I’m as immortal as Tull, Father Tso shouted. He walked toward Jackie, hands outstretched, reaching for the shotgun.
Leaphorn was running now knowing what would happen, knowing how Father Tso planned it to happen, knowing it was the only way it could work.
God forgive Father Tso was shouting and that was all Leaphorn heard. Jackie fired from a crouch. The gunshot boomed like a bomb, surrounding Leaphorn with a blast of sound.
The impact knocked Father Tso backward. He fell on his side. Only after Father Tso lay still did Jackie hear through the booming echoes the sound of Leaphorn running, and spin with his catlike quickness so that the walkie- talkie struck not the back of his head, where Leaphorn had aimed it, but across his temple. Jackie seemed to die instantly, the shotgun spinning from his hand as he fell. Father Tso lived perhaps a minute. Leaphorn picked up the shotgun it was a Remington automatic and knelt beside Tso. Whatever the priest was saying, Leaphorn couldn’t understand it. He put his ear close to Father Tsos face, but now the priest was saying nothing at all. Leaphorn could hear only the echoes of the gunshots dying away and over that the sound of Theodora Adams screaming.
There was no time to plan anything. Leaphorn moved as quickly as he could. He felt rapidly through Jackie’s pockets, finding the padlock key but no additional ammunition for the shotgun. He glanced at the cage. A quick impression of a dozen frightened faces staring at him and of Theodora Adams, sobbing in the corner.
The other ones going to be coming and I’m going to take him, Leaphorn said. Get everybody to sit back down. Don’t give him any hint I’m out here. And with that, Leaphorn ran back into the darkness.
He stopped behind the stalagmites and stared in the direction from which Tull would come. Nothing but blackness. But Tull would surely come. The sound of the shot would have reached him at the cave entrance. And he would have heard the Adams woman screaming. If he came at a run, he should be arriving now. Leaphorn held the shotgun ready, looking down its barrel into the darkness. He swung it toward the glow of light, noticing with satisfaction that the bead sight was lined exactly in the V of the rear sight. He could hear Theodora Adams’s sobbing less hysterical now and more the sound of simple sorrow. For the first time, Leaphorn became conscious of the smell of burned gunpowder.
As soon as Tull came well between him and the light as soon as he could line up the sights on his silhouette he would shoot for the center of the body. There’d be no warning shout. In this darkness, Tull was far too dangerous for that. Leaphorn would simply try to kill him. Time ticked silently away.
But where was Tull? Leaphorn was belatedly conscious that he had underestimated the man. Tull had not jumped to the obvious conclusion that Jackie had shot someone and come running to see about it. If Tull was coming at all, he was coming quietly, with his light turned off, stalking the lighted place to learn what had happened. Leaphorn lowered himself slightly behind the stony barrier, aware that Tull might be somewhere behind him looking for Leaphorns shape against the glow exactly as Leaphorn had looked for Tull’s.
But even as he crouched, even as he registered this increased respect for John Tull as an adversary, Leaphorn felt a fierce exultant certainty of the outcome. No matter how cautious Tull was, the odds had shifted now. Tull would see Jackie and Father Tso on the cave floor and the surviving hostages in the cage. That would account for everyone. He would have to come into the light to get the answers. And he would want to find out what had happened, how Jackie and Tso had died. With his weapon ready, with everyone accounted for, there’d be no reason for him to hold back.
Hey. Tull’s voice came from Leaphorns right well out of the periphery of the lantern light.
What happened? The voice echoed, and died away, and silence resumed.
They fought. It was the voice of the scout leader named Symons. The priest attacked your man and I think they killed each other.
A good answer, Leaphorn thought. Smart.
Where’s Jackie’s gun? Tull shouted. Where’s the shotgun?
I don’t know, Symons said. I don’t see it.
A bright light blinked on suddenly, its beam emerging from behind a screen of stalagmites far beyond the cage. It played over the bodies, searching.
Leaphorn felt a sick disappointment. Tull was even smarter than he’d guessed.
You son-of-a-bitch, Tull shouted. You’ve got the shotgun in there. Throw it out. If you don’t, I’m going to start shooting people.
The light had blinked quickly off, but Leaphorn had him located now. A hint of reflected light, perhaps one hundred yards away. Leaphorn tried to line his sights on it, then lowered the gun. The odds of an effective hit at this range were terrible.
We don’t have the gun, Symons shouted. In the dim light, Leaphorn could see Tull had already without a word raised his pistol.
It was still a high-odds shot, but there was no choice now. Leaphorn steadied the gun, trying to keep the dim form visible over the bead. He squeezed the trigger.
The muzzle flash was blinding. Leaphorn wanted desperately to know if he had hit Tull, but he could see only the whiteness burned on his retina and hear nothing but the reverberating thunder of the gunshot booming down the corridors of the cavern. Then there was the sound of another shot. Tull’s pistol. Leaphorn crouched behind the stone barrier, waiting for sight and hearing to return. He became aware that the butane lantern was out. The darkness here now was total. Tull must have shot out the light. A quick-thinking man. Leaphorn stared into the darkness. What would Tull do? The gunman would know now that another person had somehow gotten into the cave. He might guess that the person was the Navajo policeman. He’d know the policeman had Jackie’s shotgun and
. . . how many rounds of ammunition? Leaphorn opened the magazine, poured three shells out into his hand, and carefully reloaded them. A round in the chamber and three in the magazine. Knowing this, what would Tull do? Not, Leaphorn thought, stand and fight in this blackness with a pistol against a shotgun. The darkness minimized the effect of the pistols range and magnified the effect of the shotguns scattered pattern. Tull would head for the entrance, for the light and the radio. He would call Goldrims for help. And would Goldrims come? Leaphorn thought about it. Goldrims had probably intended to radio to the copter as it passed and order it to land, order the pilot out, and then, if he could fly a copter, fly a few miles, abandon the aircraft and begin a well-planned escape maneuver. If he couldn’t fly a copter, he’d disable it and its radio, fix the pilot so he couldn’t follow, and run. Why return to the cave? Leaphorn could think of no reason. Would he come back to help Tull in the cave? Leaphorn doubted it. Tull had been expendable at the Santa Fe robbery. Why wouldn’t he be expendable now? The contest in this cave would be between John Tull and Joe Leaphorn. Leaphorn felt along the top of the rocky ledge for a flat place, put his
