Threepersons Hunt (30 page)

Tack right, tack left. Six hundred and fifty. Joe fired another.

It was still the amiable warning shot because by now he could have made it come pretty close if he'd wanted to. With luck he could have made a hit.

Watchman saw why Joe had chosen that spot to stop. The rim of the plateau was just behind Joe.

Did that mean he was trapped with his back against an open precipice?

No. Joe's run had been too purposeful for that. He had a destination in mind: probably the Land Cruiser, parked below the rim somewhere.

Six hundred, judged by a hunter's eye. Watchman made an abrupt quarter turn to the left and dodged among the little scattered trees. With the blood slamming in his ears he pounded from clump to clump, zigzagging sharply.

The magnum roared again and this one came closer. He didn't hear the bullet but he saw it crash through a juniper maybe fifteen feet ahead. Pieces and twigs fell off the plant where the big leaden projectile had severed them.

Joe's shot was a five-hundred-yard one now but the target was moving erratically and the field of fire was interrupted by all the clumped junipers and scrub oaks; they dotted the plain like tufts on a bedspread. It made for unlikely shooter's luck and no hunter would try that shot on a running deer at that range in this terrain.

Still there was the possibility of luck and if Joe fired enough bullets he'd hit Watchman.

But Joe wasn't blazing away. He was taking his time and after a while Watchman began to realize that Joe was not shooting to kill. Joe was still trying to scare him away or at least force him to keep his distance. An earnest kill-try would have come a lot closer than any of Joe's bullets had.

Watchman made the circle a little wider because he didn't want to corner Joe against a panic. For a little while he was actually running away from Joe on a tangent; but the darting vectors of his route were taking him closer to the rim all the time and that was what he wanted, a chance to spot the Land Cruiser and beat Joe to it.

He was still a quarter of a mile from Joe, making a ragged quarter-circle; he had the sunset spectacle ahead of him.

A bullet made a spout in the earth ahead of him. He jazzed to the left.

The ankles were wobbling now and he wasn't sure how much he had left in him but he wasn't going to give it up before the legs did. He was fighting for oxygen; the altitude was probably seven thousand feet. The earth began to buckle as it approached the top of the escarpment and he watched for pitfalls. Off to his right Joe's rifle was stirring; Watchman dodged to the side. He heard the shot but not the bullet. Possibly it had gone behind him.

Joe had fired seven. Watchman had handled that rifle, he had unloaded it himself, but he couldn't remember how many the tube-magazine held and that irritated him. Right now it didn't matter because Joe had had plenty of time to reload between shots but the time might come when that was important.

His left ankle tipped and he stumbled but he got his footing and went on. Only a hundred yards to the rim now, the length of a football field; he was going to make it that far at least.

Joe discerned the same thing and when Watchman glanced that way he saw Joe on his feet, turning. Watchman instantly abandoned his tacking and made a straight run for the nearest point on the rim but Joe was already going over, dropping from sight; he'd seen he wasn't going to dissuade his pursuer so he was taking advantage of what lead he had left.

Watchman's legs weren't going to handle an abrupt stop. He slowed down like a train approaching the yards and when he walked the last two paces to the rim his legs felt absolutely boneless under him.

He swayed drunkenly and gulped like a landed trout. Blood-haze made a red film over his eyes that turned the sunset colors into a blinding crimson that suffused the world of his vision.

He willed his eyes to clear: he looked down from the rim into the Reservation.

7.

It was nothing like a sheer cliff but it was steep enough to deter a casual stroller. It dropped away to a whorled contour of ridges and hills three miles below.

He was surprised to see a habitation there, and a dirt road.

The road was a switchbacking shelf that zigzagged up from the ridge-canyons like a cartoon illustration of a lightning bolt with the hillside dropping away on the open side.

The earth was mostly grass and the dark spots on it were whiteface cattle grazing. The road came up at least two thirds the height of the escarpment and ended in the yard of a wickiup cluster. Several horses were penned in the corral and a rider in a high-domed black hat was trotting across the hillside toward the wickiups, chousing a calf ahead of him, swinging a rope at his side.

Joe Threepersons was scrabbling his way down the slope a quarter of a mile to Watchman's right, angling toward the wickiups.

The Land Cruiser was parked next to the pickup truck just beside the nearest corral fence.

The triangle of approach made the distance shorter for Watchman than for Joe. Watchman went over the rim and skittered down the slippery grass on his bootheels.

He had the better part of a mile to cover and his legs were troublesome and he still didn't have his wind but Joe was in no better condition and he was lugging twelve pounds of big-game rifle.

Watchman kept a steady eye on him and when Joe decided to stop and snap a shot at him, Watchman sprawled belly-flat in the grass and Joe lost his target.

He watched until Joe gave it up. It gave him a chance to catch his breath. As soon as Joe moved, Watchman moved.

There was a crease of ground that would give some cover. Once inside it there was no more of him than his bobbing head for Joe to see. The crease ran down, fanning wider and getting shallower until it bled itself flat into the slope but it afforded him two hundred yards of protection and he went through it fast, half running and half sliding. When the shoulder faded away at his right Joe was windmilling desperately, running too fast for the slope, trying to get ahead of him. Watchman just kept moving, concentrating on his balance.

Now he was less than a hundred yards from the wickiups and the rider in the black hat had stopped, dismounted, and was standing by the corral watching all this with baffled interest. Joe was still three hundred yards out, upslope a little way, coming along awkwardly.

Then Joe settled down to shoot and this time he meant it. Watchman skidded prone into the grass and the bullet whacked the air overhead.

He gave it ten seconds before he even lifted his head to look.

Joe had used the time to get closer to the wickiups. As soon as Watchman's head appeared Joe whipped up the rifle and Watchman slid back down into the grass.

Joe was moving but still watching; this close to escape he wasn't going to let Watchman stop him even if it meant a killing. Watchman put himself forward on his elbows and knees, sculling through the wet grass but Joe was getting there ahead of him.

Watchman scoured the automatic out of the holster. It was a two-hundred-yard shot and conceivably you could make that kind of shot with a pistol if you held it in both hands with your elbows braced but neither his eyes nor his nerves were in good enough shape to make it count and anyhow he wasn't ready to kill Joe. That wasn't the point of all this.

He put his eyes up high enough to catch the vague movement of Joe's shadow against the farther hills; he poked the pistol out in front of him and snapped off the safety and pumped two bullets off, shooting well behind Joe.

It only made Joe run faster. Watchman scrabbled forward.

Joe was in line with the wickiups now and he quit shooting. He had the inside track to the Land Cruiser and it was all he had wanted. He ran straight down toward it while Watchman got up clumsily, wavered on rubber knees and then stumbled downhill after him.

Joe dodged past the wickiups and Watchman pumped his protesting legs. He knew he wasn't going to make it but there was always the chance that the starter wouldn't catch on the first push.…

The Indian in the hat made a motion toward Joe but Joe waved him back, waggling his free hand; Joe yanked the Land Cruiser door open, threw the rifle inside and climbed in.

Watchman was close enough to see Joe's terror. The starter was grinding and Joe's shoulders moved with stress, willing it to turn over. Watchman reached the side of the wickiup and panted along it.

The engine caught. There was the grind of gears and the Land Cruiser lurched, almost stalled, revved up with the clutch in; it bucked and pitched and got itself rolling and when Watchman reached the road it was gathering speed away from him.

8.

Watchman jerked the door of the pickup truck open. Then he wheeled toward the black-hatted Indian.

“Where's the keys to this thing?”

The Indian only watched him gravely.

Watchman strode to him and plucked the reins right out of the man's hand. “I'll bring him back.” He hauled himself into the saddle, using his arms because his legs wouldn't lift him any more, and he put his heels to the horse's flanks and neckreined savagely around.

The Land Cruiser had reached the first switchback and was coming back across below him. Watchman had wasted too much time getting on the horse and the Land Cruiser beat him to the point where their paths intersected: the road zigzagged along half-mile loops and Watchman was cutting straight across; he had to cover only a fraction of the Land Cruiser's distance to reach the same points. There was a chance to intercept Joe on the third switchback unless the horse broke a leg first.

The Land Cruiser was four-wheel-drive. Joe could get off the road and make a straight run for it but his speed would be cut down both by the gearing and by the terrain, and on humpy slopes like this a horse could outrun the Land Cruiser. So Joe had to stick to the road where he could do fifty on the straightaways and hope to beat the horse to the bottom.

The wind slitted Watchman's eyes and put tears in them. He leaned well back in the saddle to help balance the roan against the steep downward rush of the earth. He gripped the horse with what strength remained in his legs; he laced the reins around the fingers of his left hand and brought out the pistol.

The Land Cruiser flashed across in front of him and he was sure he saw the glisten of Joe's eyes.

The Land Cruiser rushed away to the right and Watchman drummed across the road and kept going straight down toward the next piece of road. A patch of loose rock; the horse skidded a little and pebbles rattled downhill. The speed was too reckless but if he didn't make that next switchback the game was lost because the road didn't turn back this way again.

The Land Cruiser's brake-lights flashed angrily as Joe went into the hairpin bend and the thing began to sway on its wheels; Watchman thought for a moment that Joe was going over but the Land Cruiser righted itself and he saw the spurt of exhaust smoke. The machine lurched precariously around the last of the turn, rumbled up on the rim of the road and then straightened out. Watchman heard the high whine of gears as Joe speed-shifted, flooring the accelerator; clots flew up from the back wheels and the Land Cruiser slid in the rain-muddled road, wheels bouncing side to side in the ruts.

Watchman flogged the pony with the pistol, yelling a cowboy's “Hey
-yaah
!”

The horse flattened out into its dead run and it was like skiing down a fast slope.

It brought him into the road, angling away from Joe; he wheeled the horse and it responded so fast he knew it had to be a top-trained cutting horse. The Land Cruiser was bearing down and Watchman put the horse squarely across the road and lifted the pistol.

Joe had three seconds to make up his mind and through the windshield Watchman saw him thinking. Go around to one side: but that would give Watchman a perfect shot with the pistol. Go straight through: but that could wreck the Land Cruiser. Stop and use the rifle: but at this range the two weapons were equal and Watchman's was already aimed.

Joe wrenched the wheel and the Land Cruiser plunged away to the right, skidding down along the grass. He was trying to bolt across the open country but Watchman had a good forty-yard shot and took it.

He scored on the fourth shot; it blew the front tire and the Land Cruiser lurched to the left.

Joe tried to keep it going on the rim but it was no good, the thing slowed to a crawl and Watchman came along on the horse, and finally the Land Cruiser stopped.

Watchman sat the saddle, training the pistol on Joe. Joe thought about the rifle but you couldn't maneuver a rifle inside the cramped cab of a vehicle and finally Joe ran a hand through his hair, showing his desperation, and stepped out of the Land Cruiser bare-handed.

Watchman stepped down and handcuffed Joe's wrists together, looping the cuffs through Joe's belt.

“You made a pretty good run, Joe.”

“I sure did,” Joe screamed in a whisper.

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This is a novel and all characters and events are fictitious. Principal locales are real but several specific places (like the settlement at Cuncon) do not exist in fact where this novel places them. There is a real White Mountain Apache Tribal Council and it has a real chairman but his name is not Frank Natagee and no resemblance is meant to be suggested. The same is true of officers of the Arizona Highway Patrol, the Indian Agency Police Force and the Arizona State Prison at Florence. The dispute over water rights described herein is suggested by recent events but in many particulars it is fictitious and should not be taken to represent actuality.