Monkey on a Chain (29 page)

“It sounds to me like you’re more worried about them getting up the canyon than back down it,” Roy said.

“I walked up to the end. It’s closed by a rock slide, but a man might be able to climb it if he had to. I didn’t have time to try, but there’s no point in taking a chance. Anyway, if we do this right, Roy and the other group will both be above and slightly down-canyon from Corvin. He’ll come in with maybe eight men. We should be able to take out four of them in the first few minutes. After that, the rest will be pinned in the rocks and brush along the road. And no matter which side they hide on, someone will be behind them.”

“We’re just going to shoot them. Not even give them a chance.” April looked sick.

“When a man wants to kill you, you don’t give him a chance,” I told her. “Don’t forget that Corvin killed Toker. He tried to kill you. He killed Archuleta. And he was behind the attack on Luzon.”

She swallowed like she was trying not to throw up. The three cowboys watched her without interest. I told Roy to pick the man he wanted with him and led the way outside. I showed April and Sissy their position. He picked up two M16s and a pistol and April shouldered the pack of food. I told him to show her how the weapons worked when they reached their position. I told her to try not to kill Sissy when the shooting started.

They began making their way slowly toward the rocks. She led with the knapsack and he limped along behind. I went back to Roy and asked him where the water valve for the house was. We turned it off, just in case anyone made it that far, and kicked over the horse trough. I told Roy to turn off the generator and get into position. He grabbed one of the remaining packs and took off. I prepared a light backpack for myself and then looked over the two men I’d been left with.

Hughie and Louie. If I remembered right, their names were Jorge and Nestor. I tossed the remaining pack to Jorge and led them up to the last position. The sun had almost set. Only the rim of rock above me was still lit. A thin sliver of gold that rapidly turned red. The sky overhead began to purple as they settled in.

Their position was about nine feet wide and four deep, just a little roomier than a coffin. Our backs were to the cliff. Rocks lay in a jumble on the other three sides. There were four decent gaps in them. One on the left faced down the canyon. The gap on the right offered a view of the house, stable, and a clear field of fire that included the path up to the airstrip. The remaining two faced the opposite wall of the canyon. Across the way, I could make out the spine of a large slide. Roy and his man, José, were somewhere just below it.

I heard the scratch of a match behind me. “No smoking,” I said. Hughie looked at me belligerently and slowly stubbed out his cigarette on the cliff behind him. I met his look until he dropped his eyes.

“No cigarettes until this is over,” I told them.

“I was below the rocks. Nobody could see me.”

“They could smell you. Feel the wind?”

He felt it. “Shit, man!”

“Turn around and try to keep your eyes open.” They both nodded. I crawled through the gap on the right and moved up the canyon. The rocks along the base of the cliffs were pretty much continuous. They offered plenty of cover if I kept my ass down. I wasn’t worried about company yet, so I went to check the other positions. I kept near the cliff until I was opposite the path behind the house, then crossed the canyon and cut up toward Sissy and April. I could hear them talking softly long before I reached them. He was telling her about life in Tierra Amarilla. They jumped when I stood up beside them.

“You didn’t hear me coming,” I said.

Sissy just looked out over the canyon. April started to apologize. I lay down beside her and told her to shut up. I made her show me how to change clips and release the safety on the M16 she was carrying. She had paid attention when Sissy gave her the lesson.

I put my hand on her shoulder. Her muscles felt like wood. “Try to relax,” I told her. “Wait until Sissy starts shooting. Try to fire only one or two bullets at a time. Don’t use all your ammunition at once, but don’t be afraid to waste a little if you have a good target. You understand?”

She squeaked, “Yes.”

“You’re going to be fine, April. Just fine.” I tousled her hair and turned to Sissy. I laid a fragmentation grenade in the dirt by his leg. “Don’t let them get too close, compadre. It would not be a good thing to be captured.”

His hand closed around the steel ball and his eyes flicked understanding. The three of us spent a few minutes listening to the wind. Then I got back to business.

“Where did you see him?” I asked April softly. She looked confused until I prompted her. “The Bohemia, remember?”

“Oh! I’m not positive, but I think he was the man in Hong Kong. It was a long time ago, and the man had a beard. Funny-shaped.” She drew a Van Dyke on her chin. “Like this.”

Sissy was listening. “What is she talking about?”

“She’s describing the man who located her for Toker.”

“You think it was Roy?” He sounded incredulous.

She said, “I’m not positive,” but she nodded.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to have another talk with Roy after this is over. In the meantime, cover your asses. Expect trouble from any direction. And spend more time listening and less time talking.”

It was getting very dark. I backed out of their position and into the rocks. The last of the light had faded and the stars were spread across the sky like a blanket of fireflies. The cliffs had a faint silver sheen, but there were shadows everywhere, and the floor of the canyon was as well shaded from the distant stars as it had been from the closest. My eyes were as adjusted to the light as they were going to get, and I could barely see my own hands. There was no way I could see to walk, so I crawled, feeling my way among the rocks along the western face of the canyon. It was very slow-going, but it was quiet. I paused every ten feet to listen and look.

On the far side of the canyon I saw an orange flicker. The light from a match. A bird cried far down the canyon, near the mouth. An occasional blackness fluttered overhead, a silhouette against the stars. Bats feeding. Something rustled in the brush along the road. I was alarmed at first, but after five minutes of heavy sweating I decided it was some sort of fauna. Mice, snakes feeding, something like that.

Forty minutes of groping and crawling, waiting and listening, brought me to Roy’s position. I approached from behind and eased into the space next to him. Neither he nor the Mexican looked around, but they both tensed up.

“Can’t you be any quieter?” Roy whispered. “We heard you coming fifty feet away.”

He was lying, of course. His idea of psychology. “Just out for a stroll before bed,” I answered.

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing yet. I just made the rounds. I’m moving down to my position now. Thought I’d tuck you boys in first.”

“You’re a real sweetheart, Rainbow. Do I get a good night kiss?”

“It isn’t dark enough for that.”

“We thought we heard something down by the road.”

“Just critters,” I told him. “Don’t get spooked.”

“Right. Exactly where are you going to be?”

“About a hundred and fifty meters down, this side.”

“And you want to fire the first shot.”

“You got it. Wait for me.”

“What if they take you out early?”

“I’ll try to make a little noise while they’re killing me. After that, you’re on your own.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious about that, Roy. You wait for me. Open fire early and you’ll blow the whole deal.”

“We’ll wait.”

I slapped his back and slipped into the night. It took almost an hour to work my way along the base of the cliff to the rock fall I’d chosen for myself. It was high enough to provide a decent view across the valley once the moon had risen, but the cover wasn’t ideal. Still, I didn’t plan on being there when the action started. Down near the road, about forty meters away, there was an outcropping of rock. As soon as Corvin’s force passed me, I’d take a position behind it and start the action from there. I estimated that moon rise was just over an hour away. I opened my pack and stuffed the grenades in my pockets, then chewed on a stick of jerky for a while and washed it down with water from my canteen.

I settled back and listened to the rustling of the night feeders in the sagebrush and mesquite on the valley floor. Way up the canyon, somewhere behind Sissy and April, an owl hooted a couple of times. Maybe it could see to hunt. I sure as hell couldn’t. Next time, I decided, I’d get a starlight scope. Being blind was hard on the nerves.

After an hour or so, the water began working on me. Or maybe it was just anticipation, the old familiar excitement that had driven me to accept Roy’s offer. I lay still and breathed deeply until the erection passed, then rolled to one side and took a leak. The moon began to rise.

At first it was only a brightening of the sky as a very thin layer of stratus cloud diffused the light. Then the top of the cliff behind me began to glow with a silvery light that slowly crept down the face toward my hiding place. The night was very still. Too still. The leaves on the cottonwoods up by the house began to dance in the growing light, and the sage looked frosted. I heard the muted padding of runners on sand off to my left, way down the canyon.

I hunkered down with only my eyes above the rock line. It took a long time to see them. They came about as I had expected, but there were three groups of shadows, not two. The first two groups took turns moving. One would run forward ten to twenty meters and take cover in the brush. The second then moved forward past them and took cover. When they stopped, the third group moved up to the position the first group had left. It always stayed behind the others.

It was impossible to make out individuals until they were almost even with me. I took a count as they passed. There were four men in each of the first two groups, three in the last. Corvin and his two Filipinos, I assumed. It was more company than I’d expected. My adrenaline high was building.

I left the knapsack where it lay and eased my way down from the rocks. Once I reached the foot of the slope, I could no longer make out any of them. I began moving from one clump of brush to another, toward the outcropping. When I reached it, I paused and listened. I couldn’t hear anything coming up the canyon behind me. I wondered where the family was, if this was supposed to be a family affair. But there was nothing to be done. They were either around or they weren’t.

I thought briefly of Anna, waiting back in Tierra Amarilla. It would be hard to face her again if something had happened to Juanito. I rose to my knees and peered over the top of my rocks. There was a flurry of movement up ahead, almost even with Roy’s position. I released the safety on my weapon. It was about time to start the dance. I began looking for the third group, the one I figured Corvin for. My first target. I’d just located them and begun to sight on them when two things happened, one right after the other.

I caught a flare of light out of the corner of my eye, like a match lit and instantly extinguished, and then either Hughie or Louie fired a short burst, maybe ten rounds. The Uzi made a gentle burping sound. The muzzle flash was clear. The rounds ricocheted off the rocks directly in front of me. I rolled back behind them and cursed. Things were going to get complicated, but it was good to know where I stood.

I peered around the edge of my rocks. None of Corvin’s people was visible any longer. I had to assume that the burst was meant to mark my position and maybe get me to firing. But Corvin couldn’t know I was behind him, and he had sure as hell seen a target up ahead. I did nothing, just waited. There was some muffled conversation up ahead, then someone fired a burst up toward the east face of the canyon, toward the source of the first burst. Hughie and Louie returned fire. This time they seemed to be aiming at Corvin’s group. I took the opportunity to roll away into the brush. I began making my way slowly forward. The last place I’d seen Corvin was about eighty meters ahead and across the road.

Roy joined the firefight. He also seemed to be shoot-ing down into Corvin’s positions. I heard a scream from that direction.

There was a shallow gully in the brush, about a meter deep. I rolled into it, rose to a crouch, and ran up it, maybe fifty meters. I figured I was about forty meters from the last place I’d seen Corvin. I began a low crawl toward the road. The firing was getting heavier. Rounds were pouring down almost continuously from both sides of the valley. They seemed to be aimed for a general area thirty or forty meters ahead of me. Two of Corvin’s groups were returning fire from either side of the road. Corvin gave no hint of his location, but I had last seen him across the road, perhaps twenty meters up from my present position.

I had to risk a look. I crawled as close to a clump of mesquite as I could and rose to a half-stand, just high enough to see over it. Corvin wasn’t visible, but there was a small crop of rock between his last position and the beginning of the slope up to the cliff. I assumed he would have tried to reach it. I pulled the pin on a frag and threw it as hard as I could in that direction. Then, just for luck, I lobbed another in the general direction of the nearest group of his men, the one on my side of the road, and hit the dirt.

The grenades went off with two cracking whumps that echoed up and down the canyon. All the firing stopped. I heard some cursing and a low, moaning kind of wail from the nearer group, nothing from the rocks I thought Corvin might have made for. The cursing was a gringo. The wailing had no nationality.

I crawled up along the road a few meters and hid by a pile of prickly pear. Roy and the Mexicans began pouring fire down again. They were spraying the whole area, as though they weren’t sure of their targets. There was return fire from two locations on the other side of the road. On my side, nothing. I waited, listening. After a few minutes, I heard some rocks clattering back in the direction of the ravine I had just left. I moved back in that direction and waited. The firefight seemed to be concentrating on the other side of the road.