn’t got much range, but I think they’d pay attention to it. And it’s quiet.”

“They might not expect it now. It’s taking an awful risk,” he conceded, stroking his beard. “They’re working with high explosives down there. Anything landing on a charge would mean hell to pay.” He checked his dwindling supply of ammunition and went on, a harsh smile on his face. “Whatever we do, we have to do it fast. They’re not going to wait forever to blow us up. They’ve got too much at stake now.”

Her eyes resolutely fixed on some point far away, she said, “We can start a fire, can’t we? Near the pylons, but not that near? Half a dozen of these things should do it, don’t you think?” She held out the wadded strips of blanket, wet with their marinade of kerosene. Her eyes pleaded with Evan, begging him to tell her that they still had a chance. Across the wreckage of the lookout station, she saw his eyes fill with despair. Turning, she readied the wads, saying quietly, “This is their world, Evan, not ours, and they make the rules in it. So we’ll play by them, too, no matter what.”

“If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll help you.”

The first two flaming quarrels did not drive the men away, but the third was close enough to get results. The scrub began to burn in a steady, almost languid way.

“That’s got it going,” Evan said as he saw the fire grab hold of the scrub, showing its progress by blackening leaves and scorching grass. “They’re going to be busy with that for a while.” He looked around from his position, his eyes hidden in blackened wrinkles. “Where’s Mackley? It’s him we want.”

“I think he’s with the wounded, in the bend of the lake, there.” He pointed to a pair of retreating Pirates who were making for the other end of the lake. Although Cathedral Lake was almost circular, there was one scoop in its shore, away from Cathedral Rock, that was rather steep, where the curve was the greatest, giving it a teardrop shape. “It wouldn’t take a lot to drive them into the water, if the aim was good,” she said as if in a trance. She put down her crossbow and picked up the Savage. “I’ve got just eleven shells left and then I’m out.”

Evan studied his Winchester. “All right,” he said as the smoke from the burning brush reached them. “We can put all we’ve got left into the wounded and the bank above them. As fast as we can. Hit anyone you’re able to. But make sure you drive them back into the water.”

“And then, if it doesn’t work?”

“It has to work,” he said.

At his count they began to fire, watching the wounded scramble, if they could scramble, and driving those that could be driven down the slope inexorably, toward the lake. Shouts for help went up after the first man hit the water and was attacked by the voracious arachnids, their venom doing swift, agony-filled work. The few men left unwounded rushed to the others, trying to break their falls. When it was over, there were three men left standing.

These men turned on the lookout station with fury, using the .375 to gouge holes in the floor and walls. The barrage was long and thorough, and before it was over, Thea’s right arm hung useless at her side, blood flowing from a deep flesh wound in her shoulder. Evan dropped what he was doing to wrap a pressure bandage around it, frowning as the blood quickly soaked through the wrappings. She turned a pale, shocky face to him, attempting to allay his fright. “I wish I were left-handed, like you,” she whispered unsteadily.

“Never mind,” Evan said, the vertical grooves between his brows drawn darkly now. He picked up his shotgun and began to fire again.

Some smoke from the burning scrub came roiling through the station, making it hard to breathe and hiding the ground and the men there. The bullets continued to pepper them, but randomly. Shortly there was a lull, and then a voice called up from beneath them.

“Montague! Montague, do you hear me? It’s Mackley.” From the way he tore his hoarse voice, Thea guessed that she had hit him earlier, because he was clearly badly hurt. “You’re still too fucking good, Montague! You killed a lot of my men,” he went on, with emphasis on the
my.
“You can’t last up there much longer. You need food and water, Montague. Tonight, tomorrow, a couple of days, we’re coming back to finish the job. There’s more of us at Tahoe, Montague. You’re a dead man.”

“You come back, Mackley, and we’ll give you more of the same.” He paused. “If I’m a dead man, Mackley, so are you,” he said softly, in terrible earnest.

“You’ve got to come out of there sometime, Montague!” The shouts were rasping his throat now, and every word cracked.

“Don’t hold your breath!” The answer was nothing but bravado, and both men knew it. But it saved Mackley’s face in retreat, which Evan knew this was, and it gave Evan a few crucial moments to think.

“What is it?” Thea asked when there had been silence for a few minutes. Only the crackling of the burning scrub came up to them now, and her ears were roaring from the silence. “Are they leaving?”

“For the time being. Mackley’s hurt and he has to reorganize, go back for replacement troops.” He put down his shotgun and went to Thea, half-carrying her across the slanted floor to the sofa that was their bed. Gently he set her down, leaning over her anxiously, his face now gray with exhaustion. “Thea? How badly are you hurt? Really?”

“Pretty badly,” she admitted. “There’s no broken bones, but something is pretty messed up. I’m not much good for anything.” She made an effort to focus on his face. “Why?”

“We’re leaving here tonight. As soon as those vermin are gone, we’re packing up and getting out of here. I’m going to rig a bed for you in the sledge.

Fright came back into her eyes. “We can’t go to the lake, Evan.”

“No. We aren’t going to the lake. We’re going around over the crest again. With the fire to confuse them, they won’t be able to follow us, not for some time. But it’s going to be very rough, Thea. You’ll have to take a lot of hurting. We can stay here if you’re too badly wounded to move, but”—he turned away before finishing—”if we stay here, we haven’t got a chance in the world.”

She knew this was the truth, and hearing it gave her strength again. “If you pack this thing with gauze,” she said, gesturing to the bandages that enveloped her shoulder, “really pack it tight, I think I can walk away. Not very far, but away from here.”

“All right. I’ll pack the wound. We should be out of here in a couple of hours.”

When he finally lowered the sledge, Thea, and himself to the ground with the station’s bo’sun’s chair, his whole body felt watery with fatigue. The ground was still charred and smoking, and the bodies of the Pirates who had not escaped lay where they had fallen, blackened and shrunken. The night was very dark, as if the sky were wrapped in a vast muffler. On the lake there floated two shapes covered now with a mass of sticky filaments as the water spiders marched over their webs, mandibles clicking.